Talk:Alpha and Omega/Archive 1

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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"Omega and Chaos"

In a certain mythology not known as of yet... omega and chaos are believed to be spirits of the Earth. Omega being the "protector" or "guardian" of Earth, and chaos being the "armageddon" or "end" of Earth. Supposodely when chaos and desolence is about the Earth or is bought forth upoun the Earth Omega is awakened to balance out the excess...

And vice versa is omega awakens with the goal of sending the planet to the "stars" chaos comes to balance out the excess... so there isn't really a bad guy in this situation...

Whatever -- this has precisely nothing to do with the topic of "Alpha and Omega (Christianity)". Go to Alpha and Omega (disambiguation) and see if anything there is relevant (if you can document your assertions, of course...) AnonMoos 00:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Omega is NOT "protector" NOR "guardian" of Earth, because Sampi instead really bears this function. Remember that Greek alphabet has over 30 letters. 91.94.153.30 (talk) 16:34, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

....this guy is just spewing from Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus.Not even Mr. Lister's Koromon survived intact. 16:58, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Alpha and Sampi

Irrelevant modified Greek Alphabet discussion from "Wikinger"
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Full global Greek alphabet is as follows: Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ϝ Ϛ Ζ Η Ͱ Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ϻ Ϸ Ϟ Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω Ͳ It begins with Alpha, and ends with Sampi. That means that Omega in this case is not final letter, because after Omega is placed too Sampi. Due to this fact, in this case God is not only local Ionian Alpha and Omega, because He is in this case too Somebody more - global Pan-Greek Alpha and Sampi. This fact should be acknowledged by all Christians that uses global Greek Alphabet, because in this case they can diminish God by excluding Him from full range of global Greek Alphabet. Ionians were justified by their unknowledge, and Jesus only adjusted Himself to their lower level of knowledge, calling Himself as local Ionian Beginning and End. Sho was placed between San and Qoppa and was only existing Greek letter not used by Greeks, but by Bactrians that adopted Greek alphabet. Comparison page is here. Wikinger 13:12, 28 July 2007 (UTC) I'm sorry, but "Sampi" was a kludge whereby a corrupt form of an archaic letter (formerly between Pi and Qoppa) was dragged in so that there would be 27 distinct symbols for the purposes of Isopsephy, while Sho was used in Central Asia to transcribe non-Greek languages. Neither of these symbols was ever used as a letter to write the Greek Koine language (which is the only thing which is relevant for the Bible). AnonMoos 18:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC) Thus that would mean that Sampi was corrupted version of San, that is placed between Pi and Qoppa. Wikinger 13:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC) Probably it was (though there is still some debate over the matter). But regardless of its origin, it still was never used as a letter to write the Greek Koine language (which is the only thing that's relevant for this article). AnonMoos 15:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC) Because T-shaped alphabetic Sampi was introduced recently to Wikipedia, I think that it is in T-shape not corrupted, but fully fledged letter. For proof look into Sampi article to compare alphabetic T-Sampi and numeric C-Sampi. As you see, T-Sampi is more like russian П and too Greek PI, with addition of |, while C-Sampi is more like russian Э and too Greek LUNATE EPSILON, with addition of -. In this way T-Sampi should be primary, and C-Sampi secondary. CBMIBM (talk) 16:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC) It's a fully-fledged numerical symbol, but it wasn't a "letter", and it's not relevant to this article. AnonMoos (talk) 22:23, 19 January 2008 (UTC) T-shaped Sampi was really alphabetic letter with ss value, what is stated even in Greek alphabet article in obsolete letter section, but C-shaped Sampi is mainly numerical symbol derived from previous alphabetic symbol. CBMIBM (talk) 08:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC) In other words, it was probably a medieval manuscript ligature (disigma, or sigma-sigma) identified at a late period with an archaic numerical symbol (sampi) -- as was exactly the case with the medieval manuscript ligature stigma (sigma-tau) identified at a late period with an archaic numerical symbol (digamma). However, the New Testament period chronologically preceded the period when ligatures of this type came to be commonly used in Greek writing, and Sampi is still not relevant to this article... AnonMoos (talk) 11:47, 20 January 2008 (UTC) But Digamma, Stigma, Heta, San, Sho, Qoppa and Sampi really once were letters with values [w], [st], [h], [s], [ʃ], [q] and [s:]. Even Ilion was earlier written as Wilion, thus these symbols originally were LETTERS, and later became digits only, when their original letter role was forgotten. CBMIBM (talk) 17:05, 20 January 2008 (UTC) Digamma, Qoppa, and San were once letters of certain varieties of the early ancient Greek alphabet, but they were very little used AS LETTERS (as opposed to numerical symbols) after Koine Greek written in the Ionic variety of the Greek alphabet became the widespread written standard among Greek-speakers ca. 300 B.C. Heta is just another name for exactly the same letter as Eta (when used to write an [h] consonant sound instead of an [ê] vowel). Heta and Eta are not separate letters, just different uses of one letter. Sho was used in Central Asia to transcribe non-Greek languages (as explained above), and so is utterly irrelevant to the original Greek alphabet as used to write the Greek language. Stigma was a medieval ligature which developed in the medieval period, long after New Testament times (and so is irrelevant to this article), and was identified in the medieval period with the old numerical symbol digamma. It was never a letter as such. Sampi was a kludged-up numerical symbol (probably originally partly based on the archaic letter San) which was devised to fit the vacant 27th slot in the system of alphabetic number-writing. It was never a letter as such. Conclusion: None of this is relevant to article Alpha and Omega. AnonMoos (talk) 01:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC) By the way, Wikinger, with regard to your recent edit summary on Alpha and Omega (disambiguation), there isn't any "30-letter Greek alphabet" -- that's something you seem to have cobbled together yourself, by taking the 27 numerical symbols as your basis (instead of the 24 actual letters), and adding in some disparate odds and ends from various places... AnonMoos (talk) 02:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC) My Image:Greek alphabet extended.png is in reality a complete grab-bag of all Greek Unicode letters and variants called as such in official Unicode charts. CBMIBM (talk) 17:49, 16 March 2008 (UTC) New rants removed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:40, 15 October 2010 (UTC) Wikinger, Unicode is a compendious collection of everything Greek, quasi-Greek, and para-Greek that scholars have found useful to encode, but it is not and cannot be an authoritative reference on the detailed history of the ancient Greek alphabet, which evolved by a number of incremental steps. Probably the earliest form of the Greek alphabet had 23 letters -- one for each of the 22 Phoenician letters, plus Y (upsilon) stuck on at the end (because the Phoenician letter waw was split to become both a consonant letter "digamma" and a vowel letter "upsilon" in Greek). From that point on, different Greek communities and cities adapted the alphabet in different ways, dropping letters that were unneeded, inventing additional letters for Greek sounds which did not have distinct single symbols, etc. So the "last letter" of the Greek alphabet was constantly changing -- originally it was Υ. In the Cumaean alphabet which was borrowed by the Etruscans to serve as the basis of the later Latin alphabet, it was a letter that looked like Ψ, but had a sound value of [kh] (not [ps]). In the Ionic alphabet, it was Omega Ω. Sho didn't exist in Greece, only in central Asia, and so is completely and utterly irrelevant for the Greek New Testament. AnonMoos (talk) 22:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC) Some more nonsense removed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:42, 15 October 2010 (UTC) Whatever -- If there was any rotation involved in devising sho, then it occurred 500 years after and 1,000 miles away from when and where the vertical form of Aleph originated, so I don't see any particular connection. And it's still the case that Sho was not part of the Ionian alphabet used to write Koine Greek, and doesn't appear in any Greek New Testament manuscript... AnonMoos (talk) 19:45, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Revelation 1:8

