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| Author | Topic: A Problem With the Literal Interpretation of Scripture | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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GDR Member  Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Hi Granny
Granny Magda writes: The OT wasn't written by Christians or for Christians. It was written by Jews for Jews. Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.
Granny Magda writes: . Whatever Paul or other later Christian writers thought those OT authors meant, well, they are entitled to their opinion, but ultimately, their opinions are worth no more than yours or mine. Not really. Paul was a first century Pharicetical Jew and steeped in the tradition. He would understand the Hebrew Scriptures in a way that we can’t hope to today.
Granny Magda writes: Trying to force fit the OT into a Christian framework is never going to be easy. It will never create a narrative that is free of contradictions. Your problem is that in attempting to view the OT through a Pauline lens, you are unfailingly going to create a distorted picture, and only increase the number and severity of those pesky contradictions. I don’t think we should try and view the OT through a Pauline framework. Paul was writing primarily to a Gentile audience. Certainly he saw Jesus in and from a Jewish context but he primarily wrote about the Jewish Messiah who was crucified and resurrected. He taught about a man embodied by the creator God and the message of love, restoration, peace and forgiveness that He brought to the world.
Granny Magda writes: Much worse, you are allowing yourself to fool yourself into understanding the OT in Christian terms, something that I think is the single biggest error that Christians make in interpreting the Bible. On one level I agree with you. The Hebrew Scriptures which are largely the same as the OT were written centuries ago in a culture totally unlike our own, with a style of writing that is completely different than what we have today. However, it is important that we realize that Jesus was a Jew, functioning in that culture, speaking in speaking synagogues and in the vast majority of cases speaking to a Jewish audience. In addition all of the writers to the best of our knowledge were Jewish except for Luke. When you get a good Bible and follow through with the footnotes in the Gospels it is obvious that Jesus understood His vocation within a very Jewish context. None of this means however that we will have anything approaching a complete grasp of the intent and understanding of the OT authors but it does help us to understand, IMHO, what Jesus meant and how He understood much of what He said, but you are right in saying that we can’t understand the OT in Christian terms but the OT can be of help in understanding Jesus in Jewish terms. Merry ChristmasEverybody is entitled to my opinion. 
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
NoNukes writes: With regard to the contradiction GDR points to in Hosea, I don't see a clear cut contradiction. In the King James Version, Hosea 4 reads as follows: quote:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Certainly getting vengeance for the previous massacre is how Jezreelians would see things, and God could have easily used this bad will to punish Israel for their actual crimes, namely those described in Hosea 1:2. GDR quotes the NIV, and I will agree that it is difficult to gather the same message by reading only Hosea 4 from that translation. But upon reading Hosea 1:1-4, it is pretty clear that God's attitude towards Israel has changed because of the unfaithfulness of Judah to God.
The NAS is supposedly the translation that sticks closest to a literal translation of the earliest manuscripts so here is the pertinent vs from Kings II chap 10 and then Hosea 1: 1-4 from the NAS.
quote: The whole passage is in the OP but in this specific verse God is pleased with the slaughter, as well as the destruction of the idols to Baal, to the point of saying that is what is in his heart and then goes on to say that Jehu's sons through 4 generations shall sit on the throne of Israel.
quote: Now in Hosea we have God saying not only that He will punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed but that He will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. It is patently obvious that the 2 book are written by 2 different authors with 2 different cultural perspectives. To think that both passages were dictated by God would make him not only duplicitous but a liar. If however we understand the passages as 2 different writers with 2 different perspectives and understand it as the ongoing narrative of the people of God then it all fits into place, and we don't have to suspend our God given reason to make sense of it. Be very careful of agreeing with ICANT. Merry ChristmasEverybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
NoNukes writes: But even given the NSA translation, what it seems to me that you are doing is taking a hyper-literally reading the text, finding a contradiction, and then using the contradiction as an excuse for a much looser reading. What I see even in the NSA translation is that God has gotten angry at Israel for transgressions other than the bloodshed, and has decided to punish Israel by switching sides. But very specifically says:
quote: Certainly I'm taking a literal reading, hyper or not, but that is that is the criteria that Dawn is using. I suppose you can say that God switched sides but does that sound like an omniscient god to you? Also if you follow the story through as 2nd Kings was obviously written after the fact we can see that it did go down 4 generations from Jehu as King of Israel. In Hosea 1 it appears to be written while Jehu as still alive and we can see that in 2nd Kings that there was no punishment for the House of Jehu within that 4 generational spread, and there was still a succession of kings in Israel for a period of time after that. In other words it appears that what Hosea claims that God told him would happen; didn't happen. I'm not sure that I am taking a looser reading. I am saying that the messages accurately portray what the authors intended them to do. The authors just had a vastly different take on the situation.
