Did God Create Fossils?

[Colter]

When I first read the whole Bible through as an unbeliever, I noticed the description of the funeral of Moses and assumed that Joshua probably penned this to the end of Moses' writing. I know you want to use this simple, short passage to discount any possibility of Moses writing the Pentateuch, but this is the consistent testimony of the Old and New Testament, including the words of Christ.

My position is that the Bible is exactly what we should expect it to be, all things considered. Errors in the Bible don't translate into errors in God or spiritual truth. But lets cut to the chase, if it is your faith that God wrote the Bible then naturally any apparent mistakes must be made to go away to a kind of uneasy satisfaction.

It should come as no real surprise that the men who left Judaism to follow Jesus would be tempted to justify their faith in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah by forcing him into Old Testament theology and prophecy. BTW, you theorize that Old Testament Holy men were more perfect than todays Holy men??????? Those same Holy men, in their generations, mistreated the other prophets of God as well. The prophets who were despised by their contemporaries were only appreciated later, long after they lived.

 

[James Wilson]

There are no "love letters" from God who instructed the Israelites forefathers to go forth in battle to slay all their enemies—men, women, and children.

There you go again, speaking for God. Did it occur to you that God may think differently than you?

Let's take a New Testament example, using Jesus to show us how God sometimes acts (When Thomas said to Jesus, "Show us God!", Jesus replied, "You have seen Me, so you have seen God."):

When Jesus came down from the Mount of the Transfiguration, a man came up to Him and said, "Your disciples couldn't heal my son. Can You?"

This was his prayer, "Can You heal my son?" Jesus replied, "Can I?" and did not answer that prayer. The Bible says, "Without faith we cannot please God."

Then the demon began to gnash the boy into the ground, hurting him.

If you or I had been there, we'd have said, "Jesus! Take care of that demon!"

But Jesus responded to the man in a somewhat conversational way, "How long has he been this way?"

You or I would have said, "Jesus! Ignore the father and take care of that demon!"

Only when Jesus could get the man to say, "Lord I believe, help Thou my unbelief", did Jesus heal the boy.

Jesus allowed suffering on the journey toward faith.

Remember the Samaritans, left in Israel while most of inhabitants were taken into captivity. They did not remain true to their faith. That would have been the fate of the Jews in the Promised Land if they had followed your advice: "Let the surrendering men, all the women and all the children live."

God wanted to set up a faithful community to carry His word to the world (several Old Testament prophecies show the ultimate intent of God was that His word given to the Jews be taken to the world). Your concern for keeping the women and children alive, even though they at times practiced child sacrifice, would have not been a kind act.

When God's creation was contaminated by the Nephilim (giants that were half angel), God flooded the Earth and started over with a faithful man and his family. If the promised land became contaminated and could no longer carry on the Word of God without error, it would have had to be cleansed again. Where's the compassion in that?

We often judge God because He doesn't follow the same rules as He commands His people to follow. But He's God. Besides, we as limited men of limited mental potential could not conceive of what would happen if God did things our way.

 

[James Wilson]

My position is that the Bible is exactly what we should expect it to be, all things considered. Errors in the Bible don't translate into errors in God or spiritual truth. But lets cut to the chase, if it is your faith that God wrote the Bible then naturally any apparent mistakes must be made to go away to a kind of uneasy satisfaction.

It should come as no real surprise that the men who left Judaism to follow Jesus would be tempted to justify their faith in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah by forcing him into Old Testament theology and prophecy. BTW, you theorize that Old Testament Holy men were more perfect than todays Holy men??????? Those same Holy men, in their generations, mistreated the other prophets of God as well. The prophets who were despised by their contemporaries were only appreciated later, long after they lived.

You keep getting hung up on this "perfect men" thing. We know that all men sin and fall short of the glory of God. We're imperfect, but we can still perceive God and write about Him.

Let me give you a real life illustration:

I used to ride my bike to work, and I was always late. I used to run through stop signs and red lights to get to work on time. Even though I am a Christian, I used the need to get to work on time as an excuse to break traffic laws.

Then God spoke to me one day, "Can you give Me any reason for not stopping at stop signs and lights?"

