"Tony" <tony@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:tuednaV9C_oTkVHanZ2dnUVZ_jOdnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
|> Hi Darwi. :-) Let me ask you, If Paul is a messiah, does that make him
a
| > god? [I'm trying to figure this out for the other discussion thread.]
|
| Darwi wrote:
|
| [Let me quote wikipedia:
| "Messiah (Hebrew: ????????, Standard Masía? Tiberian Masîª?; Aramaic:
| ?????, Aramaic/Syriac: ???????, M?sî?a; Arabic: ???????, al-Masi?)
| Literally, Messiah means "The Anointed (One)", typically someone
| anointed with holy anointing oil. Figuratively, anointing is done to
| signify being chosen for a task; so, Messiah means "The Chosen (One)",
| particularly someone divinely chosen.
| In Jewish messianic tradition and eschatology, Messiah refers to a
| future Jewish King from the Davidic line, who will be and rule the
| Jewish people during the Messianic Age. In Standard Hebrew, The
| Messiah is often referred to as ??? ?????, Méle? ha-Masía? (in the
| Tiberian vocalization pronounced Méle? hamMasîª?), literally meaning
| "the Anointed King." "
|
| The problem with the 'god' notion comes from Christianity, since Jesus
| is considered to be a God and a Messiah. But that part can easily be
| disregarded by the fact that Paul has human father. I do not believe
| that F. Herbert would be interested so much to describe the messiah as
| much as effect that cult of messiah has on human societies.
| Therefore I can conclude that Paul is not a god."]
|
| Tony replied:
|
| Thank you for this information. If I understand this issue correctly,
if
| one ascribes to the Jewish definition of Messiah, *someone may* be the
| Messiah, and be merely "a king" and not God. And you're probably
correct
in
| describing Frank Herbert's intentions with respect to Paul. However,
for
| the purposes of the discussion thread below ("Gods of Dune") I'm
interested
| in identifying all the various gods identified in the Dune Chronicles.
| According to this perspective, we should note that Paul was considered
to
be
| a god. For example, in Dune Messiah Paul declares in reference to
himself:
|
| "When godhead is given, that's the one thing the so-called god no longer
| controls."
|
|
PS I meant to say "someone may be the Messiah, and be merely "a king" and
not God. (above)
|
