Claims of God Being Omnipotent in the Bible

Hi, PD, if you follow Salibi, he reads it as El Olam--god of Olam, a shrine. He translates
Gen 21:33 Yahweh as El Olam
Isaiah 40:28 as gods of Olam
Jeremiah 10:10 as King of Olam
I`m no Arabic/Hebrew linguist, just passing it on.

If someone can go so far as to claim Biblical literalism, this person would also believe in a supernatural reality that is apart from everyday observable life. Some have claimed to see such a reality. This opens up quite a can of worms, because the Bible would then be thought of as not so much another set of ancient philosophies so much as a record of a Divine spiritual battle.In THIS context, we really could not determine the state of the world before a literal Fall. We are used to viewing the Bible through the lens of critical thinking and human intellect. If we view the Bible through a literal lens that believes a spiritual war between angelic/demonic forces that have poweres and abilities that are unexplainable, it would fit that there was no death before the Fall.I know that you are a reasonable old country boy, jar, so I really don't expect you to agree with a literalist view. You must admit, however, that once a literal Spiritual reality apart from our daily experience is considered, ALL things truly do become possible.

HI TL, nice to see you again. This is the usual reply from a Christian perspective, but where does the text imply this? So, being honest about telling a lie is honest, surely there is still a lie involved?I nearly had a short circuit in my brain thinking about this LOL:God HAS to lie or He is a liar, since He said He would lie to Israel He has to lie or He would have been a liar by saying that He was going to lie and then not lying. I have no problems myself with God telling lies, many lies are told for a higher purpose.But I don't agree with your conclusion because we don't know if the prophet is in on the test or not. God may have told him/her a lie in order to carry out a genuine test, but what are the chances of the prophet knowing that God was lying in order to test Israel?If the prophet was in on the test, then I doubt that he would go to the Israelites and deliver a false prophecy as we all know what the punishment for that would be.Brian.This message has been edited by Brian, 01-09-2005 06:33 AM

not in my experience, no.

It'snot so much a matter of disagreeing as that I find them to be totally inconsistent in their actions. Whenerver a literal problem comes up they resort to interpretation. Not really. If you accept a literal spirtitual reality apart from our daily experience, that still does not exempt people or books from some form of honesty or consistency.For example, several of the folk here have suggested that the death GOD was speaking of was a Spiritual Death. But there is no indication in the Bible that Adam or Eve died spiritually. In fact there are indications that when they did die physically, they went to heaven.So to make any sense from the tale in Genesis if taken literally, GOD lied. So far no literalist has been able to address that except to say that folk are not interpreting the Bible correctly.If they are interpreting the Bible they are not taking it Literally.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I think that they read the Bible, but they do not think about the words for themselves. They appear to accept what they have been told references mean rather than deciding for themselves.I also think that many literalists have not read the entire Bible, which is not that difficult a task to do.Even reading just one book a day, or two or three of the shorter books, it would only take a couple of months.But, I think it is more common for a literalist to have only read parts of the Bible as they take so many quotes way out of context.Brian.

I agree. In particular I've noticed that often they quote a single line when the very next line either contradicts what they have quoted or expands on it changing the meaning. Absolutely true. But perhaps it is simply that they do not understand what literal means? Well, there is a schedule included in the BCP which can act as a guide. It presents a schedule that takes about three years to cover the whole Bible but also breaks things down into very small and related chuncks. So even using the slowest method you can read the Bible in an organized fashion completely over a three year period.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Sinful humans, full of the wisdom of the world which is foolishness to God are not able to discern scripture. They may well "decide for themselves" what it means, but this would go in line with I realize that scripture is interpreting scripture. What other source should one use to interpret scripture? Our own minds are not even programmed to be able to discern scripture. Human wisdom is not a trustworthy source if the humans have no spiritual source. (And if they believe only in themselves, they are being deceived. This is literalism, gentlemen.)

