Talking Out Of Turn

In response to my email:

Subject: Re: [Old Ministry List] Re: Mary vs. Israel
From: Teacher
To: Charles Sebold

The second problem with the use as being the mother of Yeshua is that
the Greek word autou has been misused by most all schools and
non-Greeks. It is not a word that means him. It means here or
there. Secondly if this section in John were truly His earthly mother
then why do all the other Gospels omit her and say that all the women
were afar off? Thirdly then that means that the usage are the Jews
collectively as His Spiritual mother as used in Galations.

The Teacher

I respond to the substance of this post later in the exchange, so I’ll confine myself to a few little things now:

• One reason why I put off this part of the testimony so long is because the teacher’s writing can be nearly incoherent at times. I realize that sometimes this would be the pot calling the kettle black, but I don’t think I have ever posted or emailed a numeric list in which the first two points are numbered “second” and “secondly,” and the third point is the conclusion of the first two points. I must implore you to remember that sometimes intelligent or even brilliant men don’t express themselves well in certain media; whether the teacher is either is the question, not to be answered by assuming that his failure to express himself well in hurried email is symptomatic of a bigger problem. But don’t completely discount this, either; whether the problem was one of fact or of communication is part of what must be answered. Short version: don’t jump to a conclusion because this sounds like the output of some kind of random word generator. Let the ideas speak for themselves.
• Here we have the most succinct expression of one of the articles of faith for the ministry: “I know Greek better than seminary or college Greek students, and better than anybody who themselves isn’t Greek.” This excuse is truly worthy of the great cult leaders of the last two hundred years, except that Joseph Smith, or the editorial staff of the New World Translation, aren’t Greek either as far as I know.
• Something we don’t get into much later on is the fact that the Jerusalem of Galatians 4:26 doesn’t seem to be the Jewish people, or indeed necessarily any sort of group of people. I don’t even know any dispensationalists who would argue that. The force of the context is almost the opposite of that point.