RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and languge or "how can a snake tell you to eat a fruit
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/25/2009 10:03:57 PM
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ManimalX
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quote:
ORIGINAL: StephenJ
No it hasn't been answered because like Shakezula said according to Christian theology God may be all powerful but satan isn't.
And if that literal interpretation is true, and it is just a normal snake, then there should be evidence that snakes and other animals were once physically capable of communicating like humans do.
Shakezula's assertion was silly and wrong. Because Satan was able to make a serpent speak he is somehow "all powerful"?!? That's a ridiculous assertion. Remember the book of Job? Satan was able to do some pretty wickedly powerful things. Did that make him "all powerful"? Of course not. In the New Testament, Satan had control over all of the kingdoms of the Earth when he tempted Jesus. Did that make him "all powerful"? Of curse not. Remember who is called, "the prince of the power of the air"?
Just as ridiculous is assuming Satan has NO power. While he is still a created being and subordinate to God, he is still an extremely powerful creature, by design. However, everything he does is in accordance with the permission he has from God.
Snakes can't talk. Something supernatural happened. Question answered, again.
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"And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth." - 2nd Timothy 2:24,25
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/25/2009 10:06:56 PM
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StephenJ
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quote:
ORIGINAL: drmark
quote:
and then punished him for doing what he wanted him to? If you spent some time on the Christian Doctrine thread you would know that I do NOT believe that God wants everything He allows to happen!
quote:
And again why isn't Eve suprised by a talking snake? Did you miss my responses in post #13 or just not like them?
I don't find it satisfactory no, because.
1. There's no indication that the snake talking was a supernatural event.
and
2. If it isn't then snakes should be capable of doing the same thing today.
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/25/2009 10:43:20 PM
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drmark
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quote:
2. If it isn't then snakes should be capable of doing the same thing today. I'm absolutely certain they would be able if God chooses to work a miracle today!
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Jeremiah 31:31-34. The time is NOW, fellow saints!
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/25/2009 11:01:59 PM
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benelchi
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quote:
2) It differs. Most thought it was just a serpent. None of them saw it the Christian understanding of Satan, though (The Christian Satan really isn't present in the old testament, anyway. Satan, as it's used in the OT, usually doesn't refer to one individual, rather just a role/function. It literally means "The Adversary" -and sometimes obstructer. Most of the time "the adversary" isn't so much evil or demonic, just an angel filling a specific role for God.Indeed, in certain parts of the OT, God sends the satan to help people by impeeding them from some greater harm. Thus, for example, in the story of Balaam and the donkey, God sends an angel to act as Balaam's "Satan" by impeding his path. While the Bible actually uses the word "satan" to describe the function of this angel, most translations do not reflect this as they will usually translate the word as opposed to leaving it untranslated. Moreover, the adversary was an actual function in Israelite courts, so it's arguable that the Satan in Job is not the Satan of Christianity. Rather, the book itself just presents him as an angel acting as the adversary -filling the function of adversary in God's court. The story itself makes a good deal more sense when read in that way. As the OT progresses, the word satan becomes increasingly personified as authors begin using it to describe adversaries to the nation of Israel- both from within and from without. Likewise, in Isaiah the idea of Lucifer as a fallen angel is introduced for the first time-something which is further elaborated on apocryphal Jewish writings. At some point in the history of Christianity, these concepts merged to form "Satan" as we think of him today).
This is very poor theology and based on a complete misunderstanding of the Hebrew Language, and not on a Jewish perspective. In Hebrew nouns and verbs are formed from Hebrew roots (almost always composed of three letters). Each root can comprise an extremely large semantic range of definition depending on the construction of the noun or verb formed from the root.
In the passage about Balaam (Numbers 22) the root is used as a verb i.e. qal absolute infinitive 'לשטן/to be an adversary' and the translators didn't translate this as 'Satan' because such a translation would be wrong because the root functions as a verb not a noun in that passage. In Job and Zachariah, the only two places where this root is used as a definite noun i.e. 'השטן/The Adversary', the translators have often chosen to translate this noun as "Satan" i.e. as it sounds phonetically in Hebrew i.e. identifying who "The Adversary" is; in other passages where the definite article is lacking the translators will translate it as "an adversary". Just like in English, when a noun is definite, it almost always refers to a specific person or thing; when it is indefinite it can refer to any person or thing characterized by the nouns description.
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/25/2009 11:14:31 PM
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drmark
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benelchi, while you're here, do you have any comment regarding the Hebrew word amar used in Genesis 3:1-4. Does it require "audible speech" for correct understanding of its meaning?
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Jeremiah 31:31-34. The time is NOW, fellow saints!
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/25/2009 11:24:54 PM
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benelchi
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quote:
ORIGINAL: drmark
benelchi, while you're here, do you have any comment regarding the Hebrew word amar used in Genesis 3:1-4. Does it require "audible speech" for correct understanding of its meaning?
