Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Kirk" <peter AT qaya.org>
> 
> On 18/11/2005 20:29, Karl Randolph wrote:
> 
> > ...
> >
> > Everyone's understanding is tinged by their experiences and 
> > presuppositions. Mine is such that when I think of "forever" or 
> > "eternity", I am thinking in cosmological terms, where (WLM can 
> > refer to a span of time that is finite within the age of the 
> > universe. However, it is an unspecified span of time with its 
> > limits often unknown. Because it is unspecified, (WLM can also 
> > refer to eternity in a cosmological sense as well according to 
> > context.
> 
> Well, Karl, at least you recognise your problem here.

I think it is *your* problem.       ;-)

> .....        The 
> Israelites were not thinking in modern cosmological terms.

What do *you* *know* about ancient cosmology?

Your apparent attitude towards the ancients sounds like 
the 19th century European chauvinism that was behind 
the development of DH. What do you know about ancient 
cosmology? I wouldn't be surprised that your concept 
mirrors that of Medieval cosmology, which was a strange 
mishmash of Greek philosophical method smashed into 
Hebrew and Christian terminology by scholastics who 
were more wedded to Greek philosophy than Tanakh.

But when we take the Hebrew Tanakh and the Greek New 
Testament for themselves, we find a cosmology that is 
unique in the ancient world, and one that is thoroughly 
modern. Alone among ancient religions, it was a historical 
religion. It is a historical fact that when the Reformation 
swept away the accumulated cobwebs of neo-Platonism 
and neo-Aristotelianism as they taught "sola scriptura", 
that it led directly to the development of modern empirical 
science, the push for universal education, the music of 
Bach and other concepts that we today consider modern.

> .....        They 
> were thinking of a universe which began with a creation, and which 
> was probably expected to end in some kind of final destruction. 

Hey, that sounds exactly what I believe.

> `Olam with past reference referred to things which were thought to 
> date back to the creation or at least to the period immediately 
> following it.

Wrong.

> .....        `Olam with future references referred to things which 
> are expected to continue until that final destruction, or which 
> were at least in practice equivalent to that.

Again wrong.

Or rather, not necessarily to both. The use is more nuanced 
than that.

> 
> ...
> 
> >> I did not claim any New Testament perspective, I said that such 
> >> perspectives are irrelevant for understanding the Hebrew Bible.
> >
> > Ahhh, but your quote from 1 Peter is one of the proof passages 
> > used by Christian theologians as to why we ought to use the New 
> > Testament as a guide to understand Tanakh.
> 
> That is not how I used the passage. I am not responsible for how 
> others may have misused it.
> 
A rather chauvinistic answer.

> > As for the New Testament use of "eon", it too is used for a 
> > limited but unknown length of time (e.g. Matthew 28:20) as well 
> > as eternity, just like (WLM.
> 
> So , Karl, do you consider that, according to this verse, there 
> will be a future time when Jesus is not with his people?

Another straw man argument.

> .....        I 
> certainly don't, for which I praise the Lord. So the rather strange 
> mention here of "always, to the close of the age" must be a 
> reference to the final end of time.
> 
> ... which will be on us all too soon if I keep posting on this subject.
> 
> -- Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/

Karl W. Randolph.

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