Theion and theios

[WhiteWings]

Brimstone:

2303 qei/on theion {thi'-on}
Meaning:  1) brimstone 1a) divine incense, because burning brimstone was regarded as having power to purify, and to ward off disease
Origin:  probably of 2304 (in its original sense of flashing); TDNT - 3:122,*; n n
Usage:  AV - brimstone 7; 7

Divine:

2304 qei/oj theios {thi'-os}
Meaning:  1) a general name of deities or divinities as used by the Greeks 2) spoken of the only and true God, trinity 2a) of Christ 2b) Holy Spirit 2c) the Father
Origin:  from 2316; TDNT - 3:122,322; adj
Usage:  AV - divine 2, Godhead 1; 3

2316 qeo,j theos {theh'-os}
Meaning:  1) a god or goddess, a general name of deities or divinities 2) the Godhead, trinity 2a) God the Father, the first person in the trinity 2b) Christ, the second person of the trinity 2c) Holy Spirit, the third person in the trinity 3) spoken of the only and true God 3a) refers to the things of God 3b) his counsels, interests, things due to him 4) whatever can in any respect be likened unto God, or resemble him in any way 4a) God's representative or viceregent 4a1) of magistrates and judges
Origin:  of uncertain affinity; a deity, especially (with 3588) the supreme Divinity; TDNT - 3:65,322; n m
Usage:  AV - God 1320, god 13, godly 3, God-ward + 4214 2, misc 5; 1343

1614 tyrIp.G" gophriyth {gof-reeth'}
Meaning:  1) brimstone 1a) of judgment (fig.) 1b) of Jehovah's breath (fig.)
Origin:  probably from 01613; TWOT - 375; n f
Usage:  AV - brimstone 7; 7

I'm aware of the danger of wordstudies! Really I am :laughing7:
But still I have the following question:
God=brimstone?
Please note that I'm not trying to imply God is a dead piece of rock....

[rosered]

 

  HI  WW,

  well  GOD IS  a CONSUMING FIRE  .. after all  :gangel::laughing7: :winkgrin:

[WhiteWings]

Hi my favorite house lady lets dance  :bgdance:


I agree. It happens far to often that Father is linked to fire. I'm not saying every fire mentioned in the Bible was a presence of God but many mentioned fire refrences are.
I think the LoF is God. I'm not sure how picture that place but certainly not in the classic ET way.
A link between divine and brimstone may give a little extra proof.
And that's what my question is about: Is there such a link?

By that I'm mainly after something like the subtile/snake/naked discussion.
Not really how someone views the LoF. Which are fine with with me too if my original question isn't pushed to the background.

[jabcat]

I remembered this writing from J. Preston Eby, which I hope addresses your thoughts;

"In my study of the lake that burns with fire and brimstone I was very much helped and impressed by the understanding given by Charles Pridgeon and I would like to quote from his scholarly work on the subject of BRIMSTONE. He says: 'The Lake of Fire and Brimstone signifies a fire burning with brimstone; the word brimstone or sulphur defines the character of the fire (Emphasis mine). The Greek word THEION translated brimstone is exactly the same word THEION which means divine.

"Sulphur was sacred to the deity among the ancient Greeks to purify and to cleanse and consecrate to the deity. The verb derived from THEION is THEIOO, which means to hallow, to make divine, or to dedicate to a god (See Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, 1897 Edition). To any Greek, or any trained in the Greek language, a 'lake of fire and brimstone" would mean a 'lake of divine purification.' The idea of judgment need not be excluded. Divine purification and divine consecration are the plain meaning in ancient Greek. In the ordinary explanation, this fundamental meaning of the word is entirely left out, and nothing but eternal torment is associated with it' --End Quote by Charles Pridgeon.

