encounterHim wrote:Robskiwarrior,,,are you gone?...I have no pride myself so I'm down on my knees begging you brothers to re-emrge on this board. We of little light need you guys that have ventured farther that alot of us, in helping us shed light on the path. I go back and re-read alot of you guys stuff and wish and pray for you guys to re-engage this forum.
If not, then peace brothers. But you and your wisdom are missed.
I was just gonna say that even though they (i.e. M&J) don't post they still have a look here now and then.
I'm in almost daily contact with them (Rob, Swalchy, kp, ICY, Jude, etc) and they've all indicated they don't plan to return. Just today Rob and Swalchy said they wouldn't be posting here again, even after Rob discovered today he was no longer suspended, though they did highlight the bugs in the forum software as one of the problems. I personally don't like locking horns with the likes of James, shalom82 and Walt, hence preferring to take a back-seat. You might see an odd post from Jude but she's really busy with her home/personal life so doesn't come here often. As for bitnet I know he's been really busy work-wise as well. As far as I'm aware kp never visits here, though I've never asked him if he does. We do discuss some points Yada makes in his new works but only if I present it to him for a comment.
For interest sake, we do still discuss Yada's work, his influence is still great and keeps us on our toes, no doubt about that, but it could possibly ruffle too many feathers if discussed here. You guys do remember why Swalchy and Robski got suspended?! Anyway, Swalchy is still quite active though in reviewing Yada's work. Just the other day we were discussing the following quote from Yada's Prelude to Yada Yahweh:
Quote:Removing “Christ” and “God” from this passage [Yada's referring to Galatians 1:6 here], as we must based upon the oldest textual witnesses, we are left with Paul promoting his own “Gospel of Grace,” a message which was entirely “different” than “another” the Galatians had not only heard, but had accepted as true. And since this epistle exists to mount a frontal assault on the veracity and viability of the Torah, the rival message to Paul’s “Gospel of Grace” can be none other than Yahowah’s Towrah.
While it is impossible to reconcile Paul’s letters with Yahowah’s Torah, as they are opposites, theologians will protest and say that charis can be found in the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of portions of the Torah, Prophets, and Psalms. But there are issues with this justification. First, there is no credible evidence to date a Septuagint manuscript to much before the first century CE. The infamous “72 Elders” letter from King Ptolemy, from which the translation gets its name, isn’t remotely credible. So while there are a handful of fragments emanating from the 1st century BCE, all of the partial manuscripts written the 1st and 2nd century CE, were not only scribed in codex form by what we would now refer to as Christians, they were found in collections of “New Testament” manuscripts
It was really only Swalchy who addressed Yada's view of the word
charis, hence why he thinks Yada went into so much depths trying to defend his position in his Prelude. Also, Swalchy was laughing because he thinks Yada had specifically labelled him a "theologian," even though he does acknowledge that Yada could be saying it in a general sense to anybody who disagrees with him on the subject and not directly at Stephen. But I'm sure you guys can see Swalchy's point of view. It would be nice if Yada could've provided an example of a theologian, you know, names of the people and where they say such things.
However, I will mention the word
charis in its basic meaning of "merciful, loving kindness, grace, favour, goodwill, beauty" has been used many, many times before in loads of other ancient Greek literature dating to many years, some hundreds, to before Paul's, Peter's (i.e. 1 Peter 1:2) and John's (i.e. Rev 22:21) time. One of our main points of discussion was trying to figure why Yada never really mentioned this - literature outside of Scripture - in his Prelude. He does mention "These pagan goddesses [Χάριτες, Graces] of charm, splendor, and beauty, were often depicted in mythology celebrating nature and rejoicing over fertility. Collectively they make four appearances in Homer’s Iliad and three in the Odyssey." However, what Yada didn't say is that the word χαρις appears seventeen times, thirteen as "thanks, pleasure or favour," and once as a noun (one of the Graces called Charis) in Homer's The Iliad. Χάριτες, the plural form, appears three times, as the Graces. So that's four times in reference to the Graces, though only one of those times was it used in the singular form referring to one of the Graces, the one called Charis. Yet thirteen times it was used in it original meaning and not in reference to the Graces. Mind you, that study came from Stephen, so kudos to him ;) Also, the word χαρις appears more times as a word in the Odyssey than in its plural form of Χάριτες in reference to the Graces. And mind you, Paul did not use Χάριτες in his writings.
Here's a link giving an example of the many times the word is used in ancient Greek literature, again kudos to Stephen for showing me it:
http://stephanus.tlg.uci...j&action=from-search For interest sake, the link does quote Genesis 6:8 in the LXX, see point II.1
