Tom
Burgess: Page 35
Tom Burgess: D. I would like to
consider one more problem. One of the favorite arguments
is that
lexicographers such as Grimm admit that the word psallo earlier meant to
pluck or
pull, then it meant to sing to the
accompaniment
of the plucked instrument, and then in the New Testament
it meant to sing songs of
praise to God.
This magic
phrase,"in
the New
Testament,
is taken to
indicate a change of meaning according to noninstrument
interpretation of the lexicons.
They were still PLUCKING bow strings in
battle,
by the musical prostitutes in all pagan temples (brothels),
plucking
the hair out of emasculated males so they could become
catamites or
prostitutes, plucking chalk lines, plucking chicking. But,
they
simply did not let the word PSALLO carry
its WARFARE meaning into
peacable
society or its harp-twanging into STRAIGHT society.
T. Maccius Plautus Aulularia Scene 9
Enter Anthrax from house
of
Megadorus
Anth. (to servants
inside)
Dromo, scale the fish. As for you, Machaerio, you bone the
conger and
lamprey as fast as you know how. I'm going over next door
to ask
Congrio for the loan of the bread-pan. And you there! if
you know
what's good for you, you won't hand me back that rooster
till it's plucked cleaner
than a
ballet dancer.
Scene 3
Re-enter Euclio from
house
with
object under his cloak
Eucl (aside) By heaven,
wherever I go this goes (peering under cloak) too: I won't
leave it
there to run such risks, never. (to Congrio and others)
Very well,
come now, in with you, cooks, music girls, every one! (to Congrio) Go
on, take your
understrappers inside if you like, the whole hireling herd of 'em. Cook away, work
away, scurry around to
your hearts' content now.
But, we have made it clear that scholars
note
that--even if singing was at times defined by Psallo because
of the
PLUCKING or "singing" bowstring and "whizzing" arrows--to
use the
word PSALLO has always been
uncertain unless you say
whether you
are PLUCKING a bow string to panic the enemy with Warrior
Praise MY
GOD IS STRONGER THAN YOUR GOD taunt songs, or whether you
are are a
homosexual "flute boy" PLUCKING out your body hair.
SING might mean by Julie Andrews or making John Gotti SING at
police headquarters. Or, the birds which chirp in
the trees or anything you might improvize. Based on the 100%
association of any form of MUSIC in a "religious sense"
being by the
flute-girls or male catamites; and the fact that you don't
want to
SHOOT UP the preaching brother in the pulpit, common
intellect 101aaa
would tell you not to allow the "uncovered prophesiers" of 1
Cor.
11:5 DO IT to you in the assembly.
Many of the "musical" terms point to the
akris
or tettix or the LOCUSTS of the book of Revelation who were
known as
"musical performers."
Tom Burgess: Brother Larry Jonas
made this observation: "The answer to
this is a bit embarrassing
to
non-instrument
brethren
and I hope none who have used this reasoning to me will think I am attacking
their
intelligence; for I
know they are only repeating what has been told
them in good
faith. Grimm has a standard procedure for
indicating a difference
of meaning of a Greek word. He begins each different
definition of
the same word with a new number such as 1, 2, 3, and 4. If
there is
within one of these different definitions some shade of
difference,
he further divides the one definition down into shades of
its meaning
by the use of letters such as a, b, c, and d.
Grimm does not use
the phrase in the New
Testament
to indicate a
change from the basic meaning;
....... he uses numbers
to indicate
this
change.
He does not use in the New Testament to indicate a different shade of meaning;
........he uses a letter for
this.
Under psallo he has
just
two
letters, a and b. A stands for the shade of meaning "to
pluck or
pull. " B
stands in front of all the forms of instrumental
[p.35-36] accompaniment
I hope that Larry is not
embarassed by learning that the word psallo has NOT
connection to
making music: it simply means to "pluck with the fingers and
never with
a plectrum." Only as a metaphor did people speak of
"shooting out
hymns." No where in any known literature does pluck or its
equivalent
mean to play a harp: you must include (1) play or pluck and
then (2)
define WHAT is to be plucked.
Tom Burgess confesses
the
CHANGE but quibbles how the CHANGES are numbered or
lettered.
I don't believe that Tom can get away with
trying to get Thayer to say that his later version was
INFERIOR to
Grimm. Thayer EXCLUDES instruments in Psallo in the N. T.
just as he
would LOGICALLY exclude twanging bowstrings to send a
singing arrow
into a literal heart. By defining the church as an assembly
or
synagogue it would show Paul's ignorance to think that he
needed to
exclude either performance singing or playing instruments.