A query about the note on Revelation 1:8 - I know of no Greek manuscript that omits the "I am the Alpha and the Omega" from 1:8, although many omit the "the first and the last" from the verse as an interpolation from Revelation 22:13.

I don't have Young's Concise Commentary to check the authority of this statement in the wiki article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swalchy (talk • contribs) 10:42, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

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>> "however, does not receive support from some of the oldest Greek manuscripts, including the Alexandrine, Sinaitic, and Codex Ephraemi rescriptus. It is, therefore, omitted in many modern translations."

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False.

Alexandrinus has it in 1:8. Proof: http://www.csntm.org/Manuscripts/GA%2002/GA02_128a.jpg

Half way down the page you see a giant I, verse 8 starts at the giant E below it. It is there.

22:13 http://www.csntm.org/Manuscripts/GA%2002/GA02_136a.jpg 2 column last Giant E, bottom right hand column. Hard to make out, but it is there.

Sinaiticus Rev 1:8 http://www.csntm.org/Manuscripts/GA%2001/GA01_126b.jpg 2nd column 7th line.

Rev 22:13 http://www.csntm.org/Manuscripts/GA%2001/GA01_134b.jpg 2nd column, last two lines continues into 3rd column

If you guys want me to, Ill dig out the other two as well. This needs to be changed because saying it does not have support is false. Grailknighthero (talk) 12:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I have checked Young's Concise Commentary on the Holy Bible p. 179 (I'm swalchy above), and have found that the note is not in regards to 1v8, the first instance of "I am the Alpha and the Omega", but is instead to v11, where several manuscripts repeat the first part of v8. Therefore this part of the main article is false, and so I shall remove it, or at least edit to point towards v11, not v8. ( Stephen Walch (talk) 18:10, 21 October 2009 (UTC) )

Jesus

Alpha and Omega (First and Last) is used in Revelation 1:17 and Revelation 2:8 to refer to Jesus.--Psuit (talk) 17:20, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and it has extremely little meaningful substantial connection to the Tetragrammaton YHWH. AnonMoos (talk) 18:39, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

"First and Last" is applied to both Jesus and Yahweh; hence, there is a connection.--Psuit (talk) 20:58, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

It's applied to both Jesus and GOD. That doesn't make it automatically equivalent to one of the names of God. AnonMoos (talk) 15:15, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I defer to James Strong who has written "Christ is the Alpha to indicate that he is the beginning and the end."--Psuit (talk) 21:11, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't want to be too scholastically snooty here, but while Strong's concordance is a reasonably useful tool within its own chosen niche, it's really a crutch for those who don't know Hebrew, and cannot be very succesfully used as a substitute for actually directly knowing Hebrew (as is cautioned at the Strong's Concordance article). AnonMoos (talk) 15:15, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Jesus appears in a vision to John of Patmos and says, "I am Alpha and Omega." Apocalypse 1:8.--70.220.42.58 (talk) 22:20, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Isaiah 41:4

The original Hebrew text contains ראשון ואת-אחרנים and according to the apparatus of the BHS no Hebrew manuscript contains any reference to the Greek letters Alpha and Omega -- something which would be historically basically impossible, since in the pre-Hellenistic period, Judean Jews didn't know about the Greek alphabet, and didn't care about the Greek alphabet. (Omega wasn't even the last letter in many of the forms of the Greek alphabet that were in use around the time that Isaiah 41:4 was written, anyway.)

Also, please don't drag in "Yahweh" into this article -- that particular form of the Tetragrammaton YHWH has no particular real connection to the subject of Alpha and Omega, and never appeared in any remotely mainstream Bible translation until the Jerusalem Bible of the 1950's... AnonMoos (talk) 19:01, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Your last paragraph seems to advocate a nameless god.--Psuit (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

The form "Yahweh" is a scholarly reconstruction, which was first postulated by linguistic researches less than 200 years ago (as far as I'm aware), and didn't start to become commonly used in a Bible translation until less than 50 years ago. It has a reasonably plausible chance of being close to the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton YHWH -- but no one can now know the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton YHWH with certainty, and the Tetragrammaton YHWH remains regardless of whether various speculated linguistic reconstructions of its original pronunciation are correct or incorrect. There's no reason why this particular article should commit itself to the correctness of a hypothetical linguistic reconstruction of the original pronunciation Tetragrammaton YHWH -- that should be reseved for articles which are more directly about the Tetragrammaton. AnonMoos (talk) 23:58, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

πρωτος protos (first in place=alpha) is used in Isaiah 41:4 in the Septuagint for Yahweh. The exact word protos is used for Jesus in Revelation 2:8.--Psuit (talk) 21:24, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Alpha is used as a metaphor for "first" in the Book of Revelation, but that doesn't mean that a Greek or Hebrew word meaning "first" can automatically be equated with Alpha -- especially in the case of an Old Testament book, whose author and initial audience knew nothing and cared nothing about the Greek alphabet! AnonMoos (talk) 23:58, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

The Hellenized Jews who authored the New Testament books were fully acquainted with the Greek Bible; when people like Paul or John of Patmos wrote Biblical books, they made sure that their phraseology matched the Greek Bible, not the Hebrew Bible.--Psuit (talk) 00:17, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but the New Testament can't retroactively reach back in time and introduce letters of the Greek alphabet into the Hebrew text of the Old Testament (by far the greatest part of which was written within a historical and cultural context conspicuously lacking in any meaningful familiarity whatsoever with the Greek alphabet). AnonMoos (talk) 15:15, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Shield of the Trinity

I commend the time and effort that has been put into the creation of Shield of the Trinity and its images. I regard User:AnonMoos as an assiduous user and commend it.