Typically the Hebrew verb used to denote spoken speech is DBR. AMR is often used to talk about spoken audible speech, but it doesn't require spoken audible speech. For example, AMR is used in Gen. 1 when "God said, Let there be light"; however DBR is used almost exclusively to describe God speaking to the prophets.
If I ask "Do you speak Hebrew?" the verb used is DBR, not AMR.
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אשת־חיל מי ימצא ורחק מפנינים מכרה
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/26/2009 8:06:59 AM
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leftwing
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quote:
ORIGINAL: StephenJ
So as anyone who's been reading the board recently knows I'm having more and more trouble with the hyper-literal interpretation of the creation story suppourted by Young Earth Creationist. Recently I began thinking about language.
In Genesis 3 the Bible describes a serpent in the garden of Eden who conversed with Eve and told her to eat a forbiden fruit.
There is a distinct throat mechanism that fascilitates speech in modern humans (apparently Neanderthals too) that only exists in our species. That mechanism involves the placement of the hyoid bone (the only bone not connected to the skeleton) within the throat.The complex vocalizations that form the basis of our languges are a direct result of how low our hyoid bones are placed. Other animals have something like hyoid bones but placed much higher up, and sometimes fused to another part of the throat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyoid
Snakes are among the animals that have their "noise makers" fused I believe. They're only capable of simple vocalization...far removed from complex vocalization, much less speaking. And unlike the snakes "vestigial" legs which both Y.E.C and Darwanist love to point to as evidence for their beliefs, there is no evidence that snakes ever had that kind of mechanism.
For a long time I thought "oh it must have been the devil in the snake" (totally unscientific I know) but then I realized that this was absurd. The punishments dished out to Adam, Eve, and the snake were based on the choices they made. If the snake was possesed it was just the puppet, it wasn't a free moral agent capable of doing something "wrong." How would it be fair to punish the snake.
Food for thought.
In my opinion you are indeed thinking too much. Why dissect and subject the story of Eden to intense intellectual scrutiny. Is it not enough to glean God's message from it; that man and woman are fallen creatures;; that the wages of sin is death; that by disobeying God and listening to the 'serpent' we have chosen sin over God's law?
Almost everything you need to know about God's love and his ways is portrayed in Genesis, in my opinion. Everything else was given by Jesus. 
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/26/2009 1:13:12 PM
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DanJames
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quote:
ORIGINAL: StephenJ
And again why isn't Eve suprised by a talking snake?
Was she?
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/26/2009 3:47:36 PM
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drmark
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She was certainly deceived. Perhaps surprise played a role in that.
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Jeremiah 31:31-34. The time is NOW, fellow saints!
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/26/2009 4:55:16 PM
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DanJames
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quote:
ORIGINAL: drmark
She was certainly deceived. Perhaps surprise played a role in that.
We can speculate ad nauseum, that's for sure. The Bible doesn't say that she was, and it doesn't say that she wasn't. How can someone make a point based on a lack of information? It also didn't mention what the snake looked like either. Perhaps we can say that the snake didn't actually exist since the bible didn't mention what it looked like.
I have questions regarding this whole issue also. I don't like the idea of the devil having the power to power to create a body, so this had to have either been a demon possession such as when the spirits were in the swine or poor demon-possessed Legion. Either that or it was symbolic, that it was actually the devil and the bible was describing what he was like rather than what he was. The language might not support this, though. What do you guys think?
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/26/2009 7:39:23 PM
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shakezula
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quote:
ORIGINAL: drmark
quote:
and then punished him for doing what he wanted him to? If you spent some time on the Christian Doctrine thread you would know that I do NOT believe that God wants everything He allows to happen!
did the snake have free will?
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/26/2009 7:44:37 PM
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drmark
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quote:
I don't like the idea of the devil having the power to power to create a body, so this had to have either been a demon possession such as when the spirits were in the swine or poor demon-possessed Legion. He doesn't, so demon possession is the likely mechanism.
quote:
Either that or it was symbolic, that it was actually the devil and the bible was describing what he was like rather than what he was. The language might not support this, though. "Symbolic" - you mean like evening and morning the first through sixth day are "symbolic" of indeterminate eons of time? 
I would wonder how God manages all those physical curses on a symbol, unless they're only symbolic as well. Getting a little confusing, Dan?
_____________________________
Jeremiah 31:31-34. The time is NOW, fellow saints!
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/26/2009 7:48:48 PM
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shakezula
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ManimalX
Shakezula's assertion was silly and wrong. Because Satan was able to make a serpent speak he is somehow "all powerful"?!? That's a ridiculous assertion.
creationists like yourself seem to be arguing that a) Satan had power in Eden. b) Satan is just as capable of miracles as God is. that adds up to Satan being as powerful as God.
quote:
Snakes can't talk. Something supernatural happened. Question answered, again.
the point is that if we take the Eden story word-for-word, then the supernatural event occurred after the serpent tempted Eve. the miracle would be God taking speech away from them.
