Bible Answers to Member Questions

reply to post by undo


Did you not learn to understand how plural words work? Of the fowls take by seven...as in take seven of each. It's not saying 'take just seven birds', unless you can show me how:

עוף `owph
שמים shamayim
שבע sheba`

means 'take seven birds' instead of 'take seven of each of the birds'.

Also, I found it convenient that you missed Genesis 7:4 in your citation of concordance script.

I find your apologetics incredibly weak here. Genesis isn't talking about a local flood, at least not in the text. A local flood was assuredly the inspiration for the work, as that's the only sort of flood with any sort of evidence of ever happening ever. The account, on the other hand, talks about a flood that covers the Earth for a whole year.

Anyway, what I'm trying to tell you is that you're misunderstanding how collective nouns work. It doesn't say take 7 fowls, it says take 7 of each, unless you can show me how the Hebrew grammar makes it out so that only 32 animals are on the ark, which happens to be roughly the size of a football stadium (which is also impossible for a wooden ship).

I mean, it clearly says "Of every clean beast....take seven" not...'take seven clean beasts'

If I go to the grocery store with you and tell you "of every type of pepper, take seven", I'm not telling you to take seven peppers. I'll expect at least 21 bell peppers (28 if they have the orange ones ones, 35 if they even have the purple ones), 7 chili peppers, 7 jalapeños, 7 habanero peppers, etc...

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


i am using a bible and strong's. the problem with strong's HEBREW translation of the bible is that they are taking the english translation and translating the english words, back into hebrew. probably because just putting the hebrew out there without the typical english grammar to give the verses sentence structure, would sound rather odd and be much harder to understand when translated back into english.

here ya go, the kjv bible, with strong's concordance listing, and the numbering system indicating which words were actually in the original text
www.blueletterbible.org...

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


sevens/ seven males, seven females.
there's your sevens.

p.s. the word "Every" is not in the original text.

inside noah's ark. this guy says it would've had about 2 football fields of length.

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by KJV1611

 

Alright finally we're on the same page, at least i understand what you're saying now. I agree works will not get you into "heaven" it is a free gift.
You see if you explain things clearly you get results...

I am wondering why you chose not to include the whole passages though, why do you pick certain verses and skip others?

Well, go read the verses I left out. You will clearly see they were not dealing with the subject we were on, i.e. works. Why would I post the whole chapter (with comments) when I could just post the relevant verses dealing with our subject matter.

I'm not "cherry picking" verses in order to prove my points. That is how heresy forms and cults begin. Amen? Always call me out if you are not sure of the context of the verses I am posting and I will explain, cause I ay not word it in a way some can understand


And this, from your own quotes

43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

would you agree with this or no, you seem to have an issue with the jews... so you had a friend which was a jew would you love him any less then a christian friend?

Never have I claimed to have anything against the Jews. I'm the one that keep saying "Bless them!" But I do point out that they are a VERY stubborn ethnic group and are mainly atheists. (seeing as how they have no temple to worship at, and they see God as someone that comes around and kills a few million of them every few hundred years ) Once again, I am pro Israel till I die.

reply to post by bogomil

Maybe you didn't notice it as important, but my recent post to you contained two questions.

This one wasn't answered:

".....Is this a general observation, in any way validated, or just a sophisticated way of saying, that YOUR bible-interpretation methodology is the 'correct' one. In that case why?"

I answered this quite well thank you....according to my standards at least

I must admit, that you momentarily have gotten around the standard objection to the bible by postulating an elaborate situation of subsets, containing special instructions for different groups of mankind, different 'ages' with different divine methodology and a rather flexible way of approaching bible autheticidity/validity.

this must of took at least 2-3 edits to spell check and make sure it sounded cohesive...would for me at least.

But as far as I can see, this is just an extension of the common christian method of creating endless circular arguments in complex elaboration, where the lack of coherence and inner agreement in the bible just is hidden one layer deeper down in scholastics.

You still need to validate your methodology for bible-interpretation as compared to the 34.000 already existing.

There is no "circular arguments in complex elaboration" about what I'm saying. It just involves basic reading skills that are NOT taught in public school anymore after 1960.

The way I interpret The Book when I read it is simple, but rarely followed:

1. Prayer.
2. BELIEVING WHAT I READ, instead of rationalizing and discounting things I find "hard to believe" or difficult to understand
3. LISTEN to who a speaker in the Bible is SPEAKING to.

Read James 1:1
"James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. (one of over 200 examples)

Is this directed to you? Well, it isn't directed to me, I can clearly read this, hense I can use everything in this book of the bible for PRACTICAL APPLICATION in my life, but not DOCTRINAL application. (eternal life stuff....)

Listening to who is being reffered to in the Bible is key to understanding it.