Tom Burgess says: B stands in front of all the
forms of instrumental
accompaniment
But Thayer says: b. to cause to vibrate by touching, to twang:
But the Leading Idea of
vibrate
by touching or twanging DOES NOT mean instrumental
accompaniment.
The LEADING idea of all
music
and musical sowers of discord is that they are secret
agents trying
with all of their little hearts to silence the Words of
God and to
cruely wound those who will not BOW TO BAAL while the
children pipe.
The wailing and clanging also carries the idea of TO
VIBRATE but that
DOES NOT authorize worship with instruments.
On
the
contrary, this is a WEAPON OF WAR word and
you INTEND with the bowstring or the harp or the voice to
make the
enemy TREMBLE to prove that you are superior. However, it
proves that
you are imitating Satan
Elelizô, move in coils
or
spires,
of a serpent, tên d' elelixamenos
pterugos laben Il.2.316 ;
ep' autou (sc. telamônos) elelikto drakôn speiras opheôn
[Satan-Serpent in Revelation=Ophis] elelizomenê [make to tremble or
quake,
II. in Il. of an army, cause it to turn and face the enemy, rally it, .
III. cause to vibrate, megan d' elelixen
Olumpon, of Zeus, phorminga [harp]
e. make its strings
quiver,
Pi.O.9.13; asteropan [lightening] elelixais, quake,
tremble, quiver, of a brandished spea
Psallo means: to send a shaft twanging from
the
bow, a carpenter's red line, which is twitched and then suddenly let go, so
as to leave a mark, to resound with a sharp,
vibrating sound, to speak in a strongly nasal tone of
voice.
I gave my back to
the smiters, and my cheeks
to them that plucked
off
the
hair: I hid
not my
face from shame and
spitting. Isaiah
50:6
For, lo, the wicked bend
their bow, they
make
ready their arrow
upon the string,
that they may privily
shoot at the upright in heart. Psalm 11:2
Hide me from the secret counsel
of the
wicked; from the
insurrection of the workers of iniquity: Psa 64:2
Who whet
their
tongue
like a sword, and bend their
bows
to shoot
their arrows,
even bitter words:
Psa
64:3
Yarah (h3384) yaw-raw'; or (2
Chr. 26:15) to
lay or throw (espec. an arrow,
i.
e.
to shoot);
fig. to point
out (as if by aiming
the
finger), to teach: archer, cast, direct,
inform,
instruct, lay, shew, shoot,
teach
That they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at
him, and fear
not. Psa
64:4
They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune
of laying snares
privily;
they
say,
Who
shall see them? Psa 64:5
But, WE see and we are
going
to
tell the world exactly WHO make up the TOP SECRET band of
people who
THINK that no one can see!
They search
out iniquities;
they accomplish
a
diligent
search: both the
inward
thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.
Psa 64:6 T
But God
shall shoot at
them with an
arrow; suddenly
shall
they be wounded. Psa 64:7
So they shall make
their own tongue
to
fall upon themselves: all that see them shall
flee away. Psa
64:8
And all men shall fear,
and
shall declare
the
work of God;
for they shall
wisely consider of his
doing. Psa 64:9
Fragment 10,
Aristotle, de
mundo 5, 396b20
Things taken
together are wholes and not wholes, something is being
brought
together and brought
apart,
which is in tune and out of tune; out of all things
there comes a unity,
and out of
a unity all
things.
The BOW is
called STRIFE, but its WORK is DEATH
Fragment 209,
Hippolytus
Ref
Ix, 9, I
They do not
apprehend how being at
variance
it agrees with
itself: there is a palintonos (counter-stretched) harmony, as in the bow and the lyre.
Plato
in Cratylus notes of changes in the Attic even
in 360 B.C.
Soc. Then in reference to his ablutions and absolutions,
as being the physician who orders them, he may be
rightly called Apolouon (purifier);
or in respect of
his powers
of
divination, and his
truth and sincerity,
which is the same as truth, he may be most fitly called
Aplos, from aplous
(sincere), as in the Thessalian
dialect, for all
the Thessalians call him Aplos;
also he is Ballon
(always
shooting), because he is a master archer
who never
misses;
And they had a king over them, which is the
angel of the bottomless pit,
whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon,
but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
Re.9:11
Apolluon (g623) ap-ol-loo'-ohn;
act. part. of
622; a
destroyer (i.e. Satan): - Apollyon.
