Gospel Editing Precludes Divine Inspiration

[TheEditor]

Just to key off on one thing that Steve said; and I will say Homer while I appreciate your caution, I think caution is needed on how we view the Scriptures in the other direction.

I've often remarked that it seems that Fundamentalists make an easily harvested field for Atheists. An unrealistic appraisal of the Biblical record can lead to disappointment once one comes up against data that destroys the notion of complete inerrancy. I have no great fondness for Grace Slick (though I enjoy her plain-spokeness), but I saw an interview with her once and she said (about atheists) "When I ask an atheist how they were raised, they say 'Catholic' and I say, 'Then you aren't an atheist, you're just annoyed.'"

There is truth in that statement. Many atheists are merely disaffected Fundamentalists, Catholic or otherwise, that throw the baby out with the bathwater. So, I started to ask myself, Am I contributing to this problem? Do I present too much "bathwater" along with the "baby"? I think it best to stick only to that which we can know, and present the rest as something taken on faith.

Regards, Brenden.

[Paidion]

Thanks, Homer, for sharing with us your health concerns. I was unaware that you ever had cancer. And I do agree with you that God was involved in removal of the infection. I pray that He will also prevent any recurrence of the cancer.

You quoted Ephesians 5:20

In Ephesians 5:20 Paul writes: "always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father", so why would Paul write this if God is not involved in all things?

Well when it comes to "all things", I think (if I remember correctly) during the discussion of the reconciliation of all things to God, you argued that "all" does not always mean "all." Could that not also be the case in Ephesians 5:20?

To me, it doesn't seem reasonable to give thanks to God for the torture and rape of little girls, or for the extreme agony that 6 million Jewish people underwent from the Nazi regime, prior to their death.

[dizerner]

Have to agree with Paidion's last point. I read a book once that said we should thank God for things like cancer, and it never set well with me. I'd thank God in the midst of struggling with cancer, but I'd have a hard time thinking it was proper to thank him for it.

[Homer]

The point I was most interested in was God's sovereignty and pervasive involvement in the affairs of men, which would seem to include the writing of scripture. Consider:

1 Corinthians 10:13 (NASB)

13. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

If this is true, and I believe it is, then there is a huge amount of attention that God pays to the lives of the total number of Christians in ensuring they face no unbearable temptation, or at a minimum giving them strength to not succumb to the temptation. I have referenced many times Jesus' statement that not a sparrow falls apart from the Father. What does this mean if not His total involvement?

I do not want to leave the impression that I believe there are no errors whatsoever in the NT. I do believe any we find are trivial, and since we do not have the original manuscripts we have no way of knowing how they got there. It is a mistake to insist the are no errors at all; this needlessly causes a lot of bickering with atheists and other critics.

I will say that the NT is scripture; Peter regarded Paul's writings as scripture. And I believe that the Apostles were prophets as much as any in the OT. I believe a prophet is someone who speaks for God, and the Apostles were certainly that.

[steve7150]

I have referenced many times Jesus' statement that not a sparrow falls apart from the Father. What does this mean if not His total involvement?










I think this indicates God's knowledge of everything but not necessarily his total involvment or even partial involvement. Perhaps we need to define what we mean by "involvement."

[Paidion]

I will say that the NT is scripture; Peter regarded Paul's writings as scripture.

How do you define "scripture"? The Greek word "γραφη" is sometimes used in reference to the Hebrew writings, such as those of Moses and the prophets. At other times the word means simply "a writing" and is so defined in lexicons. I can't give you an example of this in the New Testament. Even in the following one, the word translated as "the writing" is a perfect passive participle of the VERB "γραφω" rather than a form of the NOUN "γραφη."

Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. (John 19:19 NKJV)

By your statement above, I presume you refer to 2 Peter 3:15,16. First it is not certain that Peter wrote 2 Peter. This was one of the disputed books in the early church as not being authentic, and if I remember correctly, the experts say that the language structure and expression differs markedly from that of 1 Peter. In any case, it is not certain that the writer was using the word "γραφη" as meaning "scripture" in the sense that evangelicals use it today. He may have meant the other apostolic writings.

[Homer]

Hi Paidion,

OK, look at it another way. I say this: what the OT prophets wrote and said is no more or less authoritative than those of the Apostles. Both are prophets in the same sense: they spoke for God.

[Paidion]

The only absolute authority for the Christian is Jesus—His revelation of God, His life, and His teachings. And they are sometimes diametrically opposed to that of the OT prophets. Jesus is the prophet we should follow.

I agree that the OT prophets sometimes spoke for God. As I see it, at other times they "put words in God's mouth," so to speak. No doubt they sometimes described God's true loving character who cared about people, and wanted them to be righteous and thus enjoy life to the fullest. At others they portrayed God as hating his enemies (Jesus taught us to love our enemies), wreaking vengeance upon them (Jesus taught us to pray for them). No wonder Jesus and the apostles quoted the parts of the OT which portrayed God as He truly is, and omitted the parts that protrayed Him as controlling and punishing.

