Ps 148 wrote:
First, let me give a clear example of how we can misunderstand something the bible says because of language barriers:
I think you are making a pretty strong case against inerrancy. You’ve said that translation itself can change the meaning of the text, that some parts (parts that other writers considered so important that they quoted them) have been left out or are missing, that meaning is hidden, etc. All that seems to be quite consistent in that it sounds like you are saying that the Bible cannot be relied on.
No. In the Hebrew culture (language, custom, not quite sure what to call it), it was a respectful term, although its literal translation is woman, which to us is disrespectful.
Regardless of whether that specific verse is a contradiction or not, I have to ask - how do you know that the Hebrew says/means/implies that? Very often I see all kinds of “explanations” of contradictions that are blamed on translation by saying that the Hebrew word or whatever means something else, in a way that resolves the contradiction. These are very often just Christian apologetic fabrications that are false, since they know they can say the Hebrew says whatever and most listeners won’t know any better. One common example is the “virgin” mistranslation in Isaiah. Christians will say that the Hebrew word means “virgin”, when in fact it doesn’t. If you got that information from a pastor, priest, apologetics site, or faith-healer, I’d take it with a pretty big grain of salt - and that goes for other contradictions that are defended by saying that the original language says something else.
Let me ask you something, with all that I've been saying, discussing, and what knowledge I have of the Bible, how old and how intelligent schoolwise would you say I am?
A direct question deserves a straight answer. I don’t know, but I’ll guess in your 30’s at most, with no degree in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, nor any degree (from an accredited University) in the Bible.
Everything can be explained.
Not only is that in direct contradiction to our result in the cock crow discussion, it also (and more importantly) shows the mindset - that the goal is the explain away any contradiction at all costs. Instead, maybe a better approach would be to drop the faith based clinging to the presupposition that the Bible can’t have any contradictions, and instead work to find the truth?
the authors of the Bible were men; who were moved by the Holy Spirit to write what they did and as such did so without error. They were moved, not controlled. IE, if they went off, I suppose it corrected. Like Matthew thought "Jesus was crucified with four thieves" And then the HS steps in and gives him a refresher, and suddenly Matt is like "Oh, wait, that's not it"
Isn’t that control? In other words, you are saying that the holey spirit is ultimately responsible for anything wrong, since you suppose it corrected if they went off - such as if they misquoted, or omitted something, got a fact wrong, or such? Please be clear on this - does the holey spirit make sure their product is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Thanks.
Something about the Church. What is the ultimate hope for believers? What is in it for them? Hint, its not what you think, and it is what positively screams at you if you read without preconceived ideas.
I’ll answer this only because it is a question in a response to my post. I think the Bible can be stretched a number of different ways (hence the “screaming” meaning). As a result, it has proven very useful in extracting money, time, and commitment from people over the years. The ultimate hope for believers, and what is in it for them, is therefore irrelevant - they are simply being stolen blind.
The Good news of the Kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ (who he was). Jesus always talks about this thing called "the kingdom", yet we rarely hear about that do we?
Right. If you learn about the Historical Jesus work (here is a great introduction -
The Great Courses), you’ll agree that the coming Kingdom was Jesus’ main concern. It’s not emphasized much in many churches because it isn’t as useful in resource extraction.
I as well have noted differences in the accounts of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicals.
If that’s true, then I’m amazed that you would say that there are no contradictions, and even more amazed that you’d say a numerical contradiction would “make you think”. It takes mental gymnastics topping those of Nixon to resolve the contradictions between those accounts.
I disagree with your logic of the contradiction there in Exodus. I have explained my reasoning on it. It is part of the Torah, this part especially was likely written by the same dude, Moses or not, and if he would make a slip like that, there would be a ton more around it.
So your answer to this clear contradiction is the same answer you gave before, that “it must not be a contradiction because it would have been corrected by now”? That’s not an answer - we know that very, very few people in the ancient world could read, and those that had the power didn’t want to show everyone an error. Why would it have been caught, and more importantly, why do you disagree with modern scholar’s who reject the idea that a single person (Moses or not) wrote the Pentateuch? More importantly, it shows an ignorance to how texts like the Bible are constructed over time - it’s not like someone sat down and wrote it out all at once, or that parts aren’t changed continually over time.
