[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Originally Posted by BrianT

Steve, It appears to me that you are intent on simply opposing me for opposition's sake, and the result is that you are not clearly understanding what I am saying. I don't know how else to say it, so I'll simply leave you to your contentious and striving strawmen.

Brian, please note I am asking you to reply specifically to the refutation of your claims that I documented on post #154 (most especially your very clear claim that a different word would be used for the singular "heaven" in Genesis 1:1). To be fair, I did not directly refute every aspect of your claim in that post, I simply asked you to address the very obvious humongous difficulties, to lead to a proper analysis. To help you see that your argument was fallacious to the max.

It is very likely that the moderator here will note your refusal to be accountable for your own words, that you simply try to bludgeon ahead leaving a totally false accusation against the Bible in your wake, compounding a false Bible accusation with a false personal accusation, attempting to confuse integrity with strife.

And as to your accusations against the Bible:
Refuted yet not responded. No defense nor retraction.

In the better aspects of the scholarly world, this is unacceptable. And on excellently-moderated forums, this is likely to be extremely unacceptable. And in my experience, this has usually been one of the most excellently moderated forums.

Note: I have had no external contact with the moderator, who tends to be very fair. However I know from experience that he is concerned that posters understand that they are accountable for their own words, and especially their own accusations. And that issue is right in front of us today.

So I cordially recommend you try to give a truly substantive response. If you like, if you really somehow do not understand the issues, I will repost the most salient parts from #154, pg. 16, in short-form. However, that really should not be necessary, as I put some effort in to making sure the post was carefully crafted. You made a very direct claim, and attempted to support it with an oblique reference to some verses, and since then have adamantly refused to go into the actual assertion and details, or even the words. You have not even said what specific word you claim would be in Genesis 1:1 for the verse to be singular heaven. And if the possible word is ever used anywhere in such a standalone manner in the Hebrew Bible, outside of the unique idiomatic usage. No examples, no scholars, no nuttin. Nor have you addressed the 500 times that shamayim is used as a singular in every translation, whether all those translations are wrong, as your claim asserts.

Worse, you have accused the attempt to help you dialogue properly on the Bible texts as "contentious" and "strawman". As if you never even made the assertions at all ! Fortunately, we have the full record here.

Integrity first.

Shalom,
Steven Avery