The Evil One

Ah doctor X, I wasn't counting yours as a contradiction since technically it's an unfulfilled prophecy rather than a contradiction.

Doctor X

"This isn't an argument it's just contradition!"

"No, it isn't."

Anyways, Junior predicted that the world would end . . . yadda . . . yadda . . . and it did not happen. I would consider that "contradictory."

However, fine . . . we can give him the two competing Birth Narratives or Genealogies.

--J.D.

spin

No, not too high. Just underdeveloped and misdirected. The stupid comparisons with Stephen King and Harry Potter show that you are not reading the texts with any sympathy at all. Have you read Gilgamesh or any of the pharaonic narratives from I-puwer to Wen-Amun or the Iliad? These are the works with which you should be comparing the Hebrew texts.

xians are too busy believing the texts, atheists too busy disbelieving them for either group to stop and read them. The first are needing and defensive, the second are hateful and offended. You find post after post here at this forum full of self-righteous scorn, which on the one hand you can understand because of the impact of xianity today while on the other hand does not foster appreciative reading.

The quality of thought and feeling is not consistent in the bible and I personally look mainly at the Hebrew bible (though I'm sure you can find good passages in the nt as well), in some of the David stories, in Proverbs, in Ecclesiastes, in tracts of Job, amongst the whinging in Psalms. The sacrifice of Isaac is great literature, so is the brief story of the dispute between the two women over the child which Solomon resolves. When you remove the centuries of rubbish encrusting the creation stories in Genesis, forgetting your desires scientific accuracy, you find rich imagery and significance. The reader who refuses to read these things with care is indeed shallow and sophomoric.


spin

Randy X

Thanks for replies everyone.

So this:

"We have found the body of the Pharoah beneath the Red Sea, evidence that Christ lived (though not necessarily as a deity)."

: is a load of crap then? When presented with a claim like this, how does one respond?

Sincerely,

Christ

Rhaedas

Ask them to back up the first claim, then ask them why A leads to B.

spin

Which pharaoh would they believe belonged to the body, hmmm? Nearly all the bodies are now in possession of the Egyptian museum. With the exception of Akenaten and Ai, there is a body for every pharaoh from Tuthmosis II to Merneptah (and probably beyond, but that is no importance here).

And, as Rhaedas suggests, "ask them why A leads to B". You know, we have Walt Disney's body, evidence that Mickey Mouse lived.


spin

DrJim

Godless Wonder: Further to Spin's last post on biblical literature

A major sub-discipline in Hebrew Bible studies is directed at the literary qualities of the texts. While there is perhaps a hastiness to praise rather than analyse the writings, and sometimes literary analysis becomes a cover for avoiding historical questions (and theology is sometimes masked as a pseudo-secular literary analysis), one thing is clear, the writers and redactors of the biblical texts for the most part were hardly hacks.

The conventions of writing in anceint Israel were very different to ours, so it all seems a bit strange. But next time you read a story in Genesis or Samuel. try to notice how LITTLE is actually said a lot of the time, how few adjected are used, for instance: Hebrew storytelling, at least in its written form, is very open-ended. They often tell you just enough to get the plot and imply moral or theological conundrums, but never bother to work it all out. This laconic style, of course, leaves the text open to criticism by modern logically oriented readers, but I suspect in the ancient world it was a device to elicit audience responses: questions from the audience, answers and debates from the scribes, sages and elders who may have read the texts publicly or discussed them amongs themselves. Some of the debates continue into modern Jewish and Christian settings.

I think 1 Samuel is one of the great narratives ever written. It has some evidence of scribal manipulation in the David and Goliath story, but the interaction bteween Samuel, Saul, David and God is masterful. Even the motives of Samuel the prophet and God seem at odds to some extent.

The prophetic texts, Isaiah, Amos, et al. are highly poetic, with word-plays, irony, satire, etc etc.

Great stuff, if one is willing to give it a chance.

JRL

Randy X

How about here:

link

Here, see it for youself. I urge some of you to join in and enter the fray. Pretty please? (BTW, I'm Randy)

Sincerely,

Christ

Infidelettante

Literature was the only true art form the Hebrews had. I wonder how the lack of others helped shape the one.

JT

Amlodhi

We have found the body of the Pharoah beneath the Red Sea, evidence that Christ lived (though not necessarily as a deity).

How delicious. I had, only moments before, just finished quoting a poster from another board who had claimed that many of Pharaoh's chariots had been found beneath the waters of the Red Sea, some with the remains of bodies still in them.

(Posted in the thread: Merged Fulfilled prophecies: Why I believe the Bible to be God's word.)

Ironically, the point of my post was how stories get elaborated and I made the statement that this poster "stopped just short of claiming that the body of the Pharaoh of the exodus himself had been found".

Well, it appears that we didn't have to wait long for the next installment of the elaboration process. Go figure.

Thanks for the link Christ, it made my day.

Amlodhi