The Ox Goad god

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
None of that makes much difference to the basic premise of this thread. What are your views on that?

I have no idea where froggy got his "Aleph Lamed" = "Ox Goad[sic?]" from. Aleph and lamed are just Hebrew letters.

His sociological reading of early Genesis is interesting enough, but I feel it is a little too forced. After all, I doubt you're going to find similar clear hunter/gatherer-farmer parallels in other equally ancient creation myths (e.g. Egyptian, Chinese, Indian).

That said, I have no problem with the theory that the authors of Genesis borrowed some aspects of contemporary mythology to make their point (something that the Catechism states quite clearly).

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Now who's doing linguistic somersaults?

Not me. But since you are our resident expert in nitpicking, perhaps you could explain the difference between "many flood stories that do exist do not have much resemblance to the one presented in the Bible" AND "quite a few Flood myths bear NO such resemblance". And please: read them in the context they were made.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Not me. But since you are our resident expert in nitpicking, perhaps you could explain the difference between "many flood stories that do exist do not have much resemblance to the one presented in the Bible" AND "quite a few Flood myths bear NO such resemblance". And please: read them in the context they were made.

Read the posts that followed - I conceeded they weren't linguistic "somersaults". Just linguistic "rocking on your feet".

😀

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Read the posts that followed - I conceeded they weren't linguistic "somersaults". Just linguistic "rocking on your feet".

😀

They weren't that either. Please answer the question.

Originally posted by no1marauder
They weren't that either. Please answer the question.

Okay.

The usage of 'quite' in "quite a few" has connotations of being an impressive number - much more than just a few. 'Many' is just an indistinct number greater than 'few' - and 'many' does not connote that the reader should be particularly impressed by how many of whatever is being spoken about there are.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
I have no idea where froggy got his "Aleph Lamed" = "Ox Goad[sic?]" from. Aleph and lamed are just Hebrew letters.

It's simple: the Hebrew letters (and our letters) are simplified forms of pictograms. "Aleph" was originally a pictogram of an ox, "Lamed" an ox-goad. Aleph and Lamed make "El", meaning "one of power and authority and used for God in Genesis 1:1., " (http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/emagazine/022.html ); the Ox and Ox-Goad pictograms depict where the power and authority came from.

"The names of our letters, in Hebrew, Arabic and Greek, are the same, despite many centuries, despite diverse languages, despite diverse races, in a shared technology:

Their names are pictographic and polyvalent, aleph being ox and one, beth, tent/house and 2, gimel , camel and 3, daleth, door and 4, he, whistle and 5, vau , nail and 6, zayin, weapon and 7, kheth , fence and 8, teth, twisting and 9, yod, hand and 10, kaph, palm and 20, lamed, ox-goad and 30, mem, water and 40, nun , fish and 50, samech , support and 60, ayin, eye and 70, pe/phe , mouth and 80, tzadi, hook and 90, qoph , coif and 100, resh, head and 200, sin/shin, tooth and 300, tau , cross and 400. " (http://www.florin.ms/aleph.html )

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Okay.

The usage of 'quite' in "quite a few" has connotations of being an impressive number - much more than just a few. 'Many' is just an indistinct number greater than 'few' - and 'many' does not connote that the reader should be particularly impressed by how many of whatever is being spoken about there are.

LMAO! I must get Lucifershammer's NitPickers Dictionary. Read in context, the two statements are just different ways of saying the same thing; that while MANY of the worldwide Flood myths bear a close resemblance to the Biblical account (or vice versa), QUITE A FEW do not. Since both these statements are accurate (do you dispute this?), there was no linguistic trickery involved. Freaky's numbers, even if accepted, bear out these statements. That's why he sulking.

EDIT: Would you agree that a third or more is "quite a few"?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
You mean boats didn't exist before Ziusudra??

