The Trinity???

Harold

Do you not consider it a possibility that the doctrine you have been taught over the last 30 years was wrong because these doctrines were arrived at by means of wrong interpretations of the Bible? Do you not also believe it possible that the apparent contradictions in the Bible were also brought about by incorrect interpretations? In other words: Just because your pastor taught the Bible wrong, doesn't mean the Bible itself is wrong.

It seems a shame to discredit the entire Bible because some of the stories contained therein are similar to other stories already existing. Big deal, I say.

Great thread you guys have going here.

true blood said:

Exodus 33:11:"And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." This is a figure of speech. Face to face is as someone speaking to a friend. Continue reading Exodus and Moses several times beseech's the Lord to show him His glory and God says to Moses 33:20"And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live."

Click to expand...

I propose that the "LORD" that Moses spoke to face to face was not the Invisible God, but rather a messenger/representative of God.....perhaps an angel?

harold e. rice said:

Peace Destinata;

<<<<< You're starting to sound like Deut. Are you saying that the Old Testament is true and the New Testament is false? >>>>>

I'm an Ex-Fundamental Literal Christian who has been enlightened and now see religion and the bible in its true light. I don't believe that the Bible is the word of God or was inspired by him simply because I had seen and read similar storied and tales from other cultures. It is my personal opinion that most of the bible has been plagiarized. Most of its stories came from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, China, and India.

>>>>> Do you believe that the Messiah has come yet? <<<<<

I believe that there have been many so called Messiahs in this world and the Messiah that the Hebrews were looking for wasn't a savior. They were looking for a military leader to overthrow the Roman Government.

>>>>> What exactly is your stance here? <<<<<

I came here to learn about other religious beliefs and opinions while sharing my own, hoping not to belittle or offend anyone. I'm still very evolved in a Christian church however, I no longer believe most of the doctrine I've been taught over the last 30 years..

>>>>> I don't like it when people discredit books that they like to quote from to support their own viewpoints. Is this what you are doing or am I completely misunderstanding what you are trying to say? <<<<<

The reason I quote from the bible is to simply to point out the fact that there are numerous errors, contradictions and untruths within the pages of the bible. Talking to a fundamentalist is like communication with a stop sign therefore I like to show them that it is in the book. I use to be one.

I have traveled to over 22 different countries and Islands in search of biblical truth and what I found was very disheartening. I do appreciate your questions.

Click to expand...

Thanks for being so candid about your personal experiences and viewpoints. It helps to know where someone is coming from. I agree with what posit is saying about the apparent contradictions and such.

Take Care Harold,

I hope that you find what you're looking for.

destinata7 said:

true blood said:

Exodus 33:11:"And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." This is a figure of speech. Face to face is as someone speaking to a friend. Continue reading Exodus and Moses several times beseech's the Lord to show him His glory and God says to Moses 33:20"And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live."

Click to expand...

I propose that the "LORD" that Moses spoke to face to face was not the Invisible God, but rather a messenger/representative of God.....perhaps an angel?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure you're comprehending the language or reading it correctly. It appears to me you're visualizing Moses' "face" looking at another "person's face" as they are talking to each other. I see where you are coming from however it's a figure of speech.

destinata7 said:

I'm just about ready to discuss the Tetragrammaton with you wonderful discussers out there. Before we do, I want some opinions on the following:

1) No man has seen God [John 1:18]

2) And Moses was in the habit of speaking to the LORD face to face
[Ex. 33:11]

3) And there is an Invisible God [I Tim. 1:27]


Who was Moses speaking to? The Invisible God or another God?

I have my own beliefs but I'd like to hear some other viewpoints.

Click to expand...

Ge 32:30
And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

Ex 3:6
Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

Ex 33:11
And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again
into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.

Ex 33:20
And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
Ex 33:21
And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
Ex 33:22
And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:
Ex 33:23
And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.


De 5:4
The LORD talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire,

De 34:10
And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the
LORD knew face to face,

Ex 24:9
Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel:
Ex 24:10
And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.
Ex 24:11
And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink.

Joh 1:18
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

1Jo 4:12
No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

WHAT SHOULD WE BELIEVE?
SOUNDS LIKE A CONTROVERSY TO ME.

posit said:

Harold

Do you not consider it a possibility that the doctrine you have been taught over the last 30 years was wrong because these doctrines were arrived at by means of wrong interpretations of the Bible? Do you not also believe it possible that the apparent contradictions in the Bible were also brought about by incorrect interpretations? In other words: Just because your pastor taught the Bible wrong, doesn't mean the Bible itself is wrong.

