Hello people. Seeing though a clear glass window often tells the story or not if it is raining. Just a little joke!

I thought the world might of seen the past without judgement and the smaller words of understanding. But I guess not. One can only imagine tomorrow.

EVO

Of course you are, Boaz, of course you are.

>>I'm jussssst trying to focus on 'how to interpret texts'.. which is a MOST needed lesson among many of us.. Pericles and CJ included ..bright as they appear to be<<

All it is, as usual, is "jussssst" another way to draw attention to yourself in your seemingly never-ending crusade to diss Islam.

I do not need "lessons on interpretation", since I have absolutely no confidence in the raw material. And I have to say, if I did ever feel the need to explore the scriptures, you are by far and away the last person on earth I would turn to for illumination. How it never occurs to you that you are far too one-eyed to be able to teach anyone anything, is beyond me.

It is clear from your posts that you have absolutely no intention of engaging in debate. To illustrate this, here's your starter for ten points, using one of your earlier launch pads:

>>INTERPRETING THE BIBLE.... New Testament. (Mark 8:34)

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."<<

Before we get to discuss any interpretation of this, I'd like to hear from you the following:

What evidence do we have that this was said?

And a corollary:

Since there is no direct connection between the purported speaker and the purported scribe, how certain can we be that these were the exact words?

In short, how can we know who it was who spoke these words, or even that they were spoken at all?

Once we can agree on that, maybe there will be some point in discussing context, meaning and intent.

"How do we test it as the Word of God? If we do not know it is the Word of God; how can we interpret the volume as the Word of God."

There is much confusion with christianity and islam, in the interpretation of the OT, mostly because each became more interested in their egos: they Messenger became more important than the message - which borders on paganism. This factor led to a reverse mode of interpretation, namely everything had to fit to a belated, preferred conclusion, than what was actually being said: instead of the NT adhering to the OT as the transcendent factor, the reverse mode was adopted.

Thus we find that the NT rejects certain commandments and accepts others - depending on its alligning or not with the later NT. Here, christianity rejected the OT's oral laws, derived directly from Moses - because it contradicted the fulcrum doctrines of the gospels. This led to great calamaties, including the break of christianity from its mother religion, with the advent of Paul - a greek, secular figure who never even met Jesus, and gave the west what they wanted to hear.

At this time, Israel was seen as dead and gone forever, following the destruction by Rome, and the new christianity made whatever it liked of the OT, and spread it around, till it became inculcated into the veins of the west, including false charges of blaming jews for crimes actually perpertrated by Europe itself. Eg. Rome's murder of Jesus, along with millions of his kin, was placed on the Jews- in total antithesis if the truth; a sacrifice was promoted, in total omission a decree of heresy was hovering, which afforded no choice factor to Jesus. After centuries of such inculcations, christians believed these false charges, and anti-semitism was born - and christians became more compelled to follow a desired lie than a disdained truth.

contd 1/3

Then it turned out the NT was in error of israel, which returned as prophesized. Here, a host of false charges became over-turned, including blood libels, the protocols and other such false slander from Europe. Today, innocent and genuine christians have become quagmired - they cannot anymore disassociate the 100% false charges of the Gospels, because it has been attached to their belief in God! This same scenario is seen with muslims - they will not accept anything christians tell them, because their belief is also attached that way. This is an affliction: the NT & Quran both cannot be right or true, because they contradict each other in historical and theological terms - yet this ubsurd situation is blamed on the jews, who had no input here, and were themselves supressed and persecuted at this time by both these religions.

The situation is very diabolical, and humanity has been trust into chaos - with the victims being sincere believing christians and muslims. How will this be recitfied? Certainly not by how christians think it will: there is absolutely no point in awaiting a return of Jesus, and even if such occurs, it will not resolve anything. It failed the first time, and muslims will not accept JC w/o Mohammed, nor will cristians accept mohammed w/o JC. See the point here?

2/3

3/3

Instead, the issue can only be resolved by an OT figure, such as Moses, or a Sinai type revelation in the midst of all humanity. This is prophesized but has never occured again - the Messiah must allign itself with *ALL* factors listed in Isaiah [not what alligns with the NT or Quran!], without contradicting any factors of the OT. There has never been anything in the OT which has ever been disproven, while absolutely nothing in the NT or Quran has ever been ratified. These scriptures are based on belief, unlike the OT, with no historicity of specifics, such as verifiable dates, names and events. further, it appears the law was given to the hebrews because they were the hardest to convince - the stiff necked syndrome is in diabolical and polar variation from christians, who accepted a 3rd, 4th party reporting, without demanding proof of the Father. They aught to have. In cntrast, the hebrews battled with Moses and accused him of all sorts of charges, demanding that God anifest himself directly with no agents.

When the greatest revelation in the universe occured, Moses was told to stand down with the people. And this is what all humanity must also demand: nothing short of a direct revelation by the father - in the midst of all humanity - simultainiously. Elese be assured of more chaos! You don't like it - of coz you don't! But that's the problem!

Oly.. it was Fractelle who asked me..not you.. sorry for confusing u.

It seems Fractelle is a bit hot under the collar.. well.. that's life.
Frac, I was hoping for some serious engagement from any who came to this thread.. on something as simple as 'interpreting' a single verse of scripture... we could then move to 'verse 2' and see what we see, but honestly.. you are letting way too much emotion cloud your vision there.

Well if ur going to be here, I'd appreciate less personal attack and more rigorous examination of the text.. you might find we agree more than you think.

Pericles.. please understand.. (this is becoming quite a challenge..bigger than I expected) this is NOT...about "are the texts reliable".. oe "did so and so 'say' this or that".. its about just one thing..... 1

"What does it mean as it stands?" The reason I chose Mark 1:1 is because it does have a truckload of riches in it which won't be visible at first glance.

This is not about "me teaching" all youuz.. its about together.. examining some text, and seeing how far we can go before we diverge in our interpretation.

I truly hope you will put aside your Boazaphobia :) for a while and actually engage on this one simple point.. how about it?

If you are willing to participate, we can cover say.. just 4 verses.
In those verses (Mark 1:1-4) many of the elements which we should understand about Biblical interpretation are present.

The inductive method is most useful here. "if this is all we knew(about Christian things) ..what would we know?"

I promise you..it's a gold mine.