Bible Teachings or Traditions of Men?

This is said over and over here and I've answered it over and over. Just one more time, exactly WHAT do you think would show that there had been a bottleneck 4500 years ago that we don't see?My impression is that this new poster is a Jehovah's Witness or something along those lines, as Tangle asked. Questioning the Trinity is a clue.

Thank you. What this means is that there are many fixed loci or homozygous genes for many traits. It's what happens when there is a bottleneck NOW, but there is no reason to think it's what would have happened at the time of the Flood when according to Creationist assumptions there would have been a great deal more genetic variability so that even reducing the numbers that greatly wouldn't lead to homozygosity for many traits, perhaps none. It doesn't occur in any that I know of unless there has been a much more recent bottleneck, but it is easily explained on the basis of the Creationist assumptions as I say above.There is currently something like 7% heterozygosity in the human genome, our normal percentaqe, according to a creationist source I'd have to look up, and I suppose animals may have something similar, but this is no doubt a much reduced percentage brought about over the generations since the Flood. At that time the percentage should have been much much higher, and at the Creation itself even higher, since death would reduce it somewhat, and a huge bottleneck like the Flood reduce it all the more. If it was ever 100% I can't even guess but even 50% would be an enormous degree of genetic variability compared to what we have now.In other words the bottleneck of the Flood IS expressed in the reduced heterozygosity from the previous assumed levels, just not the extreme lack of heterozygosity created by a bottlenecked species today. There is no way to prove this that I know of, but it's a very reasonable explanation and quite logical.

Sure, we can cease and desist from this angle on Bible unreliability, but I STRONGLY disagree with you about the Bible. It certainly does provide a basis for scientific thought. You are welcome to your opinion but I make no distinctions between where the Bible applies to science and science can learn from the Bible. It's not some mythic "religious" text at all, it's God's own revelation of truth we would otherwise have no way of knowing, and that includes truth about the physical world wherever it has commented on it. So don't go pontificating as from on high as to what the Bible is and is not.

The Trinity is not specifically named in the Bible but it is implicit in a huge array of scriptural references that together add up to the concept of One God in Three Persons. Here is An Outline Study of the relevant scriptures.The affirmation that there is One God is the first reference in the outline for which he lists all the verses that apply.Then the facts that the Father is God, that Jesus Christ is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God, are also demonstrated from the scripture verses affirming the attributes of each as the attributes of God. All three are JEHOVAH God. Jesus Christ IS Jehovah God.Then he gives the scriptures that show that each is a distinct Person, God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit each described as a distinct personality.He also gives some common objections to various points.There are other similar outlines to be found on the interne that demonstrate the same thingt. The Jehofah's Witnesses are deluded in their belief about who Jesus Christ is and therefore about the reality and nature of the Trinity.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The outline I linked is quite a standard presentation of the scriptures that underlie the concept of One God in Three Persons, which is the Christian Trinity.I understand it can be overwhelming to be given so much material at once, but this really IS how the Trinity is proved from scripture. It requires the presentation of the many verses on which it is based to get across just how biblical it is, and it IS a thoroughly BIBLICAL concept, derived wholly from the Bible and not a manmade tradition in any way.As Dr. A pointed out, the verses are immediately available to you by merely hovering over the Bible reference. It's a very handy feature of the Blue Letter Bible site.The scriptures given at the link show God described as One God, and God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit described in terms of attributes that belong only to God, showing that they are all God, and describes each of the three as independent personalities as well. Putting it all together gets you One God in Three Persons.It's counterintuitive, not something anyone COULD have made up, but why should we expect God to be easily comprehended by our fallen intellect?Any resemblance to pagan trinities is purely imaginary. They have notions of three gods, and nothing at all like One God in Three Persons, which is the Christian formulation that goes back at least to Athanasius. What you call the "personal philosophy" of the author is, as far as I can see, standard Christian theology and not his own personal philosophy at all.You claim the context disputes various of the above conclusions, in which case I assume you can show me an instance or two from that link that does so?Perhaps when I have more time I will follow up your request to pick a few that make the point so they can be discussed separately.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : various small corrections

