onthe3dge
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Post by onthe3dge on Mar 20, 2014 3:01:22 GMT -8
“‘After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it,
17 that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things’—
18 things known from long ago.
The 'after this' refers to the destruction of the 1st Temple, after which Jerusalem and the Temple were rebuilt physically. But the real substantial, truest rebuilding of David's fallen tent happened on the day of Pentecost when the remnant of Israel became the Church and began it's mission to bring the Gentiles under it's shelter.
You assert that 'after this' refers to the destruction of the 1st Temple, but "David's fallen tent" has NOT been rebuilt since James quoted that prophecy; it was yet future, at least as a dual fulfillment. There is not one shred of connection between this and Pentecost as a fulfillment; not one NT writer makes such a connection, besides the fact that what James said was LONG AFTER PENTECOST. It is not after the Gentiles BEGAN to be saved that the rebuilding is to happen, but when THE NUMBER IS COMPLETE. Once again: James cited Amos after Pentecost and made it clear, along with Paul's later statement about "the FULL NUMBER of Gentiles", that the rebuilding of David's tent would follow that completion. And that number is still being increased to this day. This is so obvious, so indisputable, that I despair of conversation on this fundamental point.
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Post by Josh on Mar 21, 2014 11:29:39 GMT -8
James is saying that, in their hearing, the prophecy of Amos about the Gentiles seeking the Lord is being fulfilled. This was to begin AFTER David's fallen tent was restored, so James must have already seen that as having happened. And I think it did begin to happen on the day of Pentecost when the remnant of Israel was saved.
Agreed.
Sure it does- see my original article. Over and again the church is called the True Jerusalem, the True Church, and the True Temple. So, they are being brought under the shelter of spiritual Israel, not physical. The Church hasn't replaced Israel, the mystery is that the Church is the True Israel, both Jew and Gentile:
Eph 3:6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
Yes, Paul may mean that at some point in the future, physical Israel will have a mass turning to the Gospel, and be joined to "True Israel"= the Church. But I don't see why the "full number of Gentiles" coming in should or needs to be equated with the restoration of David's Fallen Tent.
Why don't you think that Amos is saying that the restoration comes before the gospel goes out to the Gentiles? He says He will restore it THAT the rest of mankind might seek the Lord, not I will restore it AFTER the rest of mankind seeks the Lord.
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onthe3dge
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Post by onthe3dge on Mar 25, 2014 3:45:55 GMT -8
Disagree. I don't see 1st century Judea fufilling this prophecy at all:
Nobody was seeking the Lord due to David's fallen tent being restored at that time, nor were Gentiles already flocking to the Lord . After all, that was the purpose for the council: to determine whether Gentiles had to first become Jews, and since the decision was 'no', then how can this be called rebuilding David's tent?
And who can say that Israel was even independent, since they were ruled by the Romans at that time? You take David's tent as simply the existence of Jewish people in their homeland, while I take it as the Davidic kingdom restored to its former glory.
I think you're taking the vine/branches illustration far too literally, which is another one of those instances where I see great inconsistency in preterism. When I consider the whole teaching of the NT on this, I see that "in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile", "you are a new creation", and it is not Abraham but "the Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance". And how does our being "one body" mean Gentiles become Jews or Jews become Gentiles? Are we not "a new creation" that is neither one? Whether physical or spiritual, we are not brought under any shelter but that of the Holy Spirit, and once again this does not negate the promise to the physical line through Isaac and Jacob.
You said, "physical Israel will have a mass turning to the Gospel, and be joined to "True Israel"= the Church.", but that's not what I agree to at all. Physical Israel will indeed have a mass turning to the Gospel, but they will NOT be joined to the church, who is NOT "true Israel" as literally as you take it. The church has a beginning and an end: Pentecost to the Rapture. The righteous before the church were not a part of it, and the righteous after the church are not a part of it. If you take the vine and branches very literally, then why not also Jesus' statments about "friends of the groom", "invited guests", and "servants", who are distinct from the Groom and Bride? Who would those people represent, if every righteous person who will ever have lived be the Bride?
I see the full no. of Gentiles as what must be completed before the rebuilding of David's tent because that's what James and Amos said was prerequisite. And to clarify, it is not the fullness of Gentiles that constitutes rebuilding David's tent, but that when the full number is reached then David's tent will be rebuilt. So I can ask you as well: Why don't you think that Amos is saying that the restoration follows the Gospel bringing in the full number of Gentiles? Remember what Paul said and when he said it?
