Summations Only

And where, prey tell, in your literal treatment, or even in some metaphorical application, of this scripture, does your god condemn/scold/admonish/wag a finger at the man for this supposed transgression? From what I can tell he went on to conquer other territories and commit other atrocities for Israel without any impediment from your god whatsoever. Show me where Jephthah was condemned by your god in even the smallest way for his rash vow or the burning to death of his daughter.

Yes, It is exactly the point. The difference between saying "whatsoever" and "whosoever" is pretty close to naught. Jephthah might just as well had said "whoever and whatever". The point is that the first half of your post is pretty much without a point.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

You have to know the Bible, AZ, you have to know God's law, you have to know what He has said throughout scripture about rash vows and human sacrifice. Perhaps I can spend the time to do the research later to show you what I mean but from your attitude I doubt it would make any difference.

Again, it is a matter of learning the history and background in such cases.Israel and Judah were always separate nations or factions and had often conflicting beliefs and religions.Both of those examples are about the conflict between Judah and Israel. Josiah was a King of Judah while Jeroboam was a King of Israel at around the same period. The Davidic confederation of a united Israel and Judah (kinda like Scotland and England under James I & VI, still separate nations but with a common monarch) had broken down and the Ten Northern Tribes formed Israel (an interesting aside, Jerusalem was never in Israel) while the remaining two tribes made up Judah.So what we find in this part of the Old Testament are accounts from the POV of the two often waring factions and the various beliefs that grew up in each camp.Edited by jar, : fix sub-title

My reply to jar's Message 1589, cleaned up considerably. Oh, Faith goes far beyond that! She wants a secular government in which only those who share her beliefs will have any political power, whereas those who do not agree with her will have no political power whatsoever. Yes, she did backpedal mightily to say that she did not want to change our current political system, but in the end she did still wish fervently for a political system in which only her own religious beliefs held any power whatsoever and anybody who held different beliefs would have absolutely no say in how they were being governed, undoubtedly to the extent that they would not even be allowed to express their beliefs; no freedom of speech in her utopia!But the real problem lies in the title of this topic: "Is the Bible the inerrant word of God? Or is it words of men?"If the Bible is the inerrant word of God, then the laws in the Bible are from God and are similarly, well, perfect, right? So shouldn't they be implemented, replacing mere imperfect Man-made laws?That is precisely the argument that I've heard from far too many "true Christians"; Faith has also voiced this sentiment, but again has back-pedelled to a more moderate position. But far too many "true Christians", not benefitting from feedback from normals as Faith does here, have given the matter no further thought and navely clammer for "God's Absolute Law" to replace human laws, including the Constitution of the United States of America (the expressed goal of the now-quiesent Christian Reconstructionists whose multi-generational plan to reconstruct the US into an Old Testament theocracy involved home-schooling materials).After all, "God's Law" is perfect and absolute, so implement it already! And they don't stop to think of just what that would entail, or even what's in "God's Law", let alone what the Bible has to say about such a plan (eg, Galatians 5). Laws like forcing rape victims to marry their rapists. Stoning disobedient children. Stoning anyone who violates the Sabbath (Oh, I forget! Is that Saturday or Sunday? Starting at what time of the day? The vast majority of Christians get this law wrong.). Killing anyone who does not observe the Day of Appropriation, not that anybody has any idea what that could be! And all other kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things.Oh, no!, modern apologists will say. Or not. Most of the advocates for "God's Law" who have given the matter any actual thought (I assume that some do exist; ironically, one of them would be Faith, though I believe it was only her involvement here that had forced her to give it any thought) will admit that not all of "God's Law" is appropriate for our present society; the old ways were for olden times, not modern ones! Which merely serves to create a modern filter of "God's Absolute Laws". But if you are free to apply modern human societal norms, which are relativistic standards, to choose which parts of "God's Absolute Laws" to enforce and which to ignore, then "God's 'Absolute' Laws" are no longer "absolute". And their arguments for implementing "God's Laws" lose all credibility.So why can't "true Christians" see that? Because they already constantly pick and choose which parts of "God's Absolute Laws" to observe and insist that the rest of us must observe. What else could we expect when they come to actual power?Actually, we did encounter this before, because the "true Protestants" (in Faith's estimation) had been in power before. The Geneva Bible translation was too egalitarian, so King James wanted a different translation, one that more greatly solidified his own political power, one that more greatly solidified the Divine Rights of Kings:

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The divine right of kings, or divine-right theory of kingship, is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving the right to rule directly from the will of God. The king is thus not subject to the will of his people, the aristocracy, or any other estate of the realm, including (in the view of some, especially in Protestant countries) the Church. According to this doctrine, only God can judge an unjust king. The doctrine implies that any attempt to depose the king or to restrict his powers runs contrary to the will of God and may constitute a sacrilegious act. It is often expressed in the phrase "by the Grace of God," attached to the titles of a reigning monarch.

