With yet another diversion - this time into Hawaiian folklore (good grief!) - we are in some danger, Boaz, of losing sight of all those unanswered questions and dangling concepts you left lying around.

(Lying around... hmm, was that a Freudian slip, perhaps?)

Let's help out with a quick recap - in reverse order, since space might quickly become an issue.

- what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? Were they real?

Incidentally, I take issue with your suggestion that

>>we should also lose faith in secular scholarship which said "Sodom and Gomorrah did not exist" :) or which doubted that the 'Pool of Siloam' was real?<<

"Secular scholarship" is only too happy to revise its view when new and compelling evidence appears. Big difference, eh?

- what would be the impact on Christian teaching if it turns out that Herod wasn't around for the crucifixion?

- [on the original topic of text interpretation] do you accept the difference between an objectively determined concrete entity (dog) and an intangible concept (the beginning). The latter will always need interpretation, since there can never be an irrefutable instance of a beginning, whereas it is always possible to objectively identify that which we call "dog".

- you also skipped another direct question from Oliver - "What parts of John mention the NT godhead?" I don't profess to understand that one, but I'm sure the answer will be interesting.

While we are about it, I never did find out whether you were happy with the sentence in which I substituted your explanation of "Human Linguistic Dynamic"

"By "objective" meaning, and known meanings, we are speaking about the reality of the way that [human] language varies and changes with context and time"

Which, as I pointed out, is in direct contradiction to your stated position.

Unfortunately for our Black Knight, "secular scholarship" suggests that humans only migrated to the Hawaiian archipelago around 300 CE at the earliest. Mind you, there were undoubtedly rainbows there before people saw them.

When does Boazy reckon that the OT flood occurred, according to his 'hermeneutic scholarship'? I'm sure he could calculate it using Bishop Ussher's method...

Pericles,

Boaz stated the NT, in John, shows the NT godhead [Trinity] was developed in the first century not the fourth century at Nicaea. I requested citations from John.

Boazy;

"And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth'." - Genesis 1:26

- To whom was God speaking?

Notice the use of the pural, royal plural (?)[what the churches claim], "us". Why would god develop a royal plural, which is a human contrivence?

If the plural is recognition of the individual members, in ousia, acting severally and collectively, we have, polythesism.

- Who worked with whom; i.e, which "we" [derived from "us"] made man?

Moreover, there is a before-and-after implied by the speaker and doer. If god's realm is outside of 4-D spacetime: Why is there a sequential orderliness applied to god acting in time, before there was time?

Hello Boazy,

I feel that this thread is incomplete. Suspect we should go for depth in our analysis, rather than moving too quickly acrosss many new OLO topics. Else, we have loads of ideas, plenty of breadth, but no depth.

Our exchanges have multiple hanging questions, sort of dropped, incomplete. There is time to bring-up new investigations, but, before old questions are resolved/exhausted.

Cheers.

Re. "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth'." - Genesis 1:26

- To whom was God speaking?"

Contemplate the texts with better deliberation - grammar itself was introduced with the OT:

Before man, the heavens were created [Gen. 1/1], including spiritual beings [aka angels, with the attribute of speech - see Abraham talking with the 3 angels]; and a vast array of pre-human life forms on earth [all of which possessed an inherent allignment with the creator, via non-speech mode of communications].

It would have been inappropriate that these created beings not be privy to God's actions - we know this from Genesis, whereby when God was communicating with Abraham, the news about Sodom's demise was told to Abraham, and not hidden from him. It is like when one is about to perform a great action, and he does not confide with his closest companions or family - that would be inappropriate, showing a lack of trust.

Thus the 'US' in Genesis is to include all the other beings in this action, by way of entrusting, inclusion and comradeship. The important factor here is, the word 'CREATE' in the same sentence, is in the "singular"; here, the notion of a trinity is a means of alligning Genesis to a belated NT conclusion, as opposed the other way around.

While it is done via some sincere inculcation effects, the premise of a trinity is in direct contradiction of the OT, and the fulcrum reason for a split of christianity from its mother religion. Any rendition of US as more than ONE CREATOR is eronous and blasphemous, namely it is not Monotheism anymore.

"there were undoubtedly rainbows there before people saw them"

This sounds logical, but consider that there is nothing superfluous in the universe; if there was, then the universe would never have reached its present stage. Instead, all products serve a definitive, critical purpose. Here, the notion of a rainbow always occuring, because we see it today, begs the question: what is the purpose of a rainbow? Do rainbows assist rain - or plants - or ocean levels? Negative. Do we have any evidence that rainbows occured prior to Noah - via any reportings any place, such as in ancient poems or prose? Negative. Is there any reasn whatsoever to assume rainbows had to occur at all times and that its absence would cause a havoc in the planet? Negative.

I rest the case.