Originally posted by Deacon John Montalvo:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by RayK:
[qb] �
No, my interest in "Barrabbis" and "Barnun" was to determine from which source they are cited (which you have not stated) or if these are terms of your own construction.
Ah.. OK..
Terms of my own fumble-ness.
Not my own construction � I was not saying it right. Not saying it right because I had not realized how I was getting irritated at other things - and so I was tripping over my own tongue - at the thought of those who divide the church under the guise of protecting it. I am not speaking of anyone in particular - I am speaking of that �spirit� at work� which I seem to have run into several times of late.
Has it ever dawned on you that the divisions of the church are done by just those members of the church who swear - they are preserving her? And �protecting� the �truth�? You name the division of the body of Christ - and at the core of that division is some human group who measures some other member church by the human limits of their own understanding. But further - they judge - complete with pronouncing sentence on another portion of the body of Christ. Oh .. And how far back does that go?? - at least since the time when some of the Greek fathers excommunicated other churches because these other �peripheral� churches saw no reason to have to speak theology in the Greek language.
Yes - there were heretics - but thrown into the heretic category were also those particular churches who did not care to bend to the threats of those who set themselves up as the religious police. Is a man a heretic if the judge clings to his own mistaken misinterpretation of what the defendant is saying? Certainly and without a doubt - that spirit - was the root of the Orthodox-Catholic split. The limits of men who thought themselves to be more perfect than they really were - did it. Guardians of something that had no call to guard in the first place. Men of some authority overstepping their authority.
This is human nature. My God - we all do it. And most of the time we are unaware we are doing it. Sometimes - we are aware but we justify it to ourselves. It is �our duty� as �protectors of the faith.� I admit, I have done it at times and then sometimes come to realize I had misunderstood that other person. And of course it will happen again. I thank God I have no authority on anyone. But then again - I make absolutely no demands that anyone mindlessly believe what I say is true. I ask only to - consider.
I got it half right because (Barrabbas and Barnun - sic) because I was irritated by some things I have found lately. Nothing really involved with anyone here. I had not realized how irritated I had been getting.
Here is something very irritating� read it at the header�
http://www.peshitta.net/ Are religious leaders hiding the truth of God's Word from you?
Have translators been honest in their work of presenting
the Scriptures in your language?
What is the best translation of the Scriptures?
Is your Bible translation really the Word of God? - How would you know?
Catholic, Orthodox, Byzantine bishops - are they hiding the truth of God�s Word? Are we subject to lying translators? Is the Septuagint really the Word of God?
Nonsense! Sheer conspiracy theory nonsense. All born of an idea of �Oh no� WE have the REAL version and anyone else�s is inferior at best.�
�Primacy� of version. Blah.
Why is it - that when a man does not know the cause of something - he must substitute a wicked conspiracy theory for an answer??!! Innuendos (or accusations) which amount to rumors and slander! Now nobody bothers to slander someone that they have no involvements with - the one we slander is close to us - our brother - our friend - someone who think should be - like us - and do as we do - think as we think.
If you read that site header above - they are talking about any other version of scriptures except their own Aramaic. That means - you - me - Septuagint - Revised Standard - Douay Rheiams - any other translation used by any other church but their own. Without a doubt there are similar mindsets in other churches - for example those who champion the Septuagint as a �primacy�. Those Catholic�s who champion the Vulgate as the only legitimate translation. Etc..
Human nature my friend. Fallen human nature. It is within us all and surges to the forefront - calling itself - a servant of God.
If I were to pin my irritation down - it did begin with researching (in this thread) the various interpretations of the Book of Daniel. This �seventy weeks of years� thing tallied out to 490 years in order to fit some historical timeline until the appearance of Christ - this is latched onto my so many groups - and cults form around it. Trouble is - there is something to it - something that if understood better might add to some peoples faith - but trouble is - whoever something of some value is found - misguided acts often take place.
It is almost as if �never give something of value to a human - because they will trample it into the mud�. The more valuable the deeper trampled.
I see, one of the main - excuses - for the division of the One church - the suspicion of brother upon brother - our tendency to turn scriptures into an idol. On one hand this helps us. It is an idol which God seems to allow. It is a stepping stone. We enter scriptures by taking it very literally - and then we come to take portions of it deeper and morally - and then we come to understand portions in spiritual way. Being human - we can not get to the last way unless we begin with the first way. No one loves a spouse unless first attracted physically and emotionally� we at first see her across the room and know nothing about her inner spirit except by the most exterior evidence. Only as we get to know the other person - do we then come to know her morals and mind - and only still later - do we truly get to now her real inner spirit - what makes her �tick�. These are the steps of love - be it of another person - or be it God. This is how human love works. Stages.
