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Message
re: Christians: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love“
Posted on 2/15/26 at 5:34 am to RiverCityTider
Posted on 2/15/26 at 5:34 am to RiverCityTider
quote:
dont care if they are Trans or gay or left wing nuts. I will not denigrate them. You have to lead with kindness or your message has no chance.
Correct!
But as a Christian engaging online I will point on the world’s desire to pull us into acceptance of sinful lifestyles
As Christians, we have to have our personal convictions
It’s really not up to us how another person is going to live their lives
But we also when it’s time to vote or to voice our opinions, it needs to be consistent with scripture
And it has to be consistent with how a politician would handle such issues
It’s delicate yeah it’s really not that difficult
You know what the Bible says so therefore you can’t just be OK with everything that goes on in the world
So I think the difference is, we can accept the things around us, but we do not have to approve them
Does that make sense?
0
Posted on 2/15/26 at 7:28 am to AlwysATgr
quote:
Gal. 4:4 reads, ". . . God sent forth his Son, born of woman [genomenon (ptc form of ginomai which woodenly means "I become") ek gunaikos)], born (also genomenon) under the law."
This is the best evidence of Paul believing Jesus had a literal birth. It’s not very good evidence but still the best there is. Paul uses a form of ginomai in verse 4, and then in verses 23 and 29 he uses a form of gennao to describe literal births. Paul absolutely knew the difference in the two words. He uses ginomai over again in 1 Cor 15:45 when he wrote the first Adam was created a living soul, and the last Adam (Jesus, of course) was created a life giving spirit.
So ginomai could be used to mean a literal birth depending on the context. But ginomai is less common for literal births. The more common and unambiguous term is gennao. I think you would agree with me on that one. It’s objectively true. Our issue is that you think the evidence points to ginomai in this case in Galatians 4:4 to mean “born” while I think the evidence clearly points to verse 4 being “created” or “made” or “came into being”.
A lot of early Christians sided with my view on this. And consequently when they were standardizing Christianity in the 4th century, they had to add this little gem into the Nicene Creed… that Jesus was “begotten, not made”.
Posted on 2/15/26 at 10:33 am to AlwysATgr
quote:
he just pivots to his next wild jackassery.
Agreed he's obviously a Jehovah's Witness, as he rotates between there is a secret oh if only you could break the code, and then fake atheism.
It's interesting in the way mental illness is interesting, it sparked in my mind the question, what if Artificial intelligence large language models biggest problem is that they act like an individual with autism?
Posted on 2/15/26 at 4:59 pm to Narax
quote:
Agreed he's obviously a Jehovah's Witness, as he rotates between there is a secret oh if only you could break the code,
You have to read the whole chapter. Paul even tells the reader to interpret it all allegorically (verse 24). Jesus (who was pre-existing in a spirit body) had to wear a garment of sinful flesh - had to be born of woman - of Hagar - he was made low taking the form of a slave (metaphorical child of Hagar, literal body of flesh) so that he could be killed. His death and resurrection - his resurrected body being a perfect pneumatic/spirit body (but still corporeal) - is what allowed his followers to also be risen up in the same type of imperishable spirt bodies and becoming metaphorical children of Sarah, of the promise.
It’s complicated. I don’t expect you twits to understand it.
quote:
and then fake atheism
I should just look at the trees and the mountains. Be in awe at the firmament and the waters above! How great is the one who set the sun, the moon, and the lights in the firmament to let us know the seasons and direction and to be able to calculate the dates of festivals! It’s all plain and clear that that one particular war god of the Shasu - Yahweh Sabaoth - made all the material shite in the universe. I am without excuse!
quote:
It's interesting in the way mental illness is interesting
There is still time for you to snap out of your delusions of a magic sky daddy.
Posted on 2/15/26 at 5:04 pm to CatahoulaCur
I advise preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Love is God. But the entire story of Jesus is best summarized by his life, the gospel.
When you hear love, there are many types of “love”.
When you hear love, there are many types of “love”.
