Responding to a silly theory about gopher wood
Dan McClellan | 19 Febr. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcEYQOL-Y78
Is it even a species of tree?
LXX and Vulgate translate as if it were a question of a specific process done to the tree.
de lignis laevigatis (I don't know exactly the meaning of laevigare, but Douay Rheims translates timber planks)
ἐκ ξύλων τετραγώνων
This seems pretty plausible if Brown-Driver-Briggs gives a suggestion about "(hence 'pitch-wood, resinous wood')" and Strong's Exhaustive Concordance mentions "From an unused root, probably meaning to house in; a kind of tree or wood (as used for building), apparently the cypress -- gopher."*
I get the impression of wood cut into logs as for log houses. As the Ark wasn't meant to navitage against the waves, but to float with them, very thick outer walls of the ark actually make sense. I took this into account when calculating the empty weight of the Ark a few years ago.
3:47 My theory of the four rivers** is, in post-Flood times we find the same river valleys closest to where Eden was as Euphrates, Tigris, Blue Nile and White Nile.
However, in pre-Flood times, the rivers flowed outwards instead (so, river valleys preserved the cavity but changed slope, in the Flood), from the Jordan river, which was bigger.
And they did flow outwards even to the outermost corners of the world, Euphrates or pre-Flood Frat to St. Lawrence river and maybe also Mississippee in the North West, for instance.
Frat would have gone North-West along first Euphrates, then post-Flood Zagros and Black Sea, then Danube (reverse direction), then Alps and Rhine (maybe also Rhone and Garonne, same direction), then across what in post-Flood times is the North Atlantic, into St. Lawrence (again reverse direction). It would have gone out into the Pacific about today's Alaska (comparing not so much coordinates of the globe as coordinates of each tectonic plate).
4:52 Christian nationalism per se (apart from its current realistation in the US) is actually not a worship of naked power.
Matthew 28, 16 to 20. The stated goal of the Great Commission or Target Population if you prefer, is "all nations" ... this means, obviously nations converting king down (Kingdom of Abgar, Armenia, Roman Empire, Franks, Kingdom of Kent, Kingdom of Northumbria, the five kingdoms of Ireland ...).
MUCH LESS OF A POINT HERE, THOUGH:
Has this Bible contradiction been debunked?
Dan McClellan | 18 Febr. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By4bKXURd3w
This is a case for Haydock.***
You know, the Roman Catholic Scofield, but about a century older than Scofield.
Ver. 19. Cattle. Some had escaped the former plague, or the Egyptians had purchased more from their neighbours, and in the land of Gessen. (Haydock) --- God tempers justice with mercy. (St. Augustine, q. 33.) --- Die. This message was accordingly delivered to Pharao. (Samaritan copy) (Haydock)
So, if Egyptian horses were killed in the murrain, the war horses in chapter 14 would have been purchased from neighbours or even in Goshen.
7:05 One of the communities that assert inerrancy is actually the Roman Catholic Church (traditionally, apart from contemporary partial apostasies), as you can see from Father Haydock's comment on Exodus 9:19. And as this is the Church that Jesus founded, this is where I need to be. I find a patronising tone from people who are both Protestant and Anti-Inerrantists (a k a Modernist, Liberal Theologian) very annoying, since they are doubly cut off from the Church that Our Lord actually founded.
- Kyeudo
- @Kyeudo
- Asserting the inerrancy of the Bible is the fastest way to demonstrate that you don't know anything about the Bible.
What year was Jesus born? Answer that question without making at least one gospel a liar.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @hglundahl
- @Kyeudo Before Herod the Great died.
Luke is not tied down to the post-Archelaus census, since Galilaea was a province earler and could have had a census earlier.
Meaning that St. Joseph by going to Judaea then was doing tax evasion by going to a country not yet a province.
- Kyeudo
- @hglundahl Then you have just called the Gospel of Luke in error. Quirinius was not governor of Syria until 6 AD, a decade after Herod the Great died. The Gospel of Luke specifically calls out that Quirinius is governor when the census happens. If you want to posit a census earlier, a thing for which we have no records and for which there is no precedent, then you are automatically claiming that the author of the Gospel of Luke was incorrect.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @ Actually, you are basing that on Josephus, there is a stone memorial in Italy that suggests Quirinus (best fit to the man described in the inscription) was probably ruling or coruling in Syria earlier, and Josephus just recalled the later occasion as a prequel to a census that was prequel to a revolt and massacre.
