Mathematical exactness and scientific precision...

[Steve Lortz]

I'm currently taking a first year Greek class, and we've finally gotten around to studying the use of participles in the Greek.

While it can truly be said that Greek uses prepostions with a "mathematical exactness and a scientific precision"... much more so even, than the use of prepositions in English... the same thing cannot be said about the Greek use of participles.

I dug out my old copy of "Fundamentals of Greek Research" by Walter J. Cummins. FoGR contains a few rudimentary items that are useful, such as how to use a concordance, the meanings of some of the most common prepositions, and a crude synopsis of Greek tenses, but for the most part FoGR uses examples of interpretation taken from PFAL, and reinforces those interpretations, even when the Greek does not necessarily do so. There was NO mention of participles. The closest is in a quote from page 21, "Other parts of speech and constructions are used just as precisely as the prepositions. The Greeks were a very mathematical people, and so was their language."

That's just not true. The Greek thinking behind participles was so different from our way of thinking about participles, a direct translation of a participial phase into English usually doesn't make sense. Translating a participial phrase from Greek into English REQUIRES guesswork, informed by information from other parts of the sentence.

Most of the big debates, about what particular passages from the New Testament mean, involve a participial phrase. The example our professor brought up spontaneously in class was Acts 19:2a, "He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" The phrase "since ye believed" is the translation of a single Greek participle, and could just a accurately be translated "when ye believed" or "because ye believed."

Wierwille taught us that interpretation of the Bible has a degree of certainty which in truth, it does not have. Of course Wierwille's goal was for us to accept HIS interpretation as the only one having mathematical exactness and scientific presion. It had neither.

Love,

Steve

Edited February 1, 2012 by Steve Lortz

[Rejoice]

Wow...and you learned the clarity of this in just your first year Greek class?? I've often wondered if the TWI offshoot leaders have ever bothered to become educated in the languages of the bible beyond what VPW told them? Probably not.

[Ham]

I dunno. Languages are logical in a general sense..

we all have a semblance of logic. One professor called it "Metalogic" or something like that.. it's built in, but fallible. It's tied directly to english (and other) languages..

Mathematical people, hah..

we are all mathematicians, but just don't know it..

[TrustAndObey]

Wow...and you learned the clarity of this in just your first year Greek class?? I've often wondered if the TWI offshoot leaders have ever bothered to become educated in the languages of the bible beyond what VPW told them? Probably not.

I can't say as far as Walter Cummins or Wayne Clap, since I never knew them, but I can say that the majority (and that even includes Mr. Schoenheit of STFI) have little clue about Koine Greek (Geer and Lynn's inabilities in the languages are too evident). Ed. Horney was teaching Greek at TWI for the in-rez Corps when I was with them, and he had no clue and made countless mistakes in every hour of his teaching(s). The Greek handouts they gave out to the Corps had inaccuracies as Steve pointed out. And they never really taught Greek anyways. Mostly how to look it up in a concordance, transliterate, parse words using a lexicon, do word studies, and understand a few basic grammar principles (albeit many were inaccurate). It'd be like asking the "trained" in TWI what the aorist tense is used for, much less ask them why it has the past tense modifier mixed with the future tense modifier. No, they would give you an English grammar equivalent that is inaccurate because it was given in their "Greek handout". And Hebrew... lol.. At least Mr. Schoenheit has some better understanding there... But the rest.. Don't ask, their blind.

Edited: I guess I'm being a little unfair.. Even a first year Greek student will learn basics that are then later refined and even basic understandings changed the more years you learn the language. What you once were taught was similar to the English Present tense no longer is the case later on. But for a beginner, you have to start somewhere. And that usually includes drawing similarities between what you know and what you don't. But TWI did the disservice of making their "trained" feel like they actually knew something, when a lot of it was just pure rubbish.

Edited February 3, 2012 by TrustAndObey

[waysider]

Personally, I don't believe the Bible is mathematically exact or scientifically precise. In fact, I think parts of it may be intentionally ambiguous and obtuse. But, that's just an opinion.

[Ham]

but we still have some of the logic of language, embedded in our souls..

what gives with that..

[Ham]

Desmond has a barrow in the market place, Molly is a singer in the band..

Well, if you want some fun, take...

[waysider]

Desmond has a barrow in the market place, Molly is a singer in the band..

Well, if you want some fun, take...

And yet....

.

[Ham]

I listened to this conglomerate of music on the down side of a lsd trip once..

It has to be heading somewhere, or doesn't it?

she's not a girl who misses much..

Martha, my dear..

Blackbird singing in the dead of night..

[waysider]

Does exacting precision have a place in a world that thrives on chaos?

Edited February 4, 2012 by waysider

[Thomas Loy Bumgarner]

what?no interlinears like George Ricker Berry, or Jay Green, or Robert Young's Analytical concordance, Strong's Exhaustive, or Bullinger's Lexicon and Concordance? Vine's Greek word studies? :unsure: :wacko: :blink:

[Rejoice]

Personally, I don't believe the Bible is mathematically exact or scientifically precise. In fact, I think parts of it may be intentionally ambiguous and obtuse. But, that's just an opinion.

