Responding to William Lane Craig criticism // Ask NT Wright Anything 

There's no such thing as a "true christ follower". Not a single christian actually follows what jesus supposedly taught.

Bob Dole, what makes you say that? Supposedly? Check your disbelief at the door

Bob Dole to make that claim is to first assume that you know every single Christ follower on the planet and not to be rude, but that is impossible let alone remotely true. I get that you’re skeptical of the above statement, but refuting with an impossible answer does nothing to help your case against the claim. Just FYI.

God bless you all

@@TheRealCatof paul

Agreed!

Part of that problem is we’ve been, perhaps unintentionally, neglected to teach congregants biblical hermeneutics for which this is most fundamental. Our preachers and teachers are often guilty of bringing more background into our sermons, in the sense that most people want sensational explanations and answers to thinks in a fast and dirty manner. It’s rather tragic, because it squarely forces churches from this name it, claim mentality. There’s an old saying, “The Bible can never mean what it never meant.” We’re 2000+ years separated from all this and often forget that we don’t live in that time or culture. We have to look back and learn about it and then come to the text with the original audiences eyes and ears, namely ears as this was an oral culture and there wasn’t a compendium of the biblical literature then as we have it now.

Yes rightly said

That's because ones you start to understand Old Testament in it's own context. It perfectly carries into the New Testament. And completely destroys dispensationalism, even denominations.

I was a hyper-dispensationalist for very many years and when I learned the partial-Preterist view it was an amazing eye opening event in my life. I’m no longer a dispensationalist and now I hold a view (Partial-Preterism) that I believe exalts the Lord Jesus much more than the Dispensational view couldn’t even hint at. Praise the Lord!

It is definitely NOT heresy! However, he is not listening to the text. He is squeezing it into his presuppositions.

@@OrthodoxJourney359 I've been going through the same thing.

** What sin led to God's wrath? Adam/Eve & all humans were created without moral law. So they didn't have the forbidden knowledge of good and evil. But when they & all humans disobeyed God's command in Gen2:17 & chose the forbidden moral law, God's wrath came upon them. Jesus redeemed us from the forbidden knowledge of good and evil (moral law) as per Rom7:4,6 ('But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held'). Have you accepted the deliverance? If not you are not saved from God's wrath (Rom4:15: 'the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression'). Be saved from God's wrath.

@@savedchristian4754Let God love you!

@@ralphstarling6707 I am saved. Be saved.

@@savedchristian4754 I suggest you step out of being Theo and let God determine peoples destiny! Love wins!

@@ralphstarling6707 Destiny is decided by believing in Jesus who redeemed us from the moral law.

%; What sin led to God's wrath? Adam/Eve & all humans were created without moral law. So they didn't have the forbidden knowledge of good and evil. But when they & all humans disobeyed God's command in Gen2:17 & chose the forbidden moral law, God's wrath came upon them. Jesus redeemed us from the forbidden knowledge of good and evil (moral law) as per Rom7:4,6 ('But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held'). Have you accepted the deliverance? If not you are not saved from God's wrath (Rom4:15: 'the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression'). Be saved from God's wrath.

@Sue Blue No I don't he is being being arrogant. He doesn't strike me as being like that at all. He has a right to his interpretation and I think He has an incredible amount of breadth of knowledge on the Scriptures. I have read many of his books including the big thick ones. He has a great clarity of thought of early Christian history and the relevance to the culture of that time. To call him a heretic is astounding to me . He believes in the resurrection and Jesus as Lord. He has a very humble attitude and great depth of the first century beliefs that his bibliographies could be longer that many books. Your condemnation of him may put you under this verse "Mt 5:21 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[b][c] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell." There are at least six methods or views of interpreting Revelations. There are at least about 15 ways of interpreting the first few chapters of Genesis. Yes I have read my bible - on and off for about 40 years or so. I have read other books and commentaries on this topic as well. There are many ways of looking at things but condemning this man as a heretic doesn't seem like the Spirit of Christ at all to me. Try looking up convenant theology. Even if you disagree with it - you may be surprised at the many insights it has to offer. :}

Or look at the classic Reformation theology of eschatology. The historical flow of prophecy. And understand the cyclical thinking of the Hebrew writer.

