dyl (03/01/83)
It is practically impossible to pick a worse topic to discuss Bible contradiction using the marriage covenant because it is the oldest and only covenant honored by God when man fell. The 'contradiction' (Lev. 20:21 and Deut. 25:5) that utcsrgv!simon talked about in article 134 is explained clearly in Luke 20:27-39. The marriage covenant is a covernant for the living and not the dead. Neatly enough, an illustration is given with the burning bush that also was mentioned by utcsrgv!simon. This is one example to show that men gather only those evidenences to support their belief or unbelief. But the Bible IS God breathed and written with every spiritual need of man in mind. It is not possible for God to contradict himself. Yes, there are issues in the Bible that a person cannot comprehend unless guided by the Holy Spirit. It would be wiser to seek answers than to make passing judgements. floyd!dyl
dag (03/12/83)
Sorry if this made it out already -- I first posted it on March 2... Not THIS argument again... To those who the Bible IS God Breathed, the Bible is. To the others it is not. I for one, am satisfied with letting those who think one way think that way and leaving the others alone. Mr. Lee suggests that contradictions can not exist in the Bible. If you take that assertion as true, then logically, all things said in the bible must agree and any percieved contradiction is mearly a lack of understanding on the part of the observer. To this way of thinking the major works of Jewish scholars (Ie. The Talmud, The Mishna, and in another way, the Guide for the Perplexed) are worthless for the most part, since they deal largly with reconciling the work of God with what the accounts say that God said. All of these, including the accounts, are the work of man according to those scholars. I don't want to start another interpretational debate but PLEASE don't assume that all readers will accept any one view of the Bible. "How many times in Genesis does god create Man?" "Depends on your interpretation. Obviously, God only created Man once, but the accounts all vary -- The most important thing to understand is the meaning of the stories, not to take the words as an actual account of the creation." "But is not the Bible the word of God?" "The Bible is a collection of works penned by mortal hands. Although it contains much that God says or does, the words are those of Man." "Surely the scribe was a Man, but God dictated the text!" "That is not clear. In the Jewish tradition, Man and God have a far different relationship than that of the Christian tradition. The only words dictated by our understanding were the commandments." "I don't agree." "You don't have to." "But you are wrong!" "I will agree with that only if you will accept that I am no more wrong than you are." "I think that you are being cynical!" "No, I belive what I say to be true just as you belive what you say to be true. I am not afraid to look at things from your viewpoint, but I cannot accept that viewpoint as my own. It is not by choice that I don't believe what you do so much as the way I think. What I believe effects the way I am and the way I think about all things. To effect a change to your view would change me entirly and would require a change in the way I am to be able to occur." "You don't understand!" "Neither do you." The above is a close but not perfect transcript of a conversation that I had with a very good friend who happens to be a Born Again Christian. We are still very good friends and talk a great deal about our interpretations of biblical works. We no longer argue, we accept eachother's beliefs as such. It may be a little slanted toward my side of it, but he has seen this submission and agrees that it is an accurate account. I suggest that if the Bible as the word of God debate is to continue, the participants adopt a more understanding attitude toward those who hold other views. Reason is far more persuasive than vindictive... Any Dogma can be trained to fetch a Stigma (-: Daniel Glasser ...!decvax!sultan!dag