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Epimenides quoted in the Bible

D

DivineNames

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Titus 1:5-13 (KJV) For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith


"One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true."

The Cretan "prophet" in question is Epimenides. According to Wikipedia-

"Epimenides was a philosopher and religious prophet who, against the general sentiment of Crete, proposed that Zeus was immortal. As he wrote in his poem Cretica,

They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one-
The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!
But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest forever,
For in thee we live and move and have our being.

Denying the immortality of Zeus, then, is the lie of the Cretans."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox


So Epimenides is apparently saying that Cretans are liars for denying that Zeus is immortal. Paul quotes him, and endorses his testimony! Presumably Christians would want to deny that biblegod has here claimed that Zeus is immortal... :)
 
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