NoNukes writes: Quite frankly, what I find more difficult to swallow is God's direction to Hosea to take a harlot wife. I don't get that at all. Ya, go figure. However, it is at least in a broad sense consistent with the way Jesus treated prostitutes, tax collectors etc. Jesus seemed to treat the legalists with all the answers, such as the Pharisees, considerably more harshly that He treated the prostitutes. I wonder if we have any parallels to that today? Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Dawn Bertot writes: GDR you have as much freeewill to trust and believe God as you wish. Freewill is not freedom to decide what truth is and what is not WITHIN in Gods word, that part has already been decided. If we still get somethings wrong, that doenst change the premise that Gods is always right within his written Word We have the freedom to comprehend truth to the best of our ability. You seem to agree that there are many things in the Bible that don’t really make sense but you simply conclude that there is some reason for it that you or I don’t understand. Please explain to me why it is that it is necessary to understand the Bible as being literally written by God. The Bible itself is very clear. From John 1:
quote: Jesus is the Word of God. The Logos was incarnate in Jesus. That is why we are Christians. Jesus was the climax or fulfillment of the Israel story. If the teaching of Jesus is inconsistent with parts of the OT then as Christians it seems very obvious that we go with Jesus. However, we keep going around in circles. I’ll try something else. Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount to describe the give an understanding of existence in the life after the new creation and how it is that we are to build for that re-creation of all things. Here is a passage from it.
quote: Now then let’s look at just one example from the OT. From Deuteronomy 7:
quote: Is this the same omniscient God that is the same yesterday, today and forever? The thing is, if you understand that the OT quote represents God equally with the quote from the Sermon on the Mount you wind up worshipping and serving a very different God that if you understand Jesus as embodying the Word of God and use that as a filter in understanding the OT. The fundamentalist reading of the Scriptures that views the Deuteronomy reading as accurately depicting the heart of God has a very different take on things than someone who understands God as represented by Jesus. In a discussion that I had with Iano he wrote this:
quote: That is the type of thinking that you get when we understand the OT as literally true. I won’t quote them but look at the posts by the fundamentalists in the Hitch is Dead thread. I just can’t understand this kind of thinking by people who call themselves Christian. Frankly I find these posts by people who are supposedly of the same faith as me chilling. I can see no way of squaring any of those posts with the Sermon on the Mount, but if the OT is understood literally then I suppose it makes sense if the NT is only paid lip service.
Dawn Bertot writes: GDR your heart is in the right place, but your faith is not. Your placing your faith in your abilites to decide what is acceptable or not, when God has already don e that for us But you are placing your faith in your ability to decide what is acceptable or not when YOU MAKE THE DECISION that you will try to understand the Scriptures in a literal manner. I would add that I can’t quite understand how you actually can come to conclusions with the conflicting images of God that we find in those two quotes.
Dawn Bertot writes: GDR you have as much freeewill to trust and believe God as you wish. Freewill is not freedom to decide what truth is and what is not WITHIN in Gods word, that part has already been decided. If we still get somethings wrong, that doenst change the premise that Gods is always right within his written Word Once again you are dismissing the manner that I contend the Scriptures are to be understood and assuming that there is no questioning of your position. You simply dismiss contradictions and moral ambiguities out of hand by just saying that I, and presumably you as well, don’t understand for one reason or another.
Dawn Bertot writes: Ok, if you dont like the word dictated, then could we conclude as the bible teaches that God is infinite in wisdom and could therefore never make a wrong decision? Sure but that doesn’t tell us anything about how we are to understand the Scriptures. I’ll give you that quote from Paul again form 1 Cor 4.
quote: God will judge the motives of men’s hearts. It is not about whether or not we got our theology right. Read from Mathew 7:
quote: And what is God’s will? We are called to humbly love kindness and do justice. We are told to love God and neighbour and we are told to love our enemy. As Christians we have been given the vocation of proclaiming that Christ is King and to enact that message by serving His creation. Yes if we truly believe then we are pre-judged but just what does it mean by to believe. It does not mean giving intellectual ascent to the divinity of Christ. It is about actually making Him Lord, taking on board that to rule means to serve, (remember the washing of the disciple’s feet?) and finding our joy in the love that we show and feel for others, and for that matter all of His creation.
