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volgadon

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  1. Book of Jeraneck?

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    Bert, at the risk of repeating myself, you are not a prophet. At the very most you have a stewardship over your immediate family members. You have no right to set forth God's law again. No more right than I have over you. You are acting against the economy of God and his kingdom. The source of your "revelations", I dare say, is that of Hiram Page's. Your works continually attest to that.

  2. What is REQUIRED to change wards?

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    THe Stake President said no too.

    I am leaving the church. I need to be somewhere where they actually care.

    Thank you all for your advice and counsel.

    NanaBana

    Don't leave the church. It really is not worth it merely because two individuals said no to something you requested. I know where you are coming from. My wife and I are trying to have our records switched to a different ward. Part of the reason is my work schedule, but the main reason is because we do not feel welcome at all in that ward. Indeed, for almost 6 months the only attention we have received is people coming to collect fast offerings. During that time nobody seemed to mind that we weren't attending (we did attend other wards, we didn't stay at home on Sunday), but all of a sudden, as we've tried to switch wards, there has been more attention. Don't let the actions of two individuals turn you away from the right path.

  4. Question about Genesis 1:1

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

    Is that saying only heaven and the earth? I'm asking because it doesn't say anything about creating everything else of the universe like the other planets and galaxies.

    This is called merismus. a pair of concepts (often opposites) represents everything in between. Heaven and earth is another way of saying everything above and everything below.

  5. Smiting Cheeks

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    With the next Sunday School lesson being based around the Sermon on the Mount, I decided to post something I had written for an online debate with a certain concerning Christian and evangelical anti-Mormon over the context of certain portions of the Sermon on the Mount. He claimed that certain belligerent statements by Joseph Smith disqualified him as a Christian. Not only that, the nerve the saints had by defending themselves from the mob!

    There are five occurences of smiting the cheek in the Old Testament. Six, if you count a duplicate in Chronicles.

    The implications of smiting on the cheek are made clear in the following two scriptures.

    "They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me." - Job 16:10.

    "He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach." -Lam. 3:30.

    In these verses, smiting on the cheek is linked to insults. This holds true as well for the following three scriptures:

    "And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the LORD: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so. Then the king of Israel called an officer, and said, Hasten hither Micaiah the son of Imlah. And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah sat each on his throne, having put on their robes, in a void place in the entrance of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets prophesied before them. And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made him horns of iron: and he said, Thus saith the LORD, With these shalt thou push the Syrians, until thou have consumed them. And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, Go up to Ramothgilead, and prosper: for the LORD shall deliver it into the king's hand. And the messenger that was gone to call Micaiah spake unto him, saying, Behold now, the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth: let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak that which is good. And Micaiah said, As the LORD liveth, what the LORD saith unto me, that will I speak. So he came to the king. And the king said unto him, Micaiah, shall we go against Ramothgilead to battle, or shall we forbear? And he answered him, Go, and prosper: for the LORD shall deliver it into the hand of the king. And the king said unto him, How many times shall I adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the LORD? And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd: and the LORD said, These have no master: let them return every man to his house in peace.

    And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell thee that he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil? And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee. But Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near, and smote Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of the LORD from me to speak unto thee? And Micaiah said, Behold, thou shalt see in that day, when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself. And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah, and carry him back unto Amon the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son; And say, Thus saith the king, Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I come in peace. And Micaiah said, If thou return at all in peace, the LORD hath not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you." - 1 Kgs 22:8-28.

    At the city gates (centre of public life), in front of the leaders of the people, Zedekiah slaps Micaiah on the cheek, humiliating him. All this for attempting to deceive the kings.

    "Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek." - Micah 5:1 (4:14).

    The besieging enemy will smite the ruler with a rod (symbol of authority) upon the cheek, an humiliating gesture of subjugation.

    "I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about. Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly." - Psalm 3:6-7 (7-8)

    The Psalmist calls upon the Lord to inflict a humiliating and crushing defeat on his enemies. If this was not a call for an humiliating defeat of his enemies, the psalmist's request would be comical.

    Now on to material from the rest of the ancient Near East:

    In the "Descent of Ishtar into the Netherworld," Ereshkigal of the abode of the dead curses a eunuch (or government official) with a great curse and says:

    "The food of the gutters of the city shall be your food;

    The sewers of the city shall be your drink;

    The shadow of the wall shall be your station;

    The threshold shall be your habitation;

    the besotted and the thirsty shall smite your cheeks."

    The eunuch will live in the gutter, and be humiliated by the lowest of the low- the drunks and bums.

    An Akkadian maqlu text preserves the following imprecation:

    "I strike your cheek, I tear out your tongue." - G. Meier, "Die Assyrische Beschworung Maqlu", 50, 8:101.