"Let us summarize the meaning thus: BURN means combustion; to change the form of. FIRE means heat and light. BRIMSTONE means divine. Putting these three together can we not see that the lake burning with fire and brimstone is, actually, DIVINE HEAT AND LIGHT PRODUCING A CHANGE! Is such a process eternal? All the laws of nature shout that it is not! More than 2500 years ago the Holy Spirit warned the wicked inhabitants of Jerusalem that God would kindle a fire at Jerusalem's gates which would devour her palaces. 'But if ye will not hearken unto Me . . . then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched" -- Jeremiah 17:27.  [will burn until its purpose has been accomplished, addition mine], J. Preston Eby's Lake of Fire study.

God's blessing, James.

[WhiteWings]

Thanks for the nice article.

The Greek word THEION translated brimstone is exactly the same word THEION which means divine.

The software I use (Bibleworks) claims otherwise.
Theion=brimstone=strong 2303
Theios=divine=strong 2304

So according to the Strong dictionary linked to that software they are different words.
I see links between the two words but they are indirect. So a bit risky to draw conclusion from.
But the person from your article likely has more proof to backup his claim than shown in the article.

[jabcat]

You're welcome, thanks.  Yes, Mr. Eby did say something like "I realize this is but a brief summary"...I cut that for brevity.  There's more here www.savior-of-all.com/lakeoffire.html.

God's blessing, James.

[rosered]

 

  WW ! WOW ! Sorry it took me so long to see your post 
my apologies  to you brother  ''lets dance '' hee hee
   I too hope the same ,  that the Fire/ Brimstone  being the purification  process
  and that this is the LOF effect  now , I am a  Now kind of gal ..lol
  I  hope its  more of a '' both at the same time'' effect
  you know simultaneously  , a dying to self   and  Christ Living  within us 
  type thing happening  .....

  I for a fact that the Lord gives us the desire    to seek Him and  Know Him , I would have never done it on my own  :mblush:

Preston Eby , I knew a Lady on Kingdom Talk her name  was  Alice who loved that mans  writtings , I miss her  too 
we have lost touch with so many old  friends 
but we have been Blessed  with   new ones   
like  WW   :thumbsup:
   I like  your style  brother  -[Tony]- hee hee
 

 

[Craig]

I remembered this writing from J. Preston Eby, which I hope addresses your thoughts;

"In my study of the lake that burns with fire and brimstone I was very much helped and impressed by the understanding given by Charles Pridgeon and I would like to quote from his scholarly work on the subject of BRIMSTONE. He says: 'The Lake of Fire and Brimstone signifies a fire burning with brimstone; the word brimstone or sulphur defines the character of the fire (Emphasis mine). The Greek word THEION translated brimstone is exactly the same word THEION which means divine.

"Sulphur was sacred to the deity among the ancient Greeks to purify and to cleanse and consecrate to the deity. The verb derived from THEION is THEIOO, which means to hallow, to make divine, or to dedicate to a god (See Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, 1897 Edition). To any Greek, or any trained in the Greek language, a 'lake of fire and brimstone" would mean a 'lake of divine purification.' The idea of judgment need not be excluded. Divine purification and divine consecration are the plain meaning in ancient Greek. In the ordinary explanation, this fundamental meaning of the word is entirely left out, and nothing but eternal torment is associated with it' --End Quote by Charles Pridgeon.

"Let us summarize the meaning thus: BURN means combustion; to change the form of. FIRE means heat and light. BRIMSTONE means divine. Putting these three together can we not see that the lake burning with fire and brimstone is, actually, DIVINE HEAT AND LIGHT PRODUCING A CHANGE! Is such a process eternal? All the laws of nature shout that it is not! More than 2500 years ago the Holy Spirit warned the wicked inhabitants of Jerusalem that God would kindle a fire at Jerusalem's gates which would devour her palaces. 'But if ye will not hearken unto Me . . . then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched" -- Jeremiah 17:27.  [will burn until its purpose has been accomplished, addition mine], J. Preston Eby's Lake of Fire study.

God's blessing, James.

Lot's of problems in the 'connections' to the words. Some of the few things that bother me about these type of word studies is speculation. There are chains of thoughts, presuppositions, propositions, a positions which are needed more than these kind of these speculations. The problem is word anachronism and wrong word association.