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So then the problem with the "Divine Right of Kings" is that the King could never possibly do wrong. If ever the King made the wrong decision and you opposed it, then you were not only opposing the King, but you were opposing God Himself! At least when the Vatican still had some political power, the Pope could take a king to task for his excessive actions, but he could play no such role with the Protestant kings so Protestantism ended up promoting the Protestant kings as unchallengeable despots, an idea that even Catholic kings adopted as the Pope's political power waned.Opposition to the "Divine Right of Kings" developed in England, the best known example (in the US) being the Colonies' "Declaration of Independence" which argued strongly that kings actually derive their right to rule from the consent of the governed, and that instead of being solely accountable to God, they are accountable to the people they govern! Those ideas developed further as the mandate for the Constitution of the United States of America was given it its preamble:

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We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

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In the words of the Radical Religious Right in the early 1980's: secular humanism!Why mention the difference between the Protestant idea of the "Divine Right of Kings" and the humanistic idea of government by consent of the governed for the benefit of the governed? Because when considering the Bible to be the inerrant word of God leads "true Christians" to attempt to have "God's Law" implemented, then what they are trying to do is re-institute the "Divine Right of Kings", only this time the "king" would be a theocrat, however appointed, who would be the one to decide exactly what "God's Absolute Law" is, which parts of it to enforce, and exactly how. And nobody else would have any say about those laws, because to do so would be to oppose God Himself, an act of sacrilege which would in turn be a crime.The next time you encounter a "true Christian" (or if you are yourself a "true Christian") who advocates implementing "God's Absolute Laws", ask him how exactly that would be accomplished. Do they expect all of them to be implemented? Have a short list of specific laws, like forcing a rape victim to marry her attacker, etc, and ask about having each of those implemented; don't forget the specific and explicit punishments that accompanies each one of those laws. Remember, most "true Christians" don't even know about those laws. If he takes the more reasonable position of only implementing some of the laws while ignoring the others, then ask how that's supposed to be decided. Who decides? On what basis will he make his decisions? Faith has suggested that the laws can be classified into particular categories and only certain categories should be implemented in modern society, but even there we still have the questions of who decides the categories, which categories to implement, and which category a specific law belongs. This is very important, because the decisions that he makes will have the force of the Word of God, so any attempt to question those decisions would also question the Word of God, which would be punishable as sacrilege. And the person or persons who are given the power to pick and choose and interpret and implement the Word of God will be absolute despots.Now, what effect will the basic question, "Is the Bible the inerrant word of God? Or is it words of men?", have on this entire matter? Absolutely none whatsoever. All that matters is whether enough people can feel convinced that it is indeed the "inerrent word of God" and that will be enough to do irreparable harm. Whether they turn out to be right or they are dead wrong, the effect will still be the same. So that basic question is moot.So then, Jar, Biblical Christianity is a far greater threat to mankind that you could possibly imagine.

My bias is against unevidenced claims, nothing else. Even were your claims of parallels accurate they wouldn't be amazing, but they're not accurate, and more importantly, that wasn't my objection.My objection was that the authors of the later story had read the older story. Just as important, the stories are unevidenced. If Abraham had actually taken Isaac to Mount Herzi instead of Mount Mariah but a scribe changed it for later effect, how would you know? If Abraham had actually had two sons by Sarah instead of one, how would you know? If Abraham and Isaac never actually existed, how would you know? You just assume the Bible is true - you don't really know. All you have is assumptions piled on assumptions. Like many people of various religions. This is your unevidenced belief. You don't really know.What's really strange is that you seem to think that the more details you provide of what you believe and the more often you repeat them that the more convincing it will be. Strange.--Percy

And so it is(n't). But that second half is pure gold!

I'm sure you can find plenty of other stories in your book that speak to those issues, but not Jephthah. If your god felt this way then here was a tale tailor made to illustrate those points and the author(s) did not go there. The story shows that this religious zealot lived righteously "in fear of the Lord," acted accordingly and suffered no consequence as a result of his vicious cruelty and went on to commit even more heinous abominations in the name of god as the leader of all Israel. The tale stands on its own quite well. I'm sure you are right about this. I certainly would not waste my efforts on trying to educate such a hopelessly lost soul with such a bad attitude, but I do appreciate your having considered such.

The Bible isn't a collection of morality lessons, though that's what you seem to think it should be. It simply records things that happened and often draws no conclusions from them at all, leaving that up to the reader. You can't tell from the account of Jephthah whether he was punished by God or not simply because it wasn't recorded there. We can only know from knowing the character of God from other parts of scripture that He condemns both rash vows and human sacrifice. A

Well no Faith, no one can tell that. All honest folk can do is read what is actually written in the story. What may be written in other stories is unrelated and irrelevant to what is written in Judges 11. What you are doing is just apologetics, trying to explain away all the contradictions, falsehoods and errors in the Bible stories. It's nothing new and was even necessary when many of the Epistles were written beginning with the need to try to explain away the fact that it was recorded that Jesus said the end times would come during the generation of his disciples.Apologetics and commentary have been both profitable and show every sign of being an eternal and unending profession but all the errors, contradictions and falsehoods are still there.It's sad because there is so much to learn from the Bible stories if they were not perverted and diminished as they are by so called Biblical Christians.

In the time of the Judges the Law of Moses had already been given. The people, while no doubt having some knowledge of their history and the Law of Moses, nevertheless were living according to their own views. NOT reading the Bible according to the whole context only keeps you in the dark. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

For context, the Book of Judges is about a period of time in which Israel was led by a series of "judges" who were raised up by God to deal with specific threats from enemies, brought about by the sins of Israel. The account of Jephthah is given because he was one of the judges, in his case called to be a military leader against the Ammonites. The vow he made is part of the story but it isn't the reason the story is there, which is simply that he was one of the Judges God raised up in response to a threat from enemies.

What the hell does that have to do with what I said in the post you are responding to?You do understand that at the time the stories of Joshua, Chronicles, Judges and Kings the Hebrews were still polytheists and a big part of the story told in those books is the about the Yawhist faction in Judah trying to create monotheism don't you and impose monotheism on Israel?

Bunch of revisionist theology there, that's for sure.

Sounds instead like a cremation with some accompanying ceremony.