Genesis 17:17: Mind's Retroactive Conception.

dybmh said:

Where I get stuck in your explanation is the shift from heart, which is in the text, to mind, which is not in the text. Also, the connection to the NT goes over my head... but that's a given.

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Not sure what this statement refers to?



John

[p

ecco said:

So, you want to have a thoughtful conversation among theists but you just couldn't stop yourself from throwing in a dig at atheists by calling our views asinine.

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. . . I apologize. It was just lathery prose you know.


John

John D. Brey said:

I've spilled no small amount of ink on the subject of the mess the Masoretes have made of the Hebrew of the sacred text of the Torah. And though Genesis 17:17 could be the poster-child for the mess, and though it's a subject worthy of the greatest care, that's not the point of this thread.

This thread is about one of the most obvious, to a theist, points of observation possible, i.e., the life-giving design inherent to, in, the world, the universe/cosmos, versus the truly asinine implication, of the non-theist, that there's no mindful design inherent to the design of the world, the universe/cosmos.

In Genesis 17:17, the correct interpretation of the Hebrew text has Abram exasperated with God over the dynamics of the covenant God is engaging him. As Rabbi Elie Munk points out (R. Samson Hirsch beat him to the punch), in his brilliant, The Call of the Torah, strictly and literally interpreted, Genesis 17:17 says not that Abram laughed, but that he literally insulted God in a harsh and frustrated way. And his frustration is understood when we realize that the text isn't saying Abram is going to give birth when he's already 99 years old, since, for godsake, his father was older than that when he conceived Abram, and one of Abram's sons gave birth well past the penultimate year of a full century.

Without getting into the exegetical desperation for why the Masoretes imply the text has Abram laughing at giving birth at an age that was common in his day, we can point out that correctly exegeted the Hebrew text says that far from Abram birthing a son at 99, something a man in his day would find yawn-worthy (I personally know a woman whose father was pushing Abram's age when she was conceived), Abram is in truth exasperated that God tells him he's going to be reborn, and that he's going to conceive his new man, Abra-h-am, through his wife/sister.


John

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so are you comparing genesis 17:17 and john 3:4 to be similar to jacobs spiritual rebirth and being renamed? naming?


which is the child that is born in us and conceived of the virgin spirit?

Fool said:

so are you comparing genesis 17:17 and john 3:4 to be similar to jacobs spiritual rebirth and being renamed? naming? . . . which is the child that is born in us and conceived of the virgin spirit?

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. . . Isaac isn't Abram's rebirth. Isaac is Abram's natural born son. Abram's rebirth is Abram being born anew, as a new man: Abra-h-am. It has nothing to do with Isaac.

If you're born-again, if you experience the new birth, become a new man, it has nothing to do with whether or not you have a natural born son.

So, I guess, yes.


John

John D. Brey said:

. . . Your statements bring up profound and important exegetical nuances.

We know that Sarai's womb was barren. So that alone would account for not having children through Sarai. And we know Abram was intact; at least when he fathered Ishmael. And yet senescence doesn't account for Abram loosing the loss of his ability to father sons unless it does so unnaturally since Abram was fathered by a man older than 100, and one of his sons likewise fathered past the age of 100. That being the case, we would need to know why Abram, if he did, considered his sexual abilities dead? And the scripture needs to supply that and will, imo, if it's the case.

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Yet, as you noted in the OP, Abraham insulted God. So we can't rule out that indeed (regardless of his fathers capacity after 100) that Abraham too was impotent. (One cannot just say he was as we weren't there). So perhaps the Pharisaical interpretation may be based on tradition?

John D. Brey said:

Sadly, Christian orthodox is circumscribed within the straight-jacket of the Masoretic Text. Your so-called "Old Testament" is merely an English version of the Masoretic Text, which is the traditional interpretation Jesus thumbed his nose at before they broke his thumbs and nailed them to the wood just like they nailed the living Torah down with points, and addendum, in order to make the Masoretic Text speak on behalf of the Judaism that led to Jesus' downfall even as Jesus' unwitting followers to this day are ignorant of the chicanery foisted on them by the Masoretic Text, and their inability to wiggle and writhe free of the straight-jacket that is the traditional rendering of the sacred Torah.



