I had a little free time with Photoshop today.
Brian, in the words of Bill Engvall, here's your sign...

[Jeremy]

Scam Wow!

Bro. Parrish,you are talented.

[stephanos]

Hehe, I love it.

Peace and Love,
Stephen

[Diligent]

Originally Posted by BrianT

... I don't know why you keep taking threads off topic to reiterate your opposition to me. ...

Brian,

Check the forum domain name. The KJV is our final authority and it is never off topic to point out when someone is not holding the KJV as their final authority in a debate. Obviously it is not your final authority, but that doesn't make it "off topic" for someone to point out that you do not have a final authority.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Originally Posted by ltpage

BrianT obviously loves his NKJV and I thought this was a KJV site.

Actually Brian is a contrarian, a reactionary. Essentially he will defend anything that is not the King James Bible, if it helps his one principle theory. That there is no tangible, readable pure scripture possible anywhere in the world.

(Unlike others Brian actually magnifies the anti-pure-KJB sentiments into an overarching theoretical attempt with its own deficient syllogisms ! This is an attempted cover ploy that very few ply. Although Brian himself does not realize that the construct base lies in his rejection of the authority of the pure and perfect Bible, the Authorised Version, the King James Bible.)

So you might find Brian "defending" the NKJV, the omission of the resurrection accounts of Mark, the historically excellent Geneva, the defeated Vulgate, the ultra-corrupt Vaticanus, the Peshitta missing five books, the Greek OT adding books, Hort 'primitive corruptions', pretty much anything .. as long as it is different from the King James Bible and the defense may contribute to Brian's forlorn hope that the King James Bible is not pure and perfect.

The NKJV is simply a pawn in a tectual charade parade.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

[George]

"George, I appreciate what you shared above very much, as being quite accurate and insightful overall. However there is a question here of accountability and timing and even walking an extra few miles. Please bear with my attempt for at least a short season. Thanks" .

Shalom,
Steven

Aloha brother Steven,

I would be the last person to tell you to stop trying to reason with BrianT, as I always find your Posts both carefully reasoned and extremely informative. If I have given you the impression that you should discontinue your attempts - I apologize.

I have a different "temperament" than you, and as such, I cannot (possibly will not? ) spend a whole lot of time with people who are disingenuous.

However, I am a big believer in the maximum amount of Christian liberty possible (within Scriptural boundaries, of course!). And if you believe that there is some benefit to further "discussion" with BrianT, I am in no position to "dictate" to you what you should do or say. So, have at it brother - Since you joined the Forum, in all of the Posts that you have made in regards to the Scriptures (God's Holy words), I don't believe I have read one single point where I would have differed from a position you have stated in your Posts.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

No apology necessary, George, since your point was clearly excellent and well-expressed.

Meanwhile Brian sent me a note that simply once again avoided responsibility for his own claim on this forum that the "heaven of heaven of heavens" idiom verses (there may be five overall) somehow have anything at all to to with understanding the proper grammar of Genesis 1:1. The insipid assertion Brian wrote on this forum that there is anything in those verses even remotely related to the singular or plural of shamayim in Genesis 1:1, some form there in those verses that Brian proposed could be used if Genesis 1:1 were a singular. So Brian still waffles on his own views, yet steadfastly refuses to acknowledge publicly that there is no grammatical and word-form relationship between those verses and Genesis 1:1.

Brian will not defend, he will not retract.

If he was responsible on that (A) then it might be possible to correct his other errors and misunderstandings about Hebrew words natively in the plural grammatical form like mayim (water) shamayim (heaven) Elohim (God). Brian has some basic misunderstandings there as well (B) such as thinking they are by nature a plural of number, equivalent to word(s) with an (s) ending in English. Brian refuses to understand the difference between Hebrew grammatical form and the singular/plural nature of the word. (This is actually irrespective of other issues like collective pronouns or the fact that the Hebrew plural is much wider-ranging than English, a correlative element.) A and B would be absolutely necessary for Brian to understand Genesis 1:1 issues and it was from his errors on (A) and (B) that he defacto bluntly falsely accused the King James Bible of error by saying that a plural is proper, another word would be used for the singular. Brian has backed off (ie. stopped repeating) but not retracted, that particular assertion, but only in a waffling manner, and that waffling is because Brian refuses to address (A) and (B). In fact even his backoff was also wrong, since he couched it in terms that fit the issue of collective pronouns, not the Hebrew nouns in the plural grammatical form. At that point Brian added to the frustration of spending more time trying to help him out of the morass, too much shifting around, simply to avoid either understanding or saying, "I was wrong on that assertion ...".

