Posted                       

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
Enders Shadow, you wrote

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But the whole point of Jesus' warning about the fall of Jerusalem was that it was to be because the Jewish people had rejected Him at the time of his revelation to them. So the concept of 'collective punishment' extends into the NT.

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Whilst you asked, Custard

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JJ - how on earth did you read that into this verse?


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[5] I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish."

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I don't think, ES, that is at all the natural meaning of the verse. What was it that the people had to repent of. Surely the natural meaning would be the belief that God has any intention of smiting the wicked, whether they be the victims of a building collapse or the Roman occupiers. This is not collective punishment by God for the rejection of Jesus, but the natural result of attempting to meet violence with violence.

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Originally posted by Freddy:

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Originally posted by HangerQueen:
But the OT God and the NT God are the same God. If we stop believing that, we begin the slide into Gnosticism.

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I agree. The OT God and the NT God are the same. But the NT God is a clearer and more accurate version, where as the OT God is a more clouded, mysterious, and symbolic version.

This is why Jesus said "You have heard it said by them of old time....but I say to you." He is refining the Old Testament explanations, but making it clear that this is the same God we are dealing with.

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Originally posted by Zeke:

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Originally posted by Peppone:

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Originally posted by Tuggboat:
Without Christ he would look on even us as chaff to be burned.

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You make it sound like God and Christ are in conflict. The classic falsehood: Christ saves and protects us from God.

A very odd concept.

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I've seen that "good cop, bad cop" thing more times than I have cared to.

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by Mousethief:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Wait. Don't go!

I do think that this epistemological dilemma can be solved.

The key is to realize that the way that things appear, and the way that they actually are, are often two different things. <snip>

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Fabulous post, Freddy.

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Originally posted by ken:
But if Jesus died for them but they are only able to be saved if they accept the offer of forgiveness, then God really has screwed them over. Because Joshua and his pals - God's people - don't turn up with an offer of forgiveness. They turn up with fire and the sword.

In that Arminian scenario the Canaanites don't have time to be saved. They just get killed before they have a chance to find out what all this God stuff is about.

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Quite right. Of course, if you're a non-Universalist strict Calvinist (and I know you're not), then you have the even worse problem that God made them all just to torture them even if some of them were the pleasantest people alive - unless the victims of genocide are all elect, but they couldn't have been because they didn't know anything about God's promises.

Question - why is it a really bad thing (don't say "because God says so - I mean why does he say so?" to kill a baby if you're a strict Calvinist? Surely the answer is that that baby might not be one of the elect, so you take away the only happiness it will ever know.

Question - why is it a really bad thing to kill a baby if you're a strict Arminian? Surely the answer is that you take away the baby's chance to make the right choice.


Martin the Barthtard. I like it

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Originally posted by GreyFace:
Question - why is it a really bad thing (don't say "because God says so - I mean why does he say so?" to kill a baby if you're a strict Calvinist? Surely the answer is that that baby might not be one of the elect, so you take away the only happiness it will ever know.

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Liberal rationalists always have a very uphill dialectical struggle. Their antithesis to squaring the circle of THE KILLER GOD OF THE OT vs. Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild is wrought, riven with a plethora of problems about the nature of God just as the conservative Biblical synthesis that reveals Him as both. More so I perceive.

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Originally posted by Custard123:
Not the answer I'd give (I'm a Christian who thinks that Calvin was generally right, but don't like being called a Calvinist).

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Also, the Bible does suggest different nastinesses of hell, based on opportunity (Mt 11:22), so you could argue that keeping them alive if they are not elect just makes things worse for them.

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
You don't find it inherently wrong, then - just going beyond your authority?

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by GreyFace:

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Originally posted by Custard123:
Not the answer I'd give (I'm a Christian who thinks that Calvin was generally right, but don't like being called a Calvinist).

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Sorry, you've lost me. Why not?

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quote:

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quote:

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Also, the Bible does suggest different nastinesses of hell, based on opportunity (Mt 11:22), so you could argue that keeping them alive if they are not elect just makes things worse for them.

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Riiiiiiight. So by this logic a good Calvinist should just kill everyone immediately, because if they're elect it gets them straight to heaven without having to go through all the potential suffering here on earth, and if they're not elect it makes for a less painful hell.

