Emotional Responses by God to People
Good afternoon,
I had an idea of researching how God interacted emotionally with His people on Earth like in the following quote from Exodus (Exod. 3:7 NIV), “The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.’” What might be a good way to approach this? I’d probably like to start in the Old Testament first so would I look for emotions in the Hebrew or what would you suggest?
Thanking you for your help,
Comments
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Hi Kenneth - and welcome to the forums
I don't see any tagging in that verse that would help what your research.
In fact, the tagging - and some translations - suggest it might not be an emotional response - with "concerned" maybe meaning more about being aware
So I'm afraid I don't have an answer to your question but suggest it's worth exploring that verse in more detail as a starting point
Graham
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This is a worthy topic to dive into, but I would advise caution.
The original language may not make same distinctions of concern/sympathy as we read it in English. To illustrate, the verse you cite Exod. 3:7 ends with כִּי יָדַעְתִּי אֶת־מַכְאֹבָיו which translates surprisingly well to: (for / such that) I know their pain.
With words connoting emotion, there is an interpretative layer in English versions. Therefore, even if you could construct a search based on Logos tags, it would be secondary material. There is no replacement for digging into the original languages.
I realize this might not have been the answer you're looking for, but you might need modules like Bible Word Study, the original language texts (e.g. the forthcoming A Reader’s Hebrew and Greek Bible, 2nd ed.), and original language lexicons (e.g. A Dictionary of Biblical Languages w/ Semantic Domains: Hebrew, A Dictionary of Biblical Languages w/ Semantic Domains: Aramaic, A Dictionary of Biblical Languages w/ Semantic Domains: Greek), before diving into specific term searches involving verbs with God as (grammatical/referential) subject.
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Kenneth L Tyler said:
I had an idea of researching how God interacted emotionally with His people
A Basic Search for {Section <PreachingTheme ~ Suffering>} INTERSECTS <Person God> may be useful, but you have to look at each result to find the relevant passage.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Postscript - these books might be relevant and interesting:
Jesus' Emotions in the Gospels by Voorwinde
Emotions in Biblical Law: A Cognitive Science Approach by Kazen (not available in Logos)
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Not sure to what extent you are aware of the so-called "doctrine of impassibility". I'll let you read about it for yourself.
My two cents...it's nonsense on its face. YHWH constantly speaks of Himself as having emotional reactions. Those who say otherwise are basing their "conclusions" on theoretical (read "imaginative") theological assumptions that require "Yes, He said that, but He didn't mean it. He's just saying that to make it easy for us to comprehend Him." It's amazing how many well-entrenched theological doctrines rely on this kind of "thinking".
Exo. 20:5, Exo. 34:14; Num. 25:11, 13; Deut. 4:24; Deut. 5:9; Deut. 6:15; Deut. 32:16, 21-22; Josh. 24:19; Nah. 1:2; Zech. 1:14-15; Zech. 8:2...in the sense of being utterly without feeling.
And there's this, of course...1 Jn. 4:8...like a stone...an emotionless, cold stone.
I'll let you figure this one out for yourself...1 Cor. 13:4 NASB.
ASUS ProArt x570s Creator, AMD R9 5950x, HyperX 64gb 3600 RAM, ASUS Strix RTX 2080 ti
"The Unbelievable Work...believe it or not." Little children...Biblical prophecy is not Christianity's friend.
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David Paul said:
Those who say otherwise are basing their "conclusions" on theoretical (read "imaginative") theological assumptions that require "Yes, He said that, but He didn't mean it. He's just saying that to make it easy for us to comprehend Him." It's amazing how many well-entrenched theological doctrines rely on this kind of "thinking".
Please omit your theological straw-man arguments. They are against the spirit of the forum and may misrepresent others' views.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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I support Martha's assertion, having seen the build up of text from 2 edits. It was unnecessary to introduce Doctrine as well as unhelpful.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Whoa there ... the whole 2nd Temple was stripping the language to match the doctrine. The Targums were the crowning achievement.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Impassibility insists that YHWH has revealed Himself to us in Our image...rather than His own. That's exactly what "anthropomorphism" is.
Run with that if you want to.
ASUS ProArt x570s Creator, AMD R9 5950x, HyperX 64gb 3600 RAM, ASUS Strix RTX 2080 ti
"The Unbelievable Work...believe it or not." Little children...Biblical prophecy is not Christianity's friend.
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I was going to post the amazon link for this, but it's available in Logos.
ASUS ProArt x570s Creator, AMD R9 5950x, HyperX 64gb 3600 RAM, ASUS Strix RTX 2080 ti
"The Unbelievable Work...believe it or not." Little children...Biblical prophecy is not Christianity's friend.
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Hi Kenneth, you can build searches based on semantic fields lexical ranges with God as subject, agent or patient. For instance, in the NT, look up the broader umbrella that corresponds to emotions in Louw and Nida. Alternatively, see if you can use the Bible Sense Lexicon, moving upward or downward in the sense tree from the more specific to higher categories and then using the search link in the left panel to find where this sense has been tagged by Logos in the Bible.
