I would argue that this thread, at its height, had a limited usefulness that has long since been exhausted. The fact of actual errors is understood by the most fervent Wierwillite with a toehold on reality and dismissed by the, how can I be nice about it, batcrap insane. But if it makes folks happy...
Well, now, funny you should mention "insane". See, I think that particular word has a connotation of indwelling sanity. Yes, that's it. Someone who is in-sane is really sane (in an inner sense) Have I made myself throughly/thoroughly clear?
Clear as the difference between all with a distinction and all without distinction.
See, to those unaware of the circumstances that brought about this thread, I look like I'm nitpicking to prove Wierwille was full of garbage. I'm not. I'm nitpicking to prove that holding Wierwille's work up as the epitome of holy perfection is full of garbage.
Since embarking on that search, I've grown to care not a whit about its success. THAT's the freedom I needed, the freedom I found at the Greasespot Cafe.
If you think Wierwille's writings have no value, discard them.
If you think they have some value, dissect them.
If you think they have great value, treasure them.
If you think they have unmatched value in the annals of Christianity, enshrine them. I think you're batcrap insane, but you didn't ask me and I have no desire whatsoever to hear from you or talk you out of it.
Personally, I wish this thread and topic would vanish. People come to it looking for substance and they find quibbling over minutiae.
You want to know the truth? Brace yourself: Wierwille was a power hungry crackpot who exploited your hunger and thirst for righteousness so that his lusts could be filled. His words dripped with honey, his deeds with glue. He ensnared us all and held us longer than any of us deserved. Trying to find the value in PFAL is like trying to find out how much calcium is in the cheese attached to a mousetrap. Yes, it has calcium, and calcium is good for you, and cheese is good for you, and oh, by the way, take it and die.
It was a trap.
What's right with it? It worked like a charm.
What's wrong with it? Charms don't work. $40 please. Or $50. Or $200.
Actual errors in PFAL? These weren't errors. These were deceptions. Be free of them already.
You're several years late for the main discussion.
This thread had a specific purpose.
There were claims- by certain wearers of tinfoil hats-
that the Bible was REPLACED by the "works" of vpw
(the various books he plagiarized from others),
that those books are "God-breathed",
and so on.
Good grief. It's hard for me to imagine people being so dumbed down. Maybe they were just trying to rattle some cages... yank a chain or two here or there. Trolling, I think they call it.
"Maybe they were just trying to rattle some cages... yank a chain or two here or there. Trolling, I think they call it."
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, would ever put as much effort into trolling as Mike did into posting. He was firmly committed to the idea that the PFAL class came by revelation and was meant to replace the Bible. He said that when Christ returns he'll be holding a copy of the PFAL book in his right hand. (He didn't specify whether it would be hardbound or paperback.)
I prefer we not get into names if possible, but yes, that poster was serious. He said that when Jesus returns, he will hold a copy of the Orange Book in his hand and teach us from it. I figured he was making a joke. Someone else asked him- he was serious, and said he'd "seen him" that way "many times". He referred to the vpw books as God-breathed and said the KJV wasn't. Of vpw himself, he said he had an "overabundance of brains and brawn" and was "overgifted."
Frankly, that was the reason I started the athletics poll. With claims vpw was some sort of super-athlete on the table for his claims, we examined his claims. vpw was on the basketball team in high school. After high school, he was deliberately vague- he "played basketball all through college" (no evidence anywhere he was actually on the varsity team, just a claim he played- and he could do that with a handful of friends once a semester), and he "was involved with" some NBL team. People naturally thought he was saying he was both a player in his college team, and the Sheboygan Redskins. However, that's not what he said-that's what he wanted us to hear. After getting away with that one, he began making claims like he invented the hook shot ( officially recorded in use in 1937 by a Lithuanian, obviously invented before then.) Then again, with its origins unclear (Harlem Globetrotter Geese Tatum-1942 to 1954 player- is often credited with it as well- he probably felt he could get away with attaching his name to it.
