I don't know how much God had to deal with and/or how backwards the people were.

But if they personified people differently than we do then that affected how their society operated.

But a lot of the things that seem crazy in the bible like not mixing fabrics, etc. are prophetic. They don't make any sense to you or I. You have to go to a bible scholar to have explained what it symbolizes.

Splendour, you can rationalize anything if your only argument is that we don't really understand it. God could of raped and murdered a school bus full of retarded children after selling them heroin and you would just say "He knows best!" Sorry, but this kind of moral ambiguity is useless.

Psalm 137:9
Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!

Jesus Christ initiated a new covenant. He fulfilled the whole of the old law. In the Bible, there are many different covenants with different tribes and generations under different circumstances and in different cultures and environments. A common ploy of the atheist here is to wrench older covenant strictures out of their cultural and historical context and try to brandish it against today's understanding and covenant that God has made with his chosen ones. It is happening just a few posts up.

Let us see what the law looks like when it is fulfilled:

What is Jesus quoting? From where? The book of Numbers? 1st Kings? Leviticus?

Jesus is speaking of original intentions now being fulfilled.

So certain prophets and leaders may have permitted things to happen that were not ideal in the eyes of God. Certainly there was going to be miscues, hiccups and slowdowns, because fallible humans were in charge of interpretation and translation of the revelation. But now the Word has been made flesh. Fulfilled. The work completed.

Nothing could be more clear.

[QUOTE=Splendour;32958714]From God's point of view he could have been doing them a favor. They get to be in heaven early where there's no pain, etc.[QUOTE]

Just to play devil's advocate what would be your scriptural basis for that? Are there any verses that say you "go to heaven when you die"?

So would it not be possible that the sexism and genocide of the old testament or even into the new testament like Paul's forbidding women to have any say on important matters...

... could be reflection of the society at the time rather than actual moral truths


.... and maybe that could apply to everything that isn't rationally intuitive and excepty by all people like say.....


.... homosexuality that wasn't even recognized as being a non pathological state recently?

You're going to get a lot of dissension among the Christian ranks with that one. Interpretation is a b****

Matthew 5:18
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Critics often bring up this verse as an attack on the validity of the Bible. But, does the Bible teach that it is okay to kill children? The answer, of course, is no it doesn't. But we must ask what the Psalmist was saying and why he was saying it.

The context of Psalm 137 is the Babylonian captivity. The Psalmist speaks of the captors tormenting the people of God (vv. 1-3), a promise to remember Jerusalem (vv. 5-6), and a curse against the captors (vv. 7-9).

The Psalmist is in exile and had probably witnessed the atrocities committed against his people, babies included. In the revenge-style that was so common at the time, he wishes the same upon his enemy as a description of their utter destruction. Nowhere does it say that God approves of the Psalmist’s request or that he fulfilled it. Just because it is recorded that the Psalmist wrote the imprecation, doesn’t mean it was approved by God.

http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/j...lling-children

[QUOTE=DukeOfDeath;32958837][QUOTE=Splendour;32958714]From God's point of view he could have been doing them a favor. They get to be in heaven early where there's no pain, etc.There are several.

There's the one where David states that he'll go to his dead son.

18 On the seventh day the child died. David’s attendants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “While the child was still living, he wouldn’t listen to us when we spoke to him. How can we now tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate.”

19 David noticed that his attendants were whispering among themselves, and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.

“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”

20 Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.

21 His attendants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!”

22 He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ 23 But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

Furthermore, most of these old testament scriptures have already been discussed and debated ad nauseum in other threads, and the believers have made a good accounting of themselves there. It is disheartening to see them trotted out anew again and thrown at unsuspecting believers. It really demonstrates intellectual dishonesty and is very revealing of intention, which is not debate or conversation, but simply a result of an unrelenting and blind aggression.

Yeah that's what always gets spit out by christian apologeticists, but honestly if it were that clear there wouldn't be so many different versions (Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovah's Witness) of interpretations on the very same deity.

You're of course leaving out other Bible verses that list prerequisites for entering Heaven. It certainly isn't a clear-cut issue (and the reason Catholic theology instituted their limbo doctrine).

Exactly. It's the great Christian buffet that led to so many denominations declaring the "real" truth.

[QUOTE=Splendour;32959007][QUOTE=DukeOfDeath;32958837]The Jewish concept of death was of Sheol which is just a fancy name for "the grave". Basically he can't return from the dead (an assumption obviously contradicted later) but David can and will die. The joining is joining in death, no great "beyond" and there is nothing in that verse that suggest otherwise.

I only see one body of Christ. (Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovah's Witness).

Muslim theology seems to me to be anti-christian, so I'd only remove them.

The Jews are covered.

I'm not the judge. If every one of them can genuinely confess Jesus as Lord, who am I to dismiss it?

Well maybe it's an opportunity of self determination for you. You get to study and decide who's right.