???
How is this even possible? Fragments of 1 Enoch were found at Qumran.
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I believe Canaan was the child of incest between Ham and his mother (Noah’s nakedness). This makes me wonder if Canaan’s curse is a metaphor for physical deformity.
I agree with a human view of Genesis 6:1-4, but don’t expect internal consistency throughout the Bible. 1 Peter 3:20 uses the word psyche for human souls on Noah’s Ark, but the verse before uses the word pneuma for the spirits who were disobedient before the flood. It is inconsistent and confusing for an author to use two different words to refer to human spirits in the same passage, and it makes more sense to assume that these spirits are non-human spirits.
Also, the word phylake (prison) used in the passage is never used for a prison for human souls, but is used for the prison of Satan in the book of Revelation.
[quote=“Truth_Seeker, post:1, topic:39593, full:true”]
I am seeking passages from the Bible that you believe transcend what mere mortals could have known at the time of writing. Please share anything that you believe provides evidence of a real God’s involvement in the writing of the text.[/quote]
Many Religious representatives make claims about “God told me…xyz” and we are expected to accept it based upon the fact it is a religious claim. How to resolve any difficulty this presents?
MY God did it differently than all others, without exception.
MY God spoke of the nation of Israel coming out of captivity, in a time when they were not in captivity, and had not been in captivity since leaving Egypt.
He then proceeded to tell them (Israel) that they would be sent back to their own nation to repair the Temple and the city walls.
AND, the king of the nation into which they were held captive would pay all expenses involved in the issue.
Further, MY GOD named this future king, over 200 years prior to the event.
Over two hundred years later, Cyrus, King of Persia, sent the Hebrew captives back to Israel to rebuild the temple and the city walls. And the reason He named that future king, was to establish himself as THE GOD OF ISRAEL, unmatched by claims of other religions.
NO OTHER RELIGIOUS REPRESENTATIVE HAS MATCHED THIS EVENT.
Mormons make claims based upon a false prophet whose only claim to fame is that he made claims that could never be tested.
AND THE BIBLE EVEN PROVIDES THE TEST.
KJV 1 Kings 13:1 And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.
2 And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee.
3 And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the LORD hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out.
4 And it came to pass, when king Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him.
5 The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the LORD.
6 And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Intreat now the face of the LORD thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again. And the man of God besought the LORD, and the king’s hand was restored him again, and became as it was before.
7 And the king said unto the man of God, Come home with me, and refresh thyself, and I will give thee a reward.
8 And the man of God said unto the king, If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place:
9 For so was it charged me by the word of the LORD, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest.
10 So he went another way, and returned not by the way that he came to Bethel.
11 Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father.
12 And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came from Judah.
13 And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass: and he rode thereon,
14 And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am.
15 Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread.
16 And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place:
17 For it was said to me by the word of the LORD, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest.
18 He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the LORD, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him.
19 So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water.
20 And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the LORD came unto the prophet that brought him back:
21 And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the LORD, and hast not kept the commandment which the LORD thy God commanded thee,
22 But camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the LORD did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers.
23 And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had brought back.
24 And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him: and his carcase was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcase.
25 And, behold, men passed by, and saw the carcase cast in the way, and the lion standing by the carcase: and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.
26 And when the prophet that brought him back from the way heard thereof, he said, It is the man of God, who was disobedient unto the word of the LORD: therefore the LORD hath delivered him unto the lion, which hath torn him, and slain him, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake unto him.
27 And he spake to his sons, saying, Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him.
28 And he went and found his carcase cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcase: the lion had not eaten the carcase, nor torn the ass.
29 And the prophet took up the carcase of the man of God, and laid it upon the ass, and brought it back: and the old prophet came to the city, to mourn and to bury him.
30 And he laid his carcase in his own grave; and they mourned over him, saying, Alas, my brother!
31 And it came to pass, after he had buried him, that he spake to his sons, saying, When I am dead, then bury me in the sepulchre wherein the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones:
32 For the saying which he cried by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, shall surely come to pass.
KJV Galatians 1:6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.
