BibleForums Christian Message Board

Quote from: Abigail on February 23, 2022, 04:44:25 PM

We're going in circles which is not productive.

We're not going in circles. I've made perfectly legitimate points that you don't wish to address.

To the contrary. You ignore what I address and repeat your own thoughts. Including references to Tolkien.

As per your last request, no. I won't provide proof. You presume to make statements about Bible scholars etc... without proof.

I don't "presume" to do anything. I know about Rabbinical Judaism because I've studied it and lived it for decades.  You post links to sites that provide fraudulent information.[/quote] That's slander. And you didn't read what I said. "Rabbinic tradition subscribes to non-Mosaic redaction." 

It isn't hard to find.
Ancient Sumerian pictograph Antarctica before the ice, is a search term that should suffice to start you on your journey should you deem it a worthy undertaking.

Yup, and I get a bunch of conspiracy sites about ancient aliens visiting earth. Very worthy.
[/quote]

This tells me what I knew early on in your writings. You're not interested in learning beyond what you presume to know and shall be unmoved from, regardless of errors.
The archeological record and catalog isn't a conspiracy theory.

Please, continue as you are.

Quote from: Abigail on February 23, 2022, 04:32:40 PM

God has predestined all things according to his will and plan and due to his zeal for his own glory.

God is perfect. God has no need for glory. You're mistaking Him for a human being that has desires and needs.

You're making the mistake of not being familiar with the scriptures wherein God's desire for glory are stated numerous times in both Old and New Testaments.
One example by Jesus, who was the Father, himself:
“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again’ " John 12:27-28

Quote from: RandyPNW on February 23, 2022, 11:52:21 AM

If Genesis appears as much a "tale" as any other account of Creation, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, etc., then one's faith would have to take into consideration the differences between the accounts.

A major difference is that the other creation accounts generally have human beings as incidental to creation. Our bible has human beings as the entire point of creation.

I believe creation was to display God's sovereignty, will, power, and zeal for his own glory. As is represented in numerous scriptures throughout the Old Testament.
If humans were the entire point of creation, being God after creating the world and all things in six days and then gazing upon his creation and judging it good, there would have been no tree of knowledge planted yet forbidden to be consumed.

No serpent would have gained access to that which God judged good even with a forbidden fruit in the middle of the garden of his creation. And there would have been immediate forgiveness of Adam and Eve after they innocently fell prey to the serpents machinations. When the serpent already knew the prohibition concerning the tree of knowledge and entered into Eden and exploited the innocence of Adam and Eve to his benefit.

Adam and Eve knew not good from bad, evil from righteousness. Once they ate of that tree's fruit they became like unto God, as God stated. Then knowing good from evil.

By one man, Adam, sin entered this world. Which is telling us, evil predated Eden. Of course! Lucifer sinned in Heaven when he led a war against God there. How does sin exist in that which those forgiven their sins are destined?
God has predestined all things according to his will and plan and due to his zeal for his own glory.


For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.  Habakkuk 2:14
*Habakkuk is the only OT book consisting entirely of a dialogue between God and a human individual. While other books reference partial communications.*

From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.  Romans 11:36

You believe that Moses used others source material for writing Genesis, if you believe that Moses wrote Genesis  at all, right?

You may find this informative: https://www3.nd.edu/~undpress/excerpts/P01137-ex.pdf edited because the former url is no longer accessible. I should have checked that in my library before posting.
New link, Philo's biography of Moshe/Moses: http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book25.html

The Jewish tradition ascribes original authorship of the Pentateuch, a Greek term, to Moses,the  Rabbinic tradition subscribes to non-Mosaic redaction.

How is this different from Tolkien using Ezekiel and certain Nordic source materials as the inspiration for the Valar and the story of the fall of Melchior?

J.R.R Tolkien was a Roman Catholic. https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2021/11/jrr-tolkien-roman-catholic-church-bradley-birzer.html

You still are insisting that an older written text MUST be the original source material for a later text.  Do you agree that if two written texts draw from an even earlier oral tradition that the age of the written text is immaterial?

You appear to ignore actual historic record.

 Why you would introduce J.R.R is a mystery to me because there is no semblance of relationship whatever.

However, being the Sumerian Cuneiform texts are the oldest extant writings in history, thinking an oral tradition that may have been extant earlier and therein nullifies the Cuneiform texts is indefensible. An oral tradition pre-Cuneiform would still predate Genesis.

The fact that the oral, as you prefer to think, tradition of Sumerian culture predated the accounts of Genesis is still relevant to the fact that the Genesis accounts contain that what predated Genesis. Texts that were derived from the Sumerian tablets. Be it a oral history or a written in either culture.

I won't entertain Tolkien further.

And scripture both in the old and new testaments claims inspiration and inerrancy..

That's tradition. In point of fact there is no scripture wherein it is stated outright that the Bible is inerrant. The Bible never claims to be inerrant. Its scripture states the scriptures are true. "The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever" Psalm 119:160 

There is a difference.

God knows man's part in its construction or assimilation over the centuries. He'd also know that man's ego in being empowered by God and the words that man utters leads to devilish sin.
As we know is in evidence in all the crusades and the inquisitions in our religion's history. Man killed to gain supremacy. God is supreme and need do no such thing. Yet the Bible was used as a weapon. And willing men as the instruments of death.