When put to the test, that poster had cast aside everything and everyone else in his life that couldn't 100% support his claims- so, no significant other, and so on.
Mike never went into the corpse. He worked on staff briefly in NK on the A/V team under Coulter/ Gluckin. He got into TWIt in Suffolk County, Long Island and was part of that early 1970s revival there. He was a gentle soul, laid back hippie. He got a bad batch of the KoolAid, and, IMO, was "never quite right in the head" like Stephen the Irish said of Wallace's would-be assassin in Braveheart. I knew him back then, and I dialogued with him here at the GSC on the public threads as well as quite a bit in the messaging section. He was a good-natured soul who went off the deep end for dictor Paul. Never a product of any corpse, not even "the sickest". Which corpse were you in TLC?
I feel I must say that I never meant to disparage Mike (the person) in any way. He always took a civil approach when discussing matters with me. His ideas and beliefs were an entirely different story. Like so many of us, he, too, was an unfortunate product of the system.
Errors of translation abound throughout PFAL, indeed, throughout the entire corpus of victor's transcribed sermons, aka collaterals.
I've held onto these bookmarks for years. Like arguing against a flat Earth or against Geocentrism, arguing the blatant error of four crucified is just exhaustingly daunting. Black is not white and white is not black, no matter how well you think your gloves fit.
Four crucified is an actual, not an interpretive error, though it is also that.
Something I learned after leaving TWI is that fundamentalists who cling to the non-negotiable notion that the gospels should not contradict each other (which comes from the belief in inerrancy) will come up with ludicrous interpretations like four crucified.
They disregard the fact that each gospel stands on its own.
And in case you don't know, each gospel was written loooong after the events it describes. And the gospels were written long after Paul wrote his letters, too.
Sometimes I wonder how people woud view the N.T. if the order of the books were put in order of when they were written. That would result in the gospels coming AFTER Paul's epistles.
If you're super interested in this topic, check out Fundamentalism by James Barr. And excellent books on the history of the N.T. texts are available by Bart Ehrman. They are easy to read, too!
Right. Errancy is only a problem for inerrantists, but I don't see a contradiction among the gospels requiring linguistic gymnastics, magic tricks and glove fitting. Luke says from the very beginning he studied many accounts before writing his version. Maybe the majority of his sources had one of the bandits asking for mercy, and the simple math convinced him, so he includes it in his narrative. What's the problem?
The links I provided above deal with John 19:18. It all starts in The B-Greek Forum, a very geeky place for scholars, teachers, hobbyists and students of Ancient Greek - lots of PhDs and ThDs and MDivs and grad students and language nerds. A wonderful forum of civility, humility and expertise - no doctrine, only language.
The thread I posted was started by someone who sounds like a Wayfer or a member of an offshoot or a Bullingerite. Here is the original post:
I have a two part question. The first has to do with the expression found in John 19:18, (" καὶ μετ' αὐτοῦ ἄλλους δύο ἐντεῦθεν καὶ ἐντεῦθεν μέσον δὲ τὸν Ἰησοῦν), " and with him others two on this side and that and in the middle Jesus.".
This expression is also found in Revelation 22:2, (εν μεσω της πλατειας αυτης και του ποταμου εντευθεν και εντευθεν ξυλον ζωης ), "In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life".
There is a similar expression in Ezekiel 47:7, (ἐν τῇ ἐπιστροφῇ μου καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐπὶ τοῦ χείλους τοῦ ποταμοῦ δένδρα πολλὰ σφόδρα ἔνθεν καὶ ἔνθεν), "Now when I had returned, behold, on the bank of the river there were very many trees on the one side and on the other."
Most of the translations I've read have something like this: "Here they crucified him, and with him two others--one on each side and Jesus in the middle." They all seem to take the number "duo" as a total, rather than distributing it with the expression. Why are they doing this, and why wouldn't "duo" be distribued in the expression?
The second part of my question is with regards to the word "allos", which as I understand it, is a numerical distinction, the second of two where there may be two or more, rather than the Gr. "heteros" , or "another of a different kind, (usually denoting generic distinction)" as used in Luke 23:32, "Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed".
