Comments requested, questions given.

**Ishmael** · February 14th 2003, 01:00 AM

**Rdr. Arsenios** · February 14th 2003, 11:08 AM

geo wrote:
"Enough of this meandering."

Sozo wondered:
"geo... What planet are you from?"

And then, turning from his wondering about the meanderer, he began to scratch that particularly itchy spot on the very topmost part of his head, and scowled leftward and rightward, back and forth, and looking to his left, lo and behold, there wondered another, in similar vexatious consternation, quoting a whale decocting Seneca, and calling himself the volatile Calvinist, King of Battle!

And with the passage of time, the itching ceased, and the scowling leftward and rightward eyes settled into peace, and the battle moved on from a battle tested Calvinist King to a Risen King, and the planet of geo's meandertholic origin became moot...

So how can I respond? I look at the Greek, I look at the text, I look at the translation, I quote the Bible, I write as best I can given my obvious limitations about issues raised.

In this case, Christ came in the flesh, the only sinless one, and by his sinless and divine death destroyed the power of death in His resurrection... His flesh was glorified and sits at the right hand of the Father, and in this, He has elevated the fallen nature of humanity to the Godhead of the Trinity, and in Him we find holiness and salvation in His holy Body, and we turn away from the world of the concerns of the flesh and turn toward Christ, and die together with Him to the world in Baptism, and having so turned, live unto Him in the Spirit - Working out salvation in fear and trembling, washed in the daily tears of repentance. This is all Biblical...

And our friend Matt wanted to know what is being discussed when Paul writes of our adequacy only in God, and the new covenant of the Spirit, written in our hearts, and not just words written in ink on parchment... He asked "What exactly is being discussed here? [in 2Cor3:5-6] and the replies seemed to focus on Christ fulfilling the Law, and not on us living according to the Spirit, wherein can be written the new covenant upon the fleshy parchment of our hearts by the Holy Spirit...

I am saying nothing new here at all. This has been the teaching of the Church from the time of Christ. My constant companion in exegetical matters of Paul is a modern guy of 1500 years ago, John Chrysostom, who wrote a fabulous series of homilies on the whole of the Pauline corpus, that is without compare anywhere ever...

Maybe it is just that we share different traditions? Perhaps we could discuss particular matters, rather than make planetary inquisitions with headscratchings and scowling eyes? I mean, granted, I am a tawdry and suspicious rogue and scoundrel, and have no share of the glory of the venerable Seneca, but yet even so, though I should share the thump passed 'round, is not there a friendly nod e'en from the great and humble cottonwood, venerating the wind?

geo

**GrayPilgrim** · February 14th 2003, 11:14 AM

That was hillarious!

I propose an even further option for you to ponder George:

Maybe you are now acquainted with one of our resident curmudgeons named Sozo.

[No offense Sozo ;)]

**Sozo** · February 14th 2003, 12:11 PM

GrayPilgrim:

That was hillarious!

I propose an even further option for you to ponder George:

Maybe you are now acquainted with one of our resident curmudgeons named Sozo.

[No offense Sozo ;)]

I am tenacious, but I still have no idea what geo is babbling about.

**Rdr. Arsenios** · February 14th 2003, 05:21 PM

Sozo writes:

>quote:GrayPilgrim:

>That was hillarious!

> I propose an even further option for you to ponder George:

> Maybe you are now acquainted with one of our resident curmudgeons named Sozo.

I should imagine that Sozo knows me better than I him, for I have written a great deal already, and his interest in me seems to be restricted to the establishment of my planetary origins...

> I am tenacious, but I still have no idea what geo is babbling about.

I can appreciate your candor, Sozo, but without anything more specific, it is really just trerrifically hard to know how to respond to the enigma of planets... I thought we were talking about 2Cor3:5-6, or thereabouts - We have an NASB translation, the KJV one, and I think I translated it woodenly myself, just to get the bones of it laid out in order, and we were trying to answer the question of what it was about... The living epistles...

Is it my quoting Chrysostom that is giving my words the brookish babble you are hearing? Or the idea that Christ destroyed the power of death by His death on the Cross and His holy resurrection? Or the idea that it is the resurrected flesh of our Lord seated in the communion of the Godhead in the Second Person thereof that makes babble of my words the babble that you only seem to be making out. I am trying to be fairly specific, and yet I seem to be speaking as if from another planet... I really am not a mind-reader, and if you would be so kind as to clue me in on what it is that is babblish and other-planetarish to you in my words, perhaps I can be more clear. I may lack that art, but I will try, if you can help me out...

My frame of reference is mainline apostolic Christianity, the unbroken chain of faith and teaching from the very beginnings, passed on from generation to generation by the Holy Fathers of Christianity, beginning with Paul and the holy apostles... Hence I can quote the Fathers, pre and post Nicene, as freely as others do the post-moderns...

That is probably why I sound so other-worldly to you... But the faith is no orbital rocket science, Sozo... Even rascalish scoundrels like me can understand a lot of it... And I do mostly post in English... But not always 100%, granted. My Bible is the Majority Text and the LXX... Does this help?

geo

**Pereynol of Sheer Dread** · February 14th 2003, 09:30 PM

Geo seems both clever and orthodox, and though the hairs bristle on the back of my neck, and though the itch tingles on my head too, I----refrain from scratching.

**Socrates** · February 16th 2003, 12:13 AM

My Bible is the Majority Text and the LXX... Does this help?

Definitely. I don't think either of those are original though -- I think that the Masoretic Text is more likely to be closer to the original in the Hebrew as explained in another post, and that the Critical Text is more likely to be closer to the original, and Jaltus agrees (and he knows a lot more than I). The Majority isn't bad or anything, but seems to have a lot of expansion of piety, harmonization, copying passages from one place to another, filling out OT quotes, etc. as well as being based on very late manuscripts.