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34 comments:
I'd say you make less and less sense as time goes on, but you never made much sense.
Rho beat me to it. Why would any Protestant take issue with traditional labels that have no effect whatsoever on any practical, doctrinal or moral issue? What would they gain from it except making it harder to discuss the Bible with each other or anyone who uses traditional naming conventions? Are you going to snark at Protestants for keeping traditional chapter and verse divisions next? Or for using the semiotic traditions of spelling, grammar and vocabulary that constitute whatever language they speak? Do you even have a clue why, and on what basis, Protestants ever suspected tradition in the first place, or do you genuinely think that Protestants just hate tradition for the hell of it?
Luke 16:10 He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
godescalc,
I thought protestants were the ones who put the verse numbers in the Bible? I could be wrong about that, but I thought I read something that said that.
Also there are implications to what Lvka said. You can't rip the Church Fathers, as well as the early Church in general while keeping alive their finger prints in the Bible you have.
You blame the JW's for not being consistent in getting out all the stuff that goes against them in the New World Translation, but you can't see the inconsistency of what you do.
You reject Baptismal Regeneration but you still want to embrace the Nicene/Constantinople 1 creed!
You reject the traditions of the early Church, yet you want to preserve some of their traditions in the very Bible you hold.
You can't have it both ways!
I have to say that I find it quite telling that the Protestants crawl out of the woodworks crying foul to small, sarcastic posts like these while completely avoiding those with greater substance and content. Very telling...
Also:
I take it from what Rhology and godescalc have said that you both consider the titles of the books of the New Testament not to necessarily be inspired but simply good shorthand labels for reference. Question: how do you know who wrote the Gospels?
That was, after all, Lucian's point...
Jnorm, the chapter divisions are a Catholic and proto-Anglican construction. The verse numberings we use today originate in (Protestant) Geneva, at least according to wikipedia. Also the Geneva Bible was the first printed bible to include both chapter and verse numberings. Versification was first done by a Catholic, but in terms of popularity it seems to be a Protestant tradition that has spread pretty widely.
1 & 2 Theophilus — hilarious!
Out of curiosity, why did the Protestants split out the 22-book Jewish canon into 39 books?
What would they name the Epistle to James?
What would they name the Epistle to James?
"Apocrypha" :)
David,
I've dealt with a great deal of your substantive arguments in the past. No need to reinvent the wheel, and I don't have time right now anyway.
Further, a few commenters are hardly "coming out of the woodwork".
Yet further, I don't think godescalc is a Protestant.
You ask:
how do you know who wrote the Gospels?
Lesser answer: I'm not aware (though I could be wrong) of any manuscript of the Gospels that excludes the name of the author. How do we know the name wasn't included in the autographa?
Greater answer: Canon isn't Canon b/c a particular man wrote it, but b/c God wrote it.
Turnback answer: How do you know who wrote the Gospels?
Rhology:
I've dealt with a great deal of your substantive arguments in the past.
If you say so...
Lesser answer: I'm not aware (though I could be wrong) of any manuscript of the Gospels that excludes the name of the author. How do we know the name wasn't included in the autographa?
You're begging the question; how do we know the name was in the autograph? The story of the woman caught in adultery in the Gospel of John certainly wasn't in the autograph; it probably wasn't inserted until the late second century. Is it not, then, inspired Scripture?
Greater answer: Canon isn't Canon b/c a particular man wrote it, but b/c God wrote it.
Begging the question again; how do you know God wrote it?
We've already covered the fact that the Church Fathers, by your standard, had a deeply flawed faith; they were wrong on theology, ecclesiology, soteriology, mariology, sacramentology, etc. and this is the basis upon which they decided the canon of the New Testament. How/why did God work through them to create a perfect New Testament canon while leaving them in horrible error about nearly everything else?
Your Old Testament canon was decided by a group of Jews who rejected and explicitly cursed Christ and also persecuted Christians. How/why did God work through them to create a perfect Old Testament canon while leaving them in horrible error about nearly everything else? Also: why did God choose to work through these Jews who spurned his Incarnation, cursed his Son, and persecuted his people instead of working through the Church he had founded as he did with the creation of the New Testament canon?
Turnback answer: How do you know who wrote the Gospels?
