Flood, literal or not?

[AV1611VET]

Since we've scoured the earth and found nothing, where do you propose we look next?

In the Bible.

(Sorry, you knew better than to ask me that.)

 

[AV1611VET]

And God has never spoken to anyone since?

Not audibly.

Ah. Telepathecally.

No --- telepathy is brain-to-brain --- this is heart-to-heart.

So, where, if anywhere, does the brain fit into the equation?

In learning the difference between mental telepathy and inspiration.

 

[flatworm]

Yes, I am aware of that.

Matthew, for instance, quotes heavily from OT Scriptures.

I disagree however with your words "were motivated". That speaks of deception.

They would have wanted their writings to be accepted by an audience that accepted these scriptures. Of course they were motivated to make them fit.

No, I'm not. These meetings were not held to determine what was the Word of God:

This assertion has no basis in reality. From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council [ Council of Trent ].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon#Orthodox.2C_Catholic_and_Protestant

If a book was written by inspiration, it became canonical the minute it was completed.

Already demonstrated to be false.

Unless of course you believe that none of the Bible is inspired.

All of the books of the OT were quoted in the NT, except for Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon --- none of the books of the Apocrypha, however, are mentioned.

And who decided what books to include in the NT? Come on man, think for a minute.

The NT books had to pass a threefold test: a) either be written, or backed, by an Apostle (Peter backed Mark, and Luke backed Paul); b) they had to be circulated and accepted by the majority of the NT churches; and c) they had to be in agreement with each other, and the OT. By the 2nd century AD, only the 27 books of the NT had met this criteria.

Who decides who the apostles are or were? They weren't around when the first canons were published, let alone when the first major councils convened on the subject.

Peter, in 2 Peter 3:16, referred to the letters of Paul as "Scripture", without waiting for some church council to be held.

And it's authoritative why? How do we verify its provenance or the accuracy of its claims? Not all early Christians accepted Paul's writings.

You're running in circles here, my friend. The two points I made are obviously and verifiably true- and all the circular logic in the world won't get around them.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Without going to that site, I'm sure they're the garden variety dime-a-dozen cheap shots.

I personally like the Skeptics Annotated Bible, but there are a few "goofy" cheap shots, but there are many more that should be of concern to any exegesis of the Bible's inerrancy.

The Bible, if inerrant, cannot be wrong in any reading. It would be unique among data sources. But even more to the point, it can't be so open to interpretation that it essentially ends up "not saying what it says", otherwise the same metric could be applied to any book.

Given enough desire to twist things around I bet it's possible to make a case that Moby Dick is an inerrant book.

The Bible contains prophecies, but if even ONE prophecy is unfulfilled it is no better than Edgar Cayce's volumes of prophecies. It's like throwing darts, if you make enough predictions and you couch them in vague enough terms you might be right occasionally.

And then there's the whole "was this prophecy written before it's fulfillment?" To which usually the answer is, at best, a guess.

The Matthew Prophecy Fulfillment portion of the Gospels reads more like someone trying to make the facts fit after the fact. The fact that the Isaiah prophecies don't specify a virgin birth (parthenogenesis) per se, but Matthew shoe-horns it into this mistranslation is perhaps minor, but this book is apparently unique and without error.

But it contains errors. Sure some folks get goofy with pointing out some stuff that is at best only "questionable" but if there is ONE error, even a "near miss" the claim of its inerrancy is shot.

[BIBLE]Genesis 49:10[/BIBLE]

The first king of Israel was a benjaminite (Saul).

Now I'm sure there's some fancy exegetical claim here to alter the "meaning" of the words. But c'mon, the fact remains there are factual and prophetic errors in the Bible.

If, as I have asked before, the Bible doesn't say what it says, then what possible good can come from even readingit?

God's word, if shrouded, is of no actual value. If you have to shroud the meaning in something such that it says what it doesn't say and doesn't say what it does, then it is worse than a regular book, but a source of error.

If I write a science text book so circuitous and with so many hidden meanings that are not even available to a trained reader and indeed I often "hid" the true meaning, and I did it in full knowledge that it would be misread (as God must have known) then I have done little better than knowingly mislead the audience.

If you believe in God then you can't believe this was God's intent.

This is the biggest problem I have with biblical inerrancy.

 

[AV1611VET]

bbl

p.s. Saul was rejected as king.

 

[thaumaturgy]

bbl

p.s. Saul was rejected as king.

But the fact remains he was the First King of Israel according to the Bible. Sure he ultimately was rejected because he didn't kill enough living things, but the prophecy was wrong off the bat.

 

[AV1611VET]

You mean the same Jews that look at the Gospels of Jesus Christ and say "Nope, that didn't happen"?

Yup --- you may not know it, but they're fulfilling (confirming) prophecy when they do that too.