When put that directly, I had to admit I had no justification. So I promised THAT day to begin stopping at stop signs and red lights. That night I approached the first stop sign of my 2-mile journey home. I used to run this stop sign because I had to cross two lanes of traffic, turn left and cross a freeway overpass onto a busy highway.

Because it was my habit, I started increasing my speed to cut through the stop sign and two lanes of traffic. Then remembering my promise to God that morning, I coasted to the stop sign and put on my brakes. I had no brakes!

A car was coming and I had to drive in the borrow pit and drag my feet to avoid being hit by the car.

I jumped off my bike and examined my brakes. Both brake cables were cleanly cut through! Not worn. Besides, that morning I'd used my brakes without any problem.

At first I got mad at God for allowing this. Then I remembered the story of Job. Everything that happens to us is filtered through God's love. "No temptation hath overtaken you but such as is common to man and God will, with the temptation, provide the way to overcome it."

That morning, Satan had demanded of God, "I'm going to cut Jim's brake cables."

God said, "Okay, but I'm going to have a talk with Jim."

If I hadn't listened to God's voice that morning, I might have died.

NOW, there you have a record of God's speaking to a man, some things that happened as a result and theological implications of that incident. All told by an imperfect creature. Did it glorify God? Did it speak encouragement to God's people? (These are rhetorical questions, because I'm going to answer, "Many Christians have testified to these welcome results." Wow! And all this from an imperfect creature!)

 

[Colter]

You keep getting hung up on this "perfect men" thing. We know that all men sin and fall short of the glory of God. We're imperfect, but we can still perceive God and write about Him.

Let me give you a real life illustration:

I used to ride my bike to work, and I was always late. I used to run through stop signs and red lights to get to work on time. Even though I am a Christian, I used the need to get to work on time as an excuse to break traffic laws.

Then God spoke to me one day, "Can you give Me any reason for not stopping at stop signs and lights?"

When put that directly, I had to admit I had no justification. So I promised THAT day to begin stopping at stop signs and red lights. That night I approached the first stop sign of my 2-mile journey home. I used to run this stop sign because I had to cross two lanes of traffic, turn left and cross a freeway overpass onto a busy highway.

Because it was my habit, I started increasing my speed to cut through the stop sign and two lanes of traffic. Then remembering my promise to God that morning, I coasted to the stop sign and put on my brakes. I had no brakes!

A car was coming and I had to drive in the borrow pit and drag my feet to avoid being hit by the car.

I jumped off my bike and examined my brakes. Both brake cables were cleanly cut through! Not worn. Besides, that morning I'd used my brakes without any problem.

At first I got mad at God for allowing this. Then I remembered the story of Job. Everything that happens to us is filtered through God's love. "No temptation hath overtaken you but such as is common to man and God will, with the temptation, provide the way to overcome it."

That morning, Satan had demanded of God, "I'm going to cut Jim's brake cables."

God said, "Okay, but I'm going to have a talk with Jim."

If I hadn't listened to God's voice that morning, I might have died.

NOW, there you have a record of God's speaking to a man, some things that happened as a result and theological implications of that incident. All told by an imperfect creature. Did it glorify God? Did it speak encouragement to God's people? (These are rhetorical questions, because I'm going to answer, "Many Christians have testified to these welcome results." Wow! And all this from an imperfect creature!)

You just attributed quotes to God and Satan,
That morning, Satan had demanded of God, "I'm going to cut Jim's brake cables."

God said, "Okay, but I'm going to have a talk with Jim."


You did indeed make my point!

 

[James Wilson]

Colter said, You just attributed quotes to God and Satan,
That morning, Satan had demanded of God, "I'm going to cut Jim's brake cables."

God said, "Okay, but I'm going to have a talk with Jim."


You did indeed make my point! (End quote)


So, you could fix up my true story so that it would pass your criteria. Then you would be the perfect man... or the perfect writer. Don't you think your criteria is unnecessarily strict, just to prove a point?

In Isaiah 48, God gives the requirements of prophecy. Are you saying it would be impossible for God to find a man who could transcribe those requirements well enough to satisfy the God of the Universe?

