roberterasmus

Absolutely, VP was horseapples about dreams. He never gave any real reasons for their disappearance. The “spirit on” versus “spirit in” explanation is not sufficienct if the so-called revelation and impartation manifestations were in use during the “spirit on” period, as it is quite obvious they were. BTW, it wasn’t VP who initially wrote about speaking in tongues and I could care less whether “he was right about” them. It’s pretty obvious that they were around in the first century and history points to revivals/renewals of the use of all the manifestations throughout history. I personally think (can’t prove it…) that the Salem witch trials were about the use of SIT there. The women in the early church in New England were wild and a bit crazy (in a good way). I, like others who have posted on this thread, spoke in tongues a long time before TWI. Thankfully VP was nowhere around to have "taught" me.

I didn’t realize this was the only thing we could comment on in this thread. It started out without this perspective. There is no way to determine whether what we called speaking in tongue is what it was in the first century. Empirical data cannot tell us. Faking is rampant; just think of what goes on in the bedroom. The experience of people the world over tells us that it is real. I have personally been in a meeting where a gentleman stood up, spoke in tongues and interpreted. He spoke in Hebrew and interpreted in English. I rushed to him and checked his background, asked him where he had “learned” it; found out he was a simple believer who became incensed by my questions until I told him I understood the words he was speaking before he interpreted. I was pretty much blown away because I don’t understand modern Hebrew, but Biblical. This happened over 30 years ago. Theologically, as I believe I’ve shown a bit of above, the manifestation didn’t disappear. I’ve had as many knock down/ drag outs about that as I have with professors over the existence of a Trinity.

Theologically one has to look only to the present “dispensation of the Secret” and see that God knew that this time slot would exists. Further, the promises of Messiah in the Hebrew Scriptures take two (2) main streams; (a) the suffering Messiah and (b) the returning King. While Jews at the time of Christ had a very difficult time wrapping their heads around his impending death (just read the numerous times in the Gospel records where Jesus tried to convey this to his disciples and they brushed it off). This is a huge subject, but one understood by most theological institutions. In Palestine, at that time, the looked for Messiah was one who would knock around the Romans (read: Gentiles) and give the Jews back their land. The other Messiah was not that pretty a picture. The chronology of Daniel 9 had a last seven (7) years prophesied (of “really bad luck”, IMHO, Jesus called it a time of “great tribulation”) and these would have had to work out regardless. Speaking in tongues was not just for new converts (i.e. - “to all people in all languages”) it was just as viable for what Paul wrote about in his Corinthian epistles. This “tongues is no longer needed” is Reformed and Classical Dispensationalist theological poppycock. “That which is perfect” is not yet come (a oblique reference IMHO to the “heavenly Jerusalem” that the Hebrew prophets, Jesus and Paul referenced (“the well-founded city, designed and built by God”). It comes to (a new) earth a while from now. RE

Brothers, be imitators together of me, and observe them which walk so as you have us for an example. Maybe?

Another thought occurred to me last night. Think of the P-e-s-h-i-t-t-a as the English speaking world’s King James Version. The 5th Century Syriac speaking church of the east (in and around Edessa (northern Mesopotamia, today’s southeastern Turkey) utilized it as the western world did the Vulgate (the 5th Century Latin version translated from Greek by Jerome (da guy from Brooklyn…just makin’ sure yer watchin’)). Anyway, if it was good enough for the apostle Paul…you know the rest. RE

