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I am going to stop here. If you ever post evidence and its source we can continue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafius
Good decision. You have embarrassed yourself enough already Edgar.
heh heh!
Honestly, has Omega added a single thing of substance to this thread (besides reinforcing the fact that Fundamentalists removed themselves from all serious public theological discourse by the very core values of anti-modernism, anti-science and anti-biblical scholarship they adopted upon their inception over a hundred years ago)?
Really, I'm curious. Has anyone learned a single thing here from his preaching?
I still think my initial observation of
Quote:
Originally Posted by whoppers
Omega, do you have anything substantive to say, or are you just going to say "nuh uh" to everything? How are you adding to this conversation in a meaningful and convincing way? I know you're a new forum member, but do recall this IS a forum. Not a pulpit.
I'm almost certain he meant Jesus and used a pronoun instead of the Personal Name - thus the confusion with Judas. I do that all the time, until I catch myself heh heh! At least, I think I catch myself.
Maybe if you had the ability to recognize evidence when it smacks you upside the head umpteen times, more people would be inclined to discuss matters with you.
But you are married to your ignorance and only death will do you part.
It ought not to need pointing out, but the dishonesty is obvious: You pick the bits of the Babylon prophecy that are right (the Persians overran Babylon) but ignore the bits they get wrong - it was never really destroyed. "Where is it now" is anticipated and not worthy of response anyway.
I think my comments earlier on the matter are still pertinent. They mirror what you initially said: it was meant to reinforce a particular cultural practice of the people - Levirate Marriage. Without repeating my earlier post, there may be remnants of tribal history contained. Issues such as Cultural Memory (a natural evolution of Gunkel's Form Criticism) is especially illustrative, especially as espoused by Ron Hendel recently.
If you wanted to summarize why Biblical narratives are told, I suppose an easy summation has been provided by Eric Seibert (see reference below) as
To Explain National Failures and and Disasters
To Support the Ruling Elite and to Promote Their Policies
To Encourage Certain Behaviors and Beliefs
This is missing some key other reasons, but those are probably the basics. I think the Onan story falls under the category of "Encouraging certain behaviors and beliefs" - but as I mentioned above, and in my previous post: there may be a lot more going on there. The rest of the story probably bears that out.
Some interesting issues are raised, however, concerning the character of God in all this. He plays the role of what Eric Seibert calls "Instant Executioner" (Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old Testament Images of God, Fortress Press, 2009, p. 18) with a zero tolerance policy towards certain actions (Er's unspecified "wickedness" and Onan's practice of coitus interruptus to avoid fulfilling his Levirate duty). There are 5 instances of this in the Hebrew Bible:
God as "Instant Executioner"
Er (Genesis 38:7)
Onan (Gen 38:10)
Nadab, and
Abihu (Lev 10:1-2), who offered the wrong type of ritual sacrifice
Uzzah (2 Sam 6:1-8), the unfortunate soul who tried to save the Ark of the Covenant from falling and was struck dead.
For a modern believer, this role of God as "Instant Executioner" of offenses raises the question of why God is seemingly arbitrary in meting this justice out. We have seen many evil individuals who have not been struck down for their crimes (the example of Hitler caused a massive shift in the faith of many Jews).
Ah, thank you! I guess I did not pay close enough attention to what you said the first go round. Great info, as usual!
Honestly, has Omega added a single thing of substance to this thread (besides reinforcing the fact that Fundamentalists removed themselves from all serious public theological discourse by the very core values of anti-modernism, anti-science and anti-biblical scholarship they adopted upon their inception over a hundred years ago)?
Really, I'm curious. Has anyone learned a single thing here from his preaching?
has proven true. My mistake was engaging him further.
Don't worry. I engaged in debate with his larval form far more than I should have done, purely because he was doing us so much good, gnawing and crunching away at the fake true cross and genuine imitation Bethlehem crib. But now this Mayfly imago is flitting about the forum whining like a mosquito, I did right by pulling the plug. It is now paying us nothing to swat at this irritating insect.
