ECT PneumaPsucheSoma and AMR Discuss Trinitarianism

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

They are just words... I started out in the Attic Greek, and would not "lower myself" to read that "baby-greek koine garbage"... As a literary work, Bible Greek is foolishness...

It is true that there is a different structuring of thought with Greek from other languages... It takes a shift to go from the local language to the Greek, yet all did it in the Roman Empire, for it was the Language of that Empire... (Latin was a local language from Italia...)

But the essential point is the relevance of words... All that these words, however structured they may turn out to be, and however nuanced and precise, are still merely words... They designate concepts held mentally, and REFER TO something... And it is that to which they refer that is what is essential, and that is beyond words... Even at a material level... And so much more so regarding the things of God...

Divine Ascent, which Paul wrote about, "whether in the body or out of the body, I know not... God knows..." is wordless, and non-conceptual... All that is worldly is left behind, so that the ascent is such that one does not even know if he or she is in or out of the body while doing it...

Even if you clean up the language with extensively corrected definitions and specifications, you have only exacerbated the problem by legionally multiplying the NUMBER of words involved... When the Truth is as close as your breath... And exists to be lived within you apart from words... Where words but describe what is being lived, and are not burdened with the impossible task of defining it...

We cannot determine with words what our person will be... We can only turn from our sins, and call upon the Name of the Lord...

They turned away from God in order to become as God...

Which is another way of saying it is personal between God and man... Words, even dogmatic words, are but path-markers that help those walking the path to not step from it to their destruction... But Spirit and Truth are not concepts and words... And every encounter with God is an encounter with a Person...

All I am is a sin-bag of lawlessness so filled with self-centeredness that I cannot even walk on water... Heck, last time I tried I almost drowned...

An Orthodox Saint once advised, somewhat recently if I remember aright, that we are to "keep our minds in hell, and not despair..." Such that whenever we think [that be the concept with the designated cluster of words associated with it] we are SOME thing, we in that action lose whatever it was that we MAY have had prior to the thought...

Paul wrote about it thus: "THAT one (who ascended) was worthy, but I only boast in mine infirmities..." [by memory, but I think I have it aright...]

Stillness from words and even their thoughts...

No small matter... You can tape your mouth shut - For me it would be a START, mind you! But silencing the thoughts to purify the nous of worldly contamination contained in thoughts is the action needed to have the nous of Christ...

Arsenios

You will likely be surprised by my total agreement and lack of words to respond, other than to simply clarify...

My statements are a profession of faith rather than vaunting myself in any manner. I won't faithlessly speak of being a sinner and the worthlessness of my flesh, as it has always led to the pride of insecurity and feigned love, etc.

I must only profess that which scripture insists and demands. That I must and have put on Christ, and I'm in Christ. I won't speak of my wretched faith-reckoned-dead flesh, crucified with Christ. Why would I profess that? I confess all false logos of my sin, and I profess the perfect flesh of THE Logos made flesh... Christ. (Confess/profess both being homoleggeo.)

Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

 

[Cross Reference]

You will likely be surprised by my total agreement and lack of words to respond, other than to simply clarify...

My statements are a profession of faith rather than vaunting myself in any manner. I won't faithlessly speak of being a sinner and the worthlessness of my flesh, as it has always led to the pride of insecurity and feigned love, etc.

I must only profess that which scripture insists and demands. That I must and have put on Christ, and I'm in Christ. I won't speak of my wretched faith-reckoned-dead flesh, crucified with Christ. Why would I profess that? I confess all false logos of my sin, and I profess the perfect flesh of Christ. (Confess/profess both being homoleggeo.)

All I read in that is presumption by deception. A profession of faith never sustained anyone.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

You forgot 5:3 which you just quoted...

You are calling no man a man - (follow the two underlinings...)

You are calling the One Who opened the Book a MAN when Scripture plainly tells you NO MAN was able...

Not on earth...
Not in Heaven...
Even to LOOK UPON that Book...