Apollumi (g622) ap-ol'-loo-mee;
from 575 and the
base of 3639; to destroy fully (reflex. to perish, or
lose), lit. or
fig.: - destroy, die, lose, mar, perish.
Her. What do you think of doxa (opinion), and that class of words?
Soc. Doxa is
either derived from dioxis
(pursuit), and expresses
the march of the soul in the pursuit of knowledge,
or from the shooting of
a bow
(toxon); the
latter is more likely, and is confirmed by oiesis (thinking), which is only oisis
(moving), and implies the movement
of the soul
to the essential nature of each thing-
just as boule (counsel)
has to do with shooting (bole);
and boulesthai (to wish) combines the notion of aiming and deliberating-
all these
words seem
to follow doxa, and all
involve the
idea of
shooting,
just as aboulia, absence of counsel, on
the other hand, is a mishap,
or missing, or mistaking
of the mark,
or aim, or
proposal, or object.
And, I don't know of anyone who uses
Grimm's
lexicon to make the point. The
up to
date version is Thayers. Because Thayer built on Grimm and
earlier
scholars, he is not bound and DID NOT follow Grimm's
numbering
system. Rather, Thayer used colons and semicolons. All of those
items separated by semicolon
are of
equal weight.
Page 36
Tom Burgess: [p.35] B
stands in front of all the forms of instrumental
[p.36] accompaniment
accompaniment. It is under this b shade that the use in the New
Testament is
found. These
words
indicate
that the New Testament use agrees with b.
Again, b. speaks to cause to vibrate by
touching, to twang. Thayer
does not use MUSICAL INSTRUMENT in b. We noted that
Thayer defines
the human heart or spirit which is God- created for THAT
VERY PURPOSE
as that INSTRUMENT. When the heart "sings" it does no
shoot arrows or
play the harp.
Tom Burgess: "Each lexicon has its
own system to indicate a
change of meaning.
W. E.
Vine uses
numbers to indicate each different
Greek word
translated the same way in our English Bible. Within each
of these
numbers that have different meanings he uses a letter to
precede each
change so no reader should mistake when a change in
meaning is
intended.
But, Vine says the same thing that
Thayer
and Kurfees said:
Vine:
Psallo
primarily "to
twitch, twang," then,
"to play a stringed instrument with the fingers,"
O.T. "and hence, in the Sept.,
"to sing with a harp, sing
psalms,"
N.T. denotes, in the NT, "to sing
a
hymn, sing praise;" in Eph 5:19, "making melody" (for
the preceding
word ado, see SING). Elsewhere it is rendered "sing," Rom 15:9; 1 Cor 14:15;
in James 5:13, RV, "let him sing
praise"
(AV, "let him sing psalms").
But it is a fact that Psallo
never means sing TO a harp or sing psalms. Pluck
just means
pluck or
play. The Bible and ALL literary evidence shows that you
must PLUCK and
define WHAT is to be plucked. If you pluck a harp string
that DOES NOT
MELODY MAKE. You have to define a tune or rhythm.
If it could possibly
include
INSTRUMENTS he would have listed it as a possibility.
As far as I can
determine no
one before the Christian churches in 1878 ever used PSALLO
as
authority for playing instruments as an act of worship.
Tom Burgess: Yet, in spite of this
care of the Lexicons, non-instrument brethren have discarded the
number and letter system
of the authors,
and have imposed their own indication
of
change of meaning, the
phrase in
the New
Testament.
This
little
observationon how a lexicon shows a change of meaning
will remove
much of the innocent
misuse of authorities
now being done by non-instrument
brothers.
"
Burgess notes that it
was
THAYER who made the changes. But, Thayer followed Grimm
and Grimm did
not say "in the N.T." Non-instrument brothers quote Thayer
ignorant
that Thayer did not say what Grim said. Therefore,
non-instrument
brothers are ignorant and to be pittied.
But, Thayer, having MADE
IMPROVEMENTS, does say in the N.T. Thayer said that
because it would
be SILLY to say otherwise because NO ONE has ever
discovered psallo
being used to DEMAND or INCLUDE singing accompanied by a
hand-plucked
instrument.
