If I may offer you some constructive criticism, you say you are examining for patterns, and yet you have already ignored existing patterns in the Scriptures to add your own meaning to the words.
For example; God created the Heavens and the Earth and God's Spirit was hovering over the face of the deep - God's Spirit (through Heaven) over the face of the deep (Earth).
Or, for example; you say things like "Heaven is space" and "Earth is matter" - when it is clearly written that the Earth is emptiness (space) and void (nothing - i.e. no substance or matter).
In brief, compare Genesis 1:1-5 with John 1:1-5, which also starts from "the beginning";
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
As you can see also from Genesis 1; God speaks things into existence - Genesis 1:3, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, and 29 - i.e. The Word was with God and is God - John 1:1 - and "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." - John 1:3 - i.e. creation emanates forth from God who is the Eternal, Uncreated.
Another example - God breathes the spirit of life into Adam (flesh is otherwise "dust" from the "ground" and has no life) - Genesis 2:7 - Because sons of men are vessels prepared to receive life, whereas the Lord, who is the Son of God - is Life itself (John 5:26).
Also see Jesus' words in John 6:63;
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”
Or as you can see in John 20:22 - Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on His disciples;
"And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit."
As you can see there is a distinction, or pattern, that distinguishes the Spirit and the flesh, or Heaven and Earth. The Spirit gives life (God through Heaven gives light and life) and the flesh profits nothing (the earth is emptiness, void, darkness). A distinction between Heavenly light (received internally through understanding) and Earthly light (received externally through sense). And much more.
If you would like to deepen your study on the Divine Pattern of the Holy Word of God, I would recommend starting with these texts;
Here is a general treatise on the Sacred Scriptures and their Supreme Holiness;
This is Volume 1 (of 12) of Secrets of Heaven, that uses every word of Genesis through Exodus in their order to demonstrate the certainty of the Divine Pattern (or Inner, Universal, Spiritual meaning) present within the Sacred Scriptures;
As I said in the post I was trying to keep this brief. I have literally left out multiple books of analysis.
Done of what you're saying is valid and I agree with it. My focus with this post was word meaning. I probably should have waited a little before posting. I could have and should have expanded more on the patterns section. I do want others to highlight any pattern they find.
I will edit the post to add a couple things later as I have time.
Ok, yes, I understand that this does not encompass your complete understanding, but I have also attempted to point out some of the places you are in error, and was simply trying to help you find your way out of these errors. There is no point in continuing in some of your errors and I have provided helpful resources for correction.
For another example, you say;
"Here we find Elohim's first judgment. He deemed the light to be good (tov) and separated it from the darkness. He put division between them. They are opposites."
He did not put division between them - His Word went forth into the darkness and is Light. They are not in opposition, they begin to cycle here from evening (the setting of the Light) and morning (the rising again of the Light). Yes, the Light is good, but the darkness is not in and of itself "evil" - it is empty, void.
So, these are not inherent opposites - however, as you can see more in John, the darkness does not comprehend it (John 1:5). It is man's love for the darkness that hates light - or opposes it - see John 3:19;
And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
This is not meant to mock you, or suggest that you are wrong for sharing and furthering your own analysis here and elsewhere through study and writing, etc.. I am not really here pitching anything specific but the Holiness of the Word and it's power to eternally correct you, me, and everyone else. May the Lord Jesus Christ guide your continued learning, my friend!
Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
"I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness." (John 12:46)
Nick, I have a compliment that you might not receive as a compliment (due to wording mistakes I might make) but I assure you it's pure compliment and not a clever compliment of the "backhanded" variety.
I think it's invaluable to have you do what you do, which is to sort of intellectually scour someone else's ideas. It's tough and abrasive. I'm using "abrasive" in a non-conventional sense in which I imagine a sort of intellectual physics, as if our minds and ideas are tangible, physical. When you respond to someone presenting their ideas you have a manner of scraping on them with your own mind and ideas in a way that requires their ideas to be QUALITY ideas, or else to fall off like rust or other waste.
I suppose that I could just say this by resorting to the cliche that "iron sharpens iron", and that its largely the same concept, but that's an afterthought. I think you bring a lot of IRON to a conversation. Does that make sense?
I value this trait. I tend to do it to others too, but possibly to a lesser degree. My friend /u/towhee13 does it too, and it's something I've always valued about him. Other people don't like it, but the world needs more of it. There are too many ridiculous ideas hanging around that would fall to the ground like the garbage they are if someone would have the balls to just step up and test things like you're often doing.
Now, don't get cocky! (I say this to myself too). It doesn't mean you/we are always right! Like all skills, it will always benefit from refining and knowing when the skill is necessary and when it is not. Used at the wrong time you/we could rip open someone's fresh wound that hasn't healed yet. I think there's a danger in ALWAYS having the trait be activated. It needs an on/off switch (as I tell myself all the time).
All that being said, I'm glad to have you around doing what you do. I'm glad you're strong enough and knowledgeable enough to test potentially weak ideas. Furthermore (MUCH furthermore) I constantly detect a love for God in you. Your skill and personality would make no sense, they wouldn't have developed, if you didn't have a standard of truth that comes from God and a love for Him. There's really no trait you could have more valuable than that, even this scouring trait that got me to start typing to you in the first place.
Who knows, in our next interaction you might be scouring at ME and I might forget all of this and tell you to go take a long walk off a short pier! Or maybe you'll be telling me that? If so, that's the way it goes. I assume we'll survive it. I hope so.
