Bible Study

[Guest]

Don't know how to deal with a problem child?
Look no further then the Bible...

Deuteronomy 21

18 ¶If a man have a astubborn and rebellious son, which will not bobey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:

19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto athe gate of his place;

20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

And another scholar sits at the round table.

We can only applaud Hoops' wonderful use of irony here. Unqualified people should not read the Bible - they tend take it literally, you see, and assume it means what it says. It would be far better if the Bible was only available in a learned language, so that its interpretation rested in the hands of qualified and authorized professionals.

Such people (we could call them 'priests') will be trained to recognize that although the Bible is the inerrant word of God, he very very rarely says what he means, or means what he says. I mean that has to be true, since otherwise we would find ourselves having to admit that large parts of God's Word are ... well, neither nice nor clever.

[_Drifting]

Don't know how to deal with a problem child?
Look no further then the Bible...

Deuteronomy 21
18 ¶If a man have a astubborn and rebellious son, which will not bobey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:

 19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto athe gate of his place;

 20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

 21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

And another scholar sits at the round table.

Hi Hoops,

Should I be taking the global flood story literally or figuratively?

[_ludwigm]

One teaching that I think is very important is when you get involved in a fight with another bloke and your wife comes to help you out. It's important that she avoided making contact with the other man's man vegetables. If she inadvertantly connects a knee, a head butt or a grasp and twist of the aforementioned delicates, then she is to be put to death, even though she was only trying to help you.

That's in Deuteronomy I think.

Deuteronomy 25
11. When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets:
12. Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.

I am the LORD your God and my mercy is limitless. Your wife is not to be put to death. You (her husband) should cut of her hand.
Only that one, I think - but this is my private opinion. Anyway, You may have free agency.
I exhort You to leave her one hand to touch Your secrets with.

We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.

by the way

... contact with the other man's man vegetables...

Vegetables?
Do You think about cucumber?

http://www.LDS.org/general-conference/2 ... n?lang=eng
or, if You like better,

My boyhood home in California was located relatively close to large orchards of apricots, cherries, peaches, pears, and other delicious fruits. We also lived near fields of cucumbers, tomatoes, and a variety of vegetables.

[_Stormy Waters]

Hi Hoops,

Should I be taking the global flood story literally or figuratively?

I have never understood the logic behind this position. If parts of the Bible are figurative how do we know which parts are literal, and which parts are figurative? Is the Bible just figurative when it has large amounts of scientific evidence stacked against it?

[_Stormy Waters]

Here is another tale how how important it is to worship God and only God! God commands his people to kill those who do not worship him!

Deuteronomy
"13:12 If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,
13:13 Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known;
13:14 Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;
13:15 Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword."

It should be noted that Martin Luther used these verses to justify burning the homes and synagogues of the Jews. How silly of him! He missed the memo that these verses aren't to be taken seriously!

ETA: Reference Part 11 in "On Jews and their lies" http://www.humanitas-international.org/ ... r-jews.htm

[_Aristotle Smith]

I have never understood the logic behind this position. If parts of the Bible are figurative how do we know which parts are literal, and which parts are figurative? Is the Bible just figurative when it has large amounts of scientific evidence stacked against it?

I know it's so hard to figure this stuff out!

I mean just the other day some person told what I think he referred to as a "joke". Everyone around me was laughing and I just didn't get it. I asked why they were laughing and they explained that a "joke" had just happened. What the hell? If you don't always talk in a flatly literal way, how could I possibly know what you are talking about? I mean how am I supposed to know when people are "joking" (whatever that means), and thus I'm not supposed to take their discourse as a dry recitation of facts, preferably in propositional form? I mean, isn't that all there is to language, or at least isn't that all their needs to be? All of this stuff about metaphor, simile, pun, sarcasm, irony, etc. is all just a bunch of un-scientific crap.

And what's with all of this talk about narrative? Why should the Bible use narrative? I don't use narrative when I talk, it's completely unnecessary. I mean, look at that last paragraph I wrote, do you see any narrative there? No deity would be stupid enough to communicate via narrative, I don't! If there were a god, that god would surely communicate via binary encoded equations, with each message containing a cryptographically secure hash sequence so we could verify that each message arrived without garbling or tampering.

