Thinking about a passage in Romans 7

[Mark C]

You have used this phrase - the "Torah made flesh" - many times before. Where do you derive this from?

We are not told that the "nomos" became flesh, but that the "logos" did.

John didn't use either word. (You just noted the conflation: it's in the translation to 'nomos'.)

But I'm fine with the understanding if you prefer to call Him either the "Torah Made Flesh," or "Debar Made Flesh."

You tell me: Is His Instruction a subset of His Word, or vice-versa? He spoke the universe into existence, and then told us about it. The difference is above my pay grade.

 

[Earth_is-]

You have used this phrase - the "Torah made flesh" - many times before. Where do you derive this from? I presume you are deriving it somehow from John 1:14, which says that "the Word was made flesh". Why do you substitute the word "Word" in that verse with "Torah"?

The word "tora" is always translated "nomos" (as far as I can see by comparing the Hebrew with the LXX). While John 1:14 uses the word "logos". These are different words. We are not told that the "nomos" became flesh, but that the "logos" did. What scriptural justification do you have for conflating these concepts and substituting those words?

The puzzle pieces are beginning to fit.

 

[FollowingHim]

John didn't use either word.

John 1:14
Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας

He most certainly did. The word logos is highlighted.

 

[FollowingHim]

@Earth_is-, referring to your first image, in what way does John 1:14 say that "Y'Shua is The Living Torah"? Be specific. This is essentially the same question I am asking @Mark C, and I have just quoted the original manuscript. Show me where it says this.

 

[Earth_is-]

@Earth_is-, referring to your first image, in what way does John 1:14 say that "Y'Shua is The Living Torah"? Be specific. This is essentially the same question I am asking @Mark C, and I have just quoted the original manuscript. Show me where it says this.

The Torah is part of the Word.

 

[Earth_is-]

@Earth_is-, referring to your first image, in what way does John 1:14 say that "Y'Shua is The Living Torah"? Be specific. This is essentially the same question I am asking @Mark C, and I have just quoted the original manuscript. Show me where it says this.

Another piece of scripture - this time from the prophets:

Isaiah 33:22 NKJV
For the LORD is our Judge, The LORD is our Lawgiver, The LORD is our King; He will save us

Also from James:

James 4:12
There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

He’s all those things in one.

Here’s one more that correlates the Word with Torah:

Isaiah 1:10

Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction (Torah) of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

That word “instruction” is Torah in the Hebrew:

 

[Asforme&myhouse]

Another piece of scripture - this time from the prophets:

Isaiah 33:22 NKJV
For the LORD is our Judge, The LORD is our Lawgiver, The LORD is our King; He will save us

He’s all those things in one.

If a law giver is the law itself, is a judge also the ruling that he hands down, or is a king literally the kingdom over which he rules?

 

[Earth_is-]

If a law giver is the law itself, is a judge also the ruling that he hands down, or is a king literally the kingdom over which he rules?

These scriptures are referring to his future reign:

Luke 1:33
and he (Christ) will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Therefore, he is King. He is the lawgiver as well - of his Torah - to the people of the earth:

Micah 4:2
People from many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the LORD’s law (Torah) will go out from Zion; his word will go out from Jerusalem.

He will also judge:

Ezekiel 34:7
“And as for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign LORD says to his people: I will judge between one animal of the flock and another, separating the sheep from the goats.

Ezekiel 34 correlates with Matthew 25:31-46 - the separation of sheep and goats.

 

[Asforme&myhouse]

Three witnesses in the New Testament give us the reasons:

Matthew 7:23
And then I will declare unto them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

If you read verses 21 and 22 - it shows this passage is about believers, and not the non-believers.
———————————
Hebrews 10:26
Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins.
——————————————
2 Peter 20
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.

1 John 5:17
All unrighteousness is sin, yet there is sin that does not lead to death.

He is the Creator and he will show grace to whom he shows grace to. The two most important commandments are - love the Most High with all your heart soul and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. When our King and Redeemer healed someone and forgave their sins - he told them “go forth and sin no more.” I’d reckon those being healed knew the Torah. We gentiles need sanctification - the washing through his Word - to understand what is sin, and what it isn’t. To understand what’s pleasing to the Father, and what isn’t. To know what is good and what isn’t. His Word is profitable for correction, and training in righteousness.

This is not an answer to the question that it was a reply to.

These scriptures are referring to his future reign:

Luke 1:33
and he (Christ) will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Therefore, he is King. He is the lawgiver as well - of his Torah - to the people of the earth:

Micah 4:2
People from many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the LORD’s law (Torah) will go out from Zion; his word will go out from Jerusalem.

He will also judge:

Ezekiel 34:7
“And as for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign LORD says to his people: I will judge between one animal of the flock and another, separating the sheep from the goats.

Ezekiel 34 correlates with Matthew 25:31-46 - the separation of sheep and goats.

This one is not an answer to the question that it was a reply to either.

 

[Asforme&myhouse]

@FollowingHim In the past I have received notifications when my posts were deleted by a moderator and a reason was given. Is that no longer the case?

 

[FollowingHim]

@FollowingHim In the past I have received notifications when my posts were deleted by a moderator and a reason was given. Is that no longer the case?

It all depends on whether the moderator chooses to send a notification. I am in the habit of doing so, but @The Revolting Man may not be.