    As part of the Akitu, or Babylonian New Year ritual, the urgallu, or priest, would do the following on day five:

    "After reciting this, he shall remove the table; he shall summon the craftsmen together, he shall deliver the table with all that is on it to the craftsmen, and shall cause them to carry it to Nabu; the craftsmen shall take it, they shall go in the…to the bank of the canal; when Nabu arrives at ….they shall set it up for Nabu; when they have placed the table before Nabu, while Nabu is getting out of the ship Id-da-he-du, they shall offer the loaves of the table; then they shall place on the table water to wash the hands of the king. Then they shall conduct the king into Esagila; the craftsmen shall go out of the gate. When the king has come in before Bel, the urigallu shall come out of the chapel; then he shall receive from the hands of the king, the scepter, the ring, and the harpe, or ceremonial weapon; he shall take his royal crown; he shall bring these things in before Bel, and shall place them on a seat before Bel. He shall come out of the chapel; he shall strike the king's cheek; he shall place…behind him; he shall bring him before Bel; he shall pull his ears; he shall make him kneel on the ground; the king shall repeat the following once:

    I have not sinned, lord of the countries; I have not despised thy divinity;

    I have not destroyed Babel; I have not caused it to be scattered;

    I have not shaken Esagila; I have not forgotten its rituals;

    I have not smitten suppliants on the cheek;

    I have not humiliated them;

    I care for Babel; I have not broken down its walls."

    - James Pritchard, "Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament", pg. 334.

    Around 750 BC, the Aramaeans Mattiel, king of Arpad, and Bargayah, king of KTK entered into a parity treaty. On stela I from Sefire the following curses are recorded, to be heaped upon the violator of said treaty:

    40. [Just as] this calf is cut in two, so may Mattiel be cut in two, and may his nobles be cut in two!

    [And just as]

    41. a [har]lot is stripped naked], so may the wives of Mattiel be stripped naked, and the wives of his offspring, and the wives of [his] no[bles!

    42. And just as this wax woman is taken] and one strikes her on the face, so may the [wives of Mattiel] be taken [and…

    The laws of Eshnunna and the laws of Hammurabi both treat knocking out eyes, teeth, and slaps on the face as severe offences, for which large fines are levied.

    A little after Christ’s time, we read in the Mishnah, t. Baba Kama 8:6 that, “If one boxes another man's ear, he has to pay him a sela. Rabbi Yehudah in the name of Rabbi Yosei HaGalili says, [He has to pay him] a maneh [i.e., one hundred dinar;]. If he slapped him he has to pay him two hundred zuz; [if he did it] with the back of his hand, he has to pay him four hundred zuz. If he pulled his ear, plucked his hair, spat so that the spittle reached him, removed his garment from upon him, uncovered the head of a woman in the marketplace, he must pay four hundred zuz.”

    The Tosefta Baba Kama 9:31 expands the ruling:

    "If one struck someone with the back of his hand… he must pay four hundred zuz, not because it is a painful blow but because it is a humiliating blow."

    Smiting the cheek was part of the humliations Christ was subjected to after his arrest.

    “And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him. And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee? And many other things blasphemously spake they against him.” - Luke 22:63-65.

    Nahum Sarna, in his article "Legal Terminology in Psalm 3:8," relates an account from the life of Abraham Shapira:

    “In modern times, Abraham Shapira (1870-1965), head watchman of Petah Tikvah and a keen student of the ways and customs of the Bedouin, once observed the trial of two members of a tribe. One had been accused of stabbing someone with a sword, the other of having smacked someone on the face. The presiding sheikh dealt leniently with the stabber but severely with the other one. In explaining his verdict, he stated: ‘The striking of the cheek is a graver offence than stabbing with a sword, for the latter enhances the dignity of a man, while striking him on the cheek humiliates him.’"

    Earlier in the same study, Sarna comments that “the various contexts make it absolutely clear , beyond the peradventure of a doubt, that to be struck on the cheek was an intolerable insult, a deep humiliation, not a mere slight to be soon forgotten.”

    From personal experience growing up in Israel, I remember that fights, both among Jewish kids and Arab ones, did not get truly nasty until someone spat on another, or slapped him on the face. If that happened, knifings or severe beatings would immediately follow. Things could be patched up at any moment BEFORE such insults. After them, this was impossible without third-party intervention and serious peace-making efforts.

    Back to the Sermon on the Mount, we saw that eye, tooth and smote cheek are mentioned together. The context could not be any clearer: Christ talked of not returning the ultimate personal insults. Nowhere does he say that man must not defend himself, family and friends. Nowhere does he say that if one does not follow that, then one is not a Christian.

  8. What is truly the Word of God

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    Greek also was frequently written without spaces MUCHLIKETHISSOPUNCTUATIONATTHEMOSTELLSUSABOUTTHEINTERPRETATIONFAVOUREDBYKJVTRANSLATORS.

