Mark's Yeshua Problem

[ahasp]

Mark has used as a prime example of not trusting the Bible the fact that Christ's name was originally Yeshua (or Joshua) not Jesus.  The problem with this is that Yeshua is a word in Hebrew and the New Testament (which gives the name of Christ) was written in Greek, not Hebrew.  The name for Christ in the original text was the Greek name Iēsoûs, Yeshua is a translation of the name given in the Greek, just as Jesus is a translation of the original Greek into English. 

[blackie]

I don't need a reason not to trust the bible, I need reasons why I should trust the bible.

[John Shaw]

I don't need a reason not to trust the bible, I need reasons why I should trust the bible.

Proof: Because you will go to hell and be tortured if you don't.

snoogans

[FTL_Mark]

I don't understand why this simple situation is so hard for some people to grasp (actually I do, they don't want to grasp it).

Let me run it down again. Jesus's name isn't Jesus, its Yeshua. That is his name. My name is Mark; it isn't Marc, Marco, Marcos, Marcus, Marek, Mario, Marius, Markey, Marko, Markos, Markov, Markus, Marq, Marque, Marques, Marquus, Marik, March, Mirko or Mirek. If you call me one of those things, you are in error.

It doesn't matter if the translation issue doesn't bother YOUR sensibilities, it bothers MINE and the question is: would a fair and just god send me to eternal torment, a punishment far worse than the sickest most pedagogic father on earth could ever do to their child, for rejecting his "unerring word" when he couldn't get his savior's name right?  Answer that question, not one you have made up for yourself!

[BobRobertson]

No one has conjectured that I could quite possibly be a Libertarian posing as an Anarchist trying to pretend to still be a Libertarian; or what I like to call an Anarcho-Hustler.

Not to derail this fascinating and relevant (puke!) thread, but Mark, I thought you considered yourself a minarchist?

Have you reconsidered the position that there "must" be a final arbiter, then?

[sandm000]

Mark has used as a prime example of not trusting the Bible the fact that Christ's name was originally Yeshua (or Joshua) not Jesus.  The problem with this is that Yeshua is a word in Hebrew and the New Testament (which gives the name of Christ) was written in Greek, not Hebrew.  The name for Christ in the original text was the Greek name Iēsoûs, Yeshua is a translation of the name given in the Greek, just as Jesus is a translation of the original Greek into English. 

Why was Jesus' name in Greek in the first place? Shouldn't it have been in Aramaic? or are you saying that it was written by the Greeks as they heard it, and Mark is retranslating it from Greek to Aramaic? And how is it any less wrong, that they heard one thing, when his name was another?

[cavalier973]

*It doesn't matter if the translation issue doesn't bother YOUR sensibilities, it bothers MINE and the question is: would a fair and just god send me to eternal torment, a punishment far worse than the sickest most pedagogic father on earth could ever do to their child, for rejecting his "unerring word" when he couldn't get his savior's name right?  Answer that question, not one you have made up for yourself!*

Living eternally in His presence in an unredeemed state would be far worse torment.  Imagine having to live in the presence of someone you detest, yet everyone around you is always going on and on about how great He is...

I argue that a good part of the torment of Hell is, having seen God, to be denied a relationship with him.  Then, there is an argument that I find intriguing, that the "burning" in hell is the burning of shame: 

[[http://www.christian-thinktank.com/gr5part2.html
The traditional evangelical view DOES NOT include the active, monstrous torments that occur in the more speculative religious literature (Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian), in those vivid medieval paintings, in some fundamentalist preaching, or in many skeptics' formulation of this objection!

 To demonstrate this, let me simply quote from two VERY traditional sources, one evangelical protestant (very conservative and holding to the traditional view of hell) and from a modern (but still conservative) Catholic work.

The first is from Immortality: The Other Side of Death, by Gary Habermas and J.P. Moreland  [CS:IOSD:169-170, 172, 174, 159]:

 "Before proceeding, though, one more preliminary is in order. We do not accept the idea that hell is a place where God actively tortures people forever and ever.  There will indeed be everlasting, conscious, mental and physical torment in various degrees according to the lives people have lived here on earth. But the essence of that torment is relational in nature: the banishment from heaven and all it stands for. Mental and physical anguish result from the sorrow and shame of the judgment of being forever relationally excluded from God, heaven, and so forth. It is not due to God himself inflicting torture."

"In response, we should first point out that we would agree that an un-ending hell of moment by moment, active torture by God would be unjust and hard to square with his love and the intrinsic dignity of man. But we have already shown that our understanding of hell is different from the torture-chamber model."

