My Understandings and A Few Questions

[HSetterfield]

"It's clear that "eretz" quite often refers to restricted localities associated with a certain people, as much as it is occasionally used to refer to landmasses and to the whole planet."

Exactly. And it was the landmass of the original continent which was divided in the days of Peleg. From the root of his name we get archipelagos, pelican, Pelagos, Pele, Pelee, and so many other words, all relating to a splitting regarding water or volcanic activity, which certainly would have been connected with such giant landmass movement.

What eretz does NOT mean is anything political or social! Many try to equate the time of Peleg with Babel, but the two catastrophes were several generations apart if you check Genesis 10 and 11.

 

[HSetterfield]

If it is so straightforward, why all the different denominations? Why all the fights over doctrine? I mean, to me, Scripture is pretty clear in stating that Baptism saves and that the bread and wine really are Christ's Body and Blood. Obviously, many people disagree. I guess it's not so straightforward after all.

That is evidently what you have been taught. I read that we are saved by grace through faith and not by works, let any man should boast, in Ephesians. I read that Christ is the Savior, not anything we could ever do.

And I read, in John 6:63, after Jesus had talked about His body and His blood "the Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life." He was indicating a spiritual application.

This is confirmed in Hebrews 9:27-28, where it is written, "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed ONCE to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him."

If He was sacrificed once, and only once, then He is not sacrificed over and over again in Holy Communion. In fact, He Himself told us to take that meal only in remembrance of Him. So it is simply an obedience thing, as is baptism.

But it is Christ and Christ alone who saves. We cannot accomplish our own salvation nor can we maintain it. We are the sheep of His pasture and we need His constant care and provision.

The different denominations are in part because men try to add to what the Bible has said and, in part, because of the different areas where believers were before the electronic age.

 

[busterdog]

If it is so straightforward, why all the different denominations? Why all the fights over doctrine? I mean, to me, Scripture is pretty clear in stating that Baptism saves and that the bread and wine really are Christ's Body and Blood. Obviously, many people disagree. I guess it's not so straightforward after all.

In my limited experience, I have often found that when I go from misunderstanding to understanding, I go from complexity to simplicity in accepting the literal, surface meaning of the text. That happens often enough that I am inclined to side with Helen. But, at the same time, the obvious and simple truth often takes a lot of "interpretive" digging to get at it. Sometimes historical background is important. So, I see your point.

On most of the big issues, there is a simple, surface text that seems to work.

And, I will confess to not using the simple method of interpretation as follows:

Jam 1:5
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all [men] liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

 

[shernren]

"It's clear that "eretz" quite often refers to restricted localities associated with a certain people, as much as it is occasionally used to refer to landmasses and to the whole planet."

Exactly. And it was the landmass of the original continent which was divided in the days of Peleg. From the root of his name we get archipelagos, pelican, Pelagos, Pele, Pelee, and so many other words, all relating to a splitting regarding water or volcanic activity, which certainly would have been connected with such giant landmass movement.

What eretz does NOT mean is anything political or social! Many try to equate the time of Peleg with Babel, but the two catastrophes were several generations apart if you check Genesis 10 and 11.

Archipelago: Gk. arkhi- "chief + pelagos "sea."
Pelican: Gk. pelekan "pelican" (so used by Aristotle), apparently related to pelekas "woodpecker" and pelekys "ax,"
Pelagos is simply Greek for sea.
Pele is a name. It is also Hungarian and Latvian for "mouse".
After doing all that work, it would only be fair to ask you to look up the etymology of Pelee yourself.

Source: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php

From these etymologies it's quite obvious that they had nearly nothing to do with Peleg. Peleg means "split", and pelagos means "sea", from PIE (proto-Indo-European) *p(e)lag- "to spread out" (cf. Gk. plagos "side," L. plaga "hunting net, curtain, region"), while "pelican" has more to do with woodpecker than Peleg.

You know, if you keep making claims that people can easily falsify here, you aren't going to earn much credibility, either for yourself or your husband.

 

[Mallon]

The different denominations are in part because men try to add to what the Bible has said and, in part, because of the different areas where believers were before the electronic age.