 

[miamited]

Hi colter,

In reply to your last response to me (#476), the Scriptures delineate a plan in which God is working to achieve a goal. The final goal is found in the last few paragraphs of the Revelation of Jesus. There is coming a time when God is going to clean up all this mess that we've made. He will separate the sheep from the goats. He will then live with those to whom He has fulfilled His promise of eternal life with Him. That's the final goal for which God began by commanding and creating this realm of existence to be. It has always been His plan since the beginning. God knows the beginning from the end and He knew all along that man, the special creation for which He created this realm, would sin. He always knew that His Son would ultimately have to step in and pay the price for sin so that some may be saved. God has always known these things and He has been working towards the ultimate goal since the beginning. That's what I find seems fairly clearly described and foretold throughout the Scriptures.

When Jesus hung on that cross and looked up to his Father and declared that 'it' is finished. He was referring to this plan. The part of the plan whereby he would give his life for the sin of man and thereby open up the way of salvation to mankind, was finished when Jesus made that pure sacrifice of love for us.

However, there are several intermediate steps to any good plan. One of God's intermediate steps was to make himself known. In order to do that, God called a man by the name of Abram. He began through him to work out this step of the whole plan to make Himself known by setting aside the descendants of Abraham. He continually worked with them in establishing them as God's cherished people. He made a promise to Abraham of a great plot of land on which his generations could grow and flourish as they lived as God's people upon the earth. In fulfilling that promise to Abraham, yes, God did support, command and instruct the Israelites to remove, by death, the people who were currently inhabiting the land of promise. It was God's intention to give them that land and He did.

It was all a part of God's purpose in showing the world that the Israelites, the Jews, were the people of God. Probably one of the greatest stumbling stones that many who seek after the Christian faith today face, is this idea that this loving God who has been so merciful to us and speaks to us of loving one another, could ever possibly have had any hand in the deaths of people. However, I think just a very simple and cursory reading of the Scriptures will show us that God is not above bringing about death and destruction to accomplish His goals. After all, the flood was, I think without question, purposed and caused by God. There's certainly nothing that a simple man could do to bring about a worldwide flood. In that singular example we see that God clearly explains that the purpose of that great flood was to wipe man off the face of the earth. Women, children, men and boys all died as a result of the flood. Hundreds of thousands of people perished in a matter of a very few days as the flood waters rose all over the earth. Because God.

Now, God does ask today that we be merciful one to another. Once God secured the land for Israel, you don't read much about God calling His people to war. He protected and provided for them, but initially getting the land under their feet was a matter of removing the people who then lived on the land. You see, now that part of God's plan is complete. He raised up the nation of Israel and used His people to write His Scriptures. Through them He delivered to us His Son, our Savior. So the work for which God raised up a nation from the loins of Abraham is fairly complete, but...

The Scriptures are clear that Israel is still especially significant to God. He still loves them despite their rebellious ways. He loves us, too. God's love is big enough for that. I realize that you likely don't see or understand this plan yet. Israel didn't either. But I believe that if you'll devote time to some careful study of the whole of God's Scriptures and asking through diligent prayer that God give you the promise of knowledge of the truth through His Spirit, that you'll find the same thing as I have.

This realm of existence had a beginning and there is an end to come. Everything in the middle has been planned and is being worked out in accordance with that plan. Yes, there's a lot of sin out there in the world, but God's great plan will prevail and some will be saved. Our goal, if we so choose, is to make ourselves in agreement with God. Unfortunately, too many people want to make God in agreement with man. We want to believe that God is like us. He isn't.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[Colter]

Hi colter,

In reply to your last response to me (#476), the Scriptures delineate a plan in which God is working to achieve a goal. The final goal is found in the last few paragraphs of the Revelation of Jesus. There is coming a time when God is going to clean up all this mess that we've made. He will separate the sheep from the goats. He will then live with those to whom He has fulfilled His promise of eternal life with Him. That's the final goal for which God began by commanding and creating this realm of existence to be. It has always been His plan since the beginning. God knows the beginning from the end and He knew all along that man, the special creation for which He created this realm, would sin. He always knew that His Son would ultimately have to step in and pay the price for sin so that some may be saved. God has always known these things and He has been working towards the ultimate goal since the beginning. That's what I find seems fairly clearly described and foretold throughout the Scriptures.