Crossing the "GREEK" meaning of the word, for the "HEBREW" usage of the word. Why would someone associate the Greek word "THEION" to the Hebrew word "gophriyth" which is also known as 'Brimstone'.

Gophriyth is pitch, tar, it's root is Gopher (a type of wood), which makes gophriyth a type of wood sap used for burning and building. When Fire and Gophriyth fell upon Gomorrah, it wasn't talking THEOS, or THEOIN or THEIOS it was fuel gopherwood sap used for burning so the fire would completely destroy that which was there.

Anyways, it is great to speculate at first, but it is better to not run away with speculation which I usually find people UR are doing of late. Let us actually take account and understanding of everything before actually concluding that you think you are right.

So far, I don't see using a Greek word in replace of the Hebrew word, has any more relevance to the proper meaning than using a Spanish word in place of Japanese word for it's proper meaning in English.

[WhiteWings]

Craig,

I understand your concern. I aired the same concern in my 1st post.
I merly posted a few Strongs on the subject. But the last one is interesting because it directly states a connection

1614 tyrIp.G" gophriyth {gof-reeth'}
Meaning:  1) brimstone 1a) of judgment (fig.) 1b) of Jehovah's breath (fig.)
Origin:  probably from 01613; TWOT - 375; n f
Usage:  AV - brimstone 7; 7

Of course I lack all the skills to claim Stongs in right or wrong.

[Craig]

By looking at the context of it's usage in the Hebrew,  it appears to me that the meaning that is figurative, is a very ambigious at best. A case where dogma or doctrinal speculation is used instead of the actual meaning of the word.

Here is what I got for a definition:

http://strongsnumbers.com/hebrew/1614.htm
Probably feminine of gopher; properly, cypress- resin; by analogy, sulphur (as equally inflammable) -- brimstone.

Which means brimstone, judgment and God's Breathe are figurative definitions based on what....?

Which, by the way, is very interesting. The only time Gopher is used, is in the creation of the Ark and it is a foreign word to Hebrew and it's Semantic cultures. Usually to mean a very resin (tree sappy) wood. So Gopher was used to protect Noah from God's judgment, while Gophriyth was use to administer God's judgment. But there is no jump yet to the "Greek" definition of the word to Theos, etc, which was unknown to the Hebrews at the time of writing.

[WhiteWings]

Strange. I use www.Bibleworks.com software and there the strongs are diffrent...

When I select brimstone I get

1614 tyrIp.G" gophriyth {gof-reeth'}
Meaning:  1) brimstone 1a) of judgment (fig.) 1b) of Jehovah's breath (fig.)
Origin:  probably from 01613; TWOT - 375; n f
Usage:  AV - brimstone 7; 7

The orgin is 1613

1613 rp,GO gopher {go'-fer}
Meaning:  1) cypress?, gopher, gopher wood 1a) wood of which the ark was made 1b) meaning and exact type unknown
Origin:  from an unused root, probably meaning to house in; TWOT - 374; n m
Usage:  AV - gopher 1; 1

The stongs in eSword agree with the link you gave. So there are different Strong defenitions...  :sigh:

Which means brimstone, judgment and God's Breathe are figurative definitions based on what....?

Well... thats what this thead is about.
Below my line of reasoning which is not that bad I think. But I'm fully aware a link gets weaker by every extra step.

God very often gets a fire/cleaning attribute. Sometime more obvious than others. So everytime I see the word fire I try to figure out if it's God or a normal type of fire.
Because the LoF is the most important fire in the Bible that got my attention.

2303 qei/on theion {thi'-on}
Meaning:  1) brimstone 1a) divine incense, because burning brimstone was regarded as having power to purify, and to ward off disease
Origin:  probably of 2304 (in its original sense of flashing); TDNT - 3:122,*; n n
Usage:  AV - brimstone 7; 7

Brimstone is mentioned. "divine incense" points to the spiritual but not directly to God Himself.
The origin is probably 2304

2304 qei/oj theios {thi'-os}
Meaning:  1) a general name of deities or divinities as used by the Greeks 2) spoken of the only and true God, trinity 2a) of Christ 2b) Holy Spirit 2c) the Father
Origin:  from 2316; TDNT - 3:122,322; adj
Usage:  AV - divine 2, Godhead 1; 3

This Strong is about God. A brimstone/God link.

