It happens to me all the time on Stack Exchange sites -- I ask a question, get one or two credible-sounding answers, decide to wait a few days to see how the community feels about them and if more come in... and then one day I notice that weeks have passed and I never got around to closing out th...
@MonicaCellio Heh. I was thinking this week about that issue. I think you wrote the minimum standard, which is what we can all agree is necessary. It might be we just note that in your answer. (We might want to think of other ways to promote it in addition to changing the tags.)
@JonEricson I agree that mine is the minimum standard. Updating the answer to say that explicitly seems like a good idea. Or we could update the question to point to mine as the minimum and Jack's (nearly as many votes) as something we also support, sort of as a hint about possible future direction or at least a heads-up.
Did I suggest, in the roadmap post, linking the result from the FAQ? I think I did.
@MatthewMiller it's ok; it was new to all of us at some point. If you hover over the top left part of a chat message you'll see a drop-down arrow; click on that to find options, including "reply to this". If you click that you can tie your message to a previous one. You can ping anybody who's here, or been here recently, by typing @username, as I see you just discovered.
(There's also a reply arrow in the bottom right on hover. I can't actually see well enough to see that, so I don't know which symbol it is. It's next to the star (click to mark a message as interesting), but I'm not sure on which side.)
@MatthewMiller yup, like that. If you hover over the back-arrow on that message, the message it's a reply to is highlighted. (Or you can click to be taken there.) This will be handy for following longer threads.
@MatthewMiller things have actually been really quiet here today (not usual :-) ). We've been talking about how to wrap up the show your work question, and also about some random posts that might need attention (in both directions).
@MatthewMiller on a message that is a linked reply, to the left of the at-sign there is a little "left-turn" arrow. If you hover over that you'll see which message it replies to.
@MatthewMiller oh, all sorts of things. Last week Dan and Jack had a discussion of Orthodox vs Calvinist takes on something, if I recall correctly. We've had other theology discussions, things that are off-topic on the main site but people are curious about. Sometimes it's site "administration" stuff, like what do we want to do about such-and-such issue. Nothing in here is official, but it's good for brainstorming sometimes.
@MatthewMiller oh, gotcha. @JonEricson is in the room right now but may be away from his keyboard at the moment. (I can't see his icon here at work (images blocked); if it's grayed out it means he hasn't typed in a while.) You can go ahead and type a message for him and he'll get a ping (if you use the @ notation). Then when he sees it he'll reply. With luck you'll both be here at the same time at some point in there. :-)
@MatthewMiller you can browse the transcripts to get more of a sense of things. In the top right (under "The Library") there's a link for "room" with a down-arrow to its right; click on that and choose "full transcript" from the menu. The transcript is usually one page per day and you can use previous/next links from there.
@MatthewMiller I'm at work at the moment, which means my participation can be spotty (if I disappear for long stretches, it's not personal). I also pop in from home. I think both of those are true of others too. We're also geographically distributed; I'm in the eastern time zone in the US, Jon is pacific, Jack is in the UK, Caleb is in Turkey, and I don't know where the others are. So sometimes chat is synchronous and sometimes asynchronous.
@MatthewMiller "student" in the sense of adult learner yes; in the sense of "enrolled in seminary", no.
@MatthewMiller oh, misunderstood. It's not my focus, as I'm Jewish, so while I tend to read the Christian questions here out of curiosity, I'm usually not qualified to comment on or answer them.
@MonicaCellio Makes sense. Your reply to Jesus' authority to cleanse the temple seemed a bit strained. And I think someone said they appreciated you attempting to answer a New Testament question. What did you think of my response on that question?
On the surface, the conversation is primarily about water and worship. Beneath the surface, however, there’s a great deal about sex and marriage.
Of course the topic of marriage is not entirely underground. There is that awkward moment when Jesus raises the issue of the woman’s marital status. ...
@MatthewMiller we answered from different perspectives. I was answering from that of Jewish law (that sense of "authority"); you brought an interesting interpration of Jesus claiming authority by comparison to Solomon and then acting accordingly. Different approaches. I like yours too (and upvoted it); it relies on an axiom I don't agree with (that Jesus had Solomon's authority), but voting isn't about agreement but about quality. Your answer is quality stuff; good job.
