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2:08 AM
@Dan the best way to do that is to flag it (which I just did). That way mods who don't stay current on chat will still see it.
 
1 hour later…
3:34 AM
@MonicaCellio Thank you Monica. I guess I lost courage-- double VTC only minutes after posting doesn't exactly make one feel at ease. I think the question can be fixed; I'm just not sure it would be asking what I need to know. I've spent the afternoon trying to sift to the bottom of why I thought to bring it to the community, what I was looking for, what I thought the academic community could offer.
I concluded that it is a complicated puzzle with many pieces and likely a series of questions and so many of them wrapped up in theological debate that I suspect the community would respond much like they did today.
 
3 hours later…
6:16 AM
@Dan Hi, looking at that answer, it is certainly sketchy and in need of expanding, but it isn't tangential or a request for more information. Comments are the worst place for 'pseudo-answers' (because they can't be DVd or edited, and they don't 'float' with votes), it either needs to be deleted of edited, but 100% absolutely not converted into a comment!
(I think he only said that because you prompted him)
 
4 hours later…
10:14 AM
Sorry everybody real life has had me up against a wall most days lately and I haven't been able to dig into the discussion going on as much as I'd like. It doesn't help that all you people are incorrigibly verbose ;)
I've read most meta posts and skimmed chat logs. There are a lot of places I'd like to jump in with my 2c, but I'm not sure where to start.
One recent one might be this:
17 hours ago, by Monica Cellio
It seems to me that Jack and Caleb think that any backing off from "this is true, because" is evil NPOV. There's a vast space in between and it's just plain impolite to presume that everybody believes as you do. But arguing with them isn't helping, so I'll wait and see.
@MonicaCellio I don't know if @JackDouglas and I even have the same concerns about NPOV, but I think the above statement indicates a complete miss as far as understanding what my concerns with it are. Use or not use of NPOV has, in my mind, almost no direct connection to "presuming that everybody believes as you do". That, of course, would be impolite (as well as just plain hair brained).
10:49 AM
My 2c would be that simply making a 'truth assertion' neither is inherently impolite, nor carries the connotations of 'presuming everybody believes as you do'. So "surely everyone know that basic fact that God is triune" is impolite/rude/stupid/needs editing, but "The plurality of God is evident in Genesis 18" is perfectly fine whether or not it is 'true'
11:05 AM
@JackDouglas That's roughly the distinction I would point out too. I would also drag in some issues with most NPOV implementations not actually being the absence of assertions, but that's a secondary issue to what you point out of there not being a direct relation between making assertions and the impolite presumption of what others do or don't believe.
 
3 hours later…
1:47 PM
@Sarah the goal of closing a question (or rather, putting it on hold) isn't to get rid of it or say it's bad. The goal is to get the question clarified before people start answering what might turn out to be the wrong question. Please don't see closure as a value judgement; it's more like a "hang on a sec while we discuss this" thing. I've had lots of questions closed and reopened on other sites.
3
@Sarah if they end up being bound up in theology like that, you might look to see if they'd fit on C.SE. (They might or might not, but it's worth looking over their "about" page to see.) The most important thing is that you can get your questions answered; where that happens is less important.
so you're ok with the following?
- Prophecy ended with Malachi.
- The people who wrote the gospels were Jews who knew their Tanakh and could write their story to match up with its imagery and prophecies.
- The law given by God cannot be set aside by men (like Paul).
- God is one and indivisible.
- A person claiming to be God is blaspheming.
@Caleb the "presumption" is that since your assertion is obviously true you don't need to support it -- it's obvious! It's true! Case closed!
@Caleb, instead of making us try to guess based on your responses to miscellaneous posts/comments, would you be willing to say directly what problem you see with *this subset of NPOV* as a guideline for *this site*?

- Avoid stating opinions as facts.
- Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts.
- Avoid presenting uncontested factual assertions as mere opinion.
- Prefer nonjudgmental language.

What parts of that are objectionable? Why?
@MonicaCellio Depends on the context. In the context of an answer trying to explain what principles they have taken into account in the process of interpreting a text, yes I'd be fine with all of them. That doesn't mean I think they all are true (although about half of them are strongly affirmed by Christians).
@MonicaCellio Each of those could be OK but it would depend on the context: if it is clear the the OP is unconcerned about who they are offending or deliberately being provocative then in that context they are all potentially offensive. If they are evidently not intended to be offensive and the post as a whole is not offensive they would stand.
@JackDouglas how do you determine whether something is "evidently not intended to be offensive"?
@MonicaCellio it's a judgement call
@JackDouglas and therefore not evident but something about which reasonable people can diasagree.
2:01 PM
@MonicaCellio The problem isn't with our definition of NPOV, it's with our definition of "guidelines for this site". Most of our best answers use some level of NPOV and I'm fine with encouraging that -- and even with other people downvoting if they don't think something was well stated -- but a guideline of what we would prefer is not a mandate for editing, deleting or other mod action against infractions. That's were we differ.
@MonicaCellio I don't think so, it is just something that cannot be completely codified. It is precisely something about which reasonable people can agree.
@Caleb guideline is the first step, but it appears we can't even get that. If you think that's ok as a guideline, why not put it in the about page?
Dan
Dan
@JackDouglas oh ok, gotcha
@MonicaCellio my opinion on those guidelines is different to Caleb's I think: I think each of the statements is unclear and unhelpful as a guideline
Hi @Dan :)
Dan
Dan
@JackDouglas hi there
2:06 PM
@JackDouglas as you've said, we can't fully specify everything. These guidelines are clear to me, and they've been well-tested in the field. That makes them helpful to some people at least, even if you can't see it. What specifically is unclear and unhelpful?
@MonicaCellio A discussion of what is or isn't in the about page doesn't seem to be the issue here. Unless you think that is the measure of our site. To my knowledge we've had pretty broad agreement on preferring certain styles since the last time (a year ago maybe?) we had this same conversation. We have a guideline, what we disagree about is how much we can force our version of it on other OPs.
@MonicaCellio well what is the difference between 'opinion' and 'fact' given that our whole perspective of facts is viewed through the lens of our own conciousness and experience?
likewise for (2) and (3)
And what is "nonjudgmental language"?
(absent the overall context of an entire post as discussed above)
None of it is specifically defined enough to help us with the borderline cases that are actually the ones that cause debate here
@JackDouglas I tend to agree, they just punt the debate one step farther down the road and don't actually clarify it for people who don't already understand the concept. But just because I don't find them "helpful" per-se doens't mean I find them "objectionable" either, which is what Monica asked. But I'm not willing to jump from "I don't find this objectionable" to "I think this is useful enough to require compete compliance."