 

[Asforme&myhouse]

It all depends on whether the moderator chooses to send a notification. I am in the habit of doing so, but @The Revolting Man may not be.

Oh ok,10-4, thanks

 

[FollowingHim]

The Torah is part of the Word.

Here you are conflating the Word - the third person of the Trinity - with the words that he speaks. The Word has spoken the Torah. The Word also said "stand up and walk" and things of that nature. But the words spoken by the One who is called the Word are not himself.

Are you the words that you speak?

Isaiah 33:22 NKJV
For the LORD is our Judge, The LORD is our Lawgiver, The LORD is our King; He will save us

And then you conflate the Lawgiver with the Law, as @Asforme&myhouse has already pointed out. This is equally nonsensical - it's the same error said with different words.

Look, I'm not arguing against Torah-keeping, I actually keep the feasts and food laws myself. I'm arguing against bad arguments.

 

[The Revolting Man]

It all depends on whether the moderator chooses to send a notification. I am in the habit of doing so, but @The Revolting Man may not be.

In this particular instance I just gave a general announcement. I normally give a private explanation as well. There were multiples this time though and I didn’t have the emotional energy.

 

[FollowingHim]

Don't worry, there are times when I have intentionally chosen to dispense with any announcement whatsoever to avoid reminding people of a controversy I was trying to shut down... Do whatever seems appropriate at the time @The Revolting Man. People will complain whatever you do, so whatever!

 

[Mark C]

RE: My assertion (again) that Yochanan, and his Brother, spoke Hebrew and Aramaic (i.e., in Revelation, too) and that he didn't write his Book or letters in Greek, but his native language.*

He most certainly did. The word logos is highlighted....

...in the Greek translation.

My point is not to argue ad infinitum, but to note that the words ('debarim,', debar singular) used, and the fact that He (Who-ever, but He is after all echad) spoke the world into existence all bear on a common concept. "Word" is certainly an English rendering, and does not carry the exact same connotation as either the Hebrew word, or the implications that the application of His 'debarim' to provide Instruction might carry.

Note, for just one example, that the actual rendering of "Ten Commandments" from the Hebrew is "10 debarim" which more literally means the 'ten words,' or even 'ten sayings.'

Nor am I claiming that we REALLY know what it means that He said things like "let there be light," or whether we would have heard words (arguably not English, or Greek) or just some primordial 'sound' (and I don't know whether that meant phonons or photons...they don't seem to have been quite created yet... )

What I do believe the 'totality of His Word (and in THIS case that is synonymous with His Instruction, I suggest) speaks to the fact that it is ALSO synonymous with His 'character' and what we can know of that.

Addenda: Anything more gets to be "too metaphysical." But I think that the evidence of what Yahushua DID, so clearly even in His First Public Address, starting in Matthew 5, make the point beyond doubt. He said, via His repeated 'rhetorical device', that "you have heard it said, BUT, I TELL YOU," exactly what He, Himself, had in fact, Written. Which is about as clear as I can imagine about what it means that He was His own 'Instruction,' literally teaching them there in 'the Flesh.'

-------------------------------
* We've had a related discussion re: language before. But I think the story in Isaiah 36:11-13 is relevant in that sense.

 

[FollowingHim]

RE: My assertion (again) that Yochanan, and his Brother, spoke Hebrew and Aramaic (i.e., in Revelation, too) and that he didn't write his Book or letters in Greek, but his native language.*

...in the Greek translation.

So, you are saying that:
1) John was written in Hebrew rather than Greek,
2) Out of all the possible Hebrew words that might conceivably have been used to convey the meaning of "word" (debar, pe, pneuma, tora etc), you know that the original Hebrew said "tora".
3) The Greek translators then broke from all translating tradition and did not translate "tora" as "nomos" as usual in the LXX, but chose to confuse us all by mis-translating it as "logos"
4) Then the Hebrew was completely lost and not preserved even in fragments.

And you have no evidence for any of this, but we just have to believe you for some reason?

 

[Asforme&myhouse]

RE: My assertion (again) that Yochanan, and his Brother, spoke Hebrew and Aramaic (i.e., in Revelation, too) and that he didn't write his Book or letters in Greek, but his native language.*

They also spoke Greek. While Greek may not have technically been their “native tongue” they would have grown up immersed in it, so they were likely just as fluent in Greek as they would have been in Hebrew or Aramaic. Also, Jesus commanded them to
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”. So why wouldn’t they write their books and letters in the lingua franca of the known world?

 

[Mark C]

1) John was written in Hebrew rather than Greek,

Yes. The fact that NONE, and by that I mean NONE, of the original texts exists (only copies) does not prove what does not exist. We have discussed elsewhere what was destroyed.

Yochanan was a Hebrew, as was his Brother.

None of the rest has anything to do with what I have stated. But you managed to ignore most of what I DID.

 

[FollowingHim]

The fact that NONE, and by that I mean NONE, of the original texts exists (only copies) does not prove what does not exist.

And the fact that while I click my fingers no elephants are near me proves that clicking my fingers keeps elephants away.

You're just making stuff up @Mark C. I know you want it to be true, but real scholarship requires evidence. If we can just imagine what we want to be true we can put whatever words in God's mouth that we like.