[net.religion] so-called "refutation" of contradictions

donald (03/10/83)

Christ Almighty! (as the expression goes)  I cannot believe that Dave Lee
(floyd!dyl) can believe his own "refutations" of J.D. Jensen's (ihuxk!jdj55611)
alleged contradictions.

Dave's resolution of Acts 9:7 vs 22:9 is in the standard tradition of
shifting translations until the desired result is obtained.  It's a pity
that fundamentalists don't use the same technique when it is not in their
interests: e.g. the infamous mistranslation of "young woman" as "virgin"
in an O.T. prophecy concerning the Messiah's mother.

Dave's resolution of Acts 1:18 vs Matthew 27:5 is nothing short of astounding.
In Matthew it says Judas gave the money back to the priests and hanged himself.
In Acts it says he bought a field with the money and "fell headlong" and
disintegrated.  How Dave can interpret that as meaning the decomposition of
Judas' body after death.  What about the money?  Why this odd meaning of
hanged?  Here we have an almost canonical example of a biblical glitch and
still the fundamentalists persist in doublethink.
If you asked me how J.F.K. died and I said that the worms ate him, I would
be technically correct, what with ecological processes in cemeteries, but
let's be serious...
If I sound peeved you're right; this is not the first time I've heard this
silly flimsy excuse for an argument from a fundamentalist.

If I hear one more reference to Josh McDowell for Biblical scholarship
I think I'll scream-- that's not unlike referencing a "Ripley's Believe
it or Not" in your MSc thesis.  Sorry, didn't mean to be so nasty: more
like trying to learn programming by predicate transformers from "An
Introduction to BASIC for the TRS-80".

				     Liking the smell of napalm in the morning,
				     Don Chan