Dawn Bertot writes: So if your same fella sees a passage where Jesus says we are to love our neighbors, then he reads a passage out of Paul that says"Then the Lord will descend with the a shout and with the voice of the archangel, taking vengence on those that know not God andobey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" I can’t find that quote of Paul. Can you tell me where it comes from? Edited by GDR, : typoEverybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
NoNukes writes: God recognizes free will while being omniscient. I suppose that's going to lead to some strange sounding outcomes, but perhaps not so strange if Israel's punishment is going to be a short lived punishment rather than a condemnation. It didn't actually seemed to be short lived at all. The reign of the house of Jehab did last 4 generations and the kingdom of the House of Israel carried on longer than that. As I said, KING 2 seems to represent what actually happened which isn't surprising as it was obviously written well after the fact. The prophesy in Hosea just didn't come to fruition.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Granny Magda writes: Perhaps. But not necessarily in the same way as the authors. Paul is coming to the OT centuries after it was written. He may have been a scholar of Judaism, but his understanding of those texts would have been badly flawed. For example, he would have believed in Mosaic authorship, a major mistake. He would have had no idea about anything resembling the Documentary Hypothesis, another major failing. He would have been steeped in tradition about those texts, much of which would have been wrong. I don't think we can take him that seriously as an interpretor. I'm not so sure about Paul subscribing to Mosaic authorship. Anyone who knew the scriptures as well as Paul would know that it would have been difficult for Moses to write the part of the Torah after he was dead. I suggest that it could have been understood as tradition and not fact. For example how many sermons are preached on the Prodigal Son that someone listening to it, who had no prior knowledge, would believe that it was story that the preacher believed to be historical. I agree that he would have no idea about the "Documentary Hypothesis" but some parts of the Torah are obviously from different sources so I think he might well have had a smattering of an understanding of it. He would at least have knowledge of the way that it was understood by his contemporaries and of course just how that played into Christ's understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Granny Magda writes: But it is also fair to say that Jesus shook up the status quo to a very great extent. His Judaism was a radical departure from that which had gone before. I don't think we should expect the Old and New Testaments to align with each other; if anything, we should expect them to disagree a great deal, which they do. Yes and no IMHO. I believe that Jesus' self understanding of who He was as Messiah, and the vocation that flowed from that, was solidly based on the Hebrew Scriptures, particularly Isaiah, Daniel and the Psalms. The OT is written by men with their personal and cultural biases but within all of that I firmly believe that there is the true revelation of God. Jesus understanding was very different than the understanding of His Jewish contemporaries like you say. For the Jews it was primarily about God giving them land and power in this life whereas Jesus was about changing hearts and building the Kingdom for the next life.
Granny Magda writes: A Merry Christmas to you and yours! Thanks and to you as wellEverybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
ICANT writes: Could you show me where the text says Jehu is being or going to be punished for anything? Hosea says the house of Jehu will be punished. That would include Jehu. I think you’re trying to split hairs here.
ICANT writes:
But at the time Hosea is talking about God is preserving a particular people whom the messiah would come through so we could benefit from having God in a flesh body to be our sacrifice to restore us to the kind of a relationship the first man had in the Garden before he chose to disobey God's direct command. The prophesy of Hosea concerning the punishment of the House of Jehu , which certainly appears not to have come to fruition, has nothing to do with preserving the culture. However, let’s say for the sake of argument that it did. You are again creating a god where the ends justify the means. You have a god that is quite happy to have the people he loves be involved in the mass slaughter of their neighbours. He even seems to be content with them using lies and deceit in order to gain the trust of their victims in order to facilitate the slaughter. This god seems to show no concern for the fact that engaging in this slaughter can only harden the hearts of the people he is supposed to love. I’d suggest that you re-read the Beatitudes and ask yourself if this sounds like the same god that we see incarnate in Jesus.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
ICANT writes: Why would it have been difficult for Moses to write of his death. He was fortold he was not going to enter the promised land because he had disobeyed God by smiting the rock instead of speaking to the rock as instructed. He wrote a song the day he died and finished the book of the law according to the text.
