Caleb

1,487 reputation

837

bio	website	alerque.com
	location	Izmir, Turkey
	age	31
visits	member for	1 year, 7 months
	seen	May 20 at 8:06
stats	profile views	63

I am a scripting language connoisseur, regular expression aficionado, network geek, general lover of Linux and a frequent contributor to open source software. I transitioned to programming from other work because I was too busy automating my own work environment to actually do the other work. I have a hobby interest in cartography. For more see my personal site. Most importantly, my life is defined by the grace of God given to men through Jesus Christ. It is my ambition that everything I do would reflect His glory and point people towards Him.

	1,487 reputation	bio	website	alerque.com	visits	member for	1 year, 7 months
837 badges		location	Izmir, Turkey		seen	May 20 at 8:06

summary answers questions tags badges favorites bounties reputation activity

117 Comments

suggestions reviews revisions comments badges posts accepts all

Sep 22	comment	What does it mean that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist? Welcome to Hermeneutics.SE. Could you expand this to show on what basis you have interpreted this verse this way?
Sep 18	comment	What is the referent for “brother” in 1 John 4:20-21? This question appears to be going two ways, and each way is better addrssed by a different StackExchange site. One way is to deal with the text and exactly how to interpret the word in it's context. For this I will move your question to Biblical Hermeneutics. In doing so, I'm going to edit out the other parts. The second direction you are going requires a doctrinal answer. You might consider asking another question here about what Christian traditions consider their "brothers" to be.
Sep 13	comment	Who is judging who in Revelation 20:4? You hint in your last paragraph about the "theme of the rest of the following phrases and clauses". Is this just the topical connection that I can see in translations or is there a grammatical thing going on that draws a closer connection than that?
Sep 11	comment	Why are the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) significant? The Dead Sea Scrolls and Protestant canon
Sep 11	comment	Why are the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) significant? Do the Dead Sea scrolls describe any prophecy which was fulfilled after they were written?
Aug 4	comment	What language did Jesus commonly speak? People in some countries don't even identify their "first" language like we do, having grown up with several they find them either entirely interchangable or use them for different purposes without the stumbling blocks that we usually deal with when using a "second language".
Aug 4	comment	What language did Jesus commonly speak? Your argument for Jesus non-fluence in Greek sounds pretty flimsy here. I agree on your conclusions about Aramaic and Hebrew, but your summary of the issues surrounding Greek don't seem to warrant your conclusion that he "possible spoke a bit of Greek". In general your reasoning in this post and elsewhere seem very tried to certain premises about the usage of language that only really hold true in mono-lingual societies, particularly ones who's language is the lingua franca.
Aug 4	comment	Was Greek Mark's second language? I actually agree with your conclusions about Greek being more widely known than Ehrman (or Jon Ericson) are asserting, however your argument here about the conversation with Pilate doesn't seem to carry any weight as it is almost certain that appropriate translators were on hand for Pilate to handle other issues where language would been an issue.
Jul 15	comment	Isn't disowning someone a form of being faithless? Welcome to Hermeneutics.SE!
Jul 11	comment	How are verses indicating that God is a God of war, and others indicating that he is a God of peace reconciled to not be contradictory? @BobJones: I think most people give doctrinal answers because this is inherently a doctrinal problem, which is why I argued this was off topic in the first place. We can migrate this to [christianity] and make it a doctrinal question showing how Christians fit these two sides into a bigger picture. If that isn't what you want, then this will need some major editing to focus on what kind of answer you do expect that is hermeneutical and not doctrinal. The rest of us seem to be having a hard time visualizing that. Maybe a the question could be re-scoped to cast that vision.
Jul 11	comment	How are verses indicating that God is a God of war, and others indicating that he is a God of peace reconciled to not be contradictory? @JonEricson: I think it could work migrated as long as it was re-worded to ask for an overview of doctrinal issues that Christians from various quarters would point to to resolve it rather than the current focus on logic and the text.
Jul 7	comment	How are verses indicating that God is a God of war, and others indicating that he is a God of peace reconciled to not be contradictory? This seems very much like a theologically oriented problem, not a textual one. I'm going to suggest that it is off-topic for this site and better resolved by doctrinal frameworks that deal with the different aspects of God's character.
Jul 7	comment	How are verses indicating that God is a God of war, and others indicating that he is a God of peace reconciled to not be contradictory? Re: "peace is an aspect of love"? Say what now? God wages war because of his love. He loves what is good, therefore hates what is evil and opposes it. We have plenty of examples from this in scripture. I'm think throwing this statement into your argument makes it go all wonky as a line of reasoning (even if I agree with the conclusion).
Jul 1	comment	Who is the woman in Revelation 12? @Jas3.1 Your answer is excellent and I agree with the conclusion, however in point 3 at the end it hinges entirely on your assertion that no interpretation of this passage no matter how metaphoric can be seen to be filled in Mary. The Catholic church claims it was. In order to make sense of that (im)possibility I think one must bring the weight of the rest of scripture to bear on the matter. Your interpretation is good, but depends on your view on several issues going into the interpretation process. Rather than depending on your assumptions, why not let it depend on other scripture?
Jun 29	comment	Who is the woman in Revelation 12? I dealt with this some in answering this question.
May 25	comment	Why does Jesus tell the disciples to buy swords? @Wikis: My quick review before cross-linked shown one answer that makes some sense and might be right but has no references backing it up, one that has tons of references but I couldn't make out what the main point really was, and one that was just thrown out there. Maybe I should have just said "help" rather than "serious help".
May 25	comment	Why does Jesus tell the disciples to buy swords? Related question on Christianity: Why did Jesus tell His disciples to buy a sword? (Which probably needs serious help; if anything useful comes out of this question...)
May 3	comment	How do Jewish scholars differ from Christian scholars in their approach to the Tanakh? Excellent answer! I agree with your analysis that certain philosophical presuppositions inform the way we read text. I am specifically not looking for an answer to the question you identify at the end, but I am interested in pursuing this a little farther to be able to put a finger on specific presuppositions that cause a text to be handled X way -- where X is obviously not any of the four points you list as varying across both world views. While all those things are debated in both camps, there are clearly some hermeneutical distinctives of each camp. What are they/how could they be defined?
May 3	comment	How do Jewish scholars differ from Christian scholars in their approach to the Tanakh? @Soldarnal: I think you raise a valid concern about this question. I realize both worlds are fragmented to the point of being nearly impossible to lump together, but their is still somehow a pretty clear line between them. I am really less interested with the specific doctrines or outcomes so much as how they get there -- which along the lines of Amichai's answer I think boils down to philosophical presuppositions -- and in what ways we can identify those base factors affecting the way we interpret the texts. Do you have any suggestions for making this a more productive question?
Apr 30	comment	The Eye of the Needle A follow up question on this topic relating to the historical aspects and modern Jerusalem has been raised over on Christianity.