[_Stormy Waters]

I mean just the other day some person told what I think he referred to as a "joke". Everyone around me was laughing and I just didn't get it. I asked why they were laughing and they explained that a "joke" had just happened. What the hell? If you don't always talk in a flatly literal way, how could I possibly know what you are talking about? I mean how am I supposed to know when people are "joking" (whatever that means), and thus I'm not supposed to take their discourse as a dry recitation of facts, preferably in propositional form? I mean, isn't that all there is to language, or at least isn't that all their needs to be? All of this stuff about metaphor, simile, pun, sarcasm, irony, etc. is all just a bunch of un-scientific crap.

Did people interpret Noah's ark as a "joke" until it was demonstrated that it was unlikely that the story could be literally true? I think it's disingenuous to take something literally, and then explain it away as a "joke" when taking it literally becomes difficult to defend. That is my complaint with Bible figurativists.

If there were a god, that god would surely communicate via binary encoded equations, with each message containing a cryptographically secure hash sequence so we could verify that each message arrived without garbling or tampering.

God has it well within his reach to make his will known clearly. Is it wrong of me to want God to send his messages without possibility of "garbling or tampering?" Although you are attempting parody, your suggested method isn't a terrible idea. I like that you are presenting the idea of a God who speaks clearly as a joke.

[_Aristotle Smith]

Although you are attempting parody...

You are mistaken, I was being completely literal. What is parody? I always speak in a flatly literal way, usually I just spout off logical propositions and mathematical equations. I am still utterly confused as to why you think anyone ever does speak in anything other than a flatly literal way. I can only surmise that you did not pay attention in school.

For example, the first verse of Genesis should clearly have been, "And God said, 'Let Gauss's Law, Gauss's Law of Magnetism, Faraday's Law of Induction, and Ampere's Law be true' (even though none of you knows who Gauss, Faraday, and Ampere are), and there appeared photons traveling at a constant velocity of 2.99x10^8 m/s in a vacuum."

[_Stormy Waters]

You are mistaken, I was being completely literal. What is parody? I always speak in a flatly literal way, usually I just spout off logical propositions and mathematical equations. I am still utterly confused as to why you think anyone ever does speak in anything other than a flatly literal way. I can only surmise that you did not pay attention in school.

For example, the first verse of Genesis should clearly have been, "And God said, 'Let Gauss's Law, Gauss's Law of Magnetism, Faraday's Law of Induction, and Ampere's Law be true' (even though none of you knows who Gauss, Faraday, and Ampere are), and there appeared photons traveling at a constant velocity of 2.99x10^8 m/s in a vacuum."

You don't need to explain a law to include the possibility in the narrative.
Consider Genesis 1:20 "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven." This scripture suggests a process rather than an instantaneous event. It seems to me that you could reconcile this verse with the idea of evolution. There is no need to explain in detail. Verses like this make me curious why some Christians fought so hard against the idea of evolution when they could have reconciled it.

Still I think it's disingenuous for those who took the Noah's Ark story literally to reinterpret it as figurative if the only thing that changed was that the scientific evidence started to be troublesome.

[_Aristotle Smith]

You don't need to explain a law to include the possibility in the narrative. Consider Genesis 1:20 "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven." This scripture suggests a process rather than an instantaneous event. It seems to me that you could reconcile this verse with the idea of evolution. There is no need to explain in detail. Verses like this make me curious why some Christians fought so hard against the idea of evolution when they could have reconciled it.

Still I think it's disingenuous for those who took the Noah's Ark story literally to reinterpret it as figurative if the only thing that changed was that the scientific evidence started to be troublesome.

Why in the world do you keep talking about "narrative"? Isn't it blatantly obvious that since Genesis attempts to speak through this so-called "narrative" that it is blatantly false? Science does not speak through "narrative", it just recounts the cold hard facts. I would have thought you were smart enough to conclude that this is prima facie evidence that this Bible stuff is all crap. Why are you even wasting your time by looking at this stuff. You need to do what I do and get back to reading Complex Variables: Harmonic and Analytic Functions. Unlike that imaginary "narrative" stuff in Genesis, there's nothing imaginary about that. Or choose any scientific or mathematical treatise you want, you can't go wrong.

But whatever you do, don't try and look into how the Bible has been interpreted in the past or how current research tries to put Genesis in context in the Ancient Near East. That's all bunk, they are trying to understand "narrative" (so-called), which as we all know is complete crap. Stick with something scientific.