He also knew where he would be buried, and that the grave site would be lost forever. For that matter why is it written in the third person? However, if the Torah is literally dictated by God, why does it even matter whether or not it was penned by Moses?Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Dawn Bertot writes: Not really its just a matter of trusting what the Lord has said. example do you really believe that jesus spoke these words and why do you believe that I believe it as a matter of faith. It is simple as that. However, having said that I suggest that there is good reason to believe it. IMHO there is no other world view that makes as much sense of the world from a moral, scientific or practical aspect as does Christianity. Let’s look at this passage from Matthew 15.
quote: Frankly, I contend that what you regard as doctrine is actually the precept of man. There is no reason to understand the scriptures in the way that you do. The message is consistent through all of the Gospels. What God wants is our hearts. Here is how Jesus starts the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.
quote: That passage tells us what it looks like when we give our hearts to God. It says nothing about doctrine. It is about our hearts. What makes us right with God is that we have hearts that love. Hearts that love others as we would like to be loved. Hearts that love all that God has created for us. Hearts that love truth, mercy, justice, kindness, forgiveness etc. Hearts that find joy in the joy of others. Jesus came for all mankind not just those who get their doctrine right. This does not mean that there won’t be those who consciously reject unselfish love, and cling to the love of self, but that will be there choice. One of the big problems with your theology IMHO, is that you confuse vocation with salvation. Our vocation as Christians is to preach the good news that Jesus the Servant King reigns. We are to preach Christ crucified and resurrected by the Father. We are to preach that at the end of time there will be perfect justice done for a re-created heaven and earth in one. We are to preach that all loving acts have purpose in building for that re-created world and that it all has ultimate meaning and purpose. Salvation is about hearts. Jesus says this is Matthew 9. (The same message is repeated in Mark and Luke.quote:Salvation as we see in Matthew 25 is about hearts that feed the hungry, visit the prisoners, clothe the naked, house the homeless etc without understanding that it was Jesus they were doing this for. It is about hearts that automatically go to the loving choice. Christians who have truly given their heart to God and not just their intellect have the Holy Spirit to guide them down this path of truth and righteousness. We are also told that it is God that will judge human hearts and that isn’t our business.
Dawn Bertot writes: Please give a valid argument as to why oneof these stories is true the other is not. Please explain why you know that the scribe that wrote the passage was not inspired by God and the author of the gospel passage was. heck, for that matter just explain why either one is real Once again, it isn’t about knowing. It is faith. As I said in the first part of this post, the Gospel message is that what God wants of us is that we have hearts that love. In the passage that quoted Jesus we can clearly see that if we follow through on what Jesus our hearts can be softened. In the OT passage I quoted it is easy to see that by slaughtering men, women and children by hand the hearts of those that commit the atrocity will be hardened. In addition to that it was the Jews who were given the message of loving thy neighbour and were supposed to take that message to the world. Committing genocide is a little tough on the witness wouldn’t you say. It isn’t difficult to discern the truth that God wants us to receive.
Dawn Bertot writes: I have offered you a valid, logical and scriptural answer to that query. I have suggested (with no answer from you)that if two people believe the Bible to be Gods word, it would follow that Gods infinite wisdom should be observed and worshiped before some decision we read about in scripture. My friend that is as simple and logical as it gets. Ironically, while going to the store the other day, I passed a church billboard sign, where I use to attend. It said "FAITH IS TAKING GOD AT HIS WORD". I thought wow, how can it get any simpler than that? On the way back from the store, the opposite side said, to my further satisfaction FEED YOUR FAITH, STARVE YOUR DOUBT Of course the only way to feed your faith is through his word, which we should take at face value, even GDR, if we have doubts The scripture that you say is to be read literally says that Jesus is the Word (Logos) of God. The Bible is a collection of writings that contain the word of God. We keep going round and round on that. Taking it at face value does not mean that it has to be taken literally.
GDR writes: But you are placing your faith in your ability to decide what is acceptable or not when YOU MAKE THE DECISION that you will try to understand the Scriptures in a literal manner. I would add that I can’t quite understand how you actually can come to conclusions with the conflicting images of God that we find in those two quotes.Dawn Bertot writes:
That is as about as illogical as you can get. You come to a conclusion based on nothing but the tradition of the specific church or domination that you belong to and dogmatically keep repeating that it is the Word of God with your own definition of how that is to be understood. You do this while accepting that there are obvious contradictions in the texts. God has gifted us with reason and it seems like you think that we should throw that gift back in His face.