The unimpeachable Holy Tradition of the Church. In other words, the exact same way that you know; the difference is that I'm willing to be honest about it.
how do we know the name was in the autograph?
We don't KNOW it. How do we know it wasn't? We don't. So the question is kind of worthless.
And I don't consider John 7:53-8:11 inspired Scripture, no. Nor the longer ending of Mark. Nor the Comma Johanneum. Incidentally, it's been Protestant scholarship that has detected these things, not EO scholarship. Wonder why that is.
how do you know God wrote it?
Are we back to this "I, the EO theist, will pretend to be an atheist" merry-go-round? How about you just stay in your own position, I'll stay in mine, and we'll talk, OK? All this jumping to skeptical positions doesn't do you any good. How will YOU answer the question?
How/why did God work through them to create a perfect New Testament canon while leaving them in horrible error about nearly everything else?
How? OK, get this - God uses sinful men to carry out His perfect plan.
I know, crazy, right? It's nuts. God's a weird dude.
Your Old Testament canon was decided by a group of Jews who rejected and explicitly cursed Christ
1) Oh, so all Jews of Jesus' time rejected and cursed Christ? Like Elisabeth, Zechariah, John the Baptist, the 11 apostles, Anna, Simeon, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus...
2) Oh, so the OT Canon wasn't known to the Jews until after Christ? How did He quote from it all the time then?
3) Romans 3:1.
4) They didn't DECIDE it. God did.
5) The LXX was compiled by...Jews.
why did God choose to work through these Jews who spurned his Incarnation, cursed his Son, and persecuted his people instead of working through the Church he had founded as he did with the creation of the New Testament canon?
1) See above 5 comments.
2) Imagine David at the time of Habakkuk. "Why did God choose to work through these Babylonians who spurned His temple, razed His holy city, and persecuted His people instead of working through the nation he had founded as He did with the promise to Abraham? OK, get this - God uses sinful men to carry out His perfect plan.
I know, crazy, right? It's nuts. God's a weird dude.
Turnback answer: How do you know who wrote the Gospels?
David: The unimpeachable Holy Tradition of the Church. In other words, the exact same way that you know; the difference is that I'm willing to be honest about it.
1) And how do you know who wrote the parts of Tradition that name the authors?
2) And how do you know that those parts of tradition are big-T Tradition? We've seen before that your answer is merely a viciously circular appeal to "Tradition", which cashes out to "the modern EOC says so", which doesn't help anyone. So I love it when you ask these sorts of questions.
3) And it's a strawman of course to think that Christian tradition is totally out of the question for me. When it comes to naming the human authors, why not look at tradition? And yes, I have read from others who are familiar with the situation that tradition favors these authors for these books, so, fine, I accept these authors' names as appended to the books, and b/c the names appear on the manuscript copies. It's not like it's a matter of essential faith!
Peace,
Rhology
The idea is to stay faithful to one's own criteria, not to impress or convince outsiders.
By accepting both written & unwritten Traditions as normative, we're not liable to the charge of begging the question -- you, however, are.
Yet further, I don't think godescalc is a Protestant. - I'm Catholic; I just find the snark annoying - Protestant objections to tradition tend to have definable reasons. I grew up amongst Pentecostals for whom "tradition" was pretty much a bogeyman, and even they wouldn't have seen the slightest point in changing the names of the gospels, or had any objections to taking "tradition" (in the sense of passed-down history) as an indicator of who wrote the books of the Bible.
Also David:
you both consider the titles of the books of the New Testament not to necessarily be inspired but simply good shorthand labels for reference.
The question of whether the titles of the books are divinely-inspired and reliable is a good one. I'm not sure myself (not that I'm a Protestant). I'd probably agree with the position you put forward on 2 Peter here, which would be just as applicable if we found out that the Gospel of Mark was actually written by someone called Bob instead:
And, above all else, the Church has sensed in it divine inspiration and included it in her canon of Sacred Writings. For the Orthodox Christian, this is evidence enough
Protestants also think the Church was guided by God to recognise the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, so there's no reason a Protestant couldn't hold to this view as well.
Rhology:
So the question is kind of worthless.
Exactly my point -- so please stop begging the question.
And I don't consider John 7:53-8:11 inspired Scripture, no.