"No records" actually isn't this much of a problem given that we do have records for census taking decades in different places, and given records are fragmentary.
- Kyeudo
- @hglundahl We know where Quirinius was and what he was doing from 14 BC to 4 AD. None of it was governing Syria. You can place Quirinius as governor of Syria in 5 AD if you like, but that still makes Luke wrong. Herod the Great is dead no later than 4 BC.
The lack of records is huge here because there is no indication that the Romans ever conducted a census of a client kingdom like what Herod the Great ruled. They would have no reason to either, as a census was about assessing taxation and client kingdoms paid tribute to the empire, not taxes.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @ "We know where Quirinius was and what he was doing from 14 BC to 4 AD."
Yes, from what sources?
I'm going to a Christian archaeology site.°°°
The Emperor Augustus (reigned 27 BC-14 AD) ordered the undertaking of his second known census of the Roman Empire in ca. 8 BC, which appears to be the census associated with the birth of Jesus (Augustus, Res Gestae Divi Augusti). Meanwhile, Quirinius was a legatus commanding legions in Cilicia and Syria to the north, apparently as one of two rulers in Syria Province at the time, and following Roman protocol the military authority conducted the census (Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem; Tacitus, Annals; Josephus, Antiquities). According to a stone inscription dedicated to a Roman military officer named Quintus Aemilius Secundus, found in what was formerly the Roman province of Syria, Quirinus was the legate in command of the Syria Province when a census was issued during the reign of Augustus (Epitaph of Secundus).
Now, you mentioned Romans didn't conduct a census in a client kingdom.
PRECISELY my point. Joseph avoided a census in Galilee by going to Judaea.
Tax evasion. The Gospel never said he actually registered in Bethlehem.~
- Kyeudo
- @hglundahl
Your source is not peer reviewed and is from a blatantly credulous position. Further, it has wrong information. The governor of Syria in 8 BC is known. His name was Gaius Sentius Saturninus. At the time, Quirinius was at least one province over, in Cillicia and Galatia, prosecuting a campaign against the Homanades. Also, the census ordered by Augustus in 8 BC was for Roman citizens, not the provinces.
As for Joseph trying to evade taxation by being in Judea during a census, that would itself be an error: Luke 2:4-5 - And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judæa, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
Joseph is explicitly going to be taxed. Further, there was no tax evasion under the Roman system. The publican that bought the taxes in the area is just going to knock on your door when you come back. He'd have to forget that he hadn't hit up your house for his money in order for you to avoid taxes.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Kyeudo "Your source is not peer reviewed"
// APXAIOC Institute of Biblical Archaeology is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit //
Probably argues it isn't peer reviewed by YOUR favourite team.
"and is from a blatantly credulous position"
You mean they are upfront Christians? Fine with me.
"Further, it has wrong information. The governor of Syria in 8 BC is known. His name was Gaius Sentius Saturninus. At the time, Quirinius was at least one province over, in Cillicia and Galatia, prosecuting a campaign against the Homanades."
Cilicia is actually neighbouring Syria, and Romans had a knack of going back and forth.
Quirinus is not said to be "ho hegemon" but rather he is described as doing sth, as "hegemeuon" ... he could have filled duties for Saturninus without actually having the principal office in Syria.
The Homanades might not have taken all of the time, and the old stones actually do suggest that 6 AD wasn't his first time over.
"Also, the census ordered by Augustus in 8 BC was for Roman citizens, not the provinces."
Are you sure? What I know of Roman taxation at this time (before all provincials became citizens in the 200's AD) is that citizens sponged on provincials as to taxation, while citizens on the other hand provided the soldiers.
"The publican that bought the taxes in the area is just going to knock on your door when you come back."
Well, Joseph obviously planned for living in Bethlehem, free from Publicans.
"Joseph is explicitly going to be taxed."
If I see a Roman tax collector in Bethlehem, I'll certainly go to the census there, as I promised the Roman centurion up in Galilee.
What? No tax collectors? Maybe God doesn't want me to pay Roman taxes, after all!
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @ Are Musei Vaticani sufficiently peer reviewed for your taste?
