₦airaland Forum

OLAADEGBU: . . .

Are you certainly sure? This is what God said to Isaac concerning his father Abraham:

"Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statues, and my laws" (Genesis 26:5).

Do you think Abraham just does things arbitrarily or actually obeyed the laws of God? Even Jacob vowed to pay his tithes.

21 The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people and keep the goods for yourself.”

22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have raised my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and have taken an oath 23 that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’ 24 I will accept nothing but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with me—to Aner, Eshcol and Mamre. Let them have their share.”

Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice.

odumorun 1: The Pharisees were not Xtians. They were not excluded because they were educated; they were excluded from the new religion because they did not accept it. The apostles might have been uneducated, although anybody reading the teachings of Peter would be amazed at the breadth of his learning and depth of his intellect. But the emergence of xtianity from a small sect of a few persecuted people to a major doctrine with a mass followership spanning continents owes itself not to the original apostles but to a later convert, Paul, - one of the most educated scholars and most brilliant minds of his day. His prodigious theological output stands testimony to the erudition, learning and intellectual rigorousness that marked the birth of Xtianity. So your attempt to justify the intellectual poverty of modern Pentecostal evangelists in Nigeria by an appeal to a past you seem to know little of is a spurious one with no serious historical parallel. Moreover your argument buttresses rather than betrays my point since most of our current crop of pastors tend to come from the relatively privileged and educated middle class with the mannerisms, aspirations and lifestyles a world away from the carpenters, fishermen and peasants Jesus drew his early disciples from.
One can only imagine the uproar that will engulf many a well heeled church in the affluent suburbs of Lagos if a local fisherman, from Ilaje-ese-odo, or God forbid carpenter from Mushin olosa is introduced as the new pastor. Imagine the pandemonium as the besuited congregation rush for the exit and their gleaming cars in the car park - ‘my God is not a poor God o’ emi o wa church oloshi
If education and learning were Anti Xtian, then why are our churches the most enthusiastic in embracing modern technology created by the greatest rationalist minds of the day – products of a very modern education. There were no microphones in the olden days in Galilee, nor were there laptops in the garden of Edne, neither were there air-conditions or computers nor the internet, not to talk of many an objective of the loud prayers emanating from these mad houses – the latest BMW or Mercedes benz . If modern churches can make use of these great products of the human mind, then they cannot disdain the intelligence that has produced them by claiming their leaders don't require equivalent knowledge to match.
Modern Xtianity is based on the accumulated learning of the past 2000 years, not on what was available in Judea when the gospels were written. The Bible is available because it is printed. Printing is a product of human knowledge and an intellectual application and culture that was not available in Jesus’s days. It is carried across the earth in modern planes and ships not the camels and donkeys used when the religion emerged. Pastors are happpy to take money from debit and credit cards, they send their funds via electronic signal to banks, they cook their food in microwaves and cool them in refrigerators. When they are ill they don't bath in holy water, they go to modern hospitals to be treated by modern Cardiologists, Gynaecologists and Surgeons, and they entertain themselves by watching programmes on the latest thin screen televisions transmitting images from thousands of miles away. They drive nice cars manufactured by brilliant engineers and designers, trained in modern universities.

If they benefit from the fruits of modern education, they cannot refuse to imbibe it by spurious appeals to a bygone age with different mores, traditions and circumstances.

Furthermore there is no evidence suggesting that ill educated Nigerian pastors are of a higher moral standing than their better educated foreign counterparts. Being an illiterate does not make you holier than a man who is read. Not availing themselves of the immense opportunities for self advancement through modern education, while being only too happy to corner the benefits that education has provided society through the efforts of others who have made the effort to secure it can only be attributed to the intellectual indolence so common amongst many in the Pentecostal assemblies who refuse to question their environment, its false assumptions and lazy certainties , who entrench underdevelopment by appealing to the superhuman to eliminate barriers imposed solely by humans. Who by imposing ignorance over knowledge continue a bleak African tradition of importing cheap copies from the west, and then proceed to take it backward even at the same time those who handed it down are taking it forward.
The Japanese and Chinese take copies from the west and develop them; we take copies from the west and underdevelop them - then intensify our prayers to escape from the consequent underdevelopment.
Heaven help us !

Passing over all manner of subtleties of the pre-Zoharic times, we will consider the masterly performances of the Cabalists. According to them the letters, words and names of the scriptures contain divine mysteries of wondrous, mystical thoughts and ideas, of significant symbols and riddles, on which depends the continuance of the world. . . . Woe to the guilty, who assert that the Torah contains only simple stories, and therefore look only upon the dress. Blessed are the righteous, who seek the real sense of the Law. The jar is not the wine, so stories do not make up the Torah" (. . .). Thus the Cabalists attached little importance to the literal sense; yet not a single iota was to be taken from it and nothing was to be added to it (. . . ).

