< Insert made-up standard here >
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Origins explain how; they don’t explain why “ought” binds.
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The pressing question, IMO, is: what happened to Jack Dawkins’ “brute lovelessness”? And another: What is the fossil of “ought”?
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This topic is adjacent to the question: How can we know that we are living in the best of all possible worlds?
Quite so.
I have to agree.
And another says “men moved by God”, which as far as I can see gives us a definition of “God-breathed” – god prompted them to write.
Nice analysis – I lean the same way, though I couldn’t have put it as well.
It’s right there in the Abraham cycle: the promise of making his descendants a great nation was given with a purpose, namely that all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
When you look at it from the perspective of second-Temple Judaism, which noted the three great spiritual rebellions (Eden, pre-FLood, and Babel) the whole point of the story looks to be Yahweh gathering all humans to Himself.
Definitely – it wasn’t sloppy scholarship that led more than one translation committee to call the word חֶסֶד (khesed) the central word of the OT; it can be translated as “steadfast love”, “unchanging love”, “grace”, and similar terms.
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In philosophy class (third year) we invented the Dutch philosopher Gerhard DeHoors, who held that “This is one of all possible worlds”.
(The name was chosen to make a joke, accusing some of “putting Descartes before DeHoors”.)
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I suspect few can put things as well as Stanley Porter.
Forcing a modern view requires rejecting the original view so to me it is the same thing.
“Not I said the duck”, You are confusing me with the many others.
Not from me. We are probably closer than you think. I go for a progressive appreciation of God which requires accepting what a earlier text says at face value but knowing our understanding has been changed over time.
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Which is better: creating a moral standard of your own, or choosing among the moral standards created by others?
Which is more likely to be consistently followed?
Jack Dawkins?
Surely the pressing question is then “Even fight my Bill?”
Or possibly “Is it lined?”
Jack Dawkins, better known as the Artful Dodger, is a character in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist
Even Fight my Bill was sung by Nancy in the musical version as part of “I’d do anything”
Bill Sikes may have been a brute but that would seem to be the only connection here.
Brute Lovliness would seem to be a quote by Edgar Allen Poe in the Black Cat.
Having said that the accepted meaning, being the care and love shown by apparent brutish or savage animals, might have some baring on things.
Richard
So what do we do with the abbreviations and changes found in Chronicles versus
what we find in Genesis, Samuel and Kings?
I see no bigger example of two schools of text …. where someone has made corrections,
or made errors seem like corrections.
G.Brooks
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I was simply showing how Richard’s statement was not true. I am sure ingenious apologists can find all sorts of value and meaning in them. Not really high on my list of concerns since I don’t believe God dictated every word of scripture nor do I think every sentence is a standalone, groundbreaking revelation about the world and myself. Sometimes you have to zoom out.
As I am drafting today:
>The purpose of scripture is of paramount importance for understanding the significance of Biblical errors. If a Physics 101 textbook has typos, it is still useful. Even it makes a few mistakes, its content can still be considered reliable for its intended purpose. Maybe the solutions manual copied the solution from last year’s edition or the author conflated two numbers and the final answer of a solution is off. It happens. The text can still be a very accurate and reliable introduction to Physis for undergraduate students. However, if the text gets Newton’s laws wrong, if it makes numerous math errors that demonstrate a lack of understanding of basic calculus and algebra, if the solutions are wrong repeatedly, we would have reason to question the utility of this book for it’s intended purposes. Likewise, if God intends to use Genesis to teach us science or give us a concordant play-by-play account of how the universe was created, then it is not very useful in that regard. The errors would be significant here because they are in regard to the central purpose of what the account intends to teach.
>My own view is that the purpose of the Bible is not to teach us accurate facts about history or science, but to train us in righteousness, equip us to do good works and most importantly, lead us to salvation through Christ (2 Tim 3:14-17). I do not deny that Christianity is a historic faith. Certain events described in our sacred scripture certainly happened otherwise Christianity would not be true. Paul says as much plainly about the Resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor 15:14) and I hold this as true for other pivotal moments throughout salvation history. But the Bible is in the business of transforming hearts and saving lost souls. I believe it succeeds in this regard, and it has held up well enough for any modern person to say, “Hmm, maybe I should check this work out and see what it is all about.” For us Christians, the Bible serves as a window God. It may have smudges and cracks, but it still allows us to see through it and glimpse the character and nature of God, especially as revealed in Jesus. The Bible is absolutely normative for Christians and reliable for its intended purposes even if it has errors.
Vinnie
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But there is the problem. The view changes. it is not consistent from start to finish. You might say it matures, you might even dare say it evolves, but maybe I should not go there after my quip on deviations.
Even there we must understand the difference between perception, understanding and revelation. The Gospels are full of examples of the disciples getting it wrong. We must be careful not to do the same.
For instance, the words spoken by Jesus:
Precise? Or paraphrased? or just remembered.
No camera, video or journalists there.
How many people accurately remember the actions or words of a person before they were famous? When was Jesus really famous? At Cana? Or Palm Sunday.
Why do you think most of Mark’s Gospel concentrates on Holy week.
Richard
No mystery here. What do you think the New York Times will talk about on the front page the day after 9/11? Mark is preaching a crucified Messiah, which is scandalous nonsense for most at the time. Remember this is 2,000 years before all our art, music, sculptures, necklaces and hindsight viewing it as the penultimate event in human history. That will normalizes it a bit or take some of the sting out of the scandal. To me, Christ crucified is like saying the sun is hot. Uh yeah, that’s reality. But turn back the clock to the 1st century. How do you convince Palestinian Jews under Roman imperial rule, and the Greek speaking Jewish diaspora and the Romans who literally nailed Jesus to a cross that He is the Creator and redeemer of the universe? The Cross is central throughout the NT and it was said to be both a folly and a stumbling block by Paul.
He was the equivalent of famous to his followers. How many people had disciples that left family and their way of life to follow someone? Clearly there was something about this man that might cause people to do strange things or really listen to his teachings.
I personally do not fuss over ipsissima verba/vox. What is important is the substance of what Jesus taught. John does some remarkable reframing but he captures the substance of what is in the synoptics.
Do you think God would come to earth and die on a Roman cross and leave teachings for us that would be completely lost or misremembered to the point of harming their basic message? It’s kind of a package deal. If you don’t think we have accurate teachings and information about Jesus, why profess to follow a person you know nothing about?
Vinnie
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lol I think you are banned from using the word evolve.
But seriously, that is why we are here, to discuss it and learn and grow. To wrestle with it.
Fortunately we have a Rosetta Stone. Jesus who Hebrews tells us is the exact image of the Father can help is understand the big picture as we have a full canon now.
I would look for themes and trajectories, forests over trees, generally prioritize later revelation as offering more clarity (but this is not a fixed or absolute rule).
I just read it with a hermeneutic of trust and understand it in light Jesus. I think we can also glean tremendous insight from reading most of these stories in their original context as well–or understanding how these stories sometimes go against the norms of the times. I certainly wouldn’t exclude that.
Vinnie
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This looks like unmarked AI text.
It isn’t. Just accept your error and move one
Richard
My error? What error would that be?
I think you are, as usual, hopelessly confused.
Apparently ChatGPT is not the only thing that can hallucinate.
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