P
PaulDupre
Guest
Wikipedia is hardly authoritative. That article could very well have been (and probably was) written by Mormons. It also has a decidedly anti-Catholic spin (another indicator of probable LDS authorship).
- Status
B
BDawg
Guest
Ok, so you are saying that God didn’t authorize Moses to give those instructions about divorce? Moses just up and did it himself, on his own authority?
So was Nathan lying about the Lord saying that, in your opinion?
M
majick275
Guest
pretty much. moses was the civil leader of the people as well as the spiritual and since he had extensive training in that from being raised as a prince of egypt he took charge and led the people. when God had explicit instructions he gave them but to a great extent the temporal governance was left to moses
i wouldn’t say that but nathan was trying to put the lords guidance into terms david would understand. i believe there is room for us to misunderstand the meaning as we have a very different perspective.
B
BDawg
Guest
Ok. I don’t think there’s any way to come to an agreement on this, so I’ll leave off. Thanks for the interesting discussion.
Z
zaffiroborant
Guest
Not his next brother or his younger brother or his older brother but his brother that lived with him.
5If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her.
No brother living with you then no marriage.
A
AMDGtoo
Guest
And like I said it is a leap to claim that Deuteronomy 25:5 also included men who were already married. The Scriptures are silent on that.
And that illustration in Tobit, sure didn’t appear to me that the woman with a curse (in that all the brothers she married were killed) was required to take one that already was married. I believe she took the unattached and available brothers.
And that illustration in Tobit, sure didn’t appear to me that the woman with a curse (in that all the brothers she married were killed) was required to take one that already was married. I believe she took the unattached and available brothers.
B
BDawg
Guest
Hi A,
I agree that it isn’t explicit, but the fact is that polygamy was practiced, and there were specific provisions for it in the Law of Moses. Obviously they didn’t see anything wrong with it. In that situation, it seems to me, there would have to be a specific exception mentioned in the levirate marriage law if it were only supposed to be for unmarried brothers. There is no such exception mentioned. Therefore, it seems reasonable to me to conclude that the levirate marriage command amounted, in practice, to a plural marriage command, in many cases.
You guys can hide behind the “argument from silence” wall, but the fact is that the arguments I’ve given have been much less on the silent side than yours.
Z
zaffiroborant
Guest
Still morally acceptable?
M
majick275
Guest
well if we want to split hairs, the levirate marriage only applies to brothers who live together. so now we need to pore over the books of law and see what implications that has. to understand it contextually we will probably have to refer to talmudic interpretations. it is of interest to see if, how and when polygamy is practiced within judaism. israeli law in particular should be studied.Hi A,
I agree that it isn’t explicit, but the fact is that polygamy was practiced, and there were specific provisions for it in the Law of Moses. Obviously they didn’t see anything wrong with it. In that situation, it seems to me, there would have to be a specific exception mentioned in the levirate marriage law if it were only supposed to be for unmarried brothers. There is no such exception mentioned. Therefore, it seems reasonable to me to conclude that the levirate marriage command amounted, in practice, to a plural marriage command, in many cases.
You guys can hide behind the “argument from silence” wall, but the fact is that the arguments I’ve given have been much less on the silent side than yours.
i will say again though that moses laws were not all God’s laws and jesus pointed that out in reference to marriage. true he was speaking specifically of divorce but his explanation gives us the divine principle for marriage.
F
Famule
Guest
Really? Please explain to me how Jesus said to Peter, “On this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Then, there is the Mormon belief of the great apostasy. Contradiction. Its also not putting too much faith in God saying that He could not hold His church together for more than even a few hundred years.
Please explain these. I don’t think it works.
B
BDawg
Guest
Yo, Fam,
Here is the URL for a debate between a Mormon and a Roman Catholic ex-Mormon that covers this point in gory detail. If you want to get a better idea how Mormons would think about this issue, and how Catholics might respond to their points, click on the link and read a while.
geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/2671/rc_dex.html
R
RebeccaJ
Guest
And here is The Unbroken Chain, written by Bishop Hunt while he was Bishop of the Salt Lake Diocese. It addresses the claims of the Mormon Church.
B
BDawg
Guest
W
willi8
Guest
Those “seer stones” can be found in the Old Testament. There known as the Urim and Thummim.
W
willi8
Guest
Well, first of all this answer deals with your interpretation of the scripture. Most people know that Matthew 16:18 is a play on words with Peter’s name meaning rock. However, there is more significance in what Jesus said. Peter’s name in greek is PETROS,but the lord used the feminine PETRAS in this scripture which has a distinct meaning. Petro is an isolated rock, stone, or pebble which could be hewn from a more solid and greater bedrock (PETRA). So what was the Lord referring to when he used petra. Well, if you take it in context of the story, you will see that Jesus told Peter this right after he bore testimony of Jesus. The Lord blessed him because that testimony was “REVEALED from his Father in Heaven” Immediately after this that the Lord says “thou art Peter and upon this rock (Meaning PETRA or revelation from God) I will build my church” This makes perfect sense if one considers that God has always directed his people and his church through revelation. Peter or Petros was truly a rock hewn from a solid foundation or bedrock (Petra)…God!!!