This is clearly saying that it's the full number, not the beginning, and it was said too late to be taken the way you're taking Amos/James. Israel being "hardened in part" does not qualify as "rebuilding David's fallen tent".
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Post by Josh on Mar 25, 2014 9:45:33 GMT -8
Here's how I see James seeing the fulfillment of the Amos passage at the time of the Jerusalem council:
"Ah! What Paul is saying makes sense. God rebuilt David's fallen tent through Jesus' life and death and resurrection and through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, among us Jews. And Amos said that the next thing that would happen after that fallen tent was rebuilt would be that the Gentiles would seek the Lord. And that's exactly what Paul is telling us is happening! Amos' prophecy is coming true in our hearing!"
Restoring David's tent has nothing anymore to do with a nation. I'm saying it has to do with the establishment of true Israel= the church. But, yeah, I know we see this radically different. You're likely to say how is it that what throughout most of the OT was seen as hope in a physical restoration of the nation of Israel has been "spiritualized". But, going back to my very first post on this thread, I believe that the New Testament authors, through the life and words of Jesus, came to the stunning realization that all those hopes were pointing to a "kingdom not of this world", the Church. National Israel was only ever just a type and shadow of the heavenly city.
I don't see how one can't come to this conclusion if you go through the steps I've outlined in my first post. That's not to say that God in his wisdom may not have some plans entailing the physical descendants of Israel, but, yes, I think the church (both Jew and Gentile) are the inheritors of the promises to Israel. As to the curses, I think that could make an interesting thread if you'd like to start one. Maybe something like, "if this promise __________________ is supposedly true of the Church, then what about this curse _____________________"?
I see Jesus' references to "other sheep" and "invited guests" as his way of revealing the mystery of the church to his audience- that what many Jews assumed to be two separate groups of people in God's eyes where now being shown to be united.
As to Amos, it just seems so clear to me in the chronology of his prophecy that the rebuilding comes before the Gentiles seek the Lord:
First this:
After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it,
THEN this:
that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things’—
With the THAT being a super clear signifier of the chronology.
But in Romans 11 Paul is talking about physical Israel, whereas I'm saying Amos and James are referring to spiritual Israel=the Church.
And before you say that's arbitrary, it's obvious to me that Paul is making distinctions between Jew and Gentile in Romans 11 to answer the question: what about the physical descendants of Abraham? But almost everywhere else in the NT "Israel" is synonymous with the Church (as I outlined in my first post)
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onthe3dge
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Post by onthe3dge on Mar 25, 2014 10:23:22 GMT -8
Here's how I see James seeing the fulfillment of the Amos passage at the time of the Jerusalem council:
"Ah! What Paul is saying makes sense. God rebuilt David's fallen tent through Jesus' life and death and resurrection and through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, among us Jews. And Amos said that the next thing that would happen after that fallen tent was rebuilt would be that the Gentiles would seek the Lord. And that's exactly what Paul is telling us is happening! Amos' prophecy is coming true in our hearing!" That's an awful lot of reading into the text, in my opinion. But let me take a turn: At the very least you cannot say that my interpretation is either impossible or more contrived than yours.
You say "Restoring David's tent has nothing anymore to do with a nation", but on what basis do you assert this? This is begging the question we're debating. And the hope of a "kingdom not of this world" hardly means that there is also no hope of an earthly kingdom, which would require a great number of scriptures to be spiritualized. And around and around we go... The problem of accepting Israel's blessings but not its curses is only for those who believe in Replacement Theology; it is you who should start such a thread and talk with other preterists about how to solve it. Or you could just spiritualize it away. ;-)
I see it completely the opposite. Here again you read quite a lot into what Jesus says, yet when it comes to "never before/again" you insist that no additional application can be made. I can't see any rhyme or reason to your methods of interpretation; I honestly can't.
I'm pretty sure I responded to this before.
Yes, physical Israel, who was still not "rebuilt" in Paul's day. And I still disagree with "spiritual Israel = the church" as meaning one replaced the other. Look at verse 11: "Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious." It isn't the rebuilding of Israel that is bringing in the Gentiles, it's the SIN of Israel, and its purpose is not to bring in the Gentiles but to make Israel envious.. This cannot be interpreted as "rebuilding David's fallen tent" by any stretch of the imagination. And look again at verse 25b: " Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in". Israel was still "hardened" at that time, and would remain so until the FULL number of Gentiles comes in. How much clearer can it be that David's fallen tent was not yet rebuilt, and that the Gentiles were being saved as a result of the SIN of Israel rather than its restoration? I'm at a loss for words as to how this cannot be obvious. And that's why I'll leave the rest to you to sort out, as this is not a productive conversation.
