Very interesting to here that about ancient India - certainly not an idea I had run across before

Any idea what that source may have been? Poking around for a few minutes on Google didn't turn up anything. (If not, I will ask a SE question on it :) )

@ThaddeusB - Indian reference in a small hebrew book called "Travels of the Chida" - Chaim Joseph David Azulai a very interesting character who traveled extensively and poked his nose into everything-book is a little travelogue of his. I don't recall what his source was and I don't have the book with me here. There are other links between ancient biblical/hebrew sources and Indian traditions and religions - long discussion.

@ThaddeusB - there are sources out there that discuss ancient Indian/Judaic connections - not very well known and I'm not sure what's out there in English. I went into the subject a bit when I had some very large, deep Hebrew libraries at my disposal. You may find something if you google "vidas" or "hinduism" with "jews" or "judaism" - things like that.

@ThaddeusB - the early Jewish Kabbalists who espoused ideas about reincarnation and the "heavenly spheres", which could be construed as polytheism, were often branded as heretics by the traditional medieval scholars who adhered to the traditions of Maimonides and other rationalists. One of the accusations was that the Kabbalists had taken ideas from Hindu sources.

@ThaddeusB - some claim that Rabbi Isaac Luria - the most important of the "modern" (to exclude ancient/talmudic) Jewish Kabbalists, visited India and borrowed Hindu ideas. This opens up a huge can of worms because Sefer HaZohar, whose ancient authenticity has been confirmed by some of the greatest Hebrew scholars, confirms much of Rabbi Luria's theology.

@Vector Interesting stuff. I found some websites claiming Genesis was "stolen" from Hindu texts. However, after much digging I found the origin of the idea was a 1760 forgery called the Ezourvedam - it was accepted and popularized by Voltaire and not proven a fraud until 1822.

Despite being discredited, the Ezourvedam continues to be used by fringe scholars, most notably Kersey Graves who brought the idea (among other anti-Christian fringe theories) to a wide audience in 1875. (Uncritical atheists continue to quote his work even today after it has been thoroughly debunked.)

Of course I don;t know for sure that is where Chida got his information, but it would make sense since 1) the Ezourvedam was contemporary and 2) not yet proven a fraud.

That is not to say there are not real connections between Judaism and Hinduism - the two groups no doubt engaged in trade during ancient times, and some degree of cultural influence is certainly possible. And certainly latter developments of Judaism like Kabbalah could show such influence.

hi

@santiago hello, what's up

not much, just exploring the sites

@santiago cool. Let me know if you have any questions about hermeneutics/Christianity

well, to be honest, I am Atheist, as well as being a Scientist and an amateur Historian

that doesn't mean you can't have questions :)

I used to be an Evangelist

for better or worse, I see the Bible as being a pretty comprehensive historical text

Well, I would certainly agree with that - Christianity is largely unique in its dependence on a historical figure; an a-historical Christianity is nonsensical.

I often research scientific reasons for the events in the Bible - and there are a lot, especially when the passages correlate with other mythologies

From my perspective, that would tend to legitimize the stories - I would expect God to act using existing natural laws under normal circumstance. One could even argure that if he is omnipotent, then He would have created the natural laws to fit his (later) purposes.

possibly, but as I do not believe in the existence of God, I see the passages as being people's attempts to explain phenomenon that they did not truly understand

Understood, by from my view miracles (i.e. violation of natural laws) are exceedingly rare - God only intervenes in such a fashion at crucial moments in his plan of revelation, precisely to validate the revelation. He does not intend normal people to come to believe because of miracles, because that would inhibit our free will to a degree.

"Miracles" are interesting - variations and exceptions to natural laws are quite well known, and we are discovering more each day - this certainly does not diminish them in any way.

What is your area of study?

applied spectroscopic instrumentation

not going to lie, I had to look up what spectroscopic meant :) Sound pretty interesting though

Well its after 1am here, so I need to get some sleep. It was nice talking with you - feel free to contact me anytime. My contact info is in my profile, or I can reached through this chat room or The Upper Room on the Christianity SE.

Have a good night's rest - it has been great chatting! Speak to you soon!

@ThaddeusB-I was not familiar with the Ezourvedam and I don't believe Chida mentions it or I would know about it. I don't think he mentions a specific source. But the Ezourvedam would definitely have piqued his interest and I would say for sure that he read it - as I said, the guy had his nose into EVERYTHING. The timeline certainly fits and he may have been referring to it - that book I mentioned is not a scholarly work, just an accounting of things he saw an heard in his travels. (cont..)

@ThaddeusB -(cont..)- Creation stories: every ancient culture has one, and they generally are strikingly similar in theme once you strip away the indigenous cultural references, so it's not hard to say that one was "stolen" or "borrowed" from somewhere else. Regardless, much of early Genesis material seems to have strong parallels to material in the ancient Sumerian and Chaldean traditions. Be it from a Hindu or Middle Eastern source in no way contradicts Jewish or Christian tradition: (cont)

@ThaddeusB - We can accept Scripture as divinely inspired but that doesn't mean it doesn't have roots in earlier sources. I have always thought of Moses as an editor who had divine guidance. He may have had ancient texts and/or traditions at his disposal, but G-d told him which parts to use, and how put things together in canonical form. Atheists and bible critics are so narrow minded and have devious agendas so they revel over "discoveries" that often "much ado about nothing".