Charlene, I used to call it the Bull s-h-i-t-t-a text myself at one point while I was at TWI. Us eggheads actually studying the stuff never quite had enough influence on the “big boys” to get it through their heads that Syriac was not the Aramaic of the originals (if that even existed at some time in the late first century Palestine). The influence of Lamsa and his ilk, the so-called Pe-s-h-i-t-t-a Primacy boys (Errico, Younan, Roth, Lataster, etc.) was devastating. Those who may have heard that Jesus spoke Aramaic or even that Aramaic was the “original” language of the apostles were influenced highly. Even today they will find that the Syriac sources on the internet are around more readily than the more scholarly works on the Aramaic language and poof, Syriac/Pedangta gets the nod. Syriac, by most scholarly accounts (stick me in here), is/was not the “original” language of the Christian Scriptures. It is a translation from the Greek (Everybody here can look up Wikipedia for verification. They do a pretty good job). As for the “stablity” of the Pe-s-h-i-t-t-a tradition of texts, I will only say that it is not the oldest Syriac text type, but it was the most used in the eastern churches in early Christian times (from Rabbula onward (mid 5th Century). Research into it’s influence on the Church is a field that is very interesting and important. What is considered the Pedangta OT is from the second or third Century onwards, but this does not speak to the Christian Scriptures. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the Syriac, but only as an “early version” (like Latin, Ethiopic, Boharic, Coptic, Gothic, etc.). I studied under a pretty respected teacher in Syriac in the mid-70’s and others followed me there. We all realized that the history of the eastern churches may have had some great surprises and opportunities to reveal insight into that early version text that were not hereforto available. But this was never to say that this form of language was the original. TWI never really opened up the “books” to the layman on this subject. And while I was highly in favor of supporting the work on the Syriac Concordance and even the Interlinear (folks there were no works like this in the world at the time…) I did not support the Syriac Pedangta Primacy viewpoint. That viewpoint is how TWI leaned. The better way to do research into the autograph (and I do believe in an Aramaic autograph), IMHO, is the way Charles Cutler Torrey, Matthew Black, Frank Zimmerman and others did it. They looked at the Aramaic that was actually used in Palestine in the first Century (equivalent to that found in the Dead Sea Scrolls Genesis Apocryphon and other similar Palestinian works.) and engaged in the difficult task of “back-translating” the Greek into what would have been the Aramaic of the time (on a verse-by-verse basis where it was warranted, BTW (and all this in academic journals)). Then they would retranslate the Aramaic into better Greek (if, for instance the Greek could have gone in a different directions (like our word “bank”…can mean a lot of things…same in Aramaic and any other language)). While this may sound highly speculative, it has helped me in many contexts where the Greek that we have was just butchered. Revelation 19:16, when handled in this way has nothing written on the “thigh” of the returning Messiah, but rather on his “banner”. Whoa, did I just get caught up in an acid flashback. I didn’t even do acid… Sorry I went a little ballistic there. I promise to not do it again. Bob

Oak, Sorry about the snarky "unbeliever" comments; and me being in the high and lofty position as chief cook and bottle washer... Ya'd think I'd know not to let my true colors show. Hey, I'm figuring the Mormons will actually get "in" before me. All that geneaology stuff, ya know, they'll just have all that heritage to document and show off. RE

Yeah, Edwards is a bit much for me. There's too much Calvinism, too much brimstone. I'll leave that for the unbelievers at the telos. He was (and is) considered an intellect of the highest order, but if someone cannot acknowledge "free will" (and for that matter open theism (God can change His mind) I cannot abide. Love (actually)"hid with Christ in God". And it's the "goodness (gentleness?) of God" that brings anyone to a "change of mind". Bob

Way, I always thought it was "study to show yourself a prune"... There were so many prunes... But, the word "study" is not really in the text (as you rightfully point out). I love how Darby "worked" that one, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." Not that VP missed this one in his "Study, Be Diligent" chapter (was that the Blue book...way too long ago...). The "do your best" thing is great. It assumes you already did your homework and were actually out there living and helping people (the infamous good works). And that was where the emphasis was to have been, eh? RE

Hey, just learned how to use the "quote" thingy. Old, I'll agree with the "forgetting that they (the infamous "they") are still prone to sin" and the "they (again the infamous "other guys") forget the grace adn mercy" business. Everyone does. It won't end. Until the "really hot water" (aka - lake of fire) happens for real we (the not so famous inward finger) will be saddled with deceit, etc. ("For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice." - lovely). I still think that "life (is) was hidden in their intracacies" (i.e. - the jots and tittles), but I don't think I'll ever "master them" and I certainly won't take a thrashing. I hate the Jonathan Edwards concept of "sinners in the hands of an angry God" business; you should too (and it appears that you do!). I also think that life is in the hidden intracacies of nature and I won't be put under the thumb of any "leader" again (check out the term "leader" in the Christian Scriptures and see what contexts they all fall under...usually negative ("blind leaders of the blind"). I like that we look to Jesus (and Paul for that matter) as our examples. Their records, if we care to believe what is written about them, show the compassion, the love and the tenacity at the same time. Let's remember that those two boys called the religious bastards by their real names; "whited sepulchres", "Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds", etc. (lovely!). Yet the "knit together in love" business is in there are well. RE

