wardy

Dr Paine, first of all I've greatly enjoyed conversing with you. You bring up some really good questions and points of discussion in a professional manner. I'm discouraged to continue for the following reasons:
1. You make some stong statements on a limited understanding of the text. When you first said that there were no consistent themes throughout the Bible, I questioned in my mind if you had ever read it (which I can sympathize with many people as that being a chore to do). You agreed after my examples that there were some consistant themes. Also in the statement above: (thanks for clarifying as I did misunderstand you) you state that these people (the prophets and writers of the Bible) were particularistic and chauvinistic. This clearly applies to the pharisees and religious leaders that sought to kill Jesus but not the true prophets and apostles. The prophets and apostles were men condemned to death and few lived to be a ripe old age. You are correct if you mean that they were intolerant in reference to their being One God but they boasted in Him and not their relationship with Him. It's hard to have a discussion about any book with a person who hasn't really comprehended the book they read. (For example: What is the authors intended purpose of the book of John?)
#2 After the first objection you took the entire focus off of the argument at hand to bring up irrevelant points to the discussion. This makes it difficult to carry on a meaningful conversation.

Why did they call for purity of religion? You made a connection between the judgement of God equalling cultural deterioration. Didn't they call people to a purity of obeying God because their culture was deteriorating: worshipping wood, and stone, sacrificing children, and temple prostitution?

True the prophets claimed to hear the voice of God? The question is did they? Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53-55 written over 500 years B.C.

I can sympathize with the confusion of freewill vs. God's sovereignty. I think if you have somebody that fully understands this then they are probably a liar. We have a conflict with it but theres no conflict of it in the Bible. We see many things in scripture that are a "both-and". Jesus was fully God and fully man. Salvation if fully God and man fully believing Him through faith. So I can sympathize with the confustion. I don't think I have to read anything into the old testament to see a redemptive analogy. For example I'll just list the text and leave it up for the readers of this thread to decide if this is a redemptive coarse that's described in the OT.

written over 500 years B.C.
ISA 53:1 Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
ISA 53:2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
ISA 53:3 He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
ISA 53:4
Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
ISA 53:5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
ISA 53:6 All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him.
ISA 53:7
He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
ISA 53:8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off out of the land of the living
For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?
ISA 53:9 His grave was assigned with wicked men,
Yet He was with a rich man in His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
ISA 53:10
But the LORD was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
ISA 53:11 As a result of the anguish of His soul,
He will see it and be satisfied;
By His knowledge the Righteous One,
My Servant, will justify the many,
As He will bear their iniquities.
ISA 53:12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,
And He will divide the booty with the strong;
Because He poured out Himself to death,
And was numbered with the transgressors;
Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for the transgressors.

Sparrow

So using your dating, Wardy, the authors of the individual books of the fiction millions know as the New Testament certainly would have had this text available to them. They certainly could have written their text to agree with anything in there. I don't see anything that specifically identifies a person in a place at a time. Dozens of martyrs could fill the bill.

It's not very convincing to me.

Dr_Paine

I believe you have assigned incorrect meanings to the words "chauvinistic" and "particularistic." What do you mean by the "true prophets and apostles?� At any rate, they were undeniably committed to their belief system as superior, indeed exclusive.

Please, the condescension is obvious; do you mean to equate comprehension of your sacred text with uncritical acceptance? Please........

huh?

I made no such statement. I stated that the pronouncements concerning the judgment of God were the result of the cultural deterioration perceived by the prophets. What they saw compelled them to lament.

I believe your implication, naive as it is, is that surely these writings could not have portended the coming of Christ had they not possessed some divine prescience. Do you not believe that the writers of the gospels had knowledge of the extant scriptures when they penned their stories? Retrospect is very deceptive, as I alluded to in a previous post. The "sin" of presentism, if you will, is to retroject meaning onto past events or declarations that were not intended in their accurate historical context.

It simply does not fit, does it? I am not sure why you say "there is no conflict of [sic] it in the Bible." Do you mean that the Bible does not explicitly expose its own absurdity? Of course not. How does this affect our ability and responsibility to challenge these inconsistencies?

Theology is a wonderful art form in which contradictions become "paradoxes" and absurdities become "mysteries" beyond the scope of the finite human mind. What shall we do, groping in darkness, and unable to comprehend?

The inconsistency remains; your attempted rationalization fails.

I am not sure what you mean by "both-and"; this seems to be a redundancy.

Okay, this is merely an assertion of your faith. I support you in doing so....... but your argument is.............

