Biblical Scholars: Are there any other examples of the Imperative tense in Greek in Scripture other than the Great Commission at Mt 28:19-20?

[ryanoneil]

And where is the rulebook for that?

If there is a rulebook it is exegesis and tradition.

And what conclusion do you intend to draw from that?

The apocalypse uses the image of horseriders to symbolize what Jesus is talking about in Mat 24. There will be no one literally riding a horse when this occurs.

 

[zerinus]

If there is a rulebook it is exegesis and tradition.

I don’t know about “tradition,” but exegesis means simply Bible interpretation. Here are some definitions of exegesis I found on the internet:

• An explanation or critical interpretation (especially of the Bible)
• An exposition or explanation of a text, especially a religious one
• The act of establishing meaning of a text from the text itself. It attempts to determine the intended meaning of the text.
• The process or act of interpreting (Biblical) texts.
• The art of close reading in order to interpret a text.
• Analyzing passages from a document – often the Bible – to understand what it meant to its author and others in the author’s culture.
• The process of discerning the meaning of a text for its original, historical audience.
• The careful, systematic study of the Scripture to discover he original, intended meaning, …

And who is to say that your exegesis is better than mine?

The apocalypse uses the image of horseriders to symbolize what Jesus is talking about in Mat 24. There will be no one literally riding a horse when this occurs.

Two answers to that: Firstly, the text is more complex than that. It involves all kinds of weird and wonderful beasts, and strange voices coming from strange places etc. Giving a plausible interpretation just for the “horses” doesn’t go very far in interpreting the broader context of the Revelation that deals with all the implications of what we are discussing.

Secondly, that might appear to be a plausible interpretation of the “horses;” but still not an in depth analysis. According to the rules of “exegesis” described above, you have to take the entire context of the scriptures (and a lot of other factors) into account in order to do a proper and in depth exegesis. For example, do the following verses from Zechariah have a bearing in providing and accurate exegesis of the “horses” in Revelation?

Zechariah 6:

1 And I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass.
2 In the first chariot were red horses; and in the second chariot black horses;
3 And in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot grisled and bay horses.
4 Then I answered and said unto the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord?
5 And the angel answered and said unto me, These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The black horses which are therein go forth into the north country; and the white go forth after them; and the grisled go forth toward the south country.
7 And the bay went forth, and sought to go that they might walk to and fro through the earth: and he said, Get you hence, walk to and fro through the earth. So they walked to and fro through the earth.
8 Then cried he upon me, and spake unto me, saying, Behold, these that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country.

It looks like they might! So interpreting it the way you have done might be a little bit too superficial. There may be more to it than that.

 

[ryanoneil]

If you want to look at it in the broadest possible sense, the lives of all of us is, or should be, a sacrifice:

Hebrews 13:

16 But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

But I don’t think that is what we are talking about here. The question centers on blood sacrifice. That is what we were talking about.

They are pleasing to God because they are connected to Christ’s sacrifice. You forgot to include the “sacrifice of praise” in Heb 13:15 which refers to the actual sacrifice of Christ at the Last Supper.

Through him (then) let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.

Christ’s sacrifice started at the Last Supper. The Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacrifice on the cross are one and the same sacrifice. Jesus started the sacrifice with the first three sedar meal cups. The third cup was called the “Cup of Blessing” (Mt26:27-28; 1 Cor 10:16). Christ did not drink the fourth cup (“Cup of Consumation” Mt 27:48; John 19:29) until he was on the cross. Then in John 19:30, Jesus says, “It is consummated.” The sacrifice began in the upper room and was completed on the cross.

Jesus’ “blood sacrifice” cannot be seperated from His “sacrifice of praise” at the Last Supper. He literally said “This IS my body and blood.” (I’d love to get Dan Parker to examine the Greek here).

Hebrews 10:5–10 reads as follows:

5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
8 Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

How does that support your theory that Jesus is a perpetual (blood) sacrifice?

Jesus only shed his blood once. What is perpetual is the offering of His one sacrifice in heaven (and on earth). His sacrifice (which includes the Eucharist) fullfills the four principal types of Old Testament sacrifices: peace offerings (Lev 3, here called sacrifices); cereal offerings (Lev 2, here called offerings); holocausts (Lev 1); and sin offerings (Lev 4-5).

That is why Heb 9:23 says: **Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified by these rites, but the heavenly things themselves by better sacrifices than these. **

Jesus’ sacrifice, which is presented eternally to the Father in heaven, is described as “sacrifices” (in the plural) in the context of its re-presentation on earth in the Eucharist.

No “lamb” that is sacrificed stops being a “lamb,” even after it is sacrificed. But its sacrifice is offered once, not perpetually.

A lamb does stop being a lamb after it is consumed or burnt whole, and it is only offered once because there is no life left in it.