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Post by Josh on Mar 25, 2014 14:24:53 GMT -8
I don't think it's impossible, but I do think it is more forced than mine because it doesn't take the clear chronology of Amos' prediction seriously imo.
I'm basing the assertion of the points I started this thread with, that the New Testament authors, in an obvious and consistent meta-shift (following their master) realized that the embodiment of the concepts Israel, Temple, and Jerusalem was found in Jesus and His church, not in national Israel. It would be begging the question only if I didn't start by making that case. But I did and you have hardly interacted with my initial points at all on this thread.
I thought maybe you could pick some specific curses and we could discuss how they would be interpreted from my perspective. I'm not aware of any problems on this front, but I'd be curious to discuss what you think would be problems for the preterist perspective.
I see it completely the opposite. Here again you read quite a lot into what Jesus says, yet when it comes to "never before/again" you insist that no additional application can be made. I can't see any rhyme or reason to your methods of interpretation; I honestly can't. Whether you agree with it or not, there is a rhyme and reason to my interpretive method, and the lynchpin is in the original post on this thread. There is and always has been* One people of God, and that One people is the Church= the true Israel, Jerusalem, and Temple of God, Jew and Gentile, etc. Physical/ national Israel was always a type and a shadow of that spiritual reality.
Lastly, I don't deny that Gentiles have been being saved en masse because of the sin of national Israel. But they've also been saved because the remnant of national Israel that was faithful to God and His Messiah, rebuilt themselves for His purposes.
I agree, this has become unproductive. I would, however, welcome any thoughts you might have as to my original points in the first post.
*and please note that I have never said the Church replaced Israel.
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onthe3dge
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Post by onthe3dge on Mar 25, 2014 16:18:13 GMT -8
In the interest of not belaboring the point excessively, I'll just comment on a few of the foundational premises in your OP, and leave it at that.
I disagree of course. Rather than redefining terms, I see the NT writers expanding them. That is, the OT terms still mean what they meant before, but in the NT many of them are also applied in a different way to present and future (to them) entities. To say it was redefinition and not expansion that was "definitely" the focus of the NT writers is an assertion of one's opinion, not an indisputable fact. This is what I was trying to point out regarding the fact that Paul still spoke of his people Israel as having a unique destiny. As he says in Rom. 9:
When he states that he is contrasting the descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob with those descended from Ishmael and Esau. It isn't until vs. 24 that he mentions Gentiles, yet he still never calls them Israel. He uses the Gentiles as the cause of Israel's shame, since they came by faith while many descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob refused. This is reiterated in the statment I quoted before about the Gentiles coming to faith would make Israel envious. He goes on into ch. 10 speaking of the unfaithfulness of the Jews, yet never says they cease to be Jews as a nation. After all, since the curses promised to Israel for faithlessness are still in force, there must be a physical nation who suffers them. Likewise, if the promises of blessing God made unilaterally to the people as a physical nation are as eternal as God said they were, then again there must be a physical nation to which they are given. To make every NT statment about Israel into the church creates nonsense out of Paul's teachings.
The church is "a new creation", a "mystery" revealed to Paul, a third entity that is "neither Jew nor Greek". Paul fought vigorously against all Jewish Christians who sought to bring Gentiles into Judaism. He even rebuked Peter to his face, publicly, for his having withdrawn from Gentiles when certain Jews were around. Yet at no time did Paul ever try to tell Israelis outside of the church to stop practicing Judaism. They were still the nation of Israel, still under the promised curses, and thus not abandoned or replaced. And yes, it is replacement to say all of those 3 points in your quote. True Israel is faithful Israel; Jerusalem is a literal city, one that will someday be reborn as the New Jerusalem. We are even told its dimensions.
I can't disagree more. The NT writers were all about Jesus, about "neither here nor in Jerusalem but in spirit and truth", about "where two or three gather" rather than temples, about freedom from religious law and sacrifices, and about loving God and people. To make the church Israel is to obliterate Israel, since nothing that would identify Israel remains. And again, if the church appropriates all the blessings of Israel, it must also appropriate the curses, and I find no such threats to the church anywhere in scripture. The earliest disciples did believe that after Jesus arose he would set up the promised earthly kingdom, but the writers of the NT soon put that expectation to rest.
What I find most glaringly contradictory about the preterist hermeneutic is those "exceptions" that allow some future prophecies to remain (partial preterism). Either the church replaced Israel or it didn't; you can't have the church "mostly" replacing it. It seems that preterism only grudgingly admits these exceptions because they simply cannot be explained away as past events, yet such admission only highlghts the fact that there certainly is more to Bible prophecy than meets the eye.
