The Library

12:46 AM

How do you justify translating עמנו as 'with our' rather than 'with us'? Shouldn't 'with our God' be עם אלנו? — curiousdannii Nov 10 at 2:54

Take a look at Hebrew Suffixes. The Hebrew word (Ayin - Mem) means "with". The suffix (Nun - Vav) signifies "our". Also the Aleph is so a Verb Prefix meaning "I will", adding the Qal Perfect "we" would disagree with Hebrew language rules. And we can know that the Aleph is so ment to be a prefix for the lack of the double Vav. — Decrypted 5 hours ago

Can anyone else sanity check this? I'm pretty sure Decrypted is sprouting his normal nonsense.

ThaddeusB

3:39 AM

@Susan I wasn't sure if this was worthy of a comment on main, but in case you are curious, ἅλωσις returns a whopping 2,216 results in the full TLG corpus, so I suppsoe the abridged version is about 10-15% of the full. (I am lucky enough to have full access through my alma mater.)

While I'm here, I didn't quite understand this comment:

On semantic overlap, cf. Luke 11:43 ἀγαπάω (of the Pharisees’ desire for places of honor in the synagogue), where the parallel has φιλέω (Matt 23:6) . | Didn’t mean to be cryptic about the LXX allusion. If you care: (only) Prov 7:18, 30:16 (deviates from Hebrew) -- in OT (like NT) ἀγαπάω has largely overtaken it, including in Cant. passim. | Might be worth mentioning that the distinction drawn by some in Jo. 21 is one of D.A. Carson’s (famous?) Exegetical Fallacies. | NT “illicit” love tends to be covered by ἐπιθυμέω (+cognates). | +1 :-) — Susan 21 hours ago

Specifically, I'm not sure what you mean by being cryptic about LXX - is that in reference to your comment on dancek's answer?

Susan

@ThaddeusB Interesting, thanks. I supposedly have access but haven’t been able to get it to work this evening.

@ThaddeusB Oh yeah, sorry -- I think I was referring to the fact that you mentioned that the word occurred but didn’t mention where, so I figured you weren’t sure (maybe my misunderstanding - sorry), then I realized that I had made a comment that mentioned that it occurred but didn’t mention where, which, since it’s only twice, was a little weird. That’s all I meant.

ThaddeusB

@Susan eros?

Susan

BTW, also relevant to the answer I just wrote here, what is the best online source for searching LXX text? I always do it with Accordance, but I’m sure it’s available online.

@ThaddeusB Yeah.

@ThaddeusB But not even used in Song of Songs (“Cant.” in that comment -- because I was in a cryptic mood, apparently... not sure normal people are accustomed to that abbreviation....darn it, can’t edit comments there...).

ThaddeusB

3:55 AM

@Susan I'm not aware of a place that searches by lexeme, but Blue Letter Bible works if you know what form you are looking for.

@Susan I know the abbreviation, but yah I don't know how widely it is known. You can delete it and repost it if you like.

(To be clear, I didn't make an attempt to look up where eros was used in the the OT when writing the answer.)

Susan

@ThaddeusB Is the full TLG pulling up LXX hits for you? (presumably.) It’s not for me. That verb is quite common in the LXX, noun only Jer 27:46. If there were a good way to search just the LXX online (to pull all inflected forms), that would actually be a helpful resource for the sort of thing requested in that Q.

@ThaddeusB Meh, deleted altogether. It’s finished its job.

ThaddeusB

This site seems to categorize LXX & NT words by lexeme.

@Susan Yes, I was able to limit the search to LXX and find the Jer. verse

Susan

4:11 AM

@ThaddeusB OK, thanks, x2.

Susan

4:26 AM

@Davïd Of course my contention was that you had already spent the time, but your intolerance of 600 character answers is admirable. Anyway, thanks, I appreciate you doing it.

BTW - By my reckoning 89/91 of the dative Ἰησοῦ's in the NT have the article or something in apposition (mostly κυρίῳ and Χριστῷ) to mark them. (The 2 others are after prepositions that only take the dative.) That doesn't explain most of the articles in Mark, but it does probably explain a significant portion of the variation in articularity (!) in the NT. There’s a calculation that could be done here....

Susan

4:57 AM

@ThaddeusB Happy last three minutes of Thanksgiving, by the way. :-)

ThaddeusB

@Susan You too

Davïd

7:43 AM

@ThaddeusB Nice find - looks like a useful site, and one I had never run across before.

@Susan Actually, the comments took very little time, and I knew what I would want to do to make it an Answer. It's still on the minimalist side :) but at least it's no longer a comment.

Dan

3:33 PM

I hope everyone in the US had a wonderful turkey day

(and anyone else who celebrates it elsewhere in the world)

Jack Douglas

3:58 PM

@Dan I celebrated it unknowingly by eating out with the UK dba.se crowd :)

@Dan I can't find it now, so it's possible I made it up entirely or mis-attributed it to you, but did you once say that 'ex nihilo' is a modern invention — and if, so how modern did you mean?

