Tag Archives: ANE

Thinking Hebrew, Writing Greek

Let’s look at an example of Paul writing Hebrew thoughts in the Greek language. Keep in mind that Paul grew up bilingual in Greek and Aramaic (the “Hebrew” of his day), and appears to have been familiar with a couple … Continue reading

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We Call It Christian Mysticism

To the degree anything we do academically has an objective reality to which we can point, we know that the Bible is an Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) mystical document. The religion of the Bible is clearly mystical in nature. This … Continue reading

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Daniel the Man

The Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) rulers as a whole operated with far greater wisdom than is common in governments today. Their assumptions about reality were radically different from anything in the West; they held to an entirely different epistemology. In … Continue reading

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Pondering the Path 04

At this point, the Radix Fidem path clearly alienates the vast majority of Westerners with any inclinations to Christian religion. What we offer is a path back to Eden; that’s what the gospel is now, and has always been since … Continue reading

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Praying for Their Enlightenment

Participating in an ongoing discussion over at Sigma Frame, I notice that most of the correspondents quickly get stuck on concrete details. Some will occasionally make note of generalities, but there is still a tendency to stop at that level … Continue reading

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Don’t Blame God

So far as we can tell, one of the earliest theological controversies in New Testament times was the business of God’s sovereignty and our temptation. The real issue was the difference between the ancient Hebrew intellectual traditions versus the Hellenized … Continue reading

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The Heart Must Lead

I’m going to oversimplify so that we can see the big picture. Humans were intended to be family for God. Granted, that was in the context of His much larger family, which included a lot of other kinds of beings … Continue reading

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Teachings of Jesus — John 15:9-17

We could easily weary ourselves spewing forth poetic blather about this one overused word in English — “love” — and never quite get to the point Jesus is making here. It gets worse if we can’t be bothered with putting … Continue reading

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Teachings of Jesus — John 14:18-24

Jesus is still talking along the lines of returning home to His Father’s heavenly court to take up His co-regency. The disciples are still expecting a restoration of the literal Davidic Kingdom of Israel. Their blindness here is almost painful. … Continue reading

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Teachings of Jesus — John 14:12-17

In the Ancient Near East, every great ruler operated on the basis of a covenant. It was typical for such a ruler to pass this covenant to his heir, with a period of co-regency for the sake of smooth transition. … Continue reading

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