In order to elicit the mysteries from the scriptures, the Cabalists employed certain hermeneutical canons, {e.g. Gematria, Notarikon, Temurah or permutation} . . . .

. . . .
Although the canons mentioned above are already applied in the Talmud and Midrash, the Cabalists made a more copious use of them. The names of God became a special object of their fancy. With them they imagined they could accomplish everything and perform miracles, heal the sick, extinguish the fire, etc. The most miraculous effects were ascribed to the Tetragrammaton. Whoever was in possession of the true pronunciation of that name could enter in relation with the upper world and receive revelations.

. . . .

Thus the Cabalists greatly misused the Old Testament, especially the {Torah}. And, as says Professor Wiinsche, by making the Bible a text-book to elicit deeper ideas, the greatest nonsense and rubbish came to light. The so-called hidden mysteries and revelations were nothing but fancies whirling in the heads of the Cabalists. The exegetieal literature of the Cabala clearly proves that its representatives had completely lost the sense for a suitable understanding of the words of scripture.

EFFECTS OF THE CABALA WITHIN JUDAISM.

It must be acknowledged that the Cabala intended to oppose philosophy and to intensify religion. But by introducing heathenish ideas it grafted on Judaism a conception of the world which was foreign to it and produced the most pernicious results. In place of the monotheistic biblical idea of God, according to which God is the creator, preserver and ruler of the world, the confused, pantheistically colored heathenish doctrine of emanation was substituted. The belief in the unity of God was replaced by the decade of the ten Sephiroth which were considered as divine substances. By no longer addressing prayers directly to God, but to the Sephiroth, a real Sephiroth-cult originated. The legal discussions of the Talmud were of no account ; the Cabalists despised the Talmud, yea, they considered it as a canker of Judaism, which must be cut out if Judaism were to recover. According to the Zohar, . . . the Talmud is only a bondmaid, but the Cabala a controlling mistress.

. . . . .

But the study of the Bible was also neglected. Scripture was no longer studied for its own sake, but for the sake of finding the so-called higher sense by means of mystical hermeneutical rules.

. . . .

It has become generally understood that the Cabala and Christianity are two different things.
The idea of God according to the writings of the Old and New Testaments is entirely different. The same is the case with the notion of creation. When the first triad of the Sephiroth ( Crown, Wisdom and Intelligence) is referred to the three persons of the Deity, their inner immanent relation is not thereby fully expressed, as Christianity teaches it. The three Sephiroth only represent three potencies of God or three forms of his emanation, the other Sephiroth are also such divine powers and forms. One can therefore rightly say that the Cabala teaches not the Trinity, but the Ten-Unity of God. Also the other characteristics, when e. g. the Zohar ascribes to God three heads; or when it speaks of a God-Father (abba) of a God-Mother (iiiuiia) and of a God-Son; or when we are told . . . that "there are two, and one is connected with them, and they are three ; but in being three, they are one," this does not coincide in the least with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity-

.......

As to the doctrine of Christ, the God incarnate - it cannot be paralleled with the confused doctrine of Adam Kadmon, the primordial man. According to the Christian notion the reconciliation is effected only through Christ, the Son of God; according to the Cabala man can redeem himself by means of a strict observance of the law, by asceticism and other means whereby he influences God and the world of light in a mystical manner.

. . . .


THE CABALA IN ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY

. . . . Professor Dalman remarks that the Jews reject and object to cabalistic statements as something foreign to genuine Judaism. The theosophic speculations of the Cabala are at least just as Jewish as the religious philosophical statements of Bachj or Maimonides; yes, it seems to us that the God of revelation and of scripture is more honestly retained in the former than in the latter, where he becomes a mathematical One without attribute and thereby may satisfy a superficial reason, but leaves the heart empty. That these Jewish thinkers, influenced by Aristotle, had no inclination to find in Is. liii an expiating mediator,is only too inexplicable. He, who by his own strength can soar into the sphere of "intelligences" and thus bring his soul to immortality, needs no mediator.

. . .

What are we to think of the Cabala? That there is a relationship between it and neo-Platonism is obvious. Erich Bischoff thinks that the Cabala represents a peculiar monism, which in some degree has influenced modern philosophy. In ethical respects it contains many fruitful and sublime thoughts, often indeed in fanciful wording. But as magic it has been of great influence on all kinds of superstitions and even on occultistic tendencies.

