by Terry 146 Replies latest watchtower bible
Maybe the divinity of the Bible is agreed upon between denominations, but don't use that to minimize the brutal contention among the various ideas.
Along YOUR point, even the Bible's divinity isn't agreed upon inter-religion! Christians "laugh" at the Koran and Muslims "laugh" at the Bible whereas both groups devote their lives to something that many look at in disgust!
You see why the Bible cannot prove itself? Or why the Koran cannot prove itself?
-Sab
dear sabastious...
"You see why the Bible cannot prove itself? Or why the Koran cannot prove itself?"...
the koran proves it has NO life in it...keep on keeping on...says "allah"...and mohammad...
the bible proves it HAS life in it...the all encompassing Jesus Christ is life...says the Spirit and the bride...
love michelle
myelaine,
Really?
-Sab
Oh Tammy, Tammy, Tammy!
Isn't it obvious this "allowance" for divorce was simply made up so that men could get out their inconvenient marriage? Making an "allowance for hard-heartedness" is nothing more than pandering to men abusing women! Nothing godly in that!
Oh Terry, Terry, Terry :)
MOSES made them that allowance - because they could not hear, see, or accept anything better. Jesus explained that. You asked me for an example; I gave you one... then you don't agree that the reasoning in my example is what it says it is. So no, it is not obvious... and if men made the rules to begin with, then why would one have been necessary to get out of a marriage at all? Why not just kill or abandon or sell or whatever else you wanted to do to your wife?
An eye-for-an-eye is primitive retribution and not Justice. It in no way reflects Jesus at all. Jesus said just the opposite!
Actually, I think it is primitive justice/deterrent. It would be retribution now. But you're right... it in no way reflects Jesus at all. But I used the above (divorce example) to show how the same reasoning is applied to what the Israelites were capable of seeing and hearing and accepting during their times in regards to justice - and what God actually wanted (in the beginning).
Tammy
MOSES made them that allowance - because they could not hear, see, or accept anything better.
Giving people commandments which they cannot hear, see or accept (much less obey) is not the act of a benevolent lawgiver.
It is like extending credit to a poor person who desperately needs funds and then binding them with interest payments that will
make them forever indebted.
The Law was an echo of nearby nations civilizing influence on a tribal people (Hammurabi).
It improved nobody. Led to executions. Empowered priests and kept Israel backward and literal-minded.
The Greek invasion brought a rich and freeing breath of fresh air which all but wiped out the dependance on tribal superstition.
The Hebrew language (the original language of "God") was abandoned for a more logical and scientific Greek parlance.
Jehovah took a back seat and kept His mouth shut for four centuries only dimly re-emerging as God-the-Father.
Giving people commandments which they cannot hear, see or accept (much less obey) is not the act of a benevolent lawgiver.
Tell them they can't divorce their women when the people can't see, hear or accept it yet, is not the act of a benevolent lawgiver.
Tell them they can divorce their women when that's all the people can see, hear and accept... yet..., is pandering.
I actually think you're saying something other than this - you seem to be saying exactly what I'm saying, in fact - but that is how it sounds to me. God gave commands, but also overlooked the actions of some of those people ignorant or unable to follow the way He wanted things from the beginning - because they could not see, hear or accept them. This, I think, because He does care - hence all the prophets he sent to try and set them on the right path - prophets many of them mocked and/or condemned.
Perhaps 'could not' is the wrong phrase. Perhaps 'refused to' is better - for whatever reason. Perhaps it depends on the time and person.
But note that some people could see, hear, and accept at the time Jesus came and taught.
Tammy
Here is what happened.
Actually, I would put this a little earlier than the Greek conquest. Persian monotheism had a strong influence on Jewish thought, and the theological move from a local national deity to a universal, more abstract and more benevolent "God of heaven" certainly dates to the Persian period, especially after the invention of Satan as a locus of evil (whereas in Achaemenid-era Deutero-Isaiah has Yahweh creating both good and evil). The book of Jonah probably dates from the late Persian period and already God, still called Yahweh, is worshipped by Gentiles and Yahweh values their simple faith over that of the pious prophet who desires their divine destruction.
However it is certainly after the Greek conquest where the ideas are more fleshed out. So in the OG version of ch. 4-6 of Daniel (likely of third century BC origin), God (no longer called Yahweh) desires for the conversion of Gentiles and appears only in abstract lofty terms. God tended to be seen more as omnipresent and immanent. I recall that there are passages in the Letter of Aristeas that also pushed this further. The development that especially triggered this was the friendly stance of King Ptolemy Philadelphius toward the Jews in Egypt. Whereas in Judea, the older tribal model got a resurgence at the time of the Maccabean revolt. Rabbinical interpretation of contradictory portraits of God in the Torah (the same god being at once a venerable lawgiver and a youthful warrior) resulted in the interpretation that God has a duality or multiplicity of hypostases (here too Greek philosophy was an important source, as it is in the first-century BC book of Wisdom). It was debated how distinct these hypostates were; the binitarian "Two Powers in Heaven" heresy regarded these two aspects of Yahweh as separate persons. Proto-orthodox Christians adopted a similar theology (heretical in proto-orthodox Judaism) whereas the modalist heresy basically affirmed the proto-orthodox Jewish monotheist view.
The father/son theology of the NT is actually rather reminiscent in broad terms of the Canaanite/Israelite polytheism that underlies Judaism, with the Father corresponding to El and with the Son corresponding to Ba`al. This relationship was suppressed in henotheistic Yahwism (where El and Yahweh were identified with each other), where Yahweh obtained the attributes of El, but the old model reasserted itself in ch. 7 of Daniel, a text that proved to be important theologically both in early Judaism and Christianity.
Leoleia must be fun to have coffee chat with!
I am more and more persuaded that in each era whatever tribal, local or national god(s) existed in the imagination of the people was subtly "adjusted" to accomodate the times.
Just as we look in the mirror each and every day looking only at minor details we don't see ourselves age and change as we would observe in an old friend not seen for years.
The Kaballah is nothing if not a complete re-invention of the Judaism/God story and relation.
Pressure from smarter, bigger, prominent, more influential peoples can't help but have squeezed Jehovah into different shapes at diferent times like some large water balloon.
The TRINITY is a scheme; a successful and inept bit of poetry cum philsophy literally ENFORCED upon semi-rational people hard enough for them to experience the outrageous cognative dissonance of complete faith in the unexplainable!
The more you challenge it the deeper you drive them into their dissonant defense. Fear requires it to be absolute. Logic requires it to be reasonable. Straddling that gulf is really fun/infuriating to observe.
Welcome to the dichotomy between the Orthodox Church vs the Roman Catholic.
Why did Martin Luther buy in...do you suppose? (He really was more Catholic than his hierarchical foes.)
I actually think you're saying something other than this - you seem to be saying exactly what I'm saying, in fact - but that is how it sounds to me. God gave commands, but also overlooked the actions of some of those people ignorant or unable to follow the way He wanted things from the beginning - because they could not see, hear or accept them. This, I think, because He does care - hence all the prophets he sent to try and set them on the right path - prophets many of them mocked and/or condemned.
The God you describe is pathetically inept, weak, incompetant as both a deity and parent. Like the weary and bedraggled mom with screaming kids touching what they should not at the grocery store! "Stop screaming and I'll buy you a candy bar."
Where was your namby-pampy Jehovah when Eve bit into the fruit? When the kids mocked the prophet and the she bears came out to play?
You know what?
I wasn't actually trying to argue in favor of the trinity. Only in favor of the post I made on page two - that 'God the Father' and 'Jehovah/Yahweh' were still the same person in OT/NT.
Tammy
