Bible verse by verse

[_huckelberry]

"Creepy" is an understatement. It's abhorrent and it does bother me on a devotional level. Yes, it was a completely different world back then and we can easily lose sight of that, but it supposedly wasn't a different God.

I have a much different view of inscripturation than you do, I imagine. Rather than thinking of the text as the pristine word of God and using accommodationism or something like that to account for cultural, linguistic, or nationalistic idiosyncrasies, I think of it as the Word of God filtered through numerous imperfect human conduits. I don't think the text has been protected from human influence or corruption, so when I see this stuff, I'm perfectly happy to say it's not a different God, but a much different author imposing their own cultural and ideological lens on whatever inspiration may or may not have compelled them to write.

The response to that is always, "How do we know what is and isn't god's word, then?" and there is where I think the LDS prioritization of the guidance of the Spirit makes up a lot of ground. If the Bible is the one and only standard, it's all or nothing. If the Bible is a complement and supplement to the Spirit, it can be much more flexible. That's my view, for whatever it's worth.

I can't reconcile it if YHWH commanded it. Such a command is too inconsistent with the characteristics of the God I've been taught to believe in. Ezekiel's solution is weak, but it's all I can see at this point.

I think it's important to acknowledge that Ezekiel is trying to rationalize the commandment in Exodus. Most readers assume the Bible is univocal, expressing one harmonious perspective from beginning to end, but the Bible opens up to so much more when we acknowledge that some authors are wrestling with earlier traditions, reinterpreting them, marginalizing them, preempting them, or downright rejecting them. This is what's going on with James' allusions to Romans in James 2, but so many people want to harmonize the two by reading Paul into James, effectively silencing James.

Maklelam, I think your comments about hearing the limitations of human voices in scripture is well put. I find it easy to accept, glad to accept, your observation about Paul and James. The observation about Ezekiel is much harder to swallow as Roger points out. It also opens a can of worms for trying to understand history during the time of Kings. I realize there are significant uncertainties in my understanding of what all was happening and who thought what and why during those centuries. Still I wonder and your observations suggest a number of questions. First upon reading the Ezekiel passage I do not hear apologetic for anything. It is clearly a constructed rhetorical buildup in intensity of condemnation. Ezekiel uses that device of escalating rhetoric more that once.

If known law as Ezekiel wrote was only a command to sacrifice the first born child and that is what people knew and understood how would Ezekiel's words function as effective condemnation? It would if people knew the alternatives and only thought of the actual sacrifice as something for special situatlons ( factions? people?, desires?) which were not beyond the suspicion of guilt.

[_huckelberry]

further questions Ex 22:29

So why would you have blood marking for passover in Egypt? All the firstborn should already be dead or supposed to be.

Sure that story could be later. But it is part of the general tone and outlook of Torah where an elaborate sacrificial system is proposed as part of peoples observation of their debt to God. I think the thinking involved in rejection of child sacrifice pervades the books and not just late additions. Now I must be clear, I have zero expertise to assess the relative dating of portions of Exodus. I understand it is a matter not without difficulty. If significant portions have been constructed, conceived and reedited post Ezekiel why in the world did they not alter this particular verse? Is it is a part of an inviolable fragment? It appears to be a fragment in a grabbag of stuff.Why was it left in?

I may be inclined to think it was left in because it could be seen to have value as a bald and unflinching statement of our debt to God. It works that way even if the reader is fully familiar with the system of redeeming the debt by other means. This thought left me reflecting on how much blood sacrifice is seen in the Bible as payment in recognition of our debt to God and not at least primarily payment for sins. I have felt that there are difficulties with the ida thatat Jesus blood was payment for sin. It makes more sense to me to think that his death recognized our debt to God and our joining that payment is the foundation for both forgiveness of sins and a new life. Paul could be thinking that with his comments about us dieing and living in Jesus.

[_grindael]

So, according to you, Joseph Smith lied when he said that there was no error in the revelations that he taught. Good to know. Your disagreeing is irrelevant. I've been espousing that all along. So that would include the Book of Mormon, an issue you nicely dodged. Check out the Times and Seasons No. 4 [November 1,1843]: p. 375. According to Mormonism, the Holy Ghost is also God, right?

Who said they are inerrant? Are you putting words in my mouth Daniel? Nice dodge again. Read again what I actually said and explain. Or can't you? Care to explain how your Mormon church disagrees with you (officially) that they contain "demonstrable false prophecies"?

Keep dodging and making up stuff you claim people say. That's the real you.

