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Poor understanding? If the bible had been more 'clear' in the first place you wouldn't even need a concordance book to 'find out what's really meant'. Apart from that, I think you tend to put to much trust in authors of the books you read.




Well, they aren't unaccountable e-authors, but I guess with decades of experience, they certainly require my complete and utter distrust.

I'll actually be receiving my more in depth Vine's dictionary, which includes the greek and hebrew in more depth. I ordered them both at the same time, but one wasn't directly from Amazon.

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For example, the Divine name YHVH has been said to mean " Self existant one". The superficial definition of it in the strongs give it that meaning as well, but with a little determination one can use this book to discover that it doesnt mean that at all. Hava, or HVH in hebrew, means to breath and/or to become. YHVH then means He is causing breath. However, if you digg even deeper you will see that YHVH also has within it AVAH which means to desire, or wish for, showing Gods ability to simply desire a thing to be. So with all this we can see that YHVH means He who causes to breath, or He who causes to become through breathing, or even He who manifests his desires through breath. Of course, breath being a symbol of life and the actual meaning of Spirit, Ruach, Breath, and not some Phantasmic force, but Gods own voice is creating.




Its interesting, because when I think about it I saw almost this exact same quote on the reader reviews at amazon.

Anyway, the superficial definition in Strong's does indeed say that. What they do is then go on to explain its initial use, and its roots. What the person you quoted fails to mention is that the actual word used, yehovih (?) is just a variant of the word yehovah (?), which can be traced to hayah, amongst other words. What is the meaning of hayah? to exist, or to be, or to become, come to pass. Then they go on to explain this word further, and it makes sense to consider jehovah to be the self existing one. I'm sure the specific trail that person followed to come to their conclusion also gives you a broader idea of the nature of God in the bible. Because its by his voice/breath that his desire is made manifest. So what he said isn't false, he just falsely claimed that there was no proper reasoning for calling the Lord the self-existent one.

Now, how this relates back to the KJV being a terrible translation, I don't know. Since there's no where in the bible that God is even referred to as self-existing one, and you haven't given any other examples, you've just plainly stated that its a bad translation, I'm kind of left in the dark here.

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Still, when you read that Strong's concordance or Zondervan's concordance for all I care, you will no doubt find out about how bad the KJV actually has been translated by scholars back in the 16th century.



In fact, I've come to a greater appreciation (so far) of what the scholars had to do to make a successful translation. I'm actually more impressed with their work now, than ever. Of course, I'm sure that could change, but thus far that's been the pattern.

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"thou shalt have no other god before Me", but this doesnt neccessarily deny that other gods may exist.


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Infact, if there would be NO other Gods, why would the Bible even mention this? I do see this as a 'proof' of a somewhat polytheïstic view. I think the remnants in the bible of words or sentences which seem to imply multiple Gods instead of just one God adds too this as well, although it may not directly proof it, we all know we'd have to encounter multiple Gods to prove anything anyways, which makes 'proving' a bit irrelevant in this case. Still, a conclusion which assumes polytheism (or remnants of that) is very legit based on not just that,




Don't you think you're taking a rather limited perspective here?

Number one, if you want to leave it at just this verse, then I could just as well state the the 'gods' referred to here are made up gods that would distract the people from their true Lord. Since you're leaving it so open to interpretation, there's no way to know who's right. Which is why looking elsewhere helps.

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Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD [jehovah], and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God [elohim] formed, neither shall there be after me. Isaiah 43:10-11



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Thus saith the LORD [jehovah] the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD [jehovah] of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God [elohim]. Isaiah 44:6



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Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD [jehovah] he is God [elohim]; there is none else beside him. (Deut. 4:35)



Etc. Its pretty clear, when you look at the entire picture (as you should), its not open to interpretation. There's no way to reconcile a polytheistic view with a God who says there isn't even any other God besides him in the first place. Apparently, these ancients believed in multiple gods, but they only mention one God who apparently doesn't know about these other gods, and then they don't mention, worship, or otherwise praise these other gods.

I suppose you could be hyper-literal and say that these extra gods are somewhere except right beside the Lord.

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If the bible had been more 'clear' in the first place you wouldn't even need a concordance book to 'find out what's really meant'.



No, the problem is when so-called 'skeptics' come into play. The try and muddle the topic by reading the bible wrong, so it does take an in depth study to refute their 'skepticism'.

For thousands of years, people have been able to get the plain message of the bible without having to study it in depth, and there have been no problems. Its the "enlightened" folks of the modern era who seem unable to grasp the basic message of the bible, and thus require learned christians to really tear into the text to show them what the deal is. Not that this necessarily applies to anyone here, I'm just making a generalization about the interactions I've seen between 'skeptics' and apologists.

If only the skeptics would apply this same healthy skepticism to unaccountable internet sources. Ah, well.

Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 12/11/06 16:46.
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