Jesus and his sacrifice is Satan’s test of man’s morality.

Here we see a difference between a believer and an unbeliever. An unbeliever (like you two) will set himself as an authority above God, and will question and judge God at every step. A believer will trust and obey God. Abraham is uniformly praised in Scripture for his faith in God and his willingness to obey whatever God commanded. He did the right thing in obeying God.What would I actually have done if I had been Abraham? I can't be sure. I hope I would have had the faith of Abraham, but I would probably have wondered very seriously whether or not I was hearing God correctly.

GDR, I understand where you are coming from, but I disagree. My ancestors were Mennonite, and they saw things much the way that you do. The Sermon on the Mount was elevated above other biblical texts. My grandmother was convinced that the God of the OT was a different God than the God of the NT.I agree that some of these OT passages are very difficult. Yet Abraham's faith in nearly sacrificing his son is praised throughout Scripture; this is presented as a good thing. And it is pertinent to this thread, in that it foreshadowed God's sacrifice of Jesus (the thread topic).I believe that much of the difference in reaction here can be summarized by "relationship to God". Those who have a close personal relationship to God know Him as good and tend to trust Him. Those who don't will distrust and question Him at every step. As an example, consider a good, healthy marriage relationship; spouses tend to trust one another implicitly. But consider a marriage where spouses continually distrust and question one another's judgment; this marriage won't last long.

In brief, the doctrine of "biblical inerrancy" is not directly taught in Scripture. But it is a direct, necessary consequence to the biblical doctrine of "verbal, plenary inspiration" of Scripture, the doctrine that every word of the entirety of Scripture was inspired by God. I believe that this is taught pretty clearly in Scripture, with the NT testifying that Moses and the OT prophets were inspired by God, Peter testifying that Paul's words were inspired by God, etc.It would take us far off-topic to get into inspiration and inerrancy in this thread, and I'm sure they have been beaten to death in other threads. You can find more information in prior threads or on Bible.org | Where the World Comes to Study the Bible, one of my favorite theological websites.

As Faith has said a few times, these genocidal commands were given for only a few isolated cases in the OT as Israel conquered Palestine. These commands have not been repeated in the NT for Christians and are not normative for anyone today.I agree that these commands seem to be at odds with God's character as revealed elsewhere in Scripture, especially in the NT. This leaves a number of interpretive options:
1) the God of the Bible is cruel and inconsistent (the atheist position)
2) these commands were NOT really from God (GDR's position?)
3) these commands were not meant literally, but were exaggerated hyperbole
4) there must have been unique extenuating circumstances which necessitated these people being wiped out (my position, and Faith's?)

As I recall, the church history text that I studied from (Justo Gonzalez) argued that the Roman Catholic Church as we know it didn't really start till Pope Gregory (about the time that Faith said). I believe Gregory was the first to really claim and exert papal authority.

Marcion was a heretic who held to quasi-gnostic beliefs and to "docetism" (Jesus only appeared to be human, but really wasn't). Interestingly, like some in this thread, he had difficulty reconciling the OT God with the NT Jesus, so he decided that there were two different gods.Marcion's heretical, stripped-down biblical canon was a major impetus to the Church formally declaring an "official" canon. (Until this time the canon had been generally accepted without being formalized.)

Yes, Mithra was worshipped before Christ was born. Yes, Mithraism has many striking parallels to Christianity. But be careful; Mithraism morphed significantly over time. Carefully check the dates of the versions of Mithraism that you are looking at. You will find that the versions of Mithraism that are closest to Christianity date from AFTER Christ. Mithraism incorporated elements of Christianity as it morphed over time.I'm curious about the Dec 25 date (which wasn't Jesus' real birthday anyway, of course); did this date appear in the Mithra tradition BEFORE or AFTER Christ?

What do you think Jesus meant in Jn 5:39 when He said, "You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me"?Wasn't Jesus claiming that the OT referred to Him? Was Jesus mistaken?

Interesting perspective.I believe all of the gospel writers made claims that the OT spoke of Jesus, as did Paul (e.g. 1 Cor 15:3ff: Christ died, etc, "according to the Scriptures").So do you take the position that all of this was first-century revisionism, including the very early creed in 1 Cor 15? (Even skeptics such as Bart Ehrman date this creed to just a few years after the crucifixion.)Edited by kbertsche, : Clarification