At least you're being consistent now. Of course, that brings up new problems; are you willing to change your view every time that modern scholarship comes across new evidence that a certain verse or a certain book isn't really Apostolic? What about 2 Peter? Scholarship is in agreement and the internal and external evidence are both overwhelming -- 2 Peter was probably written between AD 130-150. Do you reject its inspiration and canonical status as well? (read the post of mine that godescalc linked to before answering this question, please)
Incidentally, it's been Protestant scholarship that has detected these things, not EO scholarship. Wonder why that is.
Because of our drastically different viewpoints? While the Orthodox uphold the Bible, the Protestants undermine it...
How about you just stay in your own position, I'll stay in mine, and we'll talk, OK?
How about giving better evidence for your position than "it's true because I believe it" which is all that your comments here have amounted to thus far?
How will YOU answer the question?
By demonstrating:
1. That Christ is risen, therefore God
2. That Christ founded a Church, which is therefore perfect and eternal
3. That this Church decided the canon of Scripture
How? OK, get this - God uses sinful men to carry out His perfect plan.
Are you trying to convince me or just justify yourself? This is about the most circular argumentation I've ever seen...
1) Oh, so all Jews of Jesus' time rejected and cursed Christ? Like Elisabeth, Zechariah, John the Baptist, the 11 apostles, Anna, Simeon, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus...
Your Old Testament canon wasn't decided by the Jews of Jesus' time. It was decided by Jews of the 2nd century and later.
2) Oh, so the OT Canon wasn't known to the Jews until after Christ?
Are you not familiar with the Council of Jamnia, the introduction of the Masoretic textual tradition, etc.?
How did He quote from it all the time then?
Did he quote from every book of your Old Testament? No; so how do you know he accepted the ones as Scripture that he didn't quote? There are quotes in the New Testament from the deuterocanonicals and even the apocrypha -- does this make them Scriptural?
3) Romans 3:1.
I think you mean Romans 3:2...
Does Romans 3:2 refer to the Jews before Christ's time who accepted the Septuagint with deuterocanonicals as Scriptural (as St. Paul did)? Or to the Jews after Christ's time who edited the Scriptures, excised verses and entire books, and turned to the Masoretic instead?
4) They didn't DECIDE it. God did.
All of history is but an illusion... It's interesting that God decided it but allowed things to appear as if the Jews decided based upon a hatred of Christ and the Church -- ironic almost. Of course, I guess if you're willing to believe that God planted dinosaur bones and volcanoes to make the earth appear to be millions of years old when it's really on a few thousand years old, you'll believe anything. Your "god" is a rather deceptive fellow.
5) The LXX was compiled by...Jews.
It is important to distinguish between pre-Incarnation and post-Incarnation Jews. To fail to do so is to make serious historical and theological errors. (i.e. choosing the Masoretic over the Septuagint)
1) And how do you know who wrote the parts of Tradition that name the authors?
Is all Tradition written? Remember: I, unlike you, actually believe that Christ's promise is fulfilled and the Holy Spirit guides the Church.
2) And how do you know that those parts of tradition are big-T Tradition?
We've covered this already; I'm not going over it again.
which cashes out to "the modern EOC says so", which doesn't help anyone.
Rather ironic that the modern Orthodox position so perfectly aligns with the consensus of the ancient Church, isn't it?
3) And it's a strawman of course to think that Christian tradition is totally out of the question for me.
Why reject the story of the woman caught in adultery if this is the case? The Scriptures that were accepted and canonized for over a thousand years included the story -- did God fail to distinguish that piece from real Scripture all the way until the 20th century? Thank God for atheist-dominated scholarship!
It's not like it's a matter of essential faith!
If we're going to be Sola Scripturist it most definitely is! What if one of the Gospels is a fake? What if the Gospel of John really was written in the late 2nd century as some scholars have posited? Should we throw the whole thing out? How should doctrine be adjusted to compensate?
Your canon is necessarily in constant flux; for all practical purposes, you have no canon. How then can Sola Scriptura be viable?
godescalc:
Protestants also think the Church was guided by God to recognise the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, so there's no reason a Protestant couldn't hold to this view as well.
Rhology has already stated that he does not, however. He has stated that, based upon modern scholarship's conclusions, he rejects the Gospel of John's story of the woman caught in adultery. This leads back to the point I made in that post: the Protestant canon must be forever in flux, subject to the winds and whims of modern scholarship.