Tropilo: There was a certain man (Oyewole) who prophesied sometime ago that d name of d 1979 election winner was in the Holy Bible. Now d two contestants with Christian names were Awolowo (Jeremiah) and Azikiwe (Benjamin). After d election Shagari (Aliyu) was declared winner. D very popular prophet came out to say he was right and that Shagari was also in d Bible, they asked where in d Bible d name could be found. He referred dm to one old testament name "Shamgar". Nawa! E don tey wey wayo de prophecy. I aint saying TBJ is fake but prophecies should be specific and told to the people directly (pls ref: The Holy Bible prophecies).

musKeeto: Can't believe this was the same guy arguing on another thread that massturbation wasn't a sin cos it wasn't in the Bible. Now he's here making up his own verses,

Holy CHris,, Holy Jo,

Pastor AIO:
My brother, let's leave the issue there.

1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

6And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” 7So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

9And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

11Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

20And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

24And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Pastor AIO:
Let us consider this verse in Genesis:

26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he[b] them[/b].

I want to put it to you that this passage has been very misleadingly translated.  This has happened either because the translators were not aware of Rabbinical doctrine, or because they were intentionally twisting the scripture. 


There is no word 'them' in the original hebrew (check your concordance).  They added that themselves and that is the cause of so many errors in the doctrines of many christians. 

The passage should read that God created Adam (singular) in his own image, male and female.  In other words this Adam was both male and female, like Elohim.  Yes, Adam was Androgynous.  The 'them' leads you to think that many people were created and they were some male and some female.  The bible doesn't say that at all.

In fact Jews understand the opening verses of Genesis to be talking about the creation of two very different beings, both called Adam. That is why the Jews say that God created him before and after.  There is the prior Adam and then there is the subsequent Adam.  Subsequent Adam is then divided into two, Adam and Eve.  the first Adam is called Adam Kadmon.

This Rabbinical doctrine of the 2 Adams was seized on by Paul and is at the very heart of his entire theology. 
1Corinthians 15

The primordial Adam is even openly equated with the Greek concept of Logos.  But it is not only in greek and hebrew that we find the idea.  In Sanskrit you will find the idea of Purusha.

But that will be taking us away from our focus.  The point that I'm trying to make is that the pharisees can seize upon one line ( in this case verse 5 of psalm 139) and extrapolate from it a great deal that when you look on the surface you will not be able to see the connection.  Before any christian thinks he is in a position to criticize the pharisees we must remember that Jesus himself gave them his commendation telling us that they sit in the seat of Moses and to them has been given the authority to interpret the scriptures.

Pastor AIO:
I get the point.  However, why the word 'them' and not 'him' or 'her'?  'Them' is already pushing the reader in the direction of a plurality of persons.  The passage goes uncomfortably from singular to plural and back again.  


26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he[b] them[/b]

So when this Adam was created was he a single being or was it a plurality men.  First God creates HIM, and then He creates THEM.  

My point is that saying 'them' is extremely suggestive in a way that the original text is not.

Pastor AIO:
Yes, Paul's last Adam, in my humble understanding, is the primordial Adam.

Enigma:
. . .
The saying 'when the king's house burns down, it makes it more beautiful' is altogether for our benefit ------ thus we can apply it even when the hut of a very poor man (far from a king) burns down. 

mantraa:
. . . a book written by some ignorant bronze age middle eastern desert nomads 3000 years ago. . . . .

Christianity makes no distinction of race or of color; it seeks to break down all racial barriers. In this respect the hand of Christianity is against that of Nature, for are not the races of mankind the evolutionary harvest which Nature has toiled through long ages to produce?

Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.

dekung:
@Enigma,
Now that am done laffing I can now respond to your post. You sure have a good sense of humour. Why didnt you say so, , i.e you wanted to revive the post. But does reviving and derailing mean the same thing? If they mean the same thing then you have my apologies, otherwise you can jump in the lagos lagoon. lmfao . . . . .

Enigma:
@dekung

Because I want to be nice for once, I will give you a chance to apologise. However, this will also test whether you are a real man and an honest person. 

1. My post that you complained about was made five days after the previous post on the thread; five days after the thread was already dead. 

2. The thread was already on page 3, I believe, of the religion section when my post resurrected it and brought it back up.

I have more to say of course but hey, what do you have to say now? 

Christianity makes no distinction of race or of color; it seeks to break down all racial barriers. In this respect the hand of Christianity is against that of Nature, for are not the races of mankind the evolutionary harvest which Nature has toiled through long ages to produce?

"The German Fuehrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution. He has failed, not because the theory of evolution is false, but because he has made three fatal blunders in its application."

For many educated American who shunned the stigma of racial prejudice, science became an instrument which verified the presumptive inferiority of the Negro and rationalized the politics of disenfranchisement and segregation into a social-scientific terminology. To understand attitudes of racial inferiority in the context of nineteenth century science and social science is a first step in fathoming the depth of race prejudice in our own day.

Inferiority was at the very foundation of their evolutionary framework and, remaining there, rose to the pinnacle of "truth " with the myth of scientific certainty. To see racial prejudices in their scientific robes is to understand why, despite later conceptual changes in evolution and methodology, attitudes of racial inferiority have continued to plague western culture.