It has always amazed me how much certain historical women and men of Christianity did with the little that they knew from the book. Certainly my sisters are not reading the stuff that I do (they were all...and one still is in TWI - all four of them). But damn if they don't "get it" just as much as I do (OK, one is still a bit shellshocked...). I love their simplicity whereas I am such a geek that I need to see things a little differently. I'm met at every turn in my work by new and wonderful things and my sister Susi is just as excited by what she sees. I don't look down my nose at her and she doesn't lift me up on some supercillious (maybe that's surrealistic...for all you Jefferson Airplane fans) pillow. I'd shoot her. But on the other hand there's the "jots and tittles" aspect of Jesus' approach. His own pharisaic training aside (just read John 1: 24-26), he wasn't someone who was interested in looking up people's butts to see what they were doing wrong...yet he was still interested in the jots and tittles. I'm lovin' that. I'm into that. To me they must be important. RE

Looks like Charlene was writing at the same moment I was in response to Spec! See, electronics and the internet are such exciting venues. But let's not bury the hatchet so deep in the back of TWI that we forget (at least those of us who still consider the Scriptures...Scriptures...) that there was important work being done there. Though probably better in another thread, I could show the value of the Syriac Interlinear and certainly some of the other things that we worked on. It is a more complicated story about TWI than VP governed every jot and tittle that went out of there. As Charlene mentions above, there were people that left in disagreement, there were those who stayed and actually helped in a lot of areas. As I mentioned above, it's not enough to just rant about "how bad it was" (I was there...it was bad), but rather to distinguish where the badness was allowed into your life and resolve to fix it; resolve to not make the mistake again and move on (in my case) with God. If not the God as portrayed by TWI (I hope not...) then certainly the God portrayed in the Scriptures. If you still have a hunger for the stuff there is a lot out there. RE

Spec, Thanks for the kind words. The research at TWI actually took place at the HQ in New Knoxville. Just ask Charlene, she was a part of it. What better question to ask was how the research was done. There were some qualified people there, but often they were not allowed to move in directions that they would have wanted. There was a national research colloquium of which I was part (living in Chicago there was a group of us there who attended the University of Chicago and would often get together for the purpose of research). But there is really nothing except individuals now (splinter groups are not strong enough to support this effort). I keep in touch with many of them and am trying to put together something electronically whereby we can collaborate. It's a lot easier these days to communicate over long distances. RE

Charlene, I realize as you do that Christianity, in it's simplest form, is as dogmatic as say...radical Muslim fundamentalism. The question of sin and sin nature (or "original sin" as my Catholic upbringing would force upon us...) can be daunting. Starting out in life with one foot on a bannana peel sometimes just doesn't feel right. Add to that a dose of guilt and shame at how we act as humans and haughtiness on the part of our society and the Christian outlook can be a laughingstock to the "progressives" of the world. And the seminaries of the world cannot keep up with our changing society. They, for the most part, deal with a static presence in the heavenlies and force that down the throats of the unsuspecting. Remember VP was a Dutch Reformed theologian in his background (Lakeland College in Sheboygan and United Theological Seminary in Minneapolis before his taking the Master's at Princeton). With all his dispensational tendancies he was grounded in the Calvinist traditions. Bob

I’m lovin’ “theologicalsclerosis” (Tbone - post #92)! This happens all the time in theology, not just at TWI. It’s rare that you see a group or it’s offshoots stay supple and changing to the conditions in their culture. And change is what God is all about, IMHO. One of the “big deals” in systematic theology today is Open Theism (aka – the open view of God). It says, in essence, the God can change and that He doesn’t have a perfect knowledge of the future. It drives Calvinists crazy and yet it is quite an encouraging step to me. It fits “like a hand in a glove” with a dispensational view of the Scriptures. Lots of us “took crap”, but I’ll never blame someone else for my buttheadedness or ignorance (shame on us…). If it doesn’t “fit”, I usually dig deeper for the answers that do. Just ask my wife; she’s had to endure my, “Hey, take a look at this!” for over thirty years. And I still speak in tongues. Post #98 (SethR) – “A scientist always starts with I don't know, not I believe, so in research you can't start with an assumption and treat it as evidence for the types of experiments you will and will not do.” I disagree. Scientists start with “what they know” and test their ideas against “what they know” to see if their reality is not real. Post #126 (Geisha 779) – I read Francis Collin’s The Language of God over the summer last year (my daughter who is studying Political Science and Bioethics leant it to me). Cool dude and a good writer; massive intellect…scary those types… (whether that matters is not for me to decide). Oh, and I liked what you said in post #132 “The issue becomes is scripture reliable?” To me that’s always the question. Has been the question for over 40 years now. Post #134 (penworks) “I left the Christianity room awhile ago.” I’m not so much shocked as I am saddened. The baby with the bathwater, eh? RE

