the_dunk_tank

They appeared to use the NIV translation, which you may object to but is also easily one of the most common versions. The original King James Version reads very similarly, as does the NKJV.

Yeah, I didn't object to the translation used. I studied Ancient Greek so I can and have read the Bible as well as other Ancient Greek philosophy texts in their original language, so please believe me I'm really just treating this as a discussion of ancient literature. No different to LotR or GoT lore. And while I prefer the NRSV despite it having translation issues as well, the NIV wasn't used by that site. It used and only used the ESV, which is common among hardline Right-wing Christian fundamentalist evangelicals, and was another reason red flags went up for that site. That being said, their translation of that specific verse is almost identical to the NRSV, since the ESV is based off the RSV, so there isn't really an issue on that point.

There are definitely multiple descriptions of Jesus (you can see people mention them in the dumb "Was Jesus white?" arguments), and here is a collection of relevant passages.

Thanks for linking that! I read it and it comes from a Catholic source, so take that how you will, but it itself says at the start that

There is no physical description of Christ in any of the Gospels or New Testament letters.

The rest is either admission that people choose to imagine Jesus however they like or using Jewish scripture (written hundreds or thousands of years before the alleged person of Jesus existed) to guess how Jesus might have looked due to retrospective 'prophecy'. It also cites a Letter and the Shroud of Turin, both questionable in authenticity, and then ends with the use of the noble science of phrenology to suggest Jesus was a genius because he was big brained. Not saying people don't use these as bases for descriptions, they definitely do, because then we do have Nazis making false claims about White Jesus but the Bible itself has no direct or clear physical descriptions of Jesus. Best guess is Jesus probably looked like one of the many Palestinians being genocided at the moment.

Jehovah is just a lightly Germanicized version of Yahweh, look at the consonants: J [which is pronounced as an English Y]; H; V [can be either a V or an F in English phonetics, probably a V here]; H, like Yahweh being YHWH. Jesus isn't what Jesus was actually named (it was Yeshua), these are just things that happen in translation.

Yup, that is true.

I do agree that the description is probably being applied to Christ, though. Not that Revelations would give a historically accurate view, but theologically Revelations is canonical so a Christian is in no standing to deny it.

That's cool if you read that as being Jesus, I'm not really contesting that and I have no issue with it. The text itself isn't clear so there's no way of knowing for sure what is being referred to there. It's open to interpretation. And, that's true, Revelations is canon but it was unpopular or rejected even when it became canon and continued to be questioned and was even rejected by Martin Luther thousands of years later in his Preface. Whether a Christian has standing to deny it is a theological question and I don't have authority to answer it but I think there is good precedent for it, and from a purely critical perspective there's no reason one book written by one guy that has no relation to any other texts should necessarily be considered a foundational text to the religion. My point was just that taking Revelations at face value, given the above, to make the claim that it speaks for the Abrahamic religions as such on the subject of God's appearance is not accurate, academically nor theologically.

I'm not pretending my favorite interpretation is the only one that exists? I never said that and I'm very open to discussing different interpretations. But taking Revelations at face value as an authority on anything isn't very well supported academically or theologically either and that site's list of verses didn't even match the alleged theme so I was kinda doubting its credibility. It's even open to interpretation whether that verse is referring to God or someone/thing else. Just saying, Revelations sucks. Its 'interpretation' of God's appearance in those verses, if we assume it's God, literally doesn't exist anywhere else in the Bible, which is a significant point because it is not a view shared with either Judaism or Islam, nor even within Christianity generally. So, it's just one book's interpretation and one which was unpopular. I don't think that justifies extrapolating it to make a claim about the "Abrahamic" God's appearance.

Anyway, not trying to argue with you or rehash the classic internet religion debate, and I'm sorry if it came off as an attack but you mentioned a description of God's alleged appearance in "Abrahamic" religions, in what I know was a joke, but then someoned asked about its validity Biblically and then you responded with something not quite accurate Biblically speaking so I just wanted to add a point of clarification. Maybe it would've just been better to respond to GarbageShoot but just thought it would be good to keep the thread linear.