REDAGAST_23... To answer your questions??

Question

The Bible talks about people like you... who will hear but not hear... see but not see...

In Isaiah 11:12 The point you brought up about the world not having corners... : )
Funny that you say that... Let me EXPLAIN...
Judah would soon be exiled to Babylon, and a remnant would return to Jerusalem in 537 B.C. In ages to come. However, God's peple would be dispersed throughout the world. These cities represent the FOUR CORNERS of the known world-Hamath in the North, Egypt in the Sounth, Assyria and Babylonia in the East, the islands of the sea in the West. Ultimately God's people will be regathered when Christ comes to reign over the earth. Therefore those cities would no longer be. That is what that scripture means... I will elaborate the other scripture beneath this one...

"Nor does it sit on pillars."

1st Samuel 2:8-
"For the foundations of the earth are the Lord's upon them he has set the world."
Hannah was praising God for who he was. The creator.
This is symbolism
(Revelation or suggestion of intangible conditions or truths by artistic invention. )

"The world does not sit on water"

What's wrong here?
Psalms 24:2-1
The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.
This scripture is not saying that the world sits on water.. but that the earth... as in land does.

). God did not establish a solid dome over the earth (that's what firmament literally means) and he does not have a palace on top of it from which angels can come and go up Jacob's ladder -- which might be reached by the tower of babel -- and where he keeps "treasuries" of hail and snow

Job 38:22-23
Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storhouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble. For days of war and battle?

God's point was that if Job could not explain such common events in nature, how could he possibly explain or question God? and if nature is beyond our grasp, God's moral purposes may not be what we imagine either.

That's no surprise though, as the Bible tells us that beetles have four legs

Leviticus 11:21-23
Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper. But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest.

Leviticus 11:20 All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you.

beetle

(Heb. hargol, meaning "leaper"). Mention of it is made only in Lev. 11:22, where
it is obvious the word cannot mean properly the beetle. It denotes some winged
creeper with at least four feet, "which has legs above its feet, to leap
withal." The description plainly points to the locust (q.v.). This has been an
article of food from the earliest times in the East to the present day. The
word is rendered "cricket" in the Revised Version.

Rabbits chew their cuds

Deuteronomy 14:7-
However, of those that chew the cud or that have a split hoof completely divided you may not eat the camel, the rabbit or the coney.

Your missing the point on this scripture. Israel was forbidden to eat certain foods... why? 1). Predatory animals ate the blood of other animals, and scavengers ate dead animals. Because the people could not eat blood or animals they found dead, they could not eat animals that did these things either. 2). Some forbidden animals had bad associations in the Israelite culture, as bats, snakes, and spiders do for some people today. Some were used in pagan religious practices. To the Israelites, the unlean animals represented sin or unhealthy habits. 3). Rabits lick and swallow their feces therefore are unlean animals to eat.

It says that pi is 3, not 3.14 (I Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2) and that the mustard seed is the smallest seed in the world and grows into a tree [neither of which are true]

Matthew 13:31-32
31. HE TOLD THEM ANOTHER PARABLE: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard see, which a man took and planted in his field. 32. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air fcome and perch in it's branches."
Parable--(a short moral story (often with animal characters) [syn: fable, allegory, apologue] )

The Bible doesn't say here that the world turns into a tree. It says that the mustard seed does. The mustard seed was the smallest seed a farmer used. Jesus used this parable to show that the kingdom has small beginnings but will grow and produce great reults.

It is not surprising therefore that God cannot lead Israel to defeat Iron chariots after promising he would

Judges 1:19
The Lord was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots.