Try looking for possible explanations contemporaneous with the prophets' own times. Are we merely inferring connections from ambiguous creative works? The gospels were not written by chroniclers of Christ; they were written later. Doubtless, the passage of time and their personal fondness affected their constructions of Christ's hagiographies. Perhaps, looking back through the scriptures, they found what they were looking for : "Ah, I see.� It sounds rather like the Nostradamians of today, huh?

Gabe the Angel

So, what do you do when you come across an answer that's not in the Bible, do you dismiss it and accept it as being in there but just cannot be bothered to find it or, think that the original text was not translated properly by mere humans, or God works in mysterious ways. DNA is not in the Bible, but does this mean DNA is the work of the devil so that's why it was never in there?

wardy

Sparrow,
Great observations! The authors of the NT certainly would have had this text available to them (they quoted it often), and it's true that they could have written their text to agree with anything in there.

Question: does the fact that the writers had the old testament scripture available give any reason to believe that the life, crucifixion, and claims of Christ never happened?

applying the reasoning: If I collected all of the book written about George Washington (a person whom we've never seen), and wrote another book about him, does it follow that because i used previous information and others peoples writing that everything that I could possibly write about GW be invalid?

I quoted Isa. 53 to make my point that I don't have to read redemptive analogies into the text. Anybody that reads the Bible thoroughly will be able to identify these areas. You're raising up another argument that I wasn't addressing however I will attempt to answer your question.

Could dozens of martyrs fit the bill? Just making observations from Isa. 53 what other martyrs in world history fit these qualifications?

Isa. 53:5: pierced through for our transgressions?
2 things: This person was pierced through with the claim of it being for our transgressions?

And by His scourging we are healed
This person was scourged
the claim is that we are healed by it?

I agree that there are tons of martyrs in the world but this martyr specifically was identified as being scourged, pierced through, and specifically for our sin. Please list the names of 3 martyrs that just fit 3 of these claims for us all to research.

It's highly possible that I did not understand your definition of these 2 words. What I understood is that you believed the writers of the bible to be arrogant and intollerant of other religions and that they boasted in their religions. If this is not what you meant then I'm really confused. My counter-argument was to show that the writers of the Bible did not boast in a religion, they boasted in their God. A God that they believed to be unrivaled. They did believe that all other "gods" were man's creation. The relgious leaders of Jesus' time ("chauvinistic" and "particularistic") Christ actually condemned as they were isolating themselves and boasting in their own righteousness as opposed to the righteousness found in God alone. If you mean that the writers of the Bible are intolerant of believing in other religions as being true religions then you are making a correct observation. The writers of the Bible believed in one true God. If this is what you mean then we are in agreement.

(the bible mentions true prophets and false prophets, true apostles and false apostles: if you do a word search you will be able to find the biblical specifics of each)

I'm sorry but you must have misunderstood me. I'm not being condescending. We really havn't explored any deep discussion on comprehension. So far we been talking about observing whats going on without making interpretations. Example: you made claims that the Bible didn't have repeated themes. I made a statement that they did and listed proofs for that. You could apply this to any book with no interpretation whatsoever. Does the book have these or does it not? When you make a claim like this about a book that has many repeated themes then I question if you have read through the entire book thoroughly.


here is your exact statement...

I apologize...i understood you to be saying that when people start talking about the judgement of God that it's a symptom of social chaos. My bad if this is not what you meant....and about them not considering his impotence of nonexistence as a reason for silence.....I disagree:

over 700 yrs b.c.
Psalms 42:3 My tears have been my food day and night,While they say to me all day long, "Where is your God?"

Originally Posted by wardy
After the first objection you took the entire focus off of the argument at hand to bring up irrevelant points to the discussion. This makes it difficult to carry on a meaningful conversation.

example: this was the argument

DR Paine: Indeed, that's how it is. Do you retroject a "centralized purpose" onto the "Bible"? It is common knowledge that the writings that were later assembled as the Bible were of disparate backgrounds; I find no cohesive theme throughout the Bible.

My Counter example: 1. Bloody sheep or sacrifices: Adam and Eve coved after found naked with the fur of an animal (hard to imagine the animal being alive), the Ram substituted for Issaac, John the Baptist declaring when seeing Christ come, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." In Revelation: REV 1:5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood—

DR Paine: "Bloody Sheep and Sacrifices" sounds a little primitive to me. Does this God demand the blood of animals in order to satisfy his bloodlust?

here is an exact point in which you did not address the point of the argument, and asked a question to take the focus off of what was being discussed. Please be careful about doing this in the future...a debater will see this as throwing in the towel as you didn't address the counter arguement and shifted the discussion to another question that you had.

