Summations Only

There you go again interpreting what you say you take literally. How do you determine what applies to you and what doesn't when you remove reason as a way of understanding Scripture? There you go again putting your own spin on things. So much for literalism. Read back through earlier posts in this thread. I've pointed out numerous contradictions like the one in the OP. Read the "Sermon on the Mount" to see the number of things that Jesus corrects from the OT.Trying to read the Bible literally runs you into ever diminishing circles until you do what Dawn Bertot does which is just to say I believe it to be true when it is obvious that it isn't.I know that happens to be what you might call faith but frankly I think that it is a very poor excuse for faith. It is faith in the Bible instead of faith in God as revealed in Jesus. As I said earlier, it is Bibleianity as opposed to Christianity. I agree that you are completely free to worship a god who brings us a duplicitous message that allows us to make up our own morality. I worship a God who is incarnate in Jesus who was/is very clear of the morality that He desires us to embrace.

As there doesn’t seem to be any other fundamentalists who wish to defend their position of understanding the Bible as being word for word directly from God then I’ll provide a recap of my views. If anyone wishes to respond feel free.When someone attempts to understand the Bible as essentially being dictated by God, (which I contend can’t be done anyway) we wind up with a God who‘s very nature becomes incoherent. In one case we have Him advocating genocide and then telling us to love our enemies. We having Him involving the people who are to reflect His nature to the world stoning to death difficult children, prostitutes etc. He would have someone stoned to death even for the minor misdemeanour of picking up wood on the Sabbath but then later, through Jesus, telling us that we will be forgiven as we forgive, and saying that he who is without sin should cast the first stone.This view of scripture is completely incoherent. If people believe that they have to understand Christianity on that basis it is no wonder that the faith is so often rejected by thinking people.I contend that we are to read the Bible to learn truth which is not the same as reading it for facts. I’ll use again an example I’ve used before. If we were to read an account of the Viet Nam war as written in the US and compare it to an account written in Viet Nam I suggest that we would get two quite different perspectives on that war. However, that doesn’t mean that the war didn’t happen or that both accounts contain factual information. Both accounts will be both culturally conditioned.If we look at the example in the OP it is easy to see that the writer of 2nd Kings and the writer of Hosea were both influenced by their cultures and as a result they have two different perspectives on the fact of what Jehu had done in Jezreel.The obvious question then is how do we discern what is the truth of the Scriptures. I’ll leave aside people accepting Christianity because of a personal experience of God and approach it simply from a non-experiential POV.As a Christian I see it as being a matter of faith and that faith starts with the resurrection. We can read the accounts in the Gospel and decide if we are going to have faith in the Gospel accounts of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. When we read those accounts we can see that Christianity arose on the basis that that the resurrection is an actual historical event, and Paul goes so far as to say that if it isn’t true then we are wasting our time and that we are to be pitied. I think that it is pretty obvious that the writers believed what it was they were writing which of course does not prove that they were correct.I contend that it is reasonable to believe the accounts. They are not written in a way that would be consistent with somebody concocting these stories with an ulterior motive. They are written in a way that often makes the main characters look foolish. First century Jews generally believed in resurrection but only at the end of time for the chosen ones of God and again, generally speaking there wasn’t any anticipation that someone would be resurrected in the middle of time. If the story was being fabricated they would in all likelihood have had Jesus glowing like a star and everyone would recognize Him. Instead they have Him unrecognized and then recognized, appearing and disappearing and even eating fish. It is written with the sense that, I know this sounds a little more than odd, but this is what we observed. IMHO there is no case to be made for the stories being fabricated.IMHO what we have to make up our minds about is whether they are mistaken or not. We can read it and say that it is just too fantastic and we can’t believe it, or we can read the Gospels and say that it speaks to me and on faith I will accept it as truth.The other part of our faith that goes hand in hand with that is the message that Jesus taught. Do we accept that we are to have hearts that love unselfishly, and hearts that find joy in the joy of others? Do we have faith that we are called to have hearts that desire that we forgive readily, and that love kindness, justice and mercy.If we then approach the Bible armed with faith as I’ve described above we can make sense of the Scriptures. In a sense there are two main themes to the Bible. The first is the story of what God has done and what God is doing and what God is going to do. The second theme is how we as humans fit into that story.The first part of the story is that God created and we can read that in the Bible without trying to turn it into a science text. We have the OT accounts of Moses, Abraham and the prophets that all lead up to Jesus. Look at this quote from Zechariah 9.