So you have to ASK YOURSELF, LA...

WHO was that LION of the Tribe of Juda?

He was no man, as you proved in 5:3...
Not on earth, nor in the heavens...

And this LION is not a (mere) man...

He is the God-man Jesus Christ...

Who is ABOVE the earth and the Heavens...

ABOVE means NOT CONTAINED WITHIN...

Who being God took His human flesh to the Right Hand of the Most High, and rules all creation from the Throne of the Lamb...

Arsenios

Indeed.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

That is why I mentioned the mental patterning of the writers of the New Testament Greek and how differently they used words from the high-context language used by Greek philosophers.

The disciples were not brought up with the mental patterning of the high-context Greek of the Greek philosophers, but were brought up in the Post-Diaspora Jewish culture of first century Israel under the Romans. Each of the writings of the disciples must be framed by the context of that culture and not according to the culture of the Greeks or the culture of the Hellenized Jews.

Paul was different than the disciples. He knew Greek but was brought up with the mental patterning of the Pharisees, who regularly dissected every word of the Tanakh to extract every possible and many impossible meanings from them as if they were written in a lower context than if they were written in English. The writings of Paul must be framed by the context of his background as a Pharisee and the methods that the Pharisees used to extract a multitude of meanings from each word.

Again, applicable. And the lowest-context distillation of Greek as Koine is still exponentially higher-context than even pre-Chaucer Old English, much less Middle and beyond to the modern English language and culture of today (which has spiraled downward precipitously decade by decade in this century alone).

And it goes to emphasize the point that excusing away Greek in favor of verbatim English translations and their concepts is absurd.

I'm reminded of recents posts insisting on "not departing from the simplicity that is in Christ" and "using great plainness of speech" by those presuming a common modern shallow English meaning to demand restricted vocabulary and no Greek terms.

Surely even you can see what I'm referring to, but maybe not.

 

[genuineoriginal]

Again, applicable. And the lowest-context distillation of Greek as Koine is still exponentially higher-context than even pre-Chaucer Old English, much less Middle and beyond to the modern English language and culture of today (which has spiraled downward precipitously decade by decade in this century alone).

And it goes to emphasize the point that excusing away Greek in favor of verbatim English translations and their concepts is absurd.

I'm reminded of recents posts insisting on "not departing from the simplicity that is in Christ" and "using great plainness of speech" by those presuming a common modern shallow English meaning to demand restricted vocabulary and no Greek terms.

Surely even you can see what I'm referring to, but maybe not.

I can understand how you got to your current understanding, but still believe you are mistaken, at least in part.

It looks like you are trying to gain some precice nuance of meaning from the Greek words used in writing the New Testament in the belief that this will give you additional insight into what the writers of the New Testament were trying to say.

This looks like a valid point on the surface, but it may not be as suitable for gaining insight into the meanings of the writers as you are currently believing it is.

The writers of the New Testament used Greek because the Gospel was going to the Gentiles and Greek was the universal language at that time.

However, the writers of the New Testament used Hebrew and Aramaic in everyday speech and thought, so the Greek words chosen were the best ones available to convey the Hebrew and Aramaic terms and figures of speech that the writers were thinking in.

Most of the words you like to use are found only in the letters of Paul who had a habit of transforming words and phrases into multiple meanings based on his upbringing as a Pharisee.

The person that wrote the book of Hebrews provides a good example of this with the treatment of the way the Hebrew word for covenant was translated into the Greek word for Testament, which was then used with the definition of instructions to be carried out after death instead of an agreement between two living parties.

If you are looking to extract more meaning from the New Testament, then you would not go wrong in looking at the way the Hebrew language and Jewish culture influenced the words.

I recommend taking a look at the Jewish New Testament Commentary by David H. Stern. The Amazon "Look Inside" feature can provide a glimpse into how the culture and idioms of the Jews writing the New Testament influenced the Greek words we use.