The Trinity is not made up of "parts." They are three separate individual Persons or personalities, and that is what this scripture verse affirms. They all have the attributes of God but they each have separate individual roles. So this verse is perfectly consistent with the Trinity as taught. It is a hard concept to grasp, but you aren't asked to grasp it, merely recognize what it actually says.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What I presented gives enough information for you to understand the point. It's rather odd to call so many references "cherry picking" but if it is then you ought to be able to find many verses that say something different than those say. Have at it.There is absolutely nothing "questionable" about the Trinity doctrine, it has been the doctrine of the true Church back to the early Fathers. Jehovah's Witnesses and others who think God ought to be bendable to human thought have merely revived the ancient heresy of Arianism which was definitively answered in the early centuries. You are free to believe the heresy, but it won't be because there is anything wrong with my argument.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You may of course argue for this view of it if you want, GDR, but in that case please be clear that you are arguing AGAINST the orthodox understanding of the Trinity. What you are describing here is known as the heresy of Modalism, the idea that God "manifests" in three aspects. That is not the orthodox understanding, which is that indeed they ARE three separate persons or personalities. That is the best we can do in English with the Biblical facts that describe them as working independently of each other while nevertheless each having the attributes of God.Let's try to keep the various ideas about the Trinity clear.

It is not only my understanding of Christian orthodoxy, it IS Christian orthodoxy as anyone who knows anything at all about Christian history ought to know. I'd have to check but I believe it's affirmed in most if not all of the Creeds, it's in the Westminster Confession, it's in the words to the 200-year-old hymn Holy Holy Holy, and so on and so forth. One God in Three Persons IS the historical orthodox Trinity. The scripture references I gave ought to more than suffice to prove that the orthodox doctrine of One God in Three Persons is as I say, thoroughly Biblical. And yours has been understood for some 1700 years to be heresy. Sorry, you are living in lala land if you think your view can be called "orthodox." The trouble with you GDR is that you don't mind telling other people why they believe what they believe, which is offensive and stupid as well. What rot to say that because one HAS FOUND absolute answers that must be because one WANTS them. No, there ARE absolute answers and I was NOT looking for them when I found them. I had made myself perfectly content with as much chaos and ambiguity as you could find congenial to your own made-up views before I became a believer. Who is this "we" to whom you refer? Certainly not the hundreds of millions of true Bible believing Christians down the centuries that you are judging by your own idiosyncratic one-man religion. I suspect the Lord is going to ask you when you come before Him just where you got the gall to prefer your own view to His careful teachings?

I thought it was your argument that that would be the case if they were "parts" of a whole. But if as I pointed out they are individuals, individual personalities, there is no requirement that they know exactly what each other knows. They are capable of independent action and, at least in this particular instance, the Father can have independent thought as well. ABE: Have to confess here that I'd gone off the rails with this argument. In a later post to Dr. A I provide some commentary quotes that show that this is regarded as a difficult and controversial verse because of course God in all three Persons WOULD have to know what the others know. So I was wrong about this.