Same thing applies to the USA tax code. Everything in the tax book is a rule to follow for someone. BUT THEY DO NOT ALL APPLY TO YOU. Some are for millionaires, some for poor folk, some for businesses etc.

This same common technique is applied to the Bible. Clearer? This is why there are so many different denominations. Church history is an amazing critter.

"Nah, there is nothing confusing about doing good. Just do good, and not bad, easy enough huh? So what classifies as bad or "sin"? Once again that is what gets me banned so I'll retreat to Private messages if you want to know."]

Belonging to the group, which most likely would ban you, I have no interest in private communication on your elitism.

Fair enough.

Originally posted by bogomil
Seen from the perspective of a christian-critic, the bible, its associated organisations/movements and their subsidiary 'help'-doctrines and/or methodologies for bible interpretation etc.....

...is a closed, self-contained system with no reference points outside this 'bubble' considered valid by competing/alternative 'reality-seeking' systems/models. *

Arguments from intrinsic bible/christian positions/perspectives are ofcourse based on circular reasoning, and with a book/a set of doctrines, which have strong self-contradictions (apart from its incompatibility with 'outer' perspectives) and a lack of logic/rational reference-points it's argumented with a great deal of rhetoric, excessive semantic gymnastics or even plain scholastics (a procedure which gives language per se a superior existence of its own, unfortunately rather unrelated to the 'reality' it was supposed to be a representation of).

"Aaaah...see, I have an invented a word, some words or an 'idea' ascribing something to something, and now I can start building air-castles from this".

Strategically hoping that the more extensive or elaborate I make it, the less will anybody be able to find anything 'real' to relate to in this. A mass of intertwined speculative arguments relating only to each other.

(Sorry about the possible 'high-brow' or 'flowery' language, but that's the technical approach to the present situation.)

So down to earth: The author of this thread has rather cleverly (but IMO not convincingly) tried to circumvent this bible-interpretation problem, by trying to reshuffle the inner components of the bible (in a revised way of the standard procedure of bible-selfjustification) so his/her methodology is THE methodology.

Furthermore also cleverly arranging a frame, where 'outer' considerations are off-topic.

As practically always when extremist christians are trying to push their ideology, the circular arguments eventually fall back on subjective 'authority', which in this case consists of cherry-picking some parts of the bible, supposedly 'proving' the existence of a 'correct' bible-reading procedure inside the bible. A kind of 'How to read this manual' or 'Manual inside the manual' thing.

This present post of mine can lead to many perspectives, but for the duration I would like to stay with the 'authority' facet. I have earlier participated on this thread with a short post on a 'defintion' issue (on wine/water drinking in a bible/christian context), and the thread author dismissed the defintion on this issue by referring to the original language this definition was taken from as 'dead':

Quote: ["The Holy bible is the authority in this instance, not some dead language. Get the Bible definition for wine and you have your answer. I posted it above ↑"]

So we have several options: SOME bible excerpts saying one thing, the 'old' language of said bibles saying another thing, the thread author's reliance on a modern language (has english become the official language of the alleged 'god'?) and the 'authority' of a relatively modern bible.

A situation containing several 'authority' components, as usual in bible-pushing contexts 'explained' by standard semantic maneuvers: IMO back to square one christian position(s): "I'm right, because I'm right".

*Efforts of hijacking parts/systematic methodologies/answers etc. from competing/alternative 'reality-seeking' systems are regularly made by some christian extremists, but always turn out to be fakes, unacceptable by the original system from where elements are hijacked. But that's not for this thread.

edit on 27-3-2011 by bogomil because: syntax

I read this whole thing cause your have "perk" my curiosity. I was large and filled with fancy words (that I normally detest) but I enjoy your take on things seeing as how you are a "bible-critic". And I, am a Bible student" Not a bible scholar, scribe, reverend, revisior, professor, or critic.

Your post seems to be summed up as...I don't believe in the Bible" which also means you don't believe in Jesus Christ....the only way to heaven.

John 14:6
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. "

I hope you have a change of heart soon.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Yes, it was a WORLD flood. If it wasn't a flood that covered the whole world then God lied over 7 times just in chapters 6-9 of Genesis.

Also, for you math buffs out there, if all the population in the world was not killed save Noah and his seven, then there would be over 200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 population in the world JUST by the time Jesus was born around 4 AD. That's a lot, and its is real number.

That would be enough humans on the planet to cover every square inch of 5 planet earths.

While the flood was on the earth, the world's weight increased by 55% which fell from the windows of heaven (outer space) which water is still with us, in the form of our Oceans.

This also explains why the ocean is salty.....and why you can find every element needed to create a human in sea water. Go figure?

But the real unanswered question the I have been trying track down is why did God give Noah the same commandment to Adam to:

GENESIS 1
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and REPLENISH the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

GENESIS 9
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and REPLENISH the earth.