Dan
Dan
just caught up on chat
I stopped using the term NPOV and went with 'polite, academic tone'
as a form of NPOV-lite
I think it's clear the community does not want NPOV
but perhaps a 'middle-of-the-road' solution is in order, a Goldilocks-and-the-three-bears 'just right' solution, if you will ;)
@Caleb putting it in the about page would be a small way to demonstrate that we actually have this in-folklore-only value. We direct new users to the about page all the time, & what they find there is not very useful. Yes, we still need to talk about what to do with violations, but from my perspective you won't even visibly agree that stating seriously-contested assertions as facts is a problem to be avoided & we should use non-judgmental language, so of course you resist doing more.
Dan
Dan
2:14 PM
(@JackDouglas introduced me to that story the other day)
@Dan yes, "polite, academic tone" is what I'm looking for too.
Question for you @MonicaCellio. This won't be an easy mental exercise either, but if you can pull it off, I'd like to hear your feedback about how your Jewish perspective has been received on BH only as far as your generated content goes. In other words, how have your questions and especially your answers been received on their own merits? Set aside all the chat and site direction meta stuff and comment/edit issues on other people's answers.
Say you had never read anybody elses answers and were just judging based on responses you'd gotten to your own answers. How well received would you feel as somebody presenting a minority perspective?
@Dan I'm concerned about conflating polite and academic as you know: polite is already a requirement (and we enforce it when necessary), but academic carries the overtones of allowing only a certain type of experts to contribute (and I really do think there are many experts with no 'academic' background)
Dan
Dan
@Caleb @MonicaCellio (good exercise, but also note that had it not been for some of the chat and meta stuff, would she have realized she was welcome to give her perspective? The way the questions are written would have likely dissuaded that, as they often are from a blatantly Christian background)
2:18 PM
@Caleb I'll try. (Back in a bit; I need to review my list of posts to respond to this.)
Dan
Dan
@JackDouglas perhaps I should give up 'academic' and just go back to NPOV, just not quite as much as Wikipedia
@JackDouglas the posts over which you and I have had our biggest arguments were not polite.
Dan
Dan
I think full pluralism won't work here without NPOV
2
@MonicaCellio I know we differ on this assessment, but this only demonstrates the need for choosing the wording of any guidelines carefully
c.f. "precious blood" (et al; that wasn't the biggest problem in that post) and that false dig at the rabbis and the cannibalism one.
Dan
Dan
2:19 PM
But we could have a Judeo-Christian pluralism that could work
Obviously everything involving Jesus would need to be stated as opinion
Only enforced for Hebrew Bible though, as it is a given for NT
@Dan I certainly entered tentatively and waited for invitations to, e.g., bring talmudic sources, yes. On a new site I was more able to jump in; on a more-mature site like now, I likely would not have.
@Dan note that my "NPOV list" isn't exactly Wikipedia's either. It's the part that makes sense here.
Dan
Dan
And I'm not a fan of the OP asking for a perspective (whether Christian or Jewish), because we already have C.SE and MY.SE for that
@Dan @MonicaCellio I realize that's a presupposition to this exercise. Assuming only answering some subset of questions that struck her interest and not having any questions about starting out, I just want to know how the response has felt to the things she has posted.
Dan
Dan
@MonicaCellio I think we're pretty much on the same page on our NPOV lists
@JackDouglas I'm just pointing out that "polite" isn't enough (the help center or about already says that after all), and we need to describe better what we mean by that. Like my list.
@Dan right, Jesus in the Christian testament is a given. But not when talking about what the Hebrew bible says or predicts.
2:23 PM
@MonicaCellio we first need to work out what we (eg the community) mean by polite before we describe it for the world at large
Dan
Dan
@Caleb 10-4
@Dan This is a statement I can't quite agree on. I think having a solid base of NPOV content is a good thing, but considering how many perspectives there are that think in fundamentally different terms, not allowing some non-NPOV participation would be by definition to exclude some perspectives, ergo not full pluralism.
@Dan I realize I'm asking for an artificial metric.
Dan
Dan
@Caleb true, but I also think that by allowing those folks to participate, you will actually exclude even more
@Caleb no problem, I think my brain is in the mode of challenging presuppositions right now anyways
@Dan, I'm going to go off and try to answer Caleb's question. Can you try to explain politeness to Jack?
Dan
Dan
(two days of ontological semantics discussions, my head is spinning)
@MonicaCellio I made a meta post to give the entire community an opportunity to try
2:25 PM
@Dan oh right. Jack, please go read that (again, if you've seen it already).
Dan
Dan
@MonicaCellio I think @JackDouglas might be right about nixing 'academic' - I need to think of a better way of putting this
@Caleb I wonder if you and @Dan understand something different by the work pluralism? For Dan it is (I think) a term restricting certain statements that contradict certain others (in other words it is a 'tolerate all except intolerance' kind of philosophy: an ideal and associated hermeneutic in it's own right)
Dan
Dan
@JackDouglas no, I think postmodernism is a pipe dream in many respects
@JackDouglas (and so do many philosophers), so I'm actually saying that if you want to adopt a cognitively dissonant philosophy - you need to adopt the dissonances as well :P
@Dan OK, but by 'pluralistic' you don't mean 'free for all', do you?
@JackDouglas Ya, that's not the sense in which i just used it, so if that's what Dan meant then we're definitely feeling up the elephant.
2:28 PM
@Caleb you meant 'open to contributions from lots of different frameworks', right?
(even if they mutually blatantly contradict)
@JackDouglas Yes, something along those lines.
@Dan can you explain that for mere mortals :p
Dan
Dan
@JackDouglas I'm thinking....
I think you are right that I am not using the term pluralism correctly
I am not really arguing for pluralism, but rather a form of relativism
And so I apologize for using the wrong term
The problem is that no one really agrees on a definition of 'religious pluralism'
If you mean pluralism in the philosophical sense, that is not necessarily the same
There are multiple approaches, mine is relativistic and thus inclusivist
2:46 PM
I have an answer to @Caleb's question; let me know when it's ok to interrupt with it.
Ok, I'm going to take advantage of the lull (didn't want to come in during the rapid-fire part). 6 posts coming now @Caleb:
Many of my posts here have been well-received as far as votes are concerned (by the norms of this site). When there is also a Christian answer on the question mine tends not to do as well (and is generally not accepted).
The answers that have fared best are on questions that don't involve Christian interpretations, e.g. what's wrong with cooking a kid in its mother's milk or why did Abel keep flocks. Answers to pure-history questions also do well. And there are some that Christians don't seem to care about; those do ok. But as soon as we get into stuff that somebody might interpret through a Christian lens, my answers do less well.
For the last several months my posts have been less-well received -- few votes, few or no comments, a whole lot of "meh". This does not seem to depend on the content; I wonder if there are people who are just not interested in anything I post. I don't know if my posts are even being read much.
.
