Lambano
Well-Known Member
After reading even a few threads, I wouldn't say "have been", past tense. Maybe "being transformed", work in progress.
Commanded to love God more than we love ourselves?
- Thread starter St. SteVen
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Bob
Member
Thank you kindly for you reply.
You are correct: I am more interested what is meant by Love Your Neighbor rather than all the scriptural differences in Love the Lord Your God. (Are they perhaps the outcome of scripture that was for many years orally transmitted?)
Question: do the three stated characteristics of Love Your Neighbor broadly capture the intent, or is something missing, or is there too much? (Too much Book of James and not enough John’s Gospel?)
Re the why are we here question, see the Westminster Catechism (and a different perspective).
Looking forward to your future posts.
Lambano
Well-Known Member
Rabbi Abraham Heschel in his book God in Search of Man says that the Hebrew word יִרְאָה ("yirah") used in that proverb carries shades of meaning which include wonder, awe, reverence, and yes, real fear, fear as when one is confronted by an entity infinitely greater than oneself.
The high calling is to become selfless as God is selfless...denying oneself. For us this means being stripped of self in order to be clothed with His life and power.
Lambano
Well-Known Member
No, I think God's assumption in that verse is that we already DO love ourselves. And who would know us better? Even though sometimes we're not "fond of our own company", we still are looking out for numero uno. We make sure that our own basic needs are met, and we do the things that we think will make us happy and give ourselves stuff that we think will make us happy. It's all about me, Me, ME and my wants and needs. We're all self-centered as hell.
Agree.
The self hatred thing seems to be an observation of modern psychology, And all too real I would say.
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Lambano
Well-Known Member
Bingo, and I don't think we need to be teaching each other to love ourselves more. We already do that. The call is to DENY ourselves and love outward and upward.
"The humble man doesn't think himself a worm. The humble man doesn't think of himself at all." (Who said that?)
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If I care if I am cold, wet, hungry, and thirsty, I should care the same about others.
There comes a point that we realize that our agape care becomes just another welfare program - and arm of the government. I believe our command to love is at the personal one-on-one level.
There comes a point that we realize that our agape care becomes just another welfare program - and arm of the government. I believe our command to love is at the personal one-on-one level.
That's interesting. Thanks.
I hadn't thought of God in those terms before. Selfless.
Probably because the caricature of God the church has given us seems more self-absorbed,
Hell bent for revenge, completely intolerant, hateful, angry, short-tempered...
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Part of the command to love our neighbors as ourselves, so part of that is the command to love ourselves. The way to view what our parents created as having no value is by not honoring them while the way to view what our creators created as having great value is by honoring them, so by honoring our creators we are honoring ourselves, which means that the 5th Commandment is essentially the command to love ourselves as we love our creators. Likewise, that is parallel to the 10th Commandment, where by coveting others we placing no value on ourselves by wishing that we were someone else, so it is essentially the command to love ourselves as we love our neighbors. God said that man was good before man had done anything, so our value is not based on what we have done, but based upon that we were created created in God's image, so the love that we should have for ourselves should take up an appropriate amount of space where we do not love ourselves more or less than others who were created in God's image.
The way to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength is by seeking to be only in His image, or another words, to live in a way that testifies about only His character traits. In other words, the way to love God's justice is by being a doer of His justice in obedience to His law, the way to love God's holiness is by being holy as He is holy in obedience to His law, and so forth, so everything that God specifically chose to command was given to teach us how to love a different aspect of His character, which is why there are many verses in both the OT and the NT that connect our love for God with our obedience to His commandments. In particular, Deuteronomy 6:4-7 connects the greatest commandment with putting God's commands on our heart, diligently teaching teaching them to our children, talking of them when we sit in our house, when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up. Likewise, in Deuteronomy 30:16, it connects loving God with all of our heart with walking in His way in obedience to His commandments, statutes, and laws. Someone should not think that what Jesus was instructing his followers to do by repeating the greatest two commandments of the OT was different from what God was instructing the Israelites to do when He gave the greatest two commandments.