I tend to agree. After all, it says "We know in part, and we prophesy in part". I don't know if the Bible is intentionally ambiguous, but then again, we got it delivered through imperfect men. I'm sure it has been edited; those at the Council of Nicea messed with it a lot!

[JumpinJive]

I tend to agree. After all, it says "We know in part, and we prophesy in part". I don't know if the Bible is intentionally ambiguous, but then again, we got it delivered through imperfect men. I'm sure it has been edited; those at the Council of Nicea messed with it a lot!

I tend to agree too. Imperfect men also decided which writings should be considered truly "biblical" and even that isn't a settled issue.

-jj

[Steve Lortz]

I tend to agree. After all, it says "We know in part, and we prophesy in part". I don't know if the Bible is intentionally ambiguous, but then again, we got it delivered through imperfect men. I'm sure it has been edited; those at the Council of Nicea messed with it a lot!

I think there ARE places where the Bible is intentionally ambiguous. Without digging out my concordance, some of Jesus' parables come to mind, where everybody looks around afterwards and says "Whu... ?"

Love,

Steve

[Jbarrax]

Me three.

VP's "mathematical exactness" nonsense was a tactic to get us to accept his doctrines as genuine truth. Not only is it not a valid truth, it contradicts one of the first things taught in the PFAL class. In the section on "How we got the Word" --second session I think-- He said that the prophets wrote what God told them, but men used their own vocabularies.

Most of you will remember the "nincompoop" example and the fact that he contrasted the tone of Mark and John's gospel by saying John had 'beautiful PHD language" that Mark lacked.

Yet how many times did Way leaders do "word studies" that track the use of a single Greek word through the New Testament based on the assumption that the use of that word was a string of divine pearls? What if one of the NT writers didn't have that word in his vocabulary? Wouldn't he use a synonym or related idiom? Of course he would. Why was that never addressed when these "word studies" were presented?

Because that would undermine the myth of mathematical exactness and scientific precision, a basic building block in VP's doctrinal house of cards.

[cman]

the phrase itself don't 'add-up'

spiritually or in physics

the sciences are the basic launching pad of all other learning subjects

such as math or languages or art or music or, what was called civics, in my classes

math is a product of science

music and art are math based

languages are a mix of science and math and really just life in motion

spiritually one must go beyond science or math to understand

you can etch in stone 1+1=2

but you can't stick the spirit in a box and say 'that's what it is'

in fact it is quite the opposite, as we are acted upon, and not,

as some suppose, in charge of God, or the Spirit, or figuring them out

[cman]

i suppose i should add that this is how i see it

seems i killed the thread....

[Steve Lortz]

i suppose i should add that this is how i see it

seems i killed the thread....

Don't sweat the load, cman! Not every thread could or should go on for ever. Thanks for putting in your share!

Love,

Steve

Edited February 9, 2012 by Steve Lortz

[Jbarrax]

Yeah, what he said. :-)

[Human without the bean]

i suppose i should add that this is how i see it

seems i killed the thread....

Actually, it was Ham reminiscing his acid trip while listening to the white album

while Waysider was quoting beatle songs that probably killed this thread! Oh by

the way, I must confess I had that same trip too.

Maybe if the phrase were turned around? Scientific exactness and mathematical precision. Yeah, that's it!

Once again, the world is right-side up!

Edited February 10, 2012 by Human without the bean

[waysider]

I'm not so sure I killed the thread but

.

[Ham]

Sowie. I didn't kill the thread. I just got drunk while reading it..

Mathematics isn't entirely real, at least the majority of the time..

mathematical exactness. hah..

well, it is real unto itself..

Sowie. I listed to White Album.. and 12 dreams of Dr. sardonicus on the lower side of a trip once..

they just keep coming back..

[Ham]

What's really weird, is looking at my hands. I'm the same as I was then, but parts of me have a few wrinkles they didn't have before..

there is only one dream left that I've had.. haven't seen it happen yet..

maybe it is on the other side of this reality.. I dunno.

[Ham]

the closest fulfillment in this life..

we were all assembled, some mixing with others.. dressed in black..

in my dream, we were all dressed in white..

weird..

it's like.. it was not even close..

then there are times..

sowy, I've said enough..

Well.. despite a few diversions, today was one of the best days of my life. How about you?

[socks]

I'll take up that cross with you Jerry.

"Yet how many times did Way leaders do "word studies" that track the use of a single Greek word through the New Testament based on the assumption that the use of that word was a string of divine pearls?"

Yes, the "word study" - god, don't get me started. Armed with concordance and Bible, the damage that can be done.

In it's simplest form this is a wonderful study aid to the reading of the Bible.

But that weird obtuse Way-kind of logic, that after some foray through the N.T. looking at the "greek word for" something, plodding through verse after verse and then coming to some quacked conclusion that made no difference to anyone about anything remotely worthwhile but inevitably tied into some great "principle" or.....geez.

Yeah.

Hamerstein, what think ye of this: http://www.chem.tamu.edu/class/fyp/mathrev/mr-sigfg.html

It's not mine but as a launching point for discussion....

I roam the world of metrics from time to time and the ideas around "accuracy" and "precision" have taken on specific meanings to me. How would you define them, from a math perspective?