tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post6029525454321155319..comments2023-12-22T08:29:29.230-08:00Comments on WHAT IS TRUTH: The Use of the Singular in the Bible, and the ChurchKent Brandenburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-83472300841763962622013-12-04T14:00:47.150-08:002013-12-04T14:00:47.150-08:00I've been following the universal/local church...I've been following the universal/local church discussions with interest, and found that Joe Cassada makes a valid point: Do we reject the concept of the universal church, or just the wording?<br /><br />My belief has been that the church is the body of believers. The local church is an assembly of believers in one place that functions in that one area. But I see the universal church (or whatever one might want to call it) as the gathering of believers in Heaven, where we will all be assembled before the Throne. <br /><br />I am a member of my local church, even when I am just walking to it. In the same way, I am a member of the universal church, walking the journey here on earth. When I arrive at my local church, I am no more nor no less a member of it than I was while walking. When I arrive to that "sweet by and by", I am no less nor more a member of that assembled body than I am during my Christian journey here on earth.<br /><br />I doubt that I'll change your mind, but just wanted to contribute my 2c worth! Thanks!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-23628858495130855692013-11-26T20:32:29.883-08:002013-11-26T20:32:29.883-08:00I really did consider when I wrote this post leavi...I really did consider when I wrote this post leaving out Waltke's "fish" illustration. All he's saying is that the Hebrew does the same thing, and he calls it a collective. I don't think we should allow the terminology to confuse us and deal with the point. "Collective" doesn't bother me as a term, as long as he defines what he's talking about and he suitably does. The Hebrew is different than the English, because you would have a definite singular form and a definite plural form, and certain words are used as a singular that are collective, according to his illustration. The singular in the Bible is used as countable, collective, or class. Countable (particular) and class (generic) are the only two usages of "church" because it isn't a collective in the sense that Waltke is defining collective. I recognize church is a NT term, but I'm speaking about the whole Bible in this article.<br /><br />Is the article correct though, if you can dismiss the collective aspect of it?Kent Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-80435159340485691282013-11-26T12:40:12.700-08:002013-11-26T12:40:12.700-08:00Bill, my preferred term is "defective nouns&q...Bill, my preferred term is "defective nouns". Really lays the blame where it belongs. :)d4v34xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07346680257860879900noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-39674423503703148552013-11-26T06:38:41.498-08:002013-11-26T06:38:41.498-08:00In school I was taught that words like fish & ...In school I was taught that words like fish & deer are irregular nouns (meaning the word doesn't change form for either plural or singular). But when I read the Bible (KJV) it says "fishes." So that makes sense.Bill Hardeckerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15552819877860565186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-33589761693224343472013-11-26T05:11:19.673-08:002013-11-26T05:11:19.673-08:00Ah, going back I see it is the English to which he...Ah, going back I see it is the English to which he refers. Quite poorly put and, I might add, confusing. d4v34xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07346680257860879900noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-71085311733299814572013-11-26T05:01:09.215-08:002013-11-26T05:01:09.215-08:00Sorry to be the dullard here, but is Waltke using ...Sorry to be the dullard here, but is Waltke using it as an example from modern English or from Hebrew? d4v34xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07346680257860879900noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-50670854536624404952013-11-25T19:39:05.938-08:002013-11-25T19:39:05.938-08:00I want everyone to know that "fish" is u...I want everyone to know that "fish" is used as a plural or singular in the modern English. It wasn't in KJV days. Waltke uses "fish" merely as an illustration of what he calls a collective use of the singular noun in the Hebrew OT. Thanks!Kent Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-22124812696195079252013-11-25T19:22:59.291-08:002013-11-25T19:22:59.291-08:00Joe,
I don't know how far you want to take th...Joe,<br /><br />I don't know how far you want to take the menorah. I would take it as far as the passage teaches, that is, Jesus walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. What brings every true church together is that Jesus walks in the midst of all of them, because He is omnipresent. He can be in the midst of every church through His Divine Spirit.<br /><br />There is unity in the family, the kingdom, but functionally those don't operate. The church does, which operates only as an assembly. It is important we get this right. We've seen what getting it wrong will do. We get most Christians free roaming without authority.Kent Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-61018413238826535242013-11-25T17:10:46.530-08:002013-11-25T17:10:46.530-08:00Kent, I've been following your posts on the lo...Kent, I've been following your posts on the local-only church issue. Let me see if I follow your line of thinking:<br /><br />1. The word "church" can only ever refer to an assembly.<br />2. Therefore, the word church is used incorrectly when referring to all Christians everywhere.<br />3. When referring to all Christians everywhere, words/phrases like "kingdom of God," "family in heaven and earth," etc. are used.<br /><br />My question then is, while you reject the wording "universal church" do you also reject the concept of a spiritual bond/relationship between all Christians everywhere?