Someone once commented that the god that is often portrayed in the OT should ask Jesus to come into his heart.

Brad Jersak wrote a book called "A More Christ-Like God." In the following video, he describes the view he presents in his book. Other than Jersak's Trinitarian stance, I agree with nearly all of it. By the way, Brad doesn't advocate throwing away the Old Testament, but reading it as Jesus and His apostles read it. I fully agree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yY782_FPwc

[Homer]

Hi Paidion,

You wrote:

The only absolute authority for the Christian is Jesus—His revelation of God, His life, and His teachings. And they are sometimes diametrically opposed to that of the OT prophets. Jesus is the prophet we should follow.

But we know nothing about Jesus other than what fallible men have written about Him - fallible, that is, unless the Holy Spirit inspired their writings. And the inspiration of the Old Testament prophets is attested to at least as much, if not more, than writings in the NT. I am concerned that your standard is to pick and choose what appeals to you and discount or discard the rest.

I agree that the OT prophets sometimes spoke for God. As I see it, at other times they "put words in God's mouth," so to speak.

The earliest Christians relied heavily on the writings of the Old Testament Prophets as proof that Jesus is the Messiah. If they are not reliable as spokesmen for God then the prophecies about the Messiah must be discounted. Yet Paul (Eph. 2:20) mentions them as part of the foundation of the church. We seem to have a rather weak foundation. How can you be sure that some of what you like, as well as what you disagree with, is not made up?

[steve]

With his recent posts (above), Paidion is in violation of my request to him, as a moderator at this forum.

I have recently instructed Paidion to refrain from posting here any further advocacy of his anti-biblical doctrine of the one-dimensional God, until he has at least answered the objections (rather than ignoring them) that have repeatedly been presented by me and others to his position. I am justified in describing his view as anti-biblical, since it is foundational to his argument that virtually every writer of scripture is untrustworthy when speaking about God—and this would include Jesus, if we take all of His statements into consideration. Any view that denounces virtually every book of the Bible cannot object to being labeled as "anti-biblical."

If he could make a sound biblical argument for his case, I would be interested in hearing it. But how can one make a biblical argument while rejecting the biblical witness? His skirting of the biblical objections presented to him is highly suggestive of the inability of his aberrant doctrine to meet serious challenges. In the absense of such responses, it is merely disingenuous to simply repeat his ideas as if they stand (or should stand) unchallenged. This is not the way honest conversation is conducted, so I have requested that it stop. Nonetheless, we have again this recent offering—again without any biblical defense of the propositions asserted:

[The revelation, life and teachings of Christ] are sometimes diametrically opposed to that of the OT prophets.

I have repeatedly asked Paidion to justify this summary statement. Jesus never expressed any dissatisfaction with the authority or the content of the Old Testament law or prophets. Instead, He said He came to fulfill them—not just parts of them, but every "jot and tittle" (Matt.5:17-18). How could Jesus see His mission as the fulfillment of every word and letter in the Old Testament, if He believed that most of it was contrary to God's heart and mind?

I know of no instance wherein Jesus uttered one disrespectful word concerning the Old Testament, nor taught that any of its teachings are not "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteousness." If we are to believe that Jesus' words are "sometimes diametrically opposed to" statements in the Old Testament, are we asking too much to request a single example of Jesus saying so? Might He somewhere have said something along the lines of, "the Law (or Prophets) said such-and-such, but I must tell you that the opposite is the case!"?

I have previously asked anyone here to present any aspect of Christ's teaching that cannot also be found in the Law and/or the Prophets of the Old Testament. I think there is nothing that can be produced (at least no one has attempted to prove me wrong on this). My challenge is usually addressed to Paidion, though there are others here who lean his way on this matter, so I welcome responses from them (since he has completely ignored the challenge every time).

Moses and the Old Testament prophets affirmed the need to love enemies—at least as often as Jesus affirmed it! To say that they sometimes also spoke of divine temporal judgments is simply to acknowledge that intelligent, Spirit-filled men have usually had little difficulty harmonizing such things with the statements about God's mercy, which they also wrote. Jesus also spoke of God's judgments (even referring to specific Old Testament cases, in support of His teachings on such things), which apparently means that He, too, saw no conflict between the love of God and the judgments of God. When God is seen as a Real Person, rather than a makeshift, comprised of theological components that we think we can stomach, the difficulty is removed.

Paidion himself, in fact, thinks there is a post-mortem place of painful correction for the lost, but does not think this conflicts with God's omnibenevolence (nor do I). Does this not require an admission that harsh judgments and benevolence are both components consistent with the character of God?

Why not take the simplest (and most obvious) approach that recognizes that severe judgments can sometimes, for the protection of society, be handed down by a benevolent, compassionate (and just) judge? This is a scenario for which there is no lack of examples in our court systems. If we can recognize that men can be good in doing this, why can't we recognize that God can as well?

I find it difficult to take seriously a modern theologian who thinks he knows more about what Christ was like, or what He taught