It seems a shame to discredit the entire Bible because some of the stories contained therein are similar to other stories already existing. Big deal, I say.

Great thread you guys have going here.

Click to expand...

Peace Posit;


The church I attend is 100% just like all other Pentecostal or Holiness Churches. The problem is not the church or the interpretation of the bible but me as an individual having a different and new spiritual outlook. I now see Christianity both the Catholic and Protestant churches as the big lie.
I also see the Jewish History as a bigger lie. I've seen the evidence located in the museums throughout London England, Washington DC, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France that proves that the bible stories were hijacked from other cultures. The seven Mediterranean Islands that I visited also provided proof of the big lie. The Isle of Patmos was where I learned that Mark was the first Gospel written and that the versions of the Mark that we read today have been tampered with and had verses added.

I've seen too much to close my eyes and pretend that I'm not aware of the fact that what we teach and preach is a big lie.

Sounds like you need to learn about figures of speech and the language of writing, idioms and customs..etc..

true blood said:

destinata7 said:

true blood said:

Exodus 33:11:"And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." This is a figure of speech. Face to face is as someone speaking to a friend. Continue reading Exodus and Moses several times beseech's the Lord to show him His glory and God says to Moses 33:20"And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live."

Click to expand...

I propose that the "LORD" that Moses spoke to face to face was not the Invisible God, but rather a messenger/representative of God.....perhaps an angel?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure you're comprehending the language or reading it correctly. It appears to me you're visualizing Moses' "face" looking at another "person's face" as they are talking to each other. I see where you are coming from however it's a figure of speech.

Click to expand...

So you say. Do you believe that the "finger of God" that wrote the Ten Commandments was a figure of speach as well?

Yea I said it. I believe its Anthropopatheia or Anthropopathy or Condescesio or something like that I'd have to look it up to be certain. And yes, Finger of God, would be a figure of speech. God doesn't have hands, or fingers...they are human attributes. To be honest, learning the different "figures of speech" will make understanding very clear. I'm still learning.

true blood said:

Yea I said it. I believe its Anthropopatheia or Anthropopathy or Condescesio or something like that I'd have to look it up to be certain. And yes, Finger of God, would be a figure of speech. God doesn't have hands, or fingers...they are human attributes. To be honest, learning the different "figures of speech" will make understanding very clear. I'm still learning.

Click to expand...

Then who do you believe physically etched the Ten Commandments into the stone tablets?

Trueblood,

I admire your confidence that you have in your own interpretations of the scripture. But confidence alone is not enough to persuade me. As I have pointed out in a previous post, you are fond of making blanket statements about the entire Bible based on one or two instances of scripture.

To help solidify your views, you must be sure that your blanket statements are congruent with the rest of the Bible. As previously pointed out about your sure-fire interpretation of the words "seen" and "one", you were sure that the particular Greek words used meant something different regardless of the fact that every single translation of the Bible has seen fit to translate those same scriptures you referred to as "seen" and "one". Not to mention that there are other instances in the Bible where those exact same Greek words are used that cannot fit your interpretation.....at least not in the blanket sense that you were proposing.

Here's what I proposed:

I propose that the "LORD" that Moses spoke to face to face was not the Invisible God, but rather a messenger/representative of God.....perhaps an angel?

Click to expand...

The question is, does my proposal have any Biblical foundation at all? Or is the term "face to face" purely a figure of speach as you proposed?

Let's take a closer look at the scripture:

Genesis 32:24-30
And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. [25] And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. [26] And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. [27] And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. [28] And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. [29] And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. [30] And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

Upon closer examination however, Jacob's claim of having seen God face to face was really God-as-represented by an angel!

Hosea 12:4 confirms that this was indeed an angel of God and not God Himself.


Here's another instance where we see the term "face to face":

Judges 6:20-22
[20]And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so.
[21] Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. [22] And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God! for because I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face.


As one can see in this instance, this angel of the Lord was in a physical form and was seen face to face literally not as a figure of speach.


The Hebrew word used for "face" in not only the above two scriptures, but in the scripture where Moses saw God "face to face" as well is Paniym.

