Posted by SB on 12/30/2001, 12:41 am

Straightforward?? Posted by Dave Kenady on 11/23/2001, 1:42 pm , in reply to "A claim investigated" "What he wants us to know, he has revealed in a fairly straightforward fashion in the scriptures" A quick romp through Christian land on the web (or if you've got the time -- the church) will reveal that on any and every point that could be defined as "fairly straightforward" truths, you would find a thousand contradictory opinions -- even on this board. And if you step outside the church, multiply that by a factor of a thousand. The answer to every question about the Bible seems to be YES, NO, MAYBE, MAYBE NOT. Do believers speak in tongues? Are the gift ministries for today? Do demons exist? Is the Bible inerrant? We can't even come to a consensus on these things on this board -- and we once had the advantage of having a common vision, a Bible college at our disposal and a committment to truth like no other I had seen. It often seems like it was such a waste of time. ---------- No--"fairly straightforward..." Posted by Steve B. on 11/24/2001, 8:31 am , in reply to "Straightforward??" ...compared to searching out letter sequences in the Hebrew text, that is. There is an excellent book out that goes some distance in addressing the reasons for all the different interpretations of scripture among Christians who believe the Bible to be authoritative. It is titled Exegetical Fallacies, and it is written by a man named D.A. Carson. Amazon.com has some good customer reviews of it. Here is an excerpt from the introduction: ...it is very distressing to contemplate how many differences there are among us as to what Scripture actually says. The great, unifying truths should not of course be minimized; but the fact remains that among those who belive the canonical sixty-six books are nothing less than the Word of God written there is a disturbing array of mutually incompatible theological opinions... Why is it that among those with equally high views of Scripture's authority there are people who think tongues are the definitive sign of the baptism of the Spirit, others who think the gift of tongues is optional, and still others who think it no longer exists as a genuine gift? Why are there some who hold to a dispensational approach to Scripture, and others who call themselves covenant theologians? ...In one sense, of course, the reasons are not always rational, or amenable to correction by improved exegetical rigor alone. Many local Bible teachers and preachers have never been forced to confront alternative interpretations at full strength; and because they would lose a certain psychological security if they permitted their own questions, aroused by their own reading of Scripture, to come into full play, they are unlikely to throw over received traditions. But I am not talking about such people. I am restricting myself for the sake of this discussion to the wisest, most mature, best trained, and most devout leaders of each position; why cannot they move to greater unanimity on all kinds of doctrinal fronts? I hope this helps. Sincerely, Steve ---------- Posted by Dave Kenady on 11/24/2001, 11:50 am , in reply to "No--"fairly straightforward..."" Thanks Steve. Sounds very interesting. I'll check it out. ---------- Posted by lanny on 11/25/2001, 11:10 am , in reply to "A claim investigated" Thanks for the hard work, Steve. This kind of thing to me seems similiar to the many Christian hoaxes and superstitions that Christians flock to. Christians love these "gimicky" things because it somehow brings glory to God. It is a poor substitute for real Christian living that really glory to God. I know someone who for over a year did hardly anything but "witness" about the shroud of Turin. The church is longing for God's power and glory to be manifest to the world. It is time to say, "Yes Lord, send me." Lanny ---------- I'm going to see if I can get in touch with my friend in Israel and see what he says about it Posted by Tom Zähler on 11/25/2001, 4:05 pm Really, all I know about it is what he told me. I haven’t been in touch with him since about '96. Last I knew of him, he and his wife were preparing to leave for Israel on another dig. I don’t know how to find those services on the Internet where you type someone's name in and it tells you the e-mail addresses of everyone with that name. If anyone knows, I would appreciate any pointers on how to find them, to help me be able to get in touch with him. Since I know next-to-nothing about Hebrew myself, I will also have to ask him—if I succeed in getting in touch with him (or maybe his wife, since she knows Hebrew better)—about the characters that look like colons that are found at the end of some of the lines in the Hebrew text, which are represented as colons in Roman script in the Latin transliteration. The "Helps" section on the Hebrew OT page says they are the "Hebrew punctuation sof pasuq" and I'm not certain if they are intended to be counted as actual letters or not, as Steve did above. He says... ...Perhaps I botched the job of copying-and-pasting, or perhaps I have misunderstood the method by which this supposed "torah" letter sequence is to be seen. In any case, I think the burden of proof is now clearly upon those who make the claim. At this point I’m not sure whether it's possible that the sequence for beginning it could be off, whether the colon-like-things could have anything to do with it (since removing them would change the sequence completely) or whether I should just toss off the whole thing as a farce to begin with. Don't post vague, unattributed references to studies done by "teams of computer scientists and mathematicians using super computers at Jerusalem's Hebrew University and the Jerusalem College of Technology." The part about the supercomputers at the higher-ed institutes in Israel came from Sonny Stevens' website, "V" (ns.moodyisd.org/stephens/els.htm). He adds... Anyone can see that this exercise does not need computer scientists and supercomputers. No, but if you're going to count the entire text of the Pentateuch, a supercomputer would sure make the job a lot easier. On another site, this one about Yacov Rambsel, who, if I'm not mistaken, is a Jewish or Messianic-Jewish rabbi, in an interview of him conducted by Hal Lindsay, he said, "I Never use a computer. I do all this by hand." He also said... "Now the rabbis of ancient time—we're going back thousands of years—they did the same analysis the way I do it, and I do the way they do it. They took the first word in the Torah and counted every 50th letter from the first letter of what Torah and it all spelled Torah. That's what the book is, Torah." He speaks with a Hebrew accent, and I'm not sure what he meant by the incorrect English word-construction, "...the first letter of what Torah...." Steve counters... If this sort of counting scheme really worked out, it would have entered general knowledge long ago, because for those who spoke Biblical Hebrew as natives, this would have been an easy thing to verify. Well, Rambsel says it did enter general knowledge—among the scribes of Israel—long ago, and they were people who did speak biblical Hebrew as natives. Lanny comments... ...These "gimicky" things [are] a poor substitute for real Christian living that really [gives] glory to God. Well, in my case, it was never intended to be a substitute for anything. As for Anthony W. Savini's comments about superstition and garbage, I say it is well to be discerning aobut "superstition and garbage," as he is advocating, but the only trouble is, when he tries to claim that the Bible is superstition and garbage too, it makes his comments ring hollow on my ears. I'm going to post here a list of websites on the subject, but I want to clarify that just posting this Google list that resulted from the key-word search doesn't mean I agree with everything said in every one of them nor that I embrace everything believed by every one of the parties whose websites are listed here. I haven't had time to read through all of them. "Mr. daFeshtac" Link: Article list http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22every+50th+letter%22+hebrew+&btnG=Google+Search ---------- Posted by Steve B. on 11/25/2001, 4:45 pm , in reply to "I'm going to see if I can get in touch with my friend in Israel and see what he says about it" Tom, Getting rid of the colons will not help. As you can see, there is only one in each line (in the first five verses I posted above), so one can see which letters would move into the fiftieth column by going one letter further right for each line down the page. You still don't come out with anything close to TWRH. Sincerely, Steve