This post was edited on 2/15/26 at 5:06 pm
Posted on 2/15/26 at 5:06 pm to Squirrelmeister
quote:
It’s complicated
It's not complicated, you are an autistic Jehovah's Witness, that's well understood by this point.
And I don't even mean this as an insult.
Posted on 2/17/26 at 1:06 pm to Squirrelmeister
I'm back. Thanks for waiting.
I’m familiar with the Ascension of Isaiah argument. The key issue isn’t whether that text contains a celestial descent/crucifixion narrative — it clearly does. The question is dating and priority.
Most critical scholars date the Vision section to the late first or early second century. That’s after Paul. So even if it reflects a heavenly-descent model, that doesn’t establish it as the earliest layer of Christianity. It could just as easily represent a later theological development interacting with already-existing traditions.
On 1 John / 2 John — yes, there were groups denying that Jesus came in the flesh. But that presupposes that there was already a claim that he did come in the flesh. You don’t argue against a position that doesn’t exist yet.
On “seed of David,” you already agreed it’s standard Jewish lineage language. Once that’s granted, the burden shifts. To argue Paul meant literal sperm-based heavenly fabrication requires evidence that Jews used that idiom that way. I’m not aware of any.
So I think the decisive issue remains priority. What solid evidence places a purely celestial-crucifixion model before the historical-Jesus tradition, rather than as a parallel or later strand?
I’m familiar with the Ascension of Isaiah argument. The key issue isn’t whether that text contains a celestial descent/crucifixion narrative — it clearly does. The question is dating and priority.
Most critical scholars date the Vision section to the late first or early second century. That’s after Paul. So even if it reflects a heavenly-descent model, that doesn’t establish it as the earliest layer of Christianity. It could just as easily represent a later theological development interacting with already-existing traditions.
On 1 John / 2 John — yes, there were groups denying that Jesus came in the flesh. But that presupposes that there was already a claim that he did come in the flesh. You don’t argue against a position that doesn’t exist yet.
On “seed of David,” you already agreed it’s standard Jewish lineage language. Once that’s granted, the burden shifts. To argue Paul meant literal sperm-based heavenly fabrication requires evidence that Jews used that idiom that way. I’m not aware of any.
So I think the decisive issue remains priority. What solid evidence places a purely celestial-crucifixion model before the historical-Jesus tradition, rather than as a parallel or later strand?
Posted on 2/17/26 at 1:34 pm to CatahoulaCur
One could imagine that Hate is the absence of Love. Supposedly, Lucifer wanted to be loved and worshipped like God, and rebelled and was booted from Heaven along with one third of the angels. Lucifer believes that God. created Humanity to worship Him (God), and that he(Lucifer) is only following God’s lead and character. Of course the truth that God created Humanity for the altruistic purpose of sharing Love is lost in Lucifer’s ‘Projection’. God did not need the worship, especially from relative idiots like us who - but for Love - are way down the awareness and knowledge scale.
Today’s Left believes that Christian Conservatives (Capitalist Republicans) value affluence more so than they do Jesus’s admonitions for charity re the poor, and meeting the qualifications for Heaven therein. The Marxists believe that Capitalism is selfish, societal divisive, and Christianity hypocritical, and that Capitalist will fight and kill to maintain their power and relative affluence. Therefore the hate. There is nothing worse than a self righteous , high minded hypocrite who assumes moral superiority and attempts to foist it on their peers via “the barrel of a gun “.
Right or wrong, that is the Leftist perceptive paradigm. And I suspect that Jesus will come in the nuclear clouds and sort out who is which.
Today’s Left believes that Christian Conservatives (Capitalist Republicans) value affluence more so than they do Jesus’s admonitions for charity re the poor, and meeting the qualifications for Heaven therein. The Marxists believe that Capitalism is selfish, societal divisive, and Christianity hypocritical, and that Capitalist will fight and kill to maintain their power and relative affluence. Therefore the hate. There is nothing worse than a self righteous , high minded hypocrite who assumes moral superiority and attempts to foist it on their peers via “the barrel of a gun “.