    I've frequently said that the scriptures are not the word of God. They contain a record of some of the word of God. The word of God is what he reveals, and more importantly, commands.

    What we are dealing with in Revelation and John 1 is the Logos (Greek for word), a divine agent which carries out God's commands. Especially when it comes to the creation of the world. It is the direct equivalent of the Aramaic Memra, which is frequently encountered in the Aramaic paraphrases of the Bible in similar contexts.

    Daniel Boyarin explains the situation in the first few centuries after Christ.

    "The finally definitive move for the Rabbis was to transfer all Logos and Sophia talk to the Torah alone, thus effectively accomplishing two powerful discursive moves at once: consolidating their power as the sole religious virtuosi and leaders of "the Jews", aand protecting one version of monotheistic thinking from the problematic of division within the godhead. For the Rabbis, Torah supersedes Logos, just as for John, Logos supersedes Torah. Or, to put it into more fully Johanine terms, if for John the Logos Incarnate in Jesus replaces the Logos revealed in the Book, for the Rabbis the Logos Incarnate in the Book displaces the Logos that subsists anywhere else but in the Book. This move on the part of the Rabbis at the end of the rabbinic period effectively displaces the structure of western thought, embodied in the Fourth Gospel, whereby Logos is located most directly and presently in the voice of the speaker, Jesus, with the written text understood at best as a secondary reflection of the speaker's intention."

    (Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: the partition of Judaeo-Christianity, pg. 129.)

  9. 2 Esdras 13:39-50 (Apocrypha)

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    I'm afraid I don't know the Middle East well enough that a Russian map gives me much for bearings.

    It is a map of southern Russia and the Caucasus.

    Generally speaking when an American in an American heavy environment talks about natives they are talking about Native Americans.

    I suspected as much, in which case LDSC's use of 2 Esdras makes little sense.

    Indeed, we're all natives of somewhere.

    Yes.

  12. Adam-God...misunderstood?

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    "When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body"

    "He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken—He is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do."

    You notice how in quote one Brigham has "he" yet in quote two he has "-He" with the "h" capitalized in the way some people capitalize He for Christ or God the Father. The "-" before the "He" usually indicates a change in a statement so it seems like Brigham was referring to Adam of the garden before the "-" and Christ from "He" until "later". The "He is Michael" is after a period which is why that "he" is capitalized.

    The problem is that page 50 of vol. 1 of the JoD doesn't use quotation marks. Journal of discourses - Google Books

    Nor is it in a different paragraph.

  20. Luke 23 and Latin America (Central and South America)?

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    38 And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, This Is the King of the Jews.

    I've always thought this verse kind of links up the Old World and New World. The main reason is because one of the languages the sign above Christ's head was Latin. Calvary is the Latin alternative word for Golgotha. It comes from the Latin words Calvariae Locus. Latin America, that being Central and South America, contains "daughter" languages of the Latin language. The main ones are Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Calvary was just outside the walls of Jerusalem so there's no doubt people in Jerusalem knew Latin. The only way forms of Latin could have traveled to Latin America was if someone migrated who knew the language. Nephi and the others were from Jerusalem so there's a good chance they knew Latin which could be how forms of the Latin language got to Latin America. So could there possibly be a connection?

    I'm afraid I don't follow your reasoning here at all.

    The Romans placed the trilingual sign. Latin was very poorly known in 2nd Temple era Judaea and Galilee. The tiny Roman Jewish community knew it, but most importantly, the Romans did! It was their official language, though Greek was more common in the East. That is the reason why Latin appears. How you are going to tie this to Jerusalem of 586 BC is beyond me. There is absolutely zero chance that Lehi and co. knew Latin.

    The reason Central and South America contain Spanish, Portuguese, and French is because those were the nations that conquered South and Central America. There is nothing connecting those or any other Latin language to pre-Columbian America.

    Spanish is spoken in areas controlled by Spain, Portuguese in those belonging to Portugal, and French in the area France had. THAT is how they ended up there.

  24. Why did we baptize Hitler

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    The really crazy thing... I can't say that I am any better than Hitler or that I will be in a better place than Hitler in the eternities. And that's even after my grandfather died in WWII. And I am 100% sure I can still say that even if I'm descended from a family annihilated personally by Hitler.

    Because, I see 3 crosses on that hill - Jesus Christ being one of them, and to his side a criminal granted a place in the eternities.

    And I've worn vengefulness before and it was like 80's fashion - it never did look good on me.

    Who was speaking of vengefulness? He is welcome to his place in the Telestial kingdom. What I find distasteful about this thread is equaling the idea of forgiving all men with baptising them. I am of the opinion that given Hitler's acts and rhetoric (which are a pretty good indication of his thoughts) that if Christ deems any repentance by Hitler effective in overcoming his evil, then he will instruct the prophets to have the ordinances done. In other words, it is not something we should be concerning ourselves with.