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Among other possible explanations some understand this to mean that Jesus as man did not have the knowledge.Who said it had to "make sense?" As I said you aren't required to grasp or understand the Trinity, just acknowledge that it is founded on Biblical statements. That is also not what the Trinity is. As DEMONSTRATED by the scripture references (do read a few of them, do try to get SOME understanding of what it is based on), what SCRIPTURE reveals, whether it makes sense to us or not, is ONE GOD IN THREE PERSONS. It was FROM the scripture that the concept of the Trinity was formulated. Isn't that how it is with individual persons? Amazing how ignorant upstarts feel free to come along and redefine a concept that was hammered out from scripture by the best minds in Christian history and preserved in the Creeds and Confessions down the centuries. No, not parts, that's a heresy as affirmed by those best minds down the centuries, men who KNEW scripture, which most certainly can't be said of you. Why don't you take some time to learn just what the Trinity is, how it is derived from scripture and so on? I've given you enough information to do that so that you don't have to make up all this arrogant ignorant heretical sophomoric BS. Or if you don't want to bother to find out anything, then go crawl back under your rock and leave the thread to people who are willing to consider the facts. Based on the argument as I gave it, it is entirely consistent. Try following the logic instead of just chasing that one loose marble that keeps rattling around in your skull. Oh I'm sure you are very very good at that, you much prefer it to thinking and considering the facts as given. Another one-man wonder here, EvC seems to attract such self-appointed sages. I didn't know you were asking why. But why should anyone know why? God the Father keeps some knowledge to Himself, I see no reason why He shouldn't, and I see no reason why anyone should know why He does what He does if He hasn't revealed it to us. I don't know, I didn't check. It's consistent with his conclusions in any case.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : unclosed quotes, other little errorsEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This is not a matter of saying it "better," this is a FAR cry from what you said about God NOT subsisting in three persons but in three "aspects" which you asserted with rather a lot of emphasis as if correcting what I'd been saying all along. The two are so utterly different I wonder how you can so easily say the one and yet think you are saying the other. In any case now you are agreeing with the orthodox position. I wonder how long that will last. Probably. The nature of Christ as God incarnate was always the controversial issue. How rapidly you came around from your previous heretical assertion! Not sure why you included this but no matter. First, let's be clear that I was objecting to your offensive notion that anyone believes as I do BECAUSE of some need for absolute answers or certainty. That's offensive and wrong.Second, this whole flap started with your heretical statement about God's subsisting in "aspects" rather than persons. If you have taken that back then I'm not sure there's anything else that needs to be discussed.Third, Of COURSE the scriptures are culturally and personally conditioned, they are written by individual personalities in their own style and in the idiom of their time. That is obvious and affirmed by believers in Bible inerrancy. What poppycock to use that obvious fact to suggest that they are therefore full of inconsistencies and misunderstandings and not the revelation of God. You just like your own thoughts better than God's, which is the case with most heretics. ALL of it was of God, and this is something that can be found in the very words of Jesus you think distinguish between some that was and some that was not. You are abysmally ignorant if you don't know the depths of cultural knowledge that good Bible exegetes bring to their exposition of the scriptures. I am in fact certain that you know very little about how the OT informs the NT and the NT defines how we are to read the OT. If you think ANY of it is not of God, as you suggest above is the case with the OT, that is not just believing "differently," that is simply NOT BEING a "Bible believer." You can call yourself an aardvark if you like, that doesn't mean you are one. A Bible believer BELIEVES THE BIBLE. What does that have to do with "my" own view of anything? it is what it is and you are NOT a Bible believer, which has a very clear HISTORICAL CONSENSUAL meaning. Sheesh. You may be very surprised to learn that it IS your heart that is seen in your theology, your corrupted heart's preference for your own opinion over God's for starters, your corrupted heart's rejection of the true faith handed down the centuries. "The heart is deceitful above all else, who can know it?" said Jeremiah. You are a fool to trust in your heart. You are going to have quite an unhappy awakening if you think you are going to get anywhere with THAT piece of delusion. Jesus Himself is the true Author of ALL the scriptures, both OT and NT, the written Word is all of a piece with the Logos Himself, His very own revelation to those who have ears to hear. He Himself inspired those scribes you are denigrating, and He taught that those who despise His sheep in fact despise Him, so don't be surprised if He doesn't take kindly to your dismissing the words of His own appointed scribes. I could quote the scriptures themselves extolling the scriptures (such as Psalm 19) but you'd probably just say you agree with all that and miss the point that the scriptures are perfect. Yes it's very fashionable these days to think oneself morally superior to the God of perfect justice, as many of the threads here attest. I tremble for you. Accusing God of sin is not a place I'd want to be. GDR, again you are depending on your deceitful heart (and you're pretty proud of yourself for that too, aren't you?). You are depending on your OWN narrow idea of what "loving" means and all the rest of it. God gave us the scriptures so that we could be disabused of our own errors. Humility means giving up what WE think for what HE has shown us, and since a great deal of it does not sit well with our fallen minds, which can be seen every day on this forum, you must give up what your fallen mind tells you if you want truly to enter in to HIS mind and learn HIS ways. He is NOT a genocidal maniac, He is a just and merciful loving and kind God who always does right in ALL the scriptures you dislike as well as those you like. His love reaches deeper than you can have any idea as long as you are depending on your own fallible mind. Humble yourself as your own favorite verse counsels, and submit to HIS mind rather than your own.