Canaanite chariots pulled by horses were among the most powerful and sophisticated weapons of the day. Israelite foot soldiers were absolutely powerless when a speeding iron chariot bore down upon them. This is why Israel preferred to fight in the hills where chariots couldn't venture. They failed because they had been fighting for a lot time and were tired. They lacked the energy and discipline to reach their goal. They were afraid that the enemy was too strong. Victory comes from living according to his purpose, willing to fully obey him.

and it is not surprising that the flight of Israel from the god Chemosh, after the king of a city the Jews were beseiging and that God had promised them they would overthrow The King of the city offered his own son to Chemosh as a human sacrifice, resulting in Chemosh driving the Israelites away

2 Kings 3:19-27
It doesn't say that there were so scared of Chemosh that they ran away. It says that they were in Battle and that after they had killed the moabites they destroyed the town and fields, stopped all of the springs and cut down every good tree. There was nothing left. They withdrew. of course the fury from the king was going to be great.

27. Then he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him as a sacrifice on the city wall. The fury against Israel was great; they withdrew and returned to thier own land.

the Israelites were still sacrificing their own children, as is evidenced in several places, but most graphically

Judges 11:30-39

Jephthah's rash vow brought him UNSPEAKABLE grief. In the heat of emotion or personal turmoil it is easy to make foolish promises to God. These promises may sound very spiritual when we make them, but ehy may produle only guilt and frustration when we are forced to fulfill them. Making spiritual "deals" only brings disappointment. God does not want promises for the furute, but obedience for today.

Maybe you should read more...
Judges 11:35-You have made me miserable and wretched...

Jephthah was overcome with grief... not happy...

Judges 11:40-immediately following...
From this comes the Israelite custom that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephtah the Gileadite.

This was not some sort of sick ritual you make it out to be.

You can see, just in the passages I noted above from 2 Kings -- the last vestiges of polytheism fading away. Chemosh was supposed to get power from human sacrifice, just as Jehovah did -- and that power allowed him to turn the table against Israel, despite the fact that God was with Israel.

God gets no power out of Human sacrifices. It DOES NOT say that in the Bible. That is something that you made up on your own. Where is your "scriptural evidence" on this claim?

I have read Exodus 34:10-26

What is your claim. There are valid reasons for all of the things that the Lord commands. I think that you must be taking these commands wrong for you to point out these versus. More than likely considering the other versus that you represented.

Nothing that you said has anthing to do with the fact that you interpreted the scriptures wrong. In your train of thought... I could be wrong because I wasn't there and I wouldn't know.. well then you could be just as wrong for the same reasons. Just because you go and look up what you believe on the internet instead of studying it out for yourself .. doesn't make you learned.. it doesn't make you intelligent.. it doesn't mean that you know all the answers... all it means is that you know how to copy cat... that's it...

There is nothing in the Bible that would make us terrible people. There are answers to every question about life, love, money, happiness, marriage, troubles, sin, lust, vengence, children, prayer... all of it is in the Bible...

The Bible wasn't widdled down.. that again is just another one of your theories... If you were to actually read any of the other gospels.. they were written in a totally different time era. Let me guess.. you believe in the Da Vinci code too?

Answer 1

I love you... : )

Answer 2

Dear oh, dear...Guess what? I can read what I want into those words too...HOW strange! Maybe it's god 'showing me the way'?
You are a racist, white extremist, girlie-you and your husband both. You have NO idea of what christianity is about. I'm an ex christian and I have a better understanding of scripture than you will EVER hope to have in your racially intolerant, hypocrisy filled, bigoted world.
Keep on hating, it'll send ya to an early grave, and make room in the world for decent people.

;)

WOW. WAY to retort to a bigot, Radagast_23 I applaud your talent and respect your belief!!

Answer 3

Jehovah's Witnesses can help you to learn more about the bible, along with the Creator's purposes for the future.

Learn more at:
http://watchtower.org

Answer 4

I dunno maybe this being silly. But how come u don't put this as an answer to what ever question redagast_23 asked? Like in the bit where u click answers. Or send them a message or IM if they allow it.

Answer 5

This isn't a question, go preach somewere else religious extremist.

Answer 6

Now, yahoo answer's beginning to get messed up.

Answer 7

i hope your kids are born with down's syndrome!

Answer 8

Firstly let me thank you for your prompt reply and your kind notification regarding the reply, without which I would not have known it existed.

Alright, let's start at the beginning of your question/post.