David, that's rejecting an interpolated passage (which in the early days shifted between being tacked onto the ends of different gospels, IIRC - it doesn't intrinsically belong in one of the gospels), not rejecting an entire book. Please note that the "whims of modern scholarship" is a strawman here: it's one thing to look at the earliest manuscripts and find them universally lacking a particular passage or shifting it around (like the woman taken in adultery, or the comma johanneum), it's another thing to speculate wildly on which parts are interpolation in the absence of real and meaningful proof. The latter is "modern scholarship" and will probably be overturned within the decade, or the week; the former is a thing you can read for yourself in the earliest copies of Scripture (well, if you can read Greek...)
(I think he's wrong to reject that passage about the woman taken in adultery, though - the fact that people kept tacking it on the end of the gospels indicates that the early Church saw it as something about Christ they'd been told and really didn't want to forget, but which the gospel writers hadn't included.)
godescalc:
Fair enough. Rhology's problem remains, however; to boil it down:
John 7:53-8:11 and 2 Peter were written around the same time.
John 7:53-8:11 seems to have been universally accepted as Scriptural many years earlier than was 2 Peter.
So why does Rhology reject John 7:53-8:11 while accepting 2 Peter?
Please note that the "whims of modern scholarship" is a strawman here
I don't think it is; I'm not talking about passing fancies like the current obsession with "the search for the 'historical Jesus'". I'm talking about new information that comes along and changes the way we view things -- like the discoveries of earlier manuscripts that didn't contain John 7:53-8:11. What happens if we find earlier manuscripts that similarly are lacking certain passages? Are we to get rid of those verses as well? Surely there are many more manuscript collections somewhere in the deserts of the Middle East and/or North Africa -- waiting for some Bedouin boy to throw his rock in their cave. What happens when we find a first century copy of Romans that lacks 5:12? Does Rhology renounce his belief in original sin?
The Protestant rule of faith is Scripture alone.
What Scripture contains must constantly be subject to change based on new discoveries and scholarship.
Therefore the Protestant rule of faith is subject to constant alteration.
-are you willing to change your view every time that modern scholarship comes across new evidence that a certain verse or a certain book isn't really Apostolic?-
He could just listen to what the Jesus Seminar says. Don't they have a list of words in red (which Jesus actually said) opposed to other verses which demon-possessed guys in beards and robes wrote while inhaling incense?
DavidW,
Exactly my point -- so please stop begging the question.
??
are you willing to change your view every time that modern scholarship comes across new evidence that a certain verse or a certain book isn't really Apostolic?
It's hardly modern.
I'm not sure how sticking your fingers in your ears is supposed to make anyone think you're a serious seeker of truth. If it's an interpolation, it's an interpolation.
And it's not as if you know for sure that John is Apostolic either. Are you willing to change your view every time that the modern EOC comes across new Tradition that a certain verse or a certain book isn't really Apostolic?
2 Peter was probably written between AD 130-150
1) No it wasn't.
2) How strange that you'd prefer liberal scholarship over believing. Almost as if you were back in your errantist phase, as if you were like most other EOx, a liberal.
3) If you really believed that, it speaks even less highly of your desire to know the truth, since if it were written then it wouldn't be Apostolic, but your church thinks it is. So it's just another example of authority pulling the rug over your eyes and you letting them do so.
Incidentally, it's been Protestant scholarship that has detected these things, not EO scholarship. Wonder why that is.
Because of our drastically different viewpoints? While the Orthodox uphold the Bible, the Protestants undermine it...
Who knows what this even means, or how it answers my challenge. Apparently you don't have an answer.
How about you just stay in your own position, I'll stay in mine, and we'll talk, OK?
How about giving better evidence for your position than "it's true because I believe it" which is all that your comments here have amounted to thus far?
Again, no answer to my challenge that you're acting like an atheist when it suits you.
How will YOU answer the question?
By demonstrating:
1. That Christ is risen, therefore God
2. That Christ founded a Church, which is therefore perfect and eternal
3. That this Church decided the canon of Scripture
Um, atheists don't accept that Christ is risen, or that there is a God. Why wouldn't the atheist just dismiss the arguments for the resurrection as anomalous: "Weird stuff happens sometimes, but we know there's no God, so..."?