As for the Mormon belief of Apostasy, they get from “revelation” which is substantiated by the Bible. Paul, when speaking to the Thessalonians about the RETURN of Christ said, "for that day shall not come, except their be a FALLING AWAY first’. Other scriptures include ( Acts 20:29, Gal 1:6, 2Tim 3:5,)
R
RAR
Guest
I think you are mistaken. Please see the following from Catholic Answers, which gives an explanation of the Greek and Aramaic roots of the passage. I apologize for the length… I haven’t learned how to “link” to information. If you want to skip this, you can look it up on Catholic Answers main page by following “Church & Papacy” and “Peter the Rock.”
Thankyou,
RAR
Code:
"No," I answered. "Many, if not most of them, knew Greek, of course, because Greek was the *lingua franca* of the Mediterranean world. It was the language of culture and commerce; and most of the books of the New Testament were written in it, because they were written not just for Christians in Palestine but also for Christians in places such as Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, places where Aramaic wasn’t the spoken language.I stopped for a moment and looked at the missionary. He seemed a bit uncomfortable, perhaps doubting that I was a Catholic because I seemed to know what I was talking about. I continued.
Aramaic in the New Testament
"We know that Jesus spoke Aramaic because some of his words are preserved for us in the Gospels. Look at Matthew 27:46, where he says from the cross, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ That isn’t Greek; it’s Aramaic, and it means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
“What’s more,” I said, "in Paul’s epistles—four times in Galatians and four times in 1 Corinthians—we have the Aramaic form of Simon’s new name preserved for us. In our English Bibles it comes out as Cephas. That isn’t Greek. That’s a transliteration of the Aramaic word Kepha (rendered as Kephas in its Hellenistic form).
"And what does Kepha mean? It means a rock, the same as petra. (It doesn’t mean a little stone or a pebble. What Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my Church.’
“When you understand what the Aramaic says, you see that Jesus was equating Simon and the rock; he wasn’t contrasting them. We see this vividly in some modern English translations, which render the verse this way: ‘You are Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church.’ In French one word, pierre, has always been used both for Simon’s new name and for the rock.”
For a few moments the missionary seemed stumped. It was obvious he had never heard such a rejoinder. His brow was knit in thought as he tried to come up with a counter. Then it occurred to him.
“Wait a second,” he said. “If kepha means the same as petra, why don’t we read in the Greek, ‘You are Petra, and on this petra I will build my Church’? Why, for Simon’s new name, does Matthew use a Greek word, Petros, which means something quite different from petra?”
“Because he had no choice,” I said. "Greek and Aramaic have different grammatical structures. In Aramaic you can use kepha in both places in Matthew 16:18. In Greek you encounter a problem arising from the fact that nouns take differing gender endings.
"You have masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. The Greek word petra is feminine. You can use it in the second half of Matthew 16:18 without any trouble. But you can’t use it as Simon’s new name, because you can’t give a man a feminine name—at least back then you couldn’t. You have to change the ending of the noun to make it masculine. When you do that, you get Petros, which was an already-existing word meaning rock.
“I admit that’s an imperfect rendering of the Aramaic; you lose part of the play on words. In English, where we have ‘Peter’ and ‘rock,’ you lose all of it. But that’s the best you can do in Greek.”
C
Chaldean_Rite
Guest
Like pulling teeth, it takes a while before a Mormon is honest and say that they Mormons do NOT worship Jesus as God and therefore are not Christians in a fundamental sense. If only all the Christians would push this question to them, would they save a ton of time when they come over.
A
AMDGtoo
Guest
Our Lord didn’t speak Greek which is what “petra” is. (The Greek translators used “petros” because Peter was a male and in the language the name had to match the gender.) Jesus spoke Araimic. He called Simon Peter “Kephas”, which means “rock”–actually a massive boulder. You’ll actually find “Kephas” (or “Cephas”) in the Bible several times–even Paul had to go visit with him before being “sent” (the original meaning of the word “apostle”.)
And I’ve never understood that bit about Peter’s testimony being separate from the man. What a person believes makes up that person–it can’t be separated (as if there was a double personality.)
And as far as the Urim and Thummim being seer stones mentioned in the Bible, well, maybe you’d want to take another look at your Bible where they are mentioned (Leviticus 8:8). It doesn’t say except that they were carried in the breast plates of the chief priests.
Also about that, no where do any of those quotes indicate a total apostasy. Oh, there were apostasies. The chief one was when way back in the Bible itself when many people walked away from Jesus because of His “hard saying”. You know, that He is the actual bread of life. And there were others, the Gnostics made a try, so did the Arians, so did many others and each and every time Christ’s Church had a council (you’ll see the first one in Acts) that addressed the problem of the “itching ears” just like was exhorted in Timothy.
R
RAR
Guest
Oh, nicely done! Good show!
I never thought of that, but a better example of apostasy I never before saw. They literally turned from his teaching and willfully rejected him. I’ll be sure to remember this one. Thanks, AMDGtoo.
RAR
R
RebeccaJ
Guest
Also what must be taken into account is where they were standing. At Caesarea Philippi, in front of a huge rock that had many niches carved into it, in which people would place idols to worship. A cave entrance is in this rock, which goes into the depths of the earth. The pagan belief was that this was an entrance to the netherworld, hell, as we call it. On this massive rock a city was built.
It was at this location that Christ spoke his words to Peter. His words, taken in the symbolic way of where He was, cannot be misunderstood. He was not giving Peter a pet name!
http://hometown.aol.com/tobiahsara/cave4.jpg
- Status