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9Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem ! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem ; And the bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations ; And His dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.

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The Hebrew Scriptures told of a King or Messiah coming as a humble man of peace. We are told that Jesus came to establish Hid Kingdom and that the Kingdom and that the characteristic of that Kingdom is to be one of humble servant hood. (I know we aren’t doing real well with that — are we?) We are then told that when time as we know comes to an end that God through a great act of re-creation will be bring all creation in both the earthly and heavenly dimensions together to form a non-entropic world characterized by unselfish love.There are passage all through the OT that counteract the message of violence that can also be found. IMHO we are to understand all of that through the lens of the message of love and peace espoused by Jesus. As I’ve said before I think that it is particularly important to note that Jesus preached this message of love and peace while He and His fellow Jews were living in enemy occupied territory and being brutalized and heavily taxed.The second theme is how we fit into that story. In some sense the message is that we are made in the image of God. We have been made His agents to care this world, and that we are to care for it based on reflecting of His love into the world. In some way we are building for the time when all will be made new. We are called to follow through on that with faith. There is no certainty. For me the Christian message makes so much sense of all that I see, feel and experience but I fully recognize that there are many kind, thoughtful loving people who disagree. In the end we all have faith of one sort or another.As I’ve said the Bible contains the word of God but it is Jesus that is the Word of God which is what the Bible tells us to be the case in John 1. IMHO we are belittling the Bible and ignoring the gift of reason, and for that matter the gift of the Holy Spirit when we try to turn the Bible into some sort of Book supernaturally ghost written by God. The Bible is a gift to us through which we can learn all we need to know, and more for that matter, about what God desires for our lives and what His plans for us are.

I think it is reasonable to assume that any change would be because mankind had changed as opposed to God changing, meaning that God’s desires for mankind had always been the same but that He might relate to us differently as we had changed.I agree that God’s relationship with us is evolving as slowly our societies are evolving and becoming more Christ like. I know Christians talk about the old and new covenants but I don’t see it quite that way. In a sense there really is only one command and that is that we love unselfishly. The interesting thing about that is that it isn’t a command that we can just decide to follow. We can’t just go out and spend a couple of hours in the local food bank and say ‘look how unselfish I was’. How can we change our own outlook to go from being selfish to being unselfish? How do we change from finding our fulfillment or joy in our own pleasures to finding that our lasting joy and fulfillment is only truly found in serving and bringing pleasure to others?Yahweh can be found in various places in the OT, (the 10 commandments for example), to be promoting an existence that gently leads His people to a world of unselfish love. However, in many places in the OT there are examples that show Him leading His people in the opposite direction. Having His followers commit genocide or stone people to death is not likely to encourage His followers to love unselfishly. It would require God to go against His own nature as well as His desires for mankind.One of the things that Jesus did in His ministry in fulfilling the laws was to clarify them. The people of course who best kept the laws were the Pharisees and they were the group that Jesus appears to be the hardest on. In the Sermon on the Mount he tells us that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. That is actually easy to understand as the Pharisees felt that by keeping the laws meticulously they could get God on their side. However as I already said, (all IMHO of course), it isn’t about keeping laws for the sake of getting God on your side but about keeping the laws because they flow naturally from hearts that love unselfishly.The point of all that then is that God would never have commanded people to commit acts that lead to hardened hearts, so although mankind was slowly evolving as God continued and still continues to touch our hearts the basic relationship between God and mankind remained the same. I think that it is analogous to us raising our kids. As they mature we may treat them differently but the long term goal is that we raise them to be the kind of adults that we believe they should be. If we want our kids to be unselfish we don’t tell them to do selfish things at age two with the expectation that by age 20 they will miraculously unselfish.To understand the OT it has to be read in context with what has been revealed through Jesus and to fully understand the NT we have to read it in context with the OT. It’s hard to understand the conclusion if you don’t have the set up in your head and you certainly are missing something if you only read the set up and don’t read the conclusion. It appears that Jesus was referring to Deuteronomy chap 18 vs 15-19.