What do you suggest the "right" denomination is, then? Yours, evidently. Whichever that is.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Peleg. From the root of his name we get archipelagos, pelican, Pelagos, Pele, Pelee,

this is new to me. let's do a little digging.

Peleg
Peleg (Hebrew: פֶּלֶג / פָּלֶג, Standard Péleg / Páleg Tiberian Péleḡ / Pāleḡ ; "Division")
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peleg

archipelagos
An archipelago is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago literally means "chief sea", from Greek arkhon (arkhi-) ("leader") and pelagos ("sea").
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archipelago

pelican
[Middle English, from Old English pellican and from Old French pelican, both from Late Latin pelicānus, from Greek pelekan.]
from: http://www.answers.com/pelican&r=67
pelekan in greek:
pelican - refers to White Pelican, Pelecanus erythrorhynchos, or Brown Pelican, Pelecanus occidentalis. [pelican, pelecan Middle English pelican, pellican, Old English pellican, pellicane, Old French pelican, Late Latin pelicanus, Latin pelicanus, pelecanus, pelican, Greek pelekan, Greek pelekus, pelekys, axe, Sanskrit parasus, axe, Assyro-Babylonian piliqqu, axe, Sumerian balaq, name reflecting bird's bill shape].
from: http://www.bottlebrushpress.com/noamericanorigins.html

Pelagos
name from Greek "open sea"

pele
http://www.mythicalrealm.com/legends/pele.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pele_(Goddess)

the name is tahitian
i found no direct translation as to it's meaning. but it certainly is not related to the other words above.

pelee
Mount Pelée (French: Montagne Pelée, "Bald Mountain")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pelée




not a single one of these words is related to peleg
is it a lie? or just a ignorant fib?
i don't know, to know that requires knowledge of the heart of those reprinting and retransmitting such misinformation. but it is NOT factual and is wrong.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

The different denominations are in part because men try to add to what the Bible has said and, in part, because of the different areas where believers were before the electronic age.

unsupported contention which in fact makes the first denomination correct and all those deriving from it heresies based on the efforts of men.

something not readily acceptable to the majority of Christians reading this as the membership lists are dominated by Protestants not RC's.

 

[Melethiel]

That is evidently what you have been taught.

Actually, no. I was taught what you espounce. I came to my conclusion after doing my own study.

If He was sacrificed once, and only once, then He is not sacrificed over and over again in Holy Communion.

strawman.

 

[Willtor]

I believe in a literal Adam and Eve. I mean, they are indeed saints in the Church. Saint Adam and Saint Eve.

Plus the whole "he couldn't reverse their immortality making him not omnipotent" is worrying me greatly. =/

This is so confusing.

God's Peace,
Justin

I don't think there's any notion that their immortality could not be reversed. I never inferred from the passage that they were not already taking of the Tree of Life, but that they were prohibited from continuing to do so when they were expelled from the garden. So long as they ate from the Tree of Life, they would continue to live. I suppose that the Tree of Life is a figure for God's Word. What else can prolong our lives indefinitely?

But to go back to your OP, I think you're right, and physical death was always part of the equation. The difference is that physical death has no teeth when unaccompanied by spiritual death. On the other hand, HSetterfield suggests that we were intended for translation, and there might be something to that.

Either way, the passage indicates the introduction of spiritual death, at the very least, and possibly physical death as well. But as you seem to be investigating Eastern Orthodoxy, a good traditional source of investigation might be "Against the Gentile/Heathen" by Athanasius. http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-04/TOC.htm (see especially Part I)

 

[HSetterfield]

Mallon -- we do not claim any denomination. We are born again saved Christians.

rmwilliamsll -- yes PLG means division. And that is what happened to the earth. It is also the root word for the second part of archipelagos.

Pelagos is the ancient term for the Mediterranean, where the waters poured in at the time of Peleg.

As for pelican, go back past the languages you referenced to the original PLG -- meaning division. The pelican divides the waters for his food.

Both Mt. Pelee and the vocano goddess Pele of the Hawaiian Islands have the original PL root, and this word is in reference to the division at the time of Peleg.