When Jesus hung on that cross and looked up to his Father and declared that 'it' is finished. He was referring to this plan. The part of the plan whereby he would give his life for the sin of man and thereby open up the way of salvation to mankind, was finished when Jesus made that pure sacrifice of love for us.

However, there are several intermediate steps to any good plan. One of God's intermediate steps was to make himself known. In order to do that, God called a man by the name of Abram. He began through him to work out this step of the whole plan to make Himself known by setting aside the descendants of Abraham. He continually worked with them in establishing them as God's cherished people. He made a promise to Abraham of a great plot of land on which his generations could grow and flourish as they lived as God's people upon the earth. In fulfilling that promise to Abraham, yes, God did support, command and instruct the Israelites to remove, by death, the people who were currently inhabiting the land of promise. It was God's intention to give them that land and He did.

It was all a part of God's purpose in showing the world that the Israelites, the Jews, were the people of God. Probably one of the greatest stumbling stones that many who seek after the Christian faith today face, is this idea that this loving God who has been so merciful to us and speaks to us of loving one another, could ever possibly have had any hand in the deaths of people. However, I think just a very simple and cursory reading of the Scriptures will show us that God is not above bringing about death and destruction to accomplish His goals. After all, the flood was, I think without question, purposed and caused by God. There's certainly nothing that a simple man could do to bring about a worldwide flood. In that singular example we see that God clearly explains that the purpose of that great flood was to wipe man off the face of the earth. Women, children, men and boys all died as a result of the flood. Hundreds of thousands of people perished in a matter of a very few days as the flood waters rose all over the earth. Because God.

Now, God does ask today that we be merciful one to another. Once God secured the land for Israel, you don't read much about God calling His people to war. He protected and provided for them, but initially getting the land under their feet was a matter of removing the people who then lived on the land. You see, now that part of God's plan is complete. He raised up the nation of Israel and used His people to write His Scriptures. Through them He delivered to us His Son, our Savior. So the work for which God raised up a nation from the loins of Abraham is fairly complete, but...

The Scriptures are clear that Israel is still especially significant to God. He still loves them despite their rebellious ways. He loves us, too. God's love is big enough for that. I realize that you likely don't see or understand this plan yet. Israel didn't either. But I believe that if you'll devote time to some careful study of the whole of God's Scriptures and asking through diligent prayer that God give you the promise of knowledge of the truth through His Spirit, that you'll find the same thing as I have.

This realm of existence had a beginning and there is an end to come. Everything in the middle has been planned and is being worked out in accordance with that plan. Yes, there's a lot of sin out there in the world, but God's great plan will prevail and some will be saved. Our goal, if we so choose, is to make ourselves in agreement with God. Unfortunately, too many people want to make God in agreement with man. We want to believe that God is like us. He isn't.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Hi Ted,

Thanks, I'm aware of the general theology of Christianity extrapolated from the scriptures that you articulated in your reply. I'm aware of the speculation about Gods plan as well as the meaning of many events of the past. Israel lost sight of their purpose and suffered from the same sort of speculation.

For me, rather than making excuses for the claims of the man made scripture, the kind of excuses children in an abusive family make for the outrageous behavior of a tyrant father, I believe that the image of God in the OT is largely one made in mans own image. Jesus revealed a loving Father that was nothing like the dim view of the inconsistent scriptures. Even John the Baptist warned of the wrath to come, but no wrath came, just the loving and mature Son of God who was the creator incarnate.

 

[miamited]

Hi colter,

Well, I guess you'll have to go with that. I am, however, still curious as to what it is exactly that makes you believe that the book of urantia holds the truth.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[Colter]

Hi colter,

Well, I guess you'll have to go with that. I am, however, still curious as to what it is exactly that makes you believe that the book of urantia holds the truth.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Hi colter,

Well, I guess you'll have to go with that. I am, however, still curious as to what it is exactly that makes you believe that the book of urantia holds the truth.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Same answer, When I first heard excerpts from the UB it just made sense to me relative to what I had heard about the purported religious history of the world.

