Biblical/Jesus errors
Farrell Till jftill@midwest.net
Sat, 02 Jan 1999 23:55:17 -0800 (00915371717, 2.2.32.19990103075517.0087a0d4@midwest.net)
At 10:29 AM 1/2/99 -0500, David Billo wrote:
>JILO
>> I expect unbelievers to somehow find apparent weak points while ignoring
>the
>> incredible cohesiveness including the mountain of already fulfilled
>prophecy
>> in the bible.....they cant help it. And believers cant help believing
>because
>> of Gods revelation of Himself to us including His Spirit of joy love and
>grace
>> within us.
>>
>> hope this helps
>
>DB
>Yeah, thanks. I've always believed that stuff about the 'cohesiveness' and
>the 'mountain of fulfilled prophecy' too. A few weeks of lurking on this
>list, not to mention some serious study elsewhere and on the 'net, have
>shown me that this 'cohesiveness' is pretty shaky, and the 'mountain' is
>more like the proverbial molehill. The books that make up the bible, after
>all, were hand picked by men, so any consistency you might see doesn't have
>to be the result of a divine overseer.
>
TILL
I think a comment on DB's statement that both sides of the inerrancy issue
can profit from is in order. I have often referred to mail that I receive
from lurkers who tell me that their tenure on the list has been very
informative. Some state that they joined the list as believers in biblical
inerrancy but found the defenses of the inerrantists to be too ridiculous to
believe, and now DB is telling the entire list essentially the same thing.
I have yet to receive a message from someone who says that he was a skeptic
or atheist when he/she joined the list but found the arguments of the
inerrantists so compelling that they are now Bible believers.
The moral? We have tried to tell inerrantists like Matt Bell (and now
Berean and Jilo) that they are their own worst enemies, who do more damage
to the position they desperately want to defend than all of the combined
postings of skeptics on the list. An intelligent inerrantist can tolerate
only so much silliness, and then something has to give.
There's a moral here for the errantists too. Sincere lurkers won't be
convinced if we give up on a issue because it has been discussed to death.
The very act of keeping the issue on the list will drive the point home even
harder as lurkers see the nonsense that the inerrantists have to resort to
in order to "explain" biblical discrepancies. If an issue is dropped before
the lurkers become disgusted with the failures of the inerrantists to come
through and save the day, that issue is going to be forgotten before the
lurker has had it indelibly stamped into his mind that this is an issue that
probably cannot be explained away.
DB
>I challenge you to produce a definite example of a fulfilled prophecy that
>doesn't rely on a meaning not intended by the original writer, a post hoc
>application, a quoted 'scripture' that can't even be found in the OT, or
>more examples of question begging.
>
TILL
I've already issued the same challenge, but I will renew it. I defy Jilo to
cite an example of biblical prophecy fulfillment and present his evidence to
support the fulfillment. He'll be hung out to dry so fast he won't know
what happened.
DB
>I know we've just recently been through these threads, but, IMHO these are
>two of the top examples of biblical rhetoric I've been exposed to. Every
>'preacher' that has popped up on this list has spouted then in one form or
>another, usually early on before getting an idea of the flames that this
>kind of question begging will attract.
>
TILL
And let's hope that they keep popping onto the list. The more of them who
do, the more it will become obvious to sincere lurkers that they espouse a
position that is indefensible.
DB
>BTW Farrell, I just got subscribed again. Is that an annual thing?
>
TILL
No, there were technical problems that required the resubscription of some.
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net