In the examples from Ezekiel and Revelation, the "many trees", and the "tree of life" are distributed with the expression, why isn't this the case with "duo" in John 19:18?
If God intended every detail of Jesus life to be innerantly recorded, it is just much more logical that He would inspire the writings closer to their source in time not over 100 years later. I would postulate that the very nature of His inspiration on recording the history 100 years later would preclude it from being innerant and points to the literal mental gymnastics of fundamentalists being a waste of time and focused on their own goals not Gods. Then a focus on the Greek language which produced mathematicians not the Aramaic which is less precise in some ways of expression. So Fundamentalists always love mathematical sounding arguments and the Greek language accommodates this.
Yes you can spend your whole life on this hamster wheel and yes that would be
The error of four crucified is not explained by fundamentalism. It's surprising that this actual error was invented by a man as educated as Bullinger. That he would point to an 18th century cemetery in France as supporting evidence is even more surprising for such a man, until you find out he was a fervent flat earther. Then, it's, "Ohhhhhh..."
It's surprising that a scholar as proficient in languages as Bullinger would fail so profoundly to understand how translation works and why word for word literal translations of idiomatic expressions like ἐντεῦθεν καὶ ἐντεῦθεν are ineffectual. The word "one" wasn't added in the way it is suggested. It is not a corrupt interpolation motivated by some nefarious agenda. Translators add words sometimes so an expression in the source language will make sense in the target language. This is not a radical idea.
That Bullinger pretended not to understand ἐντεῦθεν is an adverb modifying the verb crucified and answering the question "Where?" is beyond astonishing. It does not modify "two." That Bullinger defecates on all that he should know about Greek and English is suspect. Who now has the nefarious agenda? Why would he invent such deception?
Four crucified is so blatantly inaccurate and irresponsible that, for me, it calls into question everything Bullinger wrote. I'm not saying Bullinger was wrong about everything, just that everything he wrote deserves scrutiny.
Sometimes I wonder how people woud view the N.T. if the order of the books were put in order of when they were written. That would result in the gospels coming AFTER Paul's epistles.
I think a lot more people would consider the position I am exploring in another thread - that the religion of Christianity was not founded by a historical Jesus. Jesus, as revealed by Paul, is a celestial figure. Paul mentions Jesus appearing to the 12 after his resurrection rather than the 11 because the story of Judas' betrayal hadn't been made up yet. Paul didn't get the Lord's Supper from the gospels. The gospels got the Last Supper from Paul! When Paul talks about the crucifixion in "spiritual" terms rather than temporal, he's not inventing a spiritual explanation for what happened on earth. He's reporting what actually happened in heaven, the only place Jesus existed in his eyes.
Why doesn't Paul mention the empty tomb when he talks about the evidence for the resurrection? Because it didn't happen on earth.
Why does Paul actually BRAG that he got his info about Jesus from Jesus himself and absolutely positively not from the Apostles? Because the Apostles didn't know a historical Jesus any more than Paul did. Those stories were made up later.
Anyway, that just answers the question Penworks posted and has nothing specifically to do with actual errors in PFAL. Sorry. I'll report myself to the idiot who started the thread.
until you find out he was a fervent flat earther. Then, it's, "Ohhhhhh..."
Ohhhh!!!!!!
I'll never forget the feeling that came over me when I realized that the firmament was a giant glass wall, the sky is blue because it's holding back an ocean, and the sun, moon and stars are all in the firmament and not in outer space (because there's no such thing).
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Raf
Clear as the difference between all with a distinction and all without distinction. See, to those unaware of the circumstances that brought about this thread, I look like I'm nitpicking to prove Wier
Raf
I'm not talking about errors that are subject to interpretation. Whether you believe the dead are alive now, for example, really depends on your worldview and your interpretation of scripture. Whether
Larry P2
And let's not forget the one about "All the women in the Kingdom belong to the King." Which proves that he was a lecherous piece of sh!t communicating his desire for a steady stream of young, gullibl
waysider
Well, now, funny you should mention "insane". See, I think that particular word has a connotation of indwelling sanity. Yes, that's it. Someone who is in-sane is really sane (in an inner sense) Have I made myself throughly/thoroughly clear?