I note that you immediately try to identify and pigeonhole me using your preconceptions, but you do it incorrectly.

You presume that I am not Christian, you are wrong, I am not Fundamentalist, which is a very different statement. I accept that Jesus Christ is my savior. I also accept that the Bible is a bronze age book -- more on that shortly -- that has no meaning whatsoever in terms of true history or truth in general. It requires human interpretation and defense (apologetics) because of that. The Church existed for hundreds of years before the canon of books. There were 40 gospels, multiple acopolypses and so forth. Over time, and according to great debate about the nature of the faith, we whittled down to the books we have -- which more or less support the doctrines that Christianity embraces -- particularly with some changes. The Bible is an important part of the liturgical and theological history of the faith -- but it not, and never was, verbally inspired.

Something that you, thank you, promptly prove with your response. You begin with Isaiah, to tell me what the scripture "really means" -- which as everyone has noted, I am sure, is NOT what it says. You give a lovely and possible INTERPRETATION of the scriptures that I list -- more on THAT later -- based entirely on 20th and 21st century knowledge of the Universe.

So, did the readers of these scriptures -- in -- say 400 AD have any idea what the verses meant -- as you describe them? Be honest, we both know the answer is no. In fact, people were being tortured to death hundreds of years later by the Inquisition for claiming that the solar system was not geocentric (earth centered) and that the world was not flat. Why? Because any literalist translation of the Bible, using only the knowledge that they had then, indicated that the world was flat, and the universe revolved around it. An organization in the United States, named the Flat Earth Society, continued into the last few decades -- though I think it is now gone -- defending the Biblical truth of the flat earth. They claimed, in the 1980s when I read their literature, that all of the evidence for a round earth was fabricated, and that the earth was as flat as the Bible indicated it was. All Christians who accepted that the earth was round were condemned, and their belief in the scriptures denigrated. -- What's more, from a literalist perspective they were right.

Now, is it more reasonable, do you think, that the Bible was talking with something known as allegory and symbolism about the earth being flat and having corners and being established on pillars and foundations in several hundred BC. Or, do you think it is more likely, given that the surrounding peoples and religions all accepted that the earth was flat and established on foundations and pillars in the midst of the sea -- which itself was finite -- that the Jews writing the Torah believed the same?

Have you ever read the Cuneiform scripts? Judaism comes out of Ur of the Chaldees, a Sumerian city state -- or so the Old Testament would have us believe. Presuming that the origin is true -- then let us consider what the Sumerian religion has to say about creation, the earth, and so forth.

According to the Sumerian myths, from verses scattered throughout hymns and myths, a picture of the universe's (anki) creation according to the Sumerians emerges. The primeval sea (abzu) existed before anything else and within that, the heaven (an) and the earth (ki) were formed. The boundary between heaven and earth was a solid vault, and the earth was a flat disk. Within the vault lay the gas-like 'lil', or atmosphere, the brighter portions therein formed the stars, planets, sun, and moon.

According to "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld", in the first days all needed things were created. Heaven and earth were separated and humanity were created to serve the Annunaki.

The Annunaki, also called the Nephilim were never exactly referred to as gods, they were called din.gir, a two-syllable word. 'Din' meant 'righteous, pure, bright;' 'gir' was a term used to describe a sharp-edged object. As an epithet for the Anunnaki 'dingir' meant 'righteous ones of the bright pointed objects.'

The Sumerians divided time into two epochs. The epoch prior to the deluge, and the epoch after the deluge. En.lil (who ruled over the affairs of the Annunaki on earth) became disgusted with mankind because it wouldn't follow all the rules -- and he decided to flood the world and destroy humanity. En.ki -- his brother (... Lord [En=lord] of water? Lord of earth? --- not clear to me) is forbidden to help the humans, of whom he is VERY fond. So, he has his favorite servant brought into his temple on the other side of a screen, and discusses the destruction of mankind in the flood with another god behind the screen -- loudly. The favored human gets the idea, builds a giant boat, puts animals and his immediate family inside, and floats out the deluge, continuing man on the other side.

