Summations Only

How very odd. God tells him to eat the animals in the vision and he declines because according to Jewish law they are unclean, foods only Gentiles eat. It's primarily about the food laws, which God is here saying no longer apply because He's cleansed the food of the Gentiles and they are to be received with thanksgiving'; and secondarily it's about taking the gospel to the Gentiles themselves, the separation once enforced by the food laws among other things now having been lifted.I can't see any other interpretation of the vision myself.

Yes of course your interpretation of the Bible should be respected along with that of every other self-appointed tom, dick and harry. I'm only representing the orthodox Protestant point of view that's come down through generations and is shared by millions both past and present, just a trivial little line of thought, nothing to take seriously of course, whereas the ideas of modern debunkers have every right to a place on the same level. Makes me sick to my stomach.

Which means simply that you cannot see any other interpretation.What do you think this means regarding food?

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Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:

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Which means simply that you cannot see any other interpretation.What do you think this means regarding food?

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Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:

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If you truly cannot even imagine any interpretation other than your own, I would suggest consulting some commentary.

The idea that you think that quote negates anything I said about that passage is just too absurd to make sense of.ABE: And PLEASE respond to Message 1475 and Message 1479Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Didn't I say that besides being about rescinding the food laws it is also about God's acceptance of the Gentiles, who had been kept separate partly due to the food laws, which proves He's no respecter of persons? Did you really need me to spell that out?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yeah, yeah, every tom, dick, harry, David, and Faith.No, wait! You are being totally sarcastic, aren't you? You are not actually serious! Yeah, [i] In your own highly delusional state you imagine yourself representing the deepest personal and religious feelings of millions of people. Yeah, right!Say hello to all the rest of the megalomaniacs in your neighboring cells who think they are Napoleon.

You originally claimed that Abraham's faith led him to believe a lamb would be provided. You further indicated that the ram was a fulfillment of this expectation.That line of argument is nonsense. Instead, Abraham fully expected that he was going to slice up Isaac. When Abraham told Isaac that God would provide a lamb, Abraham fully believed Isaac was over. He certainly didn't tell Isaac of any expectation that Isaac was going to be resurrected.And for good reason. God had no intention of resurrecting Isaac. Abraham had no clue how God was going to resolve things.

Abraham had no idea what was going to happen next. Logic told him that Isaac was doomed, but His inner spirit trusted God to be faithful. I don't know where you get your line of reasoning, but it is faulty in light of who God is. Where, for example, could you even surmise that God had no intention of rescuing Isaac??

You're just stating your religious beliefs again. There's no evidence that the Genesis account is the "true account", no evidence that any account of a world-wide flood is true, no evidence that the tale was handed down from Shem to Abraham and eventually to Moses, and you don't even try to muster any evidence. What evidence we do have says that the Epic of Gilgamesh predates the story of Noah, and that the story of Noah derives from the Epic of Gilgamesh.Genesis clearly makes contradictory statements regarding the the number of pairs of birds to be taken on the ark, and the interpretations you're forcing on the text to resolve the errors are the inventions of apologists. Internal and external errors and contradictions abound in the Bible. People are always making up self-serving stories to explain away obvious error. Usually these stories are obvious after-the-fact fictions, and such is the case with most Biblical apologist stories. These contradictions in the tale of Noah result from a combination of two similar but not identical mythical traditions.--Percy

Aren't you dictating to everyone else how they are to understand the Bible?You're arguing in this way: "The Bible is inerrant because for any apparent error explanations can be invented that resolve the error. Anyone who disagrees with these explanations is wrong and will be summarily insulted. Case closed."You have yet to offer any evidence of Biblical inerrancy, of divine authorship, or even of God himself.--Percy

An important point is that there is no universally agreed explanations for the errors, omissions and contradictions in the Bible stories. Each commenter makes up their own solution to wave away the problems.

There is a story similar to Abraham/Isaac.
It is in Judges and perhaps we're familiar, if not I'll recap.
Judges 11:29--The spirit of the Lord enters Jephthah. One would think that would be a good thing but alas, many times it isn't.
-If god helps kill the Ammonites, Jephthah will perform a human sacrifice on whoever comes out first from his house. ( Kind of a nice thought)
-Well god comes through on his end and a "very great slaughter" occurs. Thanks god.
-Who comes out of Jephthah's house. His bouncing daughter.
- After the daughter spends a couple months wailing about her virginity. Jephthah offers her as a burnt offering to the lord as promised, keeping his end of the bargainSo we have some similarity in that a human sacrifice is to be performed on behalf of god. God has in his power to stop it, substitute a lamb or (as I now learn by some fantastical bible rewriting by Faith) resurrect the daughter.
But the daughter is killed. No lamb is substituted. No resurrection occurs. Oops.So when phat says "could you even surmise that God had no intention of rescuing Isaac"?Well, indeed, after reading the whole bible. Seeing god murder all over the place, for no reason given, for immoral reasons, for absurd reasons... then have an example of actual human sacrifice...the answer is it is surprising that Isaac doesn't get his neck slit by his father and never to be heard from again.

No, I would never claim to represent anybody's FEELINGS, dwise, which is irrelevant to how religion is defined anyway. I'm claiming to be solidly within the orthodox DOCTRINAL camp, sharing their interpretations of scripture, creeds, statements of faith and so on, and I can even go further and say I don't claim to have a perfect grasp of it all either, only that I'm in their camp, have learned from them and am still learning from them. I arrived in this camp after a tour of lots of other camps so it's not that I just fell into it, I chose it. This is how I can claim to represent them, not perfectly, just by belonging to the same doctrinal tribe. I can address you as Napoleon if you like.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

He explained to Isaac in answer to his question that God would provide the lamb for the sacrifice, and I went on to say this was prophetic and fulfilled in the ram caught in the thicket even though he believed it was Isaac who would be sacrificed -- and raised from the dead. It would really help if you would actually quote me because you have misunderstood something and I have no idea what. Have you read any of the many posts I've written on this subject because I believe I've explained it all very well. Which I've said over and over and over, why are you ignoring this? Nor did I say any such thing. PLEASE QUOTE WHATEVER IT IS I SAID THAT HAS LED YOU TO THIS STRANGE IDEA. According to Hebrews 11, and I believe you agreed with this, Abraham expected God to raise Isaac from the dead, and you can see in the facts of Genesis 22 that he had this expectation. I don't recall saying anything about his telling Isaac this but he certainly had this expectation. He intended to kill Isaac and he completely believed what God had promised about making a great nation through Isaac. What else could this imply but that God would raise Isaac from the dead as Hebrews said he thought?You seem to me to be willfully misreading me and insisting on your willful misreading.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.