In the light of the above scriptures, it appears that my conjecture that Moses' face to face experience with God may have actually been an angelic visitation, is congruent with other scriptures in the Bible.

Regards,

Dest,

You make some good points I didn't quite see. I'm still not sure what you mean by me translating "seen" and "one". My understanding of Exodus is that it's a figure or speech. The verse doesn't exactly say it was an angel speaking to Moses, it only says Lord. Throughout the bible it says God is a Spirit, no body has seen him, ect... In these other verses you brought up they actually do state an angel and the word man. Maybe we just visualize Spirit differently. In my belief, a spirit is invisible. Also in the Word its stated that God is a Spirit. Also, in Genesis 32 it states a man...and in Gideon's case, the word angel is used...hmm, you got me thinking what exactly is an angel? Are they "spirits" like God and/or can the word "angel" include a human simply giving a messege from God? As I recall, Gideon was called out by God to do something but Gideon asked to see quite a bit of signs before he was pursuaded it was God speaking to him.

True Blood,

I was referring to a post you made on June 7th and a response that I gave on June 8th.

It's funny how one can get caught up in the heat of the moment. Our posts seem in retrospect to be fairly argumentative. These were not my intentions.... I actually really enjoy talking to you on these posts.

Anyhow, enough mushy stuff!

Yes, the subject of angels is very intriguing. I have attended many teachings from an expert on this subject, Dr. Jerry O Lee. There is a key to this topic on angels when turned, unlocks many mysteries of the Bible.

Some appear as a human and can eat and drink. Others appear as visible spirits and refuse to touch food. Would you like to talk more about angels before I start into the Tetragrammaton?

Dest,

I'm interested to hear more about Tetragrammaton. I don't know much about it. Is it a form of pronunciation of letters?

true blood said:

Dest,

I'm interested to hear more about Tetragrammaton. I don't know much about it. Is it a form of pronunciation of letters?

Click to expand...

Exodus 3:14
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

The Tetragrammaton is the name of God based on four (tetra) Hebrew letters found in the above scripture in Exodus.

The scribes translated these four letters, YHWH or YHVH (V and W are interchangable) into Jehovah and/or Yahweh. There is debate, however, whether the scribes did this correctly. Jehovah is definitely not an accurate translation seeing as the letter J did not even exist until a much later time.

Part of the problem, you see, is that the Jewish people deemed this name to be too sacred to utter! So everytime they would see those four letters in the Hebrew text they would say Adonai as a replacement.

And so, I propose that the true meaning of the name of God has been lost for many, many years as a result of this. Why is this "name of God" so important? It is an insight to who God is!

Dr. Jerry O Lee is an expert on the Tetragrammaton and has spent more than fifty years studying this subject. After attending his seminars, I was in awe of the true meaning of these four simple Hebrew letters!

I'll share with you a reader's digest version of what I learned in my next post (I'm out of time today).

The word Jehovah comes from a very old translation of Hebrew. The translator didn't know how to mark the vowels for YHWH, so he looked at how it was often written, "YHWH Adonai." He put the vowel sounds from Adonai into YHWH. The pronunciation of Adonai is more like eh-dough-nai. He wrote J-eh-H-oh-V-ai-H (he was using a modern rendering of YHWH). He shortened it to Jehovah.

Trueblood, just an adder to our angel of God versus God Himself discussion:

In Exodus 33:23 God reveals to Moses God’s “back parts”. We believe the very ancient Hebrew words used here are part of the Lost Language of Ah.

Since according to John 1:18 and Exodus 33:20 no man can see God and live…… it makes contextual sense that the Lords angel ( Ex. 32:33-34) is allowed to appear as per the request of Moses ( Ex. 33:15) ( as representing the pesher for the “back parts” in trans-connection to the Invisible God).

Also Moses requested to see the “glory” of God (Ex. 33:18 ) the angels such as cherubim have been described as the glory of the Lord ( Ezek. 3:23, 10:4 and 1:22-28 ).

To Harold E. Rice:

Thank you for your views about the Bible you shared with us.

First off it would be quite an uninformed individual who was not aware of the Gilgamesh epoch as told on the cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia. You express being a world traveler and I congratulate you on your experiences. It would go well with your travel experiences to perhaps broaden your world view perspectives legal-wise, accuracy-wise and religious-wise.

