there wasntOriginally Posted by SUNNY WINTERS
what's the role of the Grand Architect according to you ? Is He also a creator or not ?
there wasnt
what's the role of the Grand Architect according to you ? Is He also a creator or not ?
it's not as much of a big deal as we make it out to be - just like sex - when you're a teenager,it's something that you must do - you have this deep desire to do what you've been hearing about - you get it,it's good, you want more - then you get older - you get it more often - then it becomes as no big deal - any leader of any lodge obviously holds more privileges and knowledge over the others - this one keeps things in order - he's your manager - the owner has a different job to do in order to maintain his order - the Grand Architect is that one over all of the orders - even the so called evil ones - at the top is a righteous regime - the governments do to their people what is in order for them to do to them - why is millions of sperm shot out but only one makes it ?
we are here for the one
OK thanks for the answers, sounds interesting, I'll make my mind into all this and try to make my own conclusions.
What The Bible is depends on who's reading it.
"Die before you die."-Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh)
Torah=The First Five Books=Instruction----------
2 Timothy
3:12 Yea, and all that will live reverently in Yahshua the Messiah/Jesus Christ shall suffer persecution.
3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
3:14 But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
3:15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Yahshua the Messiah.
3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of Yahweh, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
3:17 That the man of Yahweh may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
Contrary to popular belief, the Torah was not derived from the Sumerian/Babylonian/Ugaritic/Egyptian Narratives, it stands alone as Objective and Moralistic, the only simalarities is the beginnings are Mythic, the Torah then seques seamlessly into Legend and History.
The massive differences outweigh the superficial commonalities.
is Genesis merely a rip-off of other ANE lit?
http://christianthinktank.com/gilgymess.html
It's worth bearing in Mind that Mosheh/Moses was trained in 'All the wisdom of the Egyptians', which he summarily refuted and rejected.
The Babylonians/Sumerians/Ugarits/Egyptians did not recognize three inherent dignities of all Humans.
The Sinai Event is Alphabetically written evidence/Record of a Close Encounter.
The Social Engineering that resulted was far beyond any contemporary Human/Societal Ability at the Time.
Once upon a time in the Sinai Desert a most unusual occurence occured.
ORIGINS OF THE TORAH
http://www.simpletoremember.com/arti...of-torah-true/
V'etchanan(Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11)
The Importance of National Revelation and the Shema
http://www.aish.com/tp/b/lp/48950931.html
TORAH FOR ALL ISRAELITE NATIONS
http://yourarmstoisrael.org/Articles...ation/?page=26
In recorded History, the most significant event in the Sinai Desert was the National Revelation, a Public Meet & Greet with a mixed multitude of humanity by the Creator/Source known as Yahweh.
The Revelation of the Divine Name
Rev. J.A. Motyer, B.D., M.A.
http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk...on_motyer.html
The Christian and Other Religions: the Biblical Evidence
http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk...ons_wright.pdf
Three Revolutionary Innovations in Human History took place.
1: Monotheism
2:Universal Codified Law
3: An Aleph/Bet 1,800 BCE
Monotheism rather then Polytheism, Rule of Law for All rather then the Divine Rights of Kings or Queens and an Aleph/Bet, less then thirty characters that replaced Iconographs/Ideograms and Hieroglyphs, enhancin Literacy amongst the masses.
The abstraction of all these innovations were mutually reinforcing.
Yahweh proclaimed that there exists a Codex of morality that stands above Human intercourse.
The 10 Commandments applied universally to everyone. no King, Pharoah, or Potentate was above the Law.
Refutes the rubric that 'Might makes Right'.
Yahweh expected all His Chosen peeps TO READ what He inspired to be written.
The Pentateuch is the oldest Book written in an Aleph/Bet-Alpha/Bet. Prior books were written in Cuneiform, Hierglyphs etc......
Yahweh forbade anyone from visualising Him. No Images. No Idolatry.
He sanctioned only the written word.
This promulgates equality and openness.
An overarching Theme of the Pentateuch, and ensuing Books of the Bible is: Justice for all.
A distinguishing feature of the Pentateuch from other belief systems of the Time is its dominating Theme of: Righteousness,
Living a pious life and obeying written law was/is more important than winning Battles, honouring the King, or sacrificing to a local god.
Justice for all was a unique community standard in an era when the dominant principle was a raised and clenched fist.
Due to the Concept/Principle of Right Living, a unique type of leader arose amongst the Israelites: The Prophet.
Biblical Prophets; seemingly self-appointed, claiming to receive Testable Signals from Yahweh; witnessed and criticized Israeli behaviour;
confronting the peeps baser urges.
Unlike other ANE Sagas, the Prophets were usually not Royalty, heroes, warriors, they were commen men who railed against injustice and impiety. Constantly upbraiding/Chastizing/Rebuking Israelites; reminding them that Yahweh cared only that his people lived in Truth.
Prophets did not achieve their position by Birthright, appointment or election, they were Inspired and Just.
Unlike other ANE Sagas, the Exodus begins with the people shackled slaves.
Unlike other ANE Sagas, Yahweh 'Chose' the people rather then the people choosing their god.
Some of the Science delivered in the Sinai:
http://balmofgilead.info/Macht1953.pdf
Are the OT Dietary Laws Still Applicable To NT Believers?
http://balmofgilead.info/?page_id=91
Laws of Reality:
None of these Diseases
Part II
~ 6~
I. Is the Law Good for Humanity?
http://yhwhexists.com/ch_6.PDF
The Owner's Manual
Chapter 1
Instructions and Signs
http://theownersmanual.net/
Yet another Unique Concept brought forth at Sinai is the Concept of Free Will.
Throughout the ANE, Babylon, Egypt.etc......humans 'believed their fate, destiny was in the hands of the gods.
