jnelson@trwrba.UUCP (John T. Nelson) (10/30/84)
[Larry Bickford]
My opinion of you has plummeted to below zero.
[John T. Nelson]
Why? Not that I really care since my purpose on the net is not to
garner public support.
If you wish to communicate by mail, do so - netnews followups
are out of line.
I never expressed the desire to communicate by mail... what makes you
think that I did? Netnews followups are totally reasonable since there
are other people who might might find debate on this subject (of all
subjects) interesting and informative. Are you for some reason afraid
to air your ideas or debate subjects in the open? Religion is something
to be discussed in public, not in private.
Frankly, your arguments are boring and pointless.
Being an overworked manager I have little time to put together works of
art. My arguments might bore you but they are far from pointless.
You simple have no tangible evidence that will convince a non-believer
that what is stated in the Bible is true. Period. If you do then
let's see it.
Any decent study of the history of the Scriptures more than
verifies that what we have is virtually the same as what the
first-century Christians had.
Evidence.
Such a study also corroborates the Biblical record of history.
("Every turn of the archaeologist's spade buries another
'higher critic.'")
You mean like Lazaris stopping the sun? Or cave paintings in Australia?
Or dinosaur footprints...
Scripture is not changed by communication, any more than your
editing of this in a reply changes what I have written.
How will people a thousand years from now know what you have written?
How will they know it is accurate if your existance is recorded only
through these articles? They won't... similarly we have no adequate
way of tracing the changes that the bible may have undergone.
- Johnyiri@ucf-cs.UUCP (Yirmiyahu BenDavid) (10/31/84)
Whoever is arguing that scripture (presumeably the 'New Testament') is virtually the same as in the first century should come forth and answer the articles I've previously posted. They are obviously ignorant of the issues which were raised in them.
dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) (11/14/84)
> Such a study also corroborates the Biblical record of history. > ("Every turn of the archaeologist's spade buries another > 'higher critic.'") > > You mean like Lazaris stopping the sun? Or cave paintings in Australia? > Or dinosaur footprints... Lazarus stopping the sun? What's this all about? -- Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois
jnelson@trwrba.UUCP (John T. Nelson) (11/18/84)
> > Such a study also corroborates the Biblical record of history. > > ("Every turn of the archaeologist's spade buries another > > 'higher critic.'") > > > > You mean like Lazaris stopping the sun? > > Lazarus stopping the sun? What's this all about? > -- > Paul DuBois Funny... my Bible seems to have been tampered with ;-)... I was wondering when someone would catch that one. Obviously I meant Ezekial in the Old Testament. Now if you're a true Chrisitan who believes in the literal interpretation of the Bible and that God would NEVER allow any kind of inaccuracy to creep in there, then of course you believe that Ezekial stopped the sun! - John
jnelson@trwrba.UUCP (John T. Nelson) (11/18/84)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Changing scripture... a lost art?
References: <1063@trwrba.UUCP>, <463@uwmacc.UUCP>
[LARRY BICKFORD]
Such a study also corroborates the Biblical record of
history. ("Every turn of the archaeologist's spade
buries another 'higher critic.'")
[JOHN T. NELSON]
You mean like Lazaris stopping the sun?
[PAUL DUBOIS]
Lazarus stopping the sun? What's this all about?
Funny... my Bible seems to have been tampered with ;-)...
I was wondering when someone would catch that one. Obviously I
meant Joshua in the Old Testament. Joshua was the big general after
Moses. Refering to the Revised Standard edition we find...
Joshua Chapter 10 Verse 12:
Then spoke Joshua to the lord in the day when the lord gave the
Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel
"Sun, stand though still at Gibeon and though Moon in the valley
Aijalon" and the Sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation
took vengence on their enemies. Is this not written in the book of
Jashar? The Sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to
go down for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or
since, when the lord harkened to the voice of a man; for the lord
fought for Israel.
Now if you're a true Chrisitan who believes in the literal
interpretation of the Bible then of course you believe that Joshua
stopped the sun... A sun wich we all know is rock-steady to begin
with.
I would like to add that I am not ridiculing the Old Testiment because
this task is "too difficult" for any God. What I am saying is that there
is a blatent contradiction here. The author of this book (and
apparently) Joshua too, believed that the sun revolves about the earth.
If one were to interpret this passage literally then one would HAVE to
conclude that the sun is the center of the solar system which is
clearly not true.
The Bible cannot be relied upon as as a totally accurate
source of history or fact. Not when taken literally.
"We don' need no stinkin GREEN books!"
- Johnpmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) (11/21/84)
>[From John Nelson:] >Refering to the Revised Standard edition we find... > >Joshua Chapter 10 Verse 12: > >Then spoke Joshua to the lord in the day when the lord gave the >Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel >"Sun, stand though still at Gibeon and though Moon in the valley >Aijalon" and the Sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation >took vengence on their enemies. Is this not written in the book of >Jashar? The Sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to >go down for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or >since, when the lord harkened to the voice of a man; for the lord >fought for Israel. > >Now if you're a true Chrisitan who believes in the literal >interpretation of the Bible then of course you believe that Joshua >stopped the sun... A sun wich we all know is rock-steady to begin >with. > >I would like to add that I am not ridiculing the Old Testiment because >this task is "too difficult" for any God. What I am saying is that there >is a blatent contradiction here. The author of this book (and >apparently) Joshua too, believed that the sun revolves about the earth. >If one were to interpret this passage literally then one would HAVE to >conclude that the sun is the center of the solar system which is >clearly not true. > >The Bible cannot be relied upon as as a totally accurate >source of history or fact. Not when taken literally. How should the Bible have described the event? I suppose that, to be technically correct, it should have said that the earth's rotation (with respect to the sun) stopped for a whole day. But how then would the readers understand the event? Is it strange that the terms "sunrise" and "sunset" have persisted in our language for so long? Sure, we all know that the sun does no such thing; but does the fact that Joshua and those who first read his account didn't make the description of that event any less accurate? From our perspective the sun does move and it makes sense to explain events like sunset and sunrise that way to people with the same perspective. In essence, a description of an event does not always have to be scientifically accurate to be correct, especially if all those concerned share a similar perspective. I think the literal meaning of this passage is not so much a matter of actual contradiction as it is a matter of perspective. To require that a description be scientifically correct to be accurate is to be pendantic in any semantic environment execpt that of science itself. Science also approaches models from a fixed perspective. John's statement that the sun is "rock-steady" may be true when we consider only our solar system (That is the perspective he is assuming for us). If I include the whole universe in my perspective, it is certainly false. It's true that this is the very issue on which Galileo and others offended the Church. But the idea that the earth revolved around the sun was probably new to just about everyone, because it is not an obvious deduction from plain observation. Belief in the opposite is not necessarily dependant on "literal" (the way John is using the word) interpretation in the above passage in Joshua. All such a belief requires is to live one's whole life with a certain perspective on the relationship between the sun and the earth. It's easy to see the passage as supporting such a perspective as being actual in that temporal setting. From my own temporal perspective I have trouble seeing what the Church was worried about. There are plenty of other matters of perspective in Scripture that can bring charges of errancy against it. Some of them seem more plausible than John's example here, yet are also unfounded by the same principle. C. S. Lewis deals with this in his book "Miracles"; especially in the chapter called "Horrid Red Things" (I think). So, I can't accept John's apparent attempt to hold the inerrancy doctrine hostage to the semantics of science and a given perspective. The only "blantant contradiction" here is between two different semantic environments or two different perspectives. We tolerate such contradiction all the time (apparently because we only work in, or with, one at a time). If we are going to make the semantics of science the only valid ones--all the rest being contradictions--then we best think up new words for "sunrise", "sunset", "up", "down", "east" "west", etc. Our use of these and many others could be rendered contradictory if someone insisted on applying a different perspective in their use. -- The "resurrected", Paul Dubuc cbscc!pmd
teitz@aecom.UUCP (11/27/84)
> > > Such a study also corroborates the Biblical record of history. > > > ("Every turn of the archaeologist's spade buries another > > > 'higher critic.'") > > > > > > You mean like Lazaris stopping the sun? > > > > Lazarus stopping the sun? What's this all about? > > -- > > Paul DuBois > > Funny... my Bible seems to have been tampered with ;-)... > > I was wondering when someone would catch that one. Obviously I > meant Ezekial in the Old Testament. > > Now if you're a true Chrisitan who believes in the literal > interpretation of the Bible and that God would NEVER allow > any kind of inaccuracy to creep in there, then of course you > believe that Ezekial stopped the sun! > > > > - John I thought Joshua stopped the sun.
dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) (12/03/84)
> > > Such a study also corroborates the Biblical record of history. > > > ("Every turn of the archaeologist's spade buries another > > > 'higher critic.'") > > > > > > You mean like Lazaris stopping the sun? > > > > Lazarus stopping the sun? What's this all about? > > -- > > Paul DuBois > > Funny... my Bible seems to have been tampered with ;-)... > > I was wondering when someone would catch that one. Obviously I > meant Ezekial in the Old Testament. > > Now if you're a true Chrisitan who believes in the literal > interpretation of the Bible and that God would NEVER allow > any kind of inaccuracy to creep in there, then of course you > believe that Ezekial stopped the sun! Ezekiel stopping the sun? What's this all about? -- Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois
dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) (12/03/84)
> I would like to add that I am not ridiculing the Old Testiment because > this task is "too difficult" for any God. What I am saying is that there > is a blatent contradiction here. The author of this book (and > apparently) Joshua too, believed that the sun revolves about the earth. > If one were to interpret this passage literally then one would HAVE to > conclude that the sun is the center of the solar system which is > clearly not true. > > The Bible cannot be relied upon as as a totally accurate > source of history or fact. Not when taken literally. Well, now. Do you call up the weatherman when he says what time the sun will "rise" tomorrow, and chew him out for his antiquainted geocentrism? Probably not. So what's the beef if the Bible speaks phenomenologically, i.e., in regular language? -- Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois
mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON) (12/07/84)
> > Well, now. Do you call up the weatherman when he says what time > the sun will "rise" tomorrow, and chew him out for his antiquainted > geocentrism? Probably not. So what's the beef if the Bible speaks > phenomenologically, i.e., in regular language? > -- > Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois Now wait a minute. What's the beef in saying the Bible was speaking in "regular" language when it discussed the creation of the world? Remember, the readers were going to be sheperds and farmers. The text HAD to be geared to them and what they saw and felt. I think the original concept stands. The bible is a wonderful guide to morals and everyday living, but as a scientific/historical/geographical document, it ceased to be valid about 500 years ago. Marcel Simon allegra!mhuxr!mfs