Not all of us Atheists are narrow minded, nor have devious agendas

@ThaddeusB - there are more than superficial similarities between the theology of some Hindu traditions and Kabbalistic Judaism. (Interestingly, there was also a schism of sorts among ancient Hindu scholars about some of the more esoteric Hindu teachings, similar to what we find among medieval Jewish scholars.) But that doesn't mean that one "stole" or "borrowed" from the other any more than the bat stole the idea of the wing from the bird. (cont..)

@ThaddeusB (cont) G-d can manifest himself in certain ways that cross cultural and linguistic boundaries, and both the ancient Hebrews and the Aryan Indians were literate, sophisticated people living in more or less the same period, so their perception of the divine might be quite similar.

@ThaddeusB (cont) Or, as with what I said about texts, "cross pollination" does not preclude divine intervention and inspiration. As a Jewish scholar I could well say that perhaps some Kabbalistic ideas originated from Hindu sources but were refined and modified to conform with Jewish theology, under divine inspiration, etc.

@ThaddeusB (cont) Again, those who want to cause controversy and cast aspersions have their reasons, but they do not oblige scholars who choose to uphold their religious traditions and beliefs.

@ThaddeusB, just thinking about it - I have to say that discussion we had was a breath of fresh air - non-judgemental and no attempts to try and put religion on me - I appreciate that! A bit of an explanation, Science has give more Truth to me, than all the time I was an Evangelist. Of course, this is not the same for everyone, and many will find this an abomination - good thing they have no influence on what I believe.

The greatest feeling was learning the fact that all of us, do not answer to anyone else.

@Davïd I thought I was too, but you never know. That comment thread is now completely impenetrable to me. Is he not discrediting the viewpoint he asserted in the original comment?

@GreekSyntaxFans: I wrote this and ignored Wallace’s contention (p. 654) that it (καθαρίζων...) is a nominative absolute participle because I don’t understand it. (I doubt that would change the interpretation at all, but still it’s different.) He explains this construction as a type of nominativus pendens and states that it is always (italics his) substantival.

All of the other examples given are articular, obviously substantival, stand at the beginning of the sentence, and share a referent with a pronoun in the syntactically “correct” case later in the sentence. Mark 7:19 doesn’t have any of these characteristics. To me it seems like a run-of-the-mill dependent adverbial participle (probably “purpose” or “result” in his nomenclature). But I trust his analysis over mine...just don’t get it. Anyone able to explain?

@Susan Exactly the same thought occurred to me. Bewildering.

@Davïd Re. your comment on the Mark 7:19 question - I was torn on whether to close it (dupe) or answer it. I never had really understood fdb’s contention that the participle could equally well “go with” ἀφεδρῶνα, though, so I wanted to look at it again, and this was a good enough excuse. I still don’t get it, but at least now it’s discussed on a question that actually asked for that info. :-)

Over and over and over and over again!

@Vector Certainly. If the Genesis accounts are true and written down before the 12 century BC, I would expect there to be evidence preserved in other cultures. For example, the fact that so many cultures have a flood account is pretty interesting.

@Vector I was only referring to the origin of the idea that Hindu tradition records the names of Adam, Seth, etc.

I agree about Bible criticism - quite often these people "find" whatever they look for in the text; if they expect to find multiple authors, for example, that is what they find because such judgments are very subjective...

In the area of comparative religion, if one sets out to find similarities they will do so and de-emphasize (real) differences; similarly, if one sets out to find difference they will do so and will de-emphasive (real) similarities.

I don't think either difference or similarities is a strong argument for a non-theistic conclusion. As you point out, similarities could just as easily be argued for evidence that God was working in all cultures as evidence that people invented this stuff, copying from others before them.

@santiago Right back at you. Often atheists interject into theist conversation to try to show theists how "stupid" they are. You did not engage in this behavior and it is appreciated.

As a former Evangelist, you no doubt realize that I do wish for you to (re-)find God, but I don't think saying "you are sinner and must repent" is of any use. Jesus always reserved his harsh words for the religious leaders who thought themselves better than other people. As a Christian, I feel it is my duty to show people the benefit of knowing God through the way I live, not to try to shove some doctrine down anyone's throat.

Often times (online especially), theists and atheists engage in extended debates to try to prove they are right. While there is a place for this, for the most part I feel it is a waste of time for both sides. I much rather have a real conversation with someone (like we did last night) than to "win" a debate.

@Susan Excellent analysis, as always. The idea that "you can't trust English translations", but somehow you can trust interlinears (which are really just specialized translations that don't fix the grammar) always amuses me.

@santiago If I may, I would like to push back a bit on your view that the Bible is largely historical, that much of it is people's explanation for natural events. I certainly think this view is easier to defend than say a pure myth view, but like all viewpoints (including mine) it has its weaknesses. Specifically, it takes seriously the individual events but not the historic framework which they are said to take place.

For example, the 10 plagues could be described as 1) a large amount of red clay was deposited up river which 2) caused the frogs to leave the water which 3-6) attracted flies and spread disease as they died. 7) An unrelated severe hail storm killed crops and other vegetation to die which 8) sets off the natural locust behavior of grasshoppers.

Perhaps we can even say that the spread of disease was blamed on the Jews, which caused the Egyptians to kick them out. The expelled people then reinterpreted the events of the recent past as a blessing from God. But, then we come to the Pharaoh changing his mind and chasing after them and parting of the Red Sea. These events don't really fit the natural explanation idea.

So my question to you, is how do you explain the unnatural parts and/or the high coincidence of natural explainable events (e.g. a flock of birds getting off course and dying in the desert to feed the newly expelled/escape people)? Do you view some of these events as purely fictional later expansions to the story?