A Bible contradiction? (page 3)

jst2laws

JanH
Please don’t feel I do not appreciate your research and opinion, but I must disagree.
Your said:

“I cannot but say it is an amazing display of intellectual dishonesty to call it a "technicality", when the whole point of Jesus' statement was that David entered the House of God, and in fact he did not! As you can see in my commentary, Jesus screwed up practically every possible detail in the story. Names, numbers, events, what happened, everything.”

The “whole point of Jesus’ statement” was NOT “that David entered the House of God”. The whole point was giving examples of God’s liberality compared to the mindless insistence on technical errors coming from the Pharisees. They were saying:

“Look here! Why are they doing on the sabbath what is not lawful? Mark 2:24

These experts at legalities were critical of anyone who did not live up to their extremely technical interpretation of the scriptures. Jesus was not only expressing a more liberal approach to the scriptures but by your estimation he demonstrated it. That’s the lesson I like.

As to his audience not objecting, you say:

“We're talking a simple, backwards group of followers of a religious conman, and this was 2000 years ago! Those were the mest credulous of the credulous, in a world full of superstition.”

He was addressing the educated law minded Pharisees who later killed him for his teaching. It appears to me either they did not challenge his points about David and the bread because:

1 They could not challenge the accuracy on technicalities.

OR

2 He had make his point about being legalistic so well they saw it was counter productive to their argument to make a response.

I can see we are 180 degrees on this subject. I hate to differ with anyone but I must when a beautiful teaching point is lost upon technical scrutinizing. Jesus stood for tolerance, compassion, and love. He was attacked by those obsessed by righteousness and legalism. It seems ironic that down to today he is attacked for failure to be technically accurate in the very context of defending his own disciples for not being technically accurate. As said, I like the lesson he was teaching. Its worth imitating.
Jst2laws

Francois

All these arguments make one huge assumption - that these men who wrote the bible books in question, usually decades after the fact when they were much older men and in no telling what shape - are accurately quoting the words of Jesus. That's a big, big stretch so far as I'm concerned.

Also, an assumption is being made that the original writings of these men has been passed down through two thousand years with amazing accuracy.

Please, no rejoinders about how God himself had a hand in keeping "his" word inviolate. If it were all that inviolate, there would be no mis-match between what Jesus said, vs. what Luke says he said, vs. what the Hebrew text says actually happened. It's a long reach from David all the way to Jesus. And argument about it really proves nothing. There would also not be all the argument surrounding the value of Pi, which was gummed into a soft mush here about a month ago.

All The Best,

Francois

jst2laws

SixofNine
Quote
“The question remains on the table; is there any reason, any reason at all, besides common desire, for the bible to be considered the inspired word of God?”

The common thought “inspired word of God” does not have to mean absolutely, flawlessly conveyed through flawed men ‘word of God’. Just inspired, like a musician is inspired but notes come from the heart to convey a feeling, not a textbook thesis. Can we not break from this absolutist mindset and just look for the message?

JanG
Thanks for the info. By my comments about not demanding absolute conformity from the Bible writers does not mean I do not have confidence in the scriptures. I think most conflicts can be resolved. That’s what I like about your post. But with confidence that God can use flawed men to communicate, I’m not bothered even if we couldn’t answer every seeming contradiction. But I appreciate it when good people do.

Francoice

Quote
“assumption is being made that the original writings of these men has been passed down through two thousand years with amazing accuracy.”

Why does it always have to be “amazing accuracy”. Jesus was always under fire for his lack of technical “accuracy” in the minds of his critics. To modern times we are still obsessing over such things as “amazing accuracy” to the point of missing the message. Have we all been mislead by organized, legalistic religion to think if God’s communication to us is not absolutely and perfectly conveyed by imperfect man then it is completely invalid?

Jst2laws

waiting

hey Jst2laws,

You make good points in favor of getting the lessons from the Bible, instead of taking the Bible literally word for word.

As has been shown, taking it literally is looking at many flaws and errors. To take it as lessons - as Jesus did in his parables (The Good Samaritan etc.), we can learn much.

Is it inspired of God? Good guess. Was Jesus a real person? Another good guess. But there are still good lessons to absorb if we wish.

waiting

julien

>> "But there are still good lessons to absorb if we wish."

