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Acts 2


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(This originally appeared on Raf's thread about SIT, etc.)

I've just declared my intention to write a thesis this week. It'll probably take a couple of years to finish. I'm going to translate Acts 2 from the Greek myself, and I've started work on only the very first phrase, "kai en toi sumplerousthai ten hemeran tes pentekostes", which the KJV has as "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come". I think it would be closer to the Greek sense to say "and during the topping-off of the day of Pentecost", since sumplerousthai means "to fill full".

It's comforting to know that I will not be working in the intellectual vacuum of TWI, but under the supervision of a multitude of professors at a seminary that is not fundamentalist and that does not formally recognize SIT as something presently valid. I just spent the last couple of days organizing an informal support network consisting of seven of my profs who are interested in my project. SIT will be a side issue (though an important one) to my goal, which is to interpret Acts chapter 2 through the lens of Walter Kaiser's "promise-plan" system of unifying the material in the Bible. Kaiser's promise-plan is a vastly better organizing system than Darby's dispensationalism OR Reformation covenant theology. The heavy lifting of the project will be explaining how "the person and work of the Holy Spirit" fits in, or, the difference between the Giver and the Gift.

One of the things I'm going to have to do is demonstrate the relationship between God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the role of spirit set forth in a Stoic interpretation of I Corinthians 8:6. I've already blown one prof's mind with that one!

I think I will start a thread about this project on the Docrinal forum, so I will be able to include all of you in my support network. And after following you in the Actual Errors in PFAL, Raf, I know your input would be very valuable in keeping my feet to the fire! Thanks!

Love,

Steve

Edited by Steve Lortz
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Ok, so let's start with some obvious questions: How many languages were heard? If it's more than 12, that would seem to indicate there were more than 12 people SITting.

No?

Well... I actually have to start with the most obvious question of all... what did Luke mean when he wrote "...kai en toi sumplerousthai ten hemeran tes pentecostes..."

I currently think it can be translated accurately as "and during the topping-off of the day of Pentecost..."

That's as far as I've gotten so far...

No wait... FIRST, I have to ask how probable was it that "Luke" wrote it? ...and did he mean it as history?... or as theology? ... or as BOTH? Did "Luke" get his chocolate mixed up with his peanut butter?

I have begun reading I. Howard Marshall's Luke: Historian and Theologian, (Grand Rapids, Zondervan: 1970) to see what he has to say about it, and to keep a reading journal so I can reference what I've read, if I need to later.

I think it's going to take about two years to do this topic (A Translation of Acts 2 through the Lens of Walter Kaiser's Diachronic Promise-Plan Organizing Principle) right. There will be times when this thread moves at a seeming snail's pace. I guarantee it won't be what we were taught in PFAL.

The paper will also need a biblically derived definition of "spirit", and an explanation of the Stoic concept of "spirit" to show how I Corinthians 8:6 sheds light on the happenings of Acts 2.

Stay tuned and be patient...

And please keep my feet to the fire!

Love,

Steve

Edited by Steve Lortz
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With respect to Acts 2.

What are you indicating or seeing in 1 Cor 8:6?

I Corinthians 8:6 doesn't contain the word "spirit", but the use of the prepositions "out from" (ek) and "into" (eis) imply a concept the Stoics called "tonic motion", and attributed to the spirit which informs all of the cosmos, and transmits the logos (the will of the hegemonikon) from the hegemonikon (the mind of the cosmos) throughout the cosmos.

I am what we are learning in Theology and Culture to call a "social outlier"! That's part of the reason I think it's gonna take me a couple o' years to write this puppy!

Love,

Steve

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I just need to know if your thesis is intended to be read by Jesuit priests, Buddhist monks or angry atheists.

My profs don't fit into any of those categories, nor are they evangelical protestants, nor fundamentalists. The group came out of the Holiness Movement of the 1880s, so it has some parallels with the Wesleyans, however, this particular group rejected all creeds as man-made and divisive. There are all kinds of Christians in our classes, including a Quaker "pastor" and a Coptic Egyptian. It's more fun than a barrel of monkeys! but it does have its own form of rigor. Today's Theology and Culture presentation/seminar was on post-modern deconstruction (in favor of, cuz that particular prof is younger than I am).

Love,

Steve

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Why does it matter who the thesis is intended to be read by? As long as "jargon," being terms where the meaning is known by a particular closed group, surely whatever Steve finds should be available to all? We ex-TWI folk have had enough jargon (Wayspeak) to last our lifetimes. Steve's terms have to be defined, not known and understood only by the in-crowd. With such a mixed bunch of fellow students, jargon may be naturally limited.

Having said that, I'm not entirely sure what "social outlier" or "post-modern deconstruction" mean!

Steve, look forward to your postings on this thread.

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Curious to know his capacity for intellectual freedom. If his professors are Dawkins and Hawking, he's wasting his time. If they are Robertson and Billy Graham, he is not advised to question the authorship or historicity of Acts. Just want to know how free he can be.

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Curious to know his capacity for intellectual freedom. If his professors are Dawkins and Hawking, he's wasting his time. If they are Robertson and Billy Graham, he is not advised to question the authorship or historicity of Acts. Just want to know how free he can be.