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15 "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren--him you shall heed-- 16 just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die.' 17 And the LORD said to me, 'They have rightly said all that they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

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I think that we can confirm that when we read what Luke says in Acts 3 vs 22-26

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22 Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from your brethren as he raised me up. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. 23 And it shall be that every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.' 24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came afterwards, also proclaimed these days. 25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God gave to your fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your posterity shall all the families of the earth be blessed.' 26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you in turning every one of you from your wickedness."

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As far as the authorship of the Torah is concerned it is clear that Jewish tradition taught that Moses wrote it but it seems to me that it is a bit like us saying that Matthew wrote Matthew whereas in reality we don’t know how much direct or indirect input Matthew actually had.Cheers

It is extremely likely that they wouldn’t accept Jesus as the one talked about in Deuteronomy. Jesus was reinterpreting everything that The Pharisees believed. The Pharisees believed that if they meticulously kept all these laws, of which there were hundreds then God would return and lead them to victory over their enemies Their people would be vindicated and they would be the dominant force in the world with Yahweh, or His representative as King.Jesus said that their understanding of the Scriptures was seriously flawed. Jesus said that it isn't about keeping laws and sacrificing to the Temple in order to find favour with God. Jesus said that God wants mercy, not sacrifice. Jesus said it's all about kindness and justice, it's about love and forgiveness. Jesus said and demonstrated that leadership of others is about serving others. Jesus said that it isn't about acquiring land and power but it is all about building the new world wide, all encompassing "kingdom of God" that is built on love and service and not by swords and spears.In order for the Pharisees to accept Jesus as the Messiah they would have to adjust their thinking by 180 degrees.

I don't understand how you came to that conclusion. Jesus was saying that He was the one referred to in Deuteronomy. All I'm saying is that I fully understand why it is that the Pharisees, for the reason I've already outlined, weren't going to accept Him as such.

I don't disagree with that, but I don't see how that relates to what you said in your post 147. How is what Jesus said not true?I think the concept of the high image of Himself comes from our earthly perspective. Yes Jesus says that He is the one anointed by God but His message is that is anointed by God as he has been given the job of serving God and people. He isn't saying that He is anointed by God because He is wonderful but that He is anointed because God the Father is wonderful and that God has called Him to be the servant of all.As it says in Matthew 20:

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26Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,27and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

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Also of course that was the point of washing the disciples feet, a job done by the lowest of servants.

You said earlier: That is what I was querying. I can't see where I have said that anything that Jesus said wasn't true.He is essentially saying that they are looking in the right places but they are not understanding it in the right way. He is saying that if they truly understood and believed what Moses was saying that they would believe Him, (Jesus), because Moses was referring to Him.

We seem to be talking past each other because I don't know what it is that you are saying that I agreed wasn't true.I siad that Jesus was saying that if they understood the verses in Deuteronomy correctly they would understand that it is about Him. We just disagree on that as does Jesus according to the book of John and Luke according to the book of Acts. Actually we don't get a response when Jesus makes that claim but I think we are safe in assuming that they would disagree. Jesus certainly implies that.

Well I'm sure the Pharisees would argue that they believed Moses but Jesus is saying that they don't believe the truth of what Moses is saying. OK Here again is Deuteronomy 18.

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15 "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren--him you shall heed-- 16 just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die.' 17 And the LORD said to me, 'They have rightly said all that they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

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Can I definitively say that this is about Jesus? No. It appears that Jesus believed that it was referring to him and so did Luke when he wrote Acts 3.

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22 Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from your brethren as he raised me up. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. 23 And it shall be that every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.' 24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came afterwards, also proclaimed these days. 25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God gave to your fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your posterity shall all the families of the earth be blessed.' 26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you in turning every one of you from your wickedness."

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If you choose to say that it doesn't refer to Jesus then that's fine. It appears that the writers believed it was and so they may have been mistaken. It appears Jesus believed it if indeed He was even quoted correctly. I agree that this isn’t knowledge in the sense that there is any kind of objective proof. Objectively we know that The Bible exists and we don’t seem to disagree on what it says, however we subjectively come to our conclusions about what we believe and don’t believe about it and in this case it appears we have come to different conclusions.We are kinda off topic here but as it is a discussion about how to interpret something from the Bible I suppose it does fit into the discussion of how we should understand the scriptures.