The Sinaitic Covenant convinced the Israelites that every decision was theirs to make: Choose Life or Choose Death.
The choice between Right and Wrong was upon the individual. This beget the concept of Guilt, 'Guilty Conscious'; an internal Quality Control.
Moral Realtivist may consider this an ambiguous area, but is it really
How Moses Compiled Genesis: A Suggestion
Revd. J. Stafford Wright, M.A.
http://www.churchsociety.org/churchm...fordWright.pdf
I.
Quote:
Our story begins a little before 1500 B.C. in the household of Pharaoh. Here is one of the centres of education in the civilised world of the day. Under the XVIII Dynasty, in which Moses lived, no pains were spared to secure the highest possible education for the royal princes and for others who were brought up with them. These others were frequently the sons of chiefs from various parts of the empire, and it was regarded as a high honour to be brought up in Pharaoh’s court. It was no coincidence, but the direct
hand of God, which accounted for the presence of a young Hebrew there. If we believe in divine providence at all, it is clear that God had a special purpose in securing this education for Moses. And since the education would be not only for leadership but also in reading and writing, one might hazard a guess that God’s future plan for Moses would be one in which reading and writing would play an important part.
The New Testament description of Moses is that he “was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and he was mighty in his words and works” (Acts vii. 22). If this is a true picture of him—and there is no reason to doubt it—we can imagine him as one who loved learning and scholarship for its own sake. If you have a love for scholarship, put yourself in his place
for a minute or two and imagine what you would do. As a member of the royal household you would have access to the best teachers in Egypt, and to foreign teachers from that other centre of civilization, Assyria and Babylon. At the court and in the temples there would be libraries in which you would read the literature of the world. Queer old records would be there, stories,
hymns, proverbs and histories, written sometimes on clay but more frequently on papyrus, wood or skin. If the Egyptian libraries were like those of Nippur and Ras Shamra, there would be translations and dictionaries to help the reader. I fancy that you would have a longing to read these languages for yourself, and I believe that Moses took steps to become a master of
languages.
What languages would he learn to read and to write? I should think that he knew three well. Egyptian would be the language that he normally spoke and wrote. He would learn to read and write both the formal hieroglyphic pictures and also the simpler hieratic script, which was easier to write. Then he would learn the Babylonian language with its cuneiform script. Like Greek at a later date, this was the language and script of international communication. That
Egypt also used this language and script is proved by the Tel-el-Amarna tablets. These were found in Egypt and are part of the official Egyptian correspondence of about 1400 B.C. But to the Egyptians this cannot have been an easy language to study, since cuneiform can only be printed on clay or, with some labour, engraved on stone, but cannot be printed on papyrus or
wood, which were the writing materials chiefly used in Egypt. None the less, the educated Egyptians did know it, and Moses would have known it too.
But from boyhood Moses had heard another language spoken too. His nurse had been his own mother, who by permission of the princess had brought him up during his first few years in the home where he had been born (Ex. ii. 9, 10). Here he would have picked up the Hebrew language, though the Hebrew of those days must not be thought of as the developed Hebrew
of our present Bible. Perhaps we can regard it as bearing the same general relation: to the Bible Hebrew as Langland’s Piers Plowman bears to modern English.
We are not told the age at which Moses’ mother finally handed him over to. Pharaoh’s daughter (Ex. ii. 10). Moses’ Hebrew vocabulary was probably not large by that time; but two things would have helped him to keep up his knowledge of the language. First, he would undoubtedly have visited his mother and his home from time to time. Apart from the family
tie, there would be nothing strange in this. The old nurse was regarded with the greatest respect in the ancient world. When Rebekah goes to be the bride of Isaac, her nurse goes with her (Gen. xxiv. 59); and Gen. xxxv. 8 even records her death and the place of her burial.
Secondly, it is quite likely that, as Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible says, “the Hebrew language may be appropriately termed the Israelitish dialect of Canaanitish” (Art. Language of the Old Testament). There are certain glosses on the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, in which the writers add a Canaanitish equivalent for some Babylonian word, and these glosses, written in
cuneiform, resemble the Hebrew in sound. The Moabite Stone of a later date is in a dialect resembling Hebrew. We may suppose then that during their time in Palestine the patriarchs had gradually dropped the Sumerian language of Ur, and adopted the speech of Canaan. This is what normally happens after one or two generations of living in a foreign country. It was this language of Canaan that the Hebrews were now speaking in Egypt, though during their three or four centuries there they must have produced their own dialectical version of it.
The Authorship of Deuteronomy 34: Moses or a Redactor?
http://www.drbarrick.org/Website%20Files/Deut34.pdf
Quote:
[5] So Moses Yahweh’s servant died there in the land of Moab in accord with Yahweh’s word. [6] Then He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-Peor. No one knows his gravesite unto this day.
Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch—Tried and True
by Eric Lyons, M.Min. and A.P. Staff
http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/pdfs/0301.pdf
Quote:
“Does it really matter who wrote Genesis, anyway?”
THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
.........The idea that Moses did not write the Pentateuch actually has been around for more than a millennium. However, until the mid-seventeenth century, the vast majority of people still maintained that Moses was its author. It was in the mid-1600s that the Dutch philosopher Benedict Spinoza began to seriously question this widely held belief (Green, 1978, p. 47; Dillard and Longman, 1994, p. 40). French physician Jean Astruc developed the original Documentary Hypothesis in 1753, and it went through many different alterations until Karl Graf revised the initial hypothesis in the mid-nineteenth century. Julius Wellhausen then restated Graf’s Documentary Hypothesis and brought it to light in European and American scholarly circles (see McDowell, 1999, pp. 404-406). It thus has become known to many as the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis.............
