NOGO

Thank you for the history lesson. I have read Josephus' The Jewish Wars many years ago and remember it quite well. The rebellion against Rome was not started by the Pharisees, in fact while Jerusalem was under siege many of the upper classes were executed by the rebels.
This is history and is without dispute.

The problem is that this has nothing to do with Matthew 23. You have in no way established that link. As I stated Matthew 23 is an attack by Jesus on the scribes and Pharisees not on all the Jewish nation. You have not answered any of my points concerning this.

Who, other than yourself, claims that Mt23 is a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem?

You are playing games, David. You are adding elements which have nothing to do with the text discussed. The fact these added elements are true does not make the link with the subject at hand true.
What I am saying is this:
Jesus is saying that scribes and Pharisees will go to hell because their fathers killed prophets.
David Matthew:
Jesus is saying that Israel was destroyed at the hands of the Romans because the fathers of the Pharisees killed prophets.

What I want to know is this, referring to Mt23:33
Mt23:33 "You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?

How can you equate all of Israel with "You serpents, you brood of vipers" ?
How can you equate the Jewish-Roman war with "the sentence of hell" ?


You are speculating on the reason for the massacre while the bible states that very reason quite clearly.
2 "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt.

Read carefully the part after these words "For what he did to Israel ..."
That is the reason for the massacre NOT your speculation.

I agree that nations and individuals have a right to self defense.
1 Samuel 15, however, has nothing to do with self-defense.
The massacre of people for the stated reason of something that happened 400 years earlier cannot in anyway be misconstrued for self-defense.

[ July 31, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

Adrian Selby

Hmm, my concern is here you guys are criticising the slant that David is putting on these things, when his slant, within a community that agrees with his slant is, from his point of view, by definition not false doctrine. If you are outside of his view and community then you cannot criticise him of errors of interpretation.

Which implies that there can be no such thing as a flawed reading of scripture if there is a community that agrees with itself on that reading. As there is no clear guideline of how to define or characterise such a community, and what invalidates or validates a community, I'm left wondering why anything at all cannot be said regarding scriptural interpretation, and the ensuing relativist vacuum defeats analysis. Which could be David's rather weak getout clause.

excreationist

About massacres in the O.T.:

Many of them were a result of Noah's curse of Ham's son in Genesis 9:20-27. Noah was drunk and lay around naked. Ham say that and told his brothers. His brothers covered their father up. Noah cursed Ham's son, Canaan - and also his descendents (I think). It also says that (the people of?) Canaan would be the slaves of Shem and Japheth.
Genesis 10:15-19 talks about Canaan's descendants, which are mostly repeated later in the O.T.
e.g.
Exodus 23:23- "For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them."

Although it doesn't explicitly say that the Perizzites were descendents of Canaan, they are always mentioned along with descendents of Canaan in the O.T. (see <a href="http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?SearchType=AND&language=english&version=NASB &searchpage=0&search=Periz&x=14&y=5" target="_blank">word search</a>)

Opera Nut

My opinion: If David Mathews was a real Xtian instead of an egotist trying to prove to this BB that he and his Xtian friends are always correct, and that all atheists/agnostics/nonbelievers are going to be immoral shishkebabs roasting in hell, he would not be commenting and arguing here.

If he was a real Xtian, he would be out in the streets helping the homeless, ministering to the sick, the lonely, the desperate, feeding the hungry, teaching poor people to read, clothing the naked, and doing full time charity work -- not reading the Babble to them and saying "god will take care of you" while they wither and die of illness and starvation.

He would be building houses for Habitat for Humanity alongside Jimmy Carter, helping poor people at his local Interfaith Ministries organization, donating time, money, possessions, or babysitting poor children with AIDS, etc. etc.

David's spouting doctrine, blowing hot air, proving his ego superiority, is more important than actually relieving suffering in his world in the name of his alleged savior.

I am a secular humanist and make no claim to be more moral than anyone else here; however, I have done a lot of volunteer work in my life and I don't think it's anything special, just what a citizen should be doing.

"As you did it to the least of them, so you did it unto me."


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