I can see why he said REPLENISH to Noah....but why Adam? These are the only two verses the word "REPLENISH" is used. How many times has God destroyed us.....

reply to post by KJV1611


how did could God lie if he didn't write the book?

reply to post by Akragon

how did could God lie if he didn't write the book?

Exactly! So often I hear Christians say that either the whole Bible is true, or God is a liar. I have never really understood the logic behind such statements.

Originally posted by mysticnoon
reply to post by Akragon

 

how did could God lie if he didn't write the book?

Exactly! So often I hear Christians say that either the whole Bible is true, or God is a liar. I have never really understood the logic behind such statements.

There is no logic behind that statement, God didn't write the book its as simple as that. Perhaps there were people who were inspired by God, but again i can show you recent texts even from the past few years that were also "inspired" by God....but they wern't written by God.

This is just peoples lack of understanding of what God is....

Originally posted by KJV1611
Yes, it was a WORLD flood. If it wasn't a flood that covered the whole world then God lied over 7 times just in chapters 6-9 of Genesis.

Also, for you math buffs out there, if all the population in the world was not killed save Noah and his seven, then there would be over 200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 population in the world JUST by the time Jesus was born around 4 AD. That's a lot, and its is real number.

That would be enough humans on the planet to cover every square inch of 5 planet earths.

While the flood was on the earth, the world's weight increased by 55% which fell from the windows of heaven (outer space) which water is still with us, in the form of our Oceans.

This also explains why the ocean is salty.....and why you can find every element needed to create a human in sea water. Go figure?

But the real unanswered question the I have been trying track down is why did God give Noah the same commandment to Adam to:

GENESIS 1
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and REPLENISH the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

GENESIS 9
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and REPLENISH the earth.

I can see why he said REPLENISH to Noah....but why Adam? These are the only two verses the word "REPLENISH" is used. How many times has God destroyed us.....

I have had a theory of Noah's Flood cooking in the back of my mind for a long time, and it all came together last night. I went to post it, and that very topic was being discussed. Many years ago, I read the work of Immanuel Velikovsky, who stated that the planet Mars had come close to the Earth at times in the past. Hmmmm...OK. Later, I read about Creationism, the Flood, and became a Christian. Later still, I read about the new findings about Mars, how it had once had water, but now has very little. Yet it has the marks of huge drainage channels showing that the water moved, but where did it go? Back to the Earth, I knew about the earth crust displacement theory, originally postulated by Charles Hapgood. I knew that the coastlines on both sides of the Atlantic fit together, and it's easy to see. Later, I read a statement, and I don't remember where, but it was said that the coasts fit on the Pacific side as well. Now how is that possible? I got my answer from a "Ewe-tube" video which showed how the land masses of the Earth all fit together with minimal distortion and no subduction, IF you shrink the globe. The oceans shrink and disappear, while the land masses mesh most amazingly. Then, the video swells the Earth up again, to its present state. The narrator states, most revealingly, that the continents all fit together, ON A MUCH SMALLER PLANET. That is the key, and I will try to post the link to the video.

So my theory is thus: Here's the Earth, a planet which always had water, and judging from the many, many flood legends from all over that planet, seems to have gotten a lot more in the not-so-remote past. Then there's Mars, a planet which seems to have had water at one time, but which has lost nearly all of it. Somehow, the solar system got shaken up, Mars came wandering close to Earth, so close that Mars' water sought its own level, and flowed down a temporary gravity well to Earth, flooding it. The Earth swelled, by an unknown mechanism, the land masses separated and came back out of the water. In the end, Earth was all new, with huge oceans and separate continents. Mars was left as a desert, with one-way drainage channels. Oh, and God did it, so that should tie it all together.

Link :www.youtube.com...

There are related videos on "Ewe-Tube" as well.


Now, KJV11611, about that "replenish" business - puh-leze don't bring up Pre-Adamites! That's one big can of worms...

I decided to double-post so that my two topics would not detract from each other, nor one overshadow the other.

I have seen a lot of back-and-forth on this thread about wine, and I want to offer some reason. In discussing with KJV1611, I have the advantage of having grown up in a Baptist home. My father became an ordained Southern Baptist deacon late in his life, though his personal beliefs leaned toward the Free Will Baptists. He grew up on a farm, and knew all about "seed time and harvest." This is his take on the wine issue. Because of the way things were in that time and place, grapes would only keep for so long. Further, sanitation was not up to modern standards, although God's Law stipulated basic public health measures. Making wine and mixing some in the drinking water was just about mandatory, and no different from common practice until rather recently.