<br /><br />Here's what I'm trying to say: I get how the universal church, according to your argumentation, would be an incorrect usage of the word church, but I see a bonding between all churches represented in passages like Revelation 1-2 where John describes seven golden candlesticks. My understanding is that John sees a menorah, and the individual lamps (candlesticks) represent local churches, but the menorah as a whole represents the bond or unity that local churches share in Christ. So, candlesticks=local church, but menorah = universal/spiritual relationship between Christians.<br /><br />So, again, the wording "universal church" is rejected, but is the concept also rejected? By concept I mean that spiritual relationship that exists between all Christians everywhere. I think that is essentially what the universal church is.Joe Cassadahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11332557908306763199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-89951041853624799632013-11-25T14:25:49.279-08:002013-11-25T14:25:49.279-08:00Collectives can be singular or plural, and Waltke ...Collectives can be singular or plural, and Waltke in my quote is referring only to the singular, as was I. "The church" is singular and it is not a collective in the singular. Only certain words are used as collectives only in the singular, fish being one of them. I understand that fish is plural too, but church is only singular. That's my only point there, and it is one of very many and not a major point, if you read the flow of the article. I deal with it, because I have read men call "the church" a collective usage. I have read it very rarely, but that word gets used.Kent Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-65783837614821793732013-11-25T14:04:09.798-08:002013-11-25T14:04:09.798-08:00Haven't taken Hebrew. When Waltke said fish a...Haven't taken Hebrew. When Waltke said fish and sheep, I assumed he was attempting to give English examples of a collective rather than note "collectives" in Hebrew (is that what he's doing?).<br /><br />If so it threw me because that's not what you call that idiosyncrasy in English grammar. d4v34xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07346680257860879900noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-53419265617442871852013-11-25T13:42:05.743-08:002013-11-25T13:42:05.743-08:00D4,
You need to get off "catch" and get...D4,<br /><br />You need to get off "catch" and get on "fish." Waltke is calling "fish" a collective. You say he's using the wrong term, but how do you know that. I said that the Greek preposition doesn't have an object. When it is translated, it has one. Whatever you want to call them, irregular plurals, irregular number, Waltke is calling them collectives, and "church" is not one of them. This is the red herring. Waltke isn't proving anything. He's just saying there are three types of singulars in the Hebrew: countable, collective, and class. I'm just repeating what I wrote. Is "fish" plural? Is "church" plural? If "fish" is singular, what is the plural of "fish"? The only reason I brought in "collective" is so as to be transparent about the Hebrew usage: there is more than two. Later I said "church" isn't used that way, like that usage, Waltke calls "collective" in which you say Waltke and [<a href="http://wrs.edu/Materials_for_Web_Site/Courses/Advanced_Hebrew/Grammatical_Moments.pdf" rel="nofollow">here</a>, <a href="https://quisition.com/library/pack/1509/williams-hebrew-syntax-p1-30/" rel="nofollow">here</a>, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=fRm_Z-chGRwC&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=Hebrew+fish+collective+singular&source=bl&ots=5URBqHW4Hh&sig=jeh2U-agD2F9jcfAdg43m5vU0w0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vb-TUtHiM8i92wXqxIGQDQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Hebrew%20fish%20collective%20singular&f=false" rel="nofollow">here</a>, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=QNm08LuMOosC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=Hebrew+collective+singular&source=bl&ots=hnsGS86E4h&sig=0KnYks5oSbsDZhmRT54FZ2e3uiM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=N8KTUp8Fo-vbBdWtgIgC&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Hebrew%20collective%20singular&f=false" rel="nofollow">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.balashon.com/2011/01/pri.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>, etc. ] are wrong. Have you taken Hebrew?<br /><br />I'm not talking about "batch," which might be a collective in an English grammar. That's the red herring. "Church" is not used like "fish."Kent Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-13774728074234375312013-11-25T12:40:08.576-08:002013-11-25T12:40:08.576-08:00Only certain singular nouns are "collective&q...<i>Only certain singular nouns are "collective" and notice that their plural and their singular are the same, so when they are used in the singular, they could be referring to a plural.</i><br /><br />This is what I'm getting at. It simply isn't correct. Group is a good example. In "a group of scientists", group is collective. Yet the plural of group is groups. In my example of catch of fish above it is <b> catch,</b> that is collective, not fish. Catch is made plural by adding "es" as in catches. "Over the last few weeks we've made several nice catches of bluegill."<br /><br />The fish and sheep thing is a mistake no matter who tries to use it to prove . . . whatever they're trying to prove. <br /><br />So when you argue that church cannot be collective because it has a plural in churches, it doesn't hold.<br /><br />No red herring intended.d4v34xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07346680257860879900noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-6874771996519243142013-11-25T11:32:37.677-08:002013-11-25T11:32:37.677-08:00But again, it comes across as a red herring. Unde...But again, it comes across as a red herring. Understanding the language I'm using, "the church" is not a collective.Kent Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-74726536756217076612013-11-25T11:31:11.303-08:002013-11-25T11:31:11.303-08:00And by the way, I'm not here to correct Waltke...And by the way, I'm not here to correct Waltke, but to use the language that he has recorded. If you look at English grammars, Hebrew grammars, and Greek grammars, they will use different language to indicate certain points. There isn't technically an object of the preposition in the Greek, for instance, as there is in the English. So I don't know that it isn't called a "collective," depending on the language. Whatever, he chooses to call it, it still stands that fish, which reads singular, is not singular, but plural at times, as a "collective" or whatever you want to call it.