I've gotten downvotes when there was some issue in what I wrote, and when the person leaves a comment so I can address it that's tended to work out well. (That's how it's supposed to work!) I've also gotten dogmatic downvotes, ones that do not seem to be about flaws in the post but just because I didn't bring a Christian answer.
For example, most recently I got a commentless downvote on this. I know who it was from (it was obvious) and his dogma is very different from mine.
.
I think my older, upvoted answers have benefited from open-minded or non-Christian users who are no longer active on the site. I don't think my answer quality has dropped, so I have no other explanation for the trend line I've seen. Do you?
.
-30-
@MonicaCellio Thanks for taking the time to write that up, that's exactly the kind of thing I was interesting in hearing. Please forgive me while I digress for a while before replying.
@Caleb of course. It took time to produce; it should take time to digest. :-)
@Dan When you say "my approach", I think it would be meaningful to break down each of our respective "approaches" down into two parts. One part is our own personal beliefs, writing style and preferences in content presentation. The other half is the degree to which we believe others must conform to the same pattern as ourselves in order to constructively interact with them. Does that split make any sense to you?
Dan
Dan
3:02 PM
@Caleb yes
@Caleb For the record, I just started using the term pluralism after this meta post because it became clear to me that site has little linguistic precision like philosophy
I came to the conclusion that for Christians (most participants here), "relativism" is a buzzword with a negative connotation
I don't like typing "diverse doctrinal absolutism" and it is too easily misunderstood, so I didn't use that
And pluralism is an easy choice and fits (see @JonEricson's answer)
In fact, I pretty much entirely agree with his answer
@Dan LOL, that meta thread has the dubious distinction of bearing a post from me saying "no" and having my upvote on a post that says "yes". In light of the question, the irony is profound. We mange to mean the same thing using opposite words.
@JonEricson So it turns out I am using pluralism differently than Dan. He is using it epistemologically; I mean merely that the site permits a plurality of views to be expressed (without any sort of claims about equal validity of the views). — Kazark Apr 16 at 22:52
Dan
Dan
@Caleb this is the problem
I've found that Christians simply react negatively to things based on things they've heard (not just on this site)
@Dan Do you think that is what my answer there does?
(And relax, I'm not about to take anything you say personally or read offense into you disagreeing or even having the impression that I wasn't making best use of my grey matter.)
Dan
Dan
So if I say 'pluralism', they hear bad liberalism
And if I say 'relativism,' they hear 'bad liberalism'
And if I say 'philosophy,' ... you get the idea
@Caleb no
3:11 PM
@Dan Yup. And on average I'd grant you're correct.
@Dan What do you think about the last statement there?
> I would go so far as to say what defines this site is the presence of diverse doctrinal absolutism, not relativism.
Dan
Dan
let me finish this thought then I will answer that
Sure.
Dan
Dan
so based on the definitions in my answer, my argument was (and is) that this site is actually operating within the framework of postmodern relativism, but I'd like to see it working via pluralism
(as defined)
@Caleb I upvoted your question
@Caleb but I was basically arguing that I could upvote everyone's answer to that question and thus prove relativism correct, and Kazark's acceptance of your answer even proved it more correct
so. meta.
Dan
Dan
@DanO'Day: In other words by accepting my answer he proves yours correct? Meta for the win :) — Caleb Apr 16 at 14:32
3:16 PM
@MonicaCellio Thank you.
Dan
Dan
I even rescinded my statement about relativism in an edit to my question and just started saying 'postmodern' because I observed that Kazark did not care to understand the term, he was just reacting to it
> Oh what a tangled web we weave. — Sir Walter Scott.
Dan
Dan
@Caleb It gets better
@Caleb so when I wrote that, I actually was willing to work towards relativism, but everyone continued insisting on pluralism (but were actually pushing a Christianized form of relativism in my opinion), so now I'm asking us to merely be consistent about it - and now everyone is pushing back toward relativism
see the problem?
This is somewhat inherent to postmodernism
@Dan There is no spoon problem.
Dan
Dan
But I'm trying to find a lane to drive in, because I keep having to avoid head-on worldview collisions
3:22 PM
@Dan If I'm correctly reading you here, this statement ^^^ is in itself symptomatic of your specific beliefs on my number two above: namely you believe that BH should not be a place where world-views are allowed to collide head on.
Where by "collide" we're probably talking about "being allowed to compete for votes side by side as conflicting answers".
@Caleb not just that; it's also the fights in comments -- which you can't make ok by just deleting the comments; the ill will remains.
So either an answer presents its case based on facts not dogma, or you get fights over dogma. Choose.
Dan
Dan
(sorry, work)
@Dan You're looking at the worst offender here for getting sidetracked by work and life and wandering off from chats. Take your time.
@JackDouglas Thank you for your comment. As for deleting my answer; I should have posted it as a comment. As always, I respect the decisions of the forum though it is not always pleasant. I do appreciate the honest communication.
@Sarah Thanks, I really appreciate you not taking it personally
(I I'd have converted it to a comment except I thought you might want to paraphrase it yourself: it was a bit long as it stood)
@Sarah I hate it when folk delete my stuff so I know a bit how it can feel :)
3:35 PM
Ah, thank you. If you think it appropriate as a comment I will do that.
@JackDouglas If you have had things deleted then I guess I am in good company. That is helpful to know.
@ Monica, how do you define prophecy?
@Sarah oh yes, deleted, edited, closed, ignored, downvoted, ridiculed etc (mostly elsewhere on the network to be sure, but you do need a slightly think skin in a place like this where practically anyone can have a voice!)
@JackDouglas Indeed! I suppose one develops such in a place like this as well.
@Sarah can I answer informally without us getting too hung up in semantics? I mean, I think I mean what Christians mean too (hence the disagreement about when it ended): direct revelation from God to a person for the purpose of proclamation.
@MonicaCellio OK, Samuel 3:3 says, "the word of God was rare in those days." God always desires to speak with His people. When they turn a deaf ear, though he is slow to anger and patient, though He continues to speak and warn history shows there is a time when He ceases to speak. That does not mean His speaking has ceased forever. When and where there are folks who love and are devoted to Him, who walk in in ways and who have ears to hear, He speaks.
Put another way, even were He to speak there would be none to hear and none to record.
3:52 PM
@Sarah according to Judaism (and note the absence of that phrase from my example, which was the point!), God no longer communicates in that way with His people. That doesn't mean that we are deaf to Him or that He doesn't communicate in other ways, but that era ended, just as the era of public miracles (like the sea of reeds, pillar of fire, etc) ended. God is just as present, available, and interested in us as always, but the methods are different now.
@MonicaCellio Does Scripture teach that?
And therefore (to bring the dogma home), anyone claiming prophecy later is wrong.
@Sarah I don't think so. It's from rabbinic literature, including talmud (see here). But, to keep hammering the point, it's true.
(@Sarah, you might want to back-read if that last comment left you wondering if I'm trying to start a fight.)
