Eusebius the Liar? - Pious Fraud Endorsed to Advance Christianity

You quoted Eusebius as saying: which you paraphrased as:

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Here are some examples of us lying in our scriptures for this reason.

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This seems to me to be a cynical and questionable interpretation of what Eusebius actually said. I consider it more likely that Eusebius views these as cases of anthropomorphisms, divine accommodation or condescension, as Dr. A pointed out in Message 11.Further, rather than implying that:

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This is a great idea and we thought of it first!

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I think the more likely implication is "See, our Jewish/Christian ideas aren't so crazy after all!" This was a period in church history where Christians were very defensive, being accused of all sorts of pagan practices. Christian Apologists responded to Jewish accusations by arguing that Christian perspectives weren't all that different from Jewish perspectives, and they responded to Roman accusations by arguing that Judeo-Christian perspectives weren't all that different from Graeco-Roman perspectives. This seems to me to be an example of the latter.

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Eusebius here is talking about "human passions" and how it is obviously silly for God to REALLY have them. I can think of no practicing Christian that I know which that WOULD NOT rub them the wrong way. It turns the OT into a fairy tale.

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Then you don't know your Christian history or theology very well. Many of the early Reformed writers believed that God could not have true "passions". For example: Most Evangelical Christians today (including many Reformed Christians) would disagree with the early Reformers, and believe that God actually does have emotions. But whether or not God has true emotions is a real question for Christians.

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Well, I believe it speaks to the reliability of the scriptures. I will admit that that is an opinion but I believe it to be a sound opinion.

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I think this is a misunderstanding of the issue. Calvin was a great defender of the reliability of Scripture, yet he argued that God did not have "passions". Calvin (and other early Reformers) not see a conflict between this and the reliability of Scripture.

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Well obviously some do or have in the past. Eusebius himself is an example of that. Of course I wasn't talking about early reformers. I specifically said "I can think of no practicing Christian." I was only giving personal anecdote. Of course I can imagine that there are some somewhere who have the belief that God doesn't really get angry and that the OT is mostly allegory. If you would like to be pedantic, then I guess you win.

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You are missing the point. Christians leaders of the past and many Christians today believe that the Scripture is reliable and also "have the belief that God doesn't really get angry." This view has NOT been abandoned, and your attempts to dismiss it are incorrect.

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I think this is a misunderstanding of what I said. Good for Calvin if he does not believe that the Bible mischaracterizing God doesn't speak to its reliability. I do think it speaks to its reliability, Calvin has his opinion and I have mine.

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You are welcome to your own opinion, of course.Perhaps I wasn't clear. I don't see how anthropomorphisms have any bearing at all on the reliability of Scripture. They certainly do not conflict with Reformed and Evangelical doctrines of authority, reliability, or inerrancy of Scripture. This can be objectively verified by studying the formulations of these doctrines.

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I am simply stating that this idea is incompatable with a variety of modern Christian theologies that are popular.

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And I am stressing that the idea IS fully compatible with mainstream Evangelical understandings of the reliability of Scripture.

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That you can construct a doctrine where these things remain inerrant could be relevant to the OP in that it relieves Eusebius of the accusation of lying.

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So far, I see no evidence that Eusebius was lying. All I see is accommodational language, specifically anthropomorphisms, as Dr. A described in Message 11. These are figures of speech, not lies.

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My followup argument remains that any such doctrine is one that recognizes its basis is that of a fairy tale.

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Where did you give a logical, rational argument that the basis of this doctrine is a fairy tale? Using figures of speech does not turn a book into a fairy tale, of course.

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As I said in the OP, the straight forward translation of Eusebius' words is "lies". The MOST generous translation is "fictions". It seems like you want to go from "fiction" to "figure of speech" in which the logical train of thought is not obvious to me.

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No, the most generous intent of Eusebius words is accommodational language, anthropomorphisms, figures of speech. This has been well supported in this thread and is a reasonable understanding of his words.

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I disagree that it has been supported in this thread. It has been CLAIMED in this thread and thats about it.

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It was SUPPORTED with quotations from standard Bible reference works in Message 11. In contrast, you have quoted NO scholars in support of your interpretation.