Wasn’t Lot Jewish?
“My visitors I should hand over? Oy, vey. Go ahead and take my daughter, why don’t you?” (Shuts the door, muttering darkly about how the whole town has been taken over by chazzers.)
See? No contradiction there.
With regard to the New Testament, especially the Gospels, it is important to recognize the context in which they were written. I’m sure that they did not consider for one minute that their works would be used 2000 years into the future and it is pointless to try to criticize them in this light. The evangelists were not writing history - the time they were living in was close enough to the events that they were writing of that their intended audience were already conversant of the facts of Jesus’ life etc - they had no need of a text to set those out for them. The Gospels set out the meaning of those facts in relation to the lives of the intended audience (which would have been a small and specific community).
The Gospel writers were essentially spin doctors. When George Bush lands on an aircraft carrier in a fighter jet, we do not believe that he is factually a legendary warrior who has personally devasted legions of Iraqi forces - it is an image that is being portrayed.
Likewise, when Matthew describes the Massacre of the Innocents and the flight to Egypt, he knows that these events did not happen, he is portraying an image of Jesus as the new Moses.
Precisely. But of course that viewpoint therefore means the Bible is, and cannot be, the “inerrant word of God.” It’s scripture is not perfect, it’s meaning unclear, the events hyperbolized or invented from whole cloth.
To paraphrase previous arguments, from the above, how do we know what is ‘fact’ and what is fiction?
As already noted, just in this thread alone we see the Bible itself gives four different variations of his “final words,” and we don’t know if he was given water, wine, vinegar, opium or a mix of any of them, or, for that matter, whether the Roman was a kind soul or heartless bastard.
We’ve established the book is largely fictionalized, being written in some cases centuries after the events depicted, so the question is, again, what is fact and what is fiction?
However, biblical scholars agreed that the text should be interpreted literally unless indicated otherwise internally (e.g. Jesus telling a parable).
What I find illogical: the fact that despite the Bible being about a perfect Divine being, who according to the words of its only son: “Only God is Good”, it is written by humans, full of sin, error and imperfect understanding, and it’s supposed to be infallible?
I have always found that ridiculous, presumptuous, and somewhat heretic. It’s an interpretation of the truth within the limits of human understanding, memory and language capability, not a perfect mathematic algebraic God-proof.
Seems to be more or less what has happened in this thread. You a prophet?
Well, it is a holiday weekend, (US), maybe Fule is just busy.
With much respect for my learned friend Polycarp, in my opinion parts of the Bible–in particular the first five books–do show considerable evidence of having been compiled from several sources, the infamous “P”, “E”, “J” and so on of Dr. Bultmann and the Higher Critics. That single fact should shake no one’s faith, since God could as easily be viewed the Supreme Editor as He could be the Supreme Writer.
The creation story, the Tower of Babel, and the Flood story all show distinct, even striking parallels and connections with Sumerian myth. Now, a fundamentalist would say the Sumerian myths as described in the Epic of Gilgamesh and elsewhere are identical to the Biblical account because they’re not myths, but history, albeit form a “primitive” and polytheistic viewpoint. I submit that a more reasonable explanation, one taking into account the processes of cultural diffusion (and the passing of some 2000 - 3000 years between ancient Sumer and the post-exile period!) is that the Hebrews took stories extant in the Near East and put a new spin on them–probably as oral traditions first–and with considerable polishing and reworking by later priests.
I believe it is the text called “When the gods as men” (from the opening line of the story) that details the creation of man. This was drawn from Assyrian and Babylonian sources, but is believed to be in turn based on Sumerian myth. Apparently, the gods were feeling like they were being worked to death, and rebelled against the authority of Enlil, the Most High. A council of the gods was called and the problem discussed. One of the gods, Ea, said:
“While the birth goddess is present,
Let her fashion offspring.
While the Mother of the Gods is present,
Let her fashion a “primitive.” [Akkadian and possibly Sumerian ‘lulu’]
Let the worker [‘amelu’] carry the toil of the gods.