Yeah I agree, for example, when a voice inside your head tells you to tie your child to an altar and murder him as an "offering" its a good idea to comply.

Or there are other lessons that plenty of modern day leaders have followed, such as, if you go into a new region where you want to settle, but it is already occupied it is a good practice to slaughter them wholesale, men women child and beast. If the women are pretty though you can keep them alive.

Or then how about when angry homosexuals are attacking your house you can buy some extra time by letting them rape your virgin daughters.

Then there is the lesson that David taught us when dealing with Nabal. Nabal was really rich so David sent some men to ask him to give him some of his wealth because David had allegedly "guarded" his shephards and flocks. This type of dealing is very popular nowadays on shows and movies such as the Sopranos. So Nabal is a little curious and says "Who is this David? etc etc", a reasonable question. Well wouldn't you know it David uses that OT morality and sends a contigent of men to take the provisions by force. Well even this wasn't enough for "the lord" who decided to kill Nabal anyway.

Yes sir the Bible is quite a tome of valuable wisdom..

bigboi

Hey JanH:

Thanks for your response to the thread. Frankly you can keep your insults. I wonder why someone with as much "intellectual" capacity as yourself has to resort to insulting ppl simply because they don't agree with you. I am not the Watchtower Bible and Tract society. Neither am I a member. I wasn't on the committee that disfellowshipped, diassociated, or whatever in the hell they did to you. Therefore I would appreciate it if you refrain from insulting me simply because I don't the same "intellectual" capacity as yourself. Like you said this is a discussion board and I would be happy to continue to discuss things with ppl who have the capacity to participate in discussions, interchanging thoughts and ideas in a civil manner.

Where does it say in the account that David had no men with him. By with I mean that he was absolutely all alone by himself. Sure they may not have gone up with him to the tabernacle, but some men may have been there with him. It is likely that David went into the tabernacle alone as a representative of the group that he would neet up with later. I don't know, I wasn't there. But that seems like a totally plausible scenario.

Besides re read that account in Mark for yourself. Where did Jesus say explicitly that the men were with him "in the house of God"? To me, you can infer from the way the sentence reads that he gave it to them later. Like he gave it to them sometime after he recieved it from the preist. But that's just me. I may be wrong, but that's the way I see it.

And another point, where did Jesus say the high priest? He called him the "chief priest" in the NWT. Not the same as High Priest. Also, the loaves of presentation mentioned in the account were made with nearly 4.5 quarts of flour each! That's a helluva lotta bread for one guy. In my opinion anyway.

Peace,

Bigboi

"..... anyone who ignores everyday reality in order to live up to an ideal will soon discover he had been taught how to destroy himself, not how to preserve himself." The Prince. Niccolo Machiavelli.

SixofNine

The common thought “inspired word of God” does not have to mean absolutely, flawlessly conveyed through flawed men ‘word of God’. Just inspired, like a musician is inspired but notes come from the heart to convey a feeling, not a textbook thesis. Can we not break from this absolutist mindset and just look for the message?

Yeah, sure. But while we are doing the healthy work of "breaking free from this absolutist mindset", why not break free from the absolutist thought that the Bible has anything whatsoever to do with the creator? Because after all, if you can at least begin to do that, then you can deal (in a healthy mental fashion) with the "message" noticed by julien (in his post above), and me, and everyone else who reads the Bible. That means you 2, just2. How do you "deal" with those messages in a healthy mental fashion? What do you teach people about those messages?

There are more where those came from, btw.

Scorpion

JanH,

Twobit apologists you say! Why do you (ass)ume I am an apologists? I just want people to see both sides of the coin. Does this bother your ego? I have debated pencil necked geeks like yourself over and over only to realize that people like you are so puffed up with themselves it is a waist of my time.

Grow up!

Scorpion

rem,

You have made the same mistake JanH has. You (ass)ume I am defending a religion or Christianity. What was so inaccurate about the site I posted as far as the carbon dating?

Scorpion

Jang,

Thank you for your post. Hopefully it will help a few of the blind to see beyond their eyelids.

A Bible contradiction?

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