Who is really in charge of inspiration?

No, but a story teller was inspired to keep adding episodes so that over time more and more meals and more and more nights shelter were earned. Nah, they did that all on their own. In addition we have no idea whether more returned then left or not. Many folk decided not to return. That was a major problem and lead to cranking up the propaganda machine to make the "old country" look like something worth returning to. The result was the creation of an Israel that never really existed in reality.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Once again, have you ever read the Bible?Jesus has never been the ruler of Israel. The ruler mentioned only has a historic legacy, nothing about goings were from eternity.I imagine that you are referring to Micah 5 as some prophecy of Jesus but if you actually read it in context it cannot be talking about Jesus and it does not seem to say what you claim.Micah 5:

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Micah 5
A Promised Ruler From Bethlehem

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1 Marshal your troops, O city of troops,
for a siege is laid against us.
They will strike Israel's ruler
on the cheek with a rod.

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2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times. "

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3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned
until the time when she who is in labor gives birth
and the rest of his brothers return
to join the Israelites.

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4 He will stand and shepherd his flock
in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
will reach to the ends of the earth.

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5 And he will be their peace.

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Deliverance and Destruction

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When the Assyrian invades our land
and marches through our fortresses,
we will raise against him seven shepherds,
even eight leaders of men.

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6 They will rule the land of Assyria with the sword,
the land of Nimrod with drawn sword.
He will deliver us from the Assyrian
when he invades our land
and marches into our borders.

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7 The remnant of Jacob will be
in the midst of many peoples
like dew from the LORD,
like showers on the grass,
which do not wait for man
or linger for mankind.

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8 The remnant of Jacob will be among the nations,
in the midst of many peoples,
like a lion among the beasts of the forest,
like a young lion among flocks of sheep,
which mauls and mangles as it goes,
and no one can rescue.

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9 Your hand will be lifted up in triumph over your enemies,
and all your foes will be destroyed.

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10 "In that day," declares the LORD,
"I will destroy your horses from among you
and demolish your chariots.

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11 I will destroy the cities of your land
and tear down all your strongholds.

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12 I will destroy your witchcraft
and you will no longer cast spells.

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13 I will destroy your carved images
and your sacred stones from among you;
you will no longer bow down
to the work of your hands.

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14 I will uproot from among you your Asherah poles
and demolish your cities.

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15 I will take vengeance in anger and wrath
upon the nations that have not obeyed me."

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

That is a classic and near perfect example. Thanks for mentioning that very one.In the Matt 25 Sheep and Goats story, the Goats are Christ's followers, the Sheep those who did not follow Christ.Satan was bright enough to understand that in particular, Biblical Christians would evolve who did not know how to read critically and so would see themselves as the Sheep even though the passage clearly says otherwise.

quote:

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The Sheep and the Goats
31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

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34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

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37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

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40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

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41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

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44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

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45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

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46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

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Note that the Sheep are surprised that they are selected as saved even though they know they never did anything for Jesus, not even praise him. They were not his followers.The Goats are equally amazed because they knew that they would have done anything for Jesus, never failed to aid him when he needed it. They were his followers.So in that very passage Satan is saying that the followers of Christ just don't get it.Or maybe it really is GOD telling you that you just don't get it?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Except that is NOT what it says. It says all the earth is gathered, not all the earth except the least of these my brothers. It describes but two groups, those on the right and those on the left.The least of these my brothers are all who are hungry, need shelter, are naked, sorrowful or ignorant.They could be in either group.I posted all of the Sheep and Goat parable so that the audience can read it in context.The readers can decide which of us is the false teacher.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

As usual, just more tap dancing and misdirection.I will post the passage yet again:

quote:

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The Sheep and the Goats
31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

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34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

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37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

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40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

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41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

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44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

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45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

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46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

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There is no mention of where it will be located, and in fact all the nations a gathered before him. There is no mention of any excluded or other group of humans.It is only after they are all gathered before him that the separation and culling is done.

quote:

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37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

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The Sheep are surprised because they knew they had never done anything for Jesus.

quote:

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44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