Thus further dialog with him on Genesis 1:1 is hardly worthwhile, especially since the forum readers already know he was simply blunderama in that assertion about the idiom verses. The post from Brian was scholastically appalling, my only remaining question is whether he came up with it himself or if he was fed that blunder by someone or some website. That is one question I really would like to know, so far Brian will not answer that question.

The lack of responsibility for his own false assertions are quite revealing.

SIDESTUFF: Which is one reasaon why I feel to drop, with him, the "faith of Christ" discussion as well, once you learn a person is irresponsible in dialog, you have to change your efforts and direction. On one forum I put seven posters on "ignore" and that was barely enough I stay because there are two or three good posters with a couple of good topics, however the forum is terrible. Even one pro-KJB-moderated forum is terrible, allowing trolls, disruptions, ranting.

One over-arching irony in all this is that Brian is not a bad moderator on his own forum. Comparatively fair, and not anxious to give totally free rein to the modern version trolls and the worst elements of ranting. This is one reason why I tried to walk a few miles with him here.

Returning to Genesis 1:1

On Genesis 1:1, I am considering posting his email to me on the forum in toto, or in only the salient words of evasion, or just put aside dealing with him further as worthless (most likely, since this post gives my summary). The blindness and stubbornness and lack of responsibility for his own assertions is simply too great at this time to be worthwhile of more efforts.

The irony on Genesis 1:1 is that there are parts of his view that are worthwhile of response (e.g. since shamayim is either plural or singular throughout the OT, why do we know it is singular in Genesis 1:1, what is our basis for saying the NKJV is wrong). These have been answered on forum by others however I would not mind participating in a little review, summary, back-and-forth. That would be a possible (C) if Brian had not lost the footmen on (A) and (B). The Holy Spirit checks me from dialog with those who prove themselves sans responsibility and integrity in regard to their very own words and accusations, who try every method to work around responsbility for their own assertions.

So overall, I am moving in the same direction as you.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Hi Steve,

I for one would be very interested in the discussion on shamayim and why we know it is singular in Genesis 1:1.

Since I am new here I am trying to catch up with reading the older posts. Can someone direct me to this discussion or summarize it?

Shalom,

Tandi

P.S. I love linguistics, so keep it up with phrases like "charade parade"

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Originally Posted by Tandi

P.S. I love linguistics, so keep it up with phrases like "charade parade"

Greetings Tandi ! If I try to hard .. nothing comes forth .

On Genesis 1:1, some of the issues are very simple, like the consistency within Genesis 1. Afaik, the hebraic writings generally understood this, and the King James Bible, always pure, is our confirmation (or you can look at that vica versa). I will see what is available a bit later, there is some upthread, and I might be able to pull some of the solid rabbinics that confirms as well.

Let me just comment first...Afaik, there is no correlative grammatical issues (such as a verb in plural or singular form). So the word shamayim is translated fully by context in Genesis 1:1. Before context the singular/plural question is neutral (that is one place where our anti-pure-KJB person blundered). Fully, completely, neutral. The word shamayim is heaven or heavens solely by surrounding grammar (afaik, neutral as well in 1:1) and/or context. On the technical level, it is the context that declares the singular as correct. There is nothing grammatically impossible or even difficult about either 'heaven' or 'heavens', 'heaven' (singular) is simply internally consistent from God who is fully consistent. And providentially declared. If a person does not even know if the resurrection account of Mark is scripture or not, or that the 'faith of Christ' is different from the 'faith in Christ' or that Jeremiah 8:8 does not talk of 'lying scribes' with a false pen (the liar's paradox) you could not expect such a person to know and receive God's word in Genesis 1:1. Those with eyes of faith, knowing that God has given us his pure word, rest upon the sure word.

All for now, catching up on a few things . Welcome to the forum !

Shalom,
Steven

[kittn1]

Now THAT is funny, Bro Parrish!