Yes, you can nitpick differences -- are you brave enough to recognize the similarities? And given the fact that the Sumerian myth is older than the Jewish myth -- and that Judaism, according to its own testimony came out of Sumer -- that perhaps the Sumerian myth birthed the Jewish myth???? It takes a brave person to face the origins of his faith, are you one?.

Furthermore, there are old testament scriptures that directly refer to the Nephilim (also spelled Nefilim). The scripture in Genesis that says in the original "After the sons of God took human wives there were giants in the Earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became the mighty men which were of old, men of renown. The Nefilim were upon the Earth, in those days and thereafter too, when the sons of the gods cohabitated with the daughters of the Adam, and they bore children unto them. They were the mighty ones of Eternity - the people of the shem." is pretty evident (Genesis 6:1-5). Most fundamentlists know (as does the site I linked below) that the original says Nefilim, but has no idea where that phrase came from. Regardless, the Annunaki, the Nephilim of the Sumerians made their way into the Torah.

More importantly, the myth of which they are part shows quite clearly what the surrounding peoples believed. Why should I accept in the 21st century that in writing the verses I quoted, "God" was being symbolic, rather than mankind was being -- as mankind always is -- adaptive with one another's myths. Why, when we can clearly see the creep of Sumerian mythological constructs into early Judaism as demonstrated by the verses I've quoted (and for that matter by dozens of other verses I haven't) should you expect that people would accept 21st century explanations for writings from 2700 years ago.

It seems obvious to YOU that these verses are symbolic only because you know they cannot be literal. To those reading these verses for hundreds and thousands of years, they were taken as being literal -- and there was every reason for them to be so taken.

Your efforts to explain away the errors, scientific and otherwise only go to highlight them, and clearly show that you are attempting to change well understood language and imagery, common to the ancient near and middle east into something palatable in 2006.

Permit me to also note that this is a continuing problem in the fundamentalist branches of all Abrahamic faiths. Satmar Judaism, one of the most ultra-orthodox branches, teaches children in its Yeshivas in Brooklyn and in Israel that the world is flat, with corners and the Universe is geocentric. The Village Voice did a considerable article on the Satmar Sect about 8 years ago -- which included these notations, and interviews with young people who, having graduated from Yeshiva, found that they could not go to college, nor become employed in the greater world -- they had no idea how reality worked. Further, it was not until one of the Saudi Princes (Prince Sultan Salman Abdulaziz Al-Saudi) went aloft in an American spaceship that the spiritual leader (I believe the proper title is Grand Imam -- but I may be wrong) of the Wahabbi sect of Islam, a fundamentalist sect of great power in Saudi Arabia would acknowledge that the world was round and reverse a Fatwa that he had issued against any believer who confessed that the world was not flat.

Do I think that the verses are symbolic? Well sure. Do I think the authors knew they were symbolic? No. I see no evidence for that, and you have not provided any. They were errors, and it is appropriate that we now see them as symbolic, just as we see most mythological constructs as symbolic.

On the biological science end. Firstly let me congratulate you for not attempting a pointless defense of the Biblical statements, you tacitly acknowledge that they are factually inaccurate, and you are correct. The point of the laws was to keep Israel safe -- no one questions that. But the point of my argument is that Bible makes repeated, impossible to defend erroneous claims about various things -- your agreement leaves me no reason to answer that further. You see it as unimportant, that is your right, I see it as unimportant too -- but that's because I not only am not claiming plenary inspiration, but am denying it.

If I said that the world turns into a tree, I'm sorry -- I mispoke. However it does say that the mustard seed turns into a tree, which it does not. While we are on that -- you use a modern language bible here that (probably deliberately [deliberately the translators, not saying you did anything deliberate] ) translates the verse as the "smallest of the seeds you use." I have never seen any credible source render the verse that way, and am more than willing, if you wish, to consult with colleagues who hold doctorates in the appropriate languages and see if that is a viable translation of any text copy we have. I believe however that this was simply a stealth change in what the verse says -- those go on all the time now, as, with absolutely no factual backing or textual support unicorns become rhinos, and satrys become mountain goats -- any lie is a good lie in support of literalism, whether it has any factual backing or not, right?

