re: University of Arkansas hanging posters of the Ten Commandments around campus

Standing up for what’s right. The DEMs are incapable of this… most are just useful idiots for their leaders.

quote:

---

The section, itself, starts and ends with the writing of the commandments. The first verse says, "The Lord said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke." The last verse of this section says, "And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments."

---

You failed to mention that just before “he” wrote the commandments, Yahweh told Moses to write them. You know how I know it was Moses? Because if he disobeyed Yahweh he’d have ended up dead right there, just like his brother’s sons who didn’t let Yahweh light the incense on fire.

quote:

---

I already showed you the parallel where the Levites were to take the place of the firstbrn of the whole of Israel. You conveniently didn't respond to that part

---

Doesn’t change exodus 22 commanding the first born children to be ripped from its mother and sacrificed just as any firstborn of an ox or sheep on an altar.

Do you believe every story about the Levites in the Bible? I bet you love the tale of Obed-Edom the Gittite (Philistine) Levite priest who protected the ark. Or perhaps you like the one about those who curse the day (priests) who have the power to arouse Leviathan?

quote:

---

I don't take your interpretation, because it's not what the Bible says or teaches. Even your repeated use of Ezekiel 20 shows this. God handed the people of Israel over to their sin, letting them do what they wanted, and punishing them for it.

---

Sure, Foo…

quote:

---

25Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, 26and I defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up all their firstborn, that I might devastate them. I did it that they might know that I am the LORD.

---

Nope, I don’t see in there anything about Yahweh handing them over to sin. He says he did it, for the sake of his name, so they would know that he is Yahweh (an a-hole).

quote:

---

I was saying I'm not interested in discussing Philo's other beliefs at this time

---

Because you hate the fact that Philo worshipped the Logos - the Jewish Deutero-Theos - the divine son of God through which all things were made… before the Pauline sect of Jews decided that the Logos had taken on a body of flesh thereby earning his name “Jesus” after his death, resurrection, and exaltation in the heavens.

You would prefer to pretend and believe in fantasy rather than reality. A lot of believers are just like you, which I think is unfortunate.

quote:

---

You failed to mention that just before “he” wrote the commandments, Yahweh told Moses to write them. You know how I know it was Moses? Because if he disobeyed Yahweh he’d have ended up dead right there, just like his brother’s sons who didn’t let Yahweh light the incense on fire.

---

What Moses was commanded to write is what we are debating.

I’m saying God commanded Moses to write down a lot of things, which is what we have in the first 5 books of the Bible. I’m arguing that the 10 commandments on the tablets were written by God.

quote:

---

Doesn’t change exodus 22 commanding the first born children to be ripped from its mother and sacrificed just as any firstborn of an ox or sheep on an altar.

---

Yes it does. Ex. 22 doesn’t say they should be sacrificed. It just says they should be dedicated to the Lord. How that dedication works out is what other verses help us with.

quote:

---

Do you believe every story about the Levites in the Bible? I bet you love the tale of Obed-Edom the Gittite (Philistine) Levite priest who protected the ark. Or perhaps you like the one about those who curse the day (priests) who have the power to arouse Leviathan?

---

Stick to the topics at hand.

quote:

---

Nope, I don’t see in there anything about Yahweh handing them over to sin. He says he did it, for the sake of his name, so they would know that he is Yahweh (an a-hole).

---

I’m using the rest of Scripture to interpret that passage. Because you think it’s useless to do that, you are going to only look at a text on its face and not use context to further interpret it, unless you can find something outside the Bible to use. I justified my interpretation with other Scripture. All you are doing here is being dismissive because you don’t like those interpretive rules.

quote:

---

Because you hate the fact that Philo worshipped the Logos

---

I don’t care what Philo believed if he rejected the truth. I was not holding Philo up as a standard-bearer for all truth. I was just highlighting that Jews and Christians alike understood the 10 commandments as being from Ex 20.

I’m happy to argue Philo’s beliefs in another discussion. I don’t want to carry on 3 or more different discussions with you at the same time.

quote:

---

I'm positive lots of people noticed. But when you start from the position that this must be divinely inspired you end up twisting yourself into knots, just like you're doing now, to pretend no contradictions exist.

---

You should have the talk with Squirrelmeister, then. He thinks the Bible was changed after the Jews returned from captivity.