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Raf
Clear as the difference between all with a distinction and all without distinction.
See, to those unaware of the circumstances that brought about this thread, I look like I'm nitpicking to prove Wierwille was full of garbage. I'm not. I'm nitpicking to prove that holding Wierwille's work up as the epitome of holy perfection is full of garbage.
Since embarking on that search, I've grown to care not a whit about its success. THAT's the freedom I needed, the freedom I found at the Greasespot Cafe.
If you think Wierwille's writings have no value, discard them.
If you think they have some value, dissect them.
If you think they have great value, treasure them.
If you think they have unmatched value in the annals of Christianity, enshrine them. I think you're batcrap insane, but you didn't ask me and I have no desire whatsoever to hear from you or talk you out of it.
Personally, I wish this thread and topic would vanish. People come to it looking for substance and they find quibbling over minutiae.
You want to know the truth? Brace yourself: Wierwille was a power hungry crackpot who exploited your hunger and thirst for righteousness so that his lusts could be filled. His words dripped with honey, his deeds with glue. He ensnared us all and held us longer than any of us deserved. Trying to find the value in PFAL is like trying to find out how much calcium is in the cheese attached to a mousetrap. Yes, it has calcium, and calcium is good for you, and cheese is good for you, and oh, by the way, take it and die.
It was a trap.
What's right with it? It worked like a charm.
What's wrong with it? Charms don't work. $40 please. Or $50. Or $200.
Actual errors in PFAL? These weren't errors. These were deceptions. Be free of them already.
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Raf
Bumped up by request
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TLC
Good grief. It's hard for me to imagine people being so dumbed down. Maybe they were just trying to rattle some cages... yank a chain or two here or there. Trolling, I think they call it.
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waysider
TLC said:
"Maybe they were just trying to rattle some cages... yank a chain or two here or there. Trolling, I think they call it."
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, would ever put as much effort into trolling as Mike did into posting. He was firmly committed to the idea that the PFAL class came by revelation and was meant to replace the Bible. He said that when Christ returns he'll be holding a copy of the PFAL book in his right hand. (He didn't specify whether it would be hardbound or paperback.)
Edited by waysiderspecify quote
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WordWolf
I prefer we not get into names if possible, but yes, that poster was serious. He said that when Jesus returns, he will hold a copy of the Orange Book in his hand and teach us from it. I figured he was making a joke. Someone else asked him- he was serious, and said he'd "seen him" that way "many times". He referred to the vpw books as God-breathed and said the KJV wasn't. Of vpw himself, he said he had an "overabundance of brains and brawn" and was "overgifted."
Frankly, that was the reason I started the athletics poll. With claims vpw was some sort of super-athlete on the table for his claims, we examined his claims. vpw was on the basketball team in high school. After high school, he was deliberately vague- he "played basketball all through college" (no evidence anywhere he was actually on the varsity team, just a claim he played- and he could do that with a handful of friends once a semester), and he "was involved with" some NBL team. People naturally thought he was saying he was both a player in his college team, and the Sheboygan Redskins. However, that's not what he said-that's what he wanted us to hear. After getting away with that one, he began making claims like he invented the hook shot ( officially recorded in use in 1937 by a Lithuanian, obviously invented before then.) Then again, with its origins unclear (Harlem Globetrotter Geese Tatum-1942 to 1954 player- is often credited with it as well- he probably felt he could get away with attaching his name to it.
When put to the test, that poster had cast aside everything and everyone else in his life that couldn't 100% support his claims- so, no significant other, and so on.
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TLC
Well, I knew there was a sicth corps. Evidently he was a product of the sickest corps (whichever that was...)