Attraction
Free will choice
Habit
But now let us examine ourselves. Let us ask�
�Do I love God - because I want to know I am safe by being on the right team?� If that is why we love God - then what we �love� - is to know ourselves - as being someone who loves God. We need to - see - that evidence in our talk and actions. And so we feel that we must act (as if we were called to act) on God�s behalf and correct others. Because we must always reassure ourselves by witnessing our own actions of correcting others (needed or not!). This type of love of God - must always find - competition - in order to justify - acting on behalf of God and the �team�. This gives us a feedback of - I am holy - I am on the team - I love God.
Am I guilty of that? Guilt. Guilty - as charged. But I am not alone� we all - do that at times - we all - slip back into it. It is the pull of our human nature which desires the feedback of the senses. My being not alone in guilt - does not lessen my failure - it makes me forgive others for what I do myself.
Currently - it makes me irritated (at myself) while I see it in others � but I take it out on them - as if something exterior (they) had forced me to be this way. A - conspiracy theory believed.
As regards the problem of division of the churches - by the idolization of certain translations or versions of scriptures� one major problem is just that - making an idol - a substitute for God himself - out of written scriptures (a written human witness). Why?? Do we do that?? The answer again is the human condition.
Be it certain groups who believe the Septuagint is the real Word of God - or be it the groups who believe that the Aramaic has primacy over all others - or be it the past Catholic groups who read nothing but the authorized Duey Rheims - they ignore the real limitations of human signs and language and the facts that no translation can - in its signs - fully carry over the full content of the item it translates. They ignore that fact that - if a primacy of scriptures be true at all - then no one is without lack - the only people who would have been without lack is them who lived at the time of the originals and held them in their hands and fully understood the language and culture and traditions within which it was written - yet it is clear - even these - did not necessarily understand the meaning of what they held in their hands.
There is no guarantee what so ever - to any form of scriptures - because the meaning of scriptures - is not in - scriptures. It can not be contained in letters and written signs of human language - any more than God himself can be contained as an idol within paper.
This reminds me of the narration in the Old Testament of how the Jews marched out to war carrying the Ark. Until they came to believe that carrying the Ark - was the key - and when it came to that - God grew tired of them thinking that way he allowed the Ark to be captured and the war lost.
The heart (the will) without intellectual knowledge (sight) is blind and can not move. Yet if the heart only follow intellectual knowledge - than our God becomes the capability of our own intellect - our intellect becomes our God.
Am I guilty of that? Guilty as charged. Guilty along with my brothers.
At some point in the Christians life - there must come to his mind - that scriptures is not The same �Word� as John uses the term to mean Logos - Providence - Jesus as governor of all creation. Scriptures in themselves are - just a book�. There is nothing inherently or even miraculous special about it. What IS special about it - is not - in - the book. What is special - sometimes - uses the book - but at other times does not use the book - but always always uses - conscience.
So, I have been irritated - at the �cults� who go out to war against other Christians - behind the banner of the Book of Daniel/Revelation/Gospels/Septuigent/Peshitta/ or membership in any particular church as different from any other particular church - - - and artificially create competition so they can go to war with the idol of God marched before them. And - why? Because God desires it?? NO - because they themselves want to feel holy.
Can I blame my brother? Can I blame him for wanted some feed back that he is on a holy path? Nope. Because it is the human condition and I desire that same feedback. I know - myself - what prompts my brother to be that way and do what he does.
I have observed that - the smaller the church - the more it does this. It is a kin to people and human nature. The less popular the man is - the more insecure he feels - and the more will he talk about his successes - to the point of bragging and irritating us with how full of himself he is. Behind every superiority complex lays a foundational inferiority complex.
My God! Are we humans - a mess!!!
And it appears to be true that the largest of the churches (Roman Catholic) has no identify crisis - while the traveling down to the smallest - we find that crisis grow - to the point of such great pride and boosting of what treasures they have. This of course is not to every member - but rather to some members in extreme - and most members on average.
Recently I have done email with one of the smaller Churches - and that - head bishop - primate. I will not name it. And the inferiority complex there - was outstanding. Very defensive - and very boastful of being a special church (I will not say how) which - it is. What he was boosting about - was absolutely true and a treasure to the entire church that mostly goes unrecognized by the other churches. How any one outside his own church can carry a conversation with him - I do not know� but I DO know whay he is like that � and I ask myself - �Oh� what have we � Done.� We (the rest of the churches) have marginalized this primate and this church - to the point of inferiority - that has effected its human nature - so that I do not really wonder why God has entrusted to this church such a wonderful treasure in support of its own life. No wonder he constantly tries to display the holiness of his church - to the point of boasting to annoyance.
A primacy of scripture version - the concept alone - and any imagined shade of it� has come to irritate me in its misuse. As attractive as a standardization upon any one particular translation or version across all churches may seem towards a benefit of unity - it would not accomplish that good intention of a goal. Any artificial uniformity of the external - would result in the same as the Deuteronomic Reform tried by the Jews. A reform in details of the eternal - which reform itself would consolidate the human errors and misunderstanding (a necessary part of the progress of any particular group of humans that comprise a particular church) � along with it.
