Who to believe , Ham or Ross?

well, many words but they all boil down to you wanting to believe certain things mentioned in the Bible happened. That's fine if that's your belief.You mentioned a few things ... Let me run down the list if I may.

• captivity in Egypt. No indication it ever happened.
• Exodus. If it happened it bears no resemblance to the story in the Bible.
• Moses and the 10 Commandments. Almost certainly apocryphal.
• pilars of fire etc. Yup, folklore.
• settling of the promised land. If by that you mean some conquest of Canaan, then almost certainly didn't happen.
• most of the rest are also simply folklore.
• life, death and resurrection of Jesus, most likely true.
  

But it doesn't really matter if ANY of them are true. The lessons therein, what GOD wants us to learn and do is still true.The Map is not the Territory!
The Bible is not GOD!
GOD is not Christianity and Christianity is not GOD!This message has been edited by jar, 03-27-2005 08:49 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

OK, no point in arguing with you about any of it I see.

Oh. I've noticed you've used this phrase often when you have a different interpretation than others. So should I revise to assume that whenever interpretation is different than yours, God then, is being made a liar by the ones who disagree with your interpretation? Oh. So when you said you believe the Nicean Creed, you didn't mean the whole creed and it's now down to the bodily resurrection of Jesus? But my assumption has been from what you've posted that you don't consider any of them to be miraculous. Is that correct?

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

No, not always. I've found many that disagree with me in many areas but that didn't make GOD out to be a liar. But a creation 6000 years ago, the flood, the Exodus, the creation myth as described (in fact either of the creation myths in Genesis) would definitely make GOD out to be a liar. I happen to believe it but I realize that is a personal belief. I can certainly see how anyone could doubt it. Depends on the incident. For example Joshua's long day was not a miracle, it just never happened. Tales of Jesus healing the sick, turning wine into water, raising the dead would most certainly be miracles if they ever happened.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Come on buz! That is just saying the same thing, and jar has already answered. Jar has said "no".According to jar, there ARE different interpretations that are not making out God to be a liar.What jar is saying is that those interpretations which make God out to be saying that the earth is 6000 years old are making out God to be a liar. Do you see the difference? According to jar, there are a range of different interpretations, including interpretations different from his own, which are not making out God to be a liar.Cheers -- Sylas

I'd like to stay out of the argument with Jar and Buz and concentrate on this point you made Sylas. I agree. This is why I recommend the bible and what it does say.An old-earther might say the universe is 14 billion YO.
A YEC will say 6000 Y.But the bible says neither, and God certainly isn't interested in communicating anything about the topic.I'm starting to think this whole debate is in existence because of men and their interpretations of the bible. I think I'll go back to how I used to be. It used to be simple, the bible said that God done some things, and science gathered facts, and the two weren't really contradictory unless one went looking for problems.Since "the earth bringing forth" life is also a verse, then really anything goes. So it's useless for me to try my own interpretation because it's likely wrong like the others.Also, no offense "Faith" but I think if some of the bible was wrong then that doesn't mean it all is. That's bad logic. It also doesn't mean God is fallible, it means --> the bible is.I've heard the following illogic from YECs too many times to worry too much.If one human is a killer, then that must mean all are killers..If that person just got angry, then that means he is always angry.
This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 03-28-2005 01:15 PM

God communicates many many things in His word without dictating them word for word. The Trinity is not stated in so many words either but it is derived from a multitude of descriptions of God and Jesus and Holy Spirit. The 6000 year age is calculated from many many time clues given throughout the Bible. The time span from Adam to Noah can be calculated for instance using the exact numbers of years given for the generations in Genesis 5. The angel gave Daniel a formula for the years from his time to the coming of the Messiah. It also seems to me it should qualify as evidence that orthodox Jews count their calendar from the Creation, and the current year is 5755. I don't want to get into the horrific ugly battles these questions so often generate, but I'll venture an answer at least. Since scripture is regarded as God's word by the historical mainstream of Christians, and Moses, Peter, Paul, Josiah and Daniel among others spoke of what they had of scripture in their own times as given directly by God, and since Jesus Himself quoted from I believe all but one of the books of the Bible as authoritative, including Genesis, then there is every reason for a Christian to regard it as God's inspired word, and that means it can't be fallible. If it's fallible then it is not God's word, and I for one would not put my life in God's hands as it describes Him and tells me to do.Do you simply ignore the "all" in "All scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Timothy 3:16)? And do you just dismiss Peter as an imbecile when he says straight out that prophecy did NOT come by mere men, but that all the prophets spoke straight from God's own Spirit to them? "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake [as they were] moved by the Holy Ghost." (2Peter 1:21).And how could David have said the following if the Bible had any flaws in it?:"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, Yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them Your servant is warned, And in keeping them there is great reward." (Psalm 19:7-11)God is perfect, God makes no mistakes. The Bible is His word. He initiated it, He watched over it. Anyone who trusts it completely will find better than gold in it.

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But it doesn't really matter if ANY of them are true. The lessons therein, what GOD wants us to learn and do is still true.

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Just curious. What lessons might we be expected to learn from a false tale about a gigantic Flood?A Flood in fact out which is said to have been saved only eight people, and from which the rest of the Bible proceeds assuming it to have been the case. What can we learn from this? That baldfaced lies are useful for instruction, even though the God they're about said "You shall not bear false witness"?

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The Map is not the Territory!

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No, but we do expect a good map to guide us where we want to go. The miserable excuse for a map you think the Bible is would get us lost at every turn.

