I love your explanation of why to read beyond the literal—that’s exactly how I’ve always understood it. In fact, just for fun I used the AI chatbot feature in the New Christian Bible Study app I mentioned in yesterday’s comment, to ask what Emanuel Swedenborg said about the number 7 in his writings. Not too surprisingly, I found that great minds think alike. Here’s what I got back:
“In Swedenborg's writings, the number 7 corresponds to things that are holy.
“This correspondence is significant in understanding the spiritual meaning behind the number 7 in the Word. It symbolizes sacredness, completeness, and perfection.
“The concept of correspondence is essential in Swedenborg's teachings, where he explains that there is a connection between the natural world and the spiritual world.
“The number 7, in this context, represents the holiness and completeness that is present in spiritual realities. It signifies a state of divine order and harmony.
“This correspondence between the number 7 and things that are holy helps us understand the deeper spiritual significance behind numerical symbolism in the Word and how it relates to the spiritual world.”
Yes, and it makes a certain degree of sense symbolically—if 3 is the number of heaven, 4 is the number of earth (four material elements, four bodily humors etc.). Put them together and you get a picture of “everything” in the completeness sense rather than just “lots of things” in the quantitative science sense.
Well it came to my mind unbidden and I don't know of any other source for it, but it's always more than likely that anything I say is something I read in some old book somewhere. I think I thought of it though?
If we are to establish Zion or the New Jerusalem, there must be intelligent application of scripture for our day. They are a disciple`s sacred handbook or template for how our Father in Heaven wants us to grow His Kingdom, inside and out. If we believe the scriptures are the word of God (when translated correctly) we will learn from them in every way that is possible for the limited, vain and disobedient children that we are. I love the scriptures, all of them, modern and ancient. A great gift to us. Open in reverence.
I’m so glad you are talking about this. I have a theology YouTube channel and get a lot of criticism from the fundamentalist crowd regarding biblical interpretation when I suggest that the text could sometimes be allegory.
Perhaps the temporal binary you speak of , that of an honest conversation between two persons who may have differing approaches to a subject but engaging in a common spirit of discussion , which in modern media seems universally bereft . So much so that the modern media’s febrile atmosphere it creates leads to the current anxiety in the soul of society. In this atmosphere hides the common misconception that tolerance is a virtue but in absence of a “value” or more important a “good value” to defend ( as tolerance of child porn is tolerance without value). Value born out of thin air cooked out of an ingredients of last few news cycles for click bait leads to the twisted values or none at all , leaving society the Tourette’s syndrome of blurting out ever more “tolerance” as virtue . This is all done While ignoring the all ready substantial sacrifice of our forebears in centuries of the blood, sweat, tears in struggle and debate as to what constitutes a good value in contrast to a bad one so as to know what is tolerance in contrast to that which is beyond the pale .
Perhaps society’s cowardice to defend its good values is a reflection of it aversion to defend its western values either out of ignorance or fear of criticism?
I have always mused on the litmus test that some place on believing in a literal 7 days of creation. The truth is in there regardless if it's a literal story: God made the universe and world from nothing, He set an order to it and filled it with good things, then at some point he made man in His own image and likeness and breathed a soul into him. The truth of the matter doesn't rely on if it came together in 7 literal days or over a period of millions or thousands of years, especially if to God a "thousand years are like a day in His sight." Psalm 90:4
My biggest takeaway here is not the "meat" of this letter, but its beginning; in America, we are locked in an atmosphere of rancor, in my opinion, mainly driven by overly-partisan bloviating by the corporate media.
By giving the Left a safe haven for any level of vitriol it cares to use, our media "betters" have allowed the national conversation to be overrun by hyperbolic claims of the coming destruction of "our Democracy," putting anyone who didn't vote for Trump come November as being on a kill list (see Tim Pool's lawsuit against @KamalaHQ on X), or just a general genocide of teachers, union members, Alphabet Mafi-types, and the odd high-level Democratic Congresscritter if there's a Trump win come November. "It's all right there in Project 2025!," they scream.
Until this behavior is reined in, the casual news observer will be on a knife's edge of fear and loathing of anyone they "disagree" with. ("Disagree" actually equals "don't understand.") We need better distribution of *this* type of media - calm, erudite discussions of what's important to our souls, not just our pocketbooks.
