I still have both of Pillai's books. In retrospect, I think a lot of it was pure conjecture. Fish stories, so to speak. Pillai was supposedly qualified as an expert on the topic by the sheer virtue of his birthplace. I think I still have a syllabus, also, from the class that was offered by The Way. Maybe I'll use it to line the bird cage some day.
Pillai was born in India in the 1900's, thousands of miles away from and about 2000 years after the bible was written, and we're supposed to believe that he had special insight into biblical customs because it was "The East"?
Pillai wrote Light through an Eastern Window and 2 volumes of Orientalisms. But being originally Hindu then converting to Christianity due to Mar Thoma Church(Nestorian)/Old Catholic, the Indian people are either Hindu, Islamic, Sikh, Buddhist, or Jainist. And KC(not the Sunshine Band)knew of Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Anglican, or United(Lutheran/Methodist/Reformed)and that only in the last 100 plus years. What about George Lamsa's so-called Biblical culture? How did his understanding differ?
I still have both of Pillai's books. In retrospect, I think a lot of it was pure conjecture. Fish stories, so to speak. Pillai was supposedly qualified as an expert on the topic by the sheer virtue of his birthplace.
I used to give relevance to Pillai's book.
That was until as graduated Way Corps, we received a copy of what was suppose to be all the transcripts from his teachings on a number of tapes amalgamated into one large book in the order of the books/verses in the bible. Was actually larger than the bible.. And thumbing through that book, you could just about go to any bible passage and read what he said, and many times he would contradict himself! lol.. Unfortunately, this book was never for sale and was supposedly just a "rough draft" for a future real book "I was told".
But yeah, he was definitely no expert. For a guy who they'd make you think he knew what he was talking about because he "lived" it, sure had a faulty memory and made up some "weird" stuff..
But yeah, he was definitely no expert. For a guy who they'd make you think he knew what he was talking about because he "lived" it, sure had a faulty memory and made up some "weird" stuff..
I dunno, VeePee and this "type" could be reasoned birds of a feather?
Lamsa's books were: Gospel Light, New Testament Commentary, Old Testament Light, More Light on the Gospels, Idioms in the Bible Explained, Hidden Years of Jesus, Man from Gallilee, And the Scroll Opened, My Neighbor Jesus, New Testament Origin, Shepherd of All, Key to Original Gospels, Kingdom on Earth(Sermon on Mount). Rocco Errico: Setting a Trap for God/Aramaic Prayer of Jesus(Lord's Prayer), Let there be Light/7 Keys, There was Light, Mysteries of Creation/Genesis Story, Message of Matthew. Joint production: Aramaic Light series= Gospel of Matthew, Gospels of Mark and Luke, Gospel of John.
The best book I have found is New Illustrated Bible Manners and Customs: How the people of the Bible really lived = Howard F. Vos, Thomas Nelson Publishers. The book is really in depth with Hebrew/Semetic, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin influences on Scripture. Discuss this. btw where is Abagail and James Trimm, or John Juddes when discussing something like this?. I doubt VPW, LCM, CG, or Rosie would have appreciated the book, saying there was error and too denominational/ecumenical demon possessed seed people(Invasion of the Body Snatchers, oh the irony is too laughable).
I guess maybe this should have been in doctrinal forum but since this forum is read more, I thought the topic would get more response. Interstingly Bullinger claimed that there were between 200 and 300 figures of speech used in the Bible, while both Lamsa and Errico claimed in Aramaic it was over 1,000 figures of speech. Also in Bullinger's Numbers in Scripture is discussion of colors and sounds(how does that relate to numerology?). I guess no one is really interested in this topic. I was hoping that there would be more posts from other folks. Que sera, sera.
Interstingly Bullinger claimed that there were between 200 and 300 figures of speech used in the Bible,
My son (14) is home-schooled (for educational reasons, not religious). He showed an interest in figures of speech so I bought him a copy of crazy EWB's "Figures of Speech in the Bible." Where else will you find such a systematic presentation of figures with examples? My son is a bit wary, since it's so biblical, but has been spied looking things up in it.