I ask because I'm reading Athanasius "On the Incarnation" and was struck by his repudiation of Plato's idea that "…God had mad all things out of pre-existant and uncreated matter…"

Dan

4:17 PM

@JackDouglas nice!

@JackDouglas the idea of the pre-existence of matter is a Platonic idea

the Cappadocian Fathers repudiated this, instead arguing that God's existence is the only non-contingent existence

i.e. it has no beginning and the notion of pre-existence is irrelevant, God is the Real (to borrow a term from much later Lacanian psychoanalytic theory)

but everything else in creation is contingent on the Creator

created matter did not pre-exist from eternity as though being eternal were a property/attribute of its nature

rather, only God is eternal, and everything created is also sustained by the Creator

the early Semitic as well as early Hellenist ideas involved creation from chaos rather than creation from nothing (ex nihilo)

hence the primordial waters in Genesis 1

Jack Douglas

@Dan "On the Incarnation" is thought to have been written around 318

before the Cappadocian Fathers?

when did 'ex-nihilo' first get pushed?

Dan

@JackDouglas yes, I should have said, finally repudiated this

in the East, anyways

@JackDouglas probably Aristotle, or Philo interacting with Aristotle c. 50 CE

Jack Douglas

@Dan I think the word 'else' in that sentance is a non-sequitor

Dan

not explicitly per se

but the idea was around

@JackDouglas true!

2 Maccabees 7:28 teaches ex nihilo

these ideas predate the New Testament

it's very much a Plato vs. Aristotle sort of argument

but also much earlier ideas from Semitic cultures

western Christianity generally follows Aristotle in this

the main idea is the essence vs. energies distinction in eastern Christian theology

in making the creation, God brought into existence that which had no previous existence (ex nihilo), the resultant creation received its existence. Only God necessarily exists, the creation exists only in constant dependence on God. But nothing created is self sufficient. God upholds creation's existence in his energies

so to make matters more confusing, you'll see folks arguing for and against ex nihilo who agree on more than they disagree, the issue is discerning the context and their view of God's existence

i.e. God had no beginning

check out en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

good summary

Jack Douglas

4:37 PM

Ta. A friend of mine is trying to persuade me to drop my opposition to reading the Church Fathers — he's got me started on Athanasius. Not sure what I think yet...

Dan

7:18 PM

@JackDouglas for Catholics and Orthodox, the Fathers are just that -- Fathers

but for Protestants, they're more like older brothers

you want to listen to what they have to say but don't necessarily want to go the same route

but older brothers are still helpful

so I'd say they are just as helpful for both

check out Thomas Oden, he was really a pioneer in Protestantism when it comes to reading patristic writings (of course the Reformers themselves were well versed in them also)

he was the chief editor for the ACCS, a commentary series I highly recommend

ivpress.com/accs

he approaches it from a Protestant perspective (even at times when that perspective disagrees with all of the patristic authors throughout history)

but keep in mind historical context. I recommend Jaroslav Pelikan's five volume work on the history of Christian Doctrine for a good grasp of this

authors of any work are bound by their own biases and historical context

including us

folks reading stuff we wrote 150+ years from now will be amused at some of our blind spots, find some of the issues important to us very trivial, and find part of it profound and timeless

the same is true of patristic writings

Jack Douglas

@Dan indeed. CS Lewis's introduction to the book I'm reading makes that point but also argues very convincingly what that very fact means that reading authors from widely divergent time periods to your own. He made me laugh with this: "To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as those of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them" :)

Dan

8:06 PM

@JackDouglas I like that quote haha

sorry for the asynchronous nature of chatting with me today, I have a 6 month old who wants my attention -- and I want to give it to her ;)

Davïd

10:23 PM

Hi Harri - welcome to the site. I'm afraid this kind of question doesn't work here. Questions that are "on topic" are about the interpretation of the biblical text. But you're just asking for a Hebrew lesson: best simply to learn some Hebrew, and AnimatedHebrew.com is one great place to do that online. As it is, I expect this question will probably be closed. — Davïd 1 min ago

^^^^ Anyone agree?

ThaddeusB

10:53 PM

@JackDouglas I'm curious as to why you would be opposed to reading the Church Fathers. I can see thinking it is not worth the time (which is perhaps what you mean), but opposed?

Davïd

11:13 PM

@ThaddeusB I'm afraid I've come to a very different impression, sorry to say. This enthusiastic new answerer has now provided five answers, each of which is riddled with speculation, error, and/or misinformation. 'Tis a shame, and needs more energy to deal with constructively than I have at the moment.

ThaddeusB

@Davïd I meant "potentially good answer" but was being a bit nice. :) I went ahead and changed my comment accordingly.

Davïd

@ThaddeusB The main problem in that one is that homonyms are being confused: miqveh = "hope" is a different word from miqveh = "ritual bath". The false equation skews the answer fairly markedly.

Transcript for