However, I regard the disjunction the article implies to exist between Jesus and Yahweh as heterodoxy. It appears to me to contradict the hypostatic union and Jesus' words like

“ he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me." John 14:9–11 ”

--Psuit (talk) 00:43, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment, though the Shield of the Trinity has fairly minimal relevance to this article (I just pulled in the Anglican Trinidad diocese graphic, because it was one instance I knew of an image with "upper case" alpha and omega). However, since you raised the topic, in the Shield of the Trinity emblem, "God" and "The Son" are in different places within the diagram. In one sense, the Son is God -- but if you interchanged the places of "God" and the "Son" in the diagram, then it would no longer make theological sense! "Yahweh" belongs in the center of the diagram, not in the "Son" node. As a matter of fact, I once had an idea for a symbolic version of the Shield of the Trinity, with YHWH Elohim in Hebrew letters in the central node, a hand emerging from a cloud in the Father node, a descending dove in the Spirit node, and an Agnus Dei holding a cross banner in the Son node. Unfortunately, my skills in artistic free-hand drawing are quite poor, and I never could find versions of the cloud-hand, dove, and lamb drawn by others that I was satisfied with, and that were artistically compatible with each other, so that idea never really went anywhere... AnonMoos (talk) 15:15, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Alef and Tav

In Hebrew it would be I am Alef and Tav: אני א ו ת (Ani Alef ve-Tav). If you write the "Alef Vav Tav" letters together it would give a Hebrew word: אות "awt", which means: "Sign". So Jesus was actually saying: "I am the Sign" reffering to Matthew 24:30 "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." That is exactly what the previous verse was about in Revelation (1:7): "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they [also] which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen." (King James Version) 91.94.127.115 (talk) 11:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

There's absolutely no evidence that any part of the New Testament was first written in Hebrew, and in fact there's no evidence that any part of the New Testament was first written down in any non-Greek language, with the possible (though very disputed) exception of an Aramaic-language "sayings document" (which would have been almost entirely a list of direct quotes from Jesus during his lifetime only). Furthermore, Alpha and Omega is not a title of Jesus only. Unless you can come up with some real scholarly source for this hypothesis, it seems doubtful whether it deserves a place in this article. P.S. During Jesus' time, the names of letters would have been pronounced Waw and Taw... AnonMoos (talk) 23:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Which Greek and other humans besides Jesus has title Alpha and Omega? 91.94.133.108 (talk) 20:03, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The New Testament is written in Koine Greek, and Alpha and Omega is a title of God generally (not reserved to Jesus). AnonMoos (talk) 01:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Alef-Tav is in the Old Testament, and usually omitted in translation. I find it very interesting that it can mean sign, however even more interesting is it that it can mean "word". Which again means consciousness. Look at the meaning of ruach, or ruh (Quran) and you`ll see that it also means consciousness. So Alef Tav directly rendered means First Word, Last Word. Or if it means sign, simply "word". God is The Word. This is what Jesus is saying. He is in everyone, and he states that "the word he speaks are life, and the flesh profits not". Aka, the word is God, is ruach (life/consciousness). While this may be true, I believe you will have a harder time convincing the general public. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.211.32.31 (talk) 20:45, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

"Jesus as God"

We want to keep this as neutral as possible, and stating that Jesus said "I am the alpha and omega" seemed to convey a particular sway to the belief that Jesus is God. Being that some people do not believe this, I changed the text to simply say that the Revelation text reads "I am the alpha and omega" so that people can project their own beliefs on the text as they see fit without the text actually slanting interpretation. Besides, the cited source with which the reference is made doesn't even say Jesus said it, but rather says "Lord our God," so that I felt it necessary to make the change. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.229.54.243 (talk) 19:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

However, the traditional majority view is that Jesus is speaking the words in Revelation verse 22:13 (see Revelation 22:16). Any other interpretation should really be sourced... AnonMoos (talk) 04:56, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

"Earliest Manuscripts" not reliable

The author cites the "earliest manuscripts", implying they are the most reliable, but these "earliest manuscripts" have been deliberately changed to fit pagan beliefs. See below:

"In compiling their Greek text, Westcott and Hort followed obscure, corrupted manuscripts [Alexandrian Text] which can be traced to a 3rd century apostate named Origen [185-254 AD.] Origen deliberately changed the scriptures to suit his own twisted pagan doctrines [blend of Gnosticism, Platonism & Mysticism.] Origen's work resulted in the Codex Sinaiticus [a manuscript aptly discovered in 1844 in the waste bin of a Mt. Sinai monastery,] and Codex Vaticanus texts later adopted by Westcott & Hort, which delete and substitute key words from the Majority Text in thousands of doctrinally critical places. Footnotes in the modern 'versions' deceptively refer to these as the "oldest and most reliable" manuscripts. The result of this assault is a group of modern perversions of the Word of God [NIV, NAS, NKJ, Living Bible, New World Translation [Watchtower/JW] Good News for Modern Man, etc,] which all make the same heretical deletions and substitutions." "Assault on the Bible", by Richard Power

The original New Testament is thought to have been written in Aramiac-Syriac, the language Jesus spoke. The Greeks translated the Bible from the original Hebrew and Aramaic. So why are there no very ancient Aramaic-Syriac Bibles? These sacred writings are considered to be too holy to undergo decomposition. So people reverentially burn their aging Bibles (to avoid its corruption) when it begins to show signs of "wear and tear".