0784 vae 'esh {aysh}
Meaning:  1) fire 1a) fire, flames 1b) supernatural fire (accompanying theophany) 1c) fire (for cooking, roasting, parching) 1d) altar-fire 1e) God's anger (fig.)
Origin:  a primitive word; TWOT - 172; n f
Usage:  AV - fire 373, burning 1, fiery 1, untranslated variant 1, fire + 0800 1, flaming 1, hot 1; 379

Here fire is linked with God.

So basicly the links are very clear. But a derived word sometimes has (almost) a meaning that doesn't seem to have any relation to the root word. That's the reason of my post.
Basicly quite a lot indirect proof but not enough to make a statement "Brimstone is an atribute of God (in this case)"

So yes doctrinal speculation is used. But as a starting point not as a claim.

[Craig]

Basicly quite a lot indirect proof but not enough to make a statement but as a starting point not as a claim.

I am not saying you are using it as a claim, but many people are. There is no connection that the figurative uses are a definition, figurative uses are based on speculation and not fact. So when I said they are figurative based on what...? I was saying, they are figurative based on an interpretation tainted by doctrine and not a definition based on meaning. The non-figurative definition leaves it as being a flammable tree sap.

[WhiteWings]

I am not saying you are using it as a claim, but many people are.

Craig,
As you already noticed my English isn't exactly fluent. So I often add extra statements to avoid confusion even when there is no confusion...

There is no connection that the figurative uses are a definition, figurative uses are based on speculation and not fact.

Are you saying figurative meanings in Strong are not to be trusted? I just assumed also the figurative meanings where well researched....

So when I said they are figurative based on what...?

Perhaps Mr. Strong based that on checking 500 verses with that word.
I think/hope the figurative parts are based on more than a quick thought.

I was saying, they are figurative based on an interpretation tainted by doctrine and not a definition based on meaning. The non-figurative definition leaves it as being a flammable tree sap.

True.

[Paul Hazelwood]

I'm not going to go into much detail to keep from hijacking the thread into other words as my example does not use those words specifically, but ones I am familiar with.
This topic has given me some words to look at when I get time, though.

From what I have learned is that Greek is a more abstract language.
This is the loophole theologins use for translating aionios to everlasting and eternal.
If it is "understood" that the language is saying that it will SEEM like forever or never ending,  then its abstract definition can be appropriatly applied.

In a literal sense, the word must be translated to a period of time.

I'm not sure if that concept can apply to the words your talking about through my example,  but I thought that might be helpful.

[WhiteWings]

Hi Paul,

We all know something about other languages. But is some cases I think something is not enough.
A very deep understanding of words and likely the culture 'behind' those words when written down.
So basicly I can look up words as fast as any scholar. I can even dig up the defenitions.
But when the analysis of words, context and other background starts I'll take a few steps back.
So I fear the conclusion will be the same like the snake/naked discussion.
Snake can mean naked but it can't be proved by just copy and pasting a few defenitions from Strong.
I asked then and I ask now: Are there studies on the words? Just like 'Aion' and 'All' studies on teh main TM site.

[DeeDee]

Hi my favorite house lady lets dance

Hey! What about me!  :dontknow: :wink:

Only Kidding ya!

[WhiteWings]

Don't worry DD, I haven't forgotten you...

:spank:

[Craig]

Are you saying figurative meanings in Strong are not to be trusted? I just assumed also the figurative meanings where well researched....

Correct, all figurative meanings in Strong, are not to be trusted because the figurative meaning is always going to be ambiguous and interpreted through a denominational lense. In other words, it is anyone's guess what it figuratively means, but there is no guess on what it literally means.