Sue Blue you are a very sad person

@Sue Blue It would be a tad arrogant if he had said that, but he didn't.

Sue Blue, perhaps you are a dispensationalist or a futurist when it comes to eschatology. the dispensationalists are the new kids on the block. Many of the church fathers are partial preterists. You should not engage in ad hominem. Rather give your rebuttal on the items that you don't agree with NT Wright.

Definitely pick up his books, they’re wonderful reads. Surprised by Hope is my favorite.

Lyndon Wilson, amen...walking in the Way of the Master

yes and if God is Spirit He is ONE not three.Jesus is the living temple and inside it's the Spirit,the presence of God Himself.

Jesus said "I am the Way." He built His Church to embody "the Way". The earliest followers of Jesus were called "the Way" (Acts 9:2; 19:9,23; 22:4; 24:14,22).

Lyndon! This is some smoke! Good observation.

From what I can tell, they agree on most things but use different language to describe their beliefs. Heiser did a brief interview with Wright on his podcast.

Wright has interacted with a couple scholars at the last SBC conference (2017), and was always the holdout rejecting any scholar but himself from explaining NT texts using second temple context. So no, don’t expect NT to jump on the Heiser bandwagon anytime soon. NT Wright seems uninterested in Heiser’s work unfortunately. Similarly Craig is unfamiliar with Heiser’s Deuteronomy 32 worldview and had suggested that psalm 82 best be understood as human rulers which is not in the lexical range of Elohim! So Craig’s view incoherent, but he is a great Philosopher. And I enjoy his defenders class.

I too would love to hear that conversation!

NT Wright writing has a huge influence in Dr Heiser's content.

two supporters of the false gospel of men choice and will.

partial preterism

Look up Gene Kim

@@dochvtech22 will do, thanks

@@lateologiadelacalle Don't look up Gene Kim. He's a KJV only loon.

but there also plenty of Americans who would side with NT on this eg Steve Gregg of thenarrowpath.com

@@alpinewonders What sin led to God's wrath? Adam/Eve & all humans were created without moral law. So they didn't have the forbidden knowledge of good and evil. But when they & all humans disobeyed God's command in Gen2:17 & chose the forbidden moral law, God's wrath came upon them. Jesus redeemed us from the forbidden knowledge of good and evil (moral law) as per Rom7:4,6 ('But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held'). Have you accepted the deliverance? If not you are not saved from God's wrath (Rom4:15: 'the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression'). Be saved from God's wrath.

@@savedchristian4754 Rom 7,6 equates the law with the written code. There was no written law for Adam to choose when he sinned. But I`ll think further about what you wrote. Thank you for posting

@@alpinewonders Fine. All forms of law show the difference between good & evil. Right from Adam God creates all humans from birth without the forbidden knowledge of good and evil.

​@alpinewonders Of course there was a law for Adam to break. The command to not eat the fruit, a law which Adam passed on to Eve. And once they ate of the fruit, they gained the knowledge of good and evil, which is the law written on their hearts (inherently knowing the commands of God). This is what all men inherited from Adam which gives us the ability to willingly violate the laws of God (sin) whether we've ever read the 10 Commandments or not. This is what Paul clearly lays out in Romans chapters 1-5.

N.T. is not a historicist. Historicism and everything associated with it went the way of the model T. !!!!!!

Well said. You're right.

You are so correct!!!! The 70 a.d. story has been buried, smeared, ignored and flat out denied by those who prefer an easier route, a path of least resistance .!!!! Without the 70 a.d. info. the Olivet Discourse would make no sense. Matt. 23 would have no conclusion. And an explanation for the demise of the old covenant would be totally absent without the Olivet Discourse.!!!!!!! And Jesus condemnation of the bankrupt sacrificial system would have little merit if 70 a d. we're confused with "our time". And there are people out there that believe we are the Matt.24 generation. Absolutely not!!!!!!

That Jesus and his church are where heaven and earth are coming together, that they now constitute the temple.