However, God's told us not to murder people, so according to the logic above, he's actually only keeping us all on earth so that the eventual end of the not-elect is worse.

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by GreyFace:
I didn't post this to take the mickey. Please show me where I'm wrong. If I was a Calvinist I'd also be a Universalist.

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Posted                         

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Originally posted by Mousethief:
it reminds me of that horrid chorus "This is the day that the Lord has made"...

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I once indavertantly taught this chorus to my cockatiel. He then proceeeded to sing it incessantly. When he was excited, he would stick on the loudest notes and repeat them over and over again.

We gave the bird away.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Originally posted by Freddy:
The other point is of course that they were occupying the Holy Land, and defiling it with their idolatries.

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Posted                       

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Originally posted by Custard123:
He's keeping us all on earth so that the full number of the elect can be brought in / so that more people can have a chance to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9, et al)

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Originally posted by Esmeralda:
No they weren't - it didn't become the Holy Land until the Holy (or chosen) People were in it.

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And we do not have a Holy Land today; we have (again) a holy people, 'of all tongues and nations', gathered around the anointed one.
To define the land as holy in perpetuity, is to feed the worst of Christian Zionism, and encourage a new genocide: that of the Palestinians (and worse, carried out by the very people who endured the Holocaust).
This is why I am deeply concerned about this issue: the moment we try to treat the OT genocides as in some way starightforwardly applicable to us today, we lay ourselves open to drawing some quite horrendous conclusions about the same dispute, between the same peoples, over the same land, which still continues. Please don't tell me you believe all the Palestinians should be driven out by today's Israelis. And please don't mention suicide bombs: the Israeli death toll over the last month was 19, the Palestinian was 111 (which included children, just as the Israeli one did).

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by Custard123:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
You don't find it inherently wrong, then - just going beyond your authority?

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Correct. Well, not just going beyond my authority, also going against God's.

Why do you think killing is wrong?

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Posted                         

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Originally posted by Seeker963:
On the one hand, we have "people like me" who say that God is a God who is always life-giving and who never condones murder or genocide....
On the other hand, we have people who believe that "what God is really like" is inerrantly interpreted in biblical narrative;...
So I still don't see how we get out of the epistemological circle.

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It gets us out of the circle because it assumes an inerrant Bible, revealed by God - AND - a God who is always life-giving and who never condones murder or genocide.

The key to getting out of the circle is to realize that the Biblical descriptions are sometimes simplified versions of how the event appeared - and how it would have appeared to you and me if we had been there. The Amorite kings attack and hailstones fall on them, the Egyptian king refuses to "let My people go" and plagues break out. Moses and Joshua speak with God, receive His commands and explanations and obey Him. The actual truth behind what really happened is much more complex.

For example. Do you really think that Moses spoke with God Himself? Is God Himself an individual with a white beard that would have had the kind of conversations Moses is recorded as having?

Both Moses and Abraham succesfully argued and bargained with God, if the text is to be accepted at face value. Would this have been the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit? Surely this is impossible. No one can speak with the Father, and I doubt that anyone would accept that the Son or the Holy Spirit would have said the kind of things that Jehovah is reported to have said.

A much better explanation is that in the Old Testament an angel or spirit spoke for Jehovah, appearing usually as the "Angel of Jehovah" or often simply as "Jehovah." Often both terms are used in the same story, as when the "three men" visit Abraham in Genesis 18. This angel or spirit presented himself as God, and gave commands that appeared to be from God Himself. This was permitted by God as a means of leading Israel, and preparing them for the Incarnation.

But what the angel or spirit said would not always literally have been the best thing, or in actual accord with the will of God. Instead, God permitted it, as He permits many things, for the sake of a greater good, according to the freedom of the people involved.

So Joshua was commanded to destroy everyone in Jericho and Ai, and he did. This was an evil act, not actually commanded by God Himself, but permitted by Him because it represented something very good, namely the destruction of evil. The biblical account, therefore, is about God's destruction of wickedness, and the promotion of peace on earth. The literal story, however, describes a much less happy event.

