Re: 1994 Pulitzer Prize Winning Photo

On Nov 2, 10:12 am, Jim Gysin <jimgy...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
btpage0...@xxxxxxxxx sent the following on 11/1/2007 10:04 AM:





On Oct 31, 7:34 pm, Jim Gysin <jimgy...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
btpage0...@xxxxxxxxx sent the following on 10/31/2007 5:20 PM:

If we can't do that, how do you resolve all of the inconsistencies?
It's not inconsistent, it's to be taken as a whole.
An eye for an eye, or turn the other cheek?
I could go on and on and on...
Actually it's amazingly consistent. You can go ahead and go on and
on, but context will surprise you, I really believe that.
For instance, in Exodus, it says that you shall GIVE life for life and
an eye for an eye. In other words, it isn't instructing the reader to
punish OTHERS for their sins, but rather to pay for their own. This
is in no way inconsistent with the New testament of turning the other
cheek. We are to pay for our sins and seek repentance, but yet also,
forgive others of their sins against us. This teaching is consistent
with both passages. It is when somebody simply pulls out the one
verse and says "eye for an eye" that if confuses and obscurs the
intent behind that law.
You are misinformed. From Leviticus:

24:20 Limb for limb, eye for eye, tooth for tooth! The same injury that a man gives another shall be inflicted on him in return.

As you'll note, I mentioned Exodus, not Leviticus. The context I
mentioned is unmistakable in Exodus.

I don't know what part of Exodus you're referring to, but to the extent that it says what you say it says, then we've found further inconsistencies within the OT.

However, in Leviticus, indeed we
see a much darker picture. As Jesus notes in John Chapter 8, however,
no one is to punish another for their sin if they are not free of
sin. For Christians to take on Leviticus without the context of the
New Testament would be to not take the Bible as a whole. You are free
to ask religions that suppsoedly adhere to the Old Testament why they
do not still carry on these practices though.

Again, keep in mind that this entire subthread stems from Dan's claim that the ENTIRE bible is literally and fundamentally consistent; that's been the claim that I've been addressing here. I agree with you that >there are obvious inconsistencies between what the bible says Christians are supposed to do and what the bible says Jews are supposed to do. But the inconsistencies do not stop there, as I pointed out with a >few specific examples.

Maybe that is our issue here. The problem for many people is that
Jesus refused to discount the Old Testament (though some churches tend
to throw it out or de-emphasize it because of these points) and so it
becomes murky, for some, what is to be taken and what is not to be
taken. The answer, as it almost always is, is the message is what is
to be taken. The entire reason that Jesus was here was to die for our
sins so that intent, rather than the letter of the law became the
judgement factor. Perfection, after all, was an impossible standard.



And since you say that we can't pick and choose, does that mean that
you believe the Genesis story of creation as literal truth?
Yes
So is science wrong, or is God just planting fake evidence to test our faith in a literal bible?
The Bible does not lay out an epoch.
So it all depends on what the meaning of a "day" is?

Not my point. Do you read historical writings at all? If you have
never read anything that's over about a century or two old, you'd
readily realize that you can't simply assign present-day and YOUR
meaning and adhere it strictly to each word. Various interpretations
will even have different words. The MESSAGE is no way clouded by
this, it only gets clouded by what one wants to have it clouded by.
The Bible clearly states that God created the earth. When you try to
assing a time period that is not expressly mentioned in the Bible, you
assign YOUR meaning, not the Bible's.

In other words, the bible should not be taken literally. That's been my point all along, and you're preaching to the choir here. And yes, I am a fan of history and have been studying it all my life.

Well, I guess that depends. Dan is right when he says you can't pick
and choose, and yet, ultimately we are given that appearance no matter
how you look at it. For my church, we study the Bible as much as we
do so we can figure out what it is saying. We don't take a verse out
of context and base doctrine off of it or a have a bunch of symbolic
ceremonies based on scripture, we try to get at the message and we try
to obey the commands that are in there when we look at the whole.

Many in my church would argue that it's literal, but figuring out
which interpretation is actually the literal one, that's what is not
so easy.



Many people erroneously like to
fill in the gaps with their own mind, or pretend that the gaps do not
exist in the first place. There is no specific timeline for creation,
and even the "7 days" are not necessarily defined as 24 hour periods
of time. I would go into more detail, but I am just studying it
myself and I can't do it justice right now. The Bible is literal, but
the problem is that people may assign different meanings to the same
word or phrase, and it begs the question, who is it literal for? For
you, a day means 24 hours, and so you proclaim the Bible can not be
literal. Yet, when the Bible was written, perhaps from even other
source documents, and the translation looks to be a certain period of
time and the closes word they can come to is translated later on as
day, it is still literal in the sense that 7 periods of time, or
phases went into the creation of the earth.
So it's literal, but a day isn't a day? Good gravy, Batman!