I have finally sorted out what you're getting at. I'm even slower than usual. Ya, you're right. The problem was my circular thinking on the issue which is odd as I started the thread criticizing Biblical literalism.I started with the view that what they didn't believe was that Jesus was the Messiah and so I set with that in mind and you have correctly corrected me. On a more careful reading of the John 5 44-47. It appears to me now that Jesus is referring to the whole of the Torah in context. Jesus was constantly referring to passage from the Hebrew Scriptures icluding the Torah. From these He understood a very different message than what the Pharisees taught. (Actually we keep talking about the Pharisees when actually it seems He was talking to Jews that were antagonistic towards Him which likely would include Pharisees.)He says in verse 44 that they are seeking glory from one another and not from God. Jesus is saying IMHO, (even more humble than it was before), that they disbelieve Moses in regards to the whole of the Torah taken in context.He is also saying, that if they really did believe Moses then they would see that what Jesus taught is consistent with that and then they would believe Him.There is no doubt that there is a great deal in the Torah that is not consistent with what Jesus taught which I’m sure you would point out but then I’m not a literalist and I think that this shows that Jesus wasn’t either. It seems to me that He expects the Jewish leaders to understand that as well and be able to discern what is of God within the context of all of their Scriptures.

I see it this way. Jesus understands that the Torah message is one of love and peace. I know that there is a lot of other stuff in there as well but it is my contention that Jesus wasn't a literalist either and understood the Torah to be consistent with what He was preaching.Jesus IMHO is saying that the Pharisees have ignored the message of the Torah and are going their own way which is their idea that if we keep all of these laws meticulously that Yahweh will return and give them victory over their enemies. So, for this reason, Jesus is saying that they don't believe Moses. As an adjunct to that He is saying that because they don't believe Moses that they don't recognize Him as Messiah because His message is so different from the one that they espouse. I actually do have confidence that Jesus has been correctly quoted, although not necessarily word for word nor in terms of the sequence of things that He said. With the resurrection the sayings of Jesus would have been carefully kept in either written form or by oral tradition, and would have been the source for the Gospel accounts. (IMHO)In order for them to believe that Jesus was the messiah they would have to change their conceptions of God almost completely as did Paul and likely Nicodemus.So yes, I agree that they would believe that particular passage but they wouldn't see Jesus in it as they were looking for a messiah that didn't resemble Jesus at all.

No, I am saying Jesus said that they didn't believe the message of love and peace that was revealed through Moses. He is essentially saying that they have used the Torah as a vehicle to further their own agenda, and as a result have a very different view of what a messiah would be as opposed to what Jesus actually was. There were looking for someone more along the lines of a Judas Maccabeus which wasn't like Jesus at all.

I’m not ignoring the fact. I don’t believe that He wasn’t accurately quoted. I’m saying that Jesus is saying they didn’t believe Moses’ message that God is about love and peace, and have instead created their own view of God that fits where there human agenda. In light of that they don’t believe that the passage in question or anything else in the Torah for that matter refers to Jesus.Here is vs 44:

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44How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God ?

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Here is Jesus saying that their beliefs that they hold are wrong in that they are about pleasing other men and are not pleasing to God. It is for this reason that although they believe that there will be a messiah they don’t believe that Jesus is the one.I agree that my position has changed from when I started for which I give you full credit.

Let's just look at the bit ahead of what you have quoted from Matthew 24.

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16then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.17Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house.18Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak.19How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!20Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.

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If you are suggesting that this is about the end of the world why on earth would Jesus be telling them to flee to the mountains ASAP? Why would it be a problem if it is in winter?This is Jesus saying, in typical Jewish apocalyptic style, that because of following the way of revolution rather than the way of peace there will be massive destruction at the hands of the Romans which we all know happened within many of the lives of that generation.Incidentally, for you who see the Bible as being given to the writers word for word by God you might consider these words from Jesus in John 5, in speaking to those that reject His message.

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39You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me,

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It is not the Scriptures that have authority or power but it is Jesus. The Christian life is not about Bible study or head knowledge it is about having hearts that love unselfishly and generously. As I said, it is Christianity, not Bibleianity. (For the rest of you I am NOT saying that only Christians can have hearts that love unselfishly and generously, but that is something that is a message for all of mankind in all times.)

It was not changing the subject. I was showing where it was that Jesus was claiming that they did not believe what Moses was saying but believed what was pleasing to themselves. Of course He meant it. He is merely saying that because they did not believe the message of Moses in the context of the entire Torah, they did not believe that anything, including this passage, was about Him.I'm afraid I don't know how to be more clear.