Right or wrong, that is the Leftist perceptive paradigm. And I suspect that Jesus will come in the nuclear clouds and sort out who is which.
Posted on 2/17/26 at 9:14 pm to RoyalWe
quote:
I’m familiar with the Ascension of Isaiah argument. The key issue isn’t whether that text contains a celestial descent/crucifixion narrative — it clearly does. The question is dating and priority.
And does the AoI conform to Paul’s gospel of the heavenly crucified Christ by the evil archons who lived in the heavens and ruled the world? Yes it does.
quote:
Most critical scholars date the Vision section to the late first or early second century.
Only because it contains a “pocket gospel” as they call it at the end that is a very abridged summary of the birth and ministry of the earthly Jesus. The earlier layer without the pocket gospel dates contemporaneously with Paul’s letters, or possible earlier. The AoI may not even be the exact source of Paul’s theology, but it does well to establish there were traditions of a purely celestial Jesus at the time of Paul.
quote:
So even if it reflects a heavenly-descent model, that doesn’t establish it as the earliest layer of Christianity. It could just as easily represent a later theological development interacting with already-existing traditions.
Which do you think is more likely? Earthly tradition leading to a celestial only tradition? Or the other way around. We already established through Plutarch that the Osiris cult was originally of the celestial Osiris and they invented stories of the earthly Osiris along with parables as a conversion tool. We have established prior probability from a neighboring culture that the savior cult theology started as celestial only and then tales of the earthly savior appeared later.
quote:
On 1 John / 2 John — yes, there were groups denying that Jesus came in the flesh. But that presupposes that there was already a claim that he did come in the flesh. You don’t argue against a position that doesn’t exist yet.
Yes that’s what I tried to tell you - that by the time 1 John and 2 John were written in the second century, there were competing traditions - one of the purely celestial and one or more of an earthly Jesus.
quote:
On “seed of David,” you already agreed it’s standard Jewish lineage language. Once that’s granted, the burden shifts. To argue Paul meant literal sperm-based heavenly fabrication requires evidence that Jews used that idiom that way. I’m not aware of any.
I will edit and respond to this…
Posted on 2/17/26 at 10:14 pm to Squirrelmeister
Similarity isn’t the same thing as priority.
Even if AoI contains a celestial descent narrative, the key question is still dating and textual layering. What specific evidence places the celestial-crucifixion section before Paul rather than around or after him? Not just possibility — what data fixes that timeline?
On Osiris — parallels establish thematic similarity, not genealogical dependence. Similar patterns across religions don’t automatically establish direction of development. To use that as prior probability, you’d need evidence of transmission into Second Temple Judaism or early Christianity, not just analogy.
As for likelihood — I’m not convinced that “celestial first ? historicized later” is inherently more probable. We also have well-documented cases of historical figures being mythologized upward. That pattern is at least as common.
So I think the issue remains this: what positive evidence establishes that the purely celestial model predates the historical-Jesus tradition, rather than being one competing strand among several in the late first century?
Without that priority established, the mythicist model remains possible — but not more probable.
Even if AoI contains a celestial descent narrative, the key question is still dating and textual layering. What specific evidence places the celestial-crucifixion section before Paul rather than around or after him? Not just possibility — what data fixes that timeline?
On Osiris — parallels establish thematic similarity, not genealogical dependence. Similar patterns across religions don’t automatically establish direction of development. To use that as prior probability, you’d need evidence of transmission into Second Temple Judaism or early Christianity, not just analogy.
As for likelihood — I’m not convinced that “celestial first ? historicized later” is inherently more probable. We also have well-documented cases of historical figures being mythologized upward. That pattern is at least as common.
So I think the issue remains this: what positive evidence establishes that the purely celestial model predates the historical-Jesus tradition, rather than being one competing strand among several in the late first century?
Without that priority established, the mythicist model remains possible — but not more probable.