This may not be a satisfactory way of getting us out of the epistemological circle for everyone, but it works for me. The Bible is holy and true, revealed by God. But that God is love itself, and everything in the Bible is for the sake of the long run happiness and peace of the human race.

I guess the hardest part is accepting that any interpretation of biblical descriptions is justified. This may be a sticking point, but I think that if you can get past it you can reconcile these two epistemological camps.

God is good. The Bible is holy and true. A Christian must maintain both of these - in my opinion.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

Posted                          

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Originally posted by Custard123:
Why do you think killing is wrong?

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Posted                         

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Originally posted by Esmeralda:

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
The other point is of course that they were occupying the Holy Land, and defiling it with their idolatries.

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No they weren't - it didn't become the Holy Land until the Holy (or chosen) People were in it. And we do not have a Holy Land today; we have (again) a holy people, 'of all tongues and nations', gathered around the anointed one.

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Actually, I'm coming from a different perspective completely.

The land actually was holy, but it is not holy anymore. After the Incarnation everything changed.

The land was holy, according to my church, because this was where the people lived who are described as "Adam and Eve." It was therefore the site of the "Garden of Eden." This was not an actual garden, nor were Adam and Eve actual individuals. It was an era of the human race, very early in human history, known as the Golden Age. It was centered in the Levant and spread out from there.

The reason that this made the land holy was that these people were in close communion with angels, and the angels therefore became associated with the places in that land. The actual names themselves of those places were given from heaven. They are preserved in the Bible. This made the land holy because the angels were associated with the names and their meanings.

This is why it was so important for Israel to occupy that land, and for idolaters to be removed from it. This is what the symbolism is about.

All of the meanings, however, were about the work of salvation that the Christ would accomplish. When He came into the world and fulfilled the prophecies, the symbolism faded away and is no longer applicable. This is also why the ritual worship of the Old Testament, and all its arcane ritual laws, were abrogated when the Lord came.

So don't worry. I am not using this idea as a justification for anything current happening in Israel. As far as I am concerned there is no longer anything holy about it, other than the normal respect and reverence we give places because of their history.

Still, it was holy. This explains many things that happened there.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

Posted                          

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

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Originally posted by Seeker963:
On the one hand, we have "people like me" who say that God is a God who is always life-giving and who never condones murder or genocide....
On the other hand, we have people who believe that "what God is really like" is inerrantly interpreted in biblical narrative;...
So I still don't see how we get out of the epistemological circle.

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It gets us out of the circle because it assumes an inerrant Bible, revealed by God - AND - a God who is always life-giving and who never condones murder or genocide.

The key to getting out of the circle is to realize that the Biblical descriptions are sometimes simplified versions of how the event appeared....

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Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by Tuggboat:
The Bible is what it is and says what it says. It Holy and His word. You can all go chuck it out the window if you want but your probably tossing out God with it.

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I was about to exercise my gift of prophecy and predict that TB would receive a not altogether friendly rejoinder to this remark.
And there it was fulfilled before I could even type it.

I am wonderful.

Posted                         

quote:

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Originally posted by Seeker963:
Freddy, sorry, this really doesn't do it for me. I think you and I mean very different things by "inerrant" and it actually appears that your methodology of interpreting the bible is more - I'm not sure what the word is - "free-flowing" than my own methodology.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Tuggboat:
The Bible is what it is and says what it says. It Holy and His word. You can all go chuck it out the window if you want but your probably tossing out God with it.

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Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Liberal rationalists always have a very uphill dialectical struggle. Their antithesis to squaring the circle of THE KILLER GOD OF THE OT vs. Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild is wrought, riven with a plethora of problems about the nature of God just as the conservative Biblical synthesis that reveals Him as both. More so I perceive.

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Posted                          

quote:

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Originally posted by Tuggboat:
The Bible is what it is and says what it says. It Holy and His word. You can all go chuck it out the window if you want but your probably tossing out God with it.

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Now, that's what I was talking about.

I think we're actually at risk of straying into dead horse territory here if we start debating inerrancy.

Can I just point out that I'm middle-aged and I've heard that "You're throwing the bible out the window and God with it" comment more times than I could count. Having grown up in an inerrant church, I've been publically rebuked in front of people I cared about and I'd be a millionaire if I had a dollar or a pound for every time someone has said that to me. You may genuinely believe it's "throwing God out the window" but hurling insults at people isn't the best tactic if one is trying to make a case for one's own view. Thank you.