What DOES it mean, Jar? The issue is this:
What is the literal source of the wisdom? Who wrote the book? Obviously humans did. Who inspired them, however?To one who does not personally know or relate to God, the Bible IS meaningless except through the interpretation of the reader.

Hello, Brian. Nice to see you again, too. Yeah, but we're reading this a lot different. Maybe it's unusual for me to read it the way I do. I'm not sure.I would agree with you if Deut 13 involved prophecy. In the story of Ahab and the prophets, they were telling him a lie about what would happen. Deut 13 does not involve prophecy. The "dreamer of dreams" in that passage may give a prophecy, but if so, it comes to pass. No lie there. The person then encourages the Israelites to worship other gods. Bad advice, but no lies involved.I agree with holding God responsible for whatever this person says who was sent by him to test Israel, but this person is not lying, as far as I can see. Am I missing something that seems obvious to you?As for Genesis three, I don't think I can point to a spot in the text where it implies that Adam suffered a spiritual death, but the reason that it's "the usual reply from a Christian perspective" is because spiritual death is the primary concern of the Scriptures from a Christian perspective. Romans five says that Adam was dead in his sins, just as, according to Ephesians, we all are.In a classroom, reading back into a text may not impress the professor, but since the "Christian perspective" is that the Scriptures are spiritual, we've always read back into the text.

Jar,This is not a challenge or a demand for you to justify your faith. Please take this as the question it is. If you could see my face, it would be easy to ask this in a non-challenging tone, but you can't, so I'm prefacing this.You said:

quote:

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In particular I've noticed that often they (literalists)quote a single line when the very next line either contradicts what they have quoted or expands on it changing the meaning.

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I'm thinking I remember you saying that you are a Christian, though a non-literalist. Knowing that Paul is very prone to quoting a single line out of context, I'm curious how you view Paul or the Bible.I'm not asking you to give a general dissertation on the subject. I'm asking specifically about the literalist issue and taking quotes out of context.It's an issue I've had to give thought to that was rough to me, because while I am not a literalist, I am very historic in my faith. I count Paul and those in his churches as my spiritual forefathers, and it was a doctrine of theirs (this gleaned from reading the church fathers) that the inspiration of the Scriptures meant that it was quite okay to pull sentences out of context, because God dropped them in there as prophecy.

How about the same source Paul used?I don't think you can use Scripture to interpret Scripture in most cases. If we did that, then we would take Isaiah 7 in context and deny that 7:14 is a prophecy of the virgin birth. The apostles didn't mind pulling that verse out of context, because they didn't believe Scripture interpreted Scripture. They believed God interpreted Scripture.When Scripture interprets Scripture, you're still talking about people figuring things out, and as you said, humans aren't able to discern Scripture, nor spiritual things in general.So who has the revelation of God about Scripture. According to Jesus, the person who has fruit...who produces results. That's how you tell true prophets from false prophets. You don't just reject all prophets and interpret Scripture by Scripture. Where is it said to do that? Instead, you judge prophets by their results.That's what Scripture says, anyway.

You have a good point. You and I understand how God can inspire those who know Him, yet how do we explain this to non believers or to otherwise polite intellectual humanists without they thinking of us as arrogant?I know when scripture is inspired. I can use it in a Bible study to teach a lesson about human nature or moral principles, and many many people of different denominations will agree with me without much debate. Critics will say that we believe what we are taught without thinking critically. Why is this? Do they define critical thinking as objective enough to dismiss any supernatural influence? As if the Bible were on Oprahs book club? I then point out to them that they are using human wisdom as their ultimate yardstick. The Bible is not a human philosophy book. It is about humans...very fallible humans interacting with God throughout history.

Valid questions but what does that have to do with the subject? If one line is taken literally, how can the next line be interpreted? Once you start interpreting what the Bible says, even if you only interpret one verse, you no longer take the Bible literally. I'm sorry but I don't understand that at all. I'm pretty dense as you know so can you try explaining that for me?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Phatboy The question is not one of arrogance but of wherther you have an understanding of the full spectrum of ways in which you may decieve yourself.