EWB WAS NUTS... but obsessives like him sometimes do the dirty work the rest of us are too busy living to do.
The best book I have found is New Illustrated Bible Manners and Customs: How the people of the Bible really lived = Howard F. Vos, Thomas Nelson Publishers. ...
And it has really cool illustrations every once in a while if you get the paperback one (I've never seen it in Hardcover But it's much bigger than Pillai's books). It seems a lot more believable than K.C. Pillai's homespun yarns too. But really,... pictures! It's cool because it has pictures! And it's well organized. and not written in Bible-Scholar-speak.
Is it really useful?
Well,.... to quote OldSkool from earlier in this thread,... " Found it insightful but not earth shattering." ...but a fun diversion while you're baking a pie or somesuch.
Ethelbert William Bullinger was born and raised as a British Free Methodist. He showed interest in music and his father thought he should major in organ. Bullinger thought the Church of England was the proper way to go, rejecting the Tractarian movements of Oxford and Cambridge. Obviously he was more a true scholar but influenced by Darby and Scolfield became ultra-dispensationalist and was friends with Charles Welch. He may have been outside the mainstream of denominational Christianity but unlike Wierwille and gang(who can't even pronounce pneuma, the letter p is silent and is pronounced nay-oo-ma. we don't say P neumonia or P nuematic nailgun) who were jerks pretending to be smart, EWB compared to those bozos was a genius. We will now receive the offering, uh abundant sharing now.
Does knowing about the "figures of speech" used in the bible really increase the likelihood that one can act on the wisdom better, or is focusing on that merely a distraction from the really hard work of living it?
Knowing figures of speech has had ZERO affect on my Christian walk... maybe I should go back and try again? lol
As EWB never, to my knowledge, tried to mock God and attack innocents under his pastoral care... his craziness PALES in comparison to the psychopathology of Victor.
If all nutty scholars were sent to the bottom of the sea, we'd have very few dry scholars. God bless EWB who mistaken thought scripture was perfect... he may have helped some people, like me, waste time, but no one was too badly hurt.
Most of the people (Not all, but certainly most) I know that are really brainy about the Bible, end up carving out their own little systems of believing, But hour to hour and day by day, you'd be hard pressed to recognize that they have anything to do with God --- unless of course - you asked them. and when they "witness" it's worth the price of admission to a comedy club, as they have no idea what to do if the other person doesn't agree completely with them from the get-go. They just get angry and badmouth that person when they walk off declaring how little they know.
BUT
The funniest part is watching them being artificially sweet when they meet the new prospect (person), venemous-sweet poisonous-honey dripping from their fangs on approach after sizing up the enemy... er,... new person...
...And if you laugh at them - even a little - they spin! Spin! SPIN!!!!
It can be outstanding fun! Just stay out of throwing range!
The funniest part is watching them being artificially sweet when they meet the new prospect (person), venemous-sweet poisonous-honey dripping from their fangs on approach after sizing up the enemy... er,... new person...
Oh, flashbacks of my old self.. Thought I was doing the right thing, getting into these debates with people over stupid TWI bs.. Thought I was really proclaiming der verd of gawd.. Yeah.. Making God look bad is what I was "really" doing.. I'm really really sorry God! Really! Did I say "really" enough.. Reminds me of the SNL skits.. Geez..
I've found 90% of what I've learned about the Bible to be utterly false or worthless in my real relationship with my Father and my Lord and the rest of my brothers and sisters on this earth. Maybe just me.. Orientalisms.. Found most of those to be just opinions that wary with the speaker.. Figures of speeches.. Maybe only once has it been actually useful in helping understand a scripture, and then it was just negligible.. Pronunciations.. Lol.. Yeah, if anyone actually took a biblical language course in college would know that it varied from dialect and location and no one "REALLY" knows how it was pronounced, but then.. I'm not debating any specfics here. Just not worth it..
venemous-sweet poisonous-honey dripping from their fangs on approach after sizing up the enemy... er,... new person...
