Sheshbazzar

Soooo, this "loving" gawd uses his foreknowledge to plot, to arrange, and to assure that government leaders, and others, will under his machinations become His tools to carry out whatever evil is required, that will in turn make Him look good?
Reminds me of Doctors that deliberately poison or injure the patients under their care, so that they can receive greater praise when they "heal" them.

At the very least, an all powerful Gawd that deliberately "sets up", and provokes weak humans to the doing of His "dirty deeds", does not appear to be a very ethical or admirable Deity.

spamandham

We don't have to guess at which is the better interpretation. Isaiah 49 explicitly tells us the servant Isaiah is discussing is Israel.

"Listen to me, you islands;
hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born the LORD called me;
from my birth he has made mention of my name.

He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me into a polished arrow
and concealed me in his quiver.

He said to me, "You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will display my splendor."

Isaiah flows continuously from 49 to 53 (and beyond). The chapter breaks we use do no exist in the original text. They were added much later to improve the ability to refer to passages by chapter and verse.

Johnny Skeptic

How is the Bible not the personal opinions of the authors? How can people verify their personal opinions?

Consider the following claims:

1 - The God of the Bible created the heavens and the earth.

2 - Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

3 - Jesus was born of a virgin.

4 - Jesus never sinned.

5 - Jesus' shed blood and death atoned for the sins of mankind.

6 - A global flood occured.

Those are very important claims. Obviously, items 1-5 must be accepted entirely by faith, or rejected. Regarding item 6, it is virtual given that the only way that a global flood could have occured would have been if after the flood, God changed all of the evidence in ways that have convinced virtually all non-Christian geologists, and even some Christian geologists, that a global flood did not occur. That certainly is not a reasonably possibility. Inerrancy is not a reasonble possibility either. Inerrancy is an absurd claim. It is opinion, speculation, and guesswork. Inerrantists have an emotional need to have God act like they want him to act, so they dreamed up inerrancy, and yet, they criticize skeptics for wanting God to act like they want him to act. Inerrantists cannot imagine that a loving God would not inspire and preserve the originals, but yet they can easily imagine that God created Hurricane Katrina and sent it to New Orleans, created the Devil and empowered him to terrorize mankind, caused the first miscarriage, created homosexuality in hundreds of species of birds and animals, and forces innocent animals to kill each other.

You have said that the last thing that a person should do would be to abandon common sense, logic, and reason, but that is what you have done.

Will you please tell us why you are better qualified to interpret the Bible than conservative Christians who disagree with you?

Since I am going to start a new thread at the General Religious Discussions Forum with this post, please reply to it in the new thread, not at this forum. The title of the new thread will be "How is the Bible not the personal opinions of the authors?"

Edit: I just started the new thread at the General Religious Discussions Forum. The link is http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....73#post5727673.

DCHindley

Going back to page 3 of 6, here's another example of Israel being connected with Christian apocalyptic expectations:

I just now heard Fox News commentators warning that, with Hamas missles in range of some Israeli nuclear power plants, if one were to hit a plant "gas(oline) prices (in the USA) will skyrocket, the financial markets will collapse, and the whole world will go into recession" (I paraphrase).

Firstly, why would that affect gasoline prices in the US? It's almost wishful thinking that justifies conservatives' (Fox is unquestionably a right leaning network) convictions that support for Israel is a sacred duty. The political far right in this country has long courted religious conservatives, and I wonder if talk like this isn't related to that.

DCH

Stephen T-B

"Perhaps God was preparing Herod for judgment even as He is preparing you for judgment. " (rhutchin)
Nice god.
"Preparing Herod for judgment" apparently entailed the killing of every male child in Bethlehem, this god of rutchin's practising a "divine" morality which allows a man to cause heart-breaking distress on a considerable scale - as would be the consequence of killing those babies and children - as a way of ensuring that when he dies he shall be sent to suffer enternal torment in hell.

Happily, this particular atrocity is more likely to be legendary than historical, Herod having been born in 73 BC, inheriting the throne in 43 BC and dying in 4 BC.

DCHindley

Well, actually, Herod did not inherit the Jewish crown, but it was given to him by the Romans as a reward. Herod's father Antipater had been the Roman procurator of the Jewish ethnarchy based in Judea and headed by the High Priest Hyrcanus, so he was not the king. Herod's kingdom was also larger than the ethnarchy of Judea.

DCH

Stephen T-B

"... but it was given to him by the Romans as a reward" (DC Hindley)
I accept that correction.
My account was sloppy, but the dates I gave are, I think, accepted by scholars of the period.

SeekingKnowledge

Insightful as always...

The Dagda

Yeah but he had 3 sons called Herod, I'm sure you could say the Herod of Jesus birth and death was not the same, depending if you believe that Jesus was born on the dot of dec 25th at 1 AD.

DCHindley

I didn't think anyone was saying Herod the Great was the same as Herod Antipas.

As for that "3rd" Herod, it is only the NT authors who seem to call Herod the Great's son Philip, who was the tetrarch of Batanea & Trachonitis, "Herod". According to Josephus the Philip who was tetrarch was the son of Cleopatra of Jerusalem. There was also another son named Herod Philip, who was son of Mariamme II (not the Hasmonean princess, who was Mariamme I).

However, I understand that the whole issue is confused. It is not surprising since Herod the Great had 7 legitimate sons (Antipater III from the Idumean Doris of Jerusalem; Alexander & Aristobulus IV by Mariamme the Hasmonean princess; Herod Philip by Mariamme II; the ethnarch Herod Archelaeus & tetrarch Herod Antipas by the Samaritan Malthase; and tetrarch Philip, by Cleopatra of Jerusalem).

DCH