Now, often certain types of searches cannot be directly combined. For instance, I can search for <LouwNida ~ LN 25> or <Sense feeling> verses in Bible search but apparently not in clause search and I can search for Agent:God OR Patient:God in the latter but not in the former. So, what you do each search, export them to passage lists and use the merge feature and select intersect to get those verses that are common to both lists and voilà!
Hopefully this helps. If you don't know how to do some of the things mentioned here, just keep asking your questions and we'll get you there.
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Hi Francis,
Using the Louw-Nida numbers is a good way to approach this.
Now, Kenneth said he might want to start with the OT. By some happy "coincidence" this thread explores how to order DBL Hebrew in semantic domains, by the Louw-Nida categories. A couple of intermediate steps are involved but the result is worth it.
Hi Kenneth,Please review some of the answers to your question. There's a big sale going on right now, and some relevant resources may be in it, e.g. DBL Hebrew.
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Lee said:
A couple of intermediate steps are involved but the result is worth it.
Do you know of a way to combine the results of this ordering of DBL with a query such as that which Kenneth asked about? The cross-referenced thread does not speak directly to that and for now I can't think of how this could be done (same with NIDOTTE's semantic fields which regrettably do not have an assigned reference number -- for the whole semantic category -- that makes it searchable like LN).
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I'm just raising this as a possibility...
Bring up three resources:
1. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (aka Louw-Nida)
2. A Dictionary of Biblical Languages w/ Semantic Domains: Hebrew (OT)
3. NIDOTTEWould it be possible to do Cited-By reverse linkage between (2) and (1) - as detailed in this thread, and forming a link between (2) and (3)?
I'm not sure and I could just be scratching the surface here. Maybe Denise can chime in.
(Kenneth, if you're still following) did I mention there's a sale going on?
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Lee said:
1. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (aka Louw-Nida)
2. A Dictionary of Biblical Languages w/ Semantic Domains: Hebrew (OT)
3. NIDOTTEWould it be possible to do Cited-By reverse linkage between (2) and (1) - as detailed in this thread, and forming a link between (2) and (3)?
A direct linkage from (2) to (1) is affected by clicking on the LN number!
There could be a link between (2) and (3), but not on LN domains. I would need NIDOTTE to comment further.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Thanks, Dave. I hardly use those features so I'll have wait for Denise to clue me in.
Meanwhile, I wonder if the Biblical Word Senses Dataset can be a good jumping off point for words of emotion, words of perception, possibly in lieu of Louw-Nida categories.0 -
Lee said:
Denise to clue me in.
Like Dave, I don't have NIDOTTE, so I'm not sure what might happen when the CitedBy searches it. I assume NIDOTTE has LN numbers for each entry? The index wouldn't work well.
I might add, from 'MJ-teachings', that Swanson's cross-ref'ing hebrew to NT greek semantic groups had its self-limiting aspect (NT greek), as well as linguistic violations (indoEuropean vs Semitic). But Swanson saw it as in the ballpark.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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I nearly reached the goal. I'd need Denise's skills with Cited By to hit home.
I was able to put DBL Hebrew and NIDOTTE into a set, so that they can be listed in parallel. However I was clicking around Cited By and not quite getting what I needed.
I fear I can't experiment too much because it could mess up my workspace.
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Lee said:
I nearly reached the goal.
Good idea. If one wanted an LN-ish semantic sort, then link an LN TOC on the front to the CitedBy. I didn't think about using a MultiView as the final connect.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Denise said:
I assume NIDOTTE has LN numbers for each entry?
No.
This is what the header line looks like in NIDOTTE:The referenced numbers are G/K Hebrew numbers:
This is what a semantic fields index entry looks like:
Again only G/K numbers cross-referenced. The semantic field is not searchable as such.
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Denise said:
But Lee's solution works.
What do you mean? For me the discussion has always been about finding solutions to the sort of query Kenneth proposed. This requires semantic fields that can be targeted in searches so that they can be combined with other arguments. I still don't see any other solution beside LN and BSL. Perhaps I missed something?
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Actually, not to be too technical, but Kenneth's question was how to find. Dave got the ball rolling with a search approach. The more traditional TOC groupings (like LN) are also avenues, along with grouped topic type resources (which often were included in personal Bibles). Ergo Lee's solution.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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I wish to thank Graham and the good number of other contributors each of whom have given me a lot of insight into the depth of Logos 8 when it comes to detailed study. I'm relatively new to this level of research so I may be back again with followup questions. I have saved a copy of this thread to explore in-depth. At this time I'm deciding the best place to start and branch out from there.
Thank you all once again,
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Great topic.
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David Paul mentioned this book God Is Impassible and Impassioned: Toward a Theology of Divine Emotion. It's now part of the Crossway sale.
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Thank you Lee,
I have purchased the book and looking forward to getting into it.
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