Go outside and look at the stars.
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@Richard_Wright1 wrote this concise comparison:
quote=âRichard_Wright1, post:231, topic:36232â]
Genesis 1
DAY 3: Plants
DAY 5: Fish and Birds
DAY 6: Animals
DAY 6: Man
Genesis 2
Man
Plants
Animals/Birds
Woman
Seeing that on top of this the 2 accounts use different words for, âGodâ and obvious different writings styles (I would add on top of that they come from different theological perspectives), can you explain to me, Neal, how one can objectively hold that the G2 account is merely a detailed version of the 6th day from G1?
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How can you seriously propose this kind of objection in view of the obvious conflicts that Genesis 1 vs. 2 has already been shown to have?
You write:
âIâm perfectly willing to concede that ⌠we should give way to science on matters of history for the same reasons and in the same way we gave way to science on matters of science.â
âBut if [we] do so on the matters in contention now, be assured that it is only a matter of time before other matters will be in contention.â
Mike, if imperfect human scribes botched up the story, wouldnât God want us to see the flaws and find ways to show that Jesusâ role and necessary participation isnât altered one bit!?
You conclude your apologia with this most dubious assertion:
âUltimately, this will lead to questioning the resurrection of Christ Himself.â
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Millions of sincere Christians have set aside the obvious mis-matches found in scripture.
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And they never question the role of the Savior!
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Instead, what we find are young people fleeing those Churches that teach inerrancy to the extent that obvious problems must be ignored, and that the eyes and ears cannot judge what is Truth.
The more tightly you squeeze a fist of sand ⌠The more sand falls out of your grip!!
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As Christians we can always trust God, of course [edit: or at least, try to!]. (Although I must say I do not believe God has ever revealed any scientific knowledge to us.) Suppose God would now give us 100% certainty that the earth/universe is young and that evolutionary theory is false, without anything else changing. In that case, I would continue doing my research, although with a huge amount of cognitive dissonance. The natural world would keep making sense only from an old-earth, evolutionary perspective and that would remain the only consistent way of interpreting it. I would have to live with the fact that all of human scientific expertise is consistently converging on a certain perspective while the revealed truth is completely different and âhiddenâ from human reason somehow. That would still have huge repercussions for my daily life because I would have to split my mind in two during my research. It would make my work much less meaningful in a way. And I would have big question marks in my head towards God⌠But I think I could live with that and it would not change much (if anything) for me in a practical sense. I would probably have to wait until the Second Coming for these things to get cleared up.
I now understand a bit better the intention of your hypothetical and Iâve given it another shot in the paragraph above.
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Hi George,
âThe more tightly you squeeze a fist of sand ⌠The more sand falls out of your grip!!â
Sounds like Princess Leia to Moff Tarkin in Star Wars.4. 
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When we read the gospels, we see Jesus having a lot of critical things to say about scribes. Yet for all the problems He had with them, He never questioned the text and never encouraged anyone else to question the text. Rather, He seasoned everything He said with âIt is written.â We do well to share His reverence for the text.
Now, @Mike_Gantt, you know this is only half true.
Question #1:
Jesus quoted from what was written when was accused of blasphemy:
Jhn 10:34 âJesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?â
This quote comes from :
Psalms 82:6 âI have said, Ye are gods; and all of you arechildren of the most High.â
So, Mike, do you think Jesus believed that we are literally Godâs?
Question #2:
And when Jesus spoke most vividly about the bread and wine becoming his flesh and bloodâŚeven driving some of his followers away ⌠do you think Jesus was just kidding around and intentionally offended his followers with a figurative image which he did not think was literally true?
What about Matthew 5? Jesus seems to criticize and re-interpret scripture in several instances there.
Glad you asked. In Matthew 5, Jesus quotes from the Old Testament six times (Matt 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, and 43). In all six cases He is criticizing what was âsaidâ or âheardâ about the text in question - never the text itself. Here and elsewhere Jesus accuses the scribes (and Pharisees) of adding to the text, taking away from the text, misinterpreting the text, misapplying the text, and even of ignoring the text (see also Matt 15 and Mark 7 in this regard), but never does He encourage anyone to question the text itself as modern scribes so regularly do. He does reinterpret Old Testament texts, but only to give them new covenant meaning, and thus a new spirit - not to alter their letter.