I have offered you a valid, logical and scriptural answer to that query. I have suggested (with no answer from you)that if two people believe the Bible to be Gods word, it would follow that Gods infinite wisdom should be observed and worshiped before some decision we read about in scripture. My friend that is as simple and logical as it gets.Dawn Bertot writes:
That’s odd. What about prayer? What about the Holy Spirit? What about as Paul says through His creation? How about from listening to others? How about through the writings of others? It seems that you have decided that there is only way to feed your faith and IMHO you have chosen a misguided way of doing it. Of course the only way to feed your faith is through his word, which we should take at face value, even GDR, if we have doubtsYes the Holy Spirit of God can touch our minds and hearts through the Scriptures, that is why we have them, but the Scriptures are a tool used by God, the Scriptures are not God. Edited by GDR, : typoEverybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
ICANT writes: In Exodus 17:14 God told Moses to write for a memorial a missive (written message). If Moses did not write then it's a lie.
How do you know that even if Moses did write a memorial, that what we read in the OT is what Moses wrote. Edited by GDR, : gotta proof read moreEverybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Granny Magda writes: It seems to me that you are willing to be more generous toward Paul than you would be toward a source that wasn't so important to Christianity. Mosaic Authorship was the standard model in the First Century. If you want to suggest that he held to any other model, you are going out on a limb; you need evidence for that, or you should assume that the default position applies. The default position in this case is Mosaic Authorship, because that's what people believed back then.
Josephus did seem to think that Moses was the author. I still wonder though. I know today we just automatically say the Matthew wrote the Gospel making it sound like we are assuming it’s a foregone conclusion that he wrote it, which is actually unlikely.
Granny Magda writes: I doubt it. Be honest, Paul's understanding of the Torah would have been dwarfed by any modern scholar. He was writing thousands of years after it was written, only without the benefit of modern knowledge and techniques. He was not any closer to the authors in any meaningful sense. His opinion is just another semi-informed opinion, no more valuable than any other opinion. That's probably true but he would have a better understanding of how his contemporaries understood the Hebrew Scriptures which is what is probably more to the point.
Granny Magda writes: Well this is definitely a whole separate topic, but from what I've seen, the OT material about the Messiah does not resemble Jesus very much. If that's your test, I think that Jesus fails it. There is the suffering servant in Isaiah and the somewhat more cryptic talk of the "Son of Man" in Daniel but that would not have been the understanding of the vast majority if any of Jesus' Jewish contemporaries.
Granny Magda writes: Well, as I've said before, I consider this to be a rather counter-productive way of revealing something. God for whatever reasons seems to have chosen to work through humans and as a result the message does seem to get muddied. As a Christian I would say that even when He chose to connect with us more directly He did it through the man Jesus. Merry ChristmasEverybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Dawn Bertot writes: Again with respect, you simply do not understand. Before you believe anything it is and becomes a simple logical proposition And you are saying that it is a simple logical proposition that we are to take a book written by multiple authors, from multiple sources, translated from the original languages, with numerous inconsistencies, depicting a god that is loving and forgiving but at the same time genocidal, and for no discernible reason believe that it is word for word literally from God. We obviously have a different view of what a logical proposition is.
Dawn Bertot writes: If we claim that it is from God, insist that we cant really distinguish between which writers were accurate and factual, insist that thier are contradictions and cant distinguish between which facts are accurate, then nothing else is verifiable, not even the reusurrection The Bible exists and we decide as a matter of faith what we are to make of it. You and I have come to different conclusions about what we believe by faith. Neither of us know anything.
Dawn Bertot writes: Its not that choosing a literal approach feels better, its that it makes no LOGICAL sense to begin with Well we agree but I don't think what you wrote is what you meant.