I think immediately of Sarah Palin, who is witnessing on a national level to her defenseless beliefs.*
[That voodoo preacher who kicked the spirit of witchcraft out of her on video, needs to come back and finish up his imaginary hoodoo.]
*You know, the kind that will make her friends richer and richer (drill baby drill) and make millions of Americans enjoy the less abundant life. Sarah, you're witnessing, but God is WATCHING.
Okay, Thomas, let's see. I thought Lamsa's books were good little books to begin with, but wondered at his ability to be completely sure about what was what then. Had no idea he wrote so many.
Suppose any of us decided to write about our own culture even say 500 years ago? It's not innate. We'd have to do shedloads of research. Passed-down folk histories don't do it. Customs do change. (To some extent, even Wierwille acknowledged this by saying that every generation has to make the Bible its own.) We make the culture our own and the customs that go with it differ, generation to generation.
Artefacts can be left, but good archaeologists from any culture can interpret them to the best of knowledge then known. Archaeologists' opinions, however, can vary widely.
How much harder, then, to interpret something that leaves no physical trace, and very little trace in culture today?
Lamsa has a different viewpoint because he has a different background. It's always worth considering other people's viewpoints. But it doesn't make them righter or wronger than our own viewpoint.
To a large extent - all this is "head knowledge" - but what does it really do for "heart knowledge"? Does it help to be told that "burning coals on the head" means "it's a great blessing"? Is that not weird? Seems to me, if someone has to keep a fire burning, they know how to do it - you don't get someone running around with a firebox on his head and getting filthy dirty. Keeping fires burning was so very important that keeping them banked (burning very slowly) was a skill quickly learned. (There's a pub in England that reputedly has not let its fire go out since early 1700s - you think they're the only ones who know that? When I was a little kid, in the winter months, our own house fire was never allowed to go out.)
Lamsa's explanations need to be considered along with any other evidence or suggestions that might explain something unusual to us. His views are a long way from gospel.
I always thought Alfred Edersheim's works were a little better on the life and times of Bible culture. But it seems he put a lot of research effort into it - his books show that.
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OldSkool
During my time in the way ministry I learned about this topic. Found it insightful but not earth shattering.
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waysider
I still have both of Pillai's books. In retrospect, I think a lot of it was pure conjecture. Fish stories, so to speak. Pillai was supposedly qualified as an expert on the topic by the sheer virtue of his birthplace. I think I still have a syllabus, also, from the class that was offered by The Way. Maybe I'll use it to line the bird cage some day.
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Oakspear
Pillai was born in India in the 1900's, thousands of miles away from and about 2000 years after the bible was written, and we're supposed to believe that he had special insight into biblical customs because it was "The East"?
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
Pillai wrote Light through an Eastern Window and 2 volumes of Orientalisms. But being originally Hindu then converting to Christianity due to Mar Thoma Church(Nestorian)/Old Catholic, the Indian people are either Hindu, Islamic, Sikh, Buddhist, or Jainist. And KC(not the Sunshine Band)knew of Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Anglican, or United(Lutheran/Methodist/Reformed)and that only in the last 100 plus years. What about George Lamsa's so-called Biblical culture? How did his understanding differ?
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TrustAndObey
I used to give relevance to Pillai's book.
That was until as graduated Way Corps, we received a copy of what was suppose to be all the transcripts from his teachings on a number of tapes amalgamated into one large book in the order of the books/verses in the bible. Was actually larger than the bible.. And thumbing through that book, you could just about go to any bible passage and read what he said, and many times he would contradict himself! lol.. Unfortunately, this book was never for sale and was supposedly just a "rough draft" for a future real book "I was told".
But yeah, he was definitely no expert. For a guy who they'd make you think he knew what he was talking about because he "lived" it, sure had a faulty memory and made up some "weird" stuff..
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OldSkool
I dunno, VeePee and this "type" could be reasoned birds of a feather?