Posted on 2/22/26 at 9:51 am to RoyalWe
quote:
On “seed of David,” you already agreed it’s standard Jewish lineage language. Once that’s granted, the burden shifts. To argue Paul meant literal sperm-based heavenly fabrication requires evidence that Jews used that idiom that way. I’m not aware of any.
Made of the sperm of so and so is a standard saying that normally refers to distant ancestry or ethnicity or racial makeup. Often it applies allegorically, and Paul is no exception. It doesn’t mean that a whomever is the seed of so and so can trace their lineage back to a single person, but it means the person is of a specific ethnic group.
That’s exactly what Paul is saying in Romans 1:3. Greek sentence order is tricky and sometimes it’s hard to tell what modifies what. Read it in English like this: concerning his son, who was made according to the flesh of the sperm of David. What Paul is saying is that God made a real human body of flesh (so that Jesus could take the form of a slave, ie a metaphorical son of Hagar) of Jewish messianic fleshly substance. Paul believes God changed Jesus’ pre-existent corporeal (but pneumatic - spirit) body (meaning his body originally was a real body not made of flesh but of spirit - a material that was a substance but was of a perfect heavenly substance) into a body of a real flesh and blood human of Jewish ethnicity.
Paul states exactly what I am telling you in Romans 9:
quote:
4They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is (deity, or “a” god) over all, blessed forever. Amen.
Paul states again that Jesus’ fleshly body was a Jewish body.
In Galatians 3 and 4, the whole thing is an allegory. If you take it literally, Jesus would be the son of Hagar in his fleshly body, and then later he would be the son of Sarah. “Mary” is no where mentioned. So in Galatians 4:4 you can’t interpret “made of woman” to be “literally born out of a vagina”. Paul is simply stating Jesus became human. In verse 44 he even specifically tells the audience this is all allegorical, and not to be taken literally… Jesus did not emerge from Hagar’s vagina, but became a flesh and blood “slave”.
And in Philippians 2:6-7:
quote:
But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men.
He tells us again and again Jesus fleshly body was “made”.
2 Corinthians 5 might give you some more perspective:
quote:
14For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 16From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
When Paul says Jesus was made according to the flesh, he simply means he was given a flesh and blood Jewish body by God. So even if you don’t agree because of your biases and dogmas, hopefully you can understand the scholarship and my vantage point. In 20 years this will be mainstream.
quote:
Even if AoI contains a celestial descent narrative, the key question is still dating and textual layering. What specific evidence places the celestial-crucifixion section before Paul rather than around or after him? Not just possibility — what data fixes that timeline?
The pocket gospel at the end that was only in the Ethiopic version was a later addition and can be thrown out. So if we are just left with the Ascent scene and the prophecy - yes this was a prophetic work of a future event that Isaiah was witnessing - of God crafting a human body for his “beloved” archangel who was the firstborn of creation out of Jewish flesh, descending to the lower heavens and tricking the archons of this aeon to kill him in a secret plan the archons didn’t know about, defeating Satan and death and being exalted, given his perfect spirit body body and earning the name “Jesus”, it appears to me and to the scholars I follow that this predates Paul. All Paul has to do is point to the prophetic work about a future event, and say “hey guys, Jesus appeared to me in a vision and all that stuff that was supposed to happen just happened!” And boom, we get Paul’s gospel complete with his writing of the secret plan and the archons killing him in heaven and only earning the name above all names “Jesus” after his death, resurrection, and exaltation.
quote:
On Osiris — parallels establish thematic similarity, not genealogical dependence. Similar patterns across religions don’t automatically establish direction of development. To use that as prior probability, you’d need evidence of transmission into Second Temple Judaism or early Christianity, not just analogy.
