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Author | Topic: A Problem With the Literal Interpretation of Scripture | |||||||||||||||||||||||
GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
foreveryoung writes: There was a very good reason for slaughtering the whole community. Hmmmm. Now I agree that if God wants to slaughter a whole community then He has it in his power to do it. The question is whether or not that is actually what He wanted them to do. When the whole of scripture is considered it is clear that Micah 6:8:quote:accurately sums up God's calling for mankind. So you would have us believe that God would ask those that He has chosen to take that message to the world, to go down and slaughter a whole community - men, women and children. Can you think of a better way of hardening the hearts of those that He has chosen to do love kindness and to reflect His love into the world? If God genuinely wanted them all dead why would He not do it Himself and not involve His own people?
foreveryoung writes: Why do you question God's motivations?
First off I'm not questioning God's motivation. What I am questioning is your misuse of the Scriptures. Also, God has given us the capacity to gain wisdom and the ability to reason. Why shouldn't we question Him? Read through the Gospels and you can see that people including the disciples were always questioning Jesus. Jesus is the Word of God and the Bible contains the word of God. There is a difference.
foreveryoung writes: The purpose of israel was not supposed to be bringing a message of peace and love. That is you putting your own goals as God's goals. The purpose of israel was to let the world know who the true god was. It was to put a glaring contrast between Jehovah and baal or ra or whoever they had as god's back then. If you have a God that commands the wholesale slaughter of other communities I have to wonder how anyone back then would be able to tell the difference between Yahweh and the pagan gods. I don't see the contrast you're talking about.
foreveryoung writes: That is exactly what should have been done. The sabbath was for man and not for God. It was essential that the sabbath be strictly followed for man's own good. OK, so your god wants someone stoned to death by His followers for picking up firewood on the Sabbath for his own good. Your god is a proponent of genocide. Your god advocates the stoning to death of difficult children, again by those that worship him, and obviously I could go on. So I ask - why would you worship a god like that? Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
foreveryoung writes: I don't see any contradiction here because you do not know what the purpose of his kingdom was. There were no caananites or jebusites or baal worshipers at the time of Jesus. There was no need to annihilate a whole community of people. Israel had already lost her kingdom. It had now been taken over by the romans. So once again your god is not the God we see incarnate in Jesus.
foreveryoung writes: I see no contradiction at all. Why do you? Slaughtering whole communites was not about inflicting revenge. Your problem is that you ascribe evil motives to the works of God in the OT where there are none. See the above answer.
GDR writes: As I’ve said, I believe in a God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. I worship a God that we see revealed in Jesus.foreveryoung writes: I believe the same. The only problem is that you don't have a clue what was really revealed in Jesus. Well you don't believe the same because you worship a god who both tells us to both slaughter our enemies and to love our enemies and you've already told us that your god doesn't engage in situational ethics. I certainly don't have a clue about the god that you see revealed in Jesus, but I think I have a reasonably good idea about what is revealed to us in the Gospels about Jesus.
foreveryoung writes: I agree , but you still have failed to grasp just what Jesus was teaching. I'm sure you'll enlighten me.
foreveryoung writes: The Yahweh from the OT is the exact same person as the Jesus of the NT. Modern scholarship inspired by the devil makes you think otherwise. What God did in the OT was not genocide like that of pol pot. It was the removal of evil from a land that was promised to a chosen people. Any people who had remained unkilled, would still hold on to their ancient religion and culture and lead the people of Israel astray, and that is exactly what they did. See how you missed the wisdom of God in your self righteous declarations of what he should and shouldn't do? I agree that the Yahweh in the OT is the same as we see incarnate in Jesus when the scriptures are properly understood. You are going down the same path as the Pharisees and the other revolutionaries as Jesus' time. Those would be the ones that He was always speaking against. They also said that it was all about the possession of the land and their dominance over their neighbours. It is the same old thing of making god in our image in order to gain wealth and power. Frankly, fundamentalists/literalists are modern day Pharisees by another name. It is all about following a legalistic approach to get God on their side.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
foreveryoung writes: Why would I? Is the guy running the local store a caananite. Am I part of israel and is israel beginning to set up her holy kingdom here on earth? No, on both counts. There you go again interpreting what you say you take literally. How do you determine what applies to you and what doesn't when you remove reason as a way of understanding Scripture?
foreveryoung writes: I do take the bible literally. Does it tell me specifically to give all my money to the poor, or was it talking to a specific individual at the time? There you go again putting your own spin on things. So much for literalism.