Let's take one example. King David was ordered by both God and Satan to take a census. In two different books of the Old Testament.
The pharaonic histories are not accurate per the actual record, there are scientific inaccuracies, the flat earth myth for example that is upheld by many a fundamentalist.
With regard to Moshe, Deuteronomy 34:5. It is impossible that Moshe would have written of his own death there.

And as regards the Roman Catholic church, their Bible contains 73 books, while the Protestant, that came after the Protestant revolt mind you, contains 66. Interestingly, the 1611 edition of the first KJV contained what are today referred to as the Apocrypha. Though non-Canonical even then.
And of course there's man's part in judging and decreeing the Canon itself.

 

There is nothing in the history of the Bible to demand otherwise despite all the machinations of the liberal scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries.

That's simply untrue. If you believe it is true post the scripture wherein it is stated the Bible is inerrant.
Thinking scholars collaborate to denounce the scripture is paranoia and indefensible when the Bible itself does not state it is perfect.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
God is the word perfect. The Bible is not.

I suggest you study the history of how we got the Bible. You may learn quite a lot you're currently unaware of.
Prior to that, a study of ancient Sumerian culture would assist in that later pursuit.

The Sumerian pictographs , as example, show our solar system with all members including Pluto. Pluto was not discovered by modern man until the early 20th century when we developed a telescope strong enough to find it.

Sumerian pictographs show the continent of Antarctica before the ice shelf appeared. Today's satellite technology has allowed us to map that continent by penetrating the ice shelf. The continent itself is identical to what is depicted in Sumerian texts.

We can't progress as a people if we refuse to acknowledge history. It's how we arrived to where we are today. By God's will and plan and predetermination for our species.

Colossians 1:15-17
(Yeshua) He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Quote from: Abigail on February 23, 2022, 10:08:00 AM

Quote from: RabbiKnife on February 22, 2022, 10:05:58 PM

As Athanasius said, all history was at one time oral.  Finding various versions of oral history memorialized eventually into writing does not make the earliest written version “true” or the “source” of later written texts

If all of the text have some similarities, it is logical to assume some common actual historical antecedent regardless of the manner of storytelling depicted

Consider Tolkien’s use of the fall of Melchior in the Silmarillion as a subsequent allusion to Ezekiel and the fall of Lucifer, as a poor analogy

Tolkien is irrelevant to this discussion. Just as would be the 7 deadly sins being depicted in the classic TV series, Gilligan's Island.

I think the matter of precedent is an issue here. The Cuneiform text of ancient Sumerian culture precedes any other historical writing. If from that source of origin the subsequent texts contained in Genesis appear similar I think it then becomes an issue as regards the divine inspiration Moshe, which is actually a verb,  the Hebrew name for Moses, received.

If copied from Sumerian texts was God then the inspiration for the Sumerian culture prior to the Hebrews? Especially when there were no Jews yet extant when Genesis came to be.

You are still falling for the errant leap of logic that presupposes that “earlier, therefore original source” when both sources claim oral history as source, and further, that the Bible claims divine origin and inspiration and the other early texts do not.

I think the historic record itself suffices as pertains to material historic texts. Cuneiform tablets exist and are dated. Genesis scrolls exist in pieces, as do the tablets of Sumer in many respects, and are dated.
Man proclaims divine inspiration. While the physical material record stands forever. Or as long as the materials written upon last.

Tolkien is, now that I think about it, a perfect example

As I know you believed when you introduced him into this. I respectfully disagree.

You believe that Moses is Tolkien

I have never stated that. 

As Athanasius said, all history was at one time oral.  Finding various versions of oral history memorialized eventually into writing does not make the earliest written version “true” or the “source” of later written texts

If all of the text have some similarities, it is logical to assume some common actual historical antecedent regardless of the manner of storytelling depicted

Consider Tolkien’s use of the fall of Melchior in the Silmarillion as a subsequent allusion to Ezekiel and the fall of Lucifer, as a poor analogy

Tolkien is irrelevant to this discussion. Just as would be the 7 deadly sins being depicted in the classic TV series, Gilligan's Island.

I think the matter of precedent is an issue here. The Cuneiform text of ancient Sumerian culture precedes any other historical writing. If from that source of origin the subsequent texts contained in Genesis appear similar I think it then becomes an issue as regards the divine inspiration Moshe, which is actually a verb,  the Hebrew name for Moses, received.

If copied from Sumerian texts was God then the inspiration for the Sumerian culture prior to the Hebrews? Especially when there were no Jews yet extant when Genesis came to be.

Genesis 4:6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”


Concerning this scripture about how God is warning Cain about his anger and how sin (temptation) is lying at his door and that Cain should rule over the sin. Cain  doesn't and kills his brother Abel.


Is this murder an example of God's will or is an example of His permissive will?


Is resisting the sin God's will but Cain transgressed God's will?


The main question then, is God's will "always" followed?


Would value input because just this past weekend I was reading some posts (elsewhere), where the focus of the discussion is that, "ALL IS" God's ordained will.

 

I consider what God tells us in his inspired word.
Acts 4,
1stPeter chapter 1
2nd Timothy 1

Proverbs 16:9 A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps 
aka/ "Man proposes, God disposes"
"The dice are thrown in the lap, and every decision is from the Lord"   Proverbs 16:33
God has predestined all things according to his will, purpose, and divine plan. And for his glory.

And consider how much of the Bible is prophecy. Prophecy is informing us of God's predetermined plan of events to come.
Revelation being the biggest book to indicate that.