 

[Cross Reference]

Again, applicable. And the lowest-context distillation of Greek as Koine is still exponentially higher-context than even pre-Chaucer Old English, much less Middle and beyond to the modern English language and culture of today (which has spiraled downward precipitously decade by decade in this century alone).

And it goes to emphasize the point that excusing away Greek in favor of verbatim English translations and their concepts is absurd.

I'm reminded of recents posts insisting on "not departing from the simplicity that is in Christ" and "using great plainness of speech" by those presuming a common modern shallow English meaning to demand restricted vocabulary and no Greek terms.

Surely even you can see what I'm referring to, but maybe not.

You apparently believe your heady speech produces a richer understanding of the gospel, that somehow it is needed to explain Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I thank God that His message doesn't depend on you and yours.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

But the essential point is the relevance of words... All that these words, however structured they may turn out to be, and however nuanced and precise, are still merely words... They designate concepts held mentally, and REFER TO something... And it is that to which they refer that is what is essential, and that is beyond words... Even at a material level... And so much more so regarding the things of God...
Arsenios

BTW... The above bolded and underlined affirms my lexical address of Logos and Rhema. The "thing" to which Logos refers, is Rhema: the thing (thought and) spoken ABOUT.

And since there was nothing (no thing) else with inherent phenomenological reality of existence for God to (think and) speak about by His Logos except His hypostasis and all it underlies, God's Rhema IS His hypostasis.

Rhema is from reo-, to speak (relative also to reo-, to flow); and the suffix -ma, indicating "result of". God's Rhema is the resuling flow of His speaking the very substsnce of Himself by/through/as the Logos. Rhema is the sword, while Logos is the wielding or thrusting of that sword.

Faith is the hypostasis that comes by hearing God's Rhema. That's God's hypostasis flowing from pre-creation to break the hold of our created prosopon "having" our hypostasis. It, along with our physis that the hypostasis influences as it underlies our ousia, has in-crept sin from that sin being in the members of the soma of our prosopon.

Only the pre-creational flow of God's hypostasis as Rhema/faith can break our prosopon's hold of physical death for us to reckon ourselves crucified with Christ and buried; with our prosopon and our ousia and its physis left with sin in the tomb, and our hypostasis resurrected with Christ into his glorified prosopon as our robe of righteousness. His prospon now "has" our hypostasis, hypostatically joined to Him in whom the law has ceased and does not impute sin.

All of this occurs because God's Rhema, by which the hypostasis of faith comes and is underlying the earnest expectation of our elpis (hope/trust), IS His hypostasis. His SINGULAR inherently phenomenological transcendent Self-existent hypostasis, from which His own literal Logos and Pneuma proceed forth/proceed when/as noumenological creation is instantiated into phenomenological existence.

God's Rhema IS His hypostasis. That's how and why the inherently phenomenological AND nooumenological Logos and Pneuma are eternal and uncreated, and appear to be individuated hypostases if one doesn't recognize the created sempiternity of heaven relative to the singular economic (two-fold qualitative) procession on the ontological Word and Spirit.

By His OWN Logos, God pierced and divided asunder (partitioned for distribution) His OWN Pneuma to both concurrently proceed forth into creation when/as He spoke and breathed all nooumenon to be upheld by His own phenomenon, thus giving nooumenological creation its phenomenological actuality of existence from the mere potentiality of nooumenologicality before He spoke and breathed to create and animate all created life.

The eternal Logos is the Son in nooumenological creation, but is inherently uncreated and has a prosopon in nooumenological creation disinct from God's inherent phenomenological prosopon. God's inherent prosopon didn't co-process with the co-procession His inherent hypostasis conjoined to His exhaled Spirit. And the Spirit doesn't have an individuated prosopon in nooumenological creation because of being co-inherent with the expressed Logos. God's inherent transcendent prosopon shines through the piercing of creation by His Rhema sword thrust as the Logos, and is the unapproachable light the Father dwells in.

