| rickthestick2 said: To Erebus: First of all, as for Jesus's tomb, you have to realize, all the Gospels are written by men but are inspired by God. None of the author's were at Jesus's tomb but in the end they all get the same spiritual meaning. They do not contradict each other in the sense of meaning, but if you want to get technical then go ahead and have a great time. Secondly, about your Genesis discussion, what bible do you have? As i read it, the text states "Now the lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth of the field and all the birds of the air.", which means that Now, or at that point in time God Had already formed out of the ground all the beasts and so on. I guess i have a different version than yours (i have the NIV). Thirdly, Days only refer to periods of time in which different things happen. A day back then wasn't the approximate 24 hours of earths rotation, it was a period of time when people would wake up, do stuff and then go back to sleep and wake up again in a new conscience. That is a day for us. Day is an term not meaning sunrise to sunset, but meaning seperate periods of time. Don't take things too literally (and don't take things too iliterally either). Okay, now the fourth thing. All of Jesus's words i would say are basically a shortened version of Revelations which means that both what Jesus and the Revelations is stating are both filled with metaphors, similies, and things that are meant as they are said. Now i'm not sure i understand what you mean your paragraph, but as for your ending sentence, "Jesus thought the coming of the Son of Man would be in their generation. It was not." That isn't what Jesus meant. The old Jewish texts can be translated into two ways, the term generation or the term race. If it is taken by the term race, (meaing the Jewish race, or the Human race) than it makes perfect sense. Generation didn't/doesn't always mean one "age" of peoples. Now on to your other things: Does God tempt people? James 1:13 "Let no man say . . . I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." Genesis 22:1 "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham." Are they both right? I'll have to read it and check it later. Oh and tell me what version of the Bible you own. Hey how about: Who was Joseph's father? Matthew 1:16 "And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ." Luke 3:23 "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli." Was it Jacob or Heli? Someone is wrong here..... Jacob is the Grandson of Abraham, and is also called the father of Israel. Now if that isn't right to you i myself have a question, Is Heli a boy or a girl? How many animals went in the ark? Genesis 7:2 "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female." Genesis 7:8-9 "Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah." Was it a pair or "three by sevens" of clean animals? Either way one of these statements is wrong. All animals went in two and two for the sole purpose of reproduction, but the clean beasts in which Noah is given to eat get three by sevens (alot more than the "unclean" animals for obvious reasons). Did fowl come from the water as in Genesis 1:20-21 or from the land as in Genesis 2:19? Because you didn't give me a qoute i cannot answer this one right now. I will answer it later unless someone beats me to it. Where was Jesus' first sermon? Matthew 5:1-2 "When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. then he began to speak, and taught them saying:" Luke 6:17 " He came down with them and stood on a level place with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judeah, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon." So did he go UP a mountain or DOWN to a plain? Firstly you have to understand, Jesus has had many sermons throughout his life some of which were not recorded by word. Now, I dont have my bible with me now so i cannot be sure, but where does it say that this was his first sermon? And if it was written by different people than wouldn't thier "first sermon" change? You have to understand that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John may not be written by the people in the title of the book. Also i want you to understand something. We don't have to "save" the Bible. The Bible is just a book filled with history, poetic works, letters, philosophies, and revelations all written down to prevent huge mutilation by oral traditions. What i find interesting is that people have to waste time struggling to find things wrong with the bible, searching through the pages looking for contradictions when the book is filled with so much Hope, Love, Life, Justice, History, and Philosophy. The most peculiar thing to me is that if this Book to you guy sis no different from the other Books like this, why then do you guys "need" to attack it. If people read this book for intelligent reasons people would become so much more intelligent. It's just strange to me that one book can have such an awesome impact on everyone's lives, the Faithful or the Unfaithful. It's like religion, God, Christianity is infecting peoples lives and people can't help but be affected. |
@rickthestick2 and That Guy
Nice to see someone else getting in on the fun. To rickthestick2 first let me say that the wording at the end of my last post was poor. I should not have written "save the Bible" because I don't think anyone needs to. As a matter of fact I think that by sticking to a literalist interpretation and trying to rectify every single contradiction actually takes away from the Bible. Now to both rickthestick2 and That Guy I think perhaps what Schopenhauer and I are trying to do here is getting a little lost. I do not "need" (as rickthestick2 said) to attack the Bible. You have to look at the context of this argument. There is only one point here: That the Bible contradicts itself sometimes. Thats all. This does not mean you should go home and burn your Bible or that you cannot find things that will impact your life inside it. It just means it contradicts itself sometimes. It may seem that this is some kind of furious attack on everything that is Christian but it is not. Why do i persist in pointing out these examples (some of which may indeed be resolvable, but some of which i seriously doubt)? Only to get it across that there are contradictions. This is not a world-destroying point. The Bible can still be used if you accept them. What I dont understand is your need to fix all of these. Why not let it go? It seems to a certain point (without realizing it?) That Guy has. Just look at the persistence of this Scarlet - Purple debate. It's great that this debate has gone to the level of translations of Greek words and Hebrew words; its really starting to feel real. Your (That Guy) last post is really interesting and sheds some new light on the color of the robes. Thank you. But you still miss the point. I am not saying that this event did not occur. Nor am I denying the existence of colors that can look reddish and purple. Your nice picture of the shirt was a good example. More than likely there was some kind of reddish-purple robe used. Thats not the point. The point is that the two accounts are different and cannot both be read literally as true. Something cannot be both two colors at the same time. Nor can it be two shades of a color at the same time. The accounts are (minutely) inaccurate. Try to grasp this. This is not a big point. This is not even a small point. Its a very very very small point. This is a simple point of logic. You can not have both A and not-A. This even works for:
1. A is porphura (purple)
2. A is porphurous (bluish red)
It does not follow from this that it is some shade in between when most likely it was. Wheather it was in reality or not is not the question here. This is a small but easy to understand example. This example will not "bring down the Bible" nor do i wish it to.
So do you get what it is we (Schopenhauer and I) are trying to do here? Well I should actually say that rickthestick2 probably already kinda knew what was going on here (as he wrote in his post) I am glad that you (rickthestick2) want to read the Bible in context of meaning and not literal interpretaion. If both of you believe this then there is no reason to continue. What do you say That Guy?
If you want to continue I am most certainly happy to keep this going and going. I could respond to some of these points too. Yes, Heli is a boys name. So Josephs father is said to be 2 different men. (unless of course Josepth's mother had a husband called Heli (who was the brother of Jacob) who died... and then she maried Jacob .... hmmm....) And rickthestick2, even if I were simply to accept all of your responce to the coming of the Son of Man question it still does not resolve Matthew 16:28 as I quoted earlier.
But before we completely lose sight of the context of this argument let me ask again. Do we need to continue?