Dawn Bertot writes: As I have just demonstrated with my usual force of reason, you above statment is not the case Well I have to say Dawn that brought a smile to my face,
Dawn Bertot writes: To disregard Gods infinite power and suggest that he would leave us with some type of guessing game makes no logical sense. To suggest that we ourselves could work out and decide what should be accepted in the parameters of what we consider is his word, makes no sense It isn't a guessing game. It's faith and God given reason. If there was certainty we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Dawn Bertot writes: Unfortunately you are picking and choosing again. You are leaving out Gods infinite wisdom and mercy to make such decisions as those described in the OT Again I dont mean to suggest that I have a perfect faith, only that we seem to need to work on different aspects of it. But the point is that you cant take one part and leave off another
You for no logical reason have decided to understand the Bible in the manner that you do. I am trusting that an infinitely wise and merciful God would not countenance let alone encourage some of the despicable aspects in the OT. IMHO your method of understanding the Bible even runs contrary to the scriptures. Here is a quote from Mark 10 which is consistent with Matthew.
quote: Here we have Jesus correcting what was in the OT. Jesus didn't say that God allowed divorce but it was Moses that did because of the "hardness of their hearts". Jesus corrected the OT scriptures, so that it accurately reflected that which is from God. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Read through The Sermon on the Mount and look at all the corrections to the OT that Jesus made. The OT talks about and eye for an eye but Jesus says no, and talks about forgiveness and turning the other cheek. Dawn your method of understanding the Bible is not scriptural, is not logical and presents a confusing and false image of God. I really don't know what else I can say but have a very Merry Christmas.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Dawn Bertot writes: How about what you havent provided, a method of rational evaluation that allows us to distinguish between that which is to be believe from God and that which is to be rejected. GDR, your faith that jesus was true and the others were not, is not enough to establish your postion as rational, it has to be rational to begin with.
Neither your beliefs nor mine are rational in the strictest sense of the word. We can't really get to either position by reason alone. It is faith. You have faith that God has essentially dictated word for word the entire Bible. I have faith that the Bible is the narrative of the people of God as they perceived it. As part of that I have faith that Jesus was/is the living Word of God and that the NT writers accurately portrayed things that He said and events surrounding His life. Your faith requires you to, as I said before, take a book written by multiple authors, from multiple sources, translated from the original languages, with numerous inconsistencies, depicting a god that is loving and forgiving but at the same time genocidal, and for no discernible reason believe that it is word for word literally from God. The question is which of us is more irrational and I would suggest that mine at least gives a consistent view of God, whereas yours leaves you able to create a god in pretty much whatever way you like.
Dawn Bertot writes: The literal approach is atleast rational, and is consistent with what the scripture has to say overall, especially with what it has to say concerning Gods characteistics and nature As I said it is irrational and is inconsistent with what scripture says over all. I pointed out in the last post specifically where Jesus corrects what had been written in the OT. It also gives contradictory characteristics of God. Everything that you have just written there is dead wrong.
Dawn Bertot writes: In your approach, you have God as a finite, limited, confusing, lying, immoral monster. Now I know you dont believe or practice that, but that is the conclusions of your position It just baffles me how you can say that. It is exactly what I should be saying to you. It is you that believes that the God as depicted in the OT; the one who sanctions genocide and the stoning of difficult kids. I believe in the God that was incarnate in Jesus that repudiated all of that.
dawn Bertot writes: If not, how do we decide that which is to be as accepted. Should we do this on GDRs conclusions and estimations alone? What is someone disagrees with your approach to the resurrection. Can he still be saved beliving the story is to be believed only as a mythical story? We went over this before. You are mixing up salvation and vocation. We are saved for vocation by becoming followers of Jesus and we are saved for salvation by having hearts that love unselfishly regardless of theological beliefs. That is what the Scriptures say.
Dawn Bertot writes: When you are preaching to him concerning the reusrrection and he simply cannot believe that it was real, is he GOOD TO GO? What evidence will you provide him that that Jesus was real and had authority to correct things in the OT. BTW, Jesus was not correcting the OT, but thier misguided perception of it. God did atually provide a bill of divorcement, but then God has always been merciful They got that misguided perception because it was written in their Scriptures that it was God's desire. Let's look at other examples. From Exodus 21:
quote: Jesus corrects this in Matthew 5.
quote: This is from Deuteronomy 23.
quote: Jesus again corrects this.
quote: Dawn Bertot writes: Here is the proof from the NT,as you you believe it to be the truth "At the times of this ignorance God let pass, but now commands that all men everywhere repent and come to a knowledge of the truth" Acts
What on earth does that prove. Of course we should come to the knowledge of the truth. That tells us nothing about what is true.