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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)

Posted                          

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Originally posted by Freddy:

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Originally posted by Seeker963:
Freddy, sorry, this really doesn't do it for me. I think you and I mean very different things by "inerrant" and it actually appears that your methodology of interpreting the bible is more - I'm not sure what the word is - "free-flowing" than my own methodology.

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I see what you mean. Then the only way to reconcile the passages is to posit that the Bible is not inerrant. This makes sense, but in my opinion it leaves a person more at sea than the method I described.

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Originally posted by Little Weed:
I don’t know whether I fall into the liberal rationalist camp because all I’m trying to do, believe it or not, is to understand the nature of God as revealed in the whole of the bible, but I take great exception to your caricature.

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First, an unbelievable amount of damage has been done, in my view, by the phrase Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild. It’s a sentimental Victorian distortion and IMO should never be part of a Christian’s vocabulary. On a suggested religious advert recently, set against a close-up of a bloody, dirty, Jesus wearing a crown of thorns and the words “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild?” it said, “Yeah, right.”

Love is the toughest, hardest, strongest most durable thing in the world. It is pain and sacrifice and grief and agony but I have faith in the God finally revealed in Jesus which teaches me that love will always triumph over might. I have to read the OT in the light of that. I have no option.

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Amen, preach it!

Tarnation, I am so tired of asking for the grace to love people who I'd rather not love only to have others imply that the only reason I believe in love and forgiveness is because I want an excuse for my failings and I don't want to try hard enough and don't want rules to follow.

[ 09. July 2004, 13:33: Message edited by: Seeker963 ]

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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)

Posted                         

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Originally posted by Seeker963:
OK, look, I don't mean this as an insult, I honestly don't, but to me the interpretation you posited was a lot more "liberal", a lot more "non-inerrant" than my own....Would it be possible to try a different angle so I can see where you're coming from?

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That might be good, because I call my position "conservative" and "inerrant."

I'm coming from the idea that the Bible is directly revealed by God and is the holy Word of God.

But, as I understand it, its holiness lies in a spiritual understanding of what it is really about, namely God's salvation of the human race, and the life of love and charity that each individual is called to live, refraining from evil and doing God's will.

This is therefore always the real topic, regardless of what the literal text appears to be about. The literal text is often a series of metaphors. The metaphors, however, do not mean that the literal text is inaccurate. These things really happened. It was important that they actually happen since the events themselves had incredibly powerful metaphoric or symbolic value. This power is why so many of the events are actual miracles. The miracles really happened.

I don't want to stray into dead horses territory here. The point of explaining this is to show that this makes it possible to reconcile a God of love with what God commanded Joshua to do.

This works in my tradition because there are good, biblically consistent, explanations of how the metaphors work and why they work that way. Without those explanations, however, I can see why you would call this a "liberal" or "non-inerrantist" explanation.

So the genocide was evil, but it symbolized something good, namely the destruction of evil. This is completely self-contradictory, but it is nevertheless how Christians have understood it from the very beginning. It is the basis of the common history that many religions have of wanting to "destroy the infidels."

A modern understanding, however, won't tolerate that contradiction - so it needs to be explained and reconciled. That's what this discussion is about.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
It gets us out of the circle because it assumes an inerrant Bible, revealed by God - AND - a God who is always life-giving and who never condones murder or genocide.

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Posted                          

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
I'm coming from the idea that the Bible is directly revealed by God and is the holy Word of God.

But, as I understand it, its holiness lies in a spiritual understanding of what it is really about, namely God's salvation of the human race, and the life of love and charity that each individual is called to live, refraining from evil and doing God's will.

This is therefore always the real topic, regardless of what the literal text appears to be about.

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quote:

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The literal text is often a series of metaphors. The metaphors, however, do not mean that the literal text is inaccurate. These things really happened. It was important that they actually happen since the events themselves had incredibly powerful metaphoric or symbolic value. This power is why so many of the events are actual miracles. The miracles really happened.