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The Bible is not GOD!

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Nobody every said it is. It is HIS WORD, HIS REVELATION, HIS COMMUNICATION, AND GOD CANNOT LIE.

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GOD is not Christianity and Christianity is not GOD!

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Huh? I guess you mean he's also Allah and Krishna and so on? Funny then that he disagrees with them all so many times in the Bible. Got to choose one or none as they all contradict each other. Can't all be the same God.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-28-2005 05:53 PM

Quite a bit about the relationship of God and Man. Yup. Example: Jesus's parables. "Mythical" does not mean "baldfaced lie". Not everything in the Bible is intended literally.

You miss my point. What I'm saying is that the bible is just a book. I worship God, not the book. If some of it is wrong then it can still be inspired. If you're missing a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, you can still make out the picture. But I'm not saying the bible is wrong in places, but then - would it really matter, if God is still true? Now Christ even said "your law" to the Jews, and used the OT against them.Think about it. They worshipped their own books and law more than anything, including God (the pharisees etc), and so how do you hit them where it hurts? By telling them how wrong they had got their own books.If I am to take all scripture as inspired by God then that also means books outside of the bible does it not?I think believers get far too caught up in worshipping the bible. I also believe in the bible, and all of it, but the Word of God is Jesus Christ. I think the bible is given for our lives. But when it comes down to it, I find that only men concentrating on what they shouldn't be concentrating on creates the problems.If the Jews thought that the calendar dates at about 6,000 years then that's fair enough. But the bible doesn't say the earth was created then. Infact they've worked it out. And as far as I know God didn't tell them to do that, as he didn't say how old the earth or universe is.

The same lessons you'd learn if it had happened. That the authors new a good plot device even if they had to steal it from early works. It's a parable, a morality play. It's a parable. Your unsupported assertion. Really? Where do they disagree?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Interesting you don't say what exactly one learns. If the Flood is true we learn that sin has real dire consequences and that God won't put up with it forever. What do you learn if the Flood is just a story? That God doesn't really do such terrible things? No, but when it's not it's said plainly that it's not. The story of the Flood is told as straight history. Jesus' life is narrated as straight history also. When He tells a parable it is called a parable, there's no way to confuse it with the historical parts. Jesus referred to the days of Noah as real too, not as a parable.

Not inspired by the one true holy perfect God it can't. Nobody worships the book itself. It is taken by those who trust it as the most reliable information we have about the true God and His works. It is not like any other book ever written. We're not talking about something missing. We're talking about something considered to be false, and that means it can't be trusted as a whole especially considering that it presents itself as a whole, and that wholeness is affirmed by the writers I mentioned and many others and millions upon millions of believers back to Jesus. Well of course it matters. God is always true but we are spiritually flawed and have no sure ways of knowing anything at all about Him or our own condition or our destiny without His merciful revelation to us in His word. If we could understand the truth from His creation alone He wouldn't have needed to give us His word. There is NO way ANYBODY would ever have guessed from the Creation 99% of what the Bible reveals. Nobody would ever guess we are all sinners in need of salvation from Hell, for instance, and how that came about, but the Bible tells us how it happened and how to get out from under the condemnation we are all born into. What we get from natural religion on the other hand is that we're all good but could use a little improvement here and there, or that we're all good and we need to learn to trust ourselves better and that kind of soothing lie. What we get from the eastern religions is that we are under delusion (they are right about that much for sure!) and that our deeds result in either good or bad Karma (and that's pretty close to the Bible's teaching too!) but they treat all this as normal, though they pursue methods for avoiding the suffering of this normal life. Some who grow up under those beliefs have figured out that they can't get out from under the misery by any methods of their own, and are genuinely relieved to find out it's all due to sin and that God as revealed in the Bible has provided the way out of that suffering lifecycle. What we get from Islam is only that we have to earn our way to heaven, just like all the others, and some Muslims also come to recognize their own guilt before God and that they need help they can't get on their own merits if they are going to a good place after death. NONE of these religious systems has an inkling of the need of a Savior from our fundamental sinful nature and its consequences, although most of them at least recognize that we are hopelessly in arrears on the universal moral ledger. Some will say that God will forgive us anyway. But the Bible makes it clear that God can't and won't. He didn't drown the whole world because they were any worse sinners in those days than we are. The problem wasn't with the Law itself as given by God to Moses and written in the Torah, the problem with the Pharisees was their elaborations and embelleshments of the Law, their obsessive allegiance to the letter and failure to grasp its spirit. They had gone way beyond the written Law into complex legalistic burdens that God never intended, and they themselves couldn't even obey it, which is what made them "hypocrites." If only they would listen! It is sad. Of course not! It only means the 66-book canon of the Bible that was established by the Holy Spirit. There is every kind of wrong idea about the Bible, but I really don't know exactly what you are talking about. That's what I said. The Bible gives the numbers, the years, so that we can work it out. We couldn't do that if it didn't hold together historically. The Bible has wonderful depths. If it's there to be understood it's more about God and His ways we can learn if we want to. Scientists as a matter of fact have no direct permission from the Bible to do science, and some people have thought it was an offense to God to try to unravel His physical laws, but the first Western empiricists understood that the Bible shows a rational lawful material universe (an idea you don't get from any pagan philosophy) and that it is therefore subject to human study and understanding.

But, as has been pointed out to you some hundreds of times now, there's not a shred of evidence that indicates that it ever happened! Why do you think that might be?

Bible scholars, help me out here: which book in the Apocrypha is quoted by Jesus in the Gospels?