We did the research long ago on these. You folks need to go back into the more ancient texts and not depend on what is written on the net all the time. The word peleg, first of all, comes from a root in Hebrew meaning to split or divide. What is interesting is that later it also picked up the meaning 'a channel of water'. A channel of water splits or divides the land. This is a direct reference to what happened in Peleg's time.

And please remember the root word vastly predates the languages you have referenced in your disagreements. What people do with language through the years is quite evident if you have raised teenagers....

 

[Assyrian]

In Genesis 3:21-24, God says that man had become like Him from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of G&E, and that he must not be allowed to eat of the Tree of Life and live forever. This seems to be saying that, if they would have become immortal, God could not have reversed it, and he was afraid they would become immortal, thus making Him not omnipotent.

Yes I agree. A literal reading of the story puts immortality out of the hand of God and into the hands of Adam who could have reached out and grabbed the fruit before God put him out of the garden. Can eternal life only be found in Christ, or in Christ and also in a certain tree that is still growing in paradise? It makes much more sense if the tree is figurative.

Even then, some things are surely literal, such as the naming of the rivers.

Have a look at where the rivers flow. The Tigris and Euphrates rise in modern Turkey and runs through Iraq to the Gulf. The Gihon flowed around the whole land of Cush. That is Ethiopia, Africa. Yet these rivers are supposed to have a common source in the river of Eden. This is not giving us a literal geography, it is a topography that only makes sense figuratively. The story of Eden is for the whole human race, every nation every land.

Hi Helen welcome to the forum

The tree of life is mentioned in Revelation 22:2, where it is for the healing of the nations. So we may presume, I think, that it was also for healing in the Garden of Eden. This is why Adam and Eve could have lived forever -- they would always have access to healing for whatever happened. Denied this, they would eventually die.

The presumption is, theologically, that instead of dying had they not sinned, they would have been 'translated' to heaven after some period of time. This happened to Enoch as well as Elijah, so we do have something to go on there.

I go in for Adam and Eve being figurative, I think it fits the text and the rest of the bible better, but I like your take on the tree of life. Whether the tree was literal of figurative, whether A&E were literal of figurative, the tree of life was God promise, his provision of resurrection/translation life to man before we sinned.

It is not part of life to die anyway. At least not then.

This is a big jump. It was clearly part of life to be injured and to die. If the tree of life was to provide healing and eternal life, then without it life is in itself vulnerable to injury and death. These natural process was only avoided through God's provision of the tree, which wouldn't have been available to any creatures outside the garden.

And it won't be in the future. Paul tells us in Romans 5:12, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned..." and he goes on. But the biblical message is extraordinarily clear that death came due to sin and sin came due to Adam. So if death came through sin and sin through Adam, then, had Adam not sinned, he would not have died. That is simply a logical thing and totally biblical. If you disagree, on this one you would have to argue with the Bible, not with us...

This raises the question of why animals die. Paul only says death spread to men. How did death spread to animals? In fact Paul tell us how death spreads to all men, it is because all sinned. Not only does this exclude animals, it exclude small children and babies too. The kind of death which effects people old enough to be morally aware, but does not include infants, is spiritual death rather than physical.

The Tree of Life was only forbidden once man had disobeyed and been separated from God spiritually. God refused to allow men to live in their sin bodies forever. And we should be grateful for that! There were two deaths, actually, mentioned in Genesis regarding Adam, but it does not come across in the English. The translation really should read closer to the Hebrew, saying something like "That day, in dying you will die." The spiritual death, or separation from God, was immediate. The physical death, or separation from the body, would inevitably come.

'In dying you will die' does not mean two deaths, it is a Hebrew idiom which means 'surely die'. Adam was told he would surely die on the day he ate the fruit.

Melethiel, the 'eretz' was divided. This ALWAYS means something firm or solid in the Hebrew and generally a landmass. It was definitely not referring to cultural or political things.

Actually it is.
Num 26:53 "Among these the land shall be divided for inheritance according to the number of names. 54 To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance; every tribe shall be given its 55 But the land shall be divided by lot. According to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit.
Josh 14:5 The people of Israel did as the LORD commanded Moses; they divided the land.
1Kings 18:5 And Ahab said to Obadiah, "Go through the land to all the springs of water and to all the valleys. Perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, and not lose some of the animals." 6 So they divided the land between them to pass through it. Ahab went in one direction by himself, and Obadiah went in another direction by himself.
Ezek 47:21"So you shall divide this land among you according to the tribes of Israel.