 

[AV1611VET]

A name, AV. Give a name, if you can.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary:

The Pharaoh of the Exodus was probably Menephtah I., the fourteenth and eldest surviving son of Rameses II. He resided at Zoan, where he had the various interviews with Moses and Aaron recorded in the book of Exodus. His mummy was not among those found at Deir el-Bahari. It is still a question, however, whether Seti II. or his father Menephtah was the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Some think the balance of evidence to be in favour of the former, whose reign it is known began peacefully, but came to a sudden and disastrous end. The "Harris papyrus," found at Medinet-Abou in Upper Egypt in 1856, a state document written by Rameses III., the second king of the Twentieth Dynasty, gives at length an account of a great exodus from Egypt, followed by wide-spread confusion and anarchy. This, there is great reason to believe, was the Hebrew exodus, with which the Nineteenth Dynasty of the Pharaohs came to an end. This period of anarchy was brought to a close by Setnekht, the founder of the Twentieth Dynasty.

 

[Beastt]

Are we going to keep repeating ourselves, Beastt?

Let's go through it again:

How do I know it's not the Qur'an?

Simple --- the Qur'an was written by one man --- after the fact. The Arabs, who were already in existence, did not write their destiny ahead of time.

Written by one man after what fact? How do you know that the word of God couldn't be written by just one man? Why would anyone have to write their destiny ahead of time and where to you get the idea that the Qur'an, which was written in the 7th century, doesn't write destiny ahead of time?

This argument all amounts to just one thing -- "It's different than the Holy Bible."

How do I know it's not the Oahspe?

Inspiration ended in 96 AD --- and automatic writing is of the occult.

Who told you that? Where has it been conclusively demonstrated that automatic writing is of the occult? Did you not notice what it said in what you pasted from Wikipedia? "Oahspe: A Kosmon Bible in the Words of Jehovih and his Angel Embassadors (sic) is a book announcing new revelations from God, which was produced by John Ballou Newbrough..."
That's the same claim made by the Bible -- revelations from God. Now what makes the Bible correct and Oahspe wrong? Your assertion that inspiration ended in 96 AD comes from where? What qualifies that at truth and anything else as untruth? Why couldn't that assertion have come from Satan?

How do I know it's not the Book of Mormon?

The Book of Mormon was written by one man after 96 AD., and that one man claims he was a prophet and, of course, there are no more prophets after 96 AD.

Again, you're basing your entire objection on assumptions which have no basis in truth and no level of demonstrable validity. It amounts to; "I believe the Bible and the Bible says..."

How do I know it's the Bible?

The Bible was written over a period of 1500 years, and not confined to just the lifetime of one man. It has 40+ authors, from a variety of backgrounds and occupations, from three different continents, in three different languages.

So...? Where has it ever been established that the word of God has to have been written over a period of 1500 years? Can you demonstrate that God would only present his word through 40+ authors chosen not by God, but by men? There were far more than your 40+ authors writing "scripture". That which was selected to be included in the Bible was chosen by men, not by God.

Thus the potential to discredit the Bible was very high (in fact, it carries the highest potential of incredibility of any book ever written), yet each part fits like a hand in a glove.

You continue to make this assertion but the very topic of this thread demonstrates conclusively that this isn't true. There was never a global flood. The Bible says there was. The Bible is wrong. Why would the "word of God" be wrong about something like that? Why wouldn't God know that Earth moves through space? Why wouldn't God know that the Earth didn't form before the sun? Why wouldn't God know that whales and other marine animals would be unable to survive a global flood. The Bible always makes references to "dry land" or the "ground" when it talks about everything that died. But it completely ignores things like whales, which couldn't have survived such a flood and couldn't have been aboard the Ark.

Embedded in its text are hundreds of prophecies (history written in advance), and fulfilled with a 100% rate of accuracy.

No they're not. That point too has been made on this thread and you simply close your eyes to it and continue with your disproven chant. Jesus hasn't returned and he isn't going to. That is but one, (though the most important), prophecy which hasn't been fulfilled and isn't going to be.

Now how do you suppose that is?

I don't have to because I keep showing you that it's not true.

Oahspe just happens to talk about the tiny glass beads which we found in moon dust in the 1960s. It talks about double-stars which were confirmed to exist in the 1950s. Those are, by theological measures, fulfilled prophecies. You can't just draw an arbitrary line at 96 AD and say, "well, anything written after this date, wrong or not, isn't Gods word." How would that be other than willful blindness?

 

[AV1611VET]

Wow --- right after saying this:

The fact that the Isaiah prophecies don't specify a virgin birth (parthenogenesis) per se, but Matthew shoe-horns it into this mistranslation is perhaps minor, but this book is apparently unique and without error.

...you say this:

If, as I have asked before, the Bible doesn't say what it says, then what possible good can come from even readingit?

...then this:

God's word, if shrouded, is of no actual value. If you have to shroud the meaning in something such that it says what it doesn't say and doesn't say what it does, then it is worse than a regular book, but a source of error.

So right after you, yourself, change the meaning*, you complain that the Bible isn't sticking to a literal translation.

I think what I'm going to do, thaumaturge, is just bow out of this conversation.