Citing:
Fragment of the sepulchral inscription of Quirinius
The inscription, found near Tivoli in 1764, probably belonged to the tomb of Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, "proconsul" (governor) of Asia and "legate divi Augusti" (imperial official) of Syria and Phoenicia in the time of the Emperor Augustus (27 BC -14 AD). This figure is mentioned in the Gospel in relation to the census at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem "when Quirinius was governor of Syria" (Lk 2, 1-7): indeed, this census has been the focus of intense historical debate, as it would appear that it took place twelve years after the birth of Jesus. In fact, the inscription in question, with the term "leg (atus) iterum ..." ("... twice legate") attests to the possibility of that Quirinius held an earlier post in Syria: on that occasion he could have overseen a more approximate estimate of the population, thus limiting the presumed discrepancy between historical sources and the passage from the Gospel according to Luke.
https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/lapidario-cristiano/abercio/frammento-dell-iscrizione-sepolcrale-di-quirinius.html
7:28 Well, indeed there is a sense of self worth in being part of the Church that Jesus founded. I do have a reason to echo Belloc° who, echoing himself St. Paul said "civis Romanus sum" and the actual words°° were "Si hominem Romanum, et indemnatum licet vobis flagellare?"
8:02 Thank you very much for being this patronising, it may be instructive to my readers.
For instance, you sound as if 1) wanting a social standing, 2) in a community, 3) and believing the social standing and the community to be good were, all three of them, carnal things and likely to mislead a man, come into objective conflict with objective truth, for whatever community this be the case. In other words, you are at the edge of Albigensian condemnation of the physical and social world as a creation of the "bad principle" ...
I'm not. I'm not subconsciously Catholic, but very consciously so. I think my standing as a Catholic (which doesn't mean with "Pope Francis") is a good thing and conducive to acceptance of objectively true propositions, and that therefore the propositions it involves can be very rationally defended.
8:39 You seem to be referring to 1984. Orwell.
The ones threatening me with rats have so far been on your side. It's not Catholicism that's abusing me. It's Anti-Catholics, plus the fact that Modernist Catholics both are too impressed by your likes and too eager to please them with providing them yet another go to convince me, which they have been provided with since 2000. No comforts allowed. No Catholic allowed to print my works, earn us both money, which would get me off the street in maybe a week. JUST treading on with them caving in to the likes of you, "no, we can't let him be Catholic for worldly gain" a bit like how Israel's law forbids Christians to support converts from Judaism, except I've never been part of Judaism in the first place. Not in the usual Halakhic way, and not even that I would count as banning me from Catholicism or defying the inhuman laws of the Knesset.
9:02 I actually see a time marker in chapter 9 which basically excludes Haydock's conclusion.
The day after the murrain Moses threatened the hail which arrived the next day.
Solution. The "servants of the Pharao" were Israelites.
During the soujourn, there were Israelites in Goshen and there were Israelites elsewhere serving the Pharao. The latter would have preserved cattle from the murrain but not (apart from heeding Moses) from the hail. How much sense does it make for Gentile Egyptians to have listened to Moses anyway?
2 + 2 = 4, as Bishop Richard Williamson, recently deceased, like yourself a fan of Orwell, and Catholicism is true. This extends to Biblical inerrancy. You're the guy who puts 2 and 2 together and gets 7, like that man who wanted gopherwood to prove a point about the US.
- Kyeudo
- Why would gentile Egyptians pay attention to the guy who has foretold six country wide plagues? The answer is in the question.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Kyeudo It didn't state "feared Moses" but "feared Adonai" ...
Plus, even if you had a point, there is no impossibility in Hebrews outside Goshen being servants of the pharao.
- Kyeudo
- @hglundahl You are making a distinction without a difference.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @ It actually has one.
Everything the solution requires is for some Hebrews to have lived outside Goshen. As servants of the Pharao.
Fearing Adonai typically refers not to being scared, but to adore the true God.
Notes from my original comments:
* Works accessed through:
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1613.htm
** For instance in:
Location of Eden and Four Rivers Revisited
*** Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition. [the first edition is older]
EXODUS - Chapter 9
° Or Chesterton. At least.
°° Of St. Paul.
Notes from dialogues:
°°° https://apxaioc.com/?p=29
~ As I mentioned here: Nativity Narrative Revisited
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