What eretz does NOT mean is anything political or social! Many try to equate the time of Peleg with Babel, but the two catastrophes were several generations apart if you check Genesis 10 and 11.

Yet David seems to link the two. The word for divide used for the land in the time of Peleg is very rare in scripture. palag only occurs four time in scripture, two of them refer to Peleg's time. Yet David used this very unusual word in Psalm 55:9 Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues; for I see violence and strife in the city. Asking God to divide their tongues is a clear reference to God confusing people's languages at babel. Yet David uses palag to describe this. It looks like David associated the tower of Babel with the land being divided in the time of Peleg.

There is also an Aramaic version that occurs twice in Daniel, pelag Dan 2:41 And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Pelagos is the ancient term for the Mediterranean, where the waters poured in at the time of Peleg.

As for pelican, go back past the languages you referenced to the original PLG -- meaning division. The pelican divides the waters for his food.

Both Mt. Pelee and the vocano goddess Pele of the Hawaiian Islands have the original PL root, and this word is in reference to the division at the time of Peleg.

We did the research long ago on these. You folks need to go back into the more ancient texts and not depend on what is written on the net all the time. The word peleg, first of all, comes from a root in Hebrew meaning to split or divide. What is interesting is that later it also picked up the meaning 'a channel of water'. A channel of water splits or divides the land. This is a direct reference to what happened in Peleg's time.

And please remember the root word vastly predates the languages you have referenced in your disagreements. What people do with language through the years is quite evident if you have raised teenagers....

please provide the references for your linguistic analysis. i'd like to read them. for they are contrary to everything i have previously studied concerning the independence of indo-european, oceanic, and semitic language families.

the intersection of tahitian and hebrew would be the most interesting to followup on.

thanks

 

[Melethiel]

The kind of death which effects people old enough to be morally aware, but does not include infants, is spiritual death rather than physical.

Infants too. "For surely I was sinful from my mother's womb..."

 

[HSetterfield]

mrwilliamsII, you are asking us to get resources that we had to study years ago in university. But looking on the net for you I was able to find a little bit. In many ways this study of a parent language is still in its infancy. See if these might help at all:

http://www.bartleby.com/61/10.html

http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/History/history.html

Rising Water Divided Continents in Peleg’s Day? The Bible uses the Hebrew word peleg as a verb three times. Two usages, mentioned above, are translated simply as divided (Genesis 10:25 and I Chronicles 1:19). The third use is a division by water (Job 38:25). In the ten instances where peleg is a common noun, it always involves water. The New American Standard Bible translates it eight times as “streams,” once as “stream,” and once as “channels.” Therefore, peleg may imply a division by water.
In English, we have the words archipelago (a sea having, or dividing, many islands) and pelagic (relating to or living in the sea). Pelagic sediments or deposits are sediments on the ocean floor. Pelagic frequently refers to life forms found in the sea. Bathypelagic means relating to or living in the deep sea. Also, the prefix pelag means sea.
Dr. Bernard Northrup, a Hebrew professor, has shown that peleg originally meant division by water.4 That meaning is embedded in all three language families of Noah’s offspring. Consequently, its meaning probably preceded the multiplication of languages at Babel. Northrup states:
[Peleg, palag, or PLG] often contains within it a reference to water. It is used to refer to a stream of water in Hebrew, Coptic, Ethiopic and in Greek. The root is used to refer to irrigation canals which carried the water throughout the farming land of Mesopotamia. However, an examination of the Greek usage (of the family of Japeth [one of Noah’s three sons]) of the root letters PL and PLG clearly shows that in the majority of the instances this root was used of the ocean. ... It is used to mean: “to form a sea or lake,” “of places that are flooded and under water,” “of crossing the sea,” of “the broad sea” itself, of “being out at sea,” “on the open sea.” It is used of seamen and ships. The noun with the result suffix is used of “an inundation.” I continue: it is used of “a being at sea,” of “a creature of or on the sea,” of “one who walks on the sea,” of “running or sailing on the open sea,” of “a harbor that is formed in the open sea by means of sandbags,” and in many ways of “the open sea itself,” of “going to, into or toward the sea,” of “roving through the sea,” of “being sea-nourished,” of “turning something into the sea or into the sea or of flooding.” It is quite apparent that every Greek usage here involves the sea in someway.
from http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ213.html

http://www.datanumeric.com/dravidian/page006.html -- I have not been able to take the time to read all of this, but it seems interesting. It may contain what you are looking for.