Why is Jesus still here when so many other religions have fallen through the cracks? Why don't people still worship Baal because orgies are part of the religious service? Because there is something different. His words won't pass away, and to today, almost 2000 years later, they haven't passed away. Yet Pythagoras, he has passed away, in the sense of the world, his words have passed away.
So a religion is right if it is old and popular? Then many religions beat Jesus - Hinduism is centuries, probably millennia older than Christianity, and is growing faster as well. Islam and Mormonism both claim the Jewish root (hence age), and are both growing faster than Traditional Christianity. In fact, your Jesus - Kingdom approach has also fallen through the cracks - it was more a focus 1900 years ago than it is now.
The Quran and the book of Morman claim to be (pretty much) the third Testament, and in that, they disagree with the first two. If it is the same God in all of them, why does his plan change throughout the books?
As IA pointed out, they are both much more consistent than the Bible, and they use the same methods to pretend to have the same message going back to Genesis as you are using. With all that, there is no basis to say that the God of any of them is more shifty than the God you are proposing.
1 hitman slaughter a family: Jehu killing the house of Ahab.
2 severed heads of 70 children: False, I think you misquoted. This is the house of Ahab again, and they weren't all likely children (a couple may have been), and the heads weren't ordered to be put in baskets by God, but by Ahab.
3 Human Sacrifice: Four or so examples. Abraham. However, it was a test of faith on his part, and he wasn't allowed to carry it out. Jesus, a form of human sacrifice I suppose. Jephthah, his only daughter given as a burnt offering. And I don't know if this one counts, but Joshua curses Jericho and for its gates to be set up, and it's foundations laid, it cost one their oldest, and youngest sons.
4 Pie from monkey fingers: false.
5 Killed children: Done during conquest of Canaan. Why, because if you are exterminating mice (not to equate people to mice, but bear with me), and you leave the babies because they haven't stolen food, spread disease, or anything, they grow up into those big mice you just finished exterminating.
6 Genocide: covered above. I may have mixed up the two... I know children were ordered not to be spared, but I do not think it was ever ordered specifically that children be killed.
7 Failed to follow through on his word: When? Does repenting of what he said count as failure to follow through with his word? Other examples are when he didn't give all the land to Israel because they didn't listen. I think all of the instinces when he 'goes back on his word', there were two sides to it.
8 Torture innocents as part of a bet: Job.
9 Flying people"...this ones a bit more tricky, I can't think of anything off of the top of my head, but it is said that angels at least flew, but as for people, I don't think so.
10. Jumping doorknobs. Unless it is in a prophecy I'm unaware of, it is not there.
11 Talking animals: Balaam. Oh, and some sheep, because Jesus said, "as a sheep before it's shearers is dumb..." So this means they talked on occasion, but not around their barbers : )
12 Army of Zombies: You are referring to Ezekiel, no? One, that was a vision, two, they were more than zombies.
Cool, a double success! You got the quotebox right, and did pretty good on the above, with the following minor corrections:
2. here is the account from 3 Kg 10:
And the one who was over the household, and he who was over the city, the elders, and the guardians of the children, sent word to Jehu, saying, "We are your servants, all that you say to us we will do, we will not make any man king; do what is good in your sight."
Then he wrote a letter to them a second time saying, "If you are on my side, and you will listen to my voice, take the heads of the men, your master's sons, and come to me at Jezreel tomorrow about this time." Now the king's sons, seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who were rearing them.
When the letter came to them, they took the king's sons and slaughtered them, seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to him at Jezreel.
Looks to me, for a number of reasons, that they were mostly if not all kids. If you still think there weren’t kids in there, then we can continue discussing it. In addition to killing the kids and putting their heads in the baskets, God clearly had planned this - it’s not just some Ahab idea. Read 2Kg 10:30 if you aren’t sure -
The LORD said to Jehu, "Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab all I had in mind to do , your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation."