Quote:
Why are people today having such a difficult time believing that Moses wrote the Pentateuch? Likely, the principal reason is because students are bombarded with adamant “assurance” statements like the following:
“One of the certain results of modern Bible study has been the discovery that the first five books of the Old Testament were not written by Moses” (Gottwald, 1959, p. 103, emp. added).
“It is obvious that the Book of Genesis was not written by a single author” (Rendtorff, 1998, 14[1]:44, emp. added).
“The most determined biblicist can see that there is no way Moses could have written the Torah” (McKinsey, 1995, p. 366, emp. added).
Statements such as these have made their way into thousands of classrooms. Sadly, before hearing skeptics and liberal scholars present their ineffectual arguments for such beliefs, students frequently become so spellbound by the “intellectual” façade and bold affirmations of certainty that they rarely even consider the evidence at hand.
MOSES AND THE ART OF WRITING
Quote:
Amazingly, one of the first assumptions upon which this theory rests was disproved long ago. From the earliest period of the development of the Documentary Hypothesis, it was assumed that Moses lived in an age prior to the knowledge of writing. One of the “founding fathers” of this theory, Julius Wellhausen, was convinced that “[a]ncient Israel was certainly not without God-given bases for ordering of human life; only they were not fixed in writing” (1885, p. 393, emp. added). Just thirteen years later, Hermann Schultz declared: “Of the legendary character of the pre-Mosaic narrators, the time of which they treat is a sufficient proof. It was a time prior to all knowledge of writing” (1898, pp. 25-26, emp. added). One year later, T.K. Cheyne’s Encyclopedia Biblica was published, in which he contended that the Pentateuch was not written until almost a thousand years after Moses (1899, 2:2055). These suppositions most certainly had an impact on these men’s belief in (and promotion of) the theory that Moses could not possibly have written the first five books of the Old Testament.
One major problem with the Documentary Hypothesis is that we now know Moses did not live “prior to all knowledge of writing.” In fact, he lived long after the art of writing was already known. A veritable plethora of archaeological discoveries has proven one of the earliest assumptions of the Wellhausen theory to be wrong.
1. In 1949, C.F.A. Schaeffer “found a tablet at Ras Shamra containing the thirty letters of the Ugaritic alphabet in their proper order. It was discovered that the sequence of the Ugaritic alphabet was the same as modern Hebrew, revealing that the Hebrew alphabet goes back at least 3,500 years” (Jackson, 1982, p. 32, emp. added).
2. In 1933, J.L. Starkey, who had studied under famed archaeologist W.M.F. Petrie, excavated the city of Lachish, which had figured prominently in Joshua’s conquest of Canaan (Joshua 10). Among other things, he unearthed a pottery water pitcher “inscribed with a dedication in eleven archaic letters, the earliest ‘Hebrew’ inscription known” (Wiseman, 1974, p. 705). According to Charles Pfeiffer,
The Old, or palaeo-Hebrew script is the form of writing which is similar to that used by the Phoenicians. A royal inscription of King Shaphatball of Gebal (Byblos) in this alphabet dates from about 1600 B.C. (1966, p. 33).
3. In 1901-1902, the Code of Hammurabi was discovered at the ancient site of Susa (in what is now Iran) by a French archaeological expedition under the direction of Jacques de Morgan. It was written on a piece of black diorite nearly eight feet high, and contained 282 sections. In their book, Archaeology and Bible History, Joseph Free and Howard Vos stated:
The Code of Hammurabi was written several hundred years before the time of Moses (c. 1500-1400 B.C.).... This code, from the period 2000-1700 B.C. , contains advanced laws similar to those in the Mosaic laws.... In view of this archaeological evidence, the destructive critic can no longer insist that the laws of Moses are too advanced for his time (1992, pp. 103,55, emp. added).
The Code of Hammurabi established beyond doubt that writing was known hundreds of years before Moses.
The truth is, numerous archaeological discoveries of the past 100 years have proven once and for all that the art of writing was known not only during Moses’ day, but also long before Moses came on the scene. Although skeptics, liberal theologians, and certain college professors continue to perpetuate the Documentary Hypothesis, they should be informed (or reminded) of the fact that one of the foundational assumptions upon which the theory rests has been completely shattered by archeological evidence.......
EVIDENCE FOR THE DOCUMENTARY
HYPOTHESIS—REFUTED
Quote:
The New Testament writers also showed no hesitation in affirming that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. John wrote: “The law was given through Moses” (John 1:17). Luke recorded of the resurrected Jesus: “And beginning from Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them [His disciples—EL] in all the scriptures the things concerning himself ‘ (Luke 24:27). Referring to the Jewish practice of publicly reading the Law, James affirmed Mosaic authorship: “For Moses from generations of old hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath” (Acts 15:21). With this Paul concurred, saying, “For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, ‘The man who does those things shall live by them’ ” (Romans 10:5, NKJV, emp. added; cf. Leviticus 18:5). In 2 Corinthians 3:15, Paul also wrote: “Moses is read.” The phrase “Moses is read” is a clear example of the figure of speech known as metonymy (where one thing is put for another) [see Dungan, 1888, pp. 273-275]. Today, we may ask if someone has read Shakespeare, Homer, or Virgil, by which we mean to ask if he or she has read the writings of these men. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, one reads where Abraham spoke to the rich man concerning his five brothers saying, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them” (Luke 16:29). Were Moses and the Old Testament prophets still on Earth in the first century? No. The meaning is that the rich man’s brothers had the writings of Moses and the prophets.
Furthermore, both Jesus’ disciples and His enemies recognized and accepted the books of Moses. After Philip was called to follow Jesus, he found his brother Nathanael and said: “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45, NKJV, emp. added). Notice also that New Testament Sadducees considered Moses as the author, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote unto us, if a man’s brother die, and leave a wife behind him, and leave no child, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother” (Mark 12:19, emp. added; cf. Deuteronomy 25:5).
