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Do believer sin? Does the Holy Spirit sin? I think we can agree that believers do sin and that the Holy Spirit does not. Now then, how do you reconcile these two points with believers always being filled with the Holy Spirit? To my mind, the Holy Spirit is always available to the believer...

No, but it helps confirm a different sign. That along with political realities that is. The frequent presence of a star on Herodian coinage implies that we might be getting some things wrong about the Herodians. A full explanation of what I am seeing requires a correction in commonly accepted...

Actually, just one specific coin although many other coins could also fit. But this is part of the reason why I argue that knowledge of 1st century politics changes the way we view the NT. Herodians loved to place a star on their coins when the "Star Prophesy" was deemed to be about to be...

In ancient Rome one's official reputation was dictated by one's last success or failure. A success absolved all previous failures, and a failure absolved all previous successes., and one's overall behavior followed that pattern. If a person died in disrepute, why their whole life had shown...

Correct. Such allows Paul to claim that he is writing his own opinion, not God's and also for him to make a rather strange argument about women's hair. It also allows politics to play a much bigger factor in the writings than is commonly recognized. More on that in a different post, likely...

Be careful with your first assertion, such a statement of "not always" would include the writers of the NT, and without knowing their status vis a vis God at the time of their writing, they might have introduced errors into what we accept as scripture.

You are making an interesting argument, but as it stands you fail. If you truly wish to make this argument, then you need to stress different passages and also, very likely, present a different concept of sin to enable your argument to make sense. But to change the concept of sin involves...

Welcome ThatOneAnna, there are many discussions here in the various forums, and lots of different opinions as to what is correct. There are also lots of people willing to help, even if they are not certain they agree with you on some points. Poke around and find people you think you can get...

A study into Antiochus Epiphanes might also help understand this question.

The period I find most interesting is 54-66, between 55 and early 58 he was equipping large numbers of soldiers, giving them armor and weapons and ordering them to stand firm against an enemy that used flaming arrows.. In 64, just about 3 weeks before the Great Fire in Rome, for which the...

Out of curiosity, have you read about Corbulo yet? He was appointed by Nero to be governor over at least two Roman provinces at once, possibly three, with headquarters in Ephesus, he had the only detachment of praetorian guards outside of Rome, received one legion from the Rhine frontier, he...

One assumption that appears very often is "if you say this prayer, you will be saved". The prayer is not some magical formula the specific words do not matter. What does matter is what one intends, where their heart is actually oriented. If the desired goal is to be right with God because He...

Was "do not eat" an imperative due to God's will or was it an imperative of warning? And we do unconsciously add words. Without adding in additional context, "do not eat" could be a direct order or a stern warning. Suppose I tell a child not to pock their finger into that hole in the ground...

You miss the point. If, as you claim, ONLY the Masoretic Text is the "proper" scripture, then any other tradition is improper. This is especially true with the Septuagint where the translators of Isaiah apparently made purposeful changes to the Hebrew, changing clear meaning in Hebrew to...

Glad to hear that you seem to have immunity, but back to the general discussion, part of what I will be saying is what I will be working on in my second book. Why I am so foolish as to even think about a second book shows how little I learn. But anyway, when we read some passages, we...

You have a slight math error. According to you, pre-devaluation of the currency, one was required to pay 24 units of silver (the designated coinage), plus 1/5 or 29.8 units of silver. Post-devaluation the requirement was 20 units of silver (the designated coinage) plus 1/5 or 24 units. You...

So p[roper restitution is required by Torah. Thus, if I borrow a hundred dollars from you, promising to pay back one hundred twenty dollars based on then current valuations, and the dollar gets substantially devalued, you have no complaints that you are losing money on the transaction? I meet...

You make a lot of assumptions, including that the money's being paid were allowed to be reduced in the late 4th century rather than being maintained. What is your logic for that assumption that would avoid claims of injustice when the currency was devalued? The Rabbis at Yavneh clearly did not...

Might I point out a few math mistakes? We do not know when Moses built the tabernacle, nor when God made the covenant with Moses, so we do not know the starting point. There would need to be two witnesses who are killed and come back to life, so that messes up the middle of the week. And...

And what was included in "the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms? The Book of Ruth for example was not recognized as prophetic, Torah nor as a Psalm in the 1st century. rather it was included in the "Writings", as were many other works in the established canon. So were they included in what...