@MonicaCellio I am sorry, I do not understand; however I do not think you were endeavoring to start a fight, but to discern what I believe and communicate what you believe.
@MonicaCellio That sounds like experience. If they do not base these statements on Scripture saying it would one day be so, then they merely speak from themselves, and of their own confession not of God.
@Sarah ok, thanks -- wanted to make sure you didn't think I was trying to start a fight. I'm really just using this as an example of an unnecessarily divisive, therefore not polite, assertion that could be said on the main site. If I write in an answer that the age of prophecy ended with Malachi so such-and-such future claimant is clearly either mistaken or lying, I should expect to be criticized for saying that. [cont]
But some Christians make equally-strong assertions here and that seems to be ok with our Chrisitan voters and moderators. See the problem?
Do you have an example that I can look at?
4:06 PM
@Sarah they base their statements on oral torah revealed by God, but Christians don't accept that.
@MonicaCellio Wait, I believe in the Torah revealed by God.
But when did they receive Torah orally from God stating that prophecy ceased with Malachi?
@Sarah here's one -- starts off fine but the problems start about half-way down, e.g. "another saint of God" (meaning Jesus) and "This prophetic psalm, which gives us remarkable details concerning the cross-death of Jesus Christ" (no, no psalm does that because that's not what they're about), etc.
@MonicaCellio While I am reading this you can answer the above.
@Sarah the written torah (the five books of Moshe) were accompanied by an oral teaching, which was eventually written down in the talmud. We believe that this oral torah is from God just as the written one is. It's the oral torah that Christians don't accept.
@MonicaCellio I see, and where in this oral torah does God say that prophecy would cease with Malachi?
4:11 PM
Another problem with rhetorician's answer (one that runs through many of his) is that he's doing a long sermon about Jesus on a question that didn't ask for that.
@Sarah did you see the Mi Yodeya question I linked? There are sources there. I have not personally verified them.
@MonicaCellio I am reading it now.
Here's another example of dogma asserted as fact, and actually this one is rude enough that maybe it should be offense-flagged: "...in which those of carnal Israel who refused to believe, state (corporately), "I am no widow," and drink the blood of the apostles and prophets." Unless somebody's actually got a record of anybody drinking blood etc? No, didn't think so.
You are offended by their faith?
@Sarah I am offended by their assertions of truth. They're using dogma as if it were fact on which one can build an argument.
And don't you think having one's people accused of cannibalism is a little offensive? And called "carnal"?
@MonicaCellio Which answer are you referring to in this post?
4:21 PM
@Sarah Mike Bull's. (Did my direct link to the answer not work?)
Dan
Dan
@Caleb no I think worldviews should be able to collide here - but not unnecessarily. For instance, bringing doctrine into a question about a distinct grammatical feature of a word is not needed to answer the question and adds nothing to the answer - yet we often get completely doctrinal answers (that do not really answer the question) and they get upvoted more than the answers that actually do give the correct answer
I think I just lost it when I scrolled up to get the context.
@Dan yeah, like here -- Frank's (a) is the correct answer and (b) actually answers the question, but konwayk's has 4 upvotes. (Yea, 3 DVs, but my point is that 4 people thought that was good.)
@MonicaCellio is this not a Scriptural metaphor for being guilty of killing someone, like, "their blood in on our hands"?
Dan
Dan
@MonicaCellio not to mention that question is off topic per our site standards since it asks only about the languages themselves
@Caleb absolutism (universality) is the opposite of relativism, but in order for this to truly exist we would not be postmodern but rather a new religion that Jews and Christians both agreed on (impossible)
4:33 PM
@MonicaCellio "carnal" means walking in view of this world rather than of God. Are these folks not writing from their Scripture that is one of the forum's agreed upon texts? I think I am understanding your plea; however, strictly taking it back to this forum, Because you do not believe it is prophecy based on oral tradition (which is not an agreed upon text of this forum), does not mean that others should not when that is one of the premises of the NT (that is an agreed upon text of this forum).
@MonicaCellio, to answer the next of your questions, It is possible for anyone to write anything based on foreknowledge and claim their story to fulfill it. However, Scripture reflects the weight of two or three witnesses to establish truth. And of course folks can lie. Notwithstanding, we have in the gospel accounts 4 records of the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus called the Messiah, not to mention the attestation of Peter.
I do not believe any man has the authority to revoke the laws of God!!!!! Not Paul, not Jesus, not anyone! Jesus lived in subjection to His Father's will and taught his followers to do the same.
@Dan I'd say you are correct, but "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". ;-) The question probably ought to be reworked to be more focused on the problems encountered in Biblical Studies. That's why I included the "specific text" clause in the on-topic description. However, I'd say we should not be too anxious about questions that push the boundaries if they get excellent answers. (This question got at least one.)
4:49 PM
@MonicaCellio , you ask, "Is it blasphemy for a man to claim to be God? Consider the testimony of John in his gospel 10:33 The Jews answered Him, saying, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God."
34 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, "You are gods" '?
35 If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),
36 do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?
I think His answer is sufficient on that.
@MonicaCellio, I need to go. You asked one more question and it is a quick and easy one for me to answer.
Yes, I believe God is one. As for indivisible, does Scripture say He is indivisible?
5:39 PM
@MonicaCellio At one time, my answer was the accepted one. Then I logged in and the OP had switched them.
@Sarah In my comment here, the only thing I disagree with in the answer is Aramaic Primacy. I'm not downvoting because I agree with the bulk. But even though I do upvote answers I disagree with, in my studies Aramaic Primacy is so baseless I can't do it here.
@FrankLuke I'm trying to work out whether to remove my upvote or change into a downvote. The 'accepted answer at the top' is really unhelpful on this site if you ask me
@JackDouglas Usually it works out that the accepted answer has the most votes. This is one of the few where it didn't.
@FrankLuke this was another one originally…
deleted by Monica Cellio, Soldarnal, Frank Luke Jul 5 at 3:12 :)
@FrankLuke that's brilliant, who has done that sort of thing before. (Happened to me once so I noticed, and then I was attuned to it so so it happen again, including here.) I can't say that motivates me to answer more of his questions (or, well, would if I were answering questions at all, I mean).
Speaking of VtD, I have considered casting one on the accepted answer to the one we speak of today. However, I am not sure of the propriety of that since I have a competing answer on the question.
5:53 PM
@FrankLuke I'm entirely comfortable with you doing that
@MonicaCellio Completely understand.
@Sarah, sorry I dropped off for a while (I'm at work). I'm not here to argue Christian theology. As far as I'm concerned the gospels are somewhere between mistaken and fabrication, so they have no credibility with me. Saying the books are open for examination on this site is not the same as saying they're true -- so yes they bear on Christian questions, but no they aren't meaningful for Tanakh. Stating things from them, or loosely derived from them, as fact is a problem.
