[Serious] The Story

[The Grand Nudger]

Xianity was a split from Judaism, which happened because those closest to Jesus had an immensely powerful set of experiences that convinced them that the Jewish Messiah had inaugurated the Kingdom of God.. That is far and away the best explanation of the beliefs of the Early Xians.

I think this is where we miss each other.  While I don't think that's the best explanation for christianity, we could just go along with the idea that it was.  It's no explanation whatsoever for the growth of the christian movement, the many billions of you over centuries who have had no such experience and never knew the man.  Nor is it any explanation for the NT as we have it.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Well..there's certainly a hell of alot of content that the author of daniel used those sorts of narratives to tell us.

Well, Daniel is arguably the most important book in Adventism. The entire denomination is built upon it's interpretation, so I'm aware there's a lot of meaning embedded in it. However, the difference here is that what is being interpreted by Adventists is the message that is being told to Daniel in the story.

Whereas your interpretation seems more meta: Daniel is a character in a different author's story, and that author is constructing this first-person narrative to embed a more abstract and symbolic story. Is that right?

[Jehanne]

Well..there's certainly a hell of alot of content that the author of daniel used those sorts of narratives to tell us.

Well, Daniel is arguably the most important book in Adventism. The entire denomination is built upon it's interpretation, so I'm aware there's a lot of meaning embedded in it. However, the difference here is that what is being interpreted by Adventists is the message that is being told to Daniel in the story.

Whereas your interpretation seems more meta: Daniel is a character in a different author's story, and that author is constructing this first-person narrative to embed a more abstract and symbolic story. Is that right?

Read it like you would read the Iliad & Odyssey.

[Angrboda]

Yes, indeed, I have a more esoteric perspective in part because growing up congregationalist we were not committed to a literal reading of Scripture the way say Southern Baptists were. That was the 70's though and it seemed like the more fundamentalist people started forming this wierd Christian sub-culture. Anyway.

I may fall more under the literal category, though I think fundamentalism has more to do with behavior. I think the Bible should be read the way any other piece of writing should—to understand what the author is attempting to communicate. What's interesting about the Bible is that the thing many authors are attempting to communicate is often a vision or divine experience.

How do you know this?

[John 6IX Breezy]

How do you know this?

You mean, how do I know they are attempting to communicate a vision or divine experience? Usually because that is how many chapters are introduced:

• "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple" (ESV, Isaiah 6:1).
  

• "In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first" (ESV, Daniel 8:1)
  

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, Daniel is arguably the most important book in Adventism. The entire denomination is built upon it's interpretation, so I'm aware there's a lot of meaning embedded in it. However, the difference here is that what is being interpreted by Adventists is the message that is being told to Daniel in the story.

Whereas your interpretation seems more meta: Daniel is a character in a different author's story, and that author is constructing this first-person narrative to embed a more abstract and symbolic story. Is that right?

IDK if I’d call it mine. It’s the consensus of academia that Daniel is not a historical character.

So, yes, with respect to adventism, Daniel would be a character in someone else’s story, a story that has nothing to do with whatever you belive about it, if those comments about neurological explanations for the content of Daniel are typical of your thoughts on the matter.

[Jehanne]

How do you know this?

You mean, how do I know they are attempting to communicate a vision or divine experience? Usually because that is how many chapters are introduced:

• "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple" (ESV, Isaiah 6:1).
  

• "In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first" (ESV, Daniel 8:1)
  

Now Hera of the golden throne stood on the peak of Olympus, and saw with her eyes, and anon knew him that was her brother and her lord's going to and fro through the glorious fight, and she rejoiced in her heart. And she beheld Zeus sitting on the topmost crest of many-fountained Ida, and to her heart he was hateful. Then she took thought, the ox-eyed lady Hera, how she might beguile the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus. And this seemed to her in her heart to be the best counsel, namely to fare to Ida, when she had well adorned herself, if perchance a sweet sleep and a kindly she could pour on his eye lids and his crafty wits. And she set forth to her bower, that her dear son Hephaistos had fashioned, and therein had made fast strong doors on the pillars, with a secret bolt, that no other god might open. There did she enter in and closed the shining doors. With ambrosia first did she cleanse every stain from her winsome body, and anointed her with olive oil, ambrosial, soft, and of a sweet savour; if it were but shaken, in the bronze-floored mansion of Zeus, the savour thereof went right forth to earth and heaven. Therewith she anointed her fair body, and combed her hair, and with her hands plaited her shining tresses, fair and ambrosial, flowing from her immortal head. Then she clad her in her fragrant robe that Athene wrought delicately for her, and therein set many things beautifully made, and fastened it over her breast with clasps of gold. And she girdled it with a girdle arrayed with a hundred tassels, and she set earrings in her pierced ears, earrings of three drops, and glistering, therefrom shone grace abundantly. And with a veil over all the peerless goddess veiled herself, a fair new veil, bright as the sun, and beneath her shining feet she bound goodly sandals. But when she had adorned her body with all her array, she went forth from her bower, and called Aphrodite apart from the other gods, and spake to her, saying: "Wilt thou obey me, dear child, in that which I shall tell thee? or wilt thou refuse, with a grudge in thy heart, because I succour the Danaans, and thou the Trojans?"

Then Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus answered her: "Hera, goddess queen, daughter of mighty Kronos, say the thing that is in thy mind, my heart bids me fulfil it, if fulfil it I may, and if it may be accomplished." (The Iliad, Book 13)

[Mister Agenda]

So something can't be perfect unless it's omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent? Ordinarily, perfect means 'without flaws'. I wouldn't say not being all-powerful is a flaw.

Edit: Sorry for the double post.

I am using the word perfect the same way scholastics and some classical pagan philosophers would have....in the absolute sense that only applies to the All, or One. Barbasol may be the 'perfect' for its intended purpose as an inexpensive
and effective shaving cream but that is not the sense theologically.

So God could have created a Barbasol-perfect human being, and a Barbasol-perfect serpent but chose to create Adam, Eve, and the serpent of the garden instead. I don't get why you are applying a theologically-narrow definition of 'perfect', so narrow it can only be applied to one thing, to what God is supposed to have created. No one expects God to create more omnipotent beings, they're wondering why he couldn't or didn't create beings perfectly fit for their purpose.

[Belacqua]

they're wondering why he couldn't or didn't create beings perfectly fit for their purpose.

I guess the obvious question is: what is the purpose of human beings? What would it be like for us to be fit for this purpose? 

How do you know we are not perfectly fit for our purpose?

[Mister Agenda]

they're wondering why he couldn't or didn't create beings perfectly fit for their purpose.

I guess the obvious question is: what is the purpose of human beings? What would it be like for us to be fit for this purpose? 

How do you know we are not perfectly fit for our purpose?

Because only a lunatic would be angry at us for performing according to specs.