Let her create a primitive worker [‘lulu amelu’].
Let him bear the yoke.”
The story goes on to describe how man was created as a slave for the gods, how they worked for the gods tending a beautiful garden.
The Genesis account uses the word Elohim for “God” in the above passage: "And Elohim said: ‘Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.’ " Elohim is plural, usually translated as “deities.”
Actually, MrTuffPaws, it looks to me like God didn’t have a wife, but He did have a colleague, a mother-goddess or “midwife goddess” named Ninhursag.
The two Judas death stories don’t jibe. Do you know what headlong means? It means his head pitched forward and downward, as in diving. That is contradictory to being hanged by the neck.
As for the rainbow and the laws of optics, geez, cut the Bible a little slack here. I’m not a Christian, I’m no apologist for the Bible, but I still don’t like to see unfairness. The rainbow was put in there as poetry. If a poet had written that, nobody would be on his case for violating the laws of physics.
True, but I’ve never heard anyone claim that, say, the works or Robert Frost were divinely inspired and completely infallible, either.
Yes but no one is claiming poetry must be inerrant, Jomo Mojo. Plenty of fundamentalists do claim that about the Bible.
To heck with inerrancy. The concept is nonsense to me. Exegesis must take into account the level of meaning intended. Poetry is to be read in one way and history or law or rhetoric in other ways. I cannot see how one overarching one-size-fits-all concept of “inerrancy” can cover all these diverse methods of exegesis at once.
I’m afraid I inhabit a world so remote from the Biblical literalists that I cannot fathom how their minds work. When I see a beautiful bit of poetry, like the rainbow after the Deluge, I appreciate it for what it is. How that can be taken as “inerrant,” I have no idea.
Well, Fuel has a respectable number of posts so it doesn’t seem that he is a troll.
Maybe, just maybe, he has read the posts, decided that there is no way he could resolve the inconsistencies, and has become an athesist.
But, maybe not.
Bob
Deuteronomy 18
22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.
Does Jeremiah fit the test?
Jeremiah 51:8, 25–26, 58, and 63–64:
"Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for her, take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.
…
25 ‘Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain,’ saith Jehovah, ‘which destroyest all the earth; and I will stretch out My hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever,’ saith Jehovah.
…
58_Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: ‘The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary.’ … 63 And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates: And thou shalt say, ‘Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring upon her; and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.’"
And yet, Babylon was destroyed and rebuilt several times. (Saddam Hussein was even working to restore the Babylonian ruins in the present day.) The stones were reused, too.
There’s also this:
Jeremiah 9:25-26
25_“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “that I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised-- 26_Egypt and Judah, and Edom and the sons of Ammon, and Moab and all those inhabiting the desert who clip the hair on their temples; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.”
And yet, Egypt is still around.
Jeremiah prophesied thus to the King of Israel:
Jeremiah 34
5 you will die peacefully. As people made a funeral fire in honor of your fathers, the former kings who preceded you, so they will make a fire in your honor and lament, “Alas, O master!” I myself make this promise, declares the LORD .’ "
Jeremiah 38
17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, "This is what the LORD God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: 'If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned down; you and your family will live.
But Zedekiah and his family were captured. His sons were killed, and the Babylonians put out his eyes.
Which leads us back to the assumption that we’re supposed to take obviously impossible occurrences (the Flood, water to wine, the ressurection, et al) literally.
And again, we know that significant portions were written long after the fact- meaning we’re supposed to take what’s essentially hearsay and gossip as the literal truth?
What about grammar errors? I know that is not logic, but if the text’s are believed to be word of g-d, wouldn’t it be logical for errors of grammar or plain confusig/ambiguous sentences to be missing?