So for you to understand this. You track a few things. *#1 Eden as Temple, #2 Sacred Space, #3 Isaiah Burning Coal, #4 Ezekiel River of Life, #5 Matthew 24 and Revelations 22.* These is more to it. But I believe this give you a solid understanding into Temple talk. 1 and 2 you will probably going to have a lot of material to read. But it's really important to understand that. NT really dives deep into OT meaning of Temples.

@@Kintizen The work of Meredith Kline (Kingdom Prologue) and Rikk Watts (among others) is helpful on this point.

Given that, my response might be that Scripture is clear that Gods ways and thoughts are not ours. If Christians are to claim that the Bible is our authority and basis for knowing God, then we must first align ourselves with the mind and thoughts of God and allow the indwelling of the Spirit to work in and through us in perfect submission. The sum of Wright’s work being that the Good News is better than that, with “that” being, we’re not meant to be hanging around all day for a Star Trek beam out.

Ah, well, he said that the Temple was a symbol of the reality of Heaven and that when it becomes mistaken as the reality itself, then you have idolatry. So he then in an offhanded way says that the same has happened with the church, an implication of the building we call a church being mistaken as the reality of the place where God dwells.

David, Whright has a head filled with philosophical claptrap rather than real Bible learning. His final statement about it being dangerous to believe heaven and Earth come together in these End Times is Satanic nonsense as of course when Jesus returns in a few years time it will be to set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth. In that kingdom raptured Christians and a few Jews and the first resuurectees will live a wonderful life just as Adam and Eve enjoyed in Eden. You will not find any preacher or 'expert' telling this truth but I do.

@@rosewhite--- Thanks for the warning.

@@rosewhite--- I don't know where you get your theology but the one with Philosophical craziness is you. *The rapture is based on the Greek Philosophy of the Soul.* And it's completely foreign to the Bible. You need to start doing *Biblical Word Studies* specifically Hebrew words. Even when the Jewish elders translated the Old Testament into Greek in 200BC. They didn't carry on the Greek Philosophical ideas of Soul into the translation. It's a complete modern ideology mixed with Greek Philosophy forced into Biblical Interpretation. *NT Wright knows this fact, and stays away from it.*

What's that?

No John the Baptist's mission was to spread the news that the Messiah has come. And prep the Israelites for exiting exile into Kingdom of God. Baptism is symbol of Noah's flood story and Crossing of the Red Sea. John stands greater then Noah and Moses. (Which also ties into Ezekiel River of Life vision.)

Do you know what the probability of just 15 (of 324) of the prophecies of Jesus being fulfilled is? It’s 1 in 10 to the 50th power.

He has filled his head with too much philosophical claptrap rather than simple Bible truth.

David Bentley Hart should not be taken seriously when being used to discredit people. He has said plenty about NT wright himself. If you disagree with him, you might as well be an idiot.

​@@hudsonensz2858 I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to get at here. Either that, or I just had a stroke.

@@Jordan-hz1wr no stroke, my point is he lambasts people who disagree with him as being idiots and is extremely hyperbolic about people's shortcomings, including WLC's.

​@@hudsonensz2858 Ah, I'm with you. Yes, I agree. He's not so tactful. But I do think DBH is as true a philosopher as one can find. WLC is a great guy, but he is deeply rooted in the legal orientation of western theology. He's essentially a modern day pharisee in the patristic sense.I'm sure WLC has the best of intentions, but he's begun his theological reasoning on an entirely false view of the nature of who God is.

@@Jordan-hz1wr I like WLC when he is in his element arguing apologetics As a well rounded philosopher, I don't know, haven't heard much from him other than his bread and butter. Hart is definitely a different philosopher and has his own flaws. More of a classical tour de force though.

No, that's east religion philosophy. The understand the residency of Holy Spirit in us. You have to understand the *Biblical idea of Sacred Space.* The whole Bible explains Human are horrible at making decisions on their own. Every object of desire has destroyed humans, even knowledge. You could understand further more in the *Biblical reasoning of God's Justice.* It's part the foundation of all things. And it's impossible for humanity to comprehend.