foreveryoung writes: It certainly is possible to do so, and it only makes sense when you give over your wisdom to God and allow him to let you understand. Read back through earlier posts in this thread. I've pointed out numerous contradictions like the one in the OP. Read the "Sermon on the Mount" to see the number of things that Jesus corrects from the OT. Trying to read the Bible literally runs you into ever diminishing circles until you do what Dawn Bertot does which is just to say I believe it to be true when it is obvious that it isn't. I know that happens to be what you might call faith but frankly I think that it is a very poor excuse for faith. It is faith in the Bible instead of faith in God as revealed in Jesus. As I said earlier, it is Bibleianity as opposed to Christianity.
foreveryoung writes: Much bigger than what? Telling us the truth? Of course he is bigger than any one thing he does. Does that mean that we should ignore everything he does because he is bigger than that? He did not give us his truth, and say: Take this however you want to take it. I don't really give a damn. Do as you wish and make up your own morality and judge things according to the wisdom of man. You don't have to seek out my wisdom. I agree that you are completely free to worship a god who brings us a duplicitous message that allows us to make up our own morality. I worship a God who is incarnate in Jesus who was/is very clear of the morality that He desires us to embrace.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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subbie Member (Idle past 1282 days) Posts: 3509 Joined: |
It was God's plan to bring his kingdom in during the time of Jesus. If israel had accepted her king, the nations that rebelled against that kingdom would have been annihilated just like the ancient caananites. His kingdom has been postponed.... So, an all knowing, all seeing, all powerful supreme entity had to change the schedule? And this doesn't strike you as absurd?Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate ...creationists have a great way to detect fraud and it doesn't take 8 or 40 years or even a scientific degree to spot the fraud--'if it disagrees with the bible then it is wrong'.... -- archaeologist
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
As there doesn’t seem to be any other fundamentalists who wish to defend their position of understanding the Bible as being word for word directly from God then I’ll provide a recap of my views. If anyone wishes to respond feel free.
When someone attempts to understand the Bible as essentially being dictated by God, (which I contend can’t be done anyway) we wind up with a God who‘s very nature becomes incoherent. In one case we have Him advocating genocide and then telling us to love our enemies. We having Him involving the people who are to reflect His nature to the world stoning to death difficult children, prostitutes etc. He would have someone stoned to death even for the minor misdemeanour of picking up wood on the Sabbath but then later, through Jesus, telling us that we will be forgiven as we forgive, and saying that he who is without sin should cast the first stone. This view of scripture is completely incoherent. If people believe that they have to understand Christianity on that basis it is no wonder that the faith is so often rejected by thinking people. I contend that we are to read the Bible to learn truth which is not the same as reading it for facts. I’ll use again an example I’ve used before. If we were to read an account of the Viet Nam war as written in the US and compare it to an account written in Viet Nam I suggest that we would get two quite different perspectives on that war. However, that doesn’t mean that the war didn’t happen or that both accounts contain factual information. Both accounts will be both culturally conditioned. If we look at the example in the OP it is easy to see that the writer of 2nd Kings and the writer of Hosea were both influenced by their cultures and as a result they have two different perspectives on the fact of what Jehu had done in Jezreel. The obvious question then is how do we discern what is the truth of the Scriptures. I’ll leave aside people accepting Christianity because of a personal experience of God and approach it simply from a non-experiential POV. As a Christian I see it as being a matter of faith and that faith starts with the resurrection. We can read the accounts in the Gospel and decide if we are going to have faith in the Gospel accounts of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. When we read those accounts we can see that Christianity arose on the basis that that the resurrection is an actual historical event, and Paul goes so far as to say that if it isn’t true then we are wasting our time and that we are to be pitied. I think that it is pretty obvious that the writers believed what it was they were writing which of course does not prove that they were correct. I contend that it is reasonable to believe the accounts. They are not written in a way that would be consistent with somebody concocting these stories with an ulterior motive. They are written in a way that often makes the main characters look foolish. First century Jews generally believed in resurrection but only at the end of time for the chosen ones of God and again, generally speaking there wasn’t any anticipation that someone would be resurrected in the middle of time. If the story was being fabricated they would in all likelihood have had Jesus glowing like a star and everyone would recognize Him. Instead they have Him unrecognized and then recognized, appearing and disappearing and even eating fish. It is written with the sense that, I know this sounds a little more than odd, but this is what we observed. IMHO