And so I made some dogmatic statements -- that are true to me, but probably not to you -- to make a point, to show you (well, Jack and Caleb; you came later) what that looks like. I have seen ruder things about Jews and the Hebrew bible than any of the examples I gave, by the way.
@MonicaCellio would you mind linking to one of them?
@JackDouglas I flagged it. Does someone else have to do something before the VtD boxes show up? I can't recall being the first VtD before.
@JonEricson I'd like to see the Hebrew/Aramaic question reworked to be on-topic rather than ditched, as it's valuable information (well, Frank's answer is) for people studying the texts in the original. It's a resource question rather than a text question, in other words. But as written it doesn't fit our on-topic list.
5:59 PM
@FrankLuke there is no 'delete' link visible for you?
@FrankLuke VtD isn't available (except to mods) until the score is sub-0.
@JackDouglas No. I see "share edit and flag" under the question.
--Ninjaed by Monica.
@FrankLuke how about now?
@JackDouglas Visible and vote cast.
@JackDouglas sure, how about this one which I brought up earlier in this chat? Here's another (see full edit history). Don't forget this (it took three months to get that backhandedly deleted).
@JackDouglas oh good. Second vote cast.
6:19 PM
@MonicaCellio Me too. But I don't think it hurts to leave it as is either. I would like to see the accepted answer unpinned. Shog hinted at a solution to that.
@MonicaCellio I meant your statements: "I made some dogmatic statements -- that are true to me, but probably not to you -- to make a point, to show you"
Or have I misunderstood?
@JonEricson the ball is rolling ;)
8 mins ago, by Monica Cellio
@JackDouglas oh good. Second vote cast.
@JackDouglas If it were my power to make accepted answer pinning a per-site option right now, this would be the first site I'd offer it to.
@JackDouglas oh, sorry. Here:
5 hours ago, by Monica Cellio
so you're ok with the following?
- Prophecy ended with Malachi.
- The people who wrote the gospels were Jews who knew their Tanakh and could write their story to match up with its imagery and prophecies.
- The law given by God cannot be set aside by men (like Paul).
- God is one and indivisible.
- A person claiming to be God is blaspheming.
@MonicaCellio ah those: I didn't even realise those were supposed to be offensive to Christians
I even agree with all of them
6:37 PM
@MonicaCellio Except for the prophecy one, I agree.
@FrankLuke the prophecy one is deliberately provocative. (Ok they all are, but that one in particular.) So neither you nor @Jack would, hypothetically speaking, have any problem with me asserting those as facts in an answer?
@MonicaCellio nope. I'd nuance them differently but even if I wasn't cessationist, I'd still assert the first one to a degree (ie in certain contexts of the word prophecy)
@MonicaCellio Luke was probably Greek, not Jewish. ;-)
@JonEricson I, too, would like to see accepted answers sort by votes rather than at the top, and have upvoted everything relevant I've seen on that.
@MonicaCellio 3-5 no problem at all. With 2, I agree on the first part, and it sounds like you are asserting the gospels were fabrications. With 1, as a Pentecostal, I'd roll my eyes, but I doubt I would say anything.
Unless the question were regarding cessation, then I'd just write my own competing answer.
6:43 PM
@MonicaCellio I realize what you were trying to do with those statements, but A) it's not entirely clear what you were trying to do because your statements contrived to come off as counter-Christian are actually pretty solid Christian doctrine and B) without context it's impossible to really judge whether or not we'd approve of usage. In the context of an answer of yours doing exegesis on a passage, yes I'd be quite happy to see such assertions as background to your work of interpretation.
@JonEricson ok, most of the gospel-writers, then. Or, more broadly, most of the people who wrote the Christian books knew the Hebrew bible and could lay out their story to take advantage of it.
@MonicaCellio don't worry, your argument applies to Luke too. He was very closely associated with Paul
@MonicaCellio No doubt. If not, I wouldn't be going to church on Sunday mornings. I'd probably take advantage of the restaurants being mostly empty. ;-)
Of course if your answer was basically an anti-Christian rant (and we've had a few of those), it'd need to go even if there was no single sentence you could lift out and say "that was the reason".
@FrankLuke on 2, yes that's where that would lead. On 1, this knocks out claims of Jesus, John the Baptist, and anybody else being prophets (I don't know who cares about that but I know some do). Trinitarians should have trouble with 4. Any Christian of Jewish lineage who doesn't keep torah laws would have a problem with 3.
@Caleb it's hard to give full-answer-sized examples in chat. :-) I have heard Christians make every claim I countered there. For example, if men like Paul can't deprecate the law, then why don't y'all keep Shabbat, kosher, etc? He said "nah, that doesn't matter", and for gentiles that's ok (shrug), but any Christians of Jewish descent are Jews and thus sinning Jews if they follow that guidance.
@JackDouglas oh it wouldn't be a rant; it would be a well-laid-out argument for why (say) the gospel interpretation of some Tanakh text is bunk. (No, I don't have an example in mind right now.)
6:50 PM
@MonicaCellio Paul does say rejoice in your Jewishness and fulfill the law.
@FrankLuke really? Then what went wrong?
You would think that we'd have trouble with #4, but the indivisibility of God is well attested in Christian doctrine.
@MonicaCellio Somewhere around 170, there was a huge break in Jewish-Christian relations.
@FrankLuke except you've got God divided up into three parts, apparently with different will sometimes.
@MonicaCellio Some Christians actually do try to follow the mosaic law and are mildly to severely judgmental of those of us who don't. But I think you'll find that few here are that dogmatic. (Though as are Eternal September drags on, more of them will try their hand at answering such questions.)
I don't have time to pull up my "Paul and the Law" material from Nunnally right now, but I would like to soon for you.
6:56 PM
@MonicaCellio The Christian definition of the Trinity very specifically excludes the concept of division, separate parts or conflicting wills.
But all that is beside the point you were trying to make, which I think we "get". There are certainly assertions that could be made that Christians would not agree with. But whether or not they could be found in the context of a constructive answer is not a judgement we could make without the entire context of the answer.
@FrankLuke it's ok; that's probably a bookcase-sized discussion anyway, not a chat-sized one.
@MonicaCellio As Athanasius said, "not dividing the substance nor confusing the persons." None of the persons can exist without the other, they all make up the one God in unity. That each person dwells in the other two which makes God indivisible and unquantifiable, so that wherever one of the persons of God is, all of God is there. From here.
@MonicaCellio Yeah. And work calls. Talk to everyone later.
@JonEricson one difference between us and Eternal September is that in 1993, most of the people dealing with it agreed on what the problems were. Here that's not the case.
@MonicaCellio FYI, my first quarter at UCLA started October of 1992. It's entirely possible we have different impressions of what Eternal September means.