Dr. Paine, now this leads to great discussion! Good stuff. Yes, I do believe that these writings were divine "inspired" aka. the breath of God. I do believe that the writers of the gospels had access to these scriptures as well. Christ read from the book of Isaiah.

It seems like you implying that the writers of the new testament saw all of these prophesies and made up a fictional character named Jesus Christ?

too much historical evidence to resonably conclude that Jesus Christ never existed and didn't die on a cross: Bab. Talmud, 43 or 49 a.d. (enemy of Christianity, Josephus, Tacitus, writers of the NT)

Now a person could argue that Jesus existed and after He died the writers wrote the story to fit all of the OT prophesy.

If this were the case the Bible would have never lasted this long: Why? The disciples had this OT text available and didn't get the picture that Christ would die while they were with Him. They were hiding. The OT prophesy clearly points to a crucifixion (hands and feet pierced) psalms 22. The largest opponents to christianity also wrote of the crufixion in the Talmud after Christ died.

What about the prediction of being born in Bethlehem? He either was or He wasn't. If He wasn't then all these Jewish OT scholars 'Paul' would have not accepted him as the Messaiah. Same with Him being a decendent of David. The people alive during the life of Christ would have known (because of careful geneologies) if Christ was in the line of Judah. If he wasn't born in the line of Judah or in bethelahem then the Jews of that day would not have received him as messiah. Besides...what did these men have to gain for writing a story? They went to the death telling the people of the crucifixion and resurrection.

in reference to understanding free will vs. God's sovereignty

The Bible if full of Both-And things: Jesus being both fully God and fully man. Salvation being both God's sovergeinty and man's decision to believe. Faith being both a one time transaction and a lifetime process.

If it's that absurd then what about light?: The evidence points to light to being both waves and particles. Just because I cannot explain how it works doesn't logically cause me to conclude that it doesn't exist.

I wrote: With redemption what did I read back into the text?

If I didn't work for Wycliffe Bible Translators in South America I would have a more difficult time answering this question. There's a tribe there (in Peru)called the Perene Ashenika(SP?) in which my collegue Nathan Payne (graduate of Texas A&M University) worked with. His job was to adapt 40 bible stories from a related dialect into the Perene Asheninka language. The 40 stories go through the Old Testament and through the resurrection. Nathan worked 2 Perene Ashen. peoples who were not christian or had any prior knowledge of the Bible. These people were in the midst of the Amazon jungle. Nathan was just assisting then as they worked on the adaptation of the other language into their language (Nathan was born in Peru and his parents translated the entire new testament into the language that Nathan was adapting from.) When the male tranlsation assistant came to the part where John the Baptist looked at Christ and said, "Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." This guy with no prior knowledge associated Christ with the sacrifical lamb in the old testament.

I personally don't believe that all knowledge is in the Bible. If we follow this logic then all motor vehicles would be the work of the devil as it's not in the Bible but you see Christians drive cars and trucks.

Amaleq13

That is a faulty analogy because the Hebrew Bible is not a collection of books written about Jesus but a collection of books written about Judaism from which passages were selected to write a story about Jesus.

In order to be analogous, your story about George Washington would have to be similarly created from passages taken from a collection of religious texts.

[added later]

Actually, the source collection wouldn't have to be religious in nature unless George was depicted as a figure from that religion. Assuming you are going to depict him as a great leader, the source collection would be about leadership or something similar.

spin

Aww, c'mon, Ameleq13, this thread has *uck-all to do with BC&H. Isn't it time you did the right thing and dispatched it?


spin

Amaleq13

spin,


It has a lot of Bible-related content so I disagree though it may not be your cup of tea. As you know, complaints about moderation or about threads/posts have their appropriate place and it isn't here.

Raise your flag in the appropriate venue and see if anybody salutes. Or ignore the thread.

Tiberius

if so, then Woo Hoo! We've found a scientific Holy grail! The Theory of Everything! Why, indeed, if all knowledge was in teh Bible, there would be nothing we would not know! What will I do tomorrow? It's in the Bible! What are next week's lotto numbers going to be? it's in the Bible! How do we merge Quantum Physics with newtonian Physics? it's in the Bible!

See where I'm going?

Gabe the Angel

Finding the lottery numbers is not the point, its to do with bigger issues like how the earth was made, or what happens after death, what will God do if your a bad person etc. If you bring in other life in other worlds this will Im sure create a problem, good old SETI keep listening. This knowledge about the earth not being the only work from God will win some of the brainwashed followers into the real world. To argue about the lottery numbers not being in the Bible is a little point rather than a bigger issue.