aikido7

"Hope's Daughter"

...just curious if you are familiar with Aesop's Fables?

(this might actually help clarify things...)

Vinnie

*Vinnie grovels on hands and knees begging the board administration to move a COPY of this to thread to the humor forum*

hope's daughter

Both GOD and Satan are involved in the incident with the census. David takes the census out of pride and engrossment in his own achievements. David was depending on the strenth in numbers rather than depedance on GOD. GOD's involvement was to allow David to take the census. Satan tempted David. This is not unusual since Satan was invovled with Job and with many Christian's sufferings and temptations. Satan's purpose is to destroy and demolish faith whereas God strenghtens through discipline and testing. The ramifications of David's actions is what caused the plague to be sent.

I personally see no contradiction in the I kings 15:5 with regard to the census. David commited murder and is not even comporable to to the passage on the census. It stresses the serious nature of what he did and the primary focus of how his life was altered by this one sin.

p.s. and just incase you wish to mention the injustice of God taking human life...I suggest you take it up with Him personally.

hope's daughter

Don't you mind your elders???? Please mind Joel. He has been such a good mod. Hate to see you ruin a good thing bud.

Secular Pinoy

Just as you can call yourself a Jew? We need an irony meter here.

Javaman

Yes, Satan is 'involved', at your God's behest. Have you read Job? I think a literal reading of Job is one of the most damning things about Christianity in general.
Hmm, this Satan character doesn't sound like the kind of guy a 'god' would want around... what with all the destroying and demolishing. You seem to advocate the brand of Christianity with two kingdoms. One ruled by God in Heaven, and the other ruled by Satan in Hell. I suggest you delve deeper into the history of Satan in the OT instead of relying on Revelations.
I'll stop by his booth after Shiva's... I hear she's hot.

My P.S. Anyone find 'Trinity' in the Bible yet? I'm having trouble locating it.

DrJim

hopes daughter wrote:

Satan does not appear in II Sam. He does not tempt David there at all. That book says explicitly that God put David up to it, persumably because of his anger with the Israelites, the reason for which is never explained. It seems to me that the writer of Samuel is depicting God as looking for a pretext to slaughter the people (if it was David who really upset God, why kill thousands of Israelites?).

It is only in Chronicles, written much later, that Satan enters the picture. Here the re-writer's effort seems to be to protect God from accusations of arbitrary violence.

Harmonizing the two versions as you do is not really addressing the accusation of inconsistency, but merely restating the problem the skeptics have brought to your attention. The insertion of devil-types into difficult biblical stories was not unusual in the Hellenistic period (Chronicles may be late Persian or Hellenistic).


Satan is unusual in the Old Testament. He hardly ever shows up, and is not always in any trouble with God when does. He does not get into any trouble over the matter of Job. Oddly, the offhand way God allows Job's family to be slaughtered goes pretty much unexplored in the book, too. Only Job's suffering seems in view. What did his kids do to be punished so?

Satan does show up in Zechariah briefly accusing the priest Joshua of impurity, and he is rebuked for it. but this is the only place where he really gets into trouble.

In the book of Jubilees, written in the last few centuries bce, Mastema (another "devil" figure), is written into a retelling of the story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22). No such devils appear in the Genesis account. Curiously, however, the serpent in the Garden of Eden is not obviously a satan-type in Genesis, nor in Jubilees, although the snake is later regarded as a satan-type in Christian thought. There seems to be a process of changing beliefs about about God and the existence of devils etc.

Harmonizing the two accounts is not really interpreting the two stories. At best is is demanding the priority of Chronicle's version, at worst it is offering a second retelling of your own.

The writer of Samuel knows of no Satan tempting David: it is God's desire to be violent that leads to the action described in it. There is a direct contradiction between Samuel and Chronicles. Get used to it.

{edited by Toto to fix tag for clarity}

aikido7

Interesting phrase "mind your elders." I really think you are too quick in both conclusion-jumping and fair judgement here.

In addition to your total misunderstanding and mischaracterization of my post, your appeal to "authority"--whether that of one's elders, one's religious tradition or Joel--closes off any open-minded and open-hearted approach to the Bible.

My question about "Aesop's Fables" has nothing to do with "baiting and childish behavior" and everything about trying to lay the groundwork for a more pertinent, pointed and relevant observation as to why obvious differences exist between you and Magnus on the one hand and the other posters on the other.

Believe me, this is right on topic.

If one is aware of even a cursory high school literature course or an in-depth exposure to the classics, then a side-post of "Aesop's Fables" is unduly and immensely relevant to our views of the Bible!

On reflection, if you feel I have misunderstood you or violated a posting rule, let me know and we can go over it together....

Herakles

My favorite Bible verses:

And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the seige and straightness wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straighten them.
jer. 19:9

And thou shall eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the lord thy god hath given thee, in the seige, and in the straightness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee;
Duet. 28:53

God told his people they could eat each other? How do you explain away this Magus?

Magus55

Because they don't know its a lie. Muslims believe its the truth. If the Apostles purposely wrote the gospels to be a fictional account, but taught it as the truth, they died for a lie they created. So yes, that argument does work.