I don't know to what extent it's really so, but it appears that Greeks regarded their myths as history.

It may be more accurate to say that they saw their myths as pre-history. They certainly believed the persons in these myths did exist and the events recorded did occur but this doesn't prove their conception of history was significantly different to our own.

Fair enough. "Pre-history" is a nice way to put it. The fantastical elements were relegated to an unverifiable past. They weren't disbelieved per se, but they were compartmentalized differently than recent history, which relatively lacked fantastical elements and could be verified.

I'd say, though, that I have a certain amount of doubt whether "our own" conception of history is so different from theirs. We believe (in this country) that Washington "could not tell a lie," as shown by the mythical incident of the cherry tree; we believe that Lincoln "freed the slaves," which only happened after his death; we believe that Puritans came to this country seeking religious freedom, when in fact they came seeking a place where they could impose their (purer) vision for the Church of England; we believe that the colonists (apart from a handful of loyalists) unitedly sought independence, when historians agree that only 10-15% were in favor of secession in 1776; we believe that Roosevelt ended the depression by joining WWII, when in fact our prosperity in no way increased until some time after the war (we just failed to notice, because our rationing books were part of the "war effort," and our young men were dying in Europe, rather than idling on street corners). Our "knowledge" of US history is a complete hodgepodge of myth, propaganda, and selective ignorance. Less outlandish than Greek myths, perhaps, but different only in degree, not in kind.

Far more people believe the folk version of US history than the historians' version, and they persist in believing it even after they've been told the truth. My sixth-grade teacher told us as eleven-year-olds that the Emancipation Proclamation applied only to confederate territories, where of course it had no force; that slaves in Union territories like West Virginia were not freed; and that the intent of the Proclamation was to prevent England aiding the South, with which it appeared likely to do, having strong sympathies in every area except the issue of slavery. Of those forty kids, how many still believe that "Lincoln freed the slaves"? Most of them.

The line between myth, folk tale, and propaganda seems blurry to me. All are types of falsehood that are sort of believed, but somehow compartmentalized in a way that avoids empirical verification. It is of course true that we have changed our attitude to "history" somewhat, and we now insist that our "myths" be packaged in a much more believable form. And Americans, perforce, have no interesting "pre-history," because in prehistorical times we lived in England and Holland, and that was only about 300 years ago.

Edit: If everyone had a personal relationship with their ministering angel/God then their would be no more need to preserve free will and hide from us. Although this is characterised as Adam hiding from God. You would have personal proof like me. You have to voluntarily surrender your free will in this life or you were never sincere. How can you be sincere if you only surrender your free will when you have no other choice, at physical death?

This is the way it will be in the future and that is EXACTLY why it says their will be no more death, no more suffering, because their will be no more free will. You cannot have both.

duh.

You just replied to yourself and said, "Duh."

I wish someone would convince my son Dawkins is a......errrr.....dawk! He thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread right now lol.

His writing on evolution and related subjects is top notch. It's just that he seems to suffer from the delusion that brilliance in one area makes one competent, or at least not utterly incompetent, in others. The same reason doctors are notorious for losing their shirts investing--they think being smart makes them competent investors.

Great piece. It dovetails with some other recent posts on BTDF. The nutshell summary is that "fellowship" is about having a relationship with each other, carried out as a partnership.

By itself, that wouldn't seem very impressive; we talk about that all the time. We routinely exhort about how we're "family." The key bit is to truly appreciate the implications of a "relationship." We have a distorted view of them, because we're born with all these family relationships, and often treat them as fetters to be strained against. They just are; they don't take work; and the best we can hope for is for them not to inconvenience us too greatly.

If we think in terms of a friendship, or a marital relationship, we get a different picture entirely. If we don't nurture those relationships, then our friends turn into strangers and our spouses turn into enemies. They require regular care and feeding. And there is a burdensome aspect, since that means putting up with their quirks or accommodating their bizarre sensitivities--but unlike our family, our friends and spouses are not stuck with us. If we neglect them, they are free to go elsewhere for what they're needing. (If we regard our spouse as "stuck with us," and treat her accordingly, we'll either discover her gone some day, or discover that our lives have become hell on earth.)

