-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
Behalf Of bivalve
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2002 8:00 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: RE: The Bible: human word of the almighty God.doc
>There are four different accounts of Jesus' baptism, one of which
>(John) does not mention a voice. This points out what Brown is
>getting at when he warns against overly naive readings. Based on the
>four accounts, it is unclear to me whether there was a voice, or if
>there was, who heard it(Jesus only, John the Baptist or the
>audience)<
John does not exactly give an account of the baptism of Jesus; John
the Baptist refers back to it but does not give a full description,
so the omission of mention of the voice there does not seem
significant. The synoptics all mention a voice from heaven. They do
not say who heard it or how, but someone had to hear something for
the event to be recorded.
S Shuan wrote:
One interpretation could be that the someone was Jesus, who received a
private revelation that was later expanded upon in the retelling. However,
the very fact of varying accounts support the argument that the baptism of
Jesus (which I believe was a historical event) was not come to us
unretouched
\John 12:29 is rather more explicit about a noise that was heard by
the crowd, though only some identified it as words.
>This [part of Daniel] is definitely incorrect. Darius became king
>many years after Belshazzar, and was preceded by other Persian
>Kings, notably Cyrus the Great. <
This depends on the equation of Darius the Mede of Daniel with Darius
I, the rather later king of Persia. However, conservative
commentators have suggested that "the Mede" is intended to
distinguish Daniel's character from Darius I. Assuming that Darius
the Mede is someone known under another name in the other accounts,
Cyrus would probably provide the best match.
Shuan wrote:
I find the conservative attempts to find a place for Darius the Mede in
history quite implausible. No else seems to think Cyrus the Great was ever
called Darius the Mede(a strange appellation for a Persian)
It also presumes an odd mix of flagrant error and detailed knowledge
on the part of the author. A Maccabean forger knew about the
existence of Belshazzar and the lack of a siege or defense at
Babylon, yet was ignorant of Cyrus and did not even read Ezra?
Shuan wrote:
The word "forger" is an unfortunate choice of words in a context where the
writers of this type of literature (apocalyptic) typically took on the guise
of an ancient hero.Our ideas about authorship were simply unknown in the
ancient world. People should understand that and get past that. "The past is
another country. People do things differently there".
Many people have an odd mix of flagrant error and detailed knowledge as
regards historical Knowledge. Many people think the words "under God" were
in the original Pledge of Allegiance ( they weren't), that the founding
fathers were all or mostly devout Christians(they weren't) and that Darwin
coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" (he didn't).Perhaps the ancient
writer was simply casual about historical facts because it was not his
intent to write a precise, detailed account of the history of the Babylonian
and early Persian period.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted
Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at
Droitgate Spa
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