A final reason that one must defend the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, instead of sitting by idly and claiming that “it doesn’t really matter who wrote it,” is because Jesus Himself acknowledged that “the Law” came from Moses. In Mark 7:10, Jesus quoted from both Exodus 20 and 21, attributing the words to Moses. Mark likewise recorded a conversation Jesus had with the Pharisees regarding what “Moses permitted” and “wrote” in Deuteronomy chapter 24 (Mark 10:3-5; cf. Matthew 19:8). Later, we see where Jesus asked the Sadducees, “Have you not read in the book of Moses, in the place concerning the bush, how God spake unto him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?” (Mark 12:26, emp. added). But, perhaps the most convincing passage of all can be found in John 5:46-47, where Jesus stated: “For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” (John 5:46-47, emp. added; cf. Deuteronomy 18:15-18). The truth is, by claiming that Moses did not write the books of the Pentateuch, one essentially is claiming that Jesus was mistaken. M.R. DeHaan expounded upon this problem in his book, Genesis and Evolution:
Prove that Moses did not write the books of the Pentateuch and you prove that Jesus was totally mistaken and not the infallible Son of God he claimed to be. Upon your faith in Moses as the writer of the five books attributed to him rests also your faith in Jesus as the Son of God. You cannot believe in Jesus Christ without believing what Moses wrote. You see, there is much more involved in denying the books of Moses than most people suppose (1978, p. 41).
Indeed, believing Moses wrote the Pentateuch is very important. It is not a trivial issue we should treat frivolously while suggesting that “it really doesn’t matter.” It matters because the deity of Christ and the integrity of the Bible writers are at stake!
question......on the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch?
http://christianthinktank.com/qmoses1.html
was Jesus Christ just a CopyCat Savior Myth?
http://christianthinktank.com/copycat.html
http://christianthinktank.com/copycat2.html
Were Bible stories and characters stolen from pagan myths?
http://www.tektonics.org/
http://www.tektonics.org/copycathub.html
Consider: A group of recently shackled slaves, led by a Sleeper Cell Character, Moses, a Hebrew, who was ordered to be slain by Pharoah as an infant, wound up in Pharoahs Court and was provided the best education in the ANE, access to all the Ancient records in the Pharoahs Libraries and Museums.
Yahweh rumbles the entire Pantheon of Egyptian Deities and miracuously leads the Slaves out into a Wilderness/Desert, where in one stroke they create Monotheism, a Universal Codex of Law and record it in an AlephBet/AlphaBet, commanding Literacy, destroys Images/Idols and elevates and sanctions the Written Word.
Reducing thousands of graphic images into two dozen making Literacy availiable Universally, rich, poor, young, old, freeman, slave, king, serf.
Worth a 'look see'
http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/genesis.php
Torah=The First Five Books=Instruction----------
2 Timothy
3:12 Yea, and all that will live reverently in Yahshua the Messiah/Jesus Christ shall suffer persecution.
3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
3:14 But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
3:15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Yahshua the Messiah.
3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of Yahweh, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
3:17 That the man of Yahweh may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
Contrary to popular belief, the Torah was not derived from the Sumerian/Babylonian/Ugaritic/Egyptian Narratives, it stands alone as Objective and Moralistic, the only simalarities is the beginnings are Mythic, the Torah then seques seamlessly into Legend and History.
The massive differences outweigh the superficial commonalities.
is Genesis merely a rip-off of other ANE lit?
http://christianthinktank.com/gilgymess.html
It's worth bearing in Mind that Mosheh/Moses was trained in 'All the wisdom of the Egyptians', which he summarily refuted and rejected.
The Babylonians/Sumerians/Ugarits/Egyptians did not recognize three inherent dignities of all Humans.
The Sinai Event is Alphabetically written evidence/Record of a Close Encounter.
The Social Engineering that resulted was far beyond any contemporary Human/Societal Ability at the Time.
Once upon a time in the Sinai Desert a most unusual occurence occured.
ORIGINS OF THE TORAH
http://www.simpletoremember.com/arti...of-torah-true/
V'etchanan(Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11)
The Importance of National Revelation and the Shema
http://www.aish.com/tp/b/lp/48950931.html
TORAH FOR ALL ISRAELITE NATIONS
http://yourarmstoisrael.org/Articles...ation/?page=26
In recorded History, the most significant event in the Sinai Desert was the National Revelation, a Public Meet & Greet with a mixed multitude of humanity by the Creator/Source known as Yahweh.
The Revelation of the Divine Name
Rev. J.A. Motyer, B.D., M.A.
http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk...on_motyer.html
The Christian and Other Religions: the Biblical Evidence
http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk...ons_wright.pdf
Three Revolutionary Innovations in Human History took place.
1: Monotheism
2:Universal Codified Law
3: An Aleph/Bet 1,800 BCE
Monotheism rather then Polytheism, Rule of Law for All rather then the Divine Rights of Kings or Queens and an Aleph/Bet, less then thirty characters that replaced Iconographs/Ideograms and Hieroglyphs, enhancin Literacy amongst the masses.
The abstraction of all these innovations were mutually reinforcing.
Yahweh proclaimed that there exists a Codex of morality that stands above Human intercourse.
The 10 Commandments applied universally to everyone. no King, Pharoah, or Potentate was above the Law.
Refutes the rubric that 'Might makes Right'.
Yahweh expected all His Chosen peeps TO READ what He inspired to be written.
The Pentateuch is the oldest Book written in an Aleph/Bet-Alpha/Bet. Prior books were written in Cuneiform, Hierglyphs etc......
Yahweh forbade anyone from visualising Him. No Images. No Idolatry.