Ultimately, we all as Believers are the prosopon for the omnipresent Spirit in nooumenological sempiternity when we're clothed upon by our own resurrected and glorified prosopon. And since the Logos and Pneuma are co-inherent, we're still in the prosopon of Christ, joined as one flesh to our husband for all sempiternity.

This all LOOKS like three hypostases if one starts post-utterance and post-procession, formulating by presuming to have accounted for the creation of sempiternity (from which, tangible temporality "fell" and will ultimately fold up as a garment back into). The only thing lacking is an inherent nooumenological prosopon for the Holy Spirit in sempiternity, which is why Pneumatology was so belated and difficult, and became a declaration of co-equality.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

I can understand how you got to your current understanding, but still believe you are mistaken, at least in part.

It looks like you are trying to gain some precice nuance of meaning from the Greek words used in writing the New Testament in the belief that this will give you additional insight into what the writers of the New Testament were trying to say.

This looks like a valid point on the surface, but it may not be as suitable for gaining insight into the meanings of the writers as you are currently believing it is.

The writers of the New Testament used Greek because the Gospel was going to the Gentiles and Greek was the universal language at that time.

However, the writers of the New Testament used Hebrew and Aramaic in everyday speech and thought, so the Greek words chosen were the best ones available to convey the Hebrew and Aramaic terms and figures of speech that the writers were thinking in.

Most of the words you like to use are found only in the letters of Paul who had a habit of transforming words and phrases into multiple meanings based on his upbringing as a Pharisee.

The person that wrote the book of Hebrews provides a good example of this with the treatment of the way the Hebrew word for covenant was translated into the Greek word for Testament, which was then used with the definition of instructions to be carried out after death instead of an agreement between two living parties.

If you are looking to extract more meaning from the New Testament, then you would not go wrong in looking at the way the Hebrew language and Jewish culture influenced the words.

I recommend taking a look at the Jewish New Testament Commentary by David H. Stern. The Amazon "Look Inside" feature can provide a glimpse into how the culture and idioms of the Jews writing the New Testament influenced the Greek words we use.

Thank you for your insightful and helpful contributions. This is your forte.

 

[john w]

BTW... The above bolded and underlined affirms my lexical address of Logos and Rhema. The "thing" to which Logos refers, is Rhema: the thing (thought and) spoken ABOUT.

And since there was nothing (no thing) else with inherent phenomenological reality of existence for God to (think and) speak about by His Logos except His hypostasis and all it underlies, God's Rhema IS His hypostasis.

Rhema is fro reo-, to speak (relative also to reo-, to flow); and the suffix -ma, indicating "result of".

God's Rhema is the resuling flow of His speaking the very substsnce of Himself by/through the Logos. Rhema is the sword, while Logos is the wielding or thrusting of that sword.

Faith is the hypostasis that comes by hearing God's Rhema. That's God's hypostasis flowing from pre-creation to break the hold of our created prosopon "having" our hypostasis. It, along with our physis that the hypostasis influences as it underlies our ousia, has in-crept sin from that sin being in the members of the soma of our prosopon.

Only the pre-creational flow of God's hypostasis as Rhema/faith can break our prosopon's hold of physical death for us to reckon ourselves crucified with Christ and buried; with our prosopon and our ousia and its physis left with sin in the tomb, and our hypostasis resurrected with Christ into his glorified prosopon as our robe of righteousness. His prospon now "has" our hypostasis, hypostatically joined to Him in whom the law has ceased and does not impute sin.

All of this occurs because God's Rhema, by which the hypostasis of faith comes and is underlying the earnest expectation of our elpis (hope/trust), IS His hypostasis. His SINGULAR inherently phenomenological transcendent Self-existent hypostasis, from which His own literal Logos and Pneuma proceed forth/proceed when/as noumenological creation is instantiated into phenomenological existence.

God's Rhema IS His hypostasis. That's how and why the inherently phenomenological AND nooumenological Logos and Rhema are eternal and uncreated, and appear to be individuated hypostases if one doesn't recognize the created sempiternity of heaven relative to the economic (two-fold qualitative) procession on the ontological Word and Spirit.