That was a "politically correct" answer in order not to antagonise the belief based on church creeds. If you accept the 70CE destruction of Jerusalem and the temple as a biblically significant eschatological event, then Daniel 12 would confirm that it was the second coming of Jesus (Parousia). Daniel 12 was the time of the end of the age when the power of the holy people was completely shattered (70CE) and the resurrection of the dead for judgement occurred. Resurrection and judgement occurred only at the Parousia of Jesus when Jesus the high priest came out from the heavenly holy of holies to complete the atonement for the people of God, their redemption and salvation to inherit the Kingdom of God (Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, Hebrews 12:22-28). In another words, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70CE signified the second coming of Jesus.

😂😂😂

@@martelljhixson His REAL answer to the question was only at the beginning. He said Craig misunderstood what he had written.

NO.

@@alexhamilton624 Thanks!!!

@@Albertanator What is his view? Is he amill? or

Yes....I believe so.@@batboy5569

DonswatchingtheTube What do you mean John wrote revelation to explain it?

It's NOT the end of the "world". That's a mistranslation from the KJV. It's the end of the AGE, the Old Covenant age of Israel. All things written in the Old Covenant law and prophets were FULFILLED in 70 AD when apostate Old Covenant Jerusalem was destroyed, and the birth of the New Covenant age of the church began. EVERY apocalyptic verse in the New Testament revolves around 70 AD. Look at the first verse of Revelation which speaks of things that will SHORTLY come to pass.

70 AD no not everything was fulfilled. What happen to Jesus ruling with a “rod of Iron” that means by force all are subject to His authority. What happened to no more death? Who was the antichrist? What was the mark of the beast? There is more to point out, but lets start here.

@@livepoetic390 What's all this about, "by force all are subject to His authority"? Who do you think we are....Muslims?😁 Jesus told His Apostles, "shake the dust from your feet if they don't listen", Matthew 10, 14. The "mark of the beast" was probably 1st century Caesar worship. The Christians had to swear their allegiance to the Caesars who thought they were gods, otherwise buying and selling was impossible. Whether you can apply this "mark" to the 21st century, in a spiritual sense only, is another matter. There's all kinds of evil things today which anyone can interpret as being the "mark of the beast". That's all up for debate.

@AnarchoRepublican Mystery Babylon was apostate Old Covenant JERUSALEM. Having the "beast", which was Rome (Caesar Nero) riding the "whore of Babylon", which you also think is Rome wouldn't make sense. Jerusalem colluded with the Romans when persecuting the Saints. Also, the concept of harlotry (whore/Mystery Babylon) comes from having a covenantal relationship with God and breaking that covenant (by violating Torah). This could only be Jerusalem, which fell into a state of apostacy before it was destroyed in 70 AD.

He is not talking at all about Revelation or revelations. Listen more closely.

@AnarchoRepublican nah cuz it says in revelation there will be judgement and all sorts of things that haven't happened.

I was thinking that God's vindication of Jesus is in raising him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand. I therefore find it difficult to attach great significance to the destruction of the temple.

Gary Huisman very much so! One of the main points

Your body may have rotted to dust by the time Jesus returns. As GOD and Jesus designed-i.e wrote the DNA of the human body as well as all other life on Earth they will know exactly how to recreate bodies for the dead to stand in for judgment. This is why Jesus said all the hairs on our heads are counted and known - because the amount of hair on our head depends on our personal DNA!

Rev 1,5 ...the ruler of the kings of the earth... Mt 28.18 ...all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth... Sounds like a done deal to me. If He is not ruling now, why do we call Him Lord? Hhhhmmm? :)

So you believe Jesus #1 coming was to establish his Kingdom? Have you read the Gospel?

He is trying to say that God the Father is building a new temple in Jesus.

If jesus has a God Then that would mean us christians would be praying to 2 Gods.

That comes from arinaisim That Jesus is not God

@Jubei Yang and that's called arinaisim. Not biblical. John 1 In the beginning the word was with God and the word Was God

@Jubei Yang how can you say no when I gave you proof from scripture. John 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made Colossians 1 15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Come back meaning?

In the same way refers with angels

Great observation. Never read it like that

Lol

When did wright say: the apostles didnt believe the second coming would happen in their lifetime?