Because we have accurate methods of dating Edgar. Ironically, they are the same methods accepted by people like you to date Bible archaeology.
You're quite Edgar. I do not have any evidence of man evolving from apes...and that's because man didn't evolve from apes.
More fact that you can't dispute.
It's is proven to be inaccurate by the fact I have already given you.
You are simply showing your ignorance ..as usual. We are talking about the tower of Babel which was allegedly around 2000BCE. There is no record of a single language at that time'
Archaeological evidence exist far before that time.
Come back when they do.
I reject it because is has been proven to be unreliable.
There is no record anywhere or in any other civilisation of the time that notes Solomon's 'great empire'. That's because it didn't exist
Yes it does. Read it again...
14 And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord God.
Tyre has NEVER been destroyed. Apologist attempts to place the city of Tyre on the mainland are destroyed by the Bible itself - 5 It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God: and it shall become a spoil to the nations.
Ezk prophecised that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy Tyre. He didn't. After a long siege he gave up. Ezk even admitted that Nebby failed. Here is where it specifically says that it is Nebuchadnezzar that will carry out the destruction of Tyre...
Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee. And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers. By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach. With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground. And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water.
Please note that it specifically names Nebby and says what HE will do. It didn't happen.
The island fortress WAS tyre. The mainland settlement/suburb was nothing more than a residential area called USHU not Tyre. The city of Tyre proper was on the island.
The name 'Tyre' means ROCK and that's why the island city was called Tyre...because it was a rock in the middle of the sea. It is even described in your bible as being 'in the midst of the sea'. The mainland settlement was a suburb whaich was not even called Tyre, it was called Ushu.
The Tyre prophecy referred to Ezekiel's promise that Nebuchadnezzar would completely destroy Tyre and it would never be rebuilt. Nebby did not destroy Tyre as the prophecy claimed he would...he didn’t even capture it. As for Tyre never being rebuilt, it is today, the second most populated city in Lebanon. Giving the honour for the destruction of Tyre to Alexander nerely gives you two problems when you only had one...because Alexander did not permanently destroy Tyre as the prophecy predicted. He rebuilt it for it's importance as a naval and trading base.
Furthermore. Ezekiel prophesised that your god would give Egypt to Nebby as compensation for his failure to take Tyre as the prophecy had predicted, but this prophecy also failed. The prophecy was that Egypt would be a land of "utter waste and a desolation" from Migdol in the north to the border of Ethiopia in the south. So thorough would the devastation be that "neither foot of man nor foot of beast would pass through it, and it would be uninhabited for 40 years and the Egyptians would be scattered among the nations. At the end of the 40 years, your bible says that your god would gather the Egyptians back to their country from where they had been scattered, but Egypt would forever be "the lowliest of kingdoms".
The prophecy was that Egypt would be a desolate wasteland, devoid of man and beast for 40 years. Needless to say, none of this ever happened. There are no historical records of a 40-year period when Egypt was so desolate that neither animals nor humans inhabited it, and the population of Egypt was never scattered among the nations and then re-gathered to its homeland. Its political influence has fluctuated through the centuries, but there has never been a time when it could have been considered the "lowliest of kingdoms.". Egypt has never been a desolate wasteland devoid of man and beast for 40 years. It never happened, and no amount of rationalization can make that failure a success.
That you are ignorant of ancient history is your problem not mine. It is a matter of FACT that the Medes were conquered by the Persians, who then went on to peacefully take (and not destroy) Babylon.
Good decision. You have embarrassed yourself enough already Edgar.
With all the info you barraged him with I can just hear him screaming, "Damn!...Damn!...He's right!", as he looks up the info to prove you wrong...
With all the info you barraged him with I can just hear him screaming, "Damn!...Damn!...He's right!", as he looks up the info to prove you wrong...
That is something you will never witness Richard. You could put the whole library of Alexandria in front of him showing him to be wrong and he will still deny it.
