quote:
Originally posted by Brian Johnston:
This is a serious question, what is it that is so good about the Bible?...How can the Bible retain its title of the Good Book when it has been responsible for some of the severest examples of man's inhumanity to man?
--A lot of strong response to your question, Brian. Your question is actually answered by the Bible, so that exhaustive apologetics are redundant.
--Presently, the Bible lights in and out of my life via the Gospel -- a Christ's restorative death burial and resurrection for a cursed creation.
--The Muslim-like Holy wars and human exterminations agree (in my conscience) to the wrath of a holy God who would avenge sin with eternal judgement (A.K.A. hell-fire) SANS redemption. Even the atoning redemptive Icon Isaiah ends with: "and there worm shall never die", for the "wicked".
Such is the way of sin under the law of Moses and the non-redemptive tablets of stone.
--Punitive Justice is necessary and never enough for a desperately wicked Canaan, Sodom, Edom, Babylon, and by implication, China, USA, Haiti, Iraq, Israel, and especially for you and I, personally. Once our mischief-ful human nature is realized the Old Testament Law strips away its glamour and destroys the wretched beings that we are.
--That everyone has had his day is a relative concept; the sun shined on us all, period.
--God commanding then, the mass-extermination of sodomizers, molesters, murderers, torturers, rapests, etc. may be merciful compared to other human options of:
1) allowing OUR own raging sin to continue (unchecked) within the human race as a whole,
2) the problem of the nuclear-family falling prone to divorce and life-long blind rage therein,
3) the vicarious torment of a justly enlarging hell-fire for ungodly sinners who have sinned more voraciously over a longer life-span, etc.
--Thus, the old testament begs no apologetics for its exterminations (in my conscience).
--Blissfully for many (in both testaments), is the new contract of a Christ reconciling sinners and not imputing their trespasses, via the substitutionary vicarious chastisements he endured to free us, and then being seen (by faith) as raised from the dead on high in majesty and power, ready to forgive and forget your and my filthy mischiefs and sins in-toto, as a free gift, with Heaven proferred as well.
--The Bible, i.e., via a Gospel-preacher therein, when it shines in my life or yours, is a beautiful pure and redemptive phenomenon. That redemptive phenomenon is certainly something I continuously long for.
--Paradoxically, for many biblical believers, though every word of God operates collaboratively as irreducible members of the whole (a mega-IC if you will), scripture quotes work as stand-alone ICs, too. E.g., one quote like, "He will never leave nor forsake you", "The Lord is my shepherd", etc. might make your day. So might the whole totality of the gospel-word.
Philip
[This message has been edited by Philip, 11-06-2002]
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