And premise 2 is, um, highly questionable.
As for premise 3, it shows me where you put your trust. Whereas my position is that God decides canon and the church recognises it, you prefer it the other way around. You start with man. Man-centered religion.
How? OK, get this - God uses sinful men to carry out His perfect plan.
Are you trying to convince me or just justify yourself? This is about the most circular argumentation I've ever seen...
You ask me how God could have used Specific Sinful Man X to carry out His plan and I remind you that all men are sinful and that God uses sinful men to carry out His plan, and that's circular? Um, OK.
And you show no recognition of that pattern throughout the entire Bible. Wow.
2) Oh, so the OT Canon wasn't known to the Jews until after Christ?
Are you not familiar with the Council of Jamnia
Familiar enough to know it wasn't a "Council" at all.
How does this answer my question?
How did He quote from it all the time then?
Did he quote from every book of your Old Testament?
Um, if there's no canon, then quoting from ANY book leaves Him open to the question of whether it's canonical. Gotta follow the thought here, man.
There are quotes in the New Testament from the deuterocanonicals and even the apocrypha
Hahahaha.
1) Prove it.
2) Have you so quickly forgotten our debate?
Does Romans 3:2 refer to the Jews before Christ's time who accepted the Septuagint with deuterocanonicals as Scriptural (as St. Paul did)? Or to the Jews after Christ's time who edited the Scriptures, excised verses and entire books, and turned to the Masoretic instead?
1) So now you're changing your argument. First it was that the Jews didn't have a Canon. Now it's that they did but it was the one with DC books. Make up your mind.
2) And their canon didn't include those books. Nice try, though.
All of history is but an illusion... Your "god" is a rather deceptive fellow
Again, no answer to the challenge.
It is important to distinguish between pre-Incarnation and post-Incarnation Jews.
Quite. Which is why I did so.
1) And how do you know who wrote the parts of Tradition that name the authors?
Is all Tradition written?
This is nothing less than an admission that you can't answer the challenge.
Remember: I, unlike you, actually believe that Christ's promise is fulfilled and the Holy Spirit guides the Church.
OOh, is it OK if I quote you from just above? "How about giving better evidence for your position than "it's true because I believe it" which is all that your comments here have amounted to thus far?"
2) And how do you know that those parts of tradition are big-T Tradition?
We've covered this already; I'm not going over it again.
Yep, I refer everyone to our debate. I laugh every time I read your "answer" to my first cross-examination question.
What if the Gospel of John really was written in the late 2nd century as some scholars have posited? Should we throw the whole thing out?
More atheist-type questions, right after whining about "atheist-dominated scholarship" too. You can't decide when you're coming and when you're going!
John 7:53-8:11 and 2 Peter were written around the same time.
1) How could you possibly know that?
2) What does time of writing have to do with it?
Peace,
Rhology
This is ridiculous. My part in this conversation is done. Sometimes it's just not worth to waste the time and effort.
"It's true cuz I believe it!"
"Well, the evidence says something different..."
"Screw the evidence; it's true cuz I believe it!"
"Riiiiiiiiight..."
Again:
this post was NOT about persuading or convincing others of the truthfulness of one's fundamental doctrines, but only about being true to them.
2 Peter at least has the decency of containing the supposed author's name: the four Gospels and the Book of Acts, however, do not. -- It's THAT simple: there's no "philosophy" here.
David,
why so serious? :-)
And Rho,
there are no such things as recently-discovered or newly-invented tradtitions. :-)
Keep telling yourself that, Lvka.
The Canon of Scripture, on the EO position, is exactly that. It was new, an innovation, at some point.
Unless you think that your Tradition sprang fully formed from the lips of the Apostles themselves, all Tradition was at one point new. Calling it "old NOW" simply moves the question back a step.
Wow, I can't believe that you fellas are still going at it. It baffles me. How long must one bang their head into a wall before they realize it's harmful?
How long must one bang their head into a wall before they realize it's harmful?
As long as it takes. :-)
The Canon of Scripture, on the EO position, is exactly that. It was new, an innovation, at some point.