John

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But their viewpoint is still a valid viewpoint. Obviously the discussion of the Torah always produces multiple viewpoints. But why is one a straight-jacket approach while the other isn't? Both are simply holding a position of thought,

KenS said:

But their viewpoint is still a valid viewpoint. Obviously the discussion of the Torah always produces multiple viewpoints. But why is one a straight-jacket approach while the other isn't? Both are simply holding a position of thought,

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. . . Howard Eilberg-Schwartz has many good books, one of which is, People of the Body: Jews and Judaism from an Embodied Perspective. Judaism has a relationship to the flesh, the body, that Jesus delimited in a theological way by elevating spirit, or mind, above body. Another thoughtful author also named Howard (Howard Bloom), put Jesus' revaluation of the body into perspective:


Modern thought is backward in that it assumes the mind, memes, are a product of body, genes. And consequently that the Gospels are a product of the Torah (the Pentateuch), that Christianity is an outgrowth of Judaism. Jesus turned that all on its head and inverted it. The Gospels are the mind of the Torah. And more importantly the Gospels were hidden in the Torah, guiding it, the Tanakh, and the Israelites, up until the birth of Christ when what is truly first, and seminal, is freed from a backward asymmetrical illusion. Judaism is the body of Christianity. Christianity is the mind of Judaism. Separate the two, or get the asymmetry backward, and voila, our world is a mess.

Judaism, and the Masoretic Text, are legitimate, even as the body is legitimate in relationship to the soul or mind. But where the body is privileged, as though it wears the pants in the unity, a grave error is being foisted on the human race. Mind came before body even as the Gospel is before the Torah. In both cases, the origin was hidden in the beginning, to use Professor Elliot Wolfson's nomenclature. As Professor Wolfson points out, the "beginning" ain't the origin, and the origin isn't seen in the beginning.

Jesus glory is in the fact that he not only revealed the origin hidden in the beginning, the spirit hidden in the dead letters of the Torah, but he showed that the origin is now free from its prison so that the Kingdom of God is literally at hand if only a person chooses to reach out their hand to receive it.



John

John D. Brey said:

I've spilled no small amount of ink on the subject of the mess the Masoretes have made of the Hebrew of the sacred text of the Torah. And though Genesis 17:17 could be the poster-child for the mess, and though it's a subject worthy of the greatest care, that's not the point of this thread.

This thread is about one of the most obvious, to a theist, points of observation possible, i.e., the life-giving design inherent to, in, the world, the universe/cosmos, versus the truly asinine implication, of the non-theist, that there's no mindful design inherent to the design of the world, the universe/cosmos.

In Genesis 17:17, the correct interpretation of the Hebrew text has Abram exasperated with God over the dynamics of the covenant God is engaging him. As Rabbi Elie Munk points out (R. Samson Hirsch beat him to the punch), in his brilliant, The Call of the Torah, strictly and literally interpreted, Genesis 17:17 says not that Abram laughed, but that he literally insulted God in a harsh and frustrated way. And his frustration is understood when we realize that the text isn't saying Abram is going to give birth when he's already 99 years old, since, for godsake, his father was older than that when he conceived Abram, and one of Abram's sons gave birth well past the penultimate year of a full century.

Without getting into the exegetical desperation for why the Masoretes imply the text has Abram laughing at giving birth at an age that was common in his day, we can point out that correctly exegeted the Hebrew text says that far from Abram birthing a son at 99, something a man in his day would find yawn-worthy (I personally know a woman whose father was pushing Abram's age when she was conceived), Abram is in truth exasperated that God tells him he's going to be reborn, and that he's going to conceive his new man, Abra-h-am, through his wife/sister.


John

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the picture I get.......