I love your explanation of why to read beyond the literal—that’s exactly how I’ve always understood it. In fact, just for fun I used the AI chatbot feature in the New Christian Bible Study app I mentioned in yesterday’s comment, to ask what Emanuel Swedenborg said about the number 7 in his writings. Not too surprisingly, I found that great minds think alike. Here’s what I got back:
“In Swedenborg's writings, the number 7 corresponds to things that are holy.
“This correspondence is significant in understanding the spiritual meaning behind the number 7 in the Word. It symbolizes sacredness, completeness, and perfection.
“The concept of correspondence is essential in Swedenborg's teachings, where he explains that there is a connection between the natural world and the spiritual world.
“The number 7, in this context, represents the holiness and completeness that is present in spiritual realities. It signifies a state of divine order and harmony.
“This correspondence between the number 7 and things that are holy helps us understand the deeper spiritual significance behind numerical symbolism in the Word and how it relates to the spiritual world.”
Yes, and it makes a certain degree of sense symbolically—if 3 is the number of heaven, 4 is the number of earth (four material elements, four bodily humors etc.). Put them together and you get a picture of “everything” in the completeness sense rather than just “lots of things” in the quantitative science sense.
Is that a Spencer thought or is it from another source?
Well it came to my mind unbidden and I don't know of any other source for it, but it's always more than likely that anything I say is something I read in some old book somewhere. I think I thought of it though?
That’s a very modest way of saying you thought of it.
Art has two dimensions: goodness and effectiveness.
As Adam Driver says about acting, the job is not to have a feeling in front of a camera, it’s to telegraph that something is being felt.
If we are to establish Zion or the New Jerusalem, there must be intelligent application of scripture for our day. They are a disciple`s sacred handbook or template for how our Father in Heaven wants us to grow His Kingdom, inside and out. If we believe the scriptures are the word of God (when translated correctly) we will learn from them in every way that is possible for the limited, vain and disobedient children that we are. I love the scriptures, all of them, modern and ancient. A great gift to us. Open in reverence.
I’m so glad you are talking about this. I have a theology YouTube channel and get a lot of criticism from the fundamentalist crowd regarding biblical interpretation when I suggest that the text could sometimes be allegory.
2 Peter 3:8
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Perhaps the temporal binary you speak of , that of an honest conversation between two persons who may have differing approaches to a subject but engaging in a common spirit of discussion , which in modern media seems universally bereft . So much so that the modern media’s febrile atmosphere it creates leads to the current anxiety in the soul of society. In this atmosphere hides the common misconception that tolerance is a virtue but in absence of a “value” or more important a “good value” to defend ( as tolerance of child porn is tolerance without value). Value born out of thin air cooked out of an ingredients of last few news cycles for click bait leads to the twisted values or none at all , leaving society the Tourette’s syndrome of blurting out ever more “tolerance” as virtue . This is all done While ignoring the all ready substantial sacrifice of our forebears in centuries of the blood, sweat, tears in struggle and debate as to what constitutes a good value in contrast to a bad one so as to know what is tolerance in contrast to that which is beyond the pale .
Perhaps society’s cowardice to defend its good values is a reflection of it aversion to defend its western values either out of ignorance or fear of criticism?
I have always mused on the litmus test that some place on believing in a literal 7 days of creation. The truth is in there regardless if it's a literal story: God made the universe and world from nothing, He set an order to it and filled it with good things, then at some point he made man in His own image and likeness and breathed a soul into him. The truth of the matter doesn't rely on if it came together in 7 literal days or over a period of millions or thousands of years, especially if to God a "thousand years are like a day in His sight." Psalm 90:4
My biggest takeaway here is not the "meat" of this letter, but its beginning; in America, we are locked in an atmosphere of rancor, in my opinion, mainly driven by overly-partisan bloviating by the corporate media.
By giving the Left a safe haven for any level of vitriol it cares to use, our media "betters" have allowed the national conversation to be overrun by hyperbolic claims of the coming destruction of "our Democracy," putting anyone who didn't vote for Trump come November as being on a kill list (see Tim Pool's lawsuit against @KamalaHQ on X), or just a general genocide of teachers, union members, Alphabet Mafi-types, and the odd high-level Democratic Congresscritter if there's a Trump win come November. "It's all right there in Project 2025!," they scream.
Until this behavior is reined in, the casual news observer will be on a knife's edge of fear and loathing of anyone they "disagree" with. ("Disagree" actually equals "don't understand.") We need better distribution of *this* type of media - calm, erudite discussions of what's important to our souls, not just our pocketbooks.
Pray for rain, y' all.