@JackDouglas I've been writing on these things in the dark for a while. I'm correction deputy without much of on outlet for my real passion. I'm a bible college graduate and a former 2 year bible college instructor. I just keep reading, studying and writing in the hopes that one day it will make a difference.
@JonEricson I live just outside of Portland, OR. I work at the Clark County Jail in Vancouver, Washington. I worked at the Orange County Jail before I moved back here.
@MatthewMiller that's cool, but I was just commenting that it takes most folk a while to understand the format here, things like the markdown syntax etc: you seem to have hit the ground running on that front as well as clear and well-explained content
I hope you have the time and inclination to contribute a lot more…
@MonicaCellio I completely understand. But wouldn't you say that authority was given not just to Solomon but David's dynastic line? Jesus is picking up the broken house of David.
@JackDouglas Thank you! Just hungry I guess. I feel I've been bottled up for quite some time.
@JackDouglas I plan to. :)
@JonEricson you think that question is too big for a forum like this?
@MatthewMiller Not really. It's more that the question depends on a bunch of things in the text and one thing outside of the text. You don't supply the outside thing (which is good) so the question doesn't have bite.
@MatthewMiller well, I don't grant that either (a) any arbitrary descendent of David gets to just claim it (David designated his heir) or that (b) Jesus, who according to Christian scripture is not physically of David's line, counts. (I'm not trying to start a fight, just point out a difference of perspective.)
@MatthewMiller I mean, it's not unusual for the Bible to use sexual imagery so why not include it in a story about Jesus and the woman by the well? Christians are often uncomfortable with the idea (and also with the miracle at Cana). But that's because we have a sort of idea of Jesus as sexless or something. (Not that he wasn't a virgin. Rather, he had desires that he didn't act on.)
Also you have 90% of an answer in the question. Let the rest of us do something! ;)
@MonicaCellio I just think what Jesus was doing was more in line with the Hebrew bible than most Jews are willing to admit. And not simply talking a proof from prophecy apologetic.
@MatthewMiller well yeah, but I'm always open to respectful discussion (and this site has way more of that than the world at large, in my experience :-) ). And the main site isn't really the place for doctrine, so chat is a good place to come to talk about things like that.
@MatthewMiller no, I've said he's been described in ways that are clearly tied to some prior texts. They knew how to do allegory and symbolism too. That doesn't necessarily mean that what was written down is actually correct, either a correct record or independently true. (Again, I mean no disrespect.)
@MonicaCellio I would simply say that Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on a donkey and his cleansing of the temple are not gospel constructs but actually come from the historical Jesus. The gospel writers were not putting words into Jesus mouth when they said he claimed to be king. That record how he in fact did claim to be king.
@JackDouglas I would agree that 4 is weak if and when its not connected with the first three. The strength of 4 depends on recognizing the prior points.
@MonicaCellio Of course he could have been a false claimant. But the claim was made first by him.
@MatthewMiller claim, ok. You understand that, knowing the previous text, it would be logical for him to arrange for a donkey etc when entering Jerusalem, even if he had no "authority" other than his own assertion, right? That doesn't confer authority; that just shows he knew the texts.
@MonicaCellio But the story is in line with the story of the Hebrew bible. It's not a radical break from it, however radical some people have claimed it to be.
Help me out here. I'm trying to remember the psalm where the psalmist laments the broken line of David. Because God said that he would establish the son of David on his throne forever. (2 Samuel 7).
There is nothing in the text in 2 Samuel 7 or in subsequent writings within the Tanakh that hints that the Davidic covenant spoken through Nathan was spoken falsely by him or embellished. 1 Kings 4:31 esteems the wisdom of Ethan the Ezrahite pretty highly; his wisdom is the bar by which the autho...
@JonEricson @MonicaCellio I don't think the writer or writers of Samuel and Kings did see Nathan as a false prophet. I think they saw the continuation of the house of David after the split from northern tribes as evidence of its fulfillment. The end of 2 kings ends on some what of a positive note with the elevation of Jehoiachin.
I really think that N.T. Wright is right on this point. The return from exile did not bring an end to the exile because the Son of David did not return the throne. And this is where the idea of the Messiah originated from.
@MatthewMiller that was Jon's question btw, Monica just edited the tags at some point. Don't worry about dipping in and out of chat it's what most of us do :)
@MatthewMiller Thanks for stopping by. Next time you step in, I wonder if you would let us know how you found us. We're always looking for more people such as yourself to participate. ;-)