 

[Hoghead1]

James, I sense you are gong online to sites such as AIG and grabbing up information. Those are not reliable, scholarly sites to use, believe me. Your attack on us biblical scholars was largely intended to cast aspersion on our characters. That's a big no-no in serious theological discussion. If you wish to object to someone, you should go through their arguments, step by step, and provide a rational rebuttal. Many times you really jumped the gun. For example, when you talked about Elhanan, you completely overlooked the fact that the Hebrew manuscripts, the Majority Text, states that Elhanan killed Goliath. If your Bible has "brother of" written, that is incorrect and represents serious tampering with the text. So I can't say that I was particularly impressed or felt challenged by anything you said. I've been called names before and I'll be called names again. Big deal, so what? Occupational hazard. That's the price you pay for being a progressive thinker.

 

[Colter]

They say that history is written by the victorious. In the Old Testament we have the Hebrew priest of Babylonian captivity redacting the history of the Israelites under the devastating pressure of having lost their homeland.

 

[miamited]

They say that history is written by the victorious. In the Old Testament we have the Hebrew priest of Babylonian captivity redacting the history of the Israelites under the devastating pressure of having lost their homeland.

Hi colter,

Actually, history is written by those who remain. Whether those who are doing the writing are the victors or not really doesn't play into 'who' writes history. It's a cute little ditty and it makes one sound wise in saying, but it isn't necessarily true. Losers write historical accounts just as much as winners.

Of course, the real danger is for those who believe such nonsense and then allow that belief to color their understanding of things and aren't even aware of their prejudice. A lot of us have a tendency to do that and so it's something that one must be constantly and continually on the look out for. I'm one who reads the little sayings and quotes that people on these boards attach to their ID. Kind of a 'who I am and what I believe' statement taken from a book or a speech or writing of someone else. I'm often humored by how many of these little ditties, when one really sits down to consider them, find that the claim, whatever it is, likely isn't really true.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[Colter]

Hi colter,

Actually, history is written by those who remain. Whether those who are doing the writing are the victors or not really doesn't play into 'who' writes history. It's a cute little ditty and it makes one sound wise in saying, but it isn't necessarily true. Losers write historical accounts just as much as winners.

Of course, the real danger is for those who believe such nonsense and then allow that belief to color their understanding of things and aren't even aware of their prejudice. A lot of us have a tendency to do that and so it's something that one must be constantly and continually on the look out for. I'm one who reads the little sayings and quotes that people on these boards attach to their ID. Kind of a 'who I am and what I believe' statement taken from a book or a speech or writing of someone else. I'm often humored by how many of these little ditties, when one really sits down to consider them, find that the claim, whatever it is, likely isn't really true.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Hello Ted,

You bring your own bias to a common saying. If the Israelites had really killed all the Canaanites, as the redactors claimed, then there would be no Canaanites left to write anything. So your point would have been slaughtered with them. But each time the history revisionist redid the history, they left tell tale signs of the original in the records. The Hebrew nation came into being as the result of the union of the so-called Israelites and the Canaanites. "And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites. And they took their daughters to be their wives and gave their daughters to the sons of the Canaanites." The Hebrews never drove the Canaanites out of Palestine, notwithstanding that the priests' record of these things unhesitatingly declared that they did.

The Jews of today are not pure line descendants of father Abraham and frankly never were. If you look into the genetic makeup of the Palestinian people you will find a lot of Jewish blood because they were all mixed long ago.

 

[miamited]

Hi colter,

Yes, but in your example you say that all the Canaanites were killed. Yes, that means that the final account of their history has to be written by someone else. Not necessarily the victors, but certainly someone remaining. It may well be written by some neighboring nation that was not at war with them. History is written by those who remain. After all, our history books have some historical information regarding Brazil and we've never been at war with them. Trust me, or don't, the saying that history is written by the victors isn't necessarily true.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[Colter]

Hi colter,

Yes, but in your example you say that all the Canaanites were killed. Yes, that means that the final account of their history has to be written by someone else. Not necessarily the victors, but certainly someone remaining. It may well be written by some neighboring nation that was not at war with them. History is written by those who remain. After all, our history books have some historical information regarding Brazil and we've never been at war with them. Trust me, or don't, the saying that history is written by the victors isn't necessarily true.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Well I guess other people would understand the generalization of the saying "history is written by the victorious".

 

[miamited]

Well I guess other people would understand the generalization of the saying "history is written by the victorious".

