Mike Yohe: Hosea 4:6 is the ch/verse. I exhort you to follow up on reading the Bible.Rodin46, Thanks for the reply on “knowledge". It made a lot of sense to me. It would make better sense if they would have use Gnostic, which means “Knowledge". I will have to check up on the translation. On the timeline it is almost too early to be Greek in meaning. As far as reading the bible, the greatest book ever written. Nobody should try and comprehend the bible unless they understand religion first. That’s hooking the cart in front of the horse like the American belief system. First I had to figure out which “God" and which religion Hosea was talking about. The religion was one of the “Religion of the Children of Abraham" at a time of great difficulties for the area. It was more in the Samaria branch of the religion, before the Jewish religion was formed. At this time period this “God" of Hosea was depicted as the lion, leopard, bear and many others. It is more in line with the Egyptian Gods. The other main God of the people in Hosea’s time and area was the god Baal. Hosea was a title name, meaning “salvation". And Hosea was preaching that man should make a contract with “God", very Egyptian. What I got from just from a quick look. Greed had taken ahold of Samaria people in the country of Israel. Hosea was trying to bring the people in to a religion that did not allow “greed". And that would have been the Amen religion out of Egypt. Mostly the same rules and same laws because Moses designed his religion on Amen. So Hosea was wanting the people to embrace and make a contract. This would create a strong government and loyal army. But local Baal religion was giving him trouble and before he got his task done, Samaria (Israel) fell to the larger empire. The people were allowed to continual their religion which developed into the Samaritan religion and is still active today, but very small. Thanks, Mike
Well Mike you have some true info in your reply however you have a lot of it misapplied and misinterpreted.
- Gnosticism was present during the coming of Christ and clearly preached against but the knowledge gained was mystical in origin. That’s part of why the freemasons use a big G in their symbol. Not plain knowledge like read this book and attempt to comprehend and understand it’s meanings of the authors intent.
- “Nobody should try and comprehend the bible unless they understand religion first. That’s hooking the cart in front of the horse like the American belief system.”
Bull poop. Comparative religion classes/study will produce confusion by attempting to shift belief origins and consequently inhibit clarity. In my research that is by design and its evil obfuscation of truth. The Bible itself explains what it wants to and what He wants us to know. It is sufficient as it states. Right now we are on a need to know basis with God as children.
No one will ever understand the Bible and it’s God completely ever. He is beyond our full understanding in the flesh. In the Spirit we will know Him as we should and in the flesh with the Spirit we do get a good understanding and it’s plenty good enough for the true believer. - On all the remaining stuff you wrote about: You would need a good OT bible class on the Hebrew fathers, the Exodus, the promised land, Judges, the Kingdom, and especially the Exile and Restoration.
Otherwise you will be given explanations like the kind you gave for that time in history. i.e Some true facts but twisted with historical Egyptian paganism. The main problem for Israel then was that they wanted to be like the other surrounding neighbors and their culture and not be Gods people. That was partly what brought them down as a holy nation. Sounds familiar don’t it. I want to do what I want to do. Not do what God wants done in and with my life.
Another part was the prophets and kings had been corrupted too and that led to Baal worship amongst other evils. A nearly complete breakdown in leadership and governance ensued. Not unlike Rome, Greece, Assyria and Babylon. The four sections of Daniels statue vision/dream and the major past and one present world great civilizations. The Holy Roman Empire is still in obvious operation.
Well Mike you have some true info in your reply however you have a lot of it misapplied and misinterpreted.Rodin46, I disagree. But I will agree that in the belief system you cannot apply many of the true historical facts that we are now aware of today.
1) Gnosticism was present during the coming of Christ and clearly preached against but the knowledge gained was mystical in origin. That's part of why the freemasons use a big G in their symbol. Not plain knowledge like read this book and attempt to comprehend and understand it's meanings of the authors intent.Rodin46, I hear you, but why do you think that we have 30,000 different religious entities in the United States alone. Ask ten people to read the bible and they will have different ideas. Belief is in the mind. I can tell you that the color of an orange is blue and we could argue for many years and never settle the argument. That is because we are talking about my belief. And if you are going to argue belief, then CFI is the wrong site. If you want to argue facts and theories, then this is a subject of interest to me. Get me truth and knowledge, that’s what I seek. I did not know that the Freemasons used the big “G". That is really cool. All conversations should start from a good base. You use the bible and I want to fully understand religion first, so that I can properly read a book that is written in another time of history and get the idea and thoughts that the book was trying to communicate. I did read the bible once, but it was fifty years ago and I really don’t remember anything other than a bunch of crazy ideas, so I can’t count that as really reading the bible. And I have trouble spelling and most of the names I could not pronounce back then.
