On Tue, 25 Mar 1997, Michael Fisher wrote:
> Tony did challenge:
> Have you read the Bible before? Of the great books you
> read, why don't you have the Bible? Do you realize how authentic it is?
>
> MWF
> One last little piece for Tony, so that he can rest easy, knowing that I've actually
> read and thought about his bible.
>
> Unless, of course he _really_ wants more. I suspect he now has more than
> enough to deal with, what with evolution, refuting Sci Am and the last three replies
> I've sent him on the Bible. :-)
>
> 2 Peter 2:15-16 "forsaking the right way they have gone astray, having
> followed the way of Balaam, the son Beor, who loved the wages of
> unrighteousness, but he received a rebuke for his own transgression; for a
> dumb donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the
> prophet."
>
> Small problem with Peter's words. If you go to Numbers 22 the story is
> told. First King Balak sends messengers to Balaam asking him to come and
> curse the "sons of Israel" camped in the plains. Balaam consults God, and
> tells the first messengers no. Moab, not being one to give up easily, sends
> another delegation which included higher ranking members of the court, to
> implore him to come. In verses 18-21 is the gist of what happened;
>
> "And Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, 'Though Balak
> were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not do anything,
> either small or great, contrary to the command of the Lord my God. And now
> pleas, you also stay here tonight, and I will find out what else the Lord
> will speak to me.' And God came to Balaam at night and said to him. 'If the
> men have come to call you, rise up and go with them; but only the word which
> I speak to you shall you do.'
>
> "So Balaam arose in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and went with
> the leaders of Moab."
>
> So when the whole affair with the talking donkey happens, what it
> amounts to is a case of divine Alzheimers. God forgot he told him to go in
> the first place.
>
> Pretty poor performance for an omniscient diet.
>
> Where the King James crowd will put up a fight is on verse 20, the KJV
> renders it:
>
> "And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men come to
> call thee, rise up, and go with them: but yet the word which I shall say unto
> thee, that thou shalt do."
>
> The writers of the KJV left out the "have" between 'men' and 'come'. Now
> given that the men had just arrived in the previous verses, Elizabethan
> English allows the past tense (I think past perfect, but I'm not as up on
> grammar as I need to be) to be understood from the context. A modern reader
> determined, as inerrantists are, to preserve the necessary meaning of the
> text will try and say that God is telling Balaam that if the men "call" him
> the next day, to respond. And then since no verse shows them requesting him
> to come with them the next morning, they will try to claim that Balaam took
> off on his own for the loot.
>
> What it looks like to me is that there were two stories about Balaam that
> got spliced together with modifications, while verbal traditions about Balaam
> continued to differ from the 'official' account. Sort of like Lilith still
> survives in Jewish folklore, although she does not appear in the Bible
> anywhere.
>
Another fatal flaw. Look at the Numbers text in Ch. 22. God said
to the prophet to do exactly what he told him to do. Well the angel
stated that he(the prophet) had did something contrary to what God told
him. Obviously it wasn't going with the men, but something else that I
don't think is told in the passage. The important thing to see is the
fact that he went against what God said, as Jonah had done.
> Ciao.
>
> --
> Michael Fisher, ET1/SS USN ret., law student
>
> http://home.aol.com/Mfish6994
>
> * * *
>
> During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity
> been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride
> and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both,
> superstition, bigotry and persecution.
> ---James Madison, fourth president and father of the Constitution
>