 

[ryanoneil]

I don’t know about “tradition,” but exegesis means simply Bible interpretation. Here are some definitions of exegesis I found on the internet:

• An explanation or critical interpretation (especially of the Bible)
• An exposition or explanation of a text, especially a religious one
• The act of establishing meaning of a text from the text itself. It attempts to determine the intended meaning of the text.
• The process or act of interpreting (Biblical) texts.
• The art of close reading in order to interpret a text.
• Analyzing passages from a document – often the Bible – to understand what it meant to its author and others in the author’s culture.
• The process of discerning the meaning of a text for its original, historical audience.
• The careful, systematic study of the Scripture to discover he original, intended meaning, …

And who is to say that your exegesis is better than mine?

Tradition is included in the last three examples you list.

I don’t know if your exegesis includes the historical understanding of Jewish apocalyptic liturature.

Two answers to that: Firstly, the text is more complex than that. It involves all kinds of weird and wonderful beasts, and strange voices coming from strange places etc. Giving a plausible interpretation just for the “horses” doesn’t go very far in interpreting the broader context of the Revelation that deals with all the implications of what we are discussing.

Secondly, that might appear to be a plausible interpretation of the “horses;” but still not an in depth analysis. According to the rules of “exegesis” described above, you have to take the entire context of the scriptures (and a lot of other factors) into account in order to do a proper and in depth exegesis. For example, do the following verses from Zechariah have a bearing in providing and accurate exegesis of the “horses” in Revelation?

Zechariah 6:

1 And I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass.
2 In the first chariot were red horses; and in the second chariot black horses;
3 And in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot grisled and bay horses.
4 Then I answered and said unto the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord?
5 And the angel answered and said unto me, These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The black horses which are therein go forth into the north country; and the white go forth after them; and the grisled go forth toward the south country.
7 And the bay went forth, and sought to go that they might walk to and fro through the earth: and he said, Get you hence, walk to and fro through the earth. So they walked to and fro through the earth.
8 Then cried he upon me, and spake unto me, saying, Behold, these that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country.

It looks like they might! So interpreting it the way you have done might be a little bit too superficial. There may be more to it than that.

Yes they relate to the Apocalypse. Obviously I didn’t present an exhaustive analysis of the horses, but that doesn’t take anything away from what I said above.

 

[zerinus]

They are pleasing to God because they are connected to Christ’s sacrifice. You forgot to include the “sacrifice of praise” in Heb 13:15 which refers to the actual sacrifice of Christ at the Last Supper.

Through him (then) let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.

Christ’s sacrifice started at the Last Supper. The Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacrifice on the cross are one and the same sacrifice. Jesus started the sacrifice with the first three sedar meal cups. The third cup was called the “Cup of Blessing” (Mt26:27-28; 1 Cor 10:16). Christ did not drink the fourth cup (“Cup of Consumation” Mt 27:48; John 19:29) until he was on the cross. Then in John 19:30, Jesus says, “It is consummated.” The sacrifice began in the upper room and was completed on the cross.

Jesus’ “blood sacrifice” cannot be seperated from His “sacrifice of praise” at the Last Supper. He literally said “This IS my body and blood.” (I’d love to get Dan Parker to examine the Greek here).

Jesus only shed his blood once. What is perpetual is the offering of His one sacrifice in heaven (and on earth). His sacrifice (which includes the Eucharist) fullfills the four principal types of Old Testament sacrifices: peace offerings (Lev 3, here called sacrifices); cereal offerings (Lev 2, here called offerings); holocausts (Lev 1); and sin offerings (Lev 4-5).

That is why Heb 9:23 says: Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified by these rites, but the heavenly things themselves by better sacrifices than these.

Jesus’ sacrifice, which is presented eternally to the Father in heaven, is described as “sacrifices” (in the plural) in the context of its re-presentation on earth in the Eucharist.

A lamb does stop being a lamb after it is consumed or burnt whole, and it is only offered once because there is no life left in it.

I think that our differences stem from a more fundamental disagreement about the theology of the Eucharist. There is a fundamental disagreement between the LDS theology of the Eucharist and the Catholic one. You believe that the bread and water must be literally transformed into the flesh and blood of Christ (i.e. one must literally eat the flesh and blood of Christ) in order to benefit from His sacrificial offering. We believe that theology is incorrect. We believe that the sacramental bread and wine is only a memorial of the sacrifice of Christ, and that the grace received through it is purely spiritual. There is a grace imparted to the believer as a result of partaking of the sacrament; but it is imparted entirely spiritually; one does not have to literally eat flesh and blood of Christ to for the Eucharistic sacrament to take place.

Another difference is that you believe that the priest literally sacrifices Christ on the altar afresh every time he administers the sacrament. It is through this sacrificial act by the minister that the bread and wine are miraculously transformed into the flesh and blood of Christ. We don’t accept any of that doctrine.

I have discussed that subject with Catholics on this board and elsewhere on numerous occasions. The last time I discussed it here I think was in this thread. I joined that thread with post #257, and the subject changed to the Eucharist several posts later. You can start following my discussions on that subject there with post #270, and continue the discussion until post #280. Because of the numerous discussions I have had with Catholics on this subject, I have also added a few posts in Blog relating to this subject. You can read them here, here, here, and here. Have a look at those, and if you really want to discuss that further, I am willing to start a new thread to discuss it with you.