Hi colter,

I guess you likely don't see it, but if it's a 'generalization', then it isn't necessarily a truthful claim. That's exactly what I said. Maybe I do understand the 'general' nature of the statement better than you do.

It may be a true statement, but it isn't necessarily. Because it is not an always true statement, then we can't establish some doctrine by it. We can certainly say that there are cases where the victors get to write an historical account that may be somewhat colored by their perspective, but we can't just make the blanket claim that victors always get to write history and therefore such an historical account is always colored by their prejudices and perspectives.

That's my point. You throw that claim out there as a 'proof' that we can't trust some of the Scriptures because, according to your understanding, they are written and sourced by the mind of men and are colored by the particular perspective and prejudices of the victors. I, on the other hand, understand that first, the source of the knowledge and wisdom found in the Scriptures doesn't come from the minds of men and second, that it isn't necessarily true that it may be untrustworthy because it was written by the victors. It's merely a matter of worldview and one's understanding of the Scriptures.

Jesus referred to the Scriptures often. He was sent, as he claims, to give a true testimony of our God and Creator. It just seems logical to me, that if Jesus was God's witness to us, that God would have had him correct any misunderstanding or untruth contained in the Scriptures. Yet, Jesus never once said any word against the trustworthiness of the Scriptures. And, as far as the old covenant Scriptures, they were pretty well established in Jesus' day as we find them today. Why would you? Is your model not Jesus? Have you set yourself on a pedestal above the wisdom and truth of our Lord? For me, the fact that Jesus never found or mentioned any error in the Scriptures, then I'm not likely to either.

But, each one believes what he has convinced himself is the truth. However, whether it is the truth or not must be determined.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[Hieronymus]

God created fossils with the flood.

 

[James Wilson]

In #491 Hoghead1 claims that Elhanan killed Goliath.

Is this true?

The Bible has three versions of the event covering Goliath or his brother’s death:
1 Samuel 16-18 Three whole chapters of the encounter between only David and Goliath,
2 Samuel 21:19 where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim slew Goliath the Gittite,
and 1 Chronicles 20:5 where Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite.

A copyist error has been made here somewhere, but let’s investigate the history of copyist errors now.

The Wicked Bible, sometimes called Adulterous Bible or Sinners' Bible, is the Bible published in 1631 by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the royal printers in London, which was meant to be a reprint of the King James Bible. One of the commandments in this version says we must commit adultery.

Did the Wicked Bible take over the Christian world and become the norm for an updated version of the 10 commandments? No, because it was inconsistent with the known Bibles and internally inconsistent with the intent of the 10 Commandments. Easy problem to fix.

The internal consistency of the Bible can save us from many of the copyist errors. There are parallel portions of Scripture where the same event is told multiple times. The most famous are the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Old Testament has synoptic books as well. 2Samuel and 1Chronicles often tell the same story, as do 2Kings and 2Chronicles.

But I know of no tendency for 1Samuel and 2Samuel to tell identical stories. So unless there is a copyist error in 1Samuel or 2Samuel, these two books tell the death of Goliath twice. If the copyist error is in 1Samuel, then two different sections of the Bible must have simultaneously experienced copyist errors -- 1Samuel and 1Chronicles (1 vote against the three-chapter-long discussion of David and Goliath being in error).

Look at the internal consistency of the three-chapter-long description of David and Goliath – being much longer with many mentions of David and Goliath, and none of Elhanan and the brother of Goliath (I did a quick computer-word search of a translation of the MT [Masoretic Text] of 1 Sam 16:17–18:30). (Two votes against the three-chapter-long discussion of David and Goliath being in error).

Note: I’m aware that the Septuagint has a very different read on the Bible. But the Septuagint and two Alexandrian texts -- which the Higher Critics reverence -- come out of the historically Gnostic community of Egypt, lacking the traditional Jewish and Christian reverence for copying Judeo-Christian texts. So I am not interested in what the Septuagint has to say on this controversy.

On the other hand, since 2 Samuel 21:19 and 1 Chronicles 20:5 are much shorter than the historical recording in 1Samuel, this is a third vote against the three-chapter-long discussion of David and Goliath being in error. That is, similar to scientific hypothesis of Occam's Razor, the simplest solution is the best solution.