Jesus acts as if the text is inviolate - an always reliable path to the mind of God. If He had doubts about the reliability of the text, He went to extraordinary lengths to hide it. In fact, as if to foreclose any inference that His mention of the six OT verses in Matt 5 was a questioning of their textual or pedagogical reliability, He prefaced His litany of them with this:
Matt 5:17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
Matt 5:18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. NASB
Thus the text of the Bible is not the problem - not even the jots and tittles of it. Rather, itâs the attitudes, behaviors, and teachings of humans through which that text gets filtered that are the problem.
For this reason I came to this board: to find out if Iâve been misunderstanding the text of the Bible - not to forsake my trust in it.
And so:
Shouldnât we conclude?
o Jews and Christians are Gods .
o At communion, the wine and blood become the flesh and blood of God.
In addition to my prior post, what shall we say about this?
John 8:1-11
Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery;
âŚand when they had set her in the midst, 4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned:
âŚbut what sayest thou? 6 This they said, tempting him, that they might [get] to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with [his] finger wrote on the ground, [as though he heard them not]. 7
So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
@Mike_Gantt, Jesus here teaches us to re-write the words of Moses; how can we do any less?
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That is not true. Matthew 5:38: âYou have heard it said, âEye for eye, and tooth for tooth.â But I tell you. . .â He is not contrasting his command with what was said about the the text. He is contrasting it with the Biblical text itself. What was âsaidâ or âheardâ was the text.
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As I said:
Thus Jesus makes clear to His disciples in Matthew 5:38 that the kingdom of God would not include the human penal provisions of the Mosaic code (just as it would not include its dietary provisions per Mark 7:19). In making this clear, Jesus was not doubting the text, calling into question its authorship or provenance, or altering its wording in any way; rather, He was exercising His messianic authority and responsibility to reinterpret the Law of Moses such that what had been a law of the flesh would become a law of the spirit. The text remained the text.
We should also take note from this that even more important than understanding how the original audience understood the words of Scripture is understanding how Jesus understands those words and what application He sees them having to us.
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This is so wrong in so many ways - gosh and double gosh 
You also said the part I quoted. What you said there was not an accurate reflection of the passage in Matthew.
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Indeed I did. But are you being fair to an author if you insist on analyzing one of his sentences isolated from - and in contradistinction to - the paragraph in which he wrote it? Moreover, I would still say that the sentence itself can stand on the basis that Jesus was not criticizing the Pentateuchal text in its prior usage, but only if someone were to try to employ it in the service of the kingdom of God which He was bringing.
Please elaborate on your view of what Jesus was doing in Matthew 5:38 so that we can see if it is more faithful to Him and to the text than I am being.
I believe you are quite wrong about this⌠in cases ranging from the good Samaritan, the OR text that we are Godâs, and even the rejection of capital punishment for adultery.
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So it is OK for Jesus to reinterpret the OT to give the text new meaning but it is NOT OK for us to reinterpret the OT to give it a more correct meaning? This reinterpretation being based on the evidence God left in his creation for us to find using the mind that He gave us. I hasten to add a reinterpretation of a non-salvation based portion of Scripture is not the same as a reinterpretation of the Gospel message or the new covenant Jesus brought to us.
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Would you kindly list a few of them?
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I wouldnât lump those two things together. Having stipulated that, Iâm all for reinterpreting the OT to give it a more correct meaning. Iâve had this experience numerous times, mainly as a result of studying the NT.
As I suggested, I think the NT is far more likely to lead us in better interpretations of the OT than is the study of nature. And so while I supporting re-interpreting the OT when appropriate, I do not at all support re-writing it.
I donât see Jesus making this sort of distinction, as if there were two classes of Scripture.
Where, might I ask, do you draw the line between the two. Isnât re-interpreting the passages that speak of the earth not moving the same as re-writing the text? If not re-writing you are least changing what the text means to you as opposed to what it meant to the original audience.
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