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Author Topic:   If some parts of the Bible can't be trusted how can any of it?
ROTB
Member (Idle past 7144 days)
Posts: 40
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 08-21-2004


Message 181 of 189 (139491)
09-03-2004 5:22 AM
Reply to: Message 162 by Amlodhi
08-24-2004 10:41 AM


Re: On Prophesy.
Hello,
I had a busy week taking on a new roomate, visiting family, and working, but I am now digging into this question.
I'll post again by next week with some kind of update.
ROTB

This message is a reply to:
 Message 162 by Amlodhi, posted 08-24-2004 10:41 AM Amlodhi has not replied

  
ROTB
Member (Idle past 7144 days)
Posts: 40
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 08-21-2004


Message 182 of 189 (140034)
09-05-2004 5:53 AM
Reply to: Message 162 by Amlodhi
08-24-2004 10:41 AM


Re: On Prophesy.
>But in the passage these are called years of iniquity (Ezek. 4:5), and
>not years of future punishment.
The passage being referenced is:
For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
Ezekiel 4:5
According to the study tools available at the Blue Letter Bible, of the 230 times the Hebrew word "{aw-vone'}" which is number 5771 in Strong's Concordance shows up (heretofore called "S5771", it is translated to the following English words:
 220 times as iniquity
5 times as punishment
2 times as fault
1 time conjunted with Strong's 01697 as "Iniquities"
1 time as mischief
1 time as sin
230 Total
Two of the instances where "S5771" is translated as "punishment" are in Leviticus 26:41 and Leviticus 26:43, which is the same chapter we drew the "7 times more" for the calculation which points to 1948.
To make an airtight argument, the gentleman who wrote the essay you linked to and quoted (heretofore called "the objector"), needed to have shown also that "S5771" should not under any circumstance be translated to "punishment" or "weight of sin" as Strong's indicates it had been in other parts of the Old Testament.
Translators do their best, but languages don't always have 1 to 1 mappings of all words, and sometimes more than one word is needed but only one is used for brevity's sake.
There are 17 English translations of the Old Testament available at The Bible Gateway. To further bolster the argument that "S5771" can be translated as "iniquity" and "punishment", let's see what other English bible translators did with "S5771" in Ezekiel 4:5.
9 times "iniquity"
5 times "sin"
2 times "punishment"
1 time "weight of sin"
So Strong's hints at "S5771" also meaning "punishment", and other translators to English did not deem it a travesty to translate "S5771" as "punishment" or "weight of sin" in Ezekiel 4:5.
>Were these selections chosen before the fact and used to accurately
>identify a date in the future, this methodology might have some
>significance. Historically (and revealingly), however, such attempts
>at prior identification have a dismal track record.
The dictionary definition of prophecy at this link says nothing about prophecy needing to be understood beforehand.
When you demand that all prophecy must be completely understandable before it's fulfillment, you are demanding a standard of proof that even Isaac Newton dared not demand of God. Newton's intelligence was considerable, his knowledge of the Bible formidable, and his knowledge of history extensive. It was enough for Isaac Newton for the Bible to say what would happen well before it would happen, and for flawed mortal men such as himself to look, study, and notice after the fact, and then see that God had said it all along, and marvel and praise God. There are many instances in the Old Testament where God says what would happen hours or days or months before it would happen. We just happen to be looking at a prophecy that began with Moses, and was fulfilled in 1948 AD.
If one is an atheist, and I don't know if you are or are not, but for the atheists who are reading this, I ask you to consider this book you can buy for $22 that has thousands of quotes by atheists on how utterly lame and intellectually indefensible evolution, and big bang cosmology, and humanistic thinking are. If you only have $3.50 there is a short book available at this link which concentrates on quotes by atheistic evolutionists on the subject of how bad the evidence is for evolution. Atheists themselves can't agree on how to harmonize evolutionary theory with the fossil evidence.
I have spent a few hours searching the Internet for examples of long term fulfilled prophecy like the ones at Page not found in religions that are not Judeo-Christianity. I found none. If they exist, I have not seen them, and I would appreciate knowing about them. But I doubt they do, since the God of the Bible makes exculsive claims to offering eternal bliss in heaven, and he backs up these claims by saying what happens, thousands of years before they happen. It would be contradictory for God to claim to be the one and only way ...