The goal of the argument
is to
claim that Thayer pointed to lightfoot or Grimm for BETTER
information. That is, Thayer gave his BETTER definition
which
EXCLUDES instruments in the New Testament but THEN --we are led to
believe--refers to Grimm and
Lightfoot and earlier writers to REFUTE his conclusion. We
have
listed Thayer's definition from Kurfees
page
13. Notice the colon and semicolons. The semicolons mark off
things of equal weight or DOCUMENTED meanings. Kurfees
quotes what we
have shown in Thayer's book:
XV. THAYER [psallo],
a. to
pluck off, pull out the hair.
b. to cause to vibrate
by touching, to twang:
specifically to touch or strike the
chord,
to twang the
strings of a musical instrument so that they gently
vibrate; and
absolutely to play on a stringed instrument, to play the
harp,
etc.;
[Old Testament] Septuagint for niggen
and much oftener for zimmer;
to
sing
to the music of the harp;
[New Testament] in the New Testament to
sing a
hymn,
to celebrate the
praises of God in song, Jas. 5: 13; in honor of God,
Eph. 5: 19; Rom.
15:9
See
the
polluting
idea of Zamar and
Nagan
Cyprian
writes:
It is not lawful, I
say,
for
faithful Christians to be present; it is
not lawful, I
say, at all,
even for those whom for the delight
of their ears
Greece sends everywhere to all who are instructed in her
vain
arts.
One imitates the hoarse warlike
clangours
of the trumpet; another with his breath
blowing into a pipe regulates its mournful sounds; another with dances,
and with the musical voice of a
man,
strives with his
breath, which by an effort he had drawn from his
bowels into the
upper parts of his body, to
play
upon
the stops of pipes;
now letting forth the sound, and now
closing it up inside, and forcing it into the air by
certain openings
of the stops;
now breaking the sound in measure,
he endeavours
to speak with his
fingers, ungrateful to
the Artificer who gave him a tongue.
Why should I speak of comic and useless efforts? Why
of those great
tragic vocal ravings?
Why of strings set vibrating with noise? These
things, even if they were not
dedicated
to
idols,
ought
not to be approached and gazed upon by
faithful Christians; because, even if they were not
criminal, they
are characterized by a worthlessness
which is extreme, and which is little suited to
believers.
10. Let the faithful
Christian,
I say, devote
himself to
the sacred Scriptures, and there he shall find
worthy
exhibitions for his faith.
Burgess and Jonas
apparently
want you to believe that "in the NT to sing a hymn must connect to b. to vibrate or
twang; and this MUST mean [because he had no information
from Grimm] to
play an
instrument:
Tom Burgess: It is under this b shade that the use
in
the New
Testamentis
found. These
words
indicate that the New Testament use
agrees with b.
Therefore, what
Thayer
MEANT
to say was that:
in the New
Testament to
sing a hymn to the music
of the harp!
But b says: vibrate by touching, to
twang. He EXCLUDES the demand for a
musical
instrument because the base meaning is NOT musical but
simply
PLUCKING. You can pluck a harp string or an old hen's
feathers.
But, Thayer then
says
that b in the N.T. means:
"to
sing to
the music of the harp" is separated by a semicolon
from "in the
N.T. to sing a hymn." No one ever translated
this to mean what Burgess wants it to say: "To sing to the music of
the harp in
the N.T."
If "b." meant
"in the
N.T. to
sing a hymn to the music of a harp" then Thayer is redundant.
Ephesians 5:19 uses
the word ODE which excludes the harp.
Why would
Thayer say "ode" without an
instrument "to the music of a harp"
and then demand that you pick up your (individual) harps
and PSALMOS?"
The synonym argument
has psalms, hymns
and spiritual songs including the harp according to Burgess.
Therefore, the PSALM
must make singing demand an instrument.
But, if Burgess had it
correct
then he would find ONE TRANSLATION which includes a
mechanical
instrument as opposed to the 'harp of God' by which we
offer the
sacrifice of the fruit of our lips.
He SHOULD find one
example in
ANY literature which does not
implicate
music [a mind
altering
activity] which does not MARK or PRODUCE
homosexual feelings.
Melody, like grace, is
a
quality of a poem or a speech: it does not mean to play
an instrument
unless one is defined. In fact, MELODY in speech made it
less
believable because it was ACTING which made one a member
of the
SECTARIAN hypocrite band.