[_maklelan]

So, according to you, Joseph Smith lied when he said that there was no error in the revelations that he taught. Good to know.

A laughable perversion of what I said. You're terrible at putting words in people's mouths.

Your disagreeing is irrelevant. I've been espousing that all along. So that would include the Book of Mormon, an issue you nicely dodged. Check out the Times and Seasons No. 4 [November 1,1843]: p. 375. According to Mormonism, the Holy Ghost is also God, right?

Who said they are inerrant? Are you putting words in my mouth Daniel?

Do you believe they are inerrant? A yes or no will suffice.

Nice dodge again.

Not a dodge. I don't think they foretell the Book of Mormon. I'm just highlighting the hypocrisy of demanding certain standards be met with the Book of Mormon while ignorantly ignoring that your own sacred texts fail the same standards.

Read again what I actually said and explain. Or can't you? Care to explain how your Mormon church disagrees with you (officially) that they contain "demonstrable false prophecies"?

Keep dodging and making up stuff you claim people say. That's the real you.

Not dodging anything. I'm not here to defend the reductive and simplistic characterization of Mormonism you're spewing. Nor am I here to defend an accurate characterization of Mormonism. I'm here to highlight the hypocrisy and double standard of fundamentalists who apply critical methodologies to every other faith but their own. You're doing a great job of proving my point for me, too.

[_LittleNipper]

2 Kings 7:1-20 Elisha replied, “Hear God's Words. About this time tomorrow, a seah of the finest flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.” The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?”

Elisha answered “You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!” Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”

At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, no one was there, for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!" So they fled in the evening and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp abandoned and ran for their lives. The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp, entered one of the tents and ate and drank. Then they took silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.

They said to each other, "This isn't right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.” They went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We went into the Aramean camp and no one was there——only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents abandoned.” The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace.

The king got up in the night and said to his officers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving; so they have left the camp to hide in the countryside, thinking, ‘They will surely come out, and then we will take them alive and get into the city.’” One of his officers answered, “Have some men take five of the horses that are left in the city. What might happen to them cannot be any worse, than with all these Israelites who are now doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened."

So they selected two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, “Go and find out what has happened.” They followed them as far as the Jordan, and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight. So the messengers returned and reported to the king. Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of the finest flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the Lord had said.

Now the king had put the officer on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate, and the people in a mad rush trampled him in the gateway, and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to his house. It happened as the man of God had said to the king: “About this time tomorrow, a seah of the finest flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”


Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

1 And Elisha saith, `Hear ye a word of Jehovah: thus said Jehovah, About this time to-morrow, a measure of fine flour [is] at a shekel, and two measures of barley at a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.'

2 And the captain whom the king hath, by whose hand he hath been supported, answereth the man of God and saith, `Lo, Jehovah is making windows in the heavens -- shall this thing be?' and he saith, `Lo, thou art seeing it with thine eyes, and thereof thou dost not eat.'

3 And four men have been leprous, at the opening of the gate, and they say one unto another, `What -- we are sitting here till we have died;

4 if we have said, We go in to the city, then the famine [is] in the city, and we have died there; and if we have sat here, then we have died; and now, come and we fall unto the camp of Aram; if they keep us alive, we live, and if they put us to death -- we have died.'

5 And they rise in the twilight, to go in unto the camp of Aram, and they come in unto the extremity of the camp of Aram, and lo, there is not a man there,

6 seeing Jehovah hath caused the camp of Aram to hear a noise of chariot and a noise of horse -- a noise of great force, and they say one unto another, `Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of Egypt, to come against us.'

7 And they rise and flee in the twilight, and forsake their tents, and their horses, and their asses -- the camp as it [is] -- and flee for their life.

8 And these lepers come in unto the extremity of the camp, and come in unto one tent, and eat, and drink, and lift up thence silver, and gold, and garments, and go and hide; and they turn back and go in unto another tent, and lift up thence, and go and hide.

9 And they say one unto another, `We are not doing right this day; a day of tidings it [is], and we are keeping silent; and -- we have waited till the light of the morning, then hath punishment found us; and now, come and we go in and declare to the house of the king.'

10 And they come in, and call unto the gatekeeper of the city, and declare for themselves, saying, `We have come in unto the camp of Aram, and lo, there is not there a man, or sound of man, but the bound horse, and the bound ass, and tents as they [are].'

11 and he calleth the gatekeepers, and they declare to the house of the king within.