Better - the variations and diversity that already does exist (by the Providence of God) than any move which would encourage we members to think that the externals of our churches are more important than they are or more important than the acts of Providence himself.
It seems to me, that God allows us to substitute these things, for himself (Providence) along the way. By at every occasion of which he can (because we almost seem ready to accept it) he moves to remove the substitutions to that we can the chance to - mount higher. Mount further up to that living Providence himself - that same living Providence which provides us with these more external images of himself in the mean time.
Pretty boring reading my own introspection - isn�t it. I just as often wear my heart on my sleeve as I do � hide it. The importance of what I have written is not on others - it is upon - myself. No man need to understand it as long as I do - and I say it aloud. This who post may only have importance - to me. I may have misunderstood everyone I have read lately - but I have not misunderstood what God was using these to say to me.
=============== cross posted from an Aramaic study forum ======
The Aramaic text in Hebrews 4:8 does have "bar Nun". The
phrase "bar Nun" (Son of Nun) is also not present in the Byzantine
Greek text.
(reply)
May I offer that the context of Hebrews Chapter 4 is clear enough, so that I do not believe that the author of this beautiful Alexandrian Koine Greek Homily ever wrote "Joshua Son of Nun"...as the context is very clear...at least in the Greek and to any Jew ***** following the thought of the author. That is why "BarNun" or "Son of Nun" is not in the original Koine Greek of this Work.
I have no doubt that later Old Latin, Medieval Greek Texts and the Peshitto/Peshitta added this clarification into the text, so as to leave no doubt to the post Apostolic reader whom the author is referencing. This is the most simple and probable reason based upon the best and most ancient manuscripts of the KOINE greek and other later translations of the same.
========= end of quote ========
I do not think either of us need research the Aramaic to determine it - and I have long forgotten my source for Bar rabbis - except a general knowledge of the Jewish traditions of the time and some aspects the written Hebrew language.
While I fumbled the ball and said Nun was a tribe (the tribe is Ephraim) - I am right to say that �Barnun� (apparently in the Aramaic text and not in the Byzantine Greek) is not a proper Jewish form of name. As with Bar-rabbis � the �bar� means �son of�.� and would be preceded by the individuals own proper name and followed by the name of his father. Bar would not have been used as part of a proper name because it makes no sense to call a man �Son of Joshua son of what-ever� as that would be his linage without naming the man himself.
Bar-rabbis (written as one word but recognized as a joining of two in the Hebrew) � a verb � can be nothing other than indicating a man by way of a description (�son of a rabbi�) without actually naming the man by his own proper name. That this be used as a substitute for the man�s name is perfectly acceptable to the Jewish reader of the time in as much as to them, a name, was a description of the essence and active spirit of the man. This was more true within Jewish culture than in Greek culture where names were used more loosely and even to display - more heritage or even of a wish or desire of what the parents wanted to son to be known as - than evidenced experiential reality of what the son had become. Hence the strong propensity among Greeks to name the son or daughter after the grandparents. Of which (get ready for humor) Cathy and Nick - seem to have been the prolific origin of the Greek race.
Bar or even Bere - can be used by via joining in way of nickname as a type of title. For example the great Jewish revolt after the destruction of the Temple was lead by a man called Bar-Kokhba but notice that his name was really Shimon bar Kokhba and �Bar-Kokhba� alone (written as one word ) is used more as a title, his stature as �the son of Kokhba who leads the revolt�� it is a pointer to the position occupied, a status, rather than to the individual person who is �son of Kokhba�.
Since Bar-rabbis (which has come to be taken as his proper name by those who did not know the Jewish customs involved) is not a proper name but rather a description of an un-named individual� the meaning here applies to a certain type of man. Any man of �this� type. What type? A type who adopted the popular mindset of the official religious teachers of that time and situation. - and apparently taken that into extreme action despite having to sin to accomplish its demands.
That Barrabbis has come to be popularly seen as that man�s proper name - is not a hindrance to understanding the spirit of the text. Most people intuitively understand what the narration means within the wider context of their experience of their church. I brought it up in remedy to a concept that any particular translation/transliteration/version � might be free of human error and deserve a primacy over other legitimate translations/orginals/versions/etc.. accepted by the various legitimate particular churches for their use. I brought it up to underline the fact that the gospel and the Word that the churches are commissioned to spread - are not the scriptures themselves - but rather a living and invisible reality which is itself the Word as John 1:1: describes it (Jesus himself).
If any one would care to examine some of the debate regarding the origin of the NT - and would be careful not to be trapped in the flypaper of a false notion of �primacy� to mean �better than the others� � I would be happy to supply some links. One must sift what one reads as some of the researchers have indeed fallen into that pit even at the same time some of their results on individual passages are very insightful and justified.
If you finished reading this - there must have been nothing good on TV
I forgot to give source links - still want them?
-ray