I disagree. Mystery savior cults for a fact created stories of a celestial deity becoming a human on earth. And that example I gave you was in a bordering Roman province. I’m not proving causation, but what I am showing is that mystery savior cults were making stories of celestial deities becoming men on earth a hundred miles from Judea and there were a shitload of Jews already in Alexandria and there was a lot of back and forth sharing of culture, therefore it is plausible a Jewish mystery savior cult could have done the same thing inventing stories of their celestial savior being on earth.
quote:
As for likelihood — I’m not convinced that “celestial first ? historicized later” is inherently more probable. We also have well-documented cases of historical figures being mythologized upward. That pattern is at least as common.
That’s fair, but in those instances we know that those people were historical and real. We have no such evidence for Jesus as we do with Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar.
quote:
So I think the issue remains this: what positive evidence establishes that the purely celestial model predates the historical-Jesus tradition, rather than being one competing strand among several in the late first century?
I’m just glad that you admit that there was a competing strand of Christianity where they believed Jesus was celestial and never on earth. The others on this site can’t even admit the obvious. So bravo to you sir. I hope I explained my position thoroughly enough for you to understand. No one will ever be able to prove anything in this regard, as no historian can prove anything, other than to show what is plausible and likely and most likely. For me, the evidence is convincing that the celestial model predated the man on earth model. If we ever find another letter of Paul that is authentic and it mentions Jesus healing the sick in Galilee that would throw my assessment upside down, but until then I have no choice but to believe what the evidence has convinced me.
quote:
Without that priority established, the mythicist model remains possible — but not more probable.
Agree to disagree.
Posted on 2/22/26 at 10:41 am to Squirrelmeister
I think at this point the issue isn’t whether your reading is possible, but whether it’s internally consistent and textually economical.
A few tensions I still see:
1. You agree “seed of David” is standard lineage language, but then read it through a pre-existing cosmology of heavenly body fabrication. That feels model-driven rather than text-driven.
2. You treat Galatians 4 as allegory in a way that seems to retroactively absorb verse 4 into it, even though Paul signals where the allegory begins (verse 21+).
3. Your argument depends heavily on Ascension of Isaiah predating Paul. But that dating is debated. Alignment doesn’t establish priority, and priority is doing a lot of work in your model.
4. You argue probability via mystery cult parallels. But that cuts both ways — repeating, history is full of upward mythologizing of real figures as well. So probability alone doesn’t settle direction.
5. Earlier you emphasized epistemic consistency and contradictions as decisive. But your model requires multiple reinterpretations of what would otherwise be read as ordinary Jewish messianic language. That seems like the same kind of harmonizing move you have criticized.
I’m not saying your position is incoherent. I’m saying it appears to require more scaffolding than the minimal historical model.
If you’re content with “agree to disagree,” that’s fine. But if we’re weighing models, I think those pressure points need stronger grounding than analogy and plausibility.
I've enjoyed the debate/discussion, so thanks for that.
A few tensions I still see:
1. You agree “seed of David” is standard lineage language, but then read it through a pre-existing cosmology of heavenly body fabrication. That feels model-driven rather than text-driven.
2. You treat Galatians 4 as allegory in a way that seems to retroactively absorb verse 4 into it, even though Paul signals where the allegory begins (verse 21+).
3. Your argument depends heavily on Ascension of Isaiah predating Paul. But that dating is debated. Alignment doesn’t establish priority, and priority is doing a lot of work in your model.
4. You argue probability via mystery cult parallels. But that cuts both ways — repeating, history is full of upward mythologizing of real figures as well. So probability alone doesn’t settle direction.
5. Earlier you emphasized epistemic consistency and contradictions as decisive. But your model requires multiple reinterpretations of what would otherwise be read as ordinary Jewish messianic language. That seems like the same kind of harmonizing move you have criticized.
I’m not saying your position is incoherent. I’m saying it appears to require more scaffolding than the minimal historical model.
If you’re content with “agree to disagree,” that’s fine. But if we’re weighing models, I think those pressure points need stronger grounding than analogy and plausibility.
I've enjoyed the debate/discussion, so thanks for that.
Posted on 2/22/26 at 6:06 pm to RoyalWe
quote:
1. You agree “seed of David” is standard lineage language, but then read it through a pre-existing cosmology of heavenly body fabrication. That feels model-driven rather than text-driven.