12 And the king riseth by night, and saith unto his servants, `Let me declare, I pray you, to you that which the Aramaeans have done to us; they have known that we are famished, and they are gone out from the camp to be hidden in the field, saying, When they come out from the city, then we catch them alive, and unto the city we enter.'

13 And one of his servants answereth and saith, `Then let them take, I pray thee, five of the horses that are left, that have been left in it -- lo, they [are] as all the multitude of Israel who have been left in it; lo, they are as all the multitude of Israel who have been consumed -- and we send and see.'

14 And they take two chariot-horses, and the king sendeth after the camp of Aram, saying, `Go, and see.'

15 And they go after them unto the Jordan, and lo, all the way is full of garments and vessels that the Aramaeans have cast away in their haste, and the messengers turn back and declare to the king.

16 And the people go out and spoil the camp of Aram, and there is a measure of fine flour at a shekel, and two measures of barley at a shekel, according to the word of Jehovah.

17 And the king hath appointed the captain, by whose hand he is supported, over the gate, and the people tread him down in the gate, and he dieth, as the man of God spake, which he spake in the coming down of the king unto him,

18 yea, it cometh to pass, according to the speaking of the man of God unto the king, saying, `Two measures of barley at a shekel, and a measure of fine flour at a shekel are, at this time to-morrow, in the gate of Samaria;'

19 and the captain answereth the man of God, and saith, `And lo, Jehovah is making windows in the heavens -- it is according to this word?' and he saith, `Lo, thou art seeing with thine eyes, and thereof thou dost not eat;'

20 and it cometh to him so, and the people tread him down in the gate, and he dieth.

[_grindael]

So, according to you, Joseph Smith lied when he said that there was no error in the revelations that he taught. Good to know.

A laughable perversion of what I said. You're terrible at putting words in people's mouths.

Your disagreeing is irrelevant. I've been espousing that all along. So that would include the Book of Mormon, an issue you nicely dodged. Check out the Times and Seasons No. 4 [November 1,1843]: p. 375. According to Mormonism, the Holy Ghost is also God, right?

Who said they are inerrant? Are you putting words in my mouth Daniel?

Do you believe they are inerrant? A yes or no will suffice.

Nice dodge again.

Not a dodge. I don't think they foretell the Book of Mormon. I'm just highlighting the hypocrisy of demanding certain standards be met with the Book of Mormon while ignorantly ignoring that your own sacred texts fail the same standards.

Read again what I actually said and explain. Or can't you? Care to explain how your Mormon church disagrees with you (officially) that they contain "demonstrable false prophecies"?

Keep dodging and making up stuff you claim people say. That's the real you.

Not dodging anything. I'm not here to defend the reductive and simplistic characterization of Mormonism you're spewing. Nor am I here to defend an accurate characterization of Mormonism. I'm here to highlight the hypocrisy and double standard of fundamentalists who apply critical methodologies to every other faith but their own. You're doing a great job of proving my point for me, too.

Actually you are the one doing a great job of proving hypocrisy. You say one thing, then deny you said it. But that's ok. You're not here to defend anything. That 's obvious, because you can't. Keep dodging and making stuff up, that's the real you.

[_maklelan]

Actually you are the one doing a great job of proving hypocrisy. You say one thing, then deny you said it.

No, you just evidently have trouble understanding what is being written.

But that's ok. You're not here to defend anything. That 's obvious, because you can't. Keep dodging and making stuff up, that's the real you.

I've not dodged a thing, and the one time you tried to show otherwise you embarrassed yourself. Even other posters that aren't my sympathizers are pointing out you're just confused.

[_grindael]

Actually you are the one doing a great job of proving hypocrisy. You say one thing, then deny you said it.

No, you just evidently have trouble understanding what is being written.

But that's ok. You're not here to defend anything. That 's obvious, because you can't. Keep dodging and making stuff up, that's the real you.

I've not dodged a thing, and the one time you tried to show otherwise you embarrassed yourself. Even other posters that aren't my sympathizers are pointing out you're just confused.

Um, you are the one who embarrassed himself, by blatantly lying about what you believe. Keep dodging and making stuff up, it's totally you.

[_maklelan]

Um, you are the one who embarrassed himself, by blatantly lying about what you believe. Keep dodging and making stuff up, it's totally you.

I have a hard time believing you actually so thoroughly misunderstood such a clear and simple statement.

[_grindael]

Um, you are the one who embarrassed himself, by blatantly lying about what you believe. Keep dodging and making stuff up, it's totally you.

I have a hard time believing you actually so thoroughly misunderstood such a clear and simple statement.

I have a hard time believing with those who don't tell the truth.