He sanctioned only the written word.
This promulgates equality and openness.
An overarching Theme of the Pentateuch, and ensuing Books of the Bible is: Justice for all.
A distinguishing feature of the Pentateuch from other belief systems of the Time is its dominating Theme of: Righteousness,
Living a pious life and obeying written law was/is more important than winning Battles, honouring the King, or sacrificing to a local god.
Justice for all was a unique community standard in an era when the dominant principle was a raised and clenched fist.
Due to the Concept/Principle of Right Living, a unique type of leader arose amongst the Israelites: The Prophet.
Biblical Prophets; seemingly self-appointed, claiming to receive Testable Signals from Yahweh; witnessed and criticized Israeli behaviour;
confronting the peeps baser urges.
Unlike other ANE Sagas, the Prophets were usually not Royalty, heroes, warriors, they were commen men who railed against injustice and impiety. Constantly upbraiding/Chastizing/Rebuking Israelites; reminding them that Yahweh cared only that his people lived in Truth.
Prophets did not achieve their position by Birthright, appointment or election, they were Inspired and Just.
Unlike other ANE Sagas, the Exodus begins with the people shackled slaves.
Unlike other ANE Sagas, Yahweh 'Chose' the people rather then the people choosing their god.
Some of the Science delivered in the Sinai:
http://balmofgilead.info/Macht1953.pdf
Are the OT Dietary Laws Still Applicable To NT Believers?
http://balmofgilead.info/?page_id=91
Laws of Reality:
None of these Diseases
Part II
~ 6~
I. Is the Law Good for Humanity?
http://yhwhexists.com/ch_6.PDF
The Owner's Manual
Chapter 1
Instructions and Signs
http://theownersmanual.net/
Yet another Unique Concept brought forth at Sinai is the Concept of Free Will.
Throughout the ANE, Babylon, Egypt.etc......humans 'believed their fate, destiny was in the hands of the gods.
The Sinaitic Covenant convinced the Israelites that every decision was theirs to make: Choose Life or Choose Death.
The choice between Right and Wrong was upon the individual. This beget the concept of Guilt, 'Guilty Conscious'; an internal Quality Control.
Moral Realtivist may consider this an ambiguous area, but is it really
How Moses Compiled Genesis: A Suggestion
Revd. J. Stafford Wright, M.A.
http://www.churchsociety.org/churchm...fordWright.pdf
I.
Quote:
Our story begins a little before 1500 B.C. in the household of Pharaoh. Here is one of the centres of education in the civilised world of the day. Under the XVIII Dynasty, in which Moses lived, no pains were spared to secure the highest possible education for the royal princes and for others who were brought up with them. These others were frequently the sons of chiefs from various parts of the empire, and it was regarded as a high honour to be brought up in Pharaoh’s court. It was no coincidence, but the direct
hand of God, which accounted for the presence of a young Hebrew there. If we believe in divine providence at all, it is clear that God had a special purpose in securing this education for Moses. And since the education would be not only for leadership but also in reading and writing, one might hazard a guess that God’s future plan for Moses would be one in which reading and writing would play an important part.
The New Testament description of Moses is that he “was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and he was mighty in his words and works” (Acts vii. 22). If this is a true picture of him—and there is no reason to doubt it—we can imagine him as one who loved learning and scholarship for its own sake. If you have a love for scholarship, put yourself in his place
for a minute or two and imagine what you would do. As a member of the royal household you would have access to the best teachers in Egypt, and to foreign teachers from that other centre of civilization, Assyria and Babylon. At the court and in the temples there would be libraries in which you would read the literature of the world. Queer old records would be there, stories,
hymns, proverbs and histories, written sometimes on clay but more frequently on papyrus, wood or skin. If the Egyptian libraries were like those of Nippur and Ras Shamra, there would be translations and dictionaries to help the reader. I fancy that you would have a longing to read these languages for yourself, and I believe that Moses took steps to become a master of
languages.
What languages would he learn to read and to write? I should think that he knew three well. Egyptian would be the language that he normally spoke and wrote. He would learn to read and write both the formal hieroglyphic pictures and also the simpler hieratic script, which was easier to write. Then he would learn the Babylonian language with its cuneiform script. Like Greek at a later date, this was the language and script of international communication. That
Egypt also used this language and script is proved by the Tel-el-Amarna tablets. These were found in Egypt and are part of the official Egyptian correspondence of about 1400 B.C. But to the Egyptians this cannot have been an easy language to study, since cuneiform can only be printed on clay or, with some labour, engraved on stone, but cannot be printed on papyrus or
wood, which were the writing materials chiefly used in Egypt. None the less, the educated Egyptians did know it, and Moses would have known it too.
But from boyhood Moses had heard another language spoken too. His nurse had been his own mother, who by permission of the princess had brought him up during his first few years in the home where he had been born (Ex. ii. 9, 10). Here he would have picked up the Hebrew language, though the Hebrew of those days must not be thought of as the developed Hebrew
of our present Bible. Perhaps we can regard it as bearing the same general relation: to the Bible Hebrew as Langland’s Piers Plowman bears to modern English.
We are not told the age at which Moses’ mother finally handed him over to. Pharaoh’s daughter (Ex. ii. 10). Moses’ Hebrew vocabulary was probably not large by that time; but two things would have helped him to keep up his knowledge of the language. First, he would undoubtedly have visited his mother and his home from time to time. Apart from the family
tie, there would be nothing strange in this. The old nurse was regarded with the greatest respect in the ancient world. When Rebekah goes to be the bride of Isaac, her nurse goes with her (Gen. xxiv. 59); and Gen. xxxv. 8 even records her death and the place of her burial.