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DontWorryBeHappy
Mike never went into the corpse. He worked on staff briefly in NK on the A/V team under Coulter/ Gluckin. He got into TWIt in Suffolk County, Long Island and was part of that early 1970s revival there. He was a gentle soul, laid back hippie. He got a bad batch of the KoolAid, and, IMO, was "never quite right in the head" like Stephen the Irish said of Wallace's would-be assassin in Braveheart. I knew him back then, and I dialogued with him here at the GSC on the public threads as well as quite a bit in the messaging section. He was a good-natured soul who went off the deep end for dictor Paul. Never a product of any corpse, not even "the sickest". Which corpse were you in TLC?
Edited by DontWorryBeHappyDpelling
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waysider
I feel I must say that I never meant to disparage Mike (the person) in any way. He always took a civil approach when discussing matters with me. His ideas and beliefs were an entirely different story. Like so many of us, he, too, was an unfortunate product of the system.
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chockfull
Is it wrong that i just want to see Raf say "batcrap insane" again on this thread?
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OldSkool
I don't think so, I've been waiting too.
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Nathan_Jr
Errors of translation abound throughout PFAL, indeed, throughout the entire corpus of victor's transcribed sermons, aka collaterals.
I've held onto these bookmarks for years. Like arguing against a flat Earth or against Geocentrism, arguing the blatant error of four crucified is just exhaustingly daunting. Black is not white and white is not black, no matter how well you think your gloves fit.
Four crucified is an actual, not an interpretive error, though it is also that.
https://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=950&p=33635&hilit=Niedergall#p33635
https://niedergall.com/an-obscure-greek-question-no-longer-waiting-for-an-answer/
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modcat5
Batcrap insane
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modcat5
At this point I would agree, but I don't feel I've made a case for it.
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penworks
Something I learned after leaving TWI is that fundamentalists who cling to the non-negotiable notion that the gospels should not contradict each other (which comes from the belief in inerrancy) will come up with ludicrous interpretations like four crucified.
They disregard the fact that each gospel stands on its own.
And in case you don't know, each gospel was written loooong after the events it describes. And the gospels were written long after Paul wrote his letters, too.
Sometimes I wonder how people woud view the N.T. if the order of the books were put in order of when they were written. That would result in the gospels coming AFTER Paul's epistles.
If you're super interested in this topic, check out Fundamentalism by James Barr. And excellent books on the history of the N.T. texts are available by Bart Ehrman. They are easy to read, too!
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Nathan_Jr
Right. Errancy is only a problem for inerrantists, but I don't see a contradiction among the gospels requiring linguistic gymnastics, magic tricks and glove fitting. Luke says from the very beginning he studied many accounts before writing his version. Maybe the majority of his sources had one of the bandits asking for mercy, and the simple math convinced him, so he includes it in his narrative. What's the problem?
The links I provided above deal with John 19:18. It all starts in The B-Greek Forum, a very geeky place for scholars, teachers, hobbyists and students of Ancient Greek - lots of PhDs and ThDs and MDivs and grad students and language nerds. A wonderful forum of civility, humility and expertise - no doctrine, only language.
The thread I posted was started by someone who sounds like a Wayfer or a member of an offshoot or a Bullingerite. Here is the original post:
I have a two part question. The first has to do with the expression found in John 19:18, (" καὶ μετ' αὐτοῦ ἄλλους δύο ἐντεῦθεν καὶ ἐντεῦθεν μέσον δὲ τὸν Ἰησοῦν), " and with him others two on this side and that and in the middle Jesus.".
This expression is also found in Revelation 22:2, (εν μεσω της πλατειας αυτης και του ποταμου εντευθεν και εντευθεν ξυλον ζωης ), "In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life".
There is a similar expression in Ezekiel 47:7, (ἐν τῇ ἐπιστροφῇ μου καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐπὶ τοῦ χείλους τοῦ ποταμοῦ δένδρα πολλὰ σφόδρα ἔνθεν καὶ ἔνθεν), "Now when I had returned, behold, on the bank of the river there were very many trees on the one side and on the other."