Paul writes that Jesus is a created being, correct? The first man Adam was made a living being, the last man Adam (Jesus) was made a life giving spirit. Jesus was made, not born, of (a) woman (metaphorical son of the slave Hagar). God sent his son in the likeness of flesh. Though starting in the form of God, he (the one who would become Jesus, the beloved archangel) emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of a human. And although it wasn’t Paul who wrote Colossians, it was still his school of thought that wrote Jesus was the firstborn of creation.
So to me, taking Paul in his original context, knowing the Paul never wrote one lick about the later version of Jesus of the gospels that puts Jesus on planet earth, and knowing that every time Paul wrote “according to the flesh” it was in context to Jesus becoming/transforming into a flesh and blood human, and knowing that Paul knew the Greek word for “born” (out of a vagina) and used that word often but not once ever to describe Jesus, what is most convincing to me is that God made Jesus a human body of Jewish kingly fleshly material.
It is both model driven and text driven. I think I described the model already and maybe even the text but the text says Jesus was made, not born. So if you want to say you interpret it as being born out of a vagina, I think it is you who are interpreting it not based on the text alone of Paul but of the corpus of New Testament writings of other others and perhaps some dogmas.
quote:
2. You treat Galatians 4 as allegory in a way that seems to retroactively absorb verse 4 into it, even though Paul signals where the allegory begins (verse 21+).
The signal is actually on verse 24. You seem to have chosen to go up to verse 21 and to say it starts there. Just go back one chapter.
quote:
1O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.
Does Paul believe someone cast a spell on the Galatians? (Maybe
). Does he believe all the Galatians decades later witnesses Christ crucifixion? Maybe this is allegorical. quote:
7Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
Those who have faith in Christ are Abraham’s literal biological progeny?
quote:
18For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
This is important. Remember this.
quote:
22But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Allegory. The scripture didn’t grow arms and legs and put Christians in prison.
quote:
23Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,
More allegory. The law has been personified as a guardian.
quote:
26for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
Paul explains that Christians are sons of God in an allegorical manner, not literal biological descendants. Rather, by faith. It’s metaphorical, not literal.
quote:
28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
I hope I don’t have to explain all things metaphor.
quote:
1I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave,a though he is the owner of everything, 2but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
Paul didn’t assign chapters and verses.
Then we have the thing about made of woman, which Paul later explains is allegorical as in sons of Hagar the slave, but you seem to argue that this thing in a sea of allegory is the one thing we should interpret literally as born out of a vagina, though textually it doesn’t say “born” at all but “made”.
quote:
23But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar.
Remember chapter 3 verse 18? Paul is still talking about children of promise. So this argument Paul says is allegorical… it wraps and surrounds the one you want to take literal after changing the meaning of the Greek words. And it Greek, it doesn’t say “may be taken as allegory” as the ESV softens the language is English. In the Greek is straight up says all this stuff is allegory.
Posted on 2/22/26 at 6:24 pm to RoyalWe
quote:
3. Your argument depends heavily on Ascension of Isaiah predating Paul. But that dating is debated. Alignment doesn’t establish priority, and priority is doing a lot of work in your model.
It is debated for sure, but I wouldn’t say my argument depends on it. To me if we never found the AoI we’d still end up with the same answer. The AoI to me just removes any shred of doubt, that there were prophetic works circulating about the future Jesus becoming like a slave - a human - and descending down on a secret mission to be killed by the archons in heaven, and then being resurrected, given a newly remade spirit body, exalted to the right hand of God, and given the name above all names - Jesus. What I just wrote - you don’t know if I pulled it out of the AoI or out of Paul’s letters. No one can, because they contain the same material.
