3 and 4 are special cases of 2.
Perhaps you mean that 2 is a special case of 3 or 4?
Are these your words? I think you should avoid the question from now on âŚ
I would support it.
both of you seem to be wrong unless you know well the language it was uttered in. It clearly implies the smallest or the tiniest seed known to men at the time in the region
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Letâs remember what I said and the cases in question:
It is possible that Jesus was using an idiom of that time. This is related to context. In that cultural context, this might have just been a way of saying âreally small.â
It is certain that Jesus was not talking with scientific precision or scope, as these notions were not even developed at the time yet. They also did not know of any seeds (it seems) that were smaller than mustard seeds. He was not making claims about things outside their âworld,â but his statement was bound to their context. It is entirely true that mustard seeds are the smallest of seeds in their context, their world. Notice that âearthâ does not mean what you think it does. It means âgroundâ or âlandâ or âdirtâ, not âglobeâ.
Just as @Quest states.
So both 3 and 4 are examples of 2. There are other options too.
It is possible Jesus was speaking in hyperbole for âpoeticâ effect, as is the case in most cases we hear the word âsmallestâ. For that matter, âsmallestâ is a comparative term, and it begs the question of context? Smallest compared to what?
Even in scientific langauge we will talk about, for example, the âoldestâ homind fossils. This is not meant to claim that there will never be older fossils discovered or found. When we make that statement there is a context implied, and rarely stated, that we are talking about âoldestâ according to our current knowledge. That can be a 100% true statement, in context, even if we eventually find an older fossil.
As I said, this is just how language works. Every statement depends on unstated context. We have to understand the context to be able to understand meaning. This is just how language works.
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I understand that Jesus is âfully God and fully manâ, but I never really get what that entails. As God, he is omniscient, but as man, he is not, because as you say, he can âgrew in wisdom and knowledgeâ.
So I donât understand: is Jesus omniscient, in the sense that if I go back in time and ask him quantum physics problems he can answer them? If not, how can he be fully God? God certainly understands quantum physics.
In addition, can he say/do erroneous things in matters not regarding faith and morals, as you say,
What is the proper understanding of the doctrine of incarnation? I understand that we have the same doctrine regarding this, as this doctrine is defined in the First Council of Nicaea (325), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451), which both of our traditions claim to be ecumenical.
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Right. Or the Biblical hyperbole that says a given king âruled over all the earth,â or even that a flood was âover all the earth.â
So, was there a word in Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic for orchid seed?
I always try to remember to think of what other word choice may have been available as a guide to what the words of a speaker would have meant to his original audience.
Letâs say that Jesus knew that the mustard seed wasnât actually the smallest seed ever. Could he have still said what he said knowing that?
Atheists should not learn bibilcail interpretation from Richard Dawksins or Jerry Coyne or whoever the atheist du jour happens to be.
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You were there? Nice
What YOU are talking about was never fully worked out. I think working it out could help us elucidate a better doctrine of scripture.
The closest thing we get, I think are the partitive exegetical efforts of Athanasius and Gregory of Nazianzus. The end of Gregoryâs fifth oration (I think) has some beautiful contrasts between what Jesus does as God and what he does as human.
The only thing that WAS affirmed is that however we talk about this, we are talking about ONE subject. We are talking about Christ, not a human man and a divine man.
Perhaps the concept of kenosis or self emptying can help us here. Jesus purposely limited certain aspects of his divinity in order to more fully inhabit, save, and sanctify our humanity. I think Jesus COULD have accessed all scientific knowledge through his Divinity had he wanted to. But once again, we canât think of him having two separate minds. He has a divinized mind, a divinized soul, or divine-human soul, etc.
Confusing stuff!
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Thank you for giving a shot at explaining this anyway. I need to think more about this paragraph:
No, they are not. That would be Swamidass.
I wish I were! No, Iâm sorryâI meant that I agreed with you. I didnât mean to criticize. I thought that it was a figure of speech in the OT to use words like âwhole earthâ and also that the flood was over the entire earthâmaybe Iâm wrong, but thought @swamidass believes more of a local flood, too. I did not mean to criticize; believe that you were correct to say it was appropriate to the time. I am willing to be corrected.
about paragraph 5, letter to all the peoples of the earth
Yeah, I donât think thatâs right. 3 and 4, as they were introduced, were talking about âsmallestâ, not âearthâ. âEarthâ is a special case of not being technical or using a figure of speech. Way too much effort expended on this.
The controversy, such as it was, started because someone in some book tried to point out an example of Jesus making an error, and then two farfetched attempts were made to rescue him. I donât think thereâs anything to the original claim: itâs a stretch to call this an error, since as you say Jesus was not attempting a botanical treatise, just a familiar example of something really small. There is no need to propose either than orchids hadnât evolved yet or that he was speaking only of the immediate area. Do you even know if mustard seeds are the smallest seeds in the Middle East? Does it matter? No. Itâs just an example of something very small.
But it does also mean âall the land in the worldâ, whatever the shape of it may be. Context should rule. In the case of the flood, for example, it clearly refers to all the land in the world, since the story makes no sense unless all life not on the ark was wiped out. In the case of the mustard seed, context isnât clear, but who cares? Itâs a trivial, tossed off line, not a failure of Jesusâs comprehension.
Just so you know, one of the most important recent books on this was published by @Andrew_Loke. I highly recommend this book.
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So, what evidence are you proposing other than some people like you speculating? Where they there?
Wonderful! Thank you! As much as I love WLC, I hope Loke cares more about being orthodox (small o) than Craig regarding this stuff.
I support two also, and agree with John that it is an example of 4.
I wasnât out to contradict you, but I see that there was a difference of opinion back there that I wasnât aware of. Yes, Enns of Harvard does note the use of hyperbole, but I would agree that the smallest seed of the known world is also appropriate, as you said. Donât count this as a contradiction. Iâll leave it alone. Good night and God bless.