Well, I’d suggest that “obviously impossible” gives away your own position. Tell me again how it’s bad when religious types make sweeping statements of certain and absolute truth…
FWIW, there are plenty of us that see no contradiction at all between “the Bible is an incomplete, unclear, improbable and occasionally contradictory grab-bag mix of ancient myth, poetry, oral history, sex manual, philosophy and practical advice reflecting the biases of its altogether human authors” and “the Bible is the Inspired Word of God.”
Heck, I don’t necessarily have a problem with “inerrant,” although I think someone better define that term before it gets loose.
I heard that it was only supposed to be doctrinally inerrant, whatever that means.
I’ve never made any secret of my nontheism. As for the reference to “obviously impossible”, I suppose if you believe there’s some creature out there that’s so incredibly powerful he can create an entire universe full of a thousand billion galaxies, each packed with a hundred billion stars, from utter nothingness, and yet cares about each and every person on this particular insignificant backwater dust mote, then the idea of a few impossible occurrences is no great shakes.
That’s like saying Terminator is “the inspired Word of John Connor” or Carrie is “the inspired Word of Carrie White”. People have utterly forgotten who is the character and who is the author.
In any case, the problem is less the idea it’s the “inspired word”, the problem is we’re regularly told “it’s the inerrant or perfect word of God”. meaning the thoughts, ideas and concepts are so perfect, so utopian, so right, that we should not dare question the Creator, and should instead bow our heads and give thanks for anything and everything. (Oh, and donate 10% of your earnings, go door-to-door offering literature and work dilligently to convert the heathens and pagans, etcetera.)
For that matter, if you acknowledge that it is, in fact, “* incomplete, unclear, improbable and occasionally contradictory*”, why base your life, activities and actions around it?
Simple. The Bible is without error, because it is The Word Of God. If the Word of God is found to be in error, then that would imply that God is not, as we’re so often told, perfect and infallible, therefore the Bible must be wholly without error. Any flaw or contradiction must therefore be our silly, weak, human misinterpretation of the thing (and not, of course, a flaw of the very basis of the work itself.)
I’ve tended to see that as “The Bible itself has flaws, but the idea- IE, do good, don’t sin, devote yourself to God, et al- is perfect”. (In other words that’s how you’re supposed to act, as anything else is, naturally, wrong.)
There’s not a one of us believers who doesn’t agree with you about the utter improbability if not total impossibility of such a creature. Rather, we believe in a Creator. And that’s not just a play on your choice of words; the idea of a God with that sort of cosmic consciousness is significantly less than the reality of Him, we believe. J.B. Phillips wrote a book whose total message is in the title: Your God Is Too Small. And his point was this: no matter what your concept of God: Magical Sky Pixie, Magistrate in the Sky, Uncle Cuddly, Universal Mind, the Brahman which is not Maya, That Which Unconditionally IS – they all fall short of the reality. And Hell, the spastic, disorganized human-created entity that is the Internet still manages to keep straight that you’re reading and replying to a thread on the SDMB, the kid next door is in the #Sk8RDudes chatroom, and the guy across the sreet wants to see that guy who must have responded to the e-mail spam doing things with that buxom redhead.
I completely agree. One must keep in mind the human author, his preconceptions and limitations, the culture in which he wrote, etc. This does not preclude a measure of divine inspiration. Parallel: Felix Frankfurter, before being named to the Supreme Cort, was a senior professor at Havard Law who trained a large proportion of Federal judges and constitutional scholars, the so-called “Hot Dogs.” Their opinions and law review articles are unmistakeably their own work, yet carry a flavor of Frankfurter’s philosophy and world view, sometimes from his verbatim suggestions but more often by his views having shaped theirs.
Bingo. So liberal Christians do not buy into this BS. “Jesus came to take away your sins – not your mind.”
I for one don’t. I base my life on the clear and simple, though amazingly difficult to perfectly do, treachings of Jesus which happen to be contained in it. He teaches an idealistic and challenging individual ethical code which implies humanistic social morals – contrary to what the inerrantists believe and practice.