About eighteen months ago I started down an eighteen-month rabbit hole, only recently to emerge. The hole was highly restrictive yet absurdly complex - at least for me. The quest started innocently enough. If Jesus did, then how in the Greek did he make mention of collective entities - entities that he himself was a part. Notably to me, the ekkelsia (church) was in mind.
Now, before you ran around shouting an answer like, “We, we, we!”. We is a first person plural. True, a collective may consist of many individuals or parts, but it is not a plural. A restriction was that Jesus had to speak the word and he had to be part of that collective. A complexity was that Jesus never says he is part of the ekkelsia.
Suppose your car could talk. Think about it, I mean Mr. Ed did talk and he was a horse. Suppose every single piece of your car, as an individual and distinct piece could talk, then in what frame of reference would the car (collective) speak. See, the car is not a piece - not a piece of the car - but a collective term that identifies the sum total of all the individual parts. The car could not speak in the first, second, or third person, UNLESS speaking to other such entities. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. How is the car able to give a narrative without speaking from a place of “personhood”?
SIDENOTE: We all need to belong to a “hood” - personhood is an easy and familiar starting point.
The last two sites produce mild conniption fits in the corpuscles of my thinking. I eventually decided to develop my own “Jesus Words Only” ‘bible’ modules to use inside the “theWord” bible software program that I use for searching into such biblical thingies. This took some time. Actually a lot of time - a steep learning curve for this less than agile mind. Jesus spoken about 30,426 words in total, which are recorded in the four gospels and the first chapter of Acts.
Did you ever wonder what words Jesus actually used, how many times, and what words he did not use? Hmmmm?
As of this writing two things stand out to me - I sure there are many, many more. Ya know, a fact is simply a point were we agree to let investigation cease.
One thing is this. Jesus did not use the word “hope” - at all. Yes, hope as in the noun “elpis”, as in the Greek. Wait, wait, wait, don’t stop reading. “Hope” is not even used anywhere in the gospel writings or up and through Acts 1:8, which holds the last words spoken by Jesus. Peter is the first to use “elpis” in Acts 2:26. He did use elpizo, a verb, two times - Luke 6:34 and John 5:45.
There was no “hope” in Jesus’s message. This boggled my mind. “So what!”, might be your thought. I reply with a “So WHAT? How can this not be important.”
A second thingy is this, one of his most spoken phrases is, wait for it, wait for it, is “son of the man”. Jesus uses this phase in more than seventy-five verses. Without getting too messy, but for the purpose of searching the Greek, the phrase is huios ho/hE/to anthrOpos. So what! SO WHAT?. Do ya know how many times it is used elsewhere in the new testament. I’m guessing you probably don’t. One time. Yes, just one time in Acts 7:56. Boy, I bet you can now really smoke some friends in that biblical trivia game.
Well, the first thingy, “no hope” in Jesus’s message, left be bummed out for about two weeks. But that’s okay cuz there was another direction I was permitted to go. So I went there.
The second thingy, “son of-the man/mankind” and Paul’s total lack of use thereof has me awondering. Awondering is more than just a simple wondering. Then I speculated that Paul’s use of the word “Christ” is a replacement for Jesus’ “son of-the man/mankind”.
Okay then. That should about do it for now.
Élan ..· ´¨¨)) * ¸.·´ ..·´ ¨¨)) * * ((¸¸.·´ ..·´ ♥ * ((¸¸.·´His Life This Day
Hoping - Furthermore
Posted by Élan on December 11, 2023, 5:38 pm, in reply to "Furthermore"
Greetings,
Like I said, the lack of use of the word “hope” (noun -elpis) in all four gospels and the first chapter of Acts is revealing and a bit disheartening. Some translators use the English word “expectation” rather than “hope”. Either way, elpis is not in the message of Jesus Christ.