You don't read about history do you? You aren't familiar with
language translations either, I would guess.

Wrong on both counts, actually. Regarding the latter, though, and your spin on the "day" question, I'm surprised that no fundamentalist group has yet come out with a "translation" that uses some other words or >phrasing in place of "day" in our ongoing example here. And that's just for starters. I'm also aware of the oral propagation that predated the written word by a major chunk of time. Heck, the earliest Gospel wasn't >written down until some 40 years after Jesus dies, so inconsistencies are to be expected, as is the tendency of the later Gospels to creatively borrow from the (perhaps questionable) memories of the earlier >Gospels. But all of this is just more reason to avoid a literal interpretation of things.

I'm surprised at a number of things that fundamentalist groups haven't
done to place the Bible on a consistent footing with science, given
that there is a way to do that. Having said that, most are taught
(whether it's well practiced or not) that you can't force someone to
believe, you can only plant the seed. I think even based on the way
you said the above, if that were attempted, there are some that would
just use that to further state that they are "twisting" things around
to fit in, or to convince others. So I'm not sure how effective it
would be anyway.

I've said it before, science doesn't even have to be wrong and a
literal Bible can still make sense to us using logic. Most people
aren't willing to study the Bible in that way, so it's not surprising
that only a few interpretations are being used.
Generally speaking, the interpretations being used are those that make internal sense, and picking and choosing when to call a "day" a day is hardly an honest use of the philosophy of "logic."

If you say so. The creation story comes from what?

A desire to explain to the masses where they came from, and to give them a sense of purpose and destiny. In that regard, biblical allegory is no different than, say, Norse mythology or bedtime stories about >whom Zeus was raping on a given day.


I don't know about that. Historical evidence indicates that it may be
much more than that.

If there were a
human witness (which there isn't) that actually recorded it as it
happened (which they didn't) it makes some sense to try to apply
something that makes internal sense. For the purposes of following
the story however, it misses the point, greatly. A great many people
have tried to make huge extrapolations on the Bible and assign an age
to the earth etc. The Bible is not meant for extrapolation in that
sense.

I agree. You should take this up with Dan, though.

Because if you do, I'll just quickly bail out of any further
discussion with you along these lines.
K.
Oh, that's right. I said I'd bail. Feel free to ignore that last question.
If we could do that,
then that would invalidate the whole.
No, we just have to understand that parts are allegorical, parts are
historical, parts are editorial, and parts are suppositional.
Certainly they all have unique purposes.
Yes, and some serve allegorical purposes, some serve historical purposes, some serve editorial purposes, and some serve suppositional purposes.
I disagree with him and I disagree with you. The Bible has only one
real purpose.
What would that be?

To bear witness to the Truth, and help those that seek it.

"Bear witness" works for me, but I suspect that Dan would say that it is to PRESENT the truth.


Well strictly speaking, the Bible proclaims that it IS the truth. And
I believe in it, so I'm not every going to say otherwise. But just
for the sake of this discussion let me say this. For each and every
person, their ability to understand the truth about any given
situation, greatly differs. For one person, a very simply explanation
is sufficient for them to understand a concept. For another person a
very lengthy explanation is required. For others still, a completely
different approach is necessary. Sometimes in explaining a concept to
multiple people you can say things that seem completely contradictory,
and yet you get the same concept across to all people. The "truth" is
the concept. I've heard others suggest the Bible is a way of teaching
the concepts to a wide variety of people and that the concepts are in
fact, few, but the explanations numerous and involved, and some not so
involved, all designed to teach. Others, still, say that the Bible
will not read the same way before accepting Christ as it will after
accepting Christ.

For what it is worth, as a scientist and someone that likes to use
logic, I have read the Bible nearly cover to cover and got a little
bit out of it. Nearly a couple of years ago, I accepted Christ into
my life, and now I read one chapter of one book and I get volumes out
of it. When I talk about it, it isn't because I want to "force"
others to my way of thinking, or that I think everyone "needs" to
think the same way, or even agree with me. I talk about it because
the absolute joy in my life since accepting Christ is unparalelled,
and I wish everyone could experience the same in their own lives.

Brent


.

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