there is no case to be made for the stories being fabricated. IMHO what we have to make up our minds about is whether they are mistaken or not. We can read it and say that it is just too fantastic and we can’t believe it, or we can read the Gospels and say that it speaks to me and on faith I will accept it as truth. The other part of our faith that goes hand in hand with that is the message that Jesus taught. Do we accept that we are to have hearts that love unselfishly, and hearts that find joy in the joy of others? Do we have faith that we are called to have hearts that desire that we forgive readily, and that love kindness, justice and mercy. If we then approach the Bible armed with faith as I’ve described above we can make sense of the Scriptures. In a sense there are two main themes to the Bible. The first is the story of what God has done and what God is doing and what God is going to do. The second theme is how we as humans fit into that story. The first part of the story is that God created and we can read that in the Bible without trying to turn it into a science text. We have the OT accounts of Moses, Abraham and the prophets that all lead up to Jesus. Look at this quote from Zechariah 9.quote: The Hebrew Scriptures told of a King or Messiah coming as a humble man of peace. We are told that Jesus came to establish Hid Kingdom and that the Kingdom and that the characteristic of that Kingdom is to be one of humble servant hood. (I know we aren’t doing real well with that — are we?) We are then told that when time as we know comes to an end that God through a great act of re-creation will be bring all creation in both the earthly and heavenly dimensions together to form a non-entropic world characterized by unselfish love. There are passage all through the OT that counteract the message of violence that can also be found. IMHO we are to understand all of that through the lens of the message of love and peace espoused by Jesus. As I’ve said before I think that it is particularly important to note that Jesus preached this message of love and peace while He and His fellow Jews were living in enemy occupied territory and being brutalized and heavily taxed. The second theme is how we fit into that story. In some sense the message is that we are made in the image of God. We have been made His agents to care this world, and that we are to care for it based on reflecting of His love into the world. In some way we are building for the time when all will be made new. We are called to follow through on that with faith. There is no certainty. For me the Christian message makes so much sense of all that I see, feel and experience but I fully recognize that there are many kind, thoughtful loving people who disagree. In the end we all have faith of one sort or another. As I’ve said the Bible contains the word of God but it is Jesus that is the Word of God which is what the Bible tells us to be the case in John 1. IMHO we are belittling the Bible and ignoring the gift of reason, and for that matter the gift of the Holy Spirit when we try to turn the Bible into some sort of Book supernaturally ghost written by God. The Bible is a gift to us through which we can learn all we need to know, and more for that matter, about what God desires for our lives and what His plans for us are.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
When someone attempts to understand the Bible as essentially being dictated by God, (which I contend can’t be done anyway) we wind up with a God who‘s very nature becomes incoherent. At least some Christians, and I don't know if we can call them fundamentalists, believe that God's relationship with man changed markedly with Jesus first coming. One might explain, at least in part, the different descriptions of God in the Old and New Testaments by the change in God's relationship with man. Secondly, while reading to a shut-in family friend, I encountered the following verses in John chapter 5.
quote: I'm curious as to why those who maintain that Jesus said that Moses wrote the Torah cited more indirect verses and ignored this fairly direct statement.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I think that there are a couple of problems with that.
Firstly, the Torah has Moses writing things down in one or more books - with the implication that much of the law is drawn from those books (directly or indirectly). If Jesus said it, we cannot be sure that he meant that Moses wrote the Torah rather than the earlier works that the Torah claims. But did Jesus say it ? Unless it was quite obvious that these unidentified writings did refer to Jesus, surely it is simple (and not entirely truthful) boasting ? If a reasonable person could believe those writings and not believe that they referred to Jesus then Jesus is being clearly unfair. I think that GDR would be within his rights to reject this passage on those grounds, too.
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
If Jesus said it, we cannot be sure that he meant that Moses wrote the Torah rather than the earlier works that the Torah claims. I accept that there are alternate explanations for the text at John 5:46-47. But I'm still curious as to why ICANT, for example, cited instead a bit of scripture that makes an even less direct claim of Torah authorship by Moses.
But did Jesus say it ? Unless it was quite obvious that these unidentified writings did refer to Jesus, surely it is simple (and not entirely truthful) boasting ? The statements in John 5:46-47 are clearly being attributed to Jesus in the text, and what I'm interested in is what a fundamental, inerrant, literalist would make of those verses. Given that context, I am not sure what to make of your question.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I expect that ICANT just didn't think of it.