Point 2 is completely inaccurate. There is only one plan of salvation for Jew and Gentile in this age. The church is neither Jew nor Gentile. But I think we all can agree that nobody could be saved by faith in the risen Jesus before he did it, such that the righteous before then were saved by their faith in the one true God and obedience to his laws. Neither did anyone before Pentecost have the indwelling Holy Spirit "as a deposite guaranteeing our inheritance". And so it will be after the church is taken to heaven. But right now, everyone is saved the same way.
What is different is the eternal destiny of the righteous of the various ages. There are prophecies that concern the church, prophecies that concern Israel and Jerusalem, and prophecies that concern the Gentiles. To mix them all together is to make such confusion of the whole Bible as to make discussion of its prophecies futile. And I've run out of ways to say this.
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Post by Josh on Mar 26, 2014 8:45:13 GMT -8
I genuinely thank you for your input. I wish the dialogue could be less fraught with insinuation, but that may be because of the nature of the medium as well as a topic that ends up very much being like looking at two very different sides of the same coin. It's not like we're talking about one point of disagreement, it's about hundreds of interrelated disagreements But still I hope the bond of the Holy Spirit's love transcends even that.
I'll close as well with a few clarifications:
1) "redefinition" doesn't necessarily exclude "expansion". I have already granted from the get-go that the terms Israel, Temple, and Jerusalem, are still sometimes used in the NT to refer to the physical realities. Actually, most of the time it's pretty clear in the NT in which sense the terms are being used. The more difficult part is how to apply the "redefinition/ expansion" to OT prophecies. But a follow up question would be, if the NT does expand these terms, then to what end? Why?
2) I'm not saying the [physical] Jews have ceased to be Jews "as a nation". That has ebbed and flowed with history of course.
3) Lastly, I have met people who purport two different means of salvation (for Gentile and for Jew), though thankfully most futurists don't hold to that. But, honestly, don't you think you might be slipping into that as well to some degree if you think Jews before Christ were saved through obedience? Faith, yes, but not obedience. Obedience is of course the outworking of faith, but the point is that everyone who has ever been saved has been saved by the blood of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.
Thanks for getting into some of my original points. That really helps me refine. And I know it isn't easy to read a whole bunch of back posts that were there before you joined. I would still very much like to read through your original blog posts, as I have time. I will definitely consider you a source for the futurist perspective, as at our church, when we cover eschatology, we like to present the most robust versions of each view.
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onthe3dge
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Post by onthe3dge on Mar 26, 2014 9:54:01 GMT -8
I genuinely thank you for your input. I wish the dialogue could be less fraught with insinuation, but that may be because of the nature of the medium as well as a topic that ends up very much being like looking at two very different sides of the same coin. It's not like we're talking about one point of disagreement, it's about hundreds of interrelated disagreements But still I hope the bond of the Holy Spirit's love transcends even that.
...
Thanks for getting into some of my original points. That really helps me refine. And I know it isn't easy to read a whole bunch of back posts that were there before you joined. I would still very much like to read through your original blog posts, as I have time. I will definitely consider you a source for the futurist perspective, as at our church, when we cover eschatology, we like to present the most robust versions of each view. You're quite welcome. It is refreshing to be able to discuss the topic at all, frustrating as it can be. Most online debate is just flamethrowing.
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Post by stevend on May 8, 2014 19:39:50 GMT -8
Hopefully my interest in this subject isn't indulgently insensitive to the fact that a discussion of it was recently put to rest for a time.