1) Gnosticism was present during the coming of ChristNo kidding, Jesus was Gnostic.
{and clearly preached against but the knowledge gained was mystical in origin.}Jesus preached for Gnostic, the bible preached against Gnostic. Just try reading the bible in Gnostic format and you will really begin to understand the teachings of Jesus.
2) "Nobody should try and comprehend the bible unless they understand religion first. That’s hooking the cart in front of the horse like the American belief system." Bull poop. Comparative religion classes/study will produce confusion by attempting to shift belief origins and consequently inhibit clarity. In my research that is by design and its evil obfuscation of truth. The Bible itself explains what it wants to and what He wants us to know. It is sufficient as it states. Right now we are on a need to know basis with God as children.What do you want to learn? The teachings of Jesus or the teachings of the Christian religion (a belief system). This brings us to the point of “God". Don’t you understand that “God" varied a little in the different religions, even if those religion evolved from the same “God"? This is why if you want to learn the religion of Jesus you need to first understand what “God" is. And to do that you will need a timeline with the evolution of “God".
No one will ever understand the Bible and it's God completely ever. He is beyond our full understanding in the flesh. In the Spirit we will know Him as we should and in the flesh with the Spirit we do get a good understanding and it's plenty good enough for the true believer.Religion is easy to understand, so is “God". What you are saying is totally a Christian cop-out and if you believe that we need to get together about some swamp land in Florida. You’re trying to make religion and God fit into your belief system and you’re having trouble. I had no trouble understanding God or religion, and I like what the old God and religious system has done for mankind. God created earth for mankind. Then mankind changed God and things went to hell. Jesus was just trying to go back to the old Gnostic type of God and system that was good for mankind.
3) On all the remaining stuff you wrote about: You would need a good OT bible class on the Hebrew fathers, the Exodus, the promised land, Judges, the Kingdom, and especially the Exile and Restoration.Rodin46, the more you learn about religion the more you will understand that the bible clearly shows the evolution of religion and that there is not one original idea in the bible. A lot of the stories are not even original. You should broaden you knowledge base outside of the bible and try and understand the people and the laws and how they lived.
Otherwise you will be given explanations like the kind you gave for that time in history. i.e Some true facts but twisted with historical Egyptian paganism.Egypt had one main god, Amen-Ra. And this “Egyptian paganism" as you call it is the base for the religion and customs in the bible that are still being use today.
The main problem for Israel then was that they wanted to be like the other surrounding neighbors and their culture and not be Gods people. That was partly what brought them down as a holy nation. Sounds familiar don't it. I want to do what I want to do. Not do what God wants done in and with my life.A little muddy here. I’ll try and clear it up. The time we were taking about “Hosea", Israel was mainly “the religion of the Children of Abraham". The bible did not follow the Israel branch but instead evolved from the Judea branch of religion. Israel only existed for 103 years, so it was a young startup nation that got taken over before it got its act together. And Hosea was trying to implement a change in religion that would put more balance in the wealth of the nation. The poor had no reason to fight for Israel.
Another part was the prophets and kings had been corrupted too and that led to Baal worship amongst other evils. A nearly complete breakdown in leadership and governance ensued. Not unlike Rome, Greece, Assyria and Babylon. The four sections of Daniels statue vision/dream and the major past and one present world great civilizations. The Holy Roman Empire is still in obvious operation.I think you are wrong here, the Baal religion had always been a main Canaan religion, and Abraham brought in the new Egyptian religion to the area. Baal had been around and was widely used in many nations long before Hosea and Abraham, and long after.
All I can say is your imagination is pretty vivid. God evolving? Egypt was pantheistic. That is proven by still standing antiquities and museum pieces.
" And this “Egyptian paganism" as you call it is the base for the religion and customs in the bible that are still being use today. " Lol That would make Christianity a mixture of pantheism and monotheism which is abjectly false and disproved by the Scriptures themselves.