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quote:

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I don't want to stray into dead horses territory here. The point of explaining this is to show that this makes it possible to reconcile a God of love with what God commanded Joshua to do.

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quote:

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This works in my tradition because there are good, biblically consistent, explanations of how the metaphors work and why they work that way.

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quote:

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So the genocide was evil, but it symbolized something good, namely the destruction of evil.

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quote:

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This is completely self-contradictory, but it is nevertheless how Christians have understood it from the very beginning. It is the basis of the common history that many religions have of wanting to "destroy the infidels."

A modern understanding, however, won't tolerate that contradiction - so it needs to be explained and reconciled. That's what this discussion is about.

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by GreyFace:
Denying inerrancy is not the same thing as denying the truth found in Scripture.

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Originally posted by Ddraig:
Freddy, is there somewhere I can read more about this approach to the Bible?

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Originally posted by Seeker963:
I don't really "get" your use of the concept of metaphor here. Let's take an example. Are you saying that, for example, the Exodus really happened but that it happened because God wanted the people of Israel to have a metaphor for "God brings his people out of slavery"?

I'd say something more like "God brought his people out of slavery and, in this act, Israel experienced God as a saviour." I'm wondering if we're actually saying the same thing (because I'd not use the word or concept of "metaphor")?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Seeker963:
I'd say that the genocide was simply wrong and it was a case of the victors writing history ("They must have been evil or our God would not have allowed us to annhilate them").

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Posted                         

quote:

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Originally posted by Seeker963:
I agree that there are a lot of metaphorical lessons we can learn from the bible, but I don't think that historical events happened for metaphorical purposes.

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Originally posted by Sean D:
Thanks Tuggboat. In making some completely unsubstantiated and wholly controversial assertions and in quoting a completely irrelevant passage of Scripture you have really helped to clarify matters and clear the whole mess up. Thanks for your contribution.

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I of course didn't think it was irrelevant.

I substantiated my assertion with scripture.

As far as controversial goes, once I read it in scripture I quit arguing and put it to rest. What that scripture does for me is that it puts the whole problem of how will the unsaved (present, past, Jewish, gentile, elect and nonelect and whatever other execptions to God's judgement we conjure up including those with arguments against God's Word) be judged.

So whether we like it or not we will be judged. Now after we're judged I can't find where the wicked sinners will get a condo on the shore of the River of Life.

Perhaps it's in some man made sin inspired book but I steer away from more than a mere glossing over heresies. And that includes all books that lead me to believe its alright to sin. They are in error.

[ 09. July 2004, 17:46: Message edited by: Tuggboat ]

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The wind blows, and restless are the sails;
Even the rudder begs direction;

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Custard123:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
You don't find it inherently wrong, then - just going beyond your authority?

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Correct. Well, not just going beyond my authority, also going against God's.

Why do you think killing is wrong?

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It violates the Golden Rule. Possibly that's just another way of saying "Goddammit, it's just WRONG!", but it'll do for me.

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quote:

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"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?"
"Four"
"And if the party says that it is not four but five - then how many?"
"Four"
The word ended with a gasp of pain
.
.
.
"You are a slow learner, Winston" said O'Brien gently.
"How can I help it?" he blubbered. "How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."

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Posted                       

quote:

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Yes, actually, it was entirely and unequivocally wrong. It's exactly the other way around. The contraction of it is, is it's, with apostrophe. Its without apostrophe is the genitive, meaning belonging to it. Common sense tells us that the apostrophe is used to indicate what is missed out, in this case the 'i' of 'is'.

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Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by ONUnicorn:
Okay, maybe I wasn't clear in my retelling of the story...

Always before my Junior year of University, I had understood "it is" to be contracted as "it's". Then I took an English class with a professor who absolutely insisted that "it's" was wrong - whatever the context. He insisted "it is" should be shortened to "its" and would circle all instances of "it's" in bright red ink and take five points off for every instance of said usage. Other students pointed out that all accepted style manuals say "it's" is an accepted contraction for "it is" but it was his mission in life to stamp out "it's".

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quote:

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At any rate, the point I was trying to make was not a grammatical one. God made, and is still making, this world. It is his work of art. Just as it is not immoral for me to smite the apostrophe in the paper I have written, so it is not immoral for God to smite people.

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