Packing my bags!!!

Joseph Crea Joseph.Crea@worldnet.att.net
Sat, 13 Feb 1999 22:20:43 +0000 (00918966043, 19990213222043.ISVL18723@LOCALNAME) 

Hello, Aaron!

At 02:40 PM 2/13/99 -0600, aaron rainwater wrote:

>>>>> Elf

>>>>> This God is under no obligation to even tell the truth

>>>>> about anything.

>

>>>> Matthew Bell

>>>> If the Christian God lied(s) then he ceases to be the

>>>> Christian God, who cannot lie.

>

>>> Achilles

>>>

>>> Gen 2:17 (direct quote from YHVH Elohim)

>>> <snip>

>

>>Matthew Bell

>>Well I guess that's that. All these years studying the Bible

>>and I missed such a blatant and obvious contradiction. Sigh

>>how could I have been so blind! Where now? Ah I know,

>>the errancy3 list. 2000 years of Christianity and not one

>>apologist spotted such an obvious contradiction which

>>makes God a liar!!  Achilles, you are a genius, now come

>>back when you have a serious point to make.

>

>|rainwater|

>2000 years?  Try a few hundred, if even that!  Up to that

>point in time, bringing stuff like that up would get you

>seriously hurt (if not dead).  I personally don't think the

>verses Achilles quoted are a contradiction (though I

>could be wrong), but I can't believe your whipping out

>that tired old crap about "no errors found in 2000 years".



CREA
    Of course, the typical inerrantist explanation of Genesis 2:17 is either
(a) that Adam and Eve DID die as soon as they ate the forbidden fruit -- but
one must understand that "death" here means SPIRITUAL death;  or (b) since
one is told (Psalms 90:4) that  "a thousand years in thy [God's] sight are
but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night", and we
further read at Genesis 5:4 that Adam died at the age of 930, ergo in the
Lord's sight Adam died the same "day" on which he ate the forbidden fruit.  

   However, there are passages which are not so easily explained away.  We
read at Numbers 23:19 as follows:


  [Nu. 23:19]  "God is not a man, that he should die, neither the son 
                of man, that he should repent:  hath he said, and shall 
                he not do it? or hath he spoken and shall he not make 
                it good?"


CREA
    From this, one might reasonably deduce that God's promises are reliable
and will be kept.  Unfortunately, less than 500 years later, we find God
announcing that he is reneging on an EVERLASTING promise he made, as follows:


  [1Sam. 2:30]  "...the Lord God of Israel saith,  I said indeed that 
                 thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk 
                 before me for ever:  but now the LORD saith, Be it far 
                 from me;  for them that honour me I will honour, and 
                 they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed."

  [1Sam. 2:31]  "Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thine arm, 
                 and the arm of thy father's house, that there shall not 
                 be an old man in thine house.

  [1Sam. 2:32]  "And thou shalt see an enemy in thy habitation, in all 
                 the wealth which God shall give Israel:  ant there 
                 shall not be an old man in thine house for ever.

  [1Sam. 2:33]  "And the man of thine, whom I shall not cut off from mine 
                 altar shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine
                 heart:  and all the increase of thine house shall die in 
                 the flower of their age.

  [1Sam. 2:34]  "And this shall be a sign unto thee, that shall come upon 
                 thy two sons, on Hophni and Phineas;  in one day they 
                 shall die both of them.

  [1Sam. 2:35]  "And I will raise up a fiathful priest, that shall do 
                 according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind:  
                 and I will build him a sure house and he shall walk before 
                 mine anointed forever.

  [1Sam. 2:36]  "And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left in 
                 thine house shall come and crouch to him for a piece of 
                 silver and a morsel of bread, and shall say,  Put me, I 
                 pray thee, into one of the priests' offices, that I may 
                 eat a piece of bread."


CREA
    It's passages like this that encourage me when I read them, since if the
God of the Bible exists, and folks like Falwell and Robertson keep on doing
as they have been, then it's entirely possible that God will decide that the
New Covenant will end up going the same way as His earlier promises to Eli
and his house.


With Mettaa,

Joseph Crea
<Joseph.Crea@worldnet.att.net>