Let's cut to the chase - what were Jesus and His disciples drinking at the Last Supper? It was spring, months after the grape harvest, and grapes just do not keep that long. Yes, they were drinking wine, Wine, WINE! They were NOT drinking grape juice. To deny it is to put your doctrine ahead of facts that even a child can understand. Maybe it is "nice" to think they were good Baptist boys, and were drinking grape juice, but unless Jesus made non-alcoholic juice by a miracle, and the accounts do not say so, we must assume they were drinking wine. You should not let your stance on temperance color your interpretation of what happened in another time and place with different customs and habits. We can have grape juice today, but it was not always so. This should end the wine/juice debate...

reply to post by Lazarus Short


i think you may have two events tangled up. since there's evidence the mediterranean has been drawn down to a valley more than once in the ancient past, and then refilled by massive flood waters, more than once, before the flood of Mesopotamian infamy, i'd say there were already deep oceans on the earth when the flood story took place. i had a theory that the gates of deep (the bottomless pit/abyss of revelation 9) were involved in the water of mars transferring to the planet, and the flood story events took place long after the shallow seas had become oceans.


p.s. correction: zorgon contributed to the theory, when he suggested mars' water may have been basically pumped into the earth's oceans via the gate system. long story.

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by KJV1611

 

how did could God lie if he didn't write the book?

i think that stance on the scriptures is a left over from when the vatican demanded absolute authority over the word, which they presented as their infallible interpretation of the text, not necessarily what the text said. . show a person today, that there's a mistake in the text as a result of translation bias and that people are assuming things about the text as a result of 1500+ years of associating interpretation of the text as being synonymous with infallibility of the text, they are so completely indoctrinated into the infallible concept, that you can show it right to them and they will ignore it.

p.s. this also happens when you show the actual words of the original text, vs. former interpretations of the meanings of the text (themselves based on translations) to an atheist. they fight against the real text as vehemently as anyone, because the majority of the critical works written against the text, are based on the interpretations and translations, rather than the actual text.

Originally posted by Dr Cosma
Ok, I have a question.

Was Mohamed's coming foretold in the song of Solomon?

Did you ever answer this one...........

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by Lazarus Short

 

i think you may have two events tangled up. since there's evidence the mediterranean has been drawn down to a valley more than once in the ancient past, and then refilled by massive flood waters, more than once, before the flood of Mesopotamian infamy, i'd say there were already deep oceans on the earth when the flood story took place. i had a theory that the gates of deep (the bottomless pit/abyss of revelation 9) were involved in the water of mars transferring to the planet, and the flood story events took place long after the shallow seas had become oceans.

edit on 28-3-2011 by undo because: (no reason given)

p.s. correction: zorgon contributed to the theory, when he suggested mars' water may have been basically pumped into the earth's oceans via the gate system. long story.

edit on 28-3-2011 by undo because: (no reason given)

That's interesting, but baffling - please explain about Mars/gates...

reply to post by Lazarus Short


okay, real quick summary:

the bottomless pit of revelation 9 is from the word abyssos, which is abyss.
i traced it back to BAB-EL, which means gate of god (the full title would be like
chaos gate of the water god), and further back to
sumerian abzu. the bottomless pit has a gate, that is locked. it's opened
in chapter 9 of revelation, by an angelic being who comes down from the sky
to open it. out of it comes weird flying metal covered bug like things which have several
correlating identifiers, such as prominent constellations (lion, scorpion, woman) that
sounds as if describing time frame of the event or what have you. very theoretical work in this
area.

anyway, the theory goes that 7 big abysses (7 abzus), which were on the floors of 7 large bodies
of water, like oceans, were opened in ancient sumerian timeframe on earth and on mars.
and water from the oceans of mars, pumped thru to the oceans of earth. these are the flood gates
or gates of the deep. another potential is a layer of atmosphere perhaps precipitated down to the
earth (this would fit your idea). the overall effect of removing water from mars and adding it to the earth, would've destroyed two civilizations, at once. the one on mars and the one on earth.

reply to post by Akragon

Originally posted by Akragon

Originally posted by mysticnoon
reply to post by Akragon

 

how did could God lie if he didn't write the book?

Exactly! So often I hear Christians say that either the whole Bible is true, or God is a liar. I have never really understood the logic behind such statements.

There is no logic behind that statement, God didn't write the book its as simple as that. Perhaps there were people who were inspired by God, but again i can show you recent texts even from the past few years that were also "inspired" by God....but they wern't written by God.

This is just peoples lack of understanding of what God is....

Stop stealing my phrase ("This is just peoples lack of understanding")....

2Samuel 2:2
"The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue."

2 Peter 1:21
"For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

As you can see, every book in the Bible was spoken FROM a man (Jewish man) but giving by inspiration through the Holy Spirit. This is how GOD wrote the Bible. Besides, why make man in the first place if your not going to use them....duh.

Obviously someone doesn't understand how the Bible was wrote....