God is giving foresight to pending events
and the old man did laugh

the old man would not be giving birth.....his elderly wife would be doing so

and that event ....for cause of her age .....might indeed bring a smile and giggle of disbelief

that would be an insult to the Face of God

KenS said:

Yet, as you noted in the OP, Abraham insulted God. So we can't rule out that indeed (regardless of his fathers capacity after 100) that Abraham too was impotent. (One cannot just say he was as we weren't there). So perhaps the Pharisaical interpretation may be based on tradition?

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. . . Abraham may have been impotent. But the parallel between Genesis 17:17 and John 3:4 is the carotid artery that links the fleshly heart, the Torah, to the spiritual heart (mind) the Gospels. To ignore the direct link between Genesis 17:17 and John 3:4 can be likened either to being spiritually impotent, or to being one of the disciples of Christ who could no longer follow him after John 6:53. They still believe in him. It's just that this world, and the care for their own flesh and blood, is greater in them than faith in the world-to-come that had just spoken to them.



John

Thief said:

the picture I get.......

God is giving foresight to pending events
and the old man did laugh

the old man would not be giving birth.....his elderly wife would be doing so

and that event ....for cause of her age .....might indeed bring a smile and giggle of disbelief

that would be an insult to the Face of God

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As I quoted Rabbi Hirsch implying, or did I paraphrase him, circumcision is about the rebirth of the one being circumcised and not about a natural born son being born to someone who is circumcised.

The truth firstborn of a true circumcision is the circumcisee himself. Rabbi Samson Hirsch says as much, as does most of Jewish scripture.

Ergo, in Genesis chapter 17, where the covenant of circumcision is being established, the circumcisee, Abram, is the one who is being reborn as his own true firstborn. Isaac is born through nature, natural birth, not a supernatural rebirth.

Even Rashi, Abarbanel, and Ibn Ezra (to name just a few), point out that Isaac is already promised, along with land, to Abram based on the dictates of the covenant established already in Genesis chapter 15.

Genesis chapter 17 is a new wrinkle. God is promising a different firstborn than he did in Genesis 15, where Isaac's birth was promised. Even the Jewish sages scratch their head to the point of bleeding since they know very well how the Hebrew of the Torah works. Which is to say they know Genesis 17 isn't focused exclusively on the birth of Isaac but the rebirth of the circumcisee, Abram.


Clarifying the statement above Rabbi Hirsch writes:



John

and a rabbi did ask the Carpenter.....reborn?

and the Carpenter did say....yeah

but I have notion that rebirth really does happen
right after your last breath

and the kingdom of heaven cannot be approached in any other manner

you came into this life naked.....and delivered into the arms of someone who cared

may you do as well
after your last breath

KenS said:

Obviously the discussion of the Torah always produces multiple viewpoints. But why is one a straight-jacket approach while the other isn't? Both are simply holding a position of thought,

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The Torah is subject to multiple interpretations and multiple viewpoints. Yes. But the determining factor/criteria for which interpretation or viewpoint is more powerful, or correct, should not be decided by determining who one's biological mother is, or whether a mohel cut some flesh on the eighth day after birth.

A spiritual, and not a fleshly criteria, should be used to determine who is empowered by the spirit of God to rightly exegete God's word. . . Make no mistake, Judaism rejected Jesus using a fleshly criteria and not a spiritual one. They used the dead letter and not the mind of the Torah. As Sigmund Freud said in some of the last words he ever wrote (while living in England to escape the Holocaust), they have been made to pay dearly for their mistake.


John

Thief said:

. . . I have notion that rebirth really does happen
right after your last breath

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. . . The child must already be readied at the veil of the temple in order to come out of the womb at birth. Likewise, the new man must already be conceived, and made ready, before he exits the womb of this world, through the intact hymen of the morgue, to enter into the world-to-come.


John

John D. Brey said:

. . . The child must already be readied at the veil of the temple in order to come out of the womb at birth. Likewise, the new man must already be conceived, and made ready, before he exists the womb of this world, through the intact hymen of the morgue, to enter into the world-to-come.