By His OWN Logos, God pierced and divided asunder (partitioned for distribution) His OWN Pneuma to both concurrently proceed forth into creation when/as He spoke and breathed all nooumenon to be upheld by His own phenomenon, thus giving nooumenological creation its phenomenological actuality of existence from the mere potentiality of nooumenologicality before He spoke and breathed to create and animate all created life.

The eternal Logos is the Son in nooumenological creation, but is inherently uncreated and had a prosopon. God's inherent prosopon didn't co-process with the co-procession His inherent hypostasis conjoined to His exhaled Spirit. And the Spirit doesn't have an individuated prosopon because of being co-inherent with the expressed Logos. God's inherent transcendent prosopon shines through the piercing of creation by His Rhema sword thrust as the Logos, and is the unapproachable light the Father dwells in.

Ultimately, we all as Believers are the prosopon for the omnipresent Spirit when we're clothed upon by our own resurrected and glorified prosopon. And since the Logos and Pneuma are co-inherent, we're still in the prosopon of Christ, joined as one flesh to our husbsnd for all sempiternity.

This all LOOKS like three hypostases if one starts post-utterance and post-procession, formulating by presuming to have accounted for the creation of sempiternity (from which, tangible temporality "fell" and will ultimately fold up as a garment back into).

" nooumenon... nooumenological... phenomenological..... hypostasis... sempiternity...prosopon"-Jeff Spicoli


Quick....Have 3 brewski's, light a match, and recite the above words in 8 seconds, or less, and/or "The Greek" alphabet, backwards. Ready....Go....!

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

They are just words... I started out in the Attic Greek, and would not "lower myself" to read that "baby-greek koine garbage"... As a literary work, Bible Greek is foolishness...

It is true that there is a different structuring of thought with Greek from other languages... It takes a shift to go from the local language to the Greek, yet all did it in the Roman Empire, for it was the Language of that Empire... (Latin was a local language from Italia...)

But the essential point is the relevance of words... All that these words, however structured they may turn out to be, and however nuanced and precise, are still merely words... They designate concepts held mentally, and REFER TO something... And it is that to which they refer that is what is essential, and that is beyond words... Even at a material level... And so much more so regarding the things of God...

Divine Ascent, which Paul wrote about, "whether in the body or out of the body, I know not... God knows..." is wordless, and non-conceptual... All that is worldly is left behind, so that the ascent is such that one does not even know if he or she is in or out of the body while doing it...

Even if you clean up the language with extensively corrected definitions and specifications, you have only exacerbated the problem by legionally multiplying the NUMBER of words involved... When the Truth is as close as your breath... And exists to be lived within you apart from words... Where words but describe what is being lived, and are not burdened with the impossible task of defining it...

We cannot determine with words what our person will be... We can only turn from our sins, and call upon the Name of the Lord...

They turned away from God in order to become as God...

Which is another way of saying it is personal between God and man... Words, even dogmatic words, are but path-markers that help those walking the path to not step from it to their destruction... But Spirit and Truth are not concepts and words... And every encounter with God is an encounter with a Person...

All I am is a sin-bag of lawlessness so filled with self-centeredness that I cannot even walk on water... Heck, last time I tried I almost drowned...

An Orthodox Saint once advised, somewhat recently if I remember aright, that we are to "keep our minds in hell, and not despair..." Such that whenever we think [that be the concept with the designated cluster of words associated with it] we are SOME thing, we in that action lose whatever it was that we MAY have had prior to the thought...

Paul wrote about it thus: "THAT one (who ascended) was worthy, but I only boast in mine infirmities..." [by memory, but I think I have it aright...]

Stillness from words and even their thoughts...

No small matter... You can tape your mouth shut - For me it would be a START, mind you! But silencing the thoughts to purify the nous of worldly contamination contained in thoughts is the action needed to have the nous of Christ...