You’re simply trying to fit your ideas, and I suspect they aren’t yours but some other person or groups ideas that you agree with, with the Bibles historical writings.
Like this statement for example: “The bible did not follow the Israel branch but instead evolved from the Judea branch of religion.”
Like I said read the Exile and Restoration books. There is no evolution of ideas in the Bible at all. They are a series of events that took place as a result of the disobedience of Hebrew people and the resulting punishment that always accompanies such human decisions with a just God being sovereign over His creation.
Hey as an aside, Ever wonder or research why America has an obelisk as its national monument? 
I think a good old debate is what we need
Here is just the one I think we can all enjoy
Both debaters are top biblical scholars.
http://www.bartdehrman.com/flv_biblemisquotejesus/doesbiblemisquote.htm
All I can say is your imagination is pretty vivid. God evolving? Egypt was pantheistic. That is proven by still standing antiquities and museum pieces.Are you telling me that you see no difference between the god of the OT and the god of the NT? Egyptian religion has evolved just like all the rest of the religions. So what time period are you talking about? For the most part Egypt had one god, Ra-Amem. Just like the Christian religion. Then Ra had family, just like most of the other religions including the Christian religion. The Egyptian religion evolved and at earlier times had many gods. But the Egyptian religion is what, over 9,000 years old compared to the Christian religion that is what 1,700 years old?
" And this “Egyptian paganism" as you call it is the base for the religion and customs in the bible that are still being use today. " Lol That would make Christianity a mixture of pantheism and monotheism which is abjectly false and disproved by the Scriptures themselves.Rodin46, “Egyptian paganism" is your term, read your postings, I’m easy, and I’ll try and work with your terms to make it simple. I got to say that I am a little shocked that you don’t know that the Christian religion uses the OT as a base. Are you aware that the OT is used by the Jewish religion? And the Jewish religion still has and uses a lot of the old Egyptian customs yet today. One for example is the redemption ceremony (Pidyon Haben) where the father buys his first born back from the Pharaoh. Of course the Pharaoh is not around anymore so the father buys the son from the temple. But it was not that long ago that it was still the Pharaoh and some of the orthodox older Jews still consider the Pharaoh as the owner of the first born. Israel was even minting a special redemption coin to be used in the ceremony until it was changed from the Pharaoh to the temple. In the NT for example, Jesus dying and being resurrected. Resurrection comes right out of the Egyptian guide book on religion 101. Does the bible talk about the 50 gods that were born of virgin birth, had twelve disciples, died and was resurrected before Jesus? If not, then just how good of a history book on religion is the bible?
You're simply trying to fit your ideas, and I suspect they aren't yours but some other person or groups ideas that you agree with, with the Bibles historical writings.Not my ideas, we have more information in the last fifty years that the scholars are researching. They are the ones with the ideas.
Like this statement for example: "The bible did not follow the Israel branch but instead evolved from the Judea branch of religion."Do you want to talk about it? We are talking in the timeline of Hosea when there were two countries, Israel and Judea. And the ancestors of the Jews lived in Judea and the Samaritans lived in Israel. Is that not correct? And there were what, thirteen religions that evolved from the Religion of Abraham that were called the Religion of the Children of Abraham. Is that not correct? And there are only three of the thirteen that have evolved and are around today. The Samaritans and the Jewish religions. I can’t remember the third of the top of my head, l would have to look it up.
Like I said read the Exile and Restoration books. There is no evolution of ideas in the Bible at all. They are a series of events that took place as a result of the disobedience of Hebrew people and the resulting punishment that always accompanies such human decisions with a just God being sovereign over His creation.First of all, got a question for you. “disobedience of Hebrew people". Check your timeline. Hebrew started in 1,000 BC. So who were the people in the bible before the Hebrew people? Second, you are talking of god’s creation, in the Christian belief god created earth from nothing. But that is not found in Genesis or anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. So you need to clarify what you mean by creation.
Hey as an aside, Ever wonder or research why America has an obelisk as its national monument? :)Yea, I’ve read about obelisk on the dollar bill, I did not know we had an obelisk national monument. Hey I got a question for you. Why won’t the Christians admit that the reason they say the word “Amen" at the end of praying comes from old Egyptian method of praying to the god “Amen"? Woops, never mind, I think I just answered it.