Dawn Bertot writes: If however we dont know or cannot distinguish what the truth is or is not, then it is impossible to come to the knowledge of anything And you use for proof, and I repeat myself, a book written by multiple authors, from multiple sources, translated from the original languages, with numerous inconsistencies, depicting a god that is loving and forgiving but at the same time genocidal, and that you for no discernible reason believe is word for word literally from God. There is no proof. It is faith.
Dawn Bertot writes: BTW, what authority did jesus have to correct anybody about anything. Both Moses and Jesus claim to be from God. Who is telling the truth and why? You tell me. They disagree. Which way are you going to have it?
Dawn Bertot writes: My purpose is not to put you on the spot or hot seat as it were, just to let you know if you make assetions or allegations, you need to be able to defend them in some logical rational fashion Dawn please go back and look at some of things you have written. I find it difficult to believe that you can make a statement like that.
Dawn Bertot writes:
I believe that many of the OT miracles are legends and likely not true, (such as the flood and Jonah in the whale), but yes I believe in the miracles of the NT that God performed through Jesus. I believe on faith that those stories are essentially accurate. If you choose not answer this question that is fine. Again,do you believe the miracles as described in the Bible are and were real?Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
NoNukes writes: I don't think this is assessment if fair. DB's position requires God to act exactly as he described in the OT. While holding that position might require God and the universe to be completely inexplicable, DB's kinda stuck with that. I suppose but the point is that his/her understanding of the OT makes the NT completely inexplicable and forces a worldview that is inconsistent with what Jesus taught. The whole thing concerns me greatly on all sorts of levels that in the end are mostly political. For example a reading of the OT would support the wide use of capital punishment whereas when we read the words of Jesus and see that he would be opposed. (That will probably take us off on a tangent.  ) The OT presents a very different view point than does the NT when it comes to issues like Iraq. (Another tangent) An OT view also promotes a tie between Christianity and nationalism which is contrary to the purposes of the world wide" Kingdom of God" that Jesus established. Our understanding of Christianity matters immensely. Christianity is meant to be a force for peace and generosity in the world but by accepting that the God that we see embodied in Jesus is also capable of the OT atrocities then Christians will support any number of ungodly issues. It isn't as if the God that we see in Jesus isn't in the OT. He is all through it. Jesus whole life and message can be found in the OT but it is mixed in with all sorts of other stuff. Look at this passage from Exodus 23.
quote: Christ's message wasn't new. It was just all mixed in with everything else. If we read "The Sermon on the Mount" most, if not all of the questions can be answered.
NoNukes writes: On the other hand, your reading allows a bit more flexibility. I think people of different abilities and backgrounds are more likely to reach different impressions of God using your approach than they are with DB's approach. I don't personally find that to be a problem. The New Testament is directive and straight forward enough about all of the things that Jesus felt was important. I don't see my reading as providing more flexibility. IMHO my understanding of how the scripture is to be read prevents the misunderstandings that arise from reading the Bible the way Dawn does. However I realize that is a matter of faith and I'm subject to as much correction as anyone else.
Dawn Bertot writes: When DB uses the term literal here, what he really means is that the Bible's text is history dictated word for word by God. There is no textual basis for such a belief, so I cannot understand his claim that his approach is rational as it flows from an non-established premise. But in my experience Bertot's arguments are not always (not often?) logical, and it is nigh on impossible to get him to see or acknowledge any error. It is not logical to attempt such a task. It can be frustrating. However every individual matters and so we plod on ahead.
NoNukes writes: Merry Christmas to all. Liberal or not... In most of my Christian circles I'm considered a conservative but I know around here I'm considered a liberal. I'm just like everyone else looking for that elusive ultimate truth. Strangely here I am on Christmas morning posting here. I was up early and by myself and church isn't for another couple of hours. Merry Christmas to you as well. Edited by GDR, : typoEverybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
NoNukes writes: The OT has been used in this country to justify a lot of things that people find abhorrent. But in my opinion, the problem isn't the Bible. It's not necessartily the Bible but it's often the misuse of the Bible.
NoNukes writes: I've encountered some pretty silly interpretations of the New Testament. There is no shortage of that goin' around IMHO.
NoNukes writes: Turn around pastor and face the congregation. I'm the ultimate lay person. I'd be a sorry excuse for a pastor. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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