Most of the translations I've read have something like this: "Here they crucified him, and with him two others--one on each side and Jesus in the middle." They all seem to take the number "duo" as a total, rather than distributing it with the expression. Why are they doing this, and why wouldn't "duo" be distribued in the expression?
The second part of my question is with regards to the word "allos", which as I understand it, is a numerical distinction, the second of two where there may be two or more, rather than the Gr. "heteros" , or "another of a different kind, (usually denoting generic distinction)" as used in Luke 23:32, "Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed".
In the examples from Ezekiel and Revelation, the "many trees", and the "tree of life" are distributed with the expression, why isn't this the case with "duo" in John 19:18?
Thanks,
Ted Twitchell
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chockfull
If God intended every detail of Jesus life to be innerantly recorded, it is just much more logical that He would inspire the writings closer to their source in time not over 100 years later. I would postulate that the very nature of His inspiration on recording the history 100 years later would preclude it from being innerant and points to the literal mental gymnastics of fundamentalists being a waste of time and focused on their own goals not Gods. Then a focus on the Greek language which produced mathematicians not the Aramaic which is less precise in some ways of expression. So Fundamentalists always love mathematical sounding arguments and the Greek language accommodates this.
Yes you can spend your whole life on this hamster wheel and yes that would be
BATCRAP INSANE
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Nathan_Jr
The error of four crucified is not explained by fundamentalism. It's surprising that this actual error was invented by a man as educated as Bullinger. That he would point to an 18th century cemetery in France as supporting evidence is even more surprising for such a man, until you find out he was a fervent flat earther. Then, it's, "Ohhhhhh..."
It's surprising that a scholar as proficient in languages as Bullinger would fail so profoundly to understand how translation works and why word for word literal translations of idiomatic expressions like ἐντεῦθεν καὶ ἐντεῦθεν are ineffectual. The word "one" wasn't added in the way it is suggested. It is not a corrupt interpolation motivated by some nefarious agenda. Translators add words sometimes so an expression in the source language will make sense in the target language. This is not a radical idea.
That Bullinger pretended not to understand ἐντεῦθεν is an adverb modifying the verb crucified and answering the question "Where?" is beyond astonishing. It does not modify "two." That Bullinger defecates on all that he should know about Greek and English is suspect. Who now has the nefarious agenda? Why would he invent such deception?
Four crucified is so blatantly inaccurate and irresponsible that, for me, it calls into question everything Bullinger wrote. I'm not saying Bullinger was wrong about everything, just that everything he wrote deserves scrutiny.
Edited by Nathan_JrGloves
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Raf
I think a lot more people would consider the position I am exploring in another thread - that the religion of Christianity was not founded by a historical Jesus. Jesus, as revealed by Paul, is a celestial figure. Paul mentions Jesus appearing to the 12 after his resurrection rather than the 11 because the story of Judas' betrayal hadn't been made up yet. Paul didn't get the Lord's Supper from the gospels. The gospels got the Last Supper from Paul! When Paul talks about the crucifixion in "spiritual" terms rather than temporal, he's not inventing a spiritual explanation for what happened on earth. He's reporting what actually happened in heaven, the only place Jesus existed in his eyes.
Why doesn't Paul mention the empty tomb when he talks about the evidence for the resurrection? Because it didn't happen on earth.
Why does Paul actually BRAG that he got his info about Jesus from Jesus himself and absolutely positively not from the Apostles? Because the Apostles didn't know a historical Jesus any more than Paul did. Those stories were made up later.
Anyway, that just answers the question Penworks posted and has nothing specifically to do with actual errors in PFAL. Sorry. I'll report myself to the idiot who started the thread.
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Raf
Ohhhh!!!!!!
I'll never forget the feeling that came over me when I realized that the firmament was a giant glass wall, the sky is blue because it's holding back an ocean, and the sun, moon and stars are all in the firmament and not in outer space (because there's no such thing).
It's batcrap insane, I tell you.
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