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Perhaps you meant to say "omniscient?"OK, I went and looked it up and it turns out this is one of those passages that is hard to understand, but nobody takes it to challenge Jesus' Deity which is so thoroughly affirmed in so many other parts of scripture this one verse could hardly be taken to contradict it.Here is JF&B's commentary on Mark 13:32 at Blue Letter Bible: It should also perhaps be noted that Jesus as incarnate Christ, as man, is subordinate to the Father in role though He is still God and must have the attributes of God. He intentionally gave up the prerogatives of Deity to become man. Which doesn't mean He gave up Deity itself, which He couldn't do anyway, but He gave up the prerogatives attached to it, as expressed in Philippians 2: Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What? I'm sorry, I can't make sense out of what you say here. I'm sure you know the Reformation didn't keep the Bible away from the people, right? You DO know that it was the Roman Church that did that, right? And that the Reformation recovered the importance of the scripture, both as the authoritative foundation of Christian belief, which had been lost through the centuries of Roman domination, and as the possession of everyone, not just priests, and that for centuries the Roman church had been persecuting and killing those who translated it into the people's languages.The "concept that I believe in" means what, something to do with this supposed need for certainty or whatever you are saying? And it grew out of what?Out of the recovery of the Bible perhaps? Well, if you mean that I attribute my beliefs very much to the work of the Reformation and the recovery of the Bible, certainly that's true, but what it has to do with some supposed "need for certainty" have no idea. The Reformation is regarded as the recovery of the true faith itself, from the corruptions and pagan superstitions of Rome, not something new but a recovery and a refinement of the truth. Absolute poppycock. This is a perfect example of the fallen mind distorting scripture. Start here: It was GOD who guided Joshua which is obvious from merely reading the book, Joshua himself determined none of it except where they may have acted in error as God's people often did, and God's objective was judgment against sin, for which Joshua and his army were the instrument.Joshua was the head of a NATION at war with enemies defined by God. Jesus on the other hand is speaking to INDIVIDUALS, He doesn't address nations AT ALL EVER, He's always talking to His own personal followers, to individuals who believe in Him. We are PERSONALLY to love our PERSONAL enemies, but that has absolutely nothing to do with how NATIONS are to deal with enemies, especially now when there is no national people of God, but all nations are fundamentally pagan. Jesus did leave room for the need for a sword which certainly contradicts any stupid ideas about not defending oneself against enemies under some circumstances.A lot of the differences between Jesus' teaching and the ways God guided the Israelites have to do with the fact that much of the OT is symbolic or intended as types or shadows of a reality yet to come, mostly the advent of the Messiah Himself but also involving spiritual warfare against Satan's kingdoms and the like. Nevertheless, in context all God's doings with the Israelites were righteous.THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION, there is merely the usual mishandling of scripture by somebody who has dismissed all the orthodox writings down the centuries. Jesus IS the Bible for pete's sake, the Bible is our source of knowledge of what Jesus said. You have some other source? What kind of word games are you playing here? Believing the Bible means believing Jesus as He speaks in the Bible. Good grief. Gosh, not just straightforwardly BELIEVED, but "believed in one sense or another?" I have NO idea what that could possibly mean. If the Bible is God's word, as I know it is, then if I don't understand something in it I have to see if I can understand what God meant at that point or put it aside for later when I can't. I certainly don't just decide my inability to understand is the basis for throwing out a part of scripture, as you do, making yourself God's judge.So I take such a passage as about stoning for picking up sticks on the Sabbath as a revelation of how important the law against working on the Sabbath is, and that can lead me to understand how Jesus is our Sabbath now. You of course miss any such meanings, you just act on your own kneejerk reactions and make yourself God's judge. That poor schmuck KNEW THE LAW AND VIOLATED IT with knowledge, but you think him innocent? Get a clue GDR. God said don't eat the fruit of this tree, but they ate it and you want to say they're innocent? Scripture is given to LEARN FROM. But you like to teach God instead and anyone who believes God, you're so much smarter than He and us. What? You dare to treat God as on a level with human beings? Am I getting this right? What is the matter with you? Oh balderdash. If I'm addressing topics that pertain to His being God, that doesn't mean I deny His humanity. Jesus WAS human and that DOES explain Gethsemane. Again you are confused or playing games. BECAUSE YOURS COMES OUT OF YOUR OWN FALLEN MIND AND EXPERIENCE AGAINST THE BIBLE AND MINE COMES FROM THE BIBLE WHICH IS THE ONLY FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. THEY ARE ALSO TOLD TO GO AND SIN NO MORE, THAT'S WHAT YOU FORGET.Second thought: Where does it say prostitutes are to be stoned? What exactly are you talking about? Prostitutes or adulterers? I don't know of a case where stoning was prescribed for prostitutes, even in the Old Testament, perhaps I've forgotten something, apparently a big something if so, but I know it was prescribed for adulterers and Jesus released the adulteress on the basis of the sins of her judges, not her own supposed innocence.IF GOD PRESCRIBED STONING, meaning the death penalty as done in that day, it was to keep the sinner from infecting the rest of the people with the sin and that IS a loving thing to do. The Israelites were surrounded by idolatrous nations who practiced all kinds of sexual sins in the service of the "worship" of their "gods," and various forms of temple prostitution survived into recent times, such as in India and in Jesus' day in Corinth and no doubt all over the world. Also the sacrifice of infants. Much of God's laws against involvement with such practices was to keep His people from demonic contamination. That included the food laws which proscribed eating the foods the heathen nations sacrificed to their demon gods. After Jesus came and defeated Satan and his hordes at the cross, His power protects us from what the Law had to do before. Or something like that. What on EARTH are you talking about? Christians are known for love to prostitutes and others who have ended up in degraded lives, rescuing them and so on. What sort of crazy stuff are you pushing anyway?You've invented your own religion, you don't seem to understand anything in the scripture, I can hardly figure out what you think you think except that you allow yourself to judge God as so many do these days. Don't be cute. You ACT morally superior to God, I didn't say you THINK OF YOURSELF as morally superior. Of course you don't. Stop playing games. I'm not the one accusing God of "genocide," you are. I understand God as righteously judging nations by what you call "genocide." His judgments are righteous justice. Public stoning is the death penalty for offenses deemed to be deserving of death. Justice. You are the one who calls it wrong, making yourself God's judge, making yourself morally superior to God, I on the other hand regard God's acts as always right and just and try to understand what He is teaching through them, whereas you judge Him as wrong instead.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