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
Lamsa's books were: Gospel Light, New Testament Commentary, Old Testament Light, More Light on the Gospels, Idioms in the Bible Explained, Hidden Years of Jesus, Man from Gallilee, And the Scroll Opened, My Neighbor Jesus, New Testament Origin, Shepherd of All, Key to Original Gospels, Kingdom on Earth(Sermon on Mount). Rocco Errico: Setting a Trap for God/Aramaic Prayer of Jesus(Lord's Prayer), Let there be Light/7 Keys, There was Light, Mysteries of Creation/Genesis Story, Message of Matthew. Joint production: Aramaic Light series= Gospel of Matthew, Gospels of Mark and Luke, Gospel of John.
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
The best book I have found is New Illustrated Bible Manners and Customs: How the people of the Bible really lived = Howard F. Vos, Thomas Nelson Publishers. The book is really in depth with Hebrew/Semetic, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin influences on Scripture. Discuss this. btw where is Abagail and James Trimm, or John Juddes when discussing something like this?. I doubt VPW, LCM, CG, or Rosie would have appreciated the book, saying there was error and too denominational/ecumenical demon possessed seed people(Invasion of the Body Snatchers, oh the irony is too laughable).
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
I guess maybe this should have been in doctrinal forum but since this forum is read more, I thought the topic would get more response. Interstingly Bullinger claimed that there were between 200 and 300 figures of speech used in the Bible, while both Lamsa and Errico claimed in Aramaic it was over 1,000 figures of speech. Also in Bullinger's Numbers in Scripture is discussion of colors and sounds(how does that relate to numerology?). I guess no one is really interested in this topic. I was hoping that there would be more posts from other folks. Que sera, sera.
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Pax
My son (14) is home-schooled (for educational reasons, not religious). He showed an interest in figures of speech so I bought him a copy of crazy EWB's "Figures of Speech in the Bible." Where else will you find such a systematic presentation of figures with examples? My son is a bit wary, since it's so biblical, but has been spied looking things up in it.
EWB WAS NUTS... but obsessives like him sometimes do the dirty work the rest of us are too busy living to do.
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Gen-2
And it has really cool illustrations every once in a while if you get the paperback one (I've never seen it in Hardcover But it's much bigger than Pillai's books). It seems a lot more believable than K.C. Pillai's homespun yarns too. But really,... pictures! It's cool because it has pictures! And it's well organized. and not written in Bible-Scholar-speak.
Is it really useful?
Well,.... to quote OldSkool from earlier in this thread,... " Found it insightful but not earth shattering." ...but a fun diversion while you're baking a pie or somesuch.
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
Ethelbert William Bullinger was born and raised as a British Free Methodist. He showed interest in music and his father thought he should major in organ. Bullinger thought the Church of England was the proper way to go, rejecting the Tractarian movements of Oxford and Cambridge. Obviously he was more a true scholar but influenced by Darby and Scolfield became ultra-dispensationalist and was friends with Charles Welch. He may have been outside the mainstream of denominational Christianity but unlike Wierwille and gang(who can't even pronounce pneuma, the letter p is silent and is pronounced nay-oo-ma. we don't say P neumonia or P nuematic nailgun) who were jerks pretending to be smart, EWB compared to those bozos was a genius. We will now receive the offering, uh abundant sharing now.
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Tzaia
Does knowing about the "figures of speech" used in the bible really increase the likelihood that one can act on the wisdom better, or is focusing on that merely a distraction from the really hard work of living it?
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Pax
Knowing figures of speech has had ZERO affect on my Christian walk... maybe I should go back and try again? lol
As EWB never, to my knowledge, tried to mock God and attack innocents under his pastoral care... his craziness PALES in comparison to the psychopathology of Victor.
If all nutty scholars were sent to the bottom of the sea, we'd have very few dry scholars. God bless EWB who mistaken thought scripture was perfect... he may have helped some people, like me, waste time, but no one was too badly hurt.
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Gen-2
Good Point Tzaia!
Most of the people (Not all, but certainly most) I know that are really brainy about the Bible, end up carving out their own little systems of believing, But hour to hour and day by day, you'd be hard pressed to recognize that they have anything to do with God --- unless of course - you asked them. and when they "witness" it's worth the price of admission to a comedy club, as they have no idea what to do if the other person doesn't agree completely with them from the get-go. They just get angry and badmouth that person when they walk off declaring how little they know.