Implications related to the most recent exchange pivoting around the Amos 9 description of the rebuilding of the tent/tabernacle of David stirred further thought with me. Respectfully, I think that Josh’s final point about the expanded view of God’s people finds support within the Hebrew Bible in general and Amos’ prophecy in particular. Among the featured items recognized by the Scriptures as being called by God’s name are:
• the ark of God (2 Sam. 6:2; preceding the story of David bringing the ark into its tent and blessing the people in God’s name; cf. vv. 17-18)
אֵת אֲרוֹן הָאֱלֹהִים אֲשֶׁר-נִקְרָא שֵׁם שֵׁם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת יֹשֵׁב הַכְּרֻבִים עָלָיו
…“the ark of God that is called by the name; [that is] the name of YHVH of hosts who sits upon the cherubim”…
• the temple (1 Kings 8:17-20, 29, esp. v. 43; Solomon’s dedication ceremony)
כִּי-שִׁמְךָ נִקְרָא עַל-הַבַּיִת הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר בָּנִיתִי
…“that your name is called upon this house which I have built”
• Jerusalem (Jer. 25:29; Babylonian siege and exile)
כִּי הִנֵּה בָעִיר אֲשֶׁר נִקְרָא-שְׁמִי עָלֶיהָ
“For behold, on the city that is called by my name”…
• a remnant of Edomites and those of other nations (Amos 9:11-12)
אֶת-שְׁאֵרִית אֱדוֹם וְכָל-הַגּוֹיִם אֲשֶׁר-נִקְרָא שְׁמִי עֲלֵיהֶם
…“the remnant of Edom and all the nations that are called by my name”…
One observes that identical phrase אֲשֶׁר נִקְרָא-שְׁמִי appears in Amos 9:12 as well as Jer. 25:29. Thus, Amos anticipated that the special status applied to Jerusalem prior to the captivity would eventually be assigned to faithful Gentiles. (Note that similar language refers to the ark of God and the temple—objects/places associated with the Divine Presence.)
Acts 15:13-14 maintains that James affirmed Peter's recognition that Gentiles were now included among God's favored people (vv. 7-11; also cf. chaps. 10-11). I think that Peter and Paul both make similar suggestions elsewhere by applying the privileged titles of Ex. 19:5-6 to Gentile Christians (cf. 1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Titus 2:14).
Additionally, the phrase לְמַעַן יִירְשׁוּ אֶת-שְׁאֵרִית אֱדוֹם “so that they will inherit the remnant of Edom” (Amos 9:12) is understood and quoted by James as stating “that the residue of men might seek after the Lord” (Acts 15:17a). Presumably the name אֱדוֹם was written without vowels (including the additional ‘vav’ which serves as a vowel placeholder); thus, a reading “remnant of Adam” or “remnant of man” is plausible. Maybe it was a word-play; either way, the LXX and James understood (or at least interpreted) the phrase accordingly.
Acts 15:15-17 notes that James cited the Amos segment as support for the claim that both Peter and he were making about recent development regarding the welcoming of the believing Gentiles among the people of God. Verse 18 seems to imply that God's strategy do achieve such a purpose was in mind from the beginning of the world.
(Sidenote: Luke [Acts] records James as either drawing from a parent text similar or equivalent to the Septuagint which also includes the phrase “might seek after the Lord” [or perhaps he carved out an interpretive insight that happened to match the identical phrase preserved by the LXX--what are the changes of that?]).
Peace in Christ... StevenD
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Post by Josh on May 9, 2014 17:13:13 GMT -8
That's okay. Nothing is ever really put to bed around here . That's part of the fun.
Good point. If the heritage of Israel was to be "priests" of God among the nations, and Peter and Paul call the Church (Jew and Gentile) Priests, that's a clear example of an OT prophecy of Israel being fulfilled not by physical Israel, but by True Israel= the Church, Jew and Gentile.
Note also in 1 Peter 2:5,9 the particular reference to Zion:
5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
Peter is saying these Jews and Gentiles, spread throughout the world, are part of Zion.mmThis Zion cannot simply be the physical Mt. Zion (though on one level it is, because the church began in Jerusalem). It must ultimately be the heavenly Zion, not built by hands, the body of Christ.
Can you explain this a bit more? Why can't James have been quoting the Septuagint directly?
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Post by stevend on May 9, 2014 18:11:11 GMT -8
Of course I appreciate the point from 1 Peter 2. I've got a feeling that it may be difficult to find anything to disagree with you about here..? Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out how to make a distinction between this quote: and Josh's quote: Actually, the point (that I apparently failed to make ) is that James (or at least Luke [Acts]) appears to be quoting either from the Septuagint or a similar parent text. (Maybe this was a little off topic from the content of the post, but it seemed interesting.)
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Post by Josh on May 9, 2014 21:21:11 GMT -8
It was your last suggestion that threw me... James would have been familiar with the Septuagint so how could have come up with the same phrase independently?
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Post by Josh on May 9, 2014 21:23:03 GMT -8
You meant to say "chances", right? I see, you're saying the chances are unlikely that he would use the same phrase independently. I get it now ?
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Post by stevend on May 10, 2014 19:55:43 GMT -8
Oops, thanks for catching and correcting my mistake. Interesting how I read over that statement a few times and never noticed the 'g'. (I suppose that I'll take this as a lesson to remind me about the influence a single letter can wield to effect meaning.)
Thanks...
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