Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jim West <jwest AT highland.net>]

At 05:27 PM 2/6/03 -0500, you wrote:

>> Dear Bill, et. al.
>> I would not presume to read the bible other than supra-literally.

i take this to mean *un-literally*.  but isnt such a generalized
circumscribed presuppositional stance the very thing academic study is
intent on leading all of us AWAY from?  Some texts certainly are to be taken
literally. not every verse is metaphor.  to suggest that they are is to
confine your interpretation with a narrow preconception.  liberalism can be
as fundamentalistic as the most rabid, saber toothed fundamentalist.

>> Otherwise, I would be assuming what the writer *actually* meant,
>> rather than assuming that he *actually* meant what he *actually* said.
>> Therefore, she saw gods, or a god, coming out of the earth.
>> Nifty, eh? A god differs from mortals only in their immortality,
>> not in their corporality.
>> That's the whole point of the Adam and Eve story, the Gilgamesh
>> story, etc, etc.
>> I think the notion that gods are incorporeal is Greek. The Greeks had
>> the idea that God had to be perfect and that since matter is
>> corruptible, then God could not be material. I don't know whether
>> that applies to the gods on Olympus or not.

i dont really qualify as an expert on greek theology.  i do know a bit about
plato and epictetus and diogenes of sinope.  none of them envisioned an
incorporeal deity.  every existent thing exists in some form else it doesnt
exist at all.  the shadows too are substance.

as to what the endorian witch saw- she saw samuel- and saul believed she saw
samuel and he believed he would be dead the next day (even taking his own
sword in hand to make sure it happened).  that the ancient israelites
believed in some sort of existence of the soul beyond this life in sheol
(and that is, after all, where this discussion began), seems irrefutable on
the evidence.

best

jim
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD

Biblical Studies Resources
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