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The Hebrew word "pachad" refers to the type of fear that causes us to want to run away and hide while the word "yireh" refers to the type of fear that causes us to see and run towards someone. In other words, there is the type of fear where we don't want to be close to someone and the type of fear where we don't want to be separated from someone and the type of fear that is the beginning of wisdom is the later, so it is rooted in love.
Logikos
Active Member
He was quoting the Septuagint and everyone but you seems to know it. Five minutes with Google can confirm it for anyone who cares enough to spend even that much time on the issue.
He did so all the time. Based on the biblical record, the Septuagint was His favorite version of the bible to quote from.
I don't know that it is clear that Jesus spoke to the Hebrew people in Greek. We know that He read from the scrolls which we not in Greek. We might be amazed at the things in the library under the control of the Vatican.
"But, while the New Testament authors quoted the LXX frequently, it does not necessarily follow that Christ did. We know for certain that Jesus quoted the Hebrew Old Testament at times, since he read from the scrolls in the synagogue. But Jesus could have only quoted from the Hebrew, and the New Testament authors later used the Greek translation to record the fact."
In Which Passages Does Jesus Quote the Septuagint, and Where Does the New Testament Allude to the Septuagint?
Some Protestants challenge Catholics to show where Jesus quotes the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Click here to learn more.
That's a very interesting point. The Septuagint (Greek OT) dates to the 3rd century BC.
But when was it used, and what for?
SEPTUAGINT QUOTES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT - Scripture Catholic
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Our difficulty now is derived from the issue that our bibles in English (not counting that the definitions of English words have changed in the last 500 years) are either translations from Greek or a translation of Latin that was a translation from Greek.
www.britannica.com
Septuagint, the earliest extant Greek translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. The Septuagint was presumably made for the Jewish community in Egypt when Greek was the common language throughout the region. Analysis of the language has established that the Torah, or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), was translated near the middle of the 3rd century BCE and that the rest of the Old Testament was translated in the 2nd century BCE.
www.britannica.com
Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is among the more important finds in the history of modern archaeology. Study of the scrolls has enabled scholars to push back the date of a stabilized Hebrew Bible to no later than 70 CE, to help reconstruct the history of Palestine from the 4th century BCE to 135 CE, and to cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of rabbinic Judaism and on the relationship between early Christian and Jewish religious traditions.
Septuagint | Greek, Hebrew & Aramaic Sources
Septuagint, the earliest extant Greek translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. The Septuagint was presumably made for the Jewish community in Egypt when Greek was the common language throughout the region. Analysis of the language has established that the Torah, or Pentateuch (the
www.britannica.com
Septuagint, the earliest extant Greek translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. The Septuagint was presumably made for the Jewish community in Egypt when Greek was the common language throughout the region. Analysis of the language has established that the Torah, or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), was translated near the middle of the 3rd century BCE and that the rest of the Old Testament was translated in the 2nd century BCE.
Dead Sea Scrolls | Definition, Discovery, History, & Facts
Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient, mostly Hebrew, manuscripts (of leather, papyrus, and copper) first found in 1947 on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is among the more important finds in the history of modern archaeology. Study of the scrolls has enabled scholars
www.britannica.com
Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is among the more important finds in the history of modern archaeology. Study of the scrolls has enabled scholars to push back the date of a stabilized Hebrew Bible to no later than 70 CE, to help reconstruct the history of Palestine from the 4th century BCE to 135 CE, and to cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of rabbinic Judaism and on the relationship between early Christian and Jewish religious traditions.
Lambano
Well-Known Member
I did cut-and-paste the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy 6:5, and I highlighted the points (in English) where the Matthew, Mark, and Luke accounts depart from the LXX. I suppose if I had been more rigorous, I would have cut-and-pasted the Greek versions of Matthew, Mark and Luke and highlighted in red where "mind" is added and "power" is redacted. I will leave that as an exercise for the student.
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