<br /><br />I just reread the post and I don't see a problem with what I wrote, since I was relying on the designations of Waltke in the Hebrew. I would be glad to critique him if I didn't know that there are different designations given, depending upon the grammar, depending on what the language is. And I was making the argument on the Hebrew and Greek, not the English, even though I think people "get it." They get the designations, even if it might miss what English grammars call it. In the Greek, by the way, an infinitive can have a subject. There are lots of examples of this in other languages that differ in their designations from the English. Maybe there's an example out there saying Waltke is wrong.Kent Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-46378117996761485502013-11-25T11:27:24.308-08:002013-11-25T11:27:24.308-08:00Ken,
Sorry that the squeaky wheel gets the oil, o...Ken,<br /><br />Sorry that the squeaky wheel gets the oil, or something like that, but I agree with your comment. Thanks. That's how it seems to me, and regarding your comment on pt. 3 of Ekklesia, I agree that Augustine invented the invisible church in reaction to criticism of the Donatists on the impurity of the RCC and due to his neo-platonism. Nice quote, from a Reformed guy (not a "landmarker"). Thanks.Kent Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-85948947542942351842013-11-25T10:25:08.531-08:002013-11-25T10:25:08.531-08:00D4,
I'm in between classes here, as I was whe...D4,<br /><br />I'm in between classes here, as I was when I published everyone's comments and wrote mine, so I'll be short. So you're saying that collective and class are the same?<br /><br />My problem with your critique, really, is that you say nothing about what I wrote, as it applies to everything, but you cherry-pick one point, which comes across like you're attempting to discredit the whole article by smearing it with one criticism. It's a very common and unjust type of criticism, and usually used by people that can't actually answer the post itself. It's a drive-by, I believe, in modern internet lingo.<br /><br />However, you've got to think more deeply than criticizing definitions. Only certain singular nouns are "collective" and notice that their plural and their singular are the same, so when they are used in the singular, they could be referring to a plural. "Fish" can be referring to plural fish. Even if it is a collective "fish," as your example, "a batch of fish" or "a package of fish," it is still representing plural fish. That shouldn't be lost and it's the point. When you use "church," it is is not a collective. That's the point. When you say "church," you aren't referring to plural "churches," like "fish" is used. That's the point, which you didn't deal with in your cherry picking. I'd be glad to find any meaning in your point other than nit-picking on something that might not be wrong, because I've got to go back and look at all my sentences to see if anything I said was in fact wrong.Kent Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-86676392280583622452013-11-25T09:49:23.642-08:002013-11-25T09:49:23.642-08:00Doesn't matter who said it first, fish and she...Doesn't matter who said it first, fish and sheep are not collective nouns. If he means collective as in the sense of representing their entire class, he is correct that this happens, but that is not the definition of a collective noun. As some quick googling will demonstrate. d4v34xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07346680257860879900noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-38059146490492872122013-11-25T08:15:01.256-08:002013-11-25T08:15:01.256-08:00D4,
It's why I quoted Bruce Waltke, the forem...D4,<br /><br />It's why I quoted Bruce Waltke, the foremost Hebrew scholar. You can argue with me, but you're arguing with him. I'm using his terminology. :-DKent Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-91069961378269610702013-11-25T08:03:50.959-08:002013-11-25T08:03:50.959-08:00Kent,
Thank you for your post.
It is amazing h...Kent, <br /><br />Thank you for your post. <br /><br />It is amazing how powerful is the revealing of God's Word when men truly apply a consistent, normal, grammatical-historical exegesis of God's Word. When we put our presuppositions and pride aside and truly take the time to study these things, clarity is the result.<br /><br />As a person who grew up outside Christianity in my early years, I never could understand why anyone accepted a belief in a universal church. I never could see it in the Scriptures alone and every explanation I have ever heard seemed "forced" or "contrived". I say that not to be dismissive, but with all honesty, concerned over the impacts or as we previously discussed the "danagers" of believing incorrectly in a universal church. The more I study God's Word, the more I see the unity of it, and the more it makes me want to make sure I get the particulars right, because errors will only lead to others. <br /><br />Thanks,<br />Ken Ken Lengelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14808011240895370627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-64694092721844646432013-11-25T07:07:54.013-08:002013-11-25T07:07:54.013-08:00Plural and collective are not the same thing. Fis...Plural and collective are not the same thing. Fish is the plural of fish and not a collective. <br /><br />We caught many fish. (plural)<br /><br />We made a good catch of fish. (catch is collective here fish is just plural)<br /><br />Fish is a good source of protien. (might be class but definitely not collective).d4v34xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07346680257860879900noreply@blogger.com