*[bible]Isaiah 7:14[/bible]

 

[Steezie]

From Easton's Bible Dictionary:

The Pharaoh of the Exodus was probably Menephtah I., the fourteenth and eldest surviving son of Rameses II. He resided at Zoan, where he had the various interviews with Moses and Aaron recorded in the book of Exodus. His mummy was not among those found at Deir el-Bahari. It is still a question, however, whether Seti II. or his father Menephtah was the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Some think the balance of evidence to be in favour of the former, whose reign it is known began peacefully, but came to a sudden and disastrous end. The "Harris papyrus," found at Medinet-Abou in Upper Egypt in 1856, a state document written by Rameses III., the second king of the Twentieth Dynasty, gives at length an account of a great exodus from Egypt, followed by wide-spread confusion and anarchy. This, there is great reason to believe, was the Hebrew exodus, with which the Nineteenth Dynasty of the Pharaohs came to an end. This period of anarchy was brought to a close by Setnekht, the founder of the Twentieth Dynasty.

That is the worst dictionary I have ever seen.

First off, there is no such Pharaoh as Menephtah I and Seti II was never a candidate. I believe what they were shooting for was Merneptah (1213 BC to 1203 BC). The only reason Merneptah is on the list is that his mummy shows evidence of having been exposed to salt. What people are ignoring is that that salt is ordinary natron. Salt mined from the river Nile and used in the embalming process. His body also shows no evidence of drowning.

The most likely candidate for being Pharaoh during the Exodus was Ramses II (1279 BC to 1213 BC) or Ramses the Great. However it was not he who chased after the Hebrews but his son Amun-her-khepeshef who was Pharaoh's first-born son.

Ramses the Great celebrated 14 Sed festivals. A Sed festival was held after thirty years of Pharaoh's reign and then every three to five years after to help give Pharaoh strength again to rule his country. These festivals meant that Pharaoh would become much more deeply involved in the religious aspect of his country and would have appointed his first-born son to basically be Pharaoh in all but name. This meant that it would have been Khepeshef leading the chariots after the Hebrews, not Ramses.

Khepeshef died when he was roughly 40-45 years old from a blow to the head, Ramses would have been a very old man at this point and in no physical condition to ride chariots.

The bible also states that Pharaoh SENT his chairots, it does not say that he LED his chairots.

The translation for the Red Sea is also somewhat incorrect. The original translation of the texts reads as Yam suph (ים סו&#1507 meaning "Reed Sea". The Sea of Reeds is a passage to the north of the Red Sea, an area of thick marshes. This terrain is almost impassible by chariots. The Hebrews would have had a much better time on foot. The chariots rode into the marshes, and either became stuck or were forced to slow down. Chariots are only effective if they are going fast. Stuck chariots are a prime target for a group of angry ex-slaves. Charioteers were lightly armed and probably couldnt defend themselves well and thus were slaughtered. The defeat was an absolute humiliation and was probably erased from public record (The Egyptians had a track record of doing that)

 

[Beastt]

In learning the difference between mental telepathy and inspiration.

Hearts are muscle. They can't hear, receive verbal messages or convey verbal messages. When you talk about "the Heart" in the manner you've referenced, you're simply referring to emotions. And emotions come from the brain, not the heart.

 

[AV1611VET]

They would have wanted their writings to be accepted by an audience that accepted these scriptures. Of course they were motivated to make them fit.

And they got them to fit just in time to make it into Foxe's Book of Martyrs, right?

 

[AV1611VET]

So...? Where has it ever been established that the word of God has to have been written over a period of 1500 years? Can you demonstrate that God would only present his word through 40+ authors chosen not by God, but by men? There were far more than your 40+ authors writing "scripture". That which was selected to be included in the Bible was chosen by men, not by God.

I wish you could see how this sounds to even hardened Bible critics.

 

[AV1611VET]

That is the worst dictionary I have ever seen.

Good deal --- we'll just stick to what the Bible says then: "Pharaoh".

End of sentence.

 

[Steezie]

Good deal --- we'll just stick to what the Bible says then: "Pharaoh".

End of sentence.

So you are showing ZERO interest in historical accuracy and an interest in only what you can pull out of the text?

Par for the course

 

[Beastt]

I wish you could see how this sounds to even hardened Bible critics.

I wish you could see how obviously correct it is... or even attempt to offer refutation.

 

[Beastt]

In the Bible.

(Sorry, you knew better than to ask me that.)

If you're claiming that the flood took place only in the Bible, I'm inclined to agree with you. It's a fable, presented as factual, by men who claimed to be influenced by God. So God was telling them fables?

 

[EnemyPartyII]

Flood, literal or not?

Not.

This thread has been going for 24 pages? I could have saved you all so much time!

 

[EnemyPartyII]

If you're claiming that the flood took place only in the Bible

Greek, Roman and Mesopotamian cultures all have legends about a great flood, all decend from the same Black Sea pre-cursors, and it is widely accepted that flood stories are thousands of years worth of retelling in verbal tradition of the story of the Black Sea inundation event