But no, it makes no sense that the author had such a contradiction in such a short span of writing space. However, there is no contradiction even necessary since the word in question is “he”. The context defines the pronoun, and the fuller context requires no contradiction to be necessary.

quote:

---

Yeah, and according to you, that commandment was already covered in the original 10 that God regave earlier. So why repeat it?

---

It is a parenthetical. It grounds those commands as context and foundation.

quote:

---

Not boiling a goat in its own mother's milk relates to worship?

---

Yes. It was likely a Canaanite religious ritual to garner fertility blessing from the Canaanite gods. The Israelites were not to take on the practices of the idolaters in the surrounding nations but were to only perform religious worship according to what God commanded.

quote:

---

How is a law requiring this freedom? Maybe hang these in the Oval Office instead, where our great Christian president, who paid 130,000 to frick a beat up porn pussy, sits. I guess that sloppy wizard sleeve is what god wanted.

---

Please, oh wise one.... share with us a better realistic option or plan.
We're waiting....

quote:

---

If you assume a single author wrote a singular source material that is responsible for the Exodus we hold in our hands today, sure. You need to prove that, though.

---

I don’t need to prove anything to you. You are hard-hearted and won’t accept any proof anyway.

However, it makes even less sense if it was written by two different authors (the same chapter??). You wouldn’t think that the second author wouldn’t have read what was written a few verses earlier? Or a few chapters earlier? Who do you think wrote it? Do you think they didn’t even check that same chapter before distributing the text?

quote:

---

The Hebrews don't need context of their own religious beliefs, especially not extremely basic items like "don't worship other gods", that's a staple for virtually every religion.

---

Considering they worshipped other gods over and over and over again, it makes sense that God wanted to reinforce that particular command. They were constantly tempted towards syncretism.

quote:

---

Moreover, if you're going that basic, surely there are other foundational beliefs that need to be grounded/contextualized as well, not just the 2nd commandment.

---

The fourth commandment was added in there, as well (verse 21). The first table of the law (the first 4 commandments) is all about man’s duty to God. Chapter 34 is all about the first table.

quote:

---

So say "don't take on foreign religious rituals". Why be so hyper specific on this one specific ritual? He wasn't hyper specific when he said not to worship other gods.He said no other gods, not just this one or that one

---

Um, have you read the book? There are all sorts of specific commands in there.

That is actually one of my points. The 10 commandments listed in chapter 20 are the summary of the law, and the rest of the commandments (including in chapter 34) are expanded applications.

quote:

---

What Moses was commanded to write is what we are debating. I’m saying God commanded Moses to write down a lot of things, which is what we have in the first 5 books of the Bible. I’m arguing that the 10 commandments on the tablets were written by God.

---

Let’s check it out.

In Exodus 31, describing the first set of commandments, I think it’s pretty clear that Yahweh wrote them literally with his finger.

quote:

---

And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.

---

In exodus 34, from a separate source and separate tradition and separate author (though both stories may have been edited and redacted by other scribes), Yahweh says he will (kathab, Strong’s 3789) on the tablets. That Hebrew word used could be to physically inscribe, but it also can mean to describe or to record. This is why when it is meant that Yahweh physically wrote it, in exodus 31 it says he wrote it with his own finger.

In exodus 34:1, it is ambiguous. Did Yahweh describe the words to Moses, or did Yahweh physically write it for Moses?

quote:

---

1The LORD said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

---

The almighty context, which you ignore and hate. Yahweh commands Moses to “kathab” the words from Yahweh.

quote:

---

27And the LORD said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”

---

This next verse we have “he” three times. Was Yahweh there with himself for forty days? No, that was Moses. Did Yahweh not eat or drink for forty days? No, that wouldn’t be impressive - Yahweh doesn’t need to eat or drink. That was Moses. The third “he” is obviously Moses, as was the previous two successive he’s. From the context in verse 27, Moses is doing what Yahweh commanded.

quote:

---

28So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

---

Moses lives… if Moses wouldn’t have done what Yahweh commanded in verse 27, he have ended up as Adam was supposed to end up as (mowt ta muth). Yahweh doesn’t take kindly to his chosen ones pissing him off - he would have struck him dead on the spot, as he does with everyone else who pisses him off.

quote:

---

Ex. 22 doesn’t say they should be sacrificed. It just says they should be dedicated to the Lord. How that dedication works out is what other verses help us with.