"Remember, hell is not a torture chamber, and people in hell are not howling like dogs in mind-numbing pain. There are degrees of anguish in hell."

"The Bible describes hell primarily in relational terms--it is 'away from' God. Therefore, it involves banishment from his presence, his purposes, and his followers. Like heaven, hell is a freely chosen destination. What we decide to believe and do in this life sets us on a road leading to a final destination in the next...Hell is also a place of shame, sorrow, regret, and anguish. This intense pain is not actively produced by God; he is not a cosmic torturer. Undoubtedly, anguish and torment will exist in hell. And because we will have both body and soul in the resurrected state, the anguish experienced can be both mental and physical. But the pain suffered will be due to the shame and sorrow resulting from the punishment of final, ultimate, unending banishment from God, his kingdom, and the good life for which we were created in the first place. Hell's occupants will deeply and tragically regret all they lost. As Jesus said, 'For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?' (Matt 16:26)"

"The Bible's picture of hell, therefore, indicates that upon death, some people will be translated into a different, nonspatial mode of existence. They will be conscious, and they will await the resurrection of their bodies, at which time they will be banished from heaven and secured in hell where they will experience unending, conscious exclusion from God, his people, and anything of value. This banishment will include conscious sorrow, shame, and anguish to differing degrees, depending on the person's life on earth." [CS:IOSD:160, note: no torture]
]]


But God is not anyone's "Father" as much as He is their "Owner", a right of possession that naturally flows from having created everything (I believe that's the concept of "homesteading").  Just as a farmer owns his cows and no one can say anything to him if he decides to kill them all, or some portion of them, for whatever reason the farmer deems right, God owns His creation, and may dispose of us as He wishes.  And since mankind is the part of His creation that rebelled and marred everything else good that God made, then mankind must pay restitution, which God alone determines.

So, instead of sending us all to eternal torment, as we rightly deserve for destroying God's property, God decided to pay the penalty for restitution Himself.  That makes people mad.  It's much more emotionally satisfying to set ourselves up as God's judge; declaring Him to be evil (just look at all the evil, insane things He did--or allowed--in the Bible) and ourselves to be righteous.

[ahasp]

I don't understand why this simple situation is so hard for some people to grasp (actually I do, they don't want to grasp it).

Let me run it down again. Jesus's name isn't Jesus, its Yeshua. That is his name. My name is Mark; it isn't Marc, Marco, Marcos, Marcus, Marek, Mario, Marius, Markey, Marko, Markos, Markov, Markus, Marq, Marque, Marques, Marquus, Marik, March, Mirko or Mirek. If you call me one of those things, you are in error.

It doesn't matter if the translation issue doesn't bother YOUR sensibilities, it bothers MINE and the question is: would a fair and just god send me to eternal torment, a punishment far worse than the sickest most pedagogic father on earth could ever do to their child, for rejecting his "unerring word" when he couldn't get his savior's name right?  Answer that question, not one you have made up for yourself!

Mark,  where do you find the actual name of Christ is Yeshua?  Please let me know.  I'm intrigued.  The original written scriptures state that it is Iēsoûs, not Yeshua.  

To answer your question, Hell is eternal separation from God.  Heaven is Holy and as such cannot coexist with sin.  We exist in a fallen world, but receive protection from some of the consequences of sin through the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Those protections no longer exist in hell.  The torments in the book of Revelation are what will occur when God lifts his protection.  God doesn't send you to hell.

God's original contract with man was for man to live in paradise and experience no death.  Man disobeyed God.  God made a new contract which set up the Laws and allowed for atonement through sacrifice.  However, it was always realized that the sacrifices, as provided by man, were imperfect.  As a result, and as was prophesied in the Old Testament, God provided the perfect sacrifice through His Son.  To receive final atonement, Man has to recognize and accept this sacrifice.

To go to the point of  the "unerring word".  The point of view of my church, as stated in its by-laws, is that the Bible is unerring "in its original text".  The Bible you hold in front of you is not the original text.  Beware of anyone that tells you that their version of the Bible is without error.  These are people that want to use the Bible as a weapon.  A perfect Bible removes the need for a personal relationship with God, which is not the intent of the Bible.  We are called to meet together with other believers and study the Word and to pray for guidance from God.  

[Rillion]

Believing in religion doesn't necessarily mean that a person is ignorant, stupid, or immoral.  But believing that anyone deserves eternal punishment, I think, means that one is necessarily at least one of the three, and in the case of the latter two it's not really worth trying to talk to them about it. 