NOTE: The talk on pagan mythology (spirits, etc) below DOES NOT refer to "Alpha and Omega" of the Bible. -- 22:49, 7 June 2010 66.81.212.111

First off, please sign your comments and add new discussions to the bottom of the page, in accordance with standard Wikipedia conventions. Second, what you're referring to seems to be much more part of a debate over "King James Version Only", rather than having anything specifically to do with Alpha and Omega, and would seem much more appropriate to be discussed on the talk page of the KJVO article, or Textus Receptus... AnonMoos (talk) 01:10, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

NOTE: The above information was deleted from "Alpha and Omega". I reinstated it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.170.44.194 (talk) 20:25, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Dude, please follow standard Wikipedia commenting conventions, or otherwise people will have a very hard time figuring out who said what when in the discussion. Secondly, this simply does not have great direct relevance to the Alpha and Omega article, and would seem much more appropriate to be discussed at Talk:King James Only movement or Talk:Textus Receptus. However, it's not suitable to be added to any Wikipedia article in that particular form, since it's a ranting tirade with a number of historically somewhat dubious assertions... AnonMoos (talk) 00:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Deleted Sentence

Please explain why ONE SENTENCE is constantly being deleted. It said that the oldest and most reliable manuscripts are NOT the most reliable. See below website for reference.

Assault on the Bible, by Richard Power. "In compiling their Greek text, Westcott and Hort followed obscure, corrupted manuscripts [Alexandrian Text] which can be traced to a 3rd century apostate named Origen [185-254 AD.] Origen deliberately changed the scriptures to suit his own twisted pagan doctrines [blend of Gnosticism, Platonism & Mysticism.] Origen's work resulted in the Codex Sinaiticus [a manuscript aptly discovered in 1844 in the waste bin of a Mt. Sinai monastery,] and Codex Vaticanus texts later adopted by Westcott & Hort, which delete and substitute key words from the Majority Text in thousands of doctrinally critical places. Footnotes in the modern 'versions' deceptively refer to these as the "oldest and most reliable" manuscripts. The result of this assault is a group of modern perversions of the Word of God [NIV, NAS, NKJ, Living Bible, New World Translation [Watchtower/JW] Good News for Modern Man, etc,] which all make the same heretical deletions and substitutions. "

Below are further references which explain why the "oldest and most reliable manuscripts" are, in fact, not reliable.

(1) Corrupted Modern Bible Versions, by David L. Brown, Ph.D. The New Testament has been tampered with. (because the "oldest and most reliable manuscripts" have been tampered with.)

(2) The Great (?) Uncials, by David L. Brown, Ph.D. The three "Great Uncials" are unreliable. The ""oldest and best" manuscripts...do not agree with each other! "There are 3036 differences between the readings in Vaticanus and Sinaiticus in the Gospels alone" (Codex B and Its Allies by Herman Hoskier; volume 2, p.1)."

So what's reliable? "Textus Receptus" seems to be the more reliable document.

(1) Where did the King James Bible come from? From Erasmus, defender of the Faith, who compiled, edited, and printed the Greek "Textus Receptus" (received text, reliable). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.170.44.194 (talk) 05:34, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

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Dude, when are you going to start learning basic Wikipedia commenting conventions, such as not always adding your comments at the top of the page?? (It might have helped me notice and answer your question earlier, for one thing.) And it's not "one sentence", it's a paragraph-long ranting tirade with only marginal relevance to this article. As I've stated multiple times above, it would be much more appropriate for you to raise such issues at Talk:King James Only movement, Talk:Textus Receptus etc. AnonMoos (talk) 19:34, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation?

How would "τὸ Α καὶ τὸ Ω" be spelled in English?99.39.88.159 (talk) 05:42, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

To is the neuter nominative-accusative singular form of the Greek definite article, while kai is the Greek word for "and". The English pronounciation of the title of this article would be along the lines of quasi-IPA [ælfə ænd oʊmɛgə] (with [ænd] greatly subject to contextual reductions, of course). AnonMoos (talk) 13:01, 12 July 2010 (UTC)