Seal up the documents until the End Times when knowledge will increase? GOD did not intend the truth be easily seen as His schedule had another 2000 years to work out.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WvZ4aGLWTOs.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sluNuVp2_TE.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8JEpM2vRyy8.html

this guy is an obfuscating lunatic. i'm not sure that he knows what he believes.

I was raised to believe in the modern Left Behind style form of eschatology and a few years ago someone introduced me to the Preterist view. At first I refused to believe it and set out to prove it wrong. The more I dug into the idea the texts became more and more clear. The most important things to consider when interpreting the bible are context and original intent. Context would be such things as: Historical, Biblical and documentary. Original Intent would be such things as: Intended Meaning of the Author, Original Audience Meaning and the Historical Grammatical Method. Clear your mind of all preconceived ideas, pray to our Father that He will bring you clarity and show you His truth and read Matthew 23 and 24. Picture yourself there as a disciple listening to Christ's words and pay close attention to the time indicators in both chapters 23 and 24. When does Jesus indicate "ALL THESE THINGS" are to take place? He uses that exact phrase in both chapters. Once you've done that read Revelation. When you read it think about two particular things: 1) Who was Revelation written to and 2) what are the time indicators in the beginning, middle and end of the book. How would the recipients (7 churches of Asia) have understood the book if it was speaking of things that would take place 2000 years in the future? How would those words given them any hope against the trials and persecutions they were experiencing from both Rome and the Jews? I have come to understand that Preterism is simply irrefutable. We must never take biblical text out of its original context and must consider how the original and intended audience would have taken and understand the words. Grace and Peace to you!

Tarik Ramadaan “Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” ‭‭Acts‬ ‭11:25-26‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Even in the first century the Christians had disagreements over beliefs. Gradually over the years there were major divisions....people started their own “churches.” Some pagan beliefs were also incorporated into the “churches”. Now we have so many religions! Some saying that only “they” have the truth and no one else. Beware of those.... so far none of them have proven true in the sense that they mean. I have found that the scholars don’t seem to have the complete Bible truths either. But one can learn some truths from most of them and continue to add to the whole truth that one is searching for... Jesus loves those who love truth and are searching for it.

It's difficult to truly convey the meaning of an ancient language. I would encourage you to read passages such as Romans 5:12-21, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, Colossians 1:19-20. There is no eternal separation of any sort in the light of such passages. Of course, most people will tell you to view such passages in the light of passages such as Matthew 25:31-46 which suggest eternal separation (at least in most translations,) but you can just as easily tell those people to read the passages which seem to speak of eternal separation in the light of the passages which suggest otherwise.

Very weird to observe a foolish old man wasting his apparently good organic intelligence parsing out the ancient superstitious lore of a religious cult. He's playing a sort of Dungeons and Dragons game, with the unfortunate stipulation that he actually believes the arcane BS he's fooling with. It's an excellent example of the insight that functional stupidity is not correlated with a lack of organic intellectual capacity, but is simply the acquisition of false, unwarranted beliefs, which occurs for an enormously complex array of reasons. When the body of false beliefs is large enough, complex enough, and central enough to one's life, one's good mental capacities may be used primarily to service, elaborate, and rationalize those beliefs, precluding the achievement of socially useful work. This is certainly the case with WLCraig also, who has gone to the length of acquiring as good an understanding of modern physics as one could ever expect of a scientific lay person. Unfortunately, having found that his scientific knowledge does not actually support his belief system, Craig has proceeded to selectively adopt an array of positions, relative to physics, that are not accepted by people in the field. For example, he rejects relativistic spacetime (which Craig calls block time) for a model of traditional "sequential" time (I forget what he calls it) in which only the present moment enjoys the status of being real and in which each present moment in time would be shared in determinate simultaneity across the universe. Also, he interprets the Bord-Guth-Valenkin Theorem to mean that the universe had a beginning, prior to which there was an era of timeless nothingness, which of course is rejected by the authors of the theorem. Craig has no scientific theoretical rationale to support these positions, nor the intellectual resources to create one, but they are adopted because they are necessary to support his prior belief in God. He has acquired such knowledge of physics and mathematics as he has in order to service this prior belief, not to test it. One wishes to ask Craig for the mathematical elaboration of a necessary theory to replace General Relativity, so that the Nobel Committee can render him his due and we can place his bust on the shelf with Einstein and Newton. When I look at someone like Craig, I have to ponder what "belief" actually means. Craig would seem to be too intelligent not to recognize the intellectual dishonesty of his positions on physics topics. One gets the impression that Craig has followed physics out to such rarified regions in order to dazzle ordinary people with his scientific sophistication, while knowing that his arguments break down in a realm too remote for those people to understand.

