1 Thessalonians 5:21. Good on ya! But does that mean that you’re just going to excise verses like Exodus 20:5 from that Bible? How does that aid in understanding what the authors were getting at? Is it possible you don’t care? You simply presume that your judgment is superior and that whatever is behind versus you don’t consider good is merely an academic question? I’m trying to understand your POV on this point.
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Regards
DL
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1 Thessalonians 5:21. Good on ya! But does that mean that you’re just going to excise verses like Exodus 20:5 from that Bible? How does that aid in understanding what the authors were getting at? Is it possible you don’t care? You simply presume that your judgment is superior and that whatever is behind versus you don’t consider good is merely an academic question? I’m trying to understand your POV on this point.
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I would not excise it. I recognize that scriptures can be made to say almost anything.
I would just put These quotes against yours and then ask that we test the competing quotes and decide which is the most just.
Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Deuteronomy 24:16 (ESV) "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.
The declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children is contrary to every principle of moral justice. [Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason]
I would also point out that for god to punish us at all for just following, as we must, the sin natures that he himself created in us and that would be quite unjust, — because we cannot go against our natures.
I never understood why it was the good that were constantly being chastised and hounded, but the guilty were forgiven for their sins… what kind of reasoning is that, that would be used in the making of humans a more responsible species? Not a very helpful one, that’s for sure.
Deuteronomy 5:9 (ESV)
9 You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
Deuteronomy 24:16 (ESV) "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.
Interesting that the verse you cited Deuteronomy 24:16 appears in the same book as a verse parallel to Exodus 20:5 that I cited, that is Deuteronomy 5:9. What does that mean?
Does “visiting iniquity of the fathers on the children” exclude capital punishment? Apparently it is “the Lord your God” who visits iniquity on the children, whereas the Hebrew authorities are commanded not to put them to death.
The letter of the law is on the first rung of Origen’s three-tiered hermeneutic. That level is literal and historical.
I don’t suppose that the literal-historical level is all there is to interpretation. But I don’t ignore it either.
The Judeo-Christian scriptures are polysemic. They have not only one meaning but point in different directions and therefore may mean something that is unconscious or at least not conscious in all its aspects like myths and dreams.
Hermeneutics is an elusive science. The word is derived from Hermes a trickster god and in practice it often reflects his character. He was not only the messenger of Zeus, he was also the patron of liars and thieves.
The duality of natural and supernatural is the result of Enlightenment philosophical reflection on Newtonian physics.
I don’t think humans invented the gods. The gods are psychic realities of the collective unconscious manifest in dreams, and other spontaneous mental images.
Perhaps the scope of your knowledge is greater than mine. I’ve read some hermeneutics, but I can’t say I know “most of” it. Please educate me.
I would submit that dreams are a natural human phenomena. Humans didn’t invent their dreams anymore than they invented their feet. Humans did not invent the archetypes which are imaged in dreams and upon which the mythology of the gods are based. This is the view analytical psychology the theory and the method I am entertaining.