Re: mystical traditions and the impersonal models of God

From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. (dfsiemensjr@juno.com)
Date: Sat Jun 28 2003 - 15:51:50 EDT

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    Rich,
    Two questions about the part of your message below: First, how does White
    know what term Jesus used? He wasn't there to record it. Second, given
    your translation of the roots of /metanoia/, why doesn't it become
    "unthinkable," as in unthinkable crime? However, I got out my abridged
    Liddell and Scott and found that your translation of /meta/ is not
    supported. I quote:

    In compos, /meta/ implies community or participation ... II. interval of
    space or time, between, during ... III. succession of time ... IV.
    toward, in pursuit, following ... V. letting go ... VI. after, behind ...
    VII. backwards, back again, reversely ... VIII. most frequently of change
    of place, condition, mind, etc. ...

    The notion of "beyond" seems to have come from Aristotle's /Metaphysics/,
    understood as the study that goes beyond the topics in /Physics/.
    However, it appears that, when the Aristotelian materials were collected,
    there was a manuscript without a title that was inserted following that
    containing /Physics/. Editors need a title (as do anatomists: I love the
    innominate vein.), so it became "Following Physics," and followers of the
    occult have tried to make it the esoteric topics going beyond the
    mundane. Now, of course, if you have gnosis beyond the lexicon, you can
    make /metanoia/ mean anything that fits the need.
    Dave

    On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 20:58:51 EDT RFaussette@aol.com writes:
                In John White’s essay, Jesus, Evolution, and the Future of
    Humanity, he writes, “The very first
                words Jesus spoke to humanity in his public ministry were,
    ‘The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom
                of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’
    (Mark1: 14, Matthew 4:17).” White writes,
                “Notice that word: repent. Over the centuries it has become
    misused and mistranslated. The
                Aramaic word that Jesus used is tob, meaning, ‘to
    return,’ ‘to flow back into God.’ The sense of
                this concept comes through best in the Greek word first used
    to translate it. That word is
                metanoia and like tob, it means something far greater than
    merely feeling sorry for misbehavior.
                Meta means, “to go beyond,” “to go higher than.” And
    noia comes from nous, meaning, “mind.”
                So the original meaning of metanoia is literally “going
    beyond or higher than the ordinary mental
                state.” In modern terms, it means transcending
    self-centered ego and becoming God-centered.”
     



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