5 - there are really too many to count because God very often orded the killing of children. But in particular, there are several cases where God does the killing himself, apparently not wanting to bother with a middleman. In Exodue God kills thousands of children simply to make himself look powerful, and in the flood god kills millions of children. Your mouse example is both heartless as well as being illogical - mice aren’t people - you can raise people to act differently than their parents.
6
I know children were ordered not to be spared, but I do not think it was ever ordered specifically that children be killed.
How is there any difference between those? Even if there was, yes, children have been ordered to be killed, as we saw, and God himself even did the killing sometimes. I don’t understand how any one with any morality or integrity can continue to molly-coddle this heinous stuff. Here is Num 31:
"Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
Now, they apparently weren’t “inspired” to write out all the details, but think how this would have went. Perhaps like this:
It is a joyous day for you. The war against the Midianites is finished, the Lord God has blessed you, and you have been victorious. You have taken all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and taken the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods, as the Lord commanded you.
Two of your soldiers come towards you, between them there is a young Midianite woman. They grasp her shoulders and clothes tightly to prevent her from escaping. In her arms, she protectively holds her small baby. Seeing this, you tell your soldiers to hold her, and you stride towards her. As you reach for her baby, she struggles to free herself, but your soldiers hold her well.
The baby cries as you grapple with him, trying to pull him away from his mother. Suddenly, you give the mother a heavy slap across the face. In the moment when she is stunned, you pull her baby away from her. Her voice thick with emotion, she says, "Please don't take my baby! PLEASE! Please I beg you!"
Without answering her, you carry the crying baby away, but order your soldiers to bring the mother. After a short walk, you reach a rocky patch of ground that is littered with jagged beige stones of medium size. Using both hands, you raise the baby, still crying, above your head.
The mother screams frantically, "NOOOO!!! PLEASE DON'T KILL MY BABY! I beg you! I will do anything for you, anything! PLEASE!!"
You ignore her pleas. With all of your strength, you hurl the baby towards the stones. The mother covers her face with her hands, unable to look at the imminent death of her baby. There is a loud cracking sound as the baby's skull hits a rock and breaks, along with other fragile bones. However the baby does not die instantaneously. His arms and legs slowly twitch as his blood starts to seep out of his broken body and stain the rocks and the ground with bright redness. After some time, his body ceases twitching, and he is dead.
The mothers legs have collapsed, and she has fallen to the ground. Tears are streaming down her face making dirty streaks, and her body is shuddering with uncontrollable sobs.
You look at what you have done, and you feel happy. You smile at your soldiers. You feel honored to be serving the almighty God. You turn to face your people, and you say unto them, "Have ye saved all the women alive? Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."
You gaze with approval as a group of your men kick the legs out from underneath a Midianite girl of about 14 or 15 years of age, causing her to fall to the hard ground. She screams in terror and kicks frantically, but your men hold her arms and legs, stretching her out on the ground. One of your men pulls up her dress and examines her hymen, poking and prodding with dirty fingers splattered with dried blood from earlier activities, in an attempt to determine whether she is a virgin and thus whether she will be killed or kept alive for the pleasure of the men.
Satisfied that she is a virgin, your men then proceed to throw dice to determine who will have sex with her first. You nod, and praise and thank the Lord for all that He has given you today.
Praise the lord! The Bible is good, pure and holey!
Back to the numbers -
7 - read that exodus verse again - God says he will write them, but then has moses write them. Plus all the failed prophecies, and plenty of other cases.
9 - Elijah, Jesus (see Acts 1:9), perhaps Enoch - it doesn’t say how they got him up there. Plus, don’t forget that to the ancient Jews, Heaven in the divine sense and Heaven as in the place above the sky were literally the same place. The flat surface of the earth was under the bowl shaped firmament of the sky. Thus, you can play word games and pick which meaning you’d prefer to fit our modern knowledge of the way the world really is.
11. Don’t forget the talking snake in Gn. There is nothing in Gn to suggest that this is the devil - that’s a later application of the story.
12. Yep, plus Mt 28.
Speaking of Mt, there are plenty of references to Hell that go beyond just a trash dump. You’ll see the same thing in Mt 25, and we can get into more if you’d like.
Have a fun day- Equinox
Edited by Equinox, : typo
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