Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT sil.org]

Rolf Furuli wrote:

SYLLOGISM (C) IS INVALID

All lions have yellow furs
Petra has a yellow fur
_______________
Petra is a lion

YUOR SYLLOGISM (D) IS:

Only YHWH is "the first and the last"
Jesus is said to be "the first and the last" 
______________________________
Jesus is YHWH

I don't have the benefit of the Norwegian semester of logic and 
philosophy, and so I don't understand your detailed argument. But it 
does seem to me that the word "Only" makes syllogism (D) valid; for 
"Only A's are B" is logically equivalent to "All B's are A", or more 
mathematically "the set of all B's is a subset of the set of all A's". 
Let's change syllogism (C) to be more like (D):

SYLLOGISM (E)

Only lions have yellow manes
Petra has a yellow mane
_______________
Petra is a lion

This is surely valid, because it is equivalent to:

SYLLOGISM (F)

All beings which have yellow manes are lions
Petra has a yellow mane
_______________
Petra is a lion

For there are lions (female and young) which don't have yellow manes, 
but (for the sake of argument) there are no beings with yellow manes 
which are not lions.

Similarly, (D) (with clarification of "said to be") is equivalent to

SYLLOGISM (G)

All beings which are "the first and the last" are YHWH
Jesus is (according to the NT) "the first and the last" 
______________________________
Jesus is (according to the NT) YHWH

and this is a valid syllogism - there is probably no second YHWH who 
is not "the first and the last", but this does not invalidate the 
argument, for the significant point is that there is no "the first and 
the last" who is not YHWH.

Peter Kirk