John

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I shall reveal a vision I have posted only one other time

when soooooo much younger.....my grandmother warns to me
do NOT go down the sidewalk toward town
you are safe here at the house.....stay near the house

that must have invoked the dream

I saw myself leaving the house ....out the front door
not my usual exit

I go to the sidewalk and proceed to that direction....not allowed

I did not go far
a section of pavement dropped out from under me and I fell as if a trap door had opened

I tumbled down into a large room
through blood red velour drapes......the kind you see in funeral homes

standing to my feet I could see....I would not be going back the way I came

I turn to the scene around me....no other option
and before me stands a vast collection of busts
each one white
each one mounted upon a pedestal to the height of the person represented

cob webs covered all

the room was large... too large ...to see ceiling or wall

and the only recourse......pass by the images
one and all

this is as far back as my memory goes
nothing precedes this

John D. Brey said:

Modern thought is backward in that it assumes the mind, memes, are a product of body, genes. And consequently that the Gospels are a product of the Torah (the Pentateuch), that Christianity is an outgrowth of Judaism. Jesus turned that all on its head and inverted it. The Gospels are the mind of the Torah. And more importantly the Gospels were hidden in the Torah, guiding it, the Tanakh, and the Israelites, up until the birth of Christ when what is truly first, and seminal, is freed from a backward asymmetrical illusion. Judaism is the body of Christianity. Christianity is the mind of Judaism. Separate the two, or get the asymmetry backward, and voila, our world is a mess.

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You seem intent on uniting Judaism and Christianity in some deep and profound way, which is fine I suppose, since there is truth in anything that endures the test of time, but I don’t see how you are making the point that the world is a mess because of this disunity. I’m open to hearing your elaboration on this.

John D. Brey said:

The Torah is subject to multiple interpretations and multiple viewpoints. Yes. But the determining factor/criteria for which interpretation or viewpoint is more powerful, or correct, should not be decided by determining who one's biological mother is, or whether a mohel cut some flesh on the eighth day after birth.

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I'm not sure how this fit in the thread of thought we were discussing since we are talking about Abraham and Sarah.

John D. Brey said:

A spiritual, and not a fleshly criteria, should be used to determine who is empowered by the spirit of God to rightly exegete God's word. . . Make no mistake, Judaism rejected Jesus using a fleshly criteria and not a spiritual one. They used the dead letter and not the mind of the Torah. As Sigmund Freud said in some of the last words he ever wrote (while living in England to escape the Holocaust), they have been made to pay dearly for their mistake.

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I would agree (though the application to the Holocaust IMV is somewhat flimsy. But let us not forget that is was the Jews who first accepted and propagated the Gospel of The Christ.

KenS said:

The Torah is subject to multiple interpretations and multiple viewpoints. Yes. But the determining factor/criteria for which interpretation or viewpoint is more powerful, or correct, should not be decided by determining who one's biological mother is, or whether a mohel cut some flesh on the eighth day after birth.​

I'm not sure how this fit in the thread of thought we were discussing since we are talking about Abraham and Sarah.

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Abram and Sarai birthed Isaac. That's normal biological function. While the true topic of Genesis chapter 17 is the spiritual rebirth of Abram. Abram's mind will conceive his new man. His "flesh" בשר, i.e., his fleshly genital organ, will play no part in the new birth. That (the new birth) occurs completely through the mind.

The mind is the analogue of the phallus in terms of the new birth. Which is why Eastern thought conceives of the kundalini rising and entering the mind at the point of spiritual enlightenment/rebirth. And which is why, in Genesis 17, the sign of the covenant is for Abram to take a knife to the fake, serpentine, flesh.

For the mind to conceive a new man requires that the mind be perceived as the origin of the body and not as a secondary phenomenon of the fleshly body. The mind must be freed from the alleged servitude to the genes, the flesh, before it can be treated as the organ of regeneration and rebirth.