...I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
John 14:6
... and then to foster confusion by starting other religions in Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnessism, etc.
Furthermore, Jesus said His church would never fall...
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Matthew 16:18
... and the book of Revelation takes us from the church age into eternity, and instructs readers not to add to it. A clear indication that for Islam, Mormonism, or any other to be true, God would have to contradict Himself.
>According to the clear, plain application of this principle, if the
>Jews do not repent after 70 years of punishment, God shall punish
>them an additional 7 times 70 equals 490 years. So the total
>punishment would be 560 years, 8 times the original punishment.
>But instead of a straightforward application, you use Lev. 26:18 in a
>very arbitrary way. Although the Scripture clearly indicates that 70
>years was to be the total length of exile (Jer. 29:10-14), you take
>the 70 years as somehow the initial segment of a 430-year sentence --
>entirely without Scriptural justification.
The Literal Principle of biblical interpretation, says that when the literal sense makes the best sense, seek no other sense, unless you end up with nonsense. The Synthesis Principle says that one must interpret scripture in light of the rest of what scripture says (scripture interprets scripture).
The objector already tried to make sense of Ezekiel 4 in the following ways:
1) With the Literal Principle, and got nonsense.
2) With the Synthesis Principle by applying Ezekiel 4 with Jeremiah 25 and got 560 years, which is nonsense, and yet despite the interpretation yielding nonsense, he declared the nonsense interpretation a more valid attempt than the interpretation discovered by Grant Jeffrey.
The objector stopped there after two attempts, but Jeffrey had read enough of the Bible enough times to remember that God is merciful; God has a right to extract full payment, but does not. Click on this link for a bunch of Bible verses on the mercy of God.
So Jeffrey took 430 years of sin of Ezekiel 4, subtracted the 70 paid in the fulfillment of Jeremiah 25, and multiplied the balance of punishment owed to God by "7 times" from Leviticus 26:18,21,24,28 for "punishment" which is the same Hebrew word "S5771" as "iniquity" is in Ezekiel 4. After adjusting for 360 day years, and adding the days calculated to 536 BC, Jeffrey got 1948 AD as the end of punishment.
>But instead of a straightforward application, you use Lev. 26:18 in a
>very arbitrary way.
God could have righteously extracted the full 430 years of Ezekiel 4 in one shot, but since God is also merciful, He did not. What the objector calls "a very arbitrary way" is Jeffrey applying the Synthesis Principle of interpreting scripture, by applying the well-documented mercy of God to the Word of God on what would happen, and getting an intelligible result. 430 years of punishment were specified in Ezekiel 4, and after a merciful mere 70 years of punishment from Jeremiah 25 when 430 were deserved, immediately after which when the children of Israel were still yet disobedient (see Ezra 9 and Nehemiah 5), the remaining 360 years were multiplied by 7 from Leviticus 26.
In short, the objector wants to focus on a subset of ...
1) 430 years of "punishment" of Ezekiel 4
2) 70 years of exile of Jeremiah 25
3) 7 times more punishment of Leviticus 26
4) The mercy of God
... when all are relevant to proper interpretation, which yields a result that is not nonsense.
First the objector takes 7 x 70, and gets nonsense.
Then he takes 7 x 430, and gets nonsense.
Next he cites (430-70)x7 (he meant to say 70+((430-70)x7 ) which is the only way all the evidence of what God said about Israel's punishment is used, and calls this "playing with numbers"
Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.
Leviticus 26:24
So, to summarize:
1) "S5771" means "punishment" as well as "iniquity" according to Strong's Concordance and other English Bibles.
2) The definition of prophecy in the dictionary says nothing about when it is understood
3) Isaac Newton expected Biblical prophecy only to shed light on past fulfillments that people might believe
4) Athiests can't make evolutionary theory harmonize amongst themselves or with the hard fossil evidence
5) Only Judeo-Christianity, to my knowledge and expectation makes short and long term forecasts of the future, with accuracy
6) Reading the Bible with plausible rules, and keeping an eye on all scripture, simultaneously, allows for consistent interpretation of scripture
ROTB