Your translation of the Chemosian disaster is interesting, but certainly not in keeping with the translation given to the text by most theologians, particularly in light of the Moabite Stone -- originally hailed by literalists as a great discovery, because it confirms the war between Israel and the Moabites, it certainly does not confirm your scenario -- and so upset some literalists after they realized all that it said that there were several attempts to find something to indicate it was a fraud -- something no one ever could do. I have linked to the Jewish Encyclopedia below.

In NO WAY did I wish to, nor did I imply that Jephatah was happy with the sacrifice of his daughter. I stated clearly that it occurred, that is recorded in the Bible and that God accepted it, or at the very least allowed it, and placed it, if you believe in plenary inspiration, in the Bible.

I think you are trying to read my intentions, take what I write at the value that it has. As for it not being a sick ritual. I cannot imagine much that is sicker than human sacrifice, and the idea that any god would ever allow the sacrifice of a child given to a man as his own by that very god is beyond sick -- if you genuinely do not think that human sacrifice EVER UNDER ANY CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCE is SICK BEYOND WORDS -- then I must genuinely and honestly say that I think you are beyond rational conversation with me or with anyone else. IT IS SICKER THAN I COULD USE WORDS TO SAY. How can you ever defend such a thing? Immoral, abominable, filthy beyond human words, inhuman, inhumane, unthinkable and unworthy. The god who would permit is FAR less moral than I -- and I do not worship monsters because of power, ever. Any punishment you imagine is better, even for eternity, than being made into less of a moral creature than I by nature am. Any human of thoughtful, careful, rational ethics and morality recoils from human sacrifice, and yet, you defend it?

Yes, that was a stronger response than I normally give -- but it is a subject that deserves such a response. Monsters kill children, not God, and not those who serve Him.

I did not make up anything. Why do you think the OT God says that all firstborn belong to him, and that human children are redeemed by additional animal sacrifices? The Jewish religion, originally -- practiced human sacrifice, as did other religions in the region. Probably burnt on the altar. It isn't 100% (other than the verses we just discussed) but it is pretty widely accepted. Can you find the rest of the verses on that yourself, or shall I find them for you? The reason, historically in nearly all religions was that it was believed that human sacrifice gave additional power to the god -- or made him/her more willing to spend his/her power FOR YOU (the sacrificer). If you have reason to believe that the historical reason for it among the Jews was different, please, give me the citations, I'll go buy them and read.

I used and will continue to use verses to prove that the Bible is factually challenged, something that you did not successfully counter in your argument -- and to show that biblegod is the monster that the bible says he is. There were many things I did not get into that matter for this -- things like the genocides he ordered over and over, blaming children for things their grandparents did, and so forth.

There are always excuses, but God does not need excuses -- nor is God demonstrated in the Bible.

Regards,

Reynolds Jones
http://www.rebuff.org
[e-mail]

PS Oh -- and your comment on Exodus 34:10-26 -- actually those are the second set of tablets on which God wrote the law (or Moses wrote the law, the minor quibbles I don't care about ) of the ten commandments.

In Deutoronomy 10, it says:

At that time the Lord said to me (Moses), “Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain and make yourself an ark of wood. And I [God] will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you shall put them in the ark.” So I [Moses] made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. And He (God) wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which the Lord had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me (Deuteronomy 10:1-4, parenthetical items added).

Now, actually read these 10 commandments -- in Exodus 34: 10-26 and tell me honestly whether or not you think these are the same words that are recorded "the words that were on the first tablets" -- go back and consult the first tablets scriptures if you would like.

I didn't think I had to spell things out quite so clearly, but somehow God forgot what he wrote and the second tablets changed, listing more ritual law and less moral law.... and since you don't believe in things like the priestly writer -- and the human origins of the Bible, it couldn't just be standard human variation -- with all variants included. Ah well.