Jews constantly tell me they were born just fine the first time thank you. They see no need for the mind to conceive itself as the organ that replaces the male genital organ which they don't even appreciate as being limited, delimited, and truth be known, emasculated, ritually at least, through brit milah (ritual circumcision).

The very ritual that establishes Judaism and the Jew is the xing out of the fleshly organ used to conceive a man, so that the mind, the true organ of spiritual regeneration, can take the place of the fleshly serpent or kundalini. That Judaism, and Jews, don't see the obviousness of the ritual shows they have only the body of truth and not the soul and or spirit of truth.

Which is not to devalue the body of truth. But without a soul and or spirit the body is merely a golem or a zombie, neither alive, nor dead, just a phantom justifying a fair-minded fear and dread when set against true life and the living.



John

John D. Brey said:

For the mind to conceive a new man requires that the mind be perceived as the origin of the body and not as a secondary phenomenon of the fleshly body. The mind must be freed from the alleged servitude to the genes, the flesh, before it can be treated as the organ of regeneration and rebirth.

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In my experience, spiritual development is not dependent on beliefs about the mind-body relationship. For me, these insights are a byproduct rather than a sticking point or prerequisite.

I think the difference lies in what we understand to be the primary driver of spiritual development.

John D. Brey said:

Abram and Sarai birthed Isaac. That's normal biological function. While the true topic of Genesis chapter 17 is the spiritual rebirth of Abram. Abram's mind will conceive his new man. His "flesh" בשר, i.e., his fleshly genital organ, will play no part in the new birth. That (the new birth) occurs completely through the mind.

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I think you have gone way out there. It wasn't a "normal" biological function, it required a "resurrection from the deadness of womb and body". It wasn't a "spiritual rebirth" but rather a cutting of covenant.

John D. Brey said:

The mind is the analogue of the phallus in terms of the new birth. Which is why Eastern thought conceives of the kundalini rising and entering the mind at the point of spiritual enlightenment/rebirth. And which is why, in Genesis 17, the sign of the covenant is for Abram to take a knife to the fake, serpentine, flesh.

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Trying to mix Hiduism and Dyonisus in the mix when God separated Abram from the gods of his fathers is a misapplication IMO

John D. Brey said:

For the mind to conceive a new man requires that the mind be perceived as the origin of the body and not as a secondary phenomenon of the fleshly body. The mind must be freed from the alleged servitude to the genes, the flesh, before it can be treated as the organ of regeneration and rebirth.

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Rebirth comes first, renewing of the mind comes after.

I really don't know where you are coming from and where you are going.

Treasure Hunter said:

In my experience, spiritual development is not dependent on beliefs about the mind-body relationship. For me, these insights are a byproduct rather than a sticking point or prerequisite.

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. . . I had a fairly intense conversion experience so that I remember it pretty well all these years hence. For me the intensity of the moment came from my tacit understanding that I was at a watershed moment, so to speak. My existing epistemology, my natural born mind, was being told that it had reached the limits of its abilities so far as my spiritual development was concerned, and that a new way of thinking was coming out of the womb of eternity.

My natural born mind was terrified. But it submitted.



John

KenS said:

Rebirth comes first, renewing of the mind comes after.

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. . . The point of Genesis 17:17 and John 3:4 is that the renewing of the mind is less a process sprouting out of one's first birth and the experiences related to that birth, and more like coming out of the baptismal font, the Sea of Lethe, or piercing the vaginal membrane of Maya, from the inside out.

In other words, every true son of God was in Christ before the katabole (falling down, i.e., original sin) of ha-adam. Which means rebirth is actually the original birth, postponed, still-born at first (into the fallen flesh, into death), but still born live at a real, no doubt late, moment in time.

Renewing of the mind is a returning of the mind to its origins. And since the origins of the sons of God are in ha-adam before the Fall, there's some real soul-searching, and biblical exegesis, to be done as to why death came before life, why the righteous man was subjected to death, and what the Father intends the renewing of the mind to restore to his sons whilst they still labor in the land of the lost?


John