Arsenios

BTW... The entire purpose and endgoal is the migrate from ALL forms of Logos in ascent to the pure Rhema as that which is thought and spoken ABOUT. Communion with the very hypostasis of God in Christ.

All the rest is divesting false and incomplete logos from other rhema, which is sin. Sin is the resulting action of a heart filled with such other rhema/logos that is not God's own that has subtly created us in another image.

 

[Arsenios]

BTW... The entire purpose and endgoal is the migrate from ALL forms of Logos in ascent to the pure Rhema as that which is thought and spoken ABOUT. Communion with the very hypostasis of God in Christ.

All the rest is divesting false and incomplete logos from other rhema, which is sin. Sin is the resulting action of a heart filled with such other rhema/logos that is not God's own that has subtly created us in another image.

2Co 12:4
How that he was caught up into paradise,
and heard unspeakable words,
which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

BYZ –
οτι ηρπαγη εις τον παραδεισον
και ηκουσεν αρρητα ρηματα
α ουκ εξον ανθρωπω λαλησαι

Which tells us that the Rhema of God, of which you are speaking, are not lawful to man to speak...

Literally, "to man is not the authority..."
exon in the family of exousia...

Arsenios

 

[john w]

...BTW

What does "BTW" mean, in "the Greek?" I caint seem to find it in these words:

“ontological essence hypostatic distinctions... Ousia apophatically...Phenomenological and Nooumenological Logos, which proceeded forth (exerchomai) concurrent with the Pneuma proceeding (ekporeuomai)… God's inherent transcendent phenomenological prosopon (along with His ousia and its physis)”-Jeff Spicoli

Jethro John W

PS:

Is "exerchomai" an Italian dish?

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

2Co 12:4
How that he was caught up into paradise,
and heard unspeakable words,
which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

BYZ –
οτι ηρπαγη εις τον παραδεισον
και ηκουσεν αρρητα ρηματα
α ουκ εξον ανθρωπω λαλησαι

Which tells us that the Rhema of God, of which you are speaking, are not lawful to man to speak...

Literally, "to man is not the authority..."
exon in the family of exousia...

Arsenios

Yes. That's the silence of non-verbal "being" that must ensue from declaring Logos and decrying all false logos from all other rhema that is sin and its results in the heart and in actions. All other logos from other rhema must and will be purged from us (sin). That's the promises of God that are in Christ, yea and amen. By faith. The just shall live by faith; without faith it is impossible to please God.

Are you not just? (You ARE, in Christ, my friend.) Faith would not deny the imputed righteous of God to our hypostasis in Christ. His IS ours, and ours IS His. Now, as we commune in God's timeless co-processed hypostasis and partake of His divine physis through our hypostatic translation into Christ. And we work out that salvation, from the inner man to the outer man; keeping under our body, and not letting sin reign in our mortal flesh; as God's grace influences our nature to be as His own. This cleanses the whole man of sin as the results of false logos from other rhema.

The way to the Rhema (God's hypostasis and its silence of being) is to be in the Logos, which was made flesh and is now ascended; and by whom we are sheathed in the scabbard from which the sword of the Rhema was drawn, thrust as the Logos to create and co-process into that creation; and the Son become Incarnate, and now returned with us hypostatically joined in His prosopon to the place (topos) He has prepared for us.

Having been given the delegated power (exousia) to become... sons. Joint heirs. Now, by faith.

 

[Lazy afternoon]

You apparently believe your heady speech produces a richer understanding of the gospel, that somehow it is needed to explain Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I thank God that His message doesn't depend on you and yours.

Yes, I had said something to that effect but he didn't like it.

He sure knows more words than are in the Bible that is for sure.

LA

 

[Cross Reference]

Originally Posted by Arsenios View Post

You forgot 5:3 which you just quoted...

You are calling no man a man - (follow the two underlinings...)

You are calling the One Who opened the Book a MAN when Scripture plainly tells you NO MAN was able...

This goes right to the heart of what Isaiah is saying here:

"Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken." Isaiah 28:9-13 (KJV)

Jesus, the man now glorified, was able to open the book. Jesus, the man chosen of God, was able to open the Book.