This message is a reply to:
 Message 162 by Amlodhi, posted 08-24-2004 10:41 AM Amlodhi has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 186 by lfen, posted 09-06-2004 3:59 AM ROTB has not replied
 Message 187 by lfen, posted 09-06-2004 4:32 AM ROTB has not replied

  
ROTB
Member (Idle past 7144 days)
Posts: 40
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 08-21-2004


Message 183 of 189 (140035)
09-05-2004 5:53 AM
Reply to: Message 176 by ramoss
08-26-2004 12:20 PM


Re: Prophecy?
Well, the notion that the entire New Testament was written before 70 AD is fairly new, and admittedly not widely accepted yet.
I'm sticking by the whole thing being written before 70 AD because that is when the 2nd Temple was destroyed, and this destrucion is not mentioned in the New Testament at all, and it would in my eyes be big news if it were written after that fact.
ROTB

This message is a reply to:
 Message 176 by ramoss, posted 08-26-2004 12:20 PM ramoss has not replied

  
ROTB
Member (Idle past 7144 days)
Posts: 40
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 08-21-2004


Message 184 of 189 (140036)
09-05-2004 5:53 AM
Reply to: Message 177 by ramoss
08-26-2004 12:24 PM


Re: The Bible is the Word of God
>Excuse me, but 'messanic rabbi's" are not rabbi's per say. They are not
>Jewish. They might play at being Jewish all they want, but they have
>volentarily abandoned their faith.
Depends on what one considers "Jewish" to mean:
To Jews that reject Jesus, "Jewish" means:
1) The Old Testament (they call it the "Tanakh") is the word of God.
2) Jesus is not the Messiah
3) The Talmud leads us through Judaism
To Jews that reject Jesus, and the Talmud (Kaarites?), "Jewish" means:
1) The Old Testament (they call it the "Tanakh") is the word of God.
2) Jesus is not the Messiah
To Jews that reject Jesus, and the Talmud, and everything but the 5 books of Moses, "Jewish" means:
1) The Torah (5 books of Moses) is the word of God.
2) Jesus is not the Messiah
So even Jews themselves disagree what "Jewish" means.
But the heart of the faith of the Old Testament, is that the Messiah is coming, and would show the way to heaven. Christians and "Messianic Jews" simply believe that the Messiah came in the 1st century AD.
If a Jewish person reads the Old Testament, and studies the prophecies for the coming of the Messiah, and decides that the Messiah came in the 1st Century AD, and that his name would be Jesus (please read http://www.bksilverthorne.com/jewishbib.htm), (edit start) has he abandoned his faith and ceased to be Jewish? (edit end)
ROTB
This message has been edited by ROTB, 09-05-2004 04:55 AM
This message has been edited by ROTB, 09-06-2004 11:22 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 177 by ramoss, posted 08-26-2004 12:24 PM ramoss has not replied

  
ROTB
Member (Idle past 7144 days)
Posts: 40
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 08-21-2004


Message 185 of 189 (140037)
09-05-2004 6:24 AM
Reply to: Message 175 by PaulK
08-26-2004 6:02 AM


In the eighth century B.C.E., civilizations all over the world either discarded or modified their old 360 day calendars. The 360 day calendars had been in use for the greater part of a millennium. In many places, month lengths immediately after that change were not fixed, but were based instead upon observation of the sky.
Other Ancient Calendars | Calendars
The probable reason for thirty of these holes (rather than some other number) is given in a quote attributed to the Midrash Rabbah: "The moon begins to shine on the first of the month and increases in luminance till the fifteenth day, when her orb becomes full; from the fifteenth till the thirtieth day, her light wanes, till on the thirtieth it is not seen at all." 4 Obviously this calendar (or a prototype) was created when each lunation was considered to be a full thirty days in length.
http://www.12x30.net/artifact.html
These people consider the evidence that the earth had at one time a 360 day year so strong, that they outline the math for the energy transfer delivered by a meteor strike, and its effect on the earth's rotation.
360 Degrees in a Year
I stand by the links I have presented.
Regarding the Bible using 360 day years: In Genesis, from the second month to the seventh month, the water prevailed 150 days. 150 days/5 months = 30 days/month.
Quoting Isaac Newton:
All nations, before the just length of the solar year was known, reckoned months by the course of the moon, and years by the return of winter and summer, spring and autumn; and in making calendars for their festivals, they reckoned thirty days to a lunar month, and twelve lunar months to a years, taking the nearest round numbers, whence came the division of the ecliptic into 360 degrees.
Page not found
Isaac Newton spent decades reading the histories of Nations. He did not claim they used 360 day years as an off-the-cuff unsubstantiated remark. If the writer of http://www.historicist.com/Newton/title.htm claims that despite errors in final results, the methods used by Newton were sound, what evidence have you read of that points out the errors in Newton's judgement on this 360 day year point, that allows you to brush off his efforts so easily, especially given that there is not a consensus on what happened 28 centuries ago?
ROTB
This message has been edited by ROTB, 09-05-2004 02:24 PM
This message has been edited by ROTB, 09-05-2004 02:35 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 175 by PaulK, posted 08-26-2004 6:02 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4678 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 186 of 189 (140262)
09-06-2004 3:59 AM
Reply to: Message 182 by ROTB
09-05-2004 5:53 AM