---

Correct. Dedicated to Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of the Heavenly Army (of elohim, of gods you claim don’t exist). How exactly should that dedication work exactly? Let’s find out.

quote:

---

The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. 30You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall be with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.

---

What was done with oxen and sheep? Not only do we know from the Bible but from archaeological evidence. They were taken from their mother, their throat was slit, blood pouring onto the altar, and then they were set on fire. You want to argue “same” doesn’t mean “same”. You want to use “biblical hermeneutics“ to ignore passages you don’t like in favor of other verses in other books written by other authors. If you want to understand the context of what exodus 34 is, you have to look at that set of verses written by that author to see what that author meant.

Hebrew Yahwism was rooted in Canaanite Polytheism and child sacrifice. It’s in the archaeological record. It’s in the Bible. Also the Bible says Yahweh doesn’t like child sacrifice and never commanded it. Then the opposite is recorded in Ezekiel, your favorite chapter. Different authors with different ideas and theologies that contradict each other.

quote:

---

Stick to the topics at hand.

---

You must hate that the Bible records there was a philistine Levite priest.

quote:

---

I’m using the rest of Scripture to interpret that passage. Because you think it’s useless to do that, you are going to only look at a text on its face and not use context to further interpret it,

---

It’s not useless, but I can understand it better than you because I understand that there were different authors with different ideas. Evidently it isn’t univocal, but you ignore that evidence.

quote:

---

unless you can find something outside the Bible to use.

---

The Bible - the canon - a 4th century agreement of scriptural authority based on coercion and threats with the weight of an empire behind the authority.

quote:

---

I don’t care what Philo believed if he rejected the truth

---

Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Jerome loved him and referred to his ideas as precursors to Christianity. Eusebius even wrote that Philo was a Christian who had met Peter in Rome.

If you really look into Philo Judaeus, the philosopher of Alexandria who died in around 20CE, he was basically a Christian. The only difference between he and Paul was that Paul believed the son, the Logos, had become incarnate as a man, earning the name Jesus. Philo never thought the Logos had inhabited a man named Jesus.

Wouldn’t it have been neat though? If Philo had believed the Logos, the firstborn son of God, had inhabited a body of a man named Jesus? That would support to my argument. But we may never know.
.
.
.
Or maybe we already have it.

Philo: On the Change of Names

quote:

---

But the name of God’s son, which is the most ancient and most proper name of wisdom, is Jesus; for this name, having been given to the son of Nun, was also allotted to the Logos of God; for it is said, ‘He changed the name of Hosea the son of Nun, and called him Jesus. And this name, being interpreted, means salvation of Kyrios. For the one who is able to purify his mind from all passions and to receive in his soul the divine spirit, is worthy to be called by the name of the Logos of God, and to have the same appellation as the most holy Logos; for the divine Logos, being the eldest son of God, is a being of many names.

---

Interesting huh? Let’s see what else he had to say about God’s son…

On the Life of Moses

quote:

---

The Logos is the mediator, the firstborn of God, through whom God administers the universe… as the high priest offers gifts to God, so the Logos offers the world to Him.”

---

On the Confusion of Tongues:

quote:

---

God, being incorporeal and unseen, has begotten a Logos, through whom He made all visible things… and this Logos is the image of the invisible God.

---

Allegorical Interpretation III

quote:

---

And Melchizedek shall bring forth bread and wine: he is the priest of the Most High God.
Melchizedek is the Logos of God, who has obtained the priesthood, and he blesses those who are worthy of blessing… For this reason, he is called ‘king of righteousness’ and ‘king of peace,’ since righteousness and peace are the special attributes of the divine Logos.

---

Philo also wrote that it was the Logos that led the Israelites out of Egypt when he caused the plagues and killed the Egyptian firstborn. Right in line with Jude and 1 Corinthians says about what Jesus did. I don’t think we would even know who Paul was today, and for that matter, Christianity wouldn’t even exist today, had it not been for Philo.

It’s unfortunate that you’ve never read into Philo. You might actually learn something.

quote:

---

FooManChoo

---

I'm not even sure why you read the drivel from those two. It's all just nonsensical word salad from them.

quote:

---

I'm not even sure why you read the drivel from those two. It's all just nonsensical word salad from them.

---

I’ve been ignoring Squirrel more recently. I’m being stubborn on this particular topic because he needs to see what happens when someone engages with his lies.