13 For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it:
14 And profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.
15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,
16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:
And that is good enough for me.
Hello Benjamin,
Sorry for the late response. I was caught up at work and just generally busy lately.
I simply disagree with this claim. IMO, there is no excuse to not believe in God. Dawkins and Hitchens and Krauss have/had no real answers for the ultimate questions in life. What they do (did) is ridicule literalist interpretations of Genesis and rail against the violence of the Old Testament, without offering or being open to any context whatsoever. If you read The God Delusion, that’s most of what Dawkins does (along with mentioning every evil deed ever done in Christendom) - there is relatively little on the existence of God, and what he does have is weak, even leaders in atheism have conceded that.
As a freebie, I’m going to list what I have noticed that are some, “unwritten principles of atheism” from the Dawkins crowd that are taken as givens, and that some skeptics here have clearly been influenced by (there are more but these are the ones I have at the top of my head):
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Evolution disproves the bible
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Evolution disproves God
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The fact that the bible was written before recordings existed proves its not from God
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Because God doesn’t show up in the sky, on TVs or on cell phones proves that He doesn’t exist
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Because God doesn’t prevent every act of evil, He doesn’t exist
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Because there is no modern science represented in the bible, it can’t be from God.
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The fact that the biblical God promises eternal life to true believers means that humans made up what they wanted to hear.
Notice that none of the above statements are true, but New Atheists feed off of these sentiments and they are, as I mentioned, unquestioned in the movement.
What Dawkins in particular does is 2 things. One, he proceeds on the grounds that the only legitimate interpretation of early Genesis is a literal one (he usually doesn’t explicitly state it, presumably not wanting a debate on something he knows little about and that there are legitimate alternatives). Consequently, he spends much more time on eviscerating the bible and only spends a couple of sentences in all of TGD on TE/EC, saying that their proponents try to, “get God in through the back door”. But, elsewhere (perhaps in an unguarded moment), he says that a God to have created a universe to have evolved man would necessarily have to be, " intelligent…beyond all imagining". Sounds like God to me!
Two, he says that since there is such complexity in the world that God would necessarily have to be too, “complicated” to exist, since someone would have had to create Him. It completely alludes him that God could simply be a simple entity that had the power and intelligence to create physical things that evolved humans would see as, “complex”.
From a believer’s perspective, God speaks to all of us, but originally inspired people that we would say were of the, “ANE”, (Ancient Near East), and He spoke to them in ways that they could understand, like any father would to a young child.
What are you talking about, Benjamin? That line is from the bible! You seem to put your trust more in the teachings of Dawkins, Hitchens and Krauss than in the Creator! Saying that there is no God has no more weight than saying drunkenness isn’t a sin.
“Literally” everyone? In a Catholic or mainline protestant church I would agree. But I’m sure there are plenty of more bible-oriented churches in Australia where many if not most are at least trying their best to live as a followers of Christ. But don’t forget, Jesus himself said that only, “few” would make it to heaven, so truly authentic Christianity will never be mainstream.
Hmm, it would have been interesting to see what the rest of that sentence said. But in any case, the Dawkin’s crowd has no answers to the big questions in life. They all have gone all in on the multiverse, but they have failed to account for its existence, outside of God, or why it would be necessarily fine-tuned.
So, I’ll give you a quick summary of how I see the evidence stacked up for God and the bible:
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There exists a universe that produced intelligent, conscious life.
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There are real signs of intelligence behind the laws of nature as they are unreasonably described by beautiful math.
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Most in history have recognized a spiritual component to existence, a sign of a spirit.
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There exists love, sacrifice, and emotions, a sign of a loving, emotional being beyond the physical.
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There exists purpose in the universe, a sign of a purposeful being.
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There are messianic prophecies in the OT, that we know were written before Christ, that closely describe the circumstances of his life.
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The hygenic laws in the Mosaic code were centuries ahead of their time.
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There is no coherent explanation for evil, other than that there exists a spiritual force in opposition to God.