of course not, but then I don't expect any of the weird stuff you say to be biblical.

Ya know, Alterific, your attitude does not exactly motivate me to engage with you in any way at all. I feel the same about another poster on this thread who majors in mockery and misrepresentation. In your case it's a belligerence and a weird bossy sort of posturing that is just rude.Let me guess that as a Jehovah's Witness you are used to dealing with people who only know a verse or two that you've been trained to shoot down, such as John 1:1-3, which has been "retranslated" in the New World Bible to accommodate the JW heresy.But when someone gives you many verses in support of the Trinity you find your JW training letting you down and that gets you mad and you have to blame it on me. And you misrepresent the argument as cherry picking and mere personal opinion.Sorry, it is reasoning from the scriptures that is valid support for the Trinity. Even Dr. Adequate said it was more or less convincing to him and if that's the case you haven't a leg to stand on, as getting him to agree with me about anything has a probability of something like When Hell Freezes Over. In fact I'm sure I must have hallucinated his saying that and I'll wake up any moment, jolted awake by one of his mean barbs.But in any case you haven't a leg to stand on. The scriptures given at the link are presented in an orderly way that adds up to the orthodox Trinity formulation handed down for centuries.And that is no "blog" -- it is the official site of Blue Letter Bible, which hosts a number of Bible references including this article about the Trinity because it faithfully represents the historical doctrine so well.I certainly understand what you are saying about "elephant hurling" and I have encountered it in some debate opponents as a matter of fact, but I can assure you that this is not the case at all with respect to the Trinity argument. As I said, it is necessary to show that the Trinity IS biblical by showing that many verses support it, because the Trinity is not a neat little concept you can point to in the scripture, it is, as I said, based on many separate scriptures that separately define God in the terms that end up having to be expressed as One God in Three Persons.I believe the evidence is given in such a way that you could easily enough respond to any part of it and make meaningful points if you had the desire and the ability. Nothing requires you to deal with the whole presentation. If you have any kind of argument against any of it that's where you should start. How about dealing with the verses in support of the Deity of Christ? That's a favorite JW issue.And perhaps if you could cut down on the rudeness factor just a tad I might be more inclined to engage with you on the subject.Otherwise I have zero interest.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.