Ecclesial relationships are like friendships or marriages. If we do the Sunday-morning-handshake routine, they're not brothers and sisters; they're strangers. If we ignore them, except when we feel motivated to rebuke them, they will feel free to ignore us, or hate us, or go elsewhere--they certainly won't be influenced in any useful way, unless they happen to be masochists. And so on.

So when it says they "devoted themselves to fellowship," it's saying that in the context of preaching the word, exhorting, reading, praying, and all that, they consciously and effortfully nurtured their relationships with each other and with God.

See, I wondered whether he was complaining that too many parishioners are modalists and tritheists. He's not getting any sympathy from me on that front.

Most adults in our Christian churches are not Christian in a biblical sense. A majority of the people who attend Christian churches are not Christian and have been attending the same church for nearly a decade.

I'd like to know more about this. We would say that none of 'em are Christian, of course, but that's obviously not what the author meant by that statement. What defines a "biblical" Christian in their eyes, and why are most adults not ones?

Depending on the answer, I might end up agreeing that half of Christadelphians are not "Christian in the biblical sense," which would be a powerful takeaway.

Palis are holding their breath, waiting to find out if these laws are still on the books.

How could that be when Israel didn't come along until a long time after and from Adam came all sorts of other nations?

You need to read the book to get the background, but the basic idea is that Genesis was finalized after the exile--perhaps by Ezra, say. The post-exilic writings such as Chronicles recast Israelite history in order to address the burning question of the day: what does it mean to be a Jew in light of the diaspora? How are they God's people, if they've lost their land and temple? What of God's promises of an eternal kingdom, since their kingdom was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and the throne has never been reestablished since? How can they worship God while living in Babylon without any access to the temple, nor any temple to access? Etc., etc.

The critical development in Jewish theology after the exile was the concept that God scatters but also regathers; punishes but also relents. Genesis 1-3, in its final form, tells the same story that plays out over and over in the OT, and it's precisely the story of Israel: God picks out His people, puts them in a good land of His choosing, gives them commandments and access to His presence, and then they disobey and are punished but also redeemed. Adam's biography is a reenactment of Israel's history. Apart from serving as an allegory of Israel, Adam is also specifically identified as Israel's ancestor via the genealogies in Genesis, so his special creation by God and his covenant relationship to God is another thing that makes Israel special. Genesis is ambiguous about the existence of other people at the same time, such as Cain's wife, or the people Cain was afraid of, etc., but that wasn't the primary concern of the Jews; although they seem to have believed that he was the ancestor of everyone in the world, Adam's relationship with other nations was of no interest to them. Adam was the special son of God, Seth was the special son of Adam, Shem was the special son of Noah, and so on, making the Jews the "firstborn" among the nations--so they specifically were the heirs of Adam's specialness in a way that no other nation was. Thus Adam both literally and figuratively marks the Jews as special to God despite Adam's exile from the garden and Israel's exile from the promised land.

It's previously been raised. The Horde didn't lose faith. Myers is competent developmental biologist who has carved out a niche at his current home...

What's the niche? Teaching?

Ah, how I miss academia--and the war between the researchers and the teachers! One crusty old curmudgeon (who was a favorite teacher of mine) asked my thesis advisor, "Do you realize that students are paying for your research?" My advisor replied, "Do you realize that students are paying for your no research?"

Good times.

In a recent exhortation I got this right: I said that Mark, specifically, borrowed elements of a "heroic" narrative style for his gospel, but then (purposely) "betrayed" the readers by having the hero die a criminal's death, and then denying the readers any triumphal climax by ending on an ambiguous note with confused women at an empty tomb.

(I suggested that verses 9-20 of Mark 16 should be treated as an "afterward," and that the reader should pause after verse 8 for a bit before reading on.)