My Theology and Culture professor is named Robertson, and he will be my thesis mentor (a job I used to do for seniors at the high school where my "day job" was teaching 7th graders how to write persuasive essays), but he ain't THAT Robertson! Due to an unusual conjunction of circumstances, I can be as free as the breeze, and I know my profs will evaluate me on how well I do my research (REAL research, not TWI crap), and how I do the presentation, not on whether my conclusions agree with pre-conceived dogma.

I can say that because I have written some pretty controversial class papers already, and I spend a lot of time hanging out with the profs during their office hours.

I originally came to school as an undergraduate here in the fall of 1967. I have learned that several of my profs graduated in the spring of 1967, and we were like ships that passed in the night. We can talk about buildings and events and people who were significant on campus 45 years ago, like when the SDS people came over from the local state university to try to organize a leftist political peace movement, but were frustrated because there was already a well-organized religious peace movement on campus.

Well, when these profs left in the spring of '67, they made a plan to come back and take over the seminary. They don't think they've succeeded, because they've pretty much been here on a day-by-day basis, but I haven't! I've been adventuring around for the last 45 years (only 7 in TWI, only about 9 with CES), and I see some BIG CHANGES that have happened here. Some of the younger profs are more radical (in a theological, not a political sense)than us old geezers, but we think that is a good thing, more open to changes we had to take risks to pioneer. Right now, right here, I think there is more openness to honest, thoughful re-examination than any other place I know of.

I broke myself of spouting TWI jargon after I left CES. Sometimes that's what pains me so much when I read the latest thing John Lynn has put out. I am learning how to state the things I believe in the recognizable language of genuine scholarship, and I believe I will be successful, and will be allowed to be successful!

Love,

Steve

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Oh, man, thia is gonna be good!

This. I meant this.

I do not know Thia and can't vouch for her beyond some bathroom wall commentary.

Sometimes I feel like kicking myself in the head until I'm senseless... :asdf:

When I came home from Acts class today, my wife and I went through a little routine we do. When I come in the front door I can walk straight across the parlor and go into the bedroom. In the bedroom, I can turn right and go into the kitchen. In the kitchen, I can turn right and walk into my "scriptorium" (home office). In the scriproium, I can turn right and walk back into the parlor. This is an old house, and the corner where the four rooms meet is where the fireplace and chimney were located before they put central heating in.

So my wife is usually in the bedroom when I come in and I say, "I'm home!" She starts going through the kitchen and scriptorium to meet me while I go through the bedroom and the kitchen. We go around for a few times, calling out to each other, "Hey, where are you? I can hear you, but I can't see you!" Then one of us decides to quit playing and stops.

As we were doing that this noon, It struck me that I could use trigonometric functions to diagram our game as a circle on polar coordinate graph paper. We weouldn't be able to see each other because our positions (points of view) on the circle were out of phase and both were dynamic and in parallel. When one of us stopped, that point of view became static, and the one with the point of view that was still dynamic would meet the other because the phase was no longer parallel. (That was all stuff I had to learn in order to keep from destroying the Pogy by paralleling two electrical turbo-generators out of phase.)

While I was walking back up on campus for my afternoon Greek class, I was thinking that linear perspective, which was one of the keys to naturalistic representation in the Renaissance, has conditioned me to view things by default from a static point of view. (I learned that as an art major, in a galaxy far, far away, a long time ago.) When I got to class, and we started reviewing the advanced definitions of Greek tenses, it ALL fell into place... In English, we think of the passage of time from a static point of view... the Greeks thought of the passage of time from a dynamic point of view!

This has no direct bearing on the immediate matter of this thread, but I know it's going to come into play somewhere before this thesis is finished.

I want to kick myself in the head because now, I know, that I'm going to have to learn how to explain it!

Thanks for your patience, ALL you fans!

Love,

Steve

CORRECTION: Our points of view on the circle were IN phase until one of us stopped. That's when they went out of phase, and we could meet!

Edited by Steve Lortz
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Hey Steve,

I know you were asking for references in the SIT thread and I thought you might find this paper useful...... http://www.asa3.org/...68Jennings.html

It cites many studies, papers, and books you might find helpful as well. Although it is not dealing with tongues in ancient cultures particularly.....it does explore tongues in current non Christian cultures.

I am getting a bit confused about what goes where now, so, I am not sure this is the right place to give this to you. I would have simply sent it to you privately, but, since it opens up a whole new set of questions about SIT.....especially for the Christian reader....I thought others may enjoy it as well. Hope it is okay I posted it here.

Geisha

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Hey Steve,

I know you were asking for references in the SIT thread and I thought you might find this paper useful...... http://www.asa3.org/...68Jennings.html

It cites many studies, papers, and books you might find helpful as well. Although it is not dealing with tongues in ancient cultures particularly.....it does explore tongues in current non Christian cultures.

I am getting a bit confused about what goes where now, so, I am not sure this is the right place to give this to you. I would have simply sent it to you privately, but, since it opens up a whole new set of questions about SIT.....especially for the Christian reader....I thought others may enjoy it as well. Hope it is okay I posted it here.

Geisha

This is a good thread for considering the reference you posted. Part of the reason I started this thread is because I know Raf doesn't want his thread to become too doctrinal. I scanned the article, though I will have to read it in detail later. I welcome your participation in this discussion. I need to understand YOUR point of view especially while I'm working on this paper!

Love,

Steve

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