However, please consider that Pele, the volcano goddess of Hawaii and Mt. Pelee in the Caribbean, which blew up so tremendously in the early twentieth century, are far apart geographically and there is no 'reason' they should have the same name in regards to volcanoes.

But, phonetically, they are both the same as Peleg, with the final consonant dropped, and that sort of slur is often a clue in linguistic histories. While PLG itself refers to division and includes division by water, the event would have triggered massive volcanism and so the root itself cannot be ruled out, at the least, as the origin of Pele and Pelee.

The study is fascinating and I think if you really start some reading you may find yourself as involved and interested and many of us often have been.

 

[Mallon]

The study is fascinating and I think if you really start some reading you may find yourself as involved and interested and many of us often have been.

He he he!

 

[Willtor]

He he he!

Lime'd for truth.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

However, please consider that Pele, the volcano goddess of Hawaii and Mt. Pelee in the Caribbean, which blew up so tremendously in the early twentieth century, are far apart geographically and there is no 'reason' they should have the same name in regards to volcanoes.

But, phonetically, they are both the same as Peleg, with the final consonant dropped, and that sort of slur is often a clue in linguistic histories. While PLG itself refers to division and includes division by water, the event would have triggered massive volcanism and so the root itself cannot be ruled out, at the least, as the origin of Pele and Pelee.

The study is fascinating and I think if you really start some reading you may find yourself as involved and interested and many of us often have been.



i sincerely hope that the rest of your science is better than this. it is the linguistic equivalent of handwaving and magic. There are no organic relationships between Greek and Hebrew or Tahitian and Hebrew. You are taking sounds and trying to fit them into the same boxes in spite of all the knowledge of linguistics and language families that is known.

Mt. Pelee in the Caribbean is named in French for it's appearance "Bald Mountain". It has nothing to do with Pele the Hawaiian and Tahitian goddess. Such relationships not only do not exist but greatly damage your reputation here, which as a new person is one of the few things you have going for you.

your linguistics is garbage. and you ought to know better. this kind of "research" would not even be acceptable for a freshman ling101 class. It is a well understood fact that indo-european, semitic languages and those in the pacific islands are not related, especially as you go further back in time. as your own reference clearly states:

Since English is an Indo-European language and therefore not genetically related to the Semitic family, all words of Semitic origin in English are loanwords

from: http://www.bartleby.com/61/10.html

which is certainly better science than

The Garden of Eden, or gan eden () is known as the first paradise, the location for the origin of man made b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God. This image included the ability to use a God-given language (a theory that an original source language was given in Eden is called “Edenics&#8221. Man was exiled from Eden, however, and began to be dispersed upon the face of the earth.

from: http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/History/history.html
which defines and names a non-existent language in Eden. for languages are a human cultural phenomena, not the possession of 2 people. but at least that is better than the idea that Adam spoke Hebrew with God.

 

[Assyrian]

Infants too. "For surely I was sinful from my mother's womb..."

Surely this is some good old Hebrew hyperbole?

Job 31:18 for from my youth the fatherless grew up with me as with a father, and from my mother's womb I guided the widow.
Yeah right Job. You were clever, but not that clever. The moment you popped out of your mother's womb you were handing out advice to older women who had lost their husbands?

Psalm 58:3 Evildoers go wrong all their lives; they tell lies from the day they are born.
Even worse

No this is hyperbole, poetic exaggeration.

With Psalm 51:5 it is not clear that it was David who was sinful from birth, or he is talking about his mother. Most translations say: Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

We need to be morally aware before we can actually sin. Rom 7:9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

We see this idea in Isaiah 7:16 For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. Moral awareness and responsibility only comes when we are old enough to know the difference between good and bad.