For instance you say the Bible’s Genesis of Noah’s ark was stolen from Babylonian concepts. That is a kind of legal charge but would it hold up in court?

Let’s look at some considerations….

1) Nowhere in Genesis is it claimed the stories of Genesis are a first time revelation. Any such claim should be put against religious interpreters of the Bible but not the Bible itself.

2) In copyright law most rights for re-use become public dominion after fifty years or less. Considering the expanse of time between cuneiform Gilgamesh and Bible stories of the flood there could hardly be a case for theft.

3) As regards plagiarism, the act of using one’s thoughts, writings and inventions as one’s own, there’s not a very good case either for charging the Bible with theft. Roughly as to copy ethics regarding the movie and art industries, it has been said the making of three changes releases one from copyright requirements.

4) There are literally dozens upon dozens of world flood ark escape stories found in cultures all around the world. Which stories are the oldest? Is that the main point? I think not! Is there truth to the story and has the story relevance?


Archeology-wise it is said we probably have discovered less than one third of the evidence of fossils and artifacts buried on Earth. So then are the Babylonian/Sumerian revelations the oldest discoveries that we will ever find? I hardly think so even though some consider this area the nest of civilization.

Furthermore, as to your other points: commandments, laws, after death concepts, myths and pre-Bible time table….

I am confident that in forgotten and lost literature there are examples from which all the above was borrowed and interpreted. Please keep in mind there is an older Sumerian version of the flood than the Gilgamesh/Utnapishtim myths that refers to a “Ziusudra”. It must be believed that ancient song stories preceded all the present written legends and myths. Again, I could provide a list of many very ancient flood stories.

It is said by a number of scientists that the Mesopotamian flood stories don’t make sense (not to mention the animal monster characterizations). The Bible’s flood story does work if put in the right scenario of interpretation and is much more sophisticated.

I guess I’ll stick with the Bible story!

So the bottom line is not limited to one book, one reading or presentation. The Bible itself says:

Paths
Ga. 58:12
Ps. 23:3-25:4
Mt. 3:3

Books
Dan. 7:10
Jn. 21:25
Rev. 20:12

Gates
Rev. 21:12

Note the plurality of paths, books and gates. The Bible teaches that God’s word is everywhere (Ps. 19:1-4 and Rom. 10:17-18 ) in all, through all and above all ( Eph. 4:6 and Acts 17:28 ). Also see John 1:1 and living epistles II Cor. 3:1-3.

So then God’s word has spoken in every kingdom, language and culture on earth. Consequently, it is not a sin, and act of theft or plagiarism to take collective information (if holding truths) from any source for interpretation for reiterating in paraphrases or applied to spiritual settings.

As to names of cities mentioned that were of more modern times than the history presented that is not an unusual practice when an author wants the reader to know the modern name of a particular location and the old name is out of use.

As to “Jericho”, archaeologists have shown that site to have been destroyed and rebuilt over and over again. Many Bible scholars do not agree on the time frames. The Destinata believe in a ten thousand year gap going back to the time of the flood.

So the Syrians have a myth that tells of walls tumbling down? Great! That just enhances the possibility of other sympathetic vibration happenings.

As to “hijacked stories” you quoted:

The Virgin Birth
Turning water into wine
Healing the sick
Raising the dead
Walking on water
Feeding multitudes
Baptismal rites
Twelve disciples
Resurrection
Ascension unto heaven

All of the above in like can be shown to have occurred in the Old Testament. Similar stories don’t necessarily refute, they can corroborate. A proper interpretation of the Bible does not clash with previous universes, dinosaur creations, pre-Adamic man or cosmic alignments of heavenly bodies in physical relativity as well as spiritual relativity. The Peace Manifest Bible (not yet published) describes all these truths.

As to your statement that nothing in the Bible is original, you are very mistaken and obviously not a connoisseur of the Bible’s whole writ.

Thank you for taking the time to write. My reply to your statement is not meant to be demeaning to you or in challenge of your right “to work out your own salvation”.

PS I know that this was a long post but I felt that these points all needed to be addressed.

Sorry I've been neglecting this topic. I guess I have a few loose ends to tie up here:

1] The tetragrammaton

2] The Holy Spirit

3] God as Represented

4] Jesus the Father

5] Defining

What is the conclusion of the matter concerning the Trinity? Lots of big words in this thread.