Secondly, it is quite likely that, as Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible says, “the Hebrew language may be appropriately termed the Israelitish dialect of Canaanitish” (Art. Language of the Old Testament). There are certain glosses on the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, in which the writers add a Canaanitish equivalent for some Babylonian word, and these glosses, written in
cuneiform, resemble the Hebrew in sound. The Moabite Stone of a later date is in a dialect resembling Hebrew. We may suppose then that during their time in Palestine the patriarchs had gradually dropped the Sumerian language of Ur, and adopted the speech of Canaan. This is what normally happens after one or two generations of living in a foreign country. It was this language of Canaan that the Hebrews were now speaking in Egypt, though during their three or four centuries there they must have produced their own dialectical version of it.
The Authorship of Deuteronomy 34: Moses or a Redactor?
http://www.drbarrick.org/Website%20Files/Deut34.pdf
Quote:
[5] So Moses Yahweh’s servant died there in the land of Moab in accord with Yahweh’s word. [6] Then He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-Peor. No one knows his gravesite unto this day.
Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch—Tried and True
by Eric Lyons, M.Min. and A.P. Staff
http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/pdfs/0301.pdf
Quote:
“Does it really matter who wrote Genesis, anyway?”
THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
.........The idea that Moses did not write the Pentateuch actually has been around for more than a millennium. However, until the mid-seventeenth century, the vast majority of people still maintained that Moses was its author. It was in the mid-1600s that the Dutch philosopher Benedict Spinoza began to seriously question this widely held belief (Green, 1978, p. 47; Dillard and Longman, 1994, p. 40). French physician Jean Astruc developed the original Documentary Hypothesis in 1753, and it went through many different alterations until Karl Graf revised the initial hypothesis in the mid-nineteenth century. Julius Wellhausen then restated Graf’s Documentary Hypothesis and brought it to light in European and American scholarly circles (see McDowell, 1999, pp. 404-406). It thus has become known to many as the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis.............
Quote:
Why are people today having such a difficult time believing that Moses wrote the Pentateuch? Likely, the principal reason is because students are bombarded with adamant “assurance” statements like the following:
“One of the certain results of modern Bible study has been the discovery that the first five books of the Old Testament were not written by Moses” (Gottwald, 1959, p. 103, emp. added).
“It is obvious that the Book of Genesis was not written by a single author” (Rendtorff, 1998, 14[1]:44, emp. added).
“The most determined biblicist can see that there is no way Moses could have written the Torah” (McKinsey, 1995, p. 366, emp. added).
Statements such as these have made their way into thousands of classrooms. Sadly, before hearing skeptics and liberal scholars present their ineffectual arguments for such beliefs, students frequently become so spellbound by the “intellectual” façade and bold affirmations of certainty that they rarely even consider the evidence at hand.
MOSES AND THE ART OF WRITING
Quote:
Amazingly, one of the first assumptions upon which this theory rests was disproved long ago. From the earliest period of the development of the Documentary Hypothesis, it was assumed that Moses lived in an age prior to the knowledge of writing. One of the “founding fathers” of this theory, Julius Wellhausen, was convinced that “[a]ncient Israel was certainly not without God-given bases for ordering of human life; only they were not fixed in writing” (1885, p. 393, emp. added). Just thirteen years later, Hermann Schultz declared: “Of the legendary character of the pre-Mosaic narrators, the time of which they treat is a sufficient proof. It was a time prior to all knowledge of writing” (1898, pp. 25-26, emp. added). One year later, T.K. Cheyne’s Encyclopedia Biblica was published, in which he contended that the Pentateuch was not written until almost a thousand years after Moses (1899, 2:2055). These suppositions most certainly had an impact on these men’s belief in (and promotion of) the theory that Moses could not possibly have written the first five books of the Old Testament.
One major problem with the Documentary Hypothesis is that we now know Moses did not live “prior to all knowledge of writing.” In fact, he lived long after the art of writing was already known. A veritable plethora of archaeological discoveries has proven one of the earliest assumptions of the Wellhausen theory to be wrong.
1. In 1949, C.F.A. Schaeffer “found a tablet at Ras Shamra containing the thirty letters of the Ugaritic alphabet in their proper order. It was discovered that the sequence of the Ugaritic alphabet was the same as modern Hebrew, revealing that the Hebrew alphabet goes back at least 3,500 years” (Jackson, 1982, p. 32, emp. added).
2. In 1933, J.L. Starkey, who had studied under famed archaeologist W.M.F. Petrie, excavated the city of Lachish, which had figured prominently in Joshua’s conquest of Canaan (Joshua 10). Among other things, he unearthed a pottery water pitcher “inscribed with a dedication in eleven archaic letters, the earliest ‘Hebrew’ inscription known” (Wiseman, 1974, p. 705). According to Charles Pfeiffer,
The Old, or palaeo-Hebrew script is the form of writing which is similar to that used by the Phoenicians. A royal inscription of King Shaphatball of Gebal (Byblos) in this alphabet dates from about 1600 B.C. (1966, p. 33).
3. In 1901-1902, the Code of Hammurabi was discovered at the ancient site of Susa (in what is now Iran) by a French archaeological expedition under the direction of Jacques de Morgan. It was written on a piece of black diorite nearly eight feet high, and contained 282 sections. In their book, Archaeology and Bible History, Joseph Free and Howard Vos stated:
The Code of Hammurabi was written several hundred years before the time of Moses (c. 1500-1400 B.C.).... This code, from the period 2000-1700 B.C. , contains advanced laws similar to those in the Mosaic laws.... In view of this archaeological evidence, the destructive critic can no longer insist that the laws of Moses are too advanced for his time (1992, pp. 103,55, emp. added).
The Code of Hammurabi established beyond doubt that writing was known hundreds of years before Moses.