What do I think is more likely? That a prophecy was written first, and then later on some guy says the prophecy was fulfilled finally? Or some guy makes up a bunch of kooky stuff, it spreads around, and then someone wrote prophetic material in hindsight? We have examples of both actually happening. For instance the book of Daniel was written in about 150BC about stuff that was “going to happen” during the Babylonian and Persian and Greek periods and then all the prophetic claims suddenly get everything after 150BC wrong while everything else was mostly correct. I don’t know if the chicken or the egg came first here. Both are plausible. What convinces me is motive. I don’t see any motive to write a retroactive prophetic work on this material. I think the prophetic work came first, and then James and Peter said “that prophecy actually just came to fruition, Jesus has been killed and resurrected!” And then Paul allegedly had a vision or hallucination or dream and then jumped on the bandwagon.
quote:
4. You argue probability via mystery cult parallels. But that cuts both ways — repeating, history is full of upward mythologizing of real figures as well. So probability alone doesn’t settle direction.
That’s true, but the those other mythologizing of historical characters generally weren’t personal saviors to start with. I lean on the Osiris cult as a great example of a mystery cult personal savior starting as mythology and then gospels of the earthy Osiris were created and the “mature” in their faith knew the “truth” of the celestial deity never having been on earth. I can’t prove anything, but just telling you why I am convinced.
quote:
I’m not saying your position is incoherent. I’m saying it appears to require more scaffolding than the minimal historical model.
I understand why you believe that second part. Guys like Bart Ehrman kind of have the same viewpoint - look at all this stuff written about this person… there must’ve been an historical dude of some sort. I get it, and I shared that view for many years myself. And thank you for the first comment. It is nice to actually have a rational, logical conversation with someone on here.
Posted on 2/22/26 at 9:05 pm to chatterbait
quote:
Love is God
If God is love, and love is God, does that square with reality? Is rape love, for instance?
In 2 Samuel we find this:
quote:
10Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ 11Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’”
So because David committed adultery in secret, the LORD is going to let his neighbor rape all of David’s wives. There is no hint of consenting on the part of the wives.
Is a god that does evil and actively takes part in the rape of women… love?
Why didn’t he just punish David himself? Instead, he violates all of David’s wives and kills his newborn son. Doesn’t seem very just, and doesn’t seem like love to me.
Posted on 2/22/26 at 10:32 pm to RCDfan1950
quote:
Supposedly, Lucifer wanted to be loved and worshipped like God, and rebelled and was booted from Heaven along with one third of the angels.
RCDfan, you are confusing two unrelated biblical works.
“Lucifer” from Isaiah 14 is pretty interesting. It is from a prophetic work from “first” Isaiah (scholars normally break Isaiah up into first Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah, and third Isaiah for the three authors or three sets of authors who wrote the material later compiled by another compiler/redactor).
The author is writing about prophecy about the future destruction and fall of Babylon and their boastful king Nebuchadnezzar II who was taking over the entire world known to the Jews.
Side note: King Nebuchadnezzar was named after the Semitic deity “Nebo” who was worshipped from Babylon to Canaan. In Exodus 34, Moses meets the LORD (Yahweh) on Mount Nebo.
So in Isaiah 14, the author is comparing the Babylonian king to characters in a Canaanite myth that he didn’t elaborate on, most likely because anyone who he thought would read his work would already know who “Lucifer” was. Well, a few thousand years later and we need a reminder. We know of this Canaanite myth due to a find of clay tablets in ancient Ugarit in Syria.
In the myth, Helel (minor deity and son of the Canaanite god of the dawn) in his pride tries to usurp El Elyon (the Canaanite high/father deity, also a name of the Israelite god in the Bible such as in Deuteronomy 32:8-9), but Helel is defeated and cast down.
Now for Isaiah 14:12, inserting the transliterated Hebrew in bold.
quote:
How you are fallen from heaven, Helel, son of Shahar! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!
Shahar, as the god of the dawn, became “dawn” in the English translations. Helel, his son, became Phosphorous in Greek, and Lucifer in Latin. The name means “shining one”. Most English translations use the proper noun name of the Latin for some reason. But it’s definitely a name of a minor Canaanite deity any way you slice it.