[Sam Gunn (since nobody got Admiral Naismith)]

Mark has used as a prime example of not trusting the Bible the fact that Christ's name was originally Yeshua (or Joshua) not Jesus.  The problem with this is that Yeshua is a word in Hebrew and the New Testament (which gives the name of Christ) was written in Greek, not Hebrew.  The name for Christ in the original text was the Greek name Iēsoûs, Yeshua is a translation of the name given in the Greek, just as Jesus is a translation of the original Greek into English. 

Why was Jesus' name in Greek in the first place? Shouldn't it have been in Aramaic? or are you saying that it was written by the Greeks as they heard it, and Mark is retranslating it from Greek to Aramaic? And how is it any less wrong, that they heard one thing, when his name was another?

Aramaic or Hebrew.

[FTL_Mark]

Living eternally in His presence in an unredeemed state would be far worse torment.  Imagine having to live in the presence of someone you detest, yet everyone around you is always going on and on about how great He is...

I argue that a good part of the torment of Hell is, having seen God, to be denied a relationship with him.  Then, there is an argument that I find intriguing, that the "burning" in hell is the burning of shame: 

But God is not anyone's "Father" as much as He is their "Owner", a right of possession that naturally flows from having created everything (I believe that's the concept of "homesteading").  Just as a farmer owns his cows and no one can say anything to him if he decides to kill them all, or some portion of them, for whatever reason the farmer deems right, God owns His creation, and may dispose of us as He wishes.  And since mankind is the part of His creation that rebelled and marred everything else good that God made, then mankind must pay restitution, which God alone determines.

You win. I would rather go to Hell than live eternally with your sick and twisted god.

[FTL_Mark]

Mark,  where do you find the actual name of Christ is Yeshua?  Please let me know.  I'm intrigued.  The original written scriptures state that it is Iēsoûs, not Yeshua.  

I got it from some article somewhere. Are you suggesting that Jesus was Greek? Because it seems much more likely to me that he was named Yeshua if he was Jewish, and that is what I have always believed. If my biography was written in Russian and they used the name Marek, they would still be wrong and I wouldn't be Russian.

God doesn't send you to hell.

He made the game, he is responsible for the results. If I tie you to a train track and tell you I will let you up if you solve some stupid riddle I made up, I would be able to claim not to have killed you by your rules.

God's original contract with man was for man to live in paradise and experience no death.  Man disobeyed God.  God made a new contract which set up the Laws and allowed for atonement through sacrifice.  However, it was always realized that the sacrifices, as provided by man, were imperfect.  As a result, and as was prophesied in the Old Testament, God provided the perfect sacrifice through His Son.  To receive final atonement, Man has to recognize and accept this sacrifice.

God made no contract with me. That is all I am asking for. Send God and his contract.

To go to the point of  the "unerring word".  The point of view of my church, as stated in its by-laws, is that the Bible is unerring "in its original text".  The Bible you hold in front of you is not the original text.  Beware of anyone that tells you that their version of the Bible is without error.  These are people that want to use the Bible as a weapon.  A perfect Bible removes the need for a personal relationship with God, which is not the intent of the Bible.  We are called to meet together with other believers and study the Word and to pray for guidance from God.  

This is the thing closest resembling sanity in this post.

[ForumTroll]

Why do people care about this shit? Christ.

[Riddler]

wait a second.
all these years i got yelled at for saying ''jesus christ'' (sometimes, i threw in the ''H'', for added emphasis)
by my mother.....ie: ''taking the lord's name in vain'', when i was actually in the clear?

all these years.....i thought i'd be going to hell

[hellbilly]

Believing in religion doesn't necessarily mean that a person is ignorant, stupid, or immoral.  But believing that anyone deserves eternal punishment, I think, means that one is necessarily at least one of the three, and in the case of the latter two it's not really worth trying to talk to them about it. 

That's too big for a t-shirt, but I like it.

Someone introduce me to this God fella. Sounds like a Big Man. I know I ALWAYS LOVE THE WAY I FEEL when I discipline my kids.. they step out of line, I make them stand in the fuckin corner while I sit nearby and gloat. I FEEL LIKE AN AWESOME GOD when I do that.. POWERFUL. It works every time too. My kids, who have sinned against me, try to look upon my presence and they weep for I know not their faces during this time of their punishment. Me = GOD, they = foul sinners who have gone astray from my Holy Command.