Friday, 19 April 2013

En Soma: One Body

En Soma: Cleveland

Young Adult Unity Summit Do you pray for unity? Do you think it is a vital part of our faith?
 Do you want to become active in bridging gaps between ecclesias?
 Are you a brother or sister between the ages of 18 and 30?

 If you answered yes to these questions, Cleveland is the place to be this spring! En Soma ("One Body," from 1 Corinthians 10:17) is a weekend summit for young adults within the Christadelphian/CGAF community who want to promote unity within the Body of Christ.
English: folio 150 recto of the codex, with th...
English: folio 150 recto of the codex, with the beginning of the 1. Epistle to the Corrinthians (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


When: May 17-19, 2013 Where: Church Of The Blessed Hope, 7450 Wilson Mills Road, Chesterland, OH 44026

Speakers: Bre. Kyle Tucker, John Mannell, Scott Tennant, and Alan Guist

Friday evening’s activities will begin at 7 pm. After pizza, devotion, and social time, participants will be directed to their host families’ homes. Study sessions will take place on Saturday, after which we will enjoy dinner and devotion. We plan to conclude with lunch following the Sunday morning worship service. Information and registration can be found at ensoma.weebly.com.

 Please register by May 1. Contact Sis. Livi Jones at livijones@ymail.com with any questions.
We hope to see you this May for an uplifting and productive weekend!
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Thursday, 18 April 2013

Control and change





“You cannot control what happens to you,
but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you,
and in that,
you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.”
Brian Tracy


"The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear."
Brian Tracy

"Every great success is an accumulation of thousands of ordinary efforts that no one sees or appreciates."
Brian Tracy


You have within you, right now, everything you...
You have within you, right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you. -Brian Tracy (Photo credit: deeplifequotes)

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Perspectives on the Formation of the Book of the Twelve

PFBT
Rainer Albertz, James D. Nogalski, and Jakob Wöhrle wrote "Perspectives on the Formation of the Book of the Twelve" wanting to show unity of the twelve Minor Prophets as one, complete Book of the Twelve. 

Matthew V. Moss of Durham University had a look at the book and reviews this latest compilation of essays intended to further the discussion of potential theories for how these twelve documents were stitched together into a unified book.
With few exceptions, the twenty-four essays that make up Perspectives adopt redaction criticism’s presuppositions and assume the reader’s familiarity with that methodology. As such, the intended readership of Perspectives is, in this author’s estimation, other established scholars interested in the formation and textual history of the BT as well as postgraduate students who already possess some familiarity with both redaction criticism and the previous debates on the unity of the BT.
As Sweeney explains it, “Analysis of the Book of the Twelve must begin with the synchronic task of assessing the final forms of the versional texts in question, e.g., the Septuagint, Masoretic, and other relevant forms, to address the diachronic question of their respective socio-religious, socio-political, and historical settings. Only then may work turn to the diachronic process of reconstructing the literary growth that led to those textual forms (23).” From this point and moving forward Sweeney is concerned with the different sequence of the first six of the twelve prophets as found in the Septuagint over and against that found in the Masoretic Text. Obviously, having Joel read in light of Micah provides a very different synchronic reading than one where Micah is read in light of Joel. Thus, different theological and socio-political circumstances are diachronically examined to explain the different sequences and their literary effects.

Please do find the review: Rainer Albertz, James D. Nogalski, and Jakob Wöhrle, Eds. Perspectives on the Formation of the Book of the Twelve: Methodological Foundations – Redactional Processes – Historical Insights. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012. ISBN 9783110283341. 

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The Nash Papyrus (2nd century BC) contains a p...
The Nash Papyrus (2nd century BC) contains a portion of a pre-Masoretic Text, specifically the Ten Commandments and the Shema Yisrael prayer. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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English translations of the Masoretic and Samaritan versions

Eisenbrauns has just released an English parallel edition: English translations of the Masoretic and Samaritan versions.
Samaritan and the Samaritan Torah
Samaritan and the Samaritan Torah (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Samaritan Pentateuch, written in standard Aramaic block script, which has about six thousand differences from the Masoretic Pentateuch, some of them minor, but others quite significant,  has a convenient parallel edition of the Masoretic and Samaritan Pentateuch in Hebrew, with the differences in boldface.

The ancient Samaritanism today is a tiny religion, with about 750 members.  The group is so small that intermarriage is now problematic, and genetic defects common.  These efforts, and others in Hebrew, can help to preserve at least part of Samaritan traditions.

John Wheeler (Johanan Rakkav) does find that there would be a simple solution to the problem of phonetic communication in language, and that would be the adoption of Masoretic Hebrew as the preferred language.

Even Israeli Hebrew, with its amalgamation of AshkenazicSephardic and Oriental Jewish pronunciations, is very much more phonetic than any dialect of English. And Israeli Hebrew still uses the Masoretic spelling conventions that every printed Hebrew Bible uses.

Please do continue reading about this translation:

Samaritan Torah in English

and about the Masoretic Hebrew:

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Tuesday, 16 April 2013

The professor, God, Faith and the student


TAKE TIME TO READ. It's worth reading it. Trust me :)



Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?

Student : Absolutely, sir.

Professor : Is GOD good ?

Student : Sure.

Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?

Student : Yes.

Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?

(Student was silent.)

Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Is satan good ?

Student : No.

Professor: Where does satan come from ?

Student : From … GOD …

Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?

Student : Yes.

Professor: So who created evil ?

(Student did not answer.)

Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, who created them ?

(Student had no answer.)

Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?

Student : No, sir.

Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?

Student : No , sir.

Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?

Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.

Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?

Student : Yes.

Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?

Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.

Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.

Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

Professor: Yes.

Student : And is there such a thing as cold?

Professor: Yes.

Student : No, sir. There isn’t.

(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)

Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?

Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?

Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?

Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?

Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.

Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?

Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.

Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)

Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

(The class was in uproar.)

Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?

(The class broke out into laughter. )

Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)

Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.

Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.

P.S.

I believe you have enjoyed the conversation. And if so, you’ll probably want your friends / colleagues to enjoy the same, won’t you?

Forward this to increase their knowledge … or FAITH.

By the way, that student was EINSTEIN.
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