Yes, these things happen to the best of us. We need to have much more generosity and graciousness toward each other as brothers in the LORD.

@@TheRootedWord Let's face facts and be honest graciously. The Second Coming did NOT happen as it's written within a generation and the time has long gone when it would happen. The apostles were sadly mistaken including Paul as you can read in 1Thess, 4:15 and 5:2.

@@richardjohnson909 The word "generation" is γενεὰ in the Greek and means "this which has been brought to be". It has been translated generation, race, or offspring. Yet, it literally means "this which has been brought to be". So then, these passages become a bit more ambiguous than our faulty English translators have led us to believe. For example, Matthew 24:34 when translated becomes: "Truly I am laying forth to you, that this which has come to be may certainly not come alongside, until whensoever all these things may come to be." Now, in light of an accurate and true translation of the Greek, without regard to defending some doctrine men have invented and have invested in, we can discuss what this means. If not, then not.

@@TheRootedWord As I read your post I couldn’t help but feel you are trying to “pull a Pilate” and wash your hands of the facts. So, let’s examine the Greek word for "generation." Strong's Number G1074 matches the Greek γενεά (genea), which occurs 42 times in 37 verses and translates it in the following manner: generation (37x), time (2x), age (2x), nation (1x). But you can check other sources such as Vine’s Expository Dictionary, Thayers’s Greek Lexicon, Young’s Analytical Concordance and Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible and you can verify for yourself. They are in Biblical parlance “of one accord.” Strong’s advocates that a generation is a period of 30-33 years. I acknowledge this but I will hold fast to the understanding that in the Bible a generation is 40 years. C. H. Dodd among the greatest of twentieth-century New Testament scholars popularized the idea of realized eschatology. Clearly, the statement, “Truly, I say to you, THIS GENERATION will not pass away till all these things take place” did not happen (Matthew 24:34). “This” is in the present tense and not “that” the demonstrative adjective and refers to the time in which Jesus lived. The end of the age and return of Jesus was a major belief of the early Christians. As I pointed out in my previous post, the apostle Paul taught it and the Galatians Christians believed that Jesus would come “like a thief in the night” (1 Thess.4:15, 5:2 and 2 Thess. 1:7). It was imminent. But they were all wrong. The literal second coming of Christ did not happen, but when John wrote later, he sees the coming of the Holy Spirit as the second coming of Christ.

@@richardjohnson909 Sorry to say the English translators are all incorrect. They tried to find what made most sense to them within their theological frameworks, rather than taking the word at its face meaning. I am in fact a professional Linguist and Translator of the Scriptures. What I have uncovered is a gross mismanagement of translation of the Greek terms without regard to their actual meanings and this also runs across the Greek grammar as well. I have already given you the break down of the word, which you can verify in any good Greek dictionary simply by looking ONLY at the literal meaning of the word and its roots. Ignore the additional terms that imply some additional overlay of meaning, such as metaphors or "by extension". That is another way for saying that they want to interpret the word to fit their own theological framework. Let the words be what they are. It is not generation as in 30-33 years. The word itself is not that limited and the textual contexts do not require that specific limitation. In fact, the texts make more sense with what I laid out for you in my last comment. If you cannot accept that, then we have no basis on which to have this discussion. I will not have a discussion with interpretations that are made to fit a modern theological framework, only of the text, the literal meanings of the words, and the roots of those words. Thank you, though, for doing some extra work, though the sources and methods used were the same deception we have put up with in the English translations for centuries.