Yes. In the first couple of centuries, as long as the Holy Apostles, as well as other disciples of Christ, and their disciples, were still among us, writing New Testament Scriptures [Apostolic writings]. The number of writings that resulted was finite, and their names well-known. All of these were Orthodox in doctrine; some of these were undoubtedly Apostolic; others were less so. So there are two objective limits: an inferior one, below which no canonical list can fall; and a superior one, above which no canonical list can rise. Not only that, but Tradition tends to stabilize things: there have been no variations in the NT canon for the last 1,000 years, and only small variations in the last half of the first millennium.
The four Holy Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and all of Paul's letters, save Philemon and Hebrews, and the Genuine Epistles of Peter and John: 19 writings in total that have never been disputed.
Then follow Hebrews and Revelations, that were accepted by half of Christendom, and rejected by the other.
Philemon, 2 and 3 John, and Jude are very small, which probaly explains the lack of quotes from, or allusions and references to them in the early Fathers: which is NOT to say that they were NOT disputed: quite the contrary!
1 Clement is a genuine Epistle of the disciple of Peter and Paul, and early bishop of Rome: yet for some reason or another, his leteter of uncontested authorship didn't enter the NT canon.
James, 2 Peter, 2 Clement, Barnabas, the Shephard of Hermas, the Didache, the Revelation of Peter, and a few others were also contenders.
So their number is finite, and cannot be added upon; nor can it decrease below 19. -- But, as I said, it stopped oscillating about 1,000 years ago, and for the 500 years before that (AD 500-1,000) it slowly converged to what we have today.
Lvka:
this post was NOT about persuading or convincing others of the truthfulness of one's fundamental doctrines, but only about being true to them.
Don't kid yourself, you were sneering at people you want to mock but can't be bothered to understand. Protestants do not have to be true to a fundamental doctrine of utter, unqualified, unmitigated hostility to tradition, because even the most traditiophobic of them do not actually hold such a doctrine. If they did hold to it, you would be justified in demanding they change the names of the Gospels.
David: fair enough - I don't think Rho's position makes sense, because I don't think there's reason to throw out the interpolation in John's gospel. There would be reason, however, to take it out and classify it by itself - the Church clearly wanted it in the Bible, and by the time the NT lineup was settled on, the John's Gospel it included was in fact John+WomanInAdultery.
But generally, if it's discovered that most early manuscripts miss out a passage, then yes, that passage should be excised, or at least stuck in square brackets as in some modern translations, so you know that you're looking at possibly a later addition.
Your assumption that this is a problem is a dubious one. You're assuming there's lots of major interpolations which'd have massive effects on doctrine and which modern scholarship could reverse by showing to be later additions, and which so far haven't been noticed. Not only does this seem rather unlikely, it's also assumed not to happen if one thinks of the Scriptures as being divinely-inspired: God would not deliver to His Church a set of guiding writings which contained interpolations of doctrinal perversion.
Godescalc,
my observation is a plain and simple matter of clear and straight-forward logic. No "sneering", no "mocking", no "phobias", no "self-kidding", no "misunderstanding"... Just a pure and simple, down-to-earth deduction or inference based on a given set of premises. That's all...
godescalc,
Did the early fathers and witnesses both East and West quote these things as Scripture in their works?
This is what you have to look. A good number of the missing verses ....etc in early greek manuscripts can be found in the works of the early fathers....if not the early western ones, then the early eastern ones....or vice versa.
And so it should be understandable as to why it was eventually included in our Bibles.
Rho,
16th century protestantism was the liberalism of it's day. And the liberal protestants that came from it some two centuries later were nothing more than a logical conclusion to the protestantism that came before it. And the deism that came after liberal protestantism, is nothing more than a logical conclusion to liberal protestantism, and the agnosticism that came from deism is nothing more than a logical conclusion to the deism that came before it. And the modern western form of atheism that came is a logical conclusion to agnosticism.
And militant atheism is a natural logical conclusion to soft atheism.
At least that's what it seems like to me. I'm sure I'm off somewhere in regards to some of the details.
Jnorm,
You sound like Franky Schaeffer. And no, that's not a good thing.
You worry too much, Rho... :-)
I mean, it's not like Frankie thought it one day all by himself, or something like that: he was only mindlessly regurgitating, like the good atta-boy apparatchik he is, what the Orthodox have been spoon-feeding him.. :-) -- so, don't woory, it's not "contagious" or anything, OK? :D