See http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=752 for an explanation of the two simple copyist errors that explain the discrepancy of these two short verses.

Note: Anyone wishing to propose that Elhanan killed Goliath would have to find textual support for many changes to the three chapters in 1Samuel instead of these two simple ones.

Hoghead1 and I have different assumptions. I assume (or accept) that the Bible is God’s message of love to us and inerrant ('inerrant' does not include copyist errors that can be rectified clearly and cleanly). In other words, God is still leading us to the truth if we have faith in Him.

Hoghead1 sees a copyist error. He hopes that this error should lead me to believe the whole Bible is inconsistent, the message from the Bible is unclear and therefore open to any number of interpretations.

Note: I've stated many times that I was enamored with Higher Criticism as a young college student and defended HC for about 6 years. Then I became a convert to Christ, to the miracles in the Bible and to the weaknesses of HC. And God has explained to me many of the resolutions for Higher Criticisms opinions of the errors in the Bible.

 

[miamited]

Hi again colter,

Let me give you an example of our need to actually determine truth. There are many, many people who are muslim and wholeheartedly and with all that is in them believe that Muhammad is God's prophet. That Jesus was also a prophet of the same God, but lower than Muhammad. What say you? Is that claim the truth?

Now, merely take that same understanding and apply it to all the various teachings that are found on these boards regarding the things of the one true and living God that we worship and honor and His Son, Jesus. Some are completely contradictory and others are sort of maybe so and maybe not. But there is a truth. We must find it. The righteous seek for the truth in everything that they say, believe and teach.

This is the reason that I continued to press you for an answer to the question of why you believe the book of urantia relays the truth to its readers. Maybe it does, but maybe it doesn't. I think it's a very bad reason to believe something is true just because your gut tells you so or your emotions say that it feels right. Of course, here again, we all have a tendency to do this and is exactly why God warns us against leaning on our own understanding. Our hearts are wicked. There just isn't anyway of getting around that truth. Our hearts will lead us into lies just like it does for muslims and buddhists, etc. We must always and continually be on the look out for the yeast of the devil. It's always out there!

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[Colter]

Ted,

Hi colter,

I guess you likely don't see it, but if it's a 'generalization', then it isn't necessarily a truthful claim. That's exactly what I said. Maybe I do understand the 'general' nature of the statement better than you do.

It may be a true statement, but it isn't necessarily. Because it is not an always true statement, then we can't establish some doctrine by it. We can certainly say that there are cases where the victors get to write an historical account that may be somewhat colored by their perspective, but we can't just make the blanket claim that victors always get to write history and therefore such an historical account is always colored by their prejudices and perspectives.

That's my point. You throw that claim out there as a 'proof' that we can't trust some of the Scriptures because, according to your understanding, they are written and sourced by the mind of men and are colored by the particular perspective and prejudices of the victors. I, on the other hand, understand that first, the source of the knowledge and wisdom found in the Scriptures doesn't come from the minds of men and second, that it isn't necessarily true that it may be untrustworthy because it was written by the victors. It's merely a matter of worldview and one's understanding of the Scriptures.

Jesus referred to the Scriptures often. He was sent, as he claims, to give a true testimony of our God and Creator. It just seems logical to me, that if Jesus was God's witness to us, that God would have had him correct any misunderstanding or untruth contained in the Scriptures. Yet, Jesus never once said any word against the trustworthiness of the Scriptures. And, as far as the old covenant Scriptures, they were pretty well established in Jesus' day as we find them today. Why would you? Is your model not Jesus? Have you set yourself on a pedestal above the wisdom and truth of our Lord? For me, the fact that Jesus never found or mentioned any error in the Scriptures, then I'm not likely to either.

But, each one believes what he has convinced himself is the truth. However, whether it is the truth or not must be determined.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

I agree with your point that, just because victors write a history that doesn't mean that what they write is wrong. And that truth is self evident, I didn't need a scripture or a preacher to tell me that, between our two "wicked hearts" we were able to agree upon that. It's just discernable truth, common sense. The same ability to reason informs me about the so called scriptures.


Jesus lived the truth and let the errors of deity concept die on the vine. He did not come to reform evolved Judaism, he came to establish The Kingdom of Heaven.