I might think that elpis was not in common usage in Jesus’s day and such thinking might be correct. This thinking sent me off to look for a verb equivalent for elpis because many Greek nouns are derived from verbs. Lo and behold, yes, the verb form elpizO is used by Jesus when quoting from Isaiah in Matthew 12:21, used again in Luke 6:34, again in John 5:45. ElpizO is used by Herod in Luke 23:8 and apelpizO (not-expecting) by Jesus in Luke 6:35. Oh, and the guys on the road to Emmaus - remember them - they, get this, they explained to Jesus that they were hoping (elpizO) that Jesus was, before His death, about to be redeeming Israel. Right there in Luke 24:21.
So, I am left to surmise that Jesus knew and understood the meaning of both elpis and elpizO yet there is nothing in His message that is based in the noun elpis, or in the verb elpizO. Just a tad bit weird to me. To me, “hope” (and “hoping”) taps into something not yet received and is sprinkled with at least a smidgen of uncertainty. Furthermore, hope seems to project into the future - as into the future tense - about something that is not yet realized. It could be the near-future or the distance-future, future nonetheless. Jesus was very much about present tense. The bulk of His recorded sentences are constructed with present tense verbs. Parables might be the largest exception from this generalization.
So, if there isn’t a teeny-weeny bit of hope in His message, then what have I been embarrassingly missing for far too many years? I mean, if not hope, then what? “Faith”(pistis - noun) comes to mind. Fair warning to you, this might get a bit bumpy. Faith would need to be “faith” without an inkling of “hope”. Here’s the bump - Hebrews 11:1. Flat use of elpizO (verb in present tense) to define pistis (noun). Even though Jesus provides no such definitions, Hebrew 11:1 seems very much contrary to the overall message that Jesus Christ evangelized.
Smooth out this little bump any way you prefer. I say, Jesus did not have any elpis with His pistis, not even a hint. Tentatively, I hold to an understanding that the writer of Hebrews was given to write from a different perspective than that of Jesus. No harm and no foul in doing this - just different. Jesus’s perspective was rock-solid pistis (noun) and pisteuO (verb). Pistis and pisteuO in present tense, real time, right here and right now. This was the connection He was enjoying with Father. He did not defer to the future with hope or hoping - that was not His Life - not His perspective. Hope and hoping belong to another life perspective - another perspective that follows in the wake made by Jesus’s perspective.
Élan ..· ´¨¨)) * ¸.·´ ..·´ ¨¨)) * * ((¸¸.·´ ..·´ ♥ * ((¸¸.·´His Life This Day
Claimer
Posted by Élan on December 12, 2023, 5:56 pm, in reply to "Furthermore"
Greetings,
In this entire thread there is a premium stake attributed to Jesus’s spoken words. His spoken words are unmatched in importance. All the apostles and all the witnesses that wrote concerning the significance of Jesus’s words pale in the light of His words.
In the written record (the four gospels and the first chapter of Acts) we find He spoke about 30,425 words in about 1,934 verses, depending on which Greek manuscripts are referenced. We can search His words and find His ten most used verbs, nouns, and/or phrases. He taught in large sweeping generalizations. We can easily (well, pretty easily) discover that many tenets enjoyed by those professing Him did not originated with Him. In Jesus’s spoken words I can find no inkling of religion.
Many of the near and dear teachings in today’s Christianity never crossed His mind. That there would be “misunderstandings” seemed of little concern to Him. The new testament writers applied their understanding of the teachings of Jesus into their contextual settings. Their words may have been inspired by spirit, but the bases for the spirit was the words Jesus Christ. His words were not inspired - He did not need inspiration - He was the Word. However, Jesus never said He was, or is the Word.
His words unfolded as they did because of a very unique perspective regarding life, regarding living. He taught with a fierce and intimate grasp on the spirit’s inclinations and movings. Please keep this in mind should you continue to meander through this tread.
Élan ..· ´¨¨)) * ¸.·´ ..·´ ¨¨)) * * ((¸¸.·´ ..·´ ♥ * ((¸¸.·´His Life This Day