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Psalm 46

Started by David Pinnegar, December 28, 2015, 07:04:10 PM

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David Pinnegar

For anyone who thinks the Bible is to be read purely on a literal level . . . Psalm 46 is a shock  . . .

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+46

A friend directed me to word 46 . . . and then the 46th letter backwards from the end. What does it look like?

What does that say? What does that say about the book?

Best wishes

David P


46 God is our refuge and strength,
    a help always near in times of great trouble.
2 That's why we won't be afraid when the world falls apart,
    when the mountains crumble into the center of the sea,
3     when its waters roar and rage,
    when the mountains shake because of its surging waves. Selah
4 There is a river whose streams gladden God's city,
    the holiest dwelling of the Most High.
5 God is in that city. It will never crumble.
    God will help it when morning dawns.
6 Nations roar; kingdoms crumble.
    God utters his voice; the earth melts.
7 The Lord of heavenly forces is with us!
    The God of Jacob is our place of safety. Selah
8 Come, see the Lord's deeds,
    what devastation he has imposed on the earth—
9     bringing wars to an end in every corner of the world,
    breaking the bow and shattering the spear,
        burning chariots with fire.
10 "That's enough! Now know that I am God!
    I am exalted among all nations; I am exalted throughout the world!"
11 The Lord of heavenly forces is with us!
    The God of Jacob is our place of safety.

David Drinkell

It says to me you should  stick to Coverdale or King James ;D

David Pinnegar

Coverdale?

In King James, it becomes even more fun - I haven't counted the 46th letter from the end there but the 46th word amounts to the same thing. . . .

What is hidden encoded in the rest of the text?

Best wishes

David P

revtonynewnham

Hi

I do wonder at the validity of such mathematical exeercises, considering that the original inspired text wwas, presumably, written in Hebrew.  I wonder how that fits the theory?

Every Blessing

Tony

David Pinnegar

Well it tells us something about the people who translated the King James version and messages that they spelled out between the lines.

One should remember that in those times there had been a few hundred years of discord in Christianity which had yet to work through another century or two.

On the continent things remained nasty for some time to come, with alternate villages and valleys being ruled variously by Protestants, Anabaptists, Calivinists and Catholics and it was all too easy to get one's head cut off for saying the wrong thing in the wrong place.

The result of this was that the elite were looking for ways of cutting through the controversies that split people apart, and looking for ways of bringing people together. They were, to say the least, shaking the spear at ignorance and the merely taking of texts at face value.

The rise of literalism has caused people now not to seek ways of unification but merely in its nonsenses to turn their backs, the christianity of the simplistic sort often coming from brands in the USA being seen to be against the everyday experience and beyond sense.

The problem now is not a local one as it was between brands of Christianity but now worldwide between brands of faith. We need to shake our spears at our brand and focus on the Creator God bringing people together in common worship and understanding of those things that bring us all together to create.

We need to shake our spears at our children's perception that their milk comes from Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl and ASDA, arguing which milk is the right milk, and reach back to the farmers and in particularly the cows. Our God the Creator isn't the supermarket but is the cow that gives us milk in the land of milk and honey.

Is anyone aware of what other things were encoded into the Authorised Version by these translators?

Best wishes

David P

David Pinnegar

I apologise to anyone who might think me rather controversial above. One of my sons gave me for Christmas the book by Sam Harris entitled "The End of Faith" http://www.samharris.org/books/the-end-of-faith

It's actually online at http://www.popeye-x.com/downloads/other/Sam.Harris.-.The.End.of.Faith.pdf although I prefer paper copies of things in which to make notes, fold down the corners of interesting pages and do various uncivilised things that one shouldn't do to books.

No doubt people here might think that book should be burned.

But the fear of terrorism yesterday and today is good reason to take the concept seriously.

The human race can only survive if all of all faiths tear themselves away from blind faith and build from a centre of reason, and of the heart.

It's for this reason that for some time I have suggested using the word "The Creator" instead of "God" wherever we see the latter word, to remind us more constantly about what our God's about, and what every religion's God that describes The Creator is about, in common.

The human race, with power now to bring its own extinction, has for the first time in anthrocentric history to take seriously what the concept of The Creator can do for us now in teaching us how to create.

This too, in a different but similar way, is the Archbishop of Canterbury's New Year message to us about our responsibilities to our neighbours to love, and in particular our neighbours who are migrants and have no homes.

When we do this, both we and they will be enriched if we can put our common Creator together to work to make our differences irrelevant.

Best wishes

David P

Gwas_Bach

Pope Benedict XVI's address to Regensburg University was remembered by many only for referring to Islam, but it is really about the relationship between faith and reason.  It is largely a refutation of voluntarism, but in so doing it also provides a compelling argument against literal Biblical interpretation.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg.html

David Pinnegar

THANK YOU so much for mentioning this and the reference! It's a great pleasure to read true erudition and enlightenment.

Sadly this sort of understanding tends to be rather confined in ivory towers.

In my view many have turned their back on the Church for not encompassing the wider world and longer traditions so well demonstrated in His Holiness' thoughts

QuoteThis inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history - it is an event which concerns us even today. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.

He explicitly brings to light the infusion with which Christianity incorporates from the earlier Greek and that, implicitly from Plato writing in Critias, referring to Solon going to Egypt to learn the wisdoms of the ancient priests from nine millennia before.

Indeed the story of the flight into Egypt might even be our clue that Jesus might be expressing ancient things.

QuoteOnly thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today.

Can we find ways of bringing foward such dialogue into our churches? Would people turn their back on the Church if we did? Would the Church escape from the position of irrelevance thereby?

Best wishes

David P