Surely Arsenios' problem lies with him and not with the scriptures. The cure is for him to recognize it and begin to seek God __ weem himself off commentaries.

 

[fzappa13]

Firstly, it was the initial leading of the Spirit. I had never once studied the original languages prior to early 2000; being saved and spirit-filled in early 1998 at age 35 after 28 years as a professing Believer with 12 years in a pulpit...but utterly lost without Christ because of a conceptualized understanding of the Trinity doctrine and other teachings. I was an unregenerate functional Tritheist, presuming the eternal Son and Holy Spirit were distinct with individuated sentient consciousness and volition (knowing all this only in retrospect now).

I do utilize TDNT and BDAG and other sources, but first-language German-thinkers (Kittel) and English-thinkers have inherently low-context patterns of mental and cultural functionalities to their innate sense of foundational thought. Zodhiates is a Cypress-born first-language native Greek-thinker, which is a much higher-context intrinsic fundamental approach for perspective that eclipses the English and German mind (and heart).

It's also because there is so much Scholasticism lingering in all modern works of the recent centuries, and Zodhiates has a very apophatic approach included with much of the lexical cataphatics; and he relentlessly compares and contrasts minutiae between multiple synonyms and antonyms, and derivatives and base structures.

I'm not married to Doc Z, and recognize some of the scattered deficiencies in his work, but I see his high-context baseline in everything that eclipses greater individual and collective efforts of low-context minds that can't compensate for their own level of content for thought and expression.

As I said, TDNT and BDAG are great resources. Referencing Zodhiates is as much for easy uniformity in sourcing as it is for accuracy, etc.

The central primary key is the definiton for Rhema, as referenced by Zodhiates. Without a depth of understanding for that (instead of trivially glossing it as an ambiguous synonym subordinate to Logos), Theology Proper, Cosmogony, the full Ontological Gospel, and foreknowledge/predestination can never be recognized and understood.

God's Rhema IS His hypostasis. It has to be. Rhema is the subject matter of the word; the content or substance OF all thought and speech; the thing (thought and) spoken ABOUT.

God, in His inherent Self-Conscious Self-Existence, is the only eternal and uncreated. There is nothing (no thing) else for Him to think or speak about that has inherent phenomenological reality of existence.

God is a singular hypostasis with a singular sentient consciousness and volition, and He created heavenly sempiternity AND the cosmos. That economy of action has NEVER perviously been accounted for in the Orthodoxy formulaic OR the anathemas for Theology Proper and Christology.

God's co-inherent processed Logos/Pneuma and God's co-processed inherent hypostasis LOOK and FUNCTION like three hypostasis in sempiternity (except the lack of an individuated prosopon for the Holy Spirit); but no formulaic actually accounted for the procession of the Son and Spirit. They all started in created sempiternity, presuming eternity and sempiternity to be "combined", and just declared otherwise without realizing the truth of God's transcendence.

The rest is just reconciliation in Patristic terminology and usage to retain the remainder of all that they presented in their incredible efforts to expound the truth.

Fascinating. I know that most folks come to what knowledge they have concerning the word of God from others first and whatever they may glean of it on their own follows some time later … and that is if they even embrace the notion they should investigate the matter for themselves at some point. It is likely this first encounter that, to some extent, guides future interest and inquiry and I suspect this phenomenon plays no small part in the creation and direction of this thread.

As I noted earlier, my encounter with the word of God was the reverse of this process and I suspect this played no small part in me having an entirely different set of interests as it concerns many, if not most, of the points of contention that denominate christian denominations. The triune nature of God is not a subject that grabbed me by the collar from an unguided reading of the word of God. It was only after three years of seven day a week study that I felt sufficiently emboldened to brace my fellow man about the word of God and began to encounter the various points of contention that had attached themselves to it, the trinity being one of those points.