IMHO, Bemoaning the fact that TWI and it’s research arm (attached as it was to the torso of VP, nourished by the same and eventually cut off…amputation is such a messy thing…) did not exist in a manner to which you now ascribe is one thing; trying to figure out what it was, why it was and what went wrong is another. The splinter groups that purport to “carry on” this work in a manner that takes only the “good things” of VP and perfects them need scrutiny too (as those here can well imagine). None of them, as some one astutely pointed out, have research groups within them. It’s quite telling, IMHO. My name is Bob Wassung and my involvement with the TWI “arm” began when I was a student at a Bible college (’73) and continued through about 1988. I’m a classically trained theologian with degrees in the field (Bible/ Greek in my undergrad and Aramaic/Hebrew/Theology in graduate school). Add to that the pseudo-associates degree in theology for my Way Corps training (ha!) and you have me sitting in a theological bouillabaisse for the most part…it is my life to this very day. TWI’s “Bible study system” (penworks – post #1) left much to be desired, but the system itself has roots that go far back into the 18th century. The cultish status of TWI became more pronounced as VP gained more and more status and power ("Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." – thank you Lord Acton). When I came to the group it was more fun than anything else; more honest with the texts and more detailed in analysis. Don’t get me wrong, some of my professors hated me (they were protecting their own chalice, BTW) and I was almost tossed out on my proverbial, but the fresh new outlook on the Scriptures, for me, was exciting. TWI became a festering wound that excluded any ideas from the outside, any reproof from those of us in the know theologically. I also left. Sure it was (and is) a fundamentalist group; there are thousands of them worldwide (after some wise soul decided to categorized a particular brand). And let’s understand something; what’s a fundamentalist for some is just an evangelical for another. Meanings in the theological world are used as clubs so often it would surprise you (or not). And mincing over words and placing names for effect probably isn’t the best way to get to the roots of a problem (fun though it is…). There is a dearth of Biblical research around it is true, but let me say this as well; there is a dearth of qualified Biblical researchers as well. Those who would like to research often do not have the skills to do so and others with the skills are so steeped in their own denominational cesspools (think TWI and a million other cults…excuse me…denominations) that they cannot think or write outside their own box. Then there are the flamethrowers that just whitewash anything that formerly hurt them and say “the hell with it all”. I respect those who are searching, but get easily tired of blowhards, as I’m sure you all do. It’s not fun; there’s usually nothing but negatives with no advancement toward answering questions or solving problems. BTW, any group (gaggle, cult, coven, whatever you want to call it) hunts for their own “holy grail”. In the case of Evangelical Christianity (those, in my definition, who believe Jesus was Messiah and believe God raised him from the dead…and a few other things) the grail is getting the truth out of the written Scriptures. The definition of “inerrancy” varies from one group to the next, but centers around making the “historical Jesus” real. I have my own definition of what makes the Christian Scriptures…well...Scriptures (usually that means looking at them in the manner and with a reference that Jesus did his own Scriptures). You have your own. Then there are a million methods of interpretation; each with their own slant on the text and “system” in which to place themselves . Ya’ gotta love hermeneutics and text critical studies to do battle there. I’m blathering and I don’t mean to. I’m at post 93 and trying to read them all so I don’t miss anything, but I decided to weigh in a little prematurely. Hope no one minds. And if you said something already about a subject that I touch on (and I haven’t read it…) please be patient with me. RE

Yeah, I suppose you're right... And define the bathwater.

Hi, all, I'm joining this topic as I catch up on Charlene's article and the posts thus far. I'm going to give a bit of a different take on "research" than might have been mentioned. I also was in the research portion of TWI and it is always fascinating how much tunnel vision TWI gave everyone. But I'd like to ask the posters here: How many of you started thinking outside the TWI bathwater and didn't necessarily throw out the baby? RE