The truth is, numerous archaeological discoveries of the past 100 years have proven once and for all that the art of writing was known not only during Moses’ day, but also long before Moses came on the scene. Although skeptics, liberal theologians, and certain college professors continue to perpetuate the Documentary Hypothesis, they should be informed (or reminded) of the fact that one of the foundational assumptions upon which the theory rests has been completely shattered by archeological evidence.......
EVIDENCE FOR THE DOCUMENTARY
HYPOTHESIS—REFUTED
Quote:
The New Testament writers also showed no hesitation in affirming that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. John wrote: “The law was given through Moses” (John 1:17). Luke recorded of the resurrected Jesus: “And beginning from Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them [His disciples—EL] in all the scriptures the things concerning himself ‘ (Luke 24:27). Referring to the Jewish practice of publicly reading the Law, James affirmed Mosaic authorship: “For Moses from generations of old hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath” (Acts 15:21). With this Paul concurred, saying, “For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, ‘The man who does those things shall live by them’ ” (Romans 10:5, NKJV, emp. added; cf. Leviticus 18:5). In 2 Corinthians 3:15, Paul also wrote: “Moses is read.” The phrase “Moses is read” is a clear example of the figure of speech known as metonymy (where one thing is put for another) [see Dungan, 1888, pp. 273-275]. Today, we may ask if someone has read Shakespeare, Homer, or Virgil, by which we mean to ask if he or she has read the writings of these men. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, one reads where Abraham spoke to the rich man concerning his five brothers saying, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them” (Luke 16:29). Were Moses and the Old Testament prophets still on Earth in the first century? No. The meaning is that the rich man’s brothers had the writings of Moses and the prophets.
Furthermore, both Jesus’ disciples and His enemies recognized and accepted the books of Moses. After Philip was called to follow Jesus, he found his brother Nathanael and said: “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45, NKJV, emp. added). Notice also that New Testament Sadducees considered Moses as the author, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote unto us, if a man’s brother die, and leave a wife behind him, and leave no child, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother” (Mark 12:19, emp. added; cf. Deuteronomy 25:5).
A final reason that one must defend the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, instead of sitting by idly and claiming that “it doesn’t really matter who wrote it,” is because Jesus Himself acknowledged that “the Law” came from Moses. In Mark 7:10, Jesus quoted from both Exodus 20 and 21, attributing the words to Moses. Mark likewise recorded a conversation Jesus had with the Pharisees regarding what “Moses permitted” and “wrote” in Deuteronomy chapter 24 (Mark 10:3-5; cf. Matthew 19:8). Later, we see where Jesus asked the Sadducees, “Have you not read in the book of Moses, in the place concerning the bush, how God spake unto him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?” (Mark 12:26, emp. added). But, perhaps the most convincing passage of all can be found in John 5:46-47, where Jesus stated: “For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” (John 5:46-47, emp. added; cf. Deuteronomy 18:15-18). The truth is, by claiming that Moses did not write the books of the Pentateuch, one essentially is claiming that Jesus was mistaken. M.R. DeHaan expounded upon this problem in his book, Genesis and Evolution:
Prove that Moses did not write the books of the Pentateuch and you prove that Jesus was totally mistaken and not the infallible Son of God he claimed to be. Upon your faith in Moses as the writer of the five books attributed to him rests also your faith in Jesus as the Son of God. You cannot believe in Jesus Christ without believing what Moses wrote. You see, there is much more involved in denying the books of Moses than most people suppose (1978, p. 41).
Indeed, believing Moses wrote the Pentateuch is very important. It is not a trivial issue we should treat frivolously while suggesting that “it really doesn’t matter.” It matters because the deity of Christ and the integrity of the Bible writers are at stake!
question......on the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch?
http://christianthinktank.com/qmoses1.html
was Jesus Christ just a CopyCat Savior Myth?
http://christianthinktank.com/copycat.html
http://christianthinktank.com/copycat2.html
Were Bible stories and characters stolen from pagan myths?
http://www.tektonics.org/
http://www.tektonics.org/copycathub.html
Consider: A group of recently shackled slaves, led by a Sleeper Cell Character, Moses, a Hebrew, who was ordered to be slain by Pharoah as an infant, wound up in Pharoahs Court and was provided the best education in the ANE, access to all the Ancient records in the Pharoahs Libraries and Museums.
Yahweh rumbles the entire Pantheon of Egyptian Deities and miracuously leads the Slaves out into a Wilderness/Desert, where in one stroke they create Monotheism, a Universal Codex of Law and record it in an AlephBet/AlphaBet, commanding Literacy, destroys Images/Idols and elevates and sanctions the Written Word.
Reducing thousands of graphic images into two dozen making Literacy availiable Universally, rich, poor, young, old, freeman, slave, king, serf.
Worth a 'look see'
http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/genesis.php
Haha that's definitely the best crude rendition I've seen of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
The Always Sunny Allegory of Shorty Winters
Also some good points Hellspawn. Islam is more sophisticated than Christianity in many ways.
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A few points though if you will:
*From a rational standpoint isn't it more likely that if an "exoversal" being/entity created the universe it was done by an entity so vast and complex that it's oblivious to us? For example, what if the universe's creation was equivalent to splashing paint on a wall? What if it was random? The fact it formed something nice is not based on intelligent design but statistical averages. If you throw paint on a wall enough times it will form something resembling a portrait of a person observing it. We are looking for a God that probably isn't there based on the assumption that things require guidance to work out. But we can't even comprehend a universe without the laws that it has. We exist because it "works correctly." But if it didn't work correctly we wouldn't exist. Or we'd exist in a different form governed by those alternative laws. But we would view those alien laws as normal and we wouldn't be able to imagine a world without them.