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watch out for the oo moo and the blehblehbleh
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/26/2009 8:01:48 PM
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shakezula
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DanJames
We can speculate ad nauseum, that's for sure. The Bible doesn't say that she was, and it doesn't say that she wasn't. How can someone make a point based on a lack of information?
we can infer a lot from the verses:
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' ""You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it .
so a) instead of running away from a talking snake (or questioning her perception like Balaam did), Eve just talks to it. b) after eating the fruit, Eve doesn't tell Adam that he's got to see the talking snake. she tells him how great the fruit is. she doesn't think the talking snake is worth mentioning. therefore, we can conclude that c) Eve is neither scared nor surprised by the talking snake.
quote:
Either that or it was symbolic, that it was actually the devil and the bible was describing what he was like rather than what he was. The language might not support this, though. What do you guys think?
there's hope for you yet, Dan.
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watch out for the oo moo and the blehblehbleh
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/27/2009 3:53:18 AM
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ManimalX
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quote:
ORIGINAL: shakezula
quote:
ORIGINAL: ManimalX
Shakezula's assertion was silly and wrong. Because Satan was able to make a serpent speak he is somehow "all powerful"?!? That's a ridiculous assertion.
creationists like yourself seem to be arguing that a) Satan had power in Eden.
Nothing wrong with that assertion. Satan is a powerful created being who was here before we were. He has power and is allowed to exercise it wherever God allows Him to, cf. Job.
quote:
b) Satan is just as capable of miracles as God is. that adds up to Satan being as powerful as God.
1) Satan can perform supernatural acts, ("The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders" - 2nd Thess. 2:9),
and 2) that doesn't mean he is "as powerful as God".
That is like saying a Hot Wheels toy is the same as Grave Digger because they both have some wheels.
Snakes can't talk. Something supernatural happened. Question answered, again.
quote:
the point is that if we take the Eden story word-for-word, then the supernatural event occurred after the serpent tempted Eve. the miracle would be God taking speech away from them.
Only if you assume that ALL Edenic snakes were talking snakes, which I suppose you can, but the text doesn't support that.
_____________________________
"And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth." - 2nd Timothy 2:24,25
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/27/2009 11:07:20 PM
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ManimalX
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DanJames
quote:
ORIGINAL: drmark
quote:
I don't like the idea of the devil having the power to power to create a body, so this had to have either been a demon possession such as when the spirits were in the swine or poor demon-possessed Legion. He doesn't, so demon possession is the likely mechanism.
quote:
Either that or it was symbolic, that it was actually the devil and the bible was describing what he was like rather than what he was. The language might not support this, though. "Symbolic" - you mean like evening and morning the first through sixth day are "symbolic" of indeterminate eons of time?
I would wonder how God manages all those physical curses on a symbol, unless they're only symbolic as well. Getting a little confusing, Dan?
I think the confusion started when the devil decided to demon possess a snake. It would be interesting to do a case study on demon possession. I guess they can possess a herd of pigs. Mostly I'm just thinking out loud. I guess the obvious answer is possession. Any downsides to this?
None that I can see. If you believe Roman Catholic accounts, demon possessed humans often speak in different voices and languages the host has never learned.
Also, I always wondered why Legion begged to be cast into the swine, and then promptly caused them to commit swine-o-cide.
_____________________________
"And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth." - 2nd Timothy 2:24,25
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/28/2009 10:38:14 AM
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drmark
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"Swine-o-cide"?  How do you know that was Legion's choice of will?
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/28/2009 8:47:24 PM
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shakezula
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ManimalX
Also, I always wondered why Legion begged to be cast into the swine, and then promptly caused them to commit swine-o-cide.
it was their way of inflicting maximum damage to the people. livestock was critical to their livelihood, so killing off a herd of them was the best the demons could do as a last act of defiance.
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watch out for the oo moo and the blehblehbleh
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/28/2009 10:48:00 PM
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jmjphe
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If God's law was for those people to not eat pork, than even in their act of defiance, they unknowingly did God a favor by helping to keep his law when they walked off the cliff and drowned. Unless those who owned the pigs kept them for reasons other than eating, or they were gentile.
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RE: Snakes, the placement of the hyoid bone, and langug... - 10/30/2009 4:05:24 PM
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malchediel
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Well, I'm far from saying that Satan has power anywhere near that of God, but remember - in Egypt, Pharaoh's guys were matching Moses "miracle for miracle" at one point. So, I would venture a guess that Satan does have some limited power to perform what we would call miracles.
As for Eve not being surprised a snake could talk, we have to remember that creation was a very new concept to Adam and the Mrs. Whatever was going on, they probably took for granted, "that's the way it is".
Are we even sure that the serpent mentioned is what we would call a serpent today? All in all, I've often wondered about this as well. Why curse the snake?
-me
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