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The Goats are surprised because they knew they had never failed to do for Jesus.And so far I have never seen any indication of a fulfilled Biblical Prophecy.If it is considered as a prophecy then it is still a failed prophecy.If though it is considered as an inspired charge, part of the teaching unrelated to any future even but simpley a statement of what we are to do, it is valid.It is NOT what to believe, it is NOT what you profess, it is what you do that counts.There is inspiration in the Bible, words to inspire folk to do. Trying to make the SOURCE the main point diminishes and trivializes the message and the Bible.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

One of the practices of many Christian Apologists that is relevant to this thread is that they love to pull what are often called "proof texts" out of context and then use them as evidence of support for some other totally unrelated part of the Bible.For example.There is no reason to think that Joel is ever speaking about Jesus, if Joel is read in context it is pretty obvious that it is speaking to the people of his day (likely around 800BCE) and telling them to shape up.It is a practice though, and one that I believe helps drive folk away from Christianity, for Biblical Christian Apologists to try to tie every passage they can into foreshadowing Jesus.Come one now.People can actually read the Bible and see that the Apologists are just tap dancing, toss spaghetti on the ceiling to see what sticks.This is not some new tactic, it can be seen in the edits and additions made to what eventually passed through some Committee of Canon and has been incorporated.The audience can read both (the Sheep and Goats I already included and Joel is just a few Chapters long) and see what is really said.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Nonsense jaywill. Come on.

quote:

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The book of Revelation establishes the link between Joel's prophecies and the end times. There are obvious references to the book of Joel.

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The great winepress of the fury of God is the war at Armageddon (Rev. 16:12-16), which is in the valley of Jehosshaphat (Joel 3:9-16).

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we can therfore be confident Joel in his prophecy was refering to some things related to Christ coming in the end times.

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Think. All that says is the the author of Revelation did exactly what I pointed out. The author of Revelation had access to Joel and could use it in his writing meant for the audience about 1500+ years ago, but it tells us nothing about what the author of Joel who wrote almost a thousand years before the author of Revelations meant. The author of Revelation used passages from Joel as inspiration for his apocalyptic literature about Rome.Revelation though is yet another great example of at best unfulfilled prophecy and more likely failed prophecy.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Actually, no. It referred humorously to many of the rather large women that were opera sopranos, particularly Wagnerian operas.And another example of how things get reworked.So far no one has offered any support that there is any inspiration other than man, later authors borrow and take passages from earlier authors and use them out of context as "proof texts". A god example was jaywill claiming that Joel was speaking of Jesus in the context of Matthew 25 by pointing to what the author of Revelation took out of context from Joel to point to what the Revelation author thought would happen over 1500 years ago.Human inspiration all the way down to the Turtles.Hopefully though you will have some evidence that supports your position.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Except of course, in Genesis 3 it is the Serpent that tells the truth.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

LOLBut what does the story say?

quote:

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1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

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2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

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4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

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and...

quote:

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21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

You're making the same type mistake.The point is that what we find in the Bible is a mixture of very different stories and with entirely different purposes. Some are meant as laws, others as a tale of the founding of a people, some as poetry, others describing snap shots of how a particular people living in a particular culture at a particular time saw their relationship with God, with their society, with those societies around them and the rest of life.We need to look at it through the eyes and mythos of the people living at that particular time, that particular culture.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Which might be relevant if I was trying to test the divinity of the Bible.But stop and think. If we were discussing any other story one of the very major issues would be the content of that story.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Of course divinity is not synonymous with inspiration. Even "divine inspiration" is not synonymous with divinity.And if you will read what I post I believe that you will find that I point to many other possible sources of inspiration.But in discussing the Bible, it is nearly impossible to not look at the actual passages in the...wait for it...Bible. There really is more that can be examined but as with so many subjects it takes some work. For example, studying the Talmud and the concept of Talmudic discourse can help you understand how people over time have proceeded.Remember, there is no evidence of who actually wrote just about anything in the Bible. We just plain don't know very much about the authors of most of it. We also have only a pretty fuzzy idea of when many of the stories were written.If you look at what I actually post though I believe you'll find that I constantly say that you cannot just pull pieces parts out and use them as proof texts without also looking at the passages in context as well as some of the historical material.In the end though, it will always come back to what is actually written.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Faith is a matter of belief, not rational, not logical, not even reasonable. Many of us believe but we also know that we could be wrong.Edited by jar, : ralli appalin spallin

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

But we are still talking belief.What difference does it make if they "know" they are right?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!