Too many factual errors in your post:

1. Genesis was finalised long before Constantine.
2. Constantine did not finalise the books of the [Christian] Bible - that happened nearly six decades after he died.
3. Even when they were finalised, events in Genesis were not considered "[historical] fact". T ...[text shortened]... evident from the commentaries of Augustine (who was influential in the canonisation process).

ok ok you're right all Constantine did was declare Christ was god and use the power of the state against anybody that said differently., however please open you're own excusatory thread to discuss Constantine.
as to the first boat ride I was talking about the slood story , and as far as I can tell , there wasn't any other boats around back then anyway ( at least in the story)

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
It's simple: the Hebrew letters (and our letters) are simplified forms of pictograms. "Aleph" was originally a pictogram of an ox, "Lamed" an ox-goad. Aleph and Lamed make "El", meaning "one of power and authority and used for God in Genesis 1:1., " (http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/emagazine/022.html ); the Ox and Ox-Goad pictograms depict where the powe ...[text shortened]... 0, sin/shin, tooth and 300, tau , cross and 400. " (http://www.florin.ms/aleph.html )

Thank you!

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
None of that makes much difference to the basic premise of this thread. What are your views on that?

😀

Originally posted by frogstomp
ok ok you're right all Constantine did was declare Christ was god and use the power of the state against anybody that said differently.

You're still getting your facts wrong.

1. The Council of Nicea declared that Christ was consubstantial with the Father, not Constantine. As far as Constantine was concerned, this was just a quibble over words that needed a Council to resolve the conflicts that were rising in his empire.
2. While Constantine did initially banish Arius and his followers, he soon lifted the exile (after about 18 months or so). When he was baptised on his death-bed, the Bishop who baptised him was an Arian-sympathiser.

Funny thing is, Constantine's sons were avowed Arians who did use state power to suppress the orthodox Church.

Originally posted by no1marauder
LMAO! I must get Lucifershammer's NitPickers Dictionary. Read in context, the two statements are just different ways of saying the same thing; that while MANY of the worldwide Flood myths bear a close resemblance to the Biblical account (or vice versa), QUITE A FEW do not. Since both these statements are accurate (do you dispute this?), there was no ling ...[text shortened]... nts. That's why he sulking.

EDIT: Would you agree that a third or more is "quite a few"?

As far as truth content goes, the two statements are equivalent. The connotations, however, are slightly different.

Is a third or more "quite a few"? In most contexts (but not all), yes.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
As far as truth content goes, the two statements are equivalent. The connotations, however, are slightly different.

Is a third or more "quite a few"? In most contexts (but not all), yes.

You are a truly pitiful human being.

Originally posted by no1marauder
You are a truly pitiful human being.

Not feeling well today? Left your Grade-5 School-yard Bullies' Handbook at home?

EDIT: Juvenile name-calling aside, what warrants this personal attack? The fact that I point out that language is not as precise as mathematics? That even when two statements represent the same fact they can imply slightly different things?

If you live in a world where the richness of language is stripped out, then I'm not the pitiful one here.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Not feeling well today? Left your Grade-5 School-yard Bullies' Handbook at home?

EDIT: Juvenile name-calling aside, what warrants this personal attack? The fact that I point out that language is not as precise as mathematics? That even when two statements represent the same fact they can imply slightly different things?

If you live in a world where the richness of language is stripped out, then I'm not the pitiful one here.

No, the fact that you attacked me by accusing me of using linguistic somersaults and now use the "impreciseness of language" to somehow excuse this patently false charge. The two statements did not imply anything different at all and only a nitpicking jerk spoiling for a petty semantic fight would say they did. If you REALLY want to get into it, you've got it backward: "many" generally implies more than "quite a few" (clue: the second one has the word "few" in it). But any fair minded person reading the paragraphs would know that I changed no meaning or nuance; I meant to say that there were SOME substantial number of flood myths that did not bear a resemblance to the Biblical one. Quibble about what "significant number" means for 6 pages now, but my meaning was, and is, clear.

EDIT: I know all about language and frame my sentences as precisely as possible. I do that for a living, not to pretend I'm the smartest snotnose on a website.

EDIT2: "Many" - consisting or amounting to a large but indefinite number. - Webster's New American Dictionary (I think; I'm missing the cover).