Without the four forces everything would dissipate outwards until it stopped having heat. It is anyway, but the forces hold things together and prevent energy from being lost quickly. We exist in a universe that still has that cosmic heat. But eventually it won't because it's cooling off.
*Ultimately, did God create Man's need to worship or did Man's need to worship create God?
*Also nature isn't perfect enough to be created by a perfect being. Either the creator made things poorly on purpose (which would be malevolent) or there was no creation. For example the larynx nerves are evidence of evolution. We still have vestigial fish designs. Instead of a direct link from the brain to the larynx it travels into the chest cavity and doubles back on itself for no reason other than in fish there is no neck to separate the gills and brain. In a giraffe the nerve is probably 4 meters long instead of the 2 inches between the brain and larynx...
Last edited by TheBoarzHeadBoy; 01-05-2011 at 07:54 PM.
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@ Fatal Guillotine
It's more likely that the Hebrews who followed Moses were worshipers of Ba'al and were falling storm clouds. Ba'al Zephon was the Storm Lord of a Mountain (Zephon) in the Levant which is both the origin of the Deity Zeus and is documented to be a title for the God of Israel. The pillar of smoke was a Cumulonimbus Storm and the fire at night was the lightning that split the sky. They were following storms. The "God of Israel" is present throughout the World. He is the Thunderer. Where there are storms (everywhere) there is the King of the Gods. He is the bringer of Rain, the booming voice of the thunder, and the man with the boomstick chucking lightning (which is described as fire from the sky). They followed the storm to a Mountain and there Moses ascended the mountain into the very storm clouds... which is a horrible idea. Then after a while he came back. Was he up their 40 days and nights? No. That's an Egyptian symbolism referring to rebirth. It takes 40 days to die and rise again through mummification. Moses comes back born again with the horns of a ram coming from his head in the guise of Amun Ra himself (Amun is if not a storm God a Celestial Wind God). He descends upon the blasphemers and smashes a stone tablet in rage. Moses was a close relative of a Pharaoh and was viewed as a demi God and when he is described it is in heroic fashion.
Ancient Near East
Teshub (Hurrian mythology)
Adad, Ishkur, Marduk (Babylonian-Assyrian mythology)
Hadad (Levantine mythology)
Eurasian
Tarhunt (Hittite/Luwian mythology)
Zeus (Greek Mythology)
Brontes (Greek mythology)
Jupiter, Summanus (Roman mythology)
Taranis (Pan-Celtic); Ambisagrus, Leucetios, (Gaulish mythology)
Þunraz (Germanic mythology; Anglo-Saxon Þunor, German Donar, Norse Þórr)
Thor (Norse mythology)
Perkunos (Balto-Slavic; Lithuanian Perkunas, Slavic Per(k)un )
Perendi (Albanian mythology)
Gebeleizis (Dacian mythology)
Zibelthiurdos (Thracian mythology)
Ukko or Perkele (Finnish mythology)
Horagalles (Sami mythology)
Indra, Parjanya (Hindu mythology)
Aplu (Etruscan mythology)
East Asia
Lei Gong (Chinese mythology)
Ajisukitakahikone, Raijin (Raiden-sama, Kaminari-sama), Tenjin (kami) (Japanese mythology)
Susanoo (Japanese Mythology)
Americas
Thunderbird (Native American mythology)
Xolotl (Aztec and Toltec mythology)
Chaac (Maya mythology)
Apocatequil (Incan mythology)
Cocijo (Mexican mythology)
Aktzin (Mexican mythology)
Jasso (Mexican mythology)
Haokah (Lakota mythology)
Tupã (Guaraní mythology, Brazil)
Tunupã, Thunupã (Bolivian and Peruvian mythology)
Salar ((Aztec mythology))
Africa
Set (mythology) (Egyptian mythology)
Shango (Yorùbá mythology)
Oya (goddess of thunder, Yoruba mythology)
Azaka-Tonnerre (West African Vodun/Haitian Vodou)
Mulungu
Xevioso (alternately: Xewioso, Heviosso. Thunder god of the So region)
South Pacific
Haikili (Polynesian mythology)
Tāwhaki (Polynesian mythology)
Kaha'i (Polynesian mythology)
Te Uira (Polynesian mythology
Australia
Namarrkun (Aboriginal mythology)
99% of these are derived from the same archetypes.
Last edited by TheBoarzHeadBoy; 01-05-2011 at 08:17 PM.
HANKERING FOR SOME BEEF CURTAINS
why are yall throwing 5000 word essays up in here - you know that most people just stop reading when they face a 5000 word essay - people come here to discuss shit - why put a 5000 word essay smack in the middle of a discussion ?
that's like we all building a cipher, building off of each others words then you come and hold the mic for 5 hours straight
Because it's kind of impossible to sensibly make more than one or two points with explanation and examples in less than a few paragraphs. If they won't take the time to sit down and read the book and reflect than what business have they got in knowing the ledge?
Last edited by TheBoarzHeadBoy; 01-05-2011 at 11:39 PM.
HANKERING FOR SOME BEEF CURTAINS
when you talk too much, the people who come here don't get to know the ledge - they begin to just see your ledge - points will be missed in this way - not made - if everyone copy pasted whole website pages onto their individual post, we'd never know the ledge - the people here would just fall off of it
Experience talking ^^
totally agree
I agree with not copying and pasting other sites when they can be linked and not double posting the whole thing... That diseupts the flow. At least I wrote mine out other than the list of deities. FG had good information though.
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talking too dam much always ruins a thread
....no one wants to break down the words of the bible ?
lmao - yall are wild
we can answer the thread question by posting 7 lines a week
shit would be fun
The Bible is the sole written source of precious information.
Written and distributed long before Constantine created the imitation "christian"
Trinitarian Roman state cult that evolved into Great Whore Mother family of cults
which the decieved call "churches."
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