As I began to sift through these various points of contention I noted a reoccurring theme that I see still playing itself out on a daily basis and I suspect likely has since the death of Jesus and likely will until His return … and that is the notion of salvation via proper doctrine. Though most of those who claim the name of Christ can agree He saves we just can't seem to agree how and when He is does it and what role, if any, we play in this. Paul likened the various gifts parceled out to the various members of the body of Christ as just that … we are members/body parts. Ideally, each serves a different function for the body as a whole but I fear that this is not how it has worked out in practice. As often as not, what I see are the eyes, the ears, the hands, etc. each segregating themselves and congratulating each other on being a hand or an ear or an eye and proclaiming all others lost and hell-bound for not sharing their perspective.

At the risk of seeming presumptuous I would suggest that the better analogy may be found in the example of the life of a believer. You are on a path and regardless of whether death finds you a child or a pubescent or an adult in age or doctrine, on the path you were and that is what is important. Intent has to count for something or we are all in something of a pickle.

One of the things I found so fascinating about the parables of Jesus was that they worked on any level that the listener might be at between the ears. The only real prerequisite was that you first had an ear and a desire to hear. His words were like an onion whose layers could be peeled back to reveal new meaning for those both able and inclined and yet they spoke to the simplest as well. Few if any of us have that ability and so we struggle to share what gifts we have with others that, whether naturally or by disposition, are often unable to receive said gift. I think God parceled out the various gifts so that none could lay claim to all and we would be forced to seek each other out if we were to have any hope of seeing the big picture … each of us having a piece of the puzzle as it were.
I guess I said all that to say this; we each are at different points along our path toting what gifts we were given and though I understand the unction to be of service to as many as possible it is nice to be able to commiserate occasionally with those who have similar experiences, gifts and aspirations.

 

[fzappa13]

I remember my approach to the Greek text closely paralleled that of PPS... I used Zodhiates, because in one largish book you get all you need to do a fair exegesis of the Greek text... And what I REALLY LIKED about it was its breakdown of Greek words into their component root meanings, and the insights that such a breakdown affords... It was positively intoxicating, and very fertile ground for innovative interpretation of the text so understood...

And the truth is that there are a lot of places in the text where I think Greek words were used or coined that can ONLY be understood in terms of their root meanings... But this was in my pre-Christian reading, and it was in the Book of John, which carries the double whammy of being the easiest to translate and the hardest to understand of all the books of the Bible, except Revelation...

And the long and the short of it was that I got a great distance into the text in that manner, and finally realized that there was just no way that I could undeerstand the text without having SOME larger frame of reference... Spiritually discerned root-meaning reads of the text were ending up in contradictions or endless guessing... And I could, I suppose, have devised SOME accounting through those guesses, but when it came to that, I stopped, and backed out, and waited for the better approach...

Such is the allure of Zhodiates...

The other approaches are scholastic, and form great cataloguing enterprises, where all data is entered and assigned place and meaning, and the guy with the greatest catalog skills [the best memory] is the guy in charge of the meaning of Scripture...

So I walked away from that as well - My memory is not so good...

So there you have my take on PPS's why, and I know he will read this, and I am looking forward to his answer to you...

Arsenios

I think that what value any given reference work holds to any given individual depends on what it is you are after in that they each have their strengths and weaknesses. I know it is sacrilege to some but I discovered early on in my studies that my understanding of what I had been able to digest of the word of God caused me to see alternate and preferable translational choices from time to time. Alternately, at times there is no direct word equivalent for what appears in the original texts and so a knowledge of those words is very helpful for those seeking to understand the word of God on that level. That's not for everybody but for those of us so inclined these reference materials are invaluable.

 

[fzappa13]

I'll not be responding to, or interacting further with, interlopers who are seeking attention for themselves as the final arbitrage of truth while posting here.

Prov 26:4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

 

[fzappa13]

I notice AMR is conspicuously absent ... I hope all is well.

 

[Nang]

I notice AMR is conspicuously absent ... I hope all is well.

I have heard no news he is not well . . .