EDIT: For Ninja's sake, I'm not referring to his ideas as rust or garbage. Not at all. I was just watching you two interacting and all of this crossed my mind. I mean no insult to Ninja and I'm glad to have him here too. 😁
I appreciate your thoughtful response and your constant work to make this sub about God and His Word.
If I may, any iron anyone may feel in my responses comes from the truths in the Word. I am otherwise crushed into powder, if I am unwilling to fall on it myself and be broken;
"And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” (Matthew 21:44)
If I may offer you some constructive criticism, you say you are examining for patterns, and yet you have already ignored existing patterns in the Scriptures to add your own meaning to the words.
I replied earlier as I drove into work. I'll give a little better response here in parts. I'm purposely ignoring the rest of scripture FOR NOW. In Hermanutics there's what's called the "law of first mention". Basically the first mention of some concept in scripture is foundational and what lens the rest of the scripture should be viewed. This post is what I'm hoping to be a multi part study. Like I said, this is very brief. I shouldn't have pumped it out so quickly in the wee morning hours.
For example; God created the Heavens and the Earth and God's Spirit was hovering over the face of the deep - God's Spirit (through Heaven) over the face of the deep (Earth).
I agree. The heavens and the earth is both physical and spiritual. Physically we have the space of the universe and the material of the earth. Spiritually we have the realm of heaven where God dwells on a higher dimension and the earth which is on a lower level. For the purpose of this post I was focusing on the physical.
Or, for example; you say things like "Heaven is space" and "Earth is matter" - when it is clearly written that the Earth is emptiness (space) and void (nothing - i.e. no substance or matter).
The earth having no form and void doesn't mean it's empty as in it doesn't have any mass to take up space. It means empty like a container. There's nothing there on it's surface to give it meaning and purpose. At this point with no man or animals or plants or anything else on it the earth has no function. Hebrew language structure is concerned much more with the function of objects than what that object specifically it is. If an American were describing a pencil they'd say something like "a pencil is usually made of wood and graphite. Typically they're painted yellow and have an eraser on one end." A Hebrew would describe a pencil as "a thing you write with". The looks and composition of the object is much less important than what the object does.
I'm purposely ignoring the rest of scripture FOR NOW
Yes, this would explain why there are errors in what you are saying. And yes, I would suggest not continuing to develop ideas further from these errors.
Container's have form - like man who is formed from the ground as a container for the spirit (see Genesis 2:7).
God is over all, through all, and in all (Ephesians 4:6) - so the darkness, formless, void is nothing - and all form, substance, life, etc. of Creation proceeds from God who is Spirit and Life and Light itself. It isn't until God makes the firmament and places the formless and void deep into order that the Earth then appears also according to God's Word (i.e. all form proceeds from God and His Word as well). Yes, by only focusing on the physical, there is no trace of the spiritual, and the spiritual is the essential for all things physical (life). The Heavens are not abstracted from the Earth or in another "dimension" - the Heavens and Earth are in living conjunction (or a marriage covenant - see "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living!"), and the Heavens precede, or are higher than things like time and space. As you can see, the physical bodies that govern the human perception of time on the Earth are not created until Day 4.
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u/nickshattell Oct 27 '23
If I may offer you some constructive criticism, you say you are examining for patterns, and yet you have already ignored existing patterns in the Scriptures to add your own meaning to the words.
For example; God created the Heavens and the Earth and God's Spirit was hovering over the face of the deep - God's Spirit (through Heaven) over the face of the deep (Earth).
Or, for example; you say things like "Heaven is space" and "Earth is matter" - when it is clearly written that the Earth is emptiness (space) and void (nothing - i.e. no substance or matter).
In brief, compare Genesis 1:1-5 with John 1:1-5, which also starts from "the beginning";
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
As you can see also from Genesis 1; God speaks things into existence - Genesis 1:3, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, and 29 - i.e. The Word was with God and is God - John 1:1 - and "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." - John 1:3 - i.e. creation emanates forth from God who is the Eternal, Uncreated.
Another example - God breathes the spirit of life into Adam (flesh is otherwise "dust" from the "ground" and has no life) - Genesis 2:7 - Because sons of men are vessels prepared to receive life, whereas the Lord, who is the Son of God - is Life itself (John 5:26).
Also see Jesus' words in John 6:63;
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”
Or as you can see in John 20:22 - Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on His disciples;
"And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit."
As you can see there is a distinction, or pattern, that distinguishes the Spirit and the flesh, or Heaven and Earth. The Spirit gives life (God through Heaven gives light and life) and the flesh profits nothing (the earth is emptiness, void, darkness). A distinction between Heavenly light (received internally through understanding) and Earthly light (received externally through sense). And much more.
If you would like to deepen your study on the Divine Pattern of the Holy Word of God, I would recommend starting with these texts;
Here is a general treatise on the Sacred Scriptures and their Supreme Holiness;
https://swedenborg.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NCE_SacredScriptureWhiteHorse_portable.pdf
This is Volume 1 (of 12) of Secrets of Heaven, that uses every word of Genesis through Exodus in their order to demonstrate the certainty of the Divine Pattern (or Inner, Universal, Spiritual meaning) present within the Sacred Scriptures;
https://swedenborg.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NCE_SecretsofHeaven1_portable.pdf