@JonEricson FYI: Someone tried to ping you in a comment on one of my answers. Not sure if it worked because they added a couple spaces.
7:07 PM
@Soldarnal Thanks.
@JonEricson oh, heh. I, on the other hand, was close to a decade out of school, with plenty of Usenet, Internet, and ARPAnet experience under my belt, when that happened. We were probably on opposite sides -- but it's ok; I don't remember you. :-)
@StackExchange I assume there's a screen shot in that (that I just can't see here at work where imgur is blocked)?
@MonicaCellio Yeah, it shows the part of our FAQ that lists what is on and off topic
With a freehand circle around the part about language
7:26 PM
@Soldarnal thanks.
8:08 PM
<please stand by for wall of text>
5 hours ago, by Monica Cellio
Many of my posts here have been well-received as far as votes are concerned (by the norms of this site). When there is also a Christian answer on the question mine tends not to do as well (and is generally not accepted).
@MonicaCellio Considering you represent a minority view (minority in terms of raw composition the overall field of Biblical Hermeneutics) and typically stick very closely to that perspective, answering with only Jewish sources and sometimes only addressing the parts of questions relevant to you, it seems to me your answers have actually been very well received, not just on par with competing views but shown extra appreciation for their quality.
I asked this because I was wondering if you saw the same thing. It seems to me that you might be reading far too much importance into metrics that don't actually matter matter. Which brings up the issue of voting. For example this:
5 hours ago, by Monica Cellio
For example, most recently I got a commentless downvote on this. I know who it was from (it was obvious) and his dogma is very different from mine.
@MonicaCellio This is, in my estimation, a problematic assertion. Even as moderators we cannot see who is voting, and even going off of "solid" clues turns out to be more misleading than revealing. I've noted multiple times for example where I would comment and somebody would immediately piggy back on my critical comment to "cover" their downvote. I've even done something similar. Worse yet I've noted people to leave comments saying "-1" or "I downvoted because" but not actually downvote.
5 hours ago, by Monica Cellio
.
I've gotten downvotes when there was some issue in what I wrote, and when the person leaves a comment so I can address it that's tended to work out well. (That's how it's supposed to work!) I've also gotten dogmatic downvotes, ones that do not seem to be about flaws in the post but just because I didn't bring a Christian answer.
@MonicaCellio There is no such thing as a "dogmatic downvote". You simply don't know why or who downvoted in that case. It's widely accepted by experienced SE'ers that even trying to guess is bad news. One more articulate than I once said this:
"...and see that a couple high level users have come, picked some minor mistake..., voted it down, and answered the question..." You have exactly zero idea whether the people who commented voted the answer down, unless they said so. None. Zip. Zilch. Don't assume. A lot of people comment without downvoting, and a lot of people downvote without commenting. To assume that someone taking the time to comment also downvoted is a mistake, and a useless, pointless one. Also note that people don't downvote you, they downvote the answer. — T.J. Crowder Jul 5 at 12:10
Similar statements could be made for other voting patterns. It's simply not constructive to speculate on the whos or whys of an action that is intentionally a private affair. There isn't an exception to this for people who have a lot of information with which to guess or closely monitor the users known to be involved or for meta or anything else. It just isn't constructive behavior.
As such I'd like to recommend for your own sake as well as ours that you step back from doing it. It isn't just this instance that I've noted, there have been quite a few where you've speculated as to either identities or motives of voters. I really believe this isn't a small issue, it's a large one that's making your life here harder than it otherwise would be for no constructive gain to yourself or anyone else.
5 hours ago, by Monica Cellio
The answers that have fared best are on questions that don't involve Christian interpretations, e.g. what's wrong with cooking a kid in its mother's milk or why did Abel keep flocks. Answers to pure-history questions also do well. And there are some that Christians don't seem to care about; those do ok. But as soon as we get into stuff that somebody might interpret through a Christian lens, my answers do less well.
@MonicaCellio This I can see. I know it happens. Given the volume of users out there that recognize phrases and methods from their own background over unknown ones. However also implied from your own description above is that even when questions bring up subjects that Christians see through a different lens, your answers have been appreciated. They can and do serve a purpose here.
I would also add that quite often in cases where your answer stands beside others with different bent, your answers are often less complete. The example you cite is a case in point: you give a single perspective from a Rabbi, while the slightly more upvoted answers it stands with give far more exhaustive treatments of possible interpretations and various commentators.
5 hours ago, by Monica Cellio
.
I think my older, upvoted answers have benefited from open-minded or non-Christian users who are no longer active on the site. I don't think my answer quality has dropped, so I have no other explanation for the trend line I've seen. Do you?
Where I could spend half an hour working up a decent answer to just about anything during the first year and easily get 10+ votes out of it, after the first year twice as much effort into an answer would pick up a measly 4 votes. As traffic grows, vote patterns dilute. So yes, I would like to suggest that there are other explanations for the trend.
To my knowledge they have never been rejected by the site as valid contributions showing how passages are interpreted even if the conclusions of your perspective are not always adopted by everybody. Would you have it any other way? Would you have a minority view voted out of sync with other answers just because it was minority? Would you have your Jewish perspective be marked as accepted all the time when its in conflict with other views?
@MonicaCellio Reviewing voting patterns on your answers I do see a general down trend lately. However I would like to suggest that there are possibly alternate interpretations for this. For one thing, I noted something very similar across the board on C.SE. As we started getting farther away from the initial excitement of beta and a new site, the voting volume took a pretty heavy hit.
To compound that, you should consider the fact that you've been frustrated with the site for must of the last year, and however subtle this has/does have an effect on your answers. You are less enthusiastic about tackling issues than you were at first. You are less willing to step out and propose alternate views, sticking more closely to basic questions were you know your perspective will be less contested.
I'm not saying there is a radical shift in your quality, but your state of mind has subtle effects on the actions you take that easily compound into the effect you see -- without your proposed cause necessarily being true at all.
I'm not discounting that there might be more too it. Your heavier participation in comments, particularly critical of other people's content, probably has garnered you a few "followers" who know your name, don't agree or appreciate the criticism and are less inclined to upvote your content when they see your name.
It's not supposed to work this way, we all wish it didn't, but I also know human nature and some folks are going to be reticent to encourage a user that they just butted heads with somewhere else.
5 hours ago, by Monica Cellio
For the last several months my posts have been less-well received -- few votes, few or no comments, a whole lot of "meh". This does not seem to depend on the content; I wonder if there are people who are just not interested in anything I post. I don't know if my posts are even being read much.
@MonicaCellio So your answers aren't controversial? And people aren't as critical of them? Maybe the old timers pretty much trust what you're saying and we're all busy trying to teach the new guys? Maybe this is partly amplified by what I was saying before about you aren't stepping out into controversial territory as much. Maybe this is just a continued factor of higher traffic diluting attention from individual posts.
