How do you defend God's love against His other attributes?

[davo]

Davo, there is no difference in form between the passive voice and the “middle”. Calling it the “middle” is a matter of personal choice. Some grammarians say there is no such voice in the Greek as the “middle,” that this is an invented “voice” to account for particular grammatical peculiarities by treating them as if they were in the active voice.

For example, “The window broke.” Is this something the window did (active)? Or is this something the window received (passive)?
I favour the latter. But those who are confused call it the “middle.”

Okaaay, I see where you are coming from… we definitely have significantly different views as to the grammar of the biblical Greek.
**FWIW… **

The Greek middle voice denotes that the subject is in some special manner involved or interested in the action of the verb. Stated slightly differently, in the middle voice there is an intensification in some manner or degree between the subject and the action expressed by the verb.

That intensification is borne out, as in, is reflected by the repeated מ֥וֹת תָּמֽוּת die die = “surely die” in the Hebrew of Gen 2:17. Again seen in Jesus’ oft repetitious “amen amen!” (Gk. ἀμὴν ἀμὴν = Heb. אָמֵֽן אָמֵ֥ן) = “truly, truly!” of John’s gospel etc. Again… FWIW.

[Valiantwarrior]

Teehee

[Eleutheros]

[Spiritual death’s] the ‘death’ Adam died “the day” he ate… you will recall Adam lived “physically” a tad longer than “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

If they died only a spiritual death, why did God shut them out of the Garden, lest they return and eat from the Tree of Life and live forever? Wouldn’t God want them to live forever spiritually? After all, didn’t Jesus come that people might have (spiritual) life and have it more abundantly?

Rather, didn’t God keep Adam and Eve out of the Garden to prevent them from returning to the garden and eat from the Tree of Life so that they wouldn’t live forever PHYSICALLY in their sinful condition?

I think the meaning is, “In the day you eat of it, the death process will surely begin in you.”

It might be compared to a doctor today saying to a cancer patient, “When you take radiation, the cancer cells will surely die.” The doctor doesn’t mean that the cancer cells will die the moment or even the day when the patient takes radiation, but rather will BEGIN to die at that time."

Hey, Paidion,

My comment is only a bit off-topic for this thread, I’m sorry about that, but I found your reply fascinatingly close to my own beliefs and wished to hear your reply on the difference.

The phrase Jehovah used in Genesis 2:17, as I’m pretty sure you would know, is notoriously difficult to translate, for Jehovah Elohim just repeats the word for death, “…eat day thereof die die.”

…Which is not the same phrase that Ishsha repeated back to the The Nacash; for she both added to, and subtracted from, the Words of Jehovah when she said, “…no eat of, no touch, lest die.”

However, The Nacash did repeat back the exact phrase, which, to my way of thinking means It’s words should be translated as a question of surprise for hearing Ishah’s distortion: “not, ‘eat thereof die die?!?’”

So, I asked myself, “Were the words It spoke next, ‘For (Jehovah) Elohim knows that day eat of, eyes opened, exist (as) Elohim, knowing good (and) evil.’ the truth, or a lie?”

I think it was the truth, in much the same way that the media lies when they tell the truth, by contextually distorting exact phrases to encourage a hearer to believe the false ideas that are already held as truth, or bring doubt to hearers that know the truth.

Regardless, something happened to them on that day that changed them. I propose that what changed was that they acquired a conscience, which implies that a conscience did not exist in them prior to eating from, “The tree of the knowledge of the difference between good and evil,” which, “the knowledge of the difference between good and evil,” is the definition of a conscience!

Therefore, I hold that the Words of Jehovah about what would happen on the day they ate the fruit of this tree should read something like this: “In the day you eat of it, in dying, you will die.” This rendering implies something dramatic would change in them, rather than them just simply dying (spiritually or physically), which is what Ishsha wrongly came to believe Jehovah meant.

This is not a new idea, in fact it was suggested to me when C.S. Lewis in The Magician’s Nephew implied that Aslan’s permission was needed for the fruit of the Apple Tree planted in the fresh Narnia to affect, for good, the outcome of the effect for which the fruit was created; and when J.R.R. Tolkien implied in the Silmarillion concerning the Two Trees of Valinor, Telperion and Laurelin that, upon their destruction by Ungoliant, they could not be replicated because some things can only be done at the beginning.

Please know that I am very interested in what you will say to this idea.

By the way, I really like your moniker!