An intellectually honest inerrantist would, I think have to admit that there is nothing in the Torah that really fits. Since they don't have the option of denying that Jesus said it, and probably wouldn't want to accept that Jesus was just being an arrogant prick, the only option I can think of is to declare that it refers to a writing known in NT times, but since lost to Jews and Christians alike. That isn't very good, but I can't see anything better.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
NoNukes writes: At least some Christians, and I don't know if we can call them fundamentalists, believe that God's relationship with man changed markedly with Jesus first coming. One might explain, at least in part, the different descriptions of God in the Old and New Testaments by the change in God's relationship with man. I think it is reasonable to assume that any change would be because mankind had changed as opposed to God changing, meaning that God’s desires for mankind had always been the same but that He might relate to us differently as we had changed. I agree that God’s relationship with us is evolving as slowly our societies are evolving and becoming more Christ like. I know Christians talk about the old and new covenants but I don’t see it quite that way. In a sense there really is only one command and that is that we love unselfishly. The interesting thing about that is that it isn’t a command that we can just decide to follow. We can’t just go out and spend a couple of hours in the local food bank and say ‘look how unselfish I was’. How can we change our own outlook to go from being selfish to being unselfish? How do we change from finding our fulfillment or joy in our own pleasures to finding that our lasting joy and fulfillment is only truly found in serving and bringing pleasure to others? Yahweh can be found in various places in the OT, (the 10 commandments for example), to be promoting an existence that gently leads His people to a world of unselfish love. However, in many places in the OT there are examples that show Him leading His people in the opposite direction. Having His followers commit genocide or stone people to death is not likely to encourage His followers to love unselfishly. It would require God to go against His own nature as well as His desires for mankind. One of the things that Jesus did in His ministry in fulfilling the laws was to clarify them. The people of course who best kept the laws were the Pharisees and they were the group that Jesus appears to be the hardest on. In the Sermon on the Mount he tells us that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. That is actually easy to understand as the Pharisees felt that by keeping the laws meticulously they could get God on their side. However as I already said, (all IMHO of course), it isn’t about keeping laws for the sake of getting God on your side but about keeping the laws because they flow naturally from hearts that love unselfishly. The point of all that then is that God would never have commanded people to commit acts that lead to hardened hearts, so although mankind was slowly evolving as God continued and still continues to touch our hearts the basic relationship between God and mankind remained the same. I think that it is analogous to us raising our kids. As they mature we may treat them differently but the long term goal is that we raise them to be the kind of adults that we believe they should be. If we want our kids to be unselfish we don’t tell them to do selfish things at age two with the expectation that by age 20 they will miraculously unselfish. To understand the OT it has to be read in context with what has been revealed through Jesus and to fully understand the NT we have to read it in context with the OT. It’s hard to understand the conclusion if you don’t have the set up in your head and you certainly are missing something if you only read the set up and don’t read the conclusion.
NoNukes writes: Secondly, while reading to a shut-in family friend, I encountered the following verses in John chapter 5.quote: ________________________________________ 46For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. 47But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? ________________________________________ I'm curious as to why those who maintain that Jesus said that Moses wrote the Torah cited more indirect verses and ignored this fairly direct statement. It appears that Jesus was referring to Deuteronomy chap 18 vs 15-19.
quote: I think that we can confirm that when we read what Luke says in Acts 3 vs 22-26
quote: As far as the authorship of the Torah is concerned it is clear that Jewish tradition taught that Moses wrote it but it seems to me that it is a bit like us saying that Matthew wrote Matthew whereas in reality we don’t know how much direct or indirect input Matthew actually had. CheersEverybody is entitled to my opinion.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: But how likely is it that the Pharisees rejected "Deuteronomy chap 18 vs 15-19" rather than rejecting Jesus' claim that it was about him ? It seems pretty obvious that they didn't think that Jesus was a prophet equal to Moses and what else is there to identify the person it's talking about ?
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
PaulK writes: But how likely is it that the Pharisees rejected "Deuteronomy chap 18 vs 15-19" rather than rejecting Jesus' claim that it was about him ? It seems pretty obvious that they didn't think that Jesus was a prophet equal to Moses and what else is there to identify the person it's talking about ? It is extremely likely that they wouldn’t accept Jesus as the one talked about in Deuteronomy. Jesus was reinterpreting everything that The Pharisees believed. The Pharisees believed that if they meticulously kept all these laws, of which there were hundreds then God would return and lead them to victory over their enemies Their people would be vindicated and they would be the dominant force in the world with Yahweh, or His representative as King. Jesus said that their understanding of the Scriptures was seriously flawed. Jesus said that it isn't about keeping laws and sacrificing to the Temple in order to find favour with God. Jesus said that God wants mercy, not sacrifice. Jesus said it's all about kindness and justice, it's about love and forgiveness. Jesus said and demonstrated that leadership of others is about serving others. Jesus said that it isn't about acquiring land and power but it is all about building the new world wide, all encompassing "kingdom of God" that is built on love and service and not by swords and spears. In order for the Pharisees to accept Jesus as the Messiah they would have to adjust their thinking by 180 degrees.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
So you are saying that what Jesus said wasn't true. He was really attacking the Pharisees for disagreeing with his high opinion of himself. How does that fit with your image of him ?
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
PaulK writes: So you are saying that what Jesus said wasn't true. He was really attacking the Pharisees for disagreeing with his high opinion of himself. How does that fit with your image of him ? I don't understand how you came to that conclusion. Jesus was saying that He was the one referred to in Deuteronomy. All I'm saying is that I fully understand why it is that the Pharisees, for the reason I've already outlined, weren't going to accept Him as such.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: It is really very very simple. Jesus says that he is the one referred to in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy doesn't say that it is talking about Jesus. The Pharisees don't accept that Deuteronomy is talking about Jesus. Therefore in this, they disagree with Jesus, not Deuteronomy.
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