Obviously that's a lot of questions that I don't necessarily have answers for and a lot of suggested scenarios that neither of us can prove either way. But I'd be interested in hearing your feedback on this feedback.
I asked the question in the first place because I'm trying to get my head around ... exactly what I asked actually: how you feel about your own participation. Obviously none of this even even touches on our discussion about site direction and our overall aims or how we handle others participation.
But I've been having a hard time discerning from your various commentary how you view the difference between your participation as a contributing user and your requirements for every other contributor.
I don't want to assume too much about your motives. (Esp not after lecturing you on the point!) That's why I'm asking all these questions in the first place, and why I'd like to hear your reaction to my reactions. In the interest of you being able to correct my impressions, I will say this much.
Really I'm sure rationally it is NOT your intent to come off this way, but sometimes if feels like you have a "my way or the highway" ultimatum going on. It sometimes doesn't feel like you're willing to grant room for differing beliefs and opinions to exist in the same sphere.
Again, I put that feeling out there not as statement of fact or even what I believe, but specifically so you know how I sometimes feel and what I'm trying to correct. I'm asking these questions so I have something to put in place to counter that impression which I presume to be untrue.
</end wall of text>
...and please accept my apologies for the outrageous abuse of the chat format.
8:31 PM
@FrankLuke Given history, I anticipated disagreement with my post and that is why I acknowledged right off how highly debated the issue is. However, regardless of whether one agrees of disagrees, I thought it offers valuable insight into the matter and that it was worth setting forth despite swimming upstream. I do appreciate that my pearls did not come back trampled. I am glad you felt free to expressed your perspective.
@Sarah Since this group of sites works off of competing answers, I should probably do one for this question with the use of sone in other Hebrew literature.
@Sarah May I recommend this book to you? I highly recommend it.
9:01 PM
@Caleb, thank you for your detailed response. Stand by for a wall of text.
On voting, I know quite well the dangers of trying to figure these things out. I don't monitor patterns in other users. In the recent case I mentioned I was not trying to figure anything out; a clear combination of events unfolded before my eyes. And sometimes people tell you. That's all I'll say about downvotes.
52 mins ago, by Caleb
@MonicaCellio Considering you represent a minority view (minority in terms of raw composition the overall field of Biblical Hermeneutics) and typically stick very closely to that perspective, answering with only Jewish sources and sometimes only addressing the parts of questions relevant to you, it seems to me your answers have actually been very well received, not just on par with competing views but shown extra appreciation for their quality.
On a question about what a passage in Tanakh says, an answer based on Jewish sources is a valid, complete answer. It is no more a deficiency for me to leave out a Christian commentary than it is for you, in answering a gospel question, to leave out a Muslim commentary. I generally try to avoid questions that seek a Christian answer because I know I'm not equipped to provide that.
50 mins ago, by Caleb
Where I could spend half an hour working up a decent answer to just about anything during the first year and easily get 10+ votes out of it, after the first year twice as much effort into an answer would pick up a measly 4 votes. As traffic grows, vote patterns dilute. So yes, I would like to suggest that there are other explanations for the trend.
Thanks. It's good to know that this is happening to other people too. This is why I was asking earlier this summer about general voting trends here, but the answer seemed to be "slight summer dip", not "bigger change", which left me trying to understand what I am personally seeing.
50 mins ago, by Caleb
To my knowledge they have never been rejected by the site as valid contributions showing how passages are interpreted even if the conclusions of your perspective are not always adopted by everybody. Would you have it any other way? Would you have a minority view voted out of sync with other answers just because it was minority? Would you have your Jewish perspective be marked as accepted all the time when its in conflict with other views?
I don't expect anybody to "adopt" my views any more than you should expect anybody to adopt yours. I suspect that we are collectively falling short of the practice that we once strove for of upvoting well-constructed answers even if you disagree with them (and the converse). Perhaps with higher volume (is it higher?) we're just reading less?
50 mins ago, by Caleb
To compound that, you should consider the fact that you've been frustrated with the site for must of the last year, and however subtle this has/does have an effect on your answers. You are less enthusiastic about tackling issues than you were at first. You are less willing to step out and propose alternate views, sticking more closely to basic questions were you know your perspective will be less contested.
I had not noticed this and I thank you for rasising it. Can you point to any examples of recent answers that show this problem so I can review them?
49 mins ago, by Caleb
@MonicaCellio So your answers aren't controversial? And people aren't as critical of them? Maybe the old timers pretty much trust what you're saying and we're all busy trying to teach the new guys? Maybe this is partly amplified by what I was saying before about you aren't stepping out into controversial territory as much. Maybe this is just a continued factor of higher traffic diluting attention from individual posts.
Well no; I'm seeing a decline in upvotes. Are you saying that the old-timers trust me so much that they don't even read, let alone vote on, what I write? I don't think that's what you meant but I'm having trouble understanding what you did mean.
49 mins ago, by Caleb
I asked the question in the first place because I'm trying to get my head around ... exactly what I asked actually: how you feel about your own participation. Obviously none of this even even touches on our discussion about site direction and our overall aims or how we handle others participation.
You might want to look again at my answers to your Jewish-participation meta post, particularly the "lonely" section of this answer. (Loneliness isn't my point here; in that section I talk about preceived reactions to my posts.)
I am feeling like my participation is not as welcome as it once was. Perhaps the shininess of having somebody willing to offer the Jewish perspective has worn off for y'all. I'm starting to feel more like a "pet Jew" and less like an equal participant. I am not blaming anybody. I don't even know why I have this feeling. But I do.
I am strongly feeling the Christian bias of the site. I would have no problem with Christian-themed answers that show their work and back up their assertions -- but that's not what usually happens. I feel like a so-so Christian answer will always beat a solidly-reasoned Jewish answer just because the majority agrees with the theology.
You can say voting doesn't matter and we're here to make the internet better by building a repository of knowledge and so on, but I'm not feeling it. So long as there's voting (which I think is essential to get participation) it'll matter, and there are better places than here to build repositories of religious knowledge.
49 mins ago, by Caleb
But I've been having a hard time discerning from your various commentary how you view the difference between your participation as a contributing user and your requirements for every other contributor.
All users must follow the same rules -- you, me, Jack, Mike Bull, Dan, everybody.
49 mins ago, by Caleb
Really I'm sure rationally it is NOT your intent to come off this way, but sometimes if feels like you have a "my way or the highway" ultimatum going on. It sometimes doesn't feel like you're willing to grant room for differing beliefs and opinions to exist in the same sphere.
Thank you for saying that so I can challenge it. That is not my intention, nor what I think I have been doing. I have been expressing my frustration with the site, including that I'm feeling demotivated, but that is not an ultimatum. I am certainly not suggesting that other people should have to do things that I myself should not have to do.