Re: On Prophesy.
I have spent a few hours searching the Internet for examples of long term fulfilled prophecy like the ones at Page not found in religions that are not Judeo-Christianity. I found none. If they exist, I have not seen them, and I would appreciate knowing about them
When the iron bird flies in the sky and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered across the earth, and the Buddha dharma will spread to the land of the
red-faced man.
- Padmasambhava, eighth century Buddhist saint
At the time of the Indian Buddhist saint Padmasambhava's portentous prophecy, Buddhism was just beginning to take hold in Tibet. Few imagined, as that visionary did, that Buddhism would transform Tibet's bellicose nomadic culture into a society that prized spiritual mastery over military prowess.
http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/...asters/tibetan/mastindex.html
There is a corresponding Hopi prophecy:
"When the iron bird flies, the red-robed people of the East who have lost their land will appear, and the two brothers from across the great ocean will be reunited." --Hopi Prophecy
wovoca.com - This website is for sale! - wovoca Resources and Information.
I've read reports but don't have a citation that the Dalai Lama was observed meeting the Hopi Elders.
lfen
editing to add: It's been decades but IIRC the book BLACK ELK SPEAKS contains a prophecy about the demise of the Native Americans. However that could also be regarded as a contemporaneous observaton as the tribal peoples were being everywhere defeated by the europeans. (was it only non christians stealing their land and massacring them? You do know how badly the natives fared in the christians schools where out of Christian love families were torn apart and the children forbidden to speak their language. Given a choice I'm sure they would have chosen to be spared the christian love.)
lfen
This message has been edited by lfen, 09-06-2004 03:08 AM
This message has been edited by lfen, 09-06-2004 03:41 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by ROTB, posted 09-05-2004 5:53 AM ROTB has not replied

  
lfen
Member (Idle past 4678 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 187 of 189 (140264)
09-06-2004 4:32 AM
Reply to: Message 182 by ROTB
09-05-2004 5:53 AM


the science of biology
If one is an atheist, and I don't know if you are or are not, but for the atheists who are reading this, I ask you to consider this book you can buy for $22 that has thousands of quotes by atheists on how utterly lame and intellectually indefensible evolution, and big bang cosmology, and humanistic thinking are. If you only have $3.50 there is a short book available at this link which concentrates on quotes by atheistic evolutionists on the subject of how bad the evidence is for evolution. Atheists themselves can't agree on how to harmonize evolutionary theory with the fossil evidence.
You've read creationist apologetics. Have you studied biology, genetics, and the Theory of evolution? Research in biology, cosmology, and possibly humanistic thinking (not sure what subject you mean by that) is ongoing and producing results whatever your sources opinion.
Disagreement is part of the process of science. I'm not sure how to weight your criticism. I guess the total agreement of Orthodox, Catholic, Baptist, etc. churches has led to your expectation that scientist should emulate christians?
lfen
edited to say: This was supposed to be a reply to 173. I'm not sure how I got it be a reply to 182, but I'm going to bed as tiredness seems to have been partially responsible.
This message has been edited by lfen, 09-06-2004 03:42 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by ROTB, posted 09-05-2004 5:53 AM ROTB has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 188 of 189 (140272)
09-06-2004 6:21 AM
Reply to: Message 185 by ROTB
09-05-2004 6:24 AM


OK so you go against the evidence to support a crackpot idea from the "yfiles" site.
I'll stick with the evidence rather than believing nutty religious apologetics.
I've already explained exactly why Newton should not be believed over modern historians on this issue and it was neither due to his methodology nor any suggestion that his claim was a mere "off the cuff" remark. How about actually answering that rather than refuting claims I never made ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 185 by ROTB, posted 09-05-2004 6:24 AM ROTB has not replied

  
dpardo
Inactive Member


Message 189 of 189 (141068)
09-08-2004 6:57 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by ramoss
08-22-2004 10:24 PM


Re: The Bible is the Word of God
ramoss wrote:
"Those were other messiah prophecies not fullfilled. Such as, world peace, the Messiah also must be married and have children, and have
years added onto his life.
So far, no person has met the following requirements to be the Messiah
Qualifications The successful candidate will have attributes that must include, but not necessarily be limited to, the following: 1. Be the seed (a direct descendant through the unbroken male line) of King David, through King Solomon (e.g., 2 Sam 7:12-16; Is 11:1; Jer 23:5, 30:9, 33:15; Ezek 34:23-24, 37:24) 2. Be a spiritual and military/political leader (e.g., Is 2:3, 11:2; Dan 7:14) 3. Be married and have children during his term (e.g., Ezek 46:16-17)"
Are you sure that Ezekiel 46 is talking about the Messiah?
Edit: Figured out how to quote inside blue box.
This message has been edited by dpardo, 09-08-2004 06:03 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by ramoss, posted 08-22-2004 10:24 PM ramoss has not replied

  
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