All of the above are in addition to feeling connected to God through Christ and seeing the fruit of being an authentic Christian in our lives and the lives of other believers.
Evidence that opposes the New Atheist view:
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There is not one electron’s worth of evidence to support the existence of any universe other than ours.
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If there is a multiverse, there is no explanation for its existence
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If there exists a multiverse, there is no explanation for the fact that it is fine-tuned to produce an infinite amount of universerses, each with its own set of physical laws
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Even there exists a multiverse, it doesn’t explain the sense of the spiritual that every culture in history has felt ans has tried to explain. The same can be said of love, sacrifice, purpose, beauty, etc.
At least IMO, Genesis 1 was not meant to explain science, but used the science of the day, the 3-tiered universe, to explain God and his purposes for His creation. Similarly, I see in Genesis 2 plenty of signs that it is more of a origins tradition than the history of human origins. If true, that takes away some huge straw-mans that New Atheists have built their houses on.
FINAL ADVICE: Get away from the idea that SCIENCE explains everything. It doesn’t. But that’s where the New Atheists want us, feeding off of the false notion that the bible gave us, “science” and that it contradicts what we find in the study of the universe. But they have no explanation for what initiated (created) this universe. And Krauss’ book doesn’t explain anything. Outside of the science book their laws break down, so they want to keep us there. THAT’S why Romans 1 is as true today as it was 2,000 years ago, just like Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow!
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On the question of the God of the Bible (ethical monotheism) as opposed to deism, pantheism, etc., I still think that C. S. Lewis’s book Miracles: A Preliminary Study is hard to beat.
As far as supernatural features of the Bible, you might look at the following video, which is the first of a series:
There are specific thematic developments that stretch across the historical breadth of the Scriptures in a way that is not easy to explain as the result of ordinary causes, whether cultural or psychological.
I´m reading Craig Keener´s “Miracles” at the moment and as soon as I´m finished would love to discuss it, but I never came across another book that has worked out this task in such an incredible way and it posits enough examples where you can ask, what is going on here.
I have absolutely no idea, what they´re saying here, and it´s surely not the language barrier. Would you please explain?
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Hello Dominik,
Nobody has said explicitly the above statement. It’s an unwritten sentiment of atheists that I’ve gathered in talking to, debating here with, reading books and articles of and watching Youtube debates of them with believers. They basically say, “all the miracles were done in the ancient past. How convenient.” To some New Atheists it’s almost, if not literally, proof that God is an ancient, man-made idea. Of course, there is no a-priori reason why the God of the bible would have to continue to perform signs in all ages, so the fact that He didn’t is neither here nor there for His existence. It’s one of around 10 ideas that seem to me float around modern atheism that are taken as givens.
Hello Richard,
thank you for your response. The explanation mirrors my own experiences, the “miracles ony happen where you can´t investigate them-strawman” is pretty common, and even used when you have credible sources who even changed their religious attitudes because of it. Like I mentioned above Craig Keener´s “Miracles” deals with it in an astonishing way and provides enough cases including from today.
Another frequently used argument I want to add to your list is, “Jesus was a normal man who the disciples added the miracolous accounts to after his death, to push their own worldview/agenda”. Even as a non-professional historian one can easily see the flaws in the argument and a frequent answer to this claim by scholars are the contradicting perspectives (if it was “staged”, the story would be perfecly fitting), the massive change in the disciplescharacters from cowards to brave preachers who died for their preachings (who would die for their own lie?) and the fact that the disciples themselves aren´t really put in the best light, but described with very human mistakes (e.g. Peters fear of criticism), one would think they would´ve changed that in dictated events.
When I thought about this I came to the conclusion that you can only escalate your revelation so far. We have experiences, medical miracles and spiritual events in the past, and like I mentioned also today, but is there even a possibility to get bigger than becoming human, dying on the cross, resurrecting and promising possible eternal life within God? That was the top of the mountain, expecting more or similar things, is arrogant and ungrateful
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