Helel is not Satan. It was a wishful taunt - a sort of murder fantasy of the Jewish writer that the Babylonians and their king would be punished for conquering the Jews.
The one booted from heaven in revelation 12 has nothing to do with the myth of Helel being booted from heaven. The dragon is the seven-headed ancient serpent called Leviathan - the fleeing serpent, the twisting serpent, the dragon with seven heads from Canaanite mythology (also found at the Ugaritic library. Now let’s look at the parallels:
Isiah 27:1
quote:
In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
Ugaritic Text (Baal Cycle, Tablet 4, Lines 23–30):
quote:
Yam, the king of the sea,
called upon Lotan, the seven-headed serpent,
who dwells in the sea,
the twisting serpent.
He set Lotan against Baal,
to fight with him.
Baal lifted his spear and threw it with great might.
It struck Lotan, the twisting serpent,
the seven-headed dragon,
and the monster's scaly hide was shattered.
Baal's spear pierced the heads of Lotan,
he struck down the seven-headed beast.
Lotan is the Ugaritic cognate word for Leviathan.
And Revelation 12 excerpts:
quote:
3And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems
quote:
12Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
Psalm 74:13-14
quote:
You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
Another interesting tidbit: the Babylonian word for the chaotic evil seven headed sea dragon was “Tiamat”. And we get the Hebrew word “Tehom” from it, which refers to the deep chaotic sea.
Posted on 2/23/26 at 11:40 am to Squirrelmeister
I think we’ve probably reached the natural stopping point here.
We’ve covered AoI, motive, mystery cult parallels, allegory, and Pauline language. At this stage, it seems the disagreement isn’t really about any one verse — it’s about what standard we’re using to evaluate competing models.
From my side, I haven’t seen positive evidence that establishes priority for the purely celestial model over a minimal historical one. I understand why you find the reconstruction plausible. I just don’t find that plausibility sufficient to overturn the default Jewish lineage language and messianic categories present in Paul’s undisputed letters.
We’ve gone back and forth on the mystery cult parallel point, and I don’t think similarity of pattern establishes direction. On AoI, priority remains debated. On motive, both directions are historically possible. So without clearer evidence anchoring one model earlier than the other, I don’t see a reason to prefer the heavier reconstruction.
That doesn’t make your position incoherent. It just means I’m not persuaded it’s more probable on the available evidence.
I’ve appreciated the exchange and the tone. Honestly, this may be the first time I’ve had this level of discussion on here without it devolving into ad hominem, and I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to explain your position carefully.
Unless there’s new evidence or a different angle to bring in, I’m comfortable leaving it there.
We’ve covered AoI, motive, mystery cult parallels, allegory, and Pauline language. At this stage, it seems the disagreement isn’t really about any one verse — it’s about what standard we’re using to evaluate competing models.
From my side, I haven’t seen positive evidence that establishes priority for the purely celestial model over a minimal historical one. I understand why you find the reconstruction plausible. I just don’t find that plausibility sufficient to overturn the default Jewish lineage language and messianic categories present in Paul’s undisputed letters.
We’ve gone back and forth on the mystery cult parallel point, and I don’t think similarity of pattern establishes direction. On AoI, priority remains debated. On motive, both directions are historically possible. So without clearer evidence anchoring one model earlier than the other, I don’t see a reason to prefer the heavier reconstruction.
That doesn’t make your position incoherent. It just means I’m not persuaded it’s more probable on the available evidence.
I’ve appreciated the exchange and the tone. Honestly, this may be the first time I’ve had this level of discussion on here without it devolving into ad hominem, and I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to explain your position carefully.
Unless there’s new evidence or a different angle to bring in, I’m comfortable leaving it there.
Posted on 2/23/26 at 2:10 pm to RoyalWe
quote:
I’ve appreciated the exchange and the tone. Honestly, this may be the first time I’ve had this level of discussion on here without it devolving into ad hominem, and I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to explain your position carefully. Unless there’s new evidence or a different angle to bring in, I’m comfortable leaving it there.
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