question for experts

by cameo-d 19 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  cameo-d

  Narki, that's a really good logical detailed answer. I was trying to track down one of your 25 dollar words and find the translation and ran into this.(below) Is this what you call new light? I get entirely different meanings from these two verses now. Oh, its from wiki "septuagint".

  Genesis 4:7, LXX (NETS)	Genesis 4:7, Masoretic (NRSV)
  If you offer correctly but do not divide correctly, have you not sinned? Be still; his recourse is to you, and you will rule over him.	If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.

  This instance illustrates the complexity of assessing differences between the LXX and the Masoretic Text. Despite the striking divergence of meaning here between the two, nearly identical consonantal Hebrew source texts can be reconstructed.
• 

  Narkissos

  Despite the striking divergence of meaning here between the two, nearly identical consonantal Hebrew source texts can be reconstructed.

  Absolutely. The suggested retroversion of the LXX clause into Hebrew in the BHS critical apparatus (iow, one possible Hebrew Vorlage for the LXX) involves only one letter change from the Masoretic consonantal text: ntch (to "cut," whence "divide, share, deal") instead of ptch (to "open," whence "opening, entrance, door"). All the rest is a matter of vocalisation.
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  hamsterbait

  This PROVES the double standards of the OT yet again!

  Since the word God spoke can mean "opening" he is talking of possible Sodomy long before Sodom. Cain chose to kill his brother rather than be corrupted.

  So he is spared. AW, sweet ain't it?

  HB
• 

  RubaDub

  How did Cain know what a door is?

  I read that archeologists now have evidence that shortly after Adam and Eve were thrown our of the Garden of Eden, the Double-wide was invented.
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  Morgana

  BTW, the interesting point about Gen 4:7 is not so much the door-opening that every cave and tent has (which is indeed petach in this verse, not delet which would be door in our more modern sense), but rather the first mentioning of sin in the bible. So the question would rather be: How did Cain know what sin is?
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  MAHERSHALALHASHBAZ

  Sin was crouching by Christian Dior.
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  Darklighter

  "Door" can easily be rationalized away, and is therefore not a good example of an anachronism.

  A bigger problem would be Cains son Tu'bal-cain who is described as a maker of tools of "copper and iron". The problem is, this was (by the Bible's chronology) thousands of years before the Iron age arrived in the ANE (c. 1300 BC), which is even too late for the time of Moses and the exodus.

  Just further evidence that Genesis could not have been written in it's current form by Moses, and is instead from a much later time.
• 

  cameo-d

  Some of you are really funny and I did not expect the silly answers but I enjoyed a laugh or two. Like rub a dub and maher!

  Hamsterbait, you have been turned over to a reprobate mind. I hope you get deleted.

  Darklighter, your answer is intriguing. I am curious to know, did you find these answers on your own after leaving the cult, or are some of these details part of the JW bible studies?

  I am glad that some of you are interested in exploring scriptural topics in depth.

  And Narki. Narki, narki, you seem to be going off on a tangent and headed off the cliff. I think you are missing the point. Look at the meaning of the words!

  This in particular:

  "god" tells cain to "be still". To be patient; that he will rule over Abel.

  Could this be something more than just a big brother/eldest thing?

  And have you thought about how did Cain "not rightly divide"?
• 

  Gopher

  Darklighter, your answer is intriguing. I am curious to know, did you find these answers on your own after leaving the cult, or are some of these details part of the JW bible studies?

  I'm not Darklighter. But I grew up JW and stayed in it a long time, and read all their literature I could get my hands on. I can assure you Darklighter provided a historical context that you will find nowhere in any JW / Watchtower literature.

  After you've been on the board longer, you'll see that we have two posters who have a very scholarly approach to BIble language and context -- Narkissos and Leolaia. I doubt that Nark missed your meaning.
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  Darklighter

  Darklighter, your answer is intriguing. I am curious to know, did you find these answers on your own after leaving the cult, or are some of these details part of the JW bible studies?

  Gopher is right. I had to research it for myself. The JWs gloss-over (if not completely ignore) scrpitural problems by using the ol' "God said it so I believe it" excuse.

  In this case they reason: "We don't care when the evil archaeologists say the Iron Age started. The Bible says Tubalcain worked with iron, and thats all the proof we need." To be fair, they're not unique in this perspective.

  The WT trots out an occasional artice that gives the false impression that archaeology 100% supports scripture, but these are usually light on facts, and more along the lines of, "Ooooh lookie lookie! The bible mentions this city and it actually exists! Praise Jehoover!" Call it spiritual porn: Pretty pictures, no scholarly discussion, no dpeth. It's analogous to the difference between a nudie mag and a science textbook on human anatomy.

  If you want to know what the evidence really says, just do a little research on the history of the Levant and "Biblical" archaeology. A few hours of research on the internet can put you lightyears ahead of the average JW in terms of knoweledge of ANE history. But there are some very well written and easy to grasp books out there too, if you want to go deeper. Anything by Finkelstein, Dover, or Campbell (plenty of others too).

  The WT ignores (the proverbial) 99.9% of good scholarship out there because it doesn't support their position. Sad.