I have been "grant[ing] room for differing beliefs and opinions" for almost two years. I don't feel that much "granting room..." is happening in the other direction. This has been particularly noticable in the conflicts with Jack (in which I believe you usually back him up). I don't want to restart things here now (this is long enough already), but I think he does not apply to himself the rules he would impose on me.
In posts on main, it is true that I have little tolerance for opinions masquerading as facts. That's poor form and certainly not in keeping with our quality goals. If I do that, I expect people to call me on it. I don't know how much is that I'm better at it than some others and how much is that people aren't reading my stuff, but people (I think including you) have commended me on my logical, dispassionate, non-dogmatic answers, so maybe I have a talent.
.
So to (try to) sum up: I think our quality is declining; I understand that my frustration with that may be affecting how people react to me; my work seems to be getting less positive attention. Because of all that and the very real problems of site direction, I'm feeling less motivation to contribute. That makes me sad.
I think there are only two options to make this site viable. The first is to be the Biblical Studies site Dan outlined, seeking experts from academia and massively discouraging the dogmatic, opinion-based amateur answers. The second is to be a Christian hermeneutics site and draw from the seminaries.
At this point it's ok with me if you do the latter, so long as you (a) label it clearly and (b) remove the now-off-topic Jewish content. I've gotten to a point where I can just sadly acknowledge my wasted effort over the last two years if it comes to that.
.
...and done.
@MonicaCellio I have noticed this too with my answers.
@FrankLuke thanks, good to know. People talk about traffic increasing, but traffic from non-user Googlers is different from traffic from users. I wonder if our user participation is down.
Dan
Dan
9:17 PM
Need some VTCs on this one
@Dan VtD! Not for two days, alas, unless a mod acts.
But a score of -5 will get it off the main page.
@MonicaCellio I'm in a deleting mood today. Barring an edit in the very near future, this question won't be around much longer.
Dan
Dan
@JonEricson it could be migrated to C.SE
@Dan I picked a different close reason, but yours is valid too.
Dan
Dan
@JonEricson although I don't think they'd want it as is. (Who asserts that the Holy Spirit isn't here today?)
9:26 PM
@Dan Yeah. That's a strawman. (And I have a low tolerance for that at the moment.)
@JonEricson oh lookie! A delete link appears at -3 now. I forgot about that change. @Dan you should be able to vote too. (I don't know how many it takes -- 3?)
Dan
Dan
@MonicaCellio my vote has been recorded
@Dan ah, good point. Thanks. I wonder if the broad survey you're asking for is realistic for one answer, but you're right that I don't talk at all about later scholars (through the reformation).
Dan
Dan
@MonicaCellio no no, I only wanted scholars pre-16th century, so Rashi is good
But I wanted to hear other opinions also
But I would accept it with only Rashi if you also commented on textual criticism
9:32 PM
@Dan right -- I meant I didn't do anything about the space between Rashi and the reformation.
@Dan ah, ok -- thanks for the info.
Dan
Dan
@MonicaCellio ideally commentators long before Rashi actually ;)
I wanted to know if there are any alternate readings / manuscript discrepancies
And I would want someone to compare the Masoretic Text to the Septuagint and early Latin manuscripts (since some of our copies of these may well predate the MT we have today)
@Dan true, but the reason I always go to him first is that he repeats prior work. (Looks like that prior work wasn't cited here, so I'll need to check Rashi commentaries to see where he got it.)
@Dan oh! Sorry, didn't get that you were looking for mss issues when you asked.
@Caleb: I'm just going to assume you intended to end your comment "Peace out!".
@Dan ok, I'll let somebody else do that.
Dan
Dan
@MonicaCellio you have met 3/4 criteria I was seeking, which is awesome
@MonicaCellio you got my UV almost immediately as it was very helpful
But this is the remaining question (bulleted): "What additional textual evidence (aside from it simply not 'seeming to fit' in this context) exists for this verse/prophecy being an interpolation?"
@MonicaCellio only because the translators I cited noted that it "has the earmarks of a later commentary that has been merged with the text in the process of transmission."
9:39 PM
@Jon no actually the Android app ate my comment. But close enough.
@Monica thanks for the replies, I'll deal with them another time and not on mobile!
Dan
Dan
@MonicaCellio although when I wrote that I probably didn't have the ability to answer my own question, now I do (I purchased Dead Sea Scrolls texts and and BHS critical Hebrew textual commentary since then)
:P
@Dan oh, then you should answer! :-)
@Caleb yeah, a phone is no place for an SE chat session!
@Caleb Is the the official alpha Android app? I'm jealous. ;-)
Oh, unless you have the app (I'm still in line).
Dan
Dan
@JonEricson uh oh, I just wrote a meta post that is dripping with some unhelpful sarcasm
maybe you'll be tempted to delete it also :P
But I did try to retain meta SO levels of sarcasm, satire, and freehand circles rather than totally unhelpful
9:44 PM
@Dan are you kidding? That post is beautiful! I can't wait to see it with the freehand circles!
Dan
Dan
@MonicaCellio I slipped some jabs in the images themselves that are not in the written text. Easter eggs
@Jon yes and its nice but more than rough around the edges. It's dev material not beta for sure.
@Dan looking forward to it. :-)
Dan
Dan
@MonicaCellio I'm pretty sure very few people will notice one of them :)
@Dan Sarcasm can be helpful. ;-)
Dan
Dan
9:49 PM
@JonEricson yes, and I hope it is ;)
@JonEricson and as a side note, as if I don't kill enough time on SE sites, I just joined gardening
@Dan It's growing!
Dan
Dan
@JonEricson haha (I see what you did there)
@JonEricson let's see if they like my first question
@Dan Be sure to not take a strong position on organic vs. "scientific" gardening and object in the strongest possible terms to whichever answer you get.
(Sarcasm is contagious.)
Dan
Dan
@JonEricson nice!
@JonEricson it's ok, since I'm just a sapling there, if I come to the natural conclusion that I am out of season I can just leaf
@Dan Why is it that my pun is so much funnier than yours are? ;-)
Dan
Dan
10:04 PM
@JonEricson :P
2
Q: As I scout our About I just want to shout!

DanOne of the most important elements on a website is the "About" page. Existing/established users may not be paying much attention to it, but new visitors to the site are. And considering that our About page is where they click to learn about who we are, how the site works, and what our standards a...

Dan
Dan
10:22 PM
Here it is @JonEricson
@Dan You might get a request for a picture. Also, you might want to indicate what climate zone (or just the location) you are in.
(And my guess is that you are still over-watering and/or the soil isn't draining well enough. We have some fully grown cypress trees in front of our house and they seem well adapted to our arid climate.)
Dan
Dan
10:59 PM
@JonEricson good to know
@Dan Oh hey. I forgot to upvote.
02:00 - 23:0023:00 - 00:00

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