Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

kiwihellenist.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 298 posts

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#63

Post by andsoitis »

Zancarius wrote: post #41
lynguist wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We say now “some sect”, but today’s mainstream Trinitarians were also considered “just some sect” in Early Christianity. It has turned out to become the mainstream view, but really trinitarianism and antitrinitarianism are both valid views of Christianity and Islam stems from the “back to the basics” antitrinitarian view. While we’re at it, Judaism was also developed contemporarily with Christianity and not before (a…

Trinitarianism isn't necessarily a strictly Christian construct—or rather the idea of a godhead comprising multiple parts. "Two Powers" theology (a transcendent, unseeable Yahweh; and Yahweh-as-man) was accepted by Jewish thinkers until about the First Century AD, largely due to Christian influences. It's visible in passages like Genesis 19:24 (two Yahwehs) and most "angel of the Lord" language (e.g. Judges 6:11ff).…

From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trinity/trinity-history.h...:

Divine threesomes abound in the religious writings and art of ancient Europe, Egypt, the near east, and Asia. These include various threesomes of male deities, of female deities, of Father-Mother-Son groups, or of one body with three heads, or three faces on one head (Griffiths 1996). However, similarity alone doesn’t prove Christian copying or even indirect influence, and many of these examples are, because of their time and place, unlikely to have influenced the development of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

A direct influence on second century Christian theology is the Jewish philosopher and theologian Philo of Alexandria (a.k.a. Philo Judaeus) (ca. 20 BCE–ca. 50 CE), the product of Alexandrian Middle Platonism (with elements of Stoicism and Pythagoreanism). Inspired by the Timaeus of Plato, Philo read the Jewish Bible as teaching that God created the cosmos by his Word (logos), the first-born son of God. Alternately, or via further emanation from this Word, God creates by means of his creative power and his royal power, conceived of both as his powers, and yet as agents distinct from him, giving him, as it were, metaphysical distance from the material world (Philo Works; Dillon 1996, 139–83; Morgan 1853, 63–148; Norton 1859, 332–74; Wolfson 1973, 60–97).

Another influence may have been the Neopythagorean Middle Platonist Numenius (fl. 150), who posited a triad of gods, calling them, alternately, “Father, creator and creature; fore-father, offspring and descendant; and Father, maker and made” (Guthrie 1917, 125), or on one ancient report, Grandfather, Father, and Son (Dillon 1996, 367). Moderatus taught a similar triad somewhat earlier (Stead 1985, 583).

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#65

Post by amanaplanacanal »

NobodyNada wrote: post #45
OscarCunningham wrote: post #11

I've never really understood the sentences following this quote. > '[…] It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.' They were greatly astounded and said to one another, 'Then who can be saved?' Jesus looked at them and said, 'For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.' Why do the apostles seem to think that…

Let's look at the context before the quote too: Mark 10:17-27 (NLT) > As Jesus was starting out on his way to Jerusalem, a man came running up to him, knelt down, and asked, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" > "Why do you call me good?" Jesus asked. "Only God is truly good. But to answer your question, you know the commandments: 'You must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not st…

I would say that you are correct about the New Testament. I’m not sure there is a central point in all the books of the Old Testament.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#66

Post by [deleted] »

hot_gril wrote: post #59
labster wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already are. And not just deep in the Harry Potter fandom, but in bitter, highly public schisms over the meaning.

I will fight someone in public over the time turner thing. No it's not a closed loop, yes they could've used it to kill Voldemort.

[deleted]

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#67

Post by [deleted] »

kragen wrote: post #55

kjv text for reference > And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear…

[deleted]

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#70

Post by Nition »

This is a bit of a meta-comment but, there are a great deal of of comments in this thread that say something that's already covered in the article.

I've noticed that Hacker News comments do seem to be trending more over time to being from people who only read the title, or at best only skimmed the article.

If you go straight to the comments on any news post on Reddit, the discussions usually seem relatively insightful, but if you read the article and then the comments, suddenly many of them seem ridiculous. Either they're discussing questions that are already answered in the article or covering topics that are completely irrelevant. Often they're interpreting the article in completely the wrong way..

I've always much appreciated that Hacker News is not like that and most comments are responding to parts of the article itself. I hope we don't end up that way eventually.

Post reply on HN