Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
I am conflicted by what appears to be a contradiction. SkyWriting has argued well the superiority of taking the Bible at face value, but here has promoted even more insights beneath the surface. I assume this is somehow not contradictory to SkyWriter, so I'm asking for an explanation of reasoning.
This is my reasoning: Language puns, humor and the depth of the author's message require some cultural context to be understood, and that context is not usually provided explicitly in the text, so further research may be required, rendering a face value reading obsolete. How does a reader of the Bible get such context when only taking the text at face value? How can the reader be confident he or she is interpreting the text as the author likely meant it?
Apart from the fact that your views are themselves an inaccurate concerning the accuracy of the biblical texts with respect history and science, I am left wondering at your definition of 'accuracy'.
But such does not mean I am in danger of missing the deeper meanings of the texts. The various authors of those texts were not writing texts books for science or history 101. They were writing in order to reveal God.
Moses wrote the first 5 books in the Old Testament, but he had some help from God. Thus what Moses wrote also coincides with what Enoch wrote in the book of Enoch. Remember now, the book of Enoch was written by Enoch himself (the son of Adam and Eve). Now how the book of Enoch survived is most likely it was carried onto the boat with Noah, since it was the only book about God during that time up until Moses. It was as popular then as the Bible is today. They are still finding stone tablets (hence the skins and parchments have long turned to dust and were also destroyed by the flood) that have inscribed on them the book of Enoch. The sad thing is there is only so many Christian scientists and archaeologists finding these historical clues. They however have been found, which where the book of Enoch comes from today. Hope this helps. God Bless.
No - it more like something out of Hollywood.
No different than me understanding what YOU just wrote with absolutely NO information on your background. The clear and obvious meaning (literal) is primary. Your comment that Puns & Humor render the original interpretation obsolete baffles me. I was thinking that was part of the definition of puns.
If you are not going to answer the questions posed to you, then you might as well be screaming your rhetoric through a bullhorn. I honestly don't understand what you expect to gain from continuing to bring up my personal life. Are you trying to make a point with that statement? If so, I'm missing it. This thread is not about me, nor about your fundamental modern agenda. This thread is about the authorship of Genesis. Do you have comment or question regarding that? If not, why are you here?
If you cannot see the difference between taking a text at face-value and interpreting that text's puns and humor, then perhaps we are not on the same wavelength here. Please apply your point on this matter to the discussion regarding Genesis, or you're going to get ignored.
I'll see if I can be any clearer.
Your comment that Puns & Humor render the original interpretation obsolete baffles me. Puns have multiple meanings. Humor has multiple meanings. The second meaning does not trump the first.
The Bible has multiple depths of understanding. The additional insights do not render the original face-value obsolete. I'm not aware of critical analysis methods that render the original text obsolete. Could you point to some that do? Thanks.
T...While I respect yours and my confidence in our decoding jobs and the decoding/encoding process that preceded us, I think it is important for all of us to remember that we will be wrong sometimes. The things we believe are a decoded messages we developed as listeners and doers of the Word...
Fortunately, 1000's or 10's of 1000's of people have already considered your worries about translation errors. And we have all of their work to consider and God's help to get us past our hangups.
Fair enough. I'll tap my glass to that!
Of course, when it's all said and done, there is still uncertainty about who actually wrote Genesis...
An interesting choice of words. You might explain what you mean. What is an 'author' as far as your are concerned?
As far as I am aware, Paul 'authored' his genuine letters. Are you suggesting they were 'authored' by someone else? Or are you just playing with words for your own amusement?
The simple answer: unadulterated curiosity.
I realize I may have misinterpreted your motives in writing that statement, and I apologize if I did. My past has shaped me, and how I approach my faith. I believe that is true for all of us.
I'm thankful we don't need scholarly backgrounds, and made a similar argument myself in my thread titled "The Best Theologian...Ever!"
Because what we are looking for is relevance, not truth.
We acknowledge that truth is what it is. Everyone is subject to truth, and experiences it in every moment. Truth is not something lost, needing to be found. It is not a secret maintained by one group, but withheld from everyone else. Truth is, and there is nothing that will change that, no matter how we describe it.
Fundamentalism is unwilling, in my experience, to make that distinction between relevance and truth. They are unwilling to identify that they are explaining the truth somewhat differently than others, but the truth will still be what it is regardless of whose explanation proves to be more accurate.
We are all expert critics of other people's explanations of the truth, but rarely do we turn that expertise against ourselves. We refute peer review from our critics, and we seek out people who agree with us. In this way, we miss out on a tremendous amount of opportunities for both relationship and accountability.
The more we promote the relevance of Christian faith, the less we have to defend its accuracy to the truth. Our needs are not structured in such a way that we prioritize accuracy over survival and relationship. Whenever Christians spend so most of their time trying to defend their beliefs as true, they lose relevance to the audience who identifies their highest priorities as survival and relationship.
That is the reason I can shrug and say, "These are my opinions. They may not be accurate." It is because my goal is relevance, and I see relevance as superior to accuracy.I respect your feelings. I am at peace.
In the definition provided by your link, I found a few things about fundamentalism with which I struggle. First, it was a movement that took place in the 20th century, which is a shockingly late development for something that has supposedly been obviously true for nineteen hundred years. Second, it was developed in response to modernism, which was itself a movement with which the Biblical authors had no experience, so projecting a fundamentalist perspective on them seems at the very least irrelevant. Third, the movement assumed the authority to define which beliefs were essential to the Christian faith.
While I am not denying the validity of their movement or their conclusions, I must ask: Who were they, and from what did they derive such authority?
Good. Even though the given definition has technical flaws, I see you've dropped your main objections to the validity.
"...that a hard fundamentalist approach calls into question the validity of Christianity, or any religion for that matter."
You would have to overturn the definition of religion for the above statement to be correct or relevant.
I left the issue of fundamentalism alone because I didn't think it was relevant to the thread, and it was obvious we were each referring to different definitions of the word. I've now gotten the impression you and I have taken over this thread, so if you now want to actually discuss my earlier comment, which I continue to stand behind, then let me know, and I'd be happy to oblige. I rather enjoy chatting with you, and think I would get a kick out that dialogue.
If you don't, you won't.If you try to take it literally you will never understand it.
If they were in error then our NT is TOTALLY worthless.You have no evidence that Jesus, Mark, Luke, and Paul erred. None. If you believe that then you believe that the bible is just a book written by men with no inspiration from God. Oh wait, you probably do. lol Really, you guys are getting way out there.
And perhaps "some people need the Bible to be" in error too?I realize why some people need the Bible to be inerrant and true,
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?