It ought not to need pointing out, but the dishonesty is obvious: You pick the bits of the Babylon prophecy that are right (the Persians overran Babylon) but ignore the bits they get wrong - it was never really destroyed. "Where is it now" is anticipated and not worthy of response anyway.
Indeed.
The prophetic books have plenty of prophecies that were plain wrong: for example, the amount of time of the Exile:
All the prophets prior to Ezekiel and Jeremiah predicted a short period of Exile and then Restoration - for both Northern Israel and Southern Judah. Even in the case of Post-Exillic prophets, including Ezekiel and Jeremiah, they woefully under-predicted the amount of time the people would remain in Exile. Most prophets told the people that it would end practically "any day now". Though still predicting a longer stay, Ezekiel and Jeremiah still good it wrong. Ezekiel used the typical number of 40 years (or less) for Judah's stay in Exile, but predicted 190 years for Norther Israel in the Greek text. The Hebrew text has 390 years, almost certainly an emendation after it was obvious that the 190 years was mistaken.
A few cases of outright mistaken prophecies are found in Haggai and Zechariah under the rule of Darius of the Persian Empire, who both predicted to the prince Zerubbabel that God would overthrow the "power" of the Gentiles.
Then the word of Yahweh came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth of the month:
"Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah:
'I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, and I am going to overthrow the throne of kingdoms and destroy the power of foreign kingdoms;
and I will overthrow the chariotry and its charioteers so that horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother.
On that day -
- Oracle of Yahweh of Hosts -
- I will take you, Zerubbabel ben-Shieltiel, as my servant -
- Oracle of Yahweh -
- and I will set you as my signet.
For you I have chosen.'
Oracle of Yahweh of Hosts."
(Haggai 2:20-23 AB Meyers)
That a people's rebellion is not in order is found in Zechariah:
This is the word of Yahweh to Zerubbabel:
"Not by might and not by power,
but with my spirit [breath],"
- said Yahweh of Hosts.
(Zechariah 4:6 Ab Meyers)
Of course, YHWH never overthrew the Persian Empire using his breath/spirit. Zerubbabel disappears from the scene of history unexplained - perhaps killed by the Persians as a threat - and the people witness failed prophecy yet again.
The initial point made by Transponder - that people take what they like and ignore the rest is probably the exact same reason many prophetic books were adopted into the Hebrew Bible in the first place. All it took was one prophecy of great magnitude to be fulfilled and many were content to assume that the rest would follow - even if they eventually did not. It is then that we start finding "prophecies after the fact", or vaticinia ex eventu, which are very prominent in the Pentateuchal sources.
In a way the tombs opening in Mathew after the crucifixion (nowhere else despite the claim that they were seen by many in the city) is Wild Biblical story (1) plus prophecy, because the idea is, I think that Matthew had heard that 'everything fulfilled' was when Jesus died on the cross. Or so they say. Thus the Last Days should (in his rather confused literalist thinking) have begun with the dead being raised. Well, the graves opening and the Saints being raised to meed the arriving Jesus in midair (as Paul describes it) didn't happen in his day and in fat I am seeing Matthew as considerably later than John though before Luke.(2) amd so he simply has the graves open and the contents shamble about for a while just to fulfil this prophecy, rather than to do anything useful like sweep the streets or direct traffic.
(1) the Gospels, and Acts, contains as wild or wilder than the OT though the talking snake beats the Shekel -eating fish, but the latter is something Jesus Did, supposedly, and I am still waiting for the first believer to say that it is metaphorical and didn't really happen.
(2) Mark late 1st early 2nd c.
John 2nd c.
Matthew late 2nd c early 3rd.
Luke 3rd - 4th c.
And while we can't be sure, as I'd bet on Leonardo as the best bet as the maker of the Shroud, I'd bet on Eusebius the Church historian as the most likely author of Luke and Acts.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 08-21-2016 at 08:26 AM..
Reason: cook the books
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