Thayer is not BOUND to
Grimm
because as a literate student of the Bible knows that
ALL of the
occurrences of PSALLO in the literature DID NOT INCLUDE
twanging the
HARP but twanging IN the heart. If you wanted to SING
and PLAY you
always used a SINGING word and then ADDED a playing
INSTRUMENT.
Thayer, gives us an
example
of TWANGING the heart or soul:
I will sing God's
praises indeed with my whole
soul
stirred
and borne
away by the Holy Spirit,
but I will also
follow reason
as my
guide,
so that what I
sing may be understood alike by myself and by the listeners,'1 Cor. 14: 15.
Paul excluded RAISING
UP or creating PLEASURE
in Romans 15 where we speak with ONE MIND and ONE MOUTH
"that which
is written." Nevertheless, the demand that MY singing be
UNDERSTOOD
fits the SPEAKING OR TEACHING direct command because you
CANNOT
understand with a "music team" blasting away.
We should look again at the Latin PSALLO.
Burgess on page 35 says B
stands in front of all the forms of instrumental
[p.36] accompaniment
accompaniment.
It is under
this b shade
that the use in the New Testament is
found. These
words
indicate
that the New Testament use agrees with b. Others
have separated out "in the N.T." to prove that in Koine it
simply
meant to SING without getting connected back to mean "in the
N.T.
SING with an instrument."
We have
noted
that the Latin Psallo the GENERAL meaning of to play an
instrument.
However, the PARTICULAR meaning even in the Old Testament
meant to
SING the Psalms:
Psallo
, i, 3, v. n., = psallô.
I. In general, to play upon a stringed
instrument; esp.,
to play upon
the cithara,
to sing to the
cithara:
psallere saltare
elegantius, Sall. C.
25, 2 (but in Cic. Cat. 2, 10, 23 the correct read. is saltare et cantare;
II. In particular, in ecclesiastical Latin,
to sing the Psalms of David,
Hier.
Ep.
107, 10; Aug. in Psa. 46; 65; Vulg. 1 Cor. 14, 15
We are absolutely certain
of
this because there are no instances of psallo or zamar being
used to
mean "sing while playing an instrument." SINGING is always
singing
but "melody" must be assigned to the NAME of an instrument.
In both
the Greek PSALMOS and the English SONG, the human voice is
the "first
instrument of choice."
In an ecclesiastical sense the word never means to
SING
accompanied by a musical instrument. Sing is still sing and
melody is
still melody and EVERYONE names the instrument if one is
intended.
We know that none of the
languages which still understood Attic Greek, Koine or Latin
thought
that Paul was commanding SING with MELODY on the HARP. TEACH
is still
teach in any of the languages and none of them are
facilitated with
instrumental music.
If you don't grasp that distinction you
are
in a heap of trouble. The
word PLAY at
Mount Sinai, by Samson and when David was removing th Ark of
the
Covenant, meant to PLAY a musical instrument. It also meant
to PLAY
the prostitute or to PLAY in a sexual or homosexual way. In
the Greek
the same is true.
Paizô means to "play like a child
or sport," dance, 4. play on a musical
instrument,
5. play
amorously,
play with,
make sport of. That
was the
musical mocking of Jesus by the Levitical Warrior
musicians. The Greek word "music"
almost demanded
to "dance
and
sing."
PAIZO is similar in
definition
to PSALLO above. The word is very often used with Sôkratês and we know what kind of psallo
and play he approved of
at least in principle.
It IS possible for all to SPEAK THE SAME
THING
but only if they "teach that which has been taught" and in a
way
which makes TEACHING and MEMORIZING the Biblical text the
ONLY
meaning of the assembly as synagogue. Any form of rhetorical
preaching, music or other visible ceremonies is THRESKIA
worship
introduced by Orpheus and the LESBOS SINGERS to insult Homer
by
ceasing to recite his poetry and begin SINGING it and
PLAYING
INSTRUMENTS which always fueled or PIPED DOWN the symposium
or
women's 'worship assemblies' to result in the final act of
worship: reaching
a
sexual climax with the
gods.
People have rejected the idea of MUSICAL
ENTERTAINMENT in religion for these 2,000 years. So, it is
not a
reaction by Southern, rednecks who cannot read. Catholic
resources
still reject instruments as other than a concession to
wide-spread
ignorance. They still know that Paul said SPEAK and
therefore
identify their leaders as being trained to SPEAK rather than
SING.
Maybe this will rescue them form the afflictions of all
"ceremonial
priesthoods."
Musical
Worship
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