BUT
The funniest part is watching them being artificially sweet when they meet the new prospect (person), venemous-sweet poisonous-honey dripping from their fangs on approach after sizing up the enemy... er,... new person...
...And if you laugh at them - even a little - they spin! Spin! SPIN!!!!
It can be outstanding fun! Just stay out of throwing range!
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Pax
I used to sit in after-school twig meetings (even before "twigs")
and listen to KC Pillai on reel-to-reel Wallensack tape recorders with my friends [JS, KS, CR].
It took hours to get accustomed to his accent.
The light through the eastern window was pretty rosy due to our Victor-ian spectacles.
I still occasionally tell his conversion story to groups.. not sure why
except that it's dramatic,
I like it,
and so do they.
Who here has had their image burned in effigy?
(or have I added that?)
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TrustAndObey
Oh, flashbacks of my old self.. Thought I was doing the right thing, getting into these debates with people over stupid TWI bs.. Thought I was really proclaiming der verd of gawd.. Yeah.. Making God look bad is what I was "really" doing.. I'm really really sorry God! Really! Did I say "really" enough.. Reminds me of the SNL skits.. Geez..
I've found 90% of what I've learned about the Bible to be utterly false or worthless in my real relationship with my Father and my Lord and the rest of my brothers and sisters on this earth. Maybe just me.. Orientalisms.. Found most of those to be just opinions that wary with the speaker.. Figures of speeches.. Maybe only once has it been actually useful in helping understand a scripture, and then it was just negligible.. Pronunciations.. Lol.. Yeah, if anyone actually took a biblical language course in college would know that it varied from dialect and location and no one "REALLY" knows how it was pronounced, but then.. I'm not debating any specfics here. Just not worth it..
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Pax
I think immediately of Sarah Palin, who is witnessing on a national level to her defenseless beliefs.*
[That voodoo preacher who kicked the spirit of witchcraft out of her on video, needs to come back and finish up his imaginary hoodoo.]
*You know, the kind that will make her friends richer and richer (drill baby drill) and make millions of Americans enjoy the less abundant life. Sarah, you're witnessing, but God is WATCHING.
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
afraid we are straying too much away from the topic. What about Lamsa or Rocco Erricco, his protoge? how about talking that? let the discussions begin
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Twinky
Okay, Thomas, let's see. I thought Lamsa's books were good little books to begin with, but wondered at his ability to be completely sure about what was what then. Had no idea he wrote so many.
Suppose any of us decided to write about our own culture even say 500 years ago? It's not innate. We'd have to do shedloads of research. Passed-down folk histories don't do it. Customs do change. (To some extent, even Wierwille acknowledged this by saying that every generation has to make the Bible its own.) We make the culture our own and the customs that go with it differ, generation to generation.
Artefacts can be left, but good archaeologists from any culture can interpret them to the best of knowledge then known. Archaeologists' opinions, however, can vary widely.
How much harder, then, to interpret something that leaves no physical trace, and very little trace in culture today?
Lamsa has a different viewpoint because he has a different background. It's always worth considering other people's viewpoints. But it doesn't make them righter or wronger than our own viewpoint.
To a large extent - all this is "head knowledge" - but what does it really do for "heart knowledge"? Does it help to be told that "burning coals on the head" means "it's a great blessing"? Is that not weird? Seems to me, if someone has to keep a fire burning, they know how to do it - you don't get someone running around with a firebox on his head and getting filthy dirty. Keeping fires burning was so very important that keeping them banked (burning very slowly) was a skill quickly learned. (There's a pub in England that reputedly has not let its fire go out since early 1700s - you think they're the only ones who know that? When I was a little kid, in the winter months, our own house fire was never allowed to go out.)
Lamsa's explanations need to be considered along with any other evidence or suggestions that might explain something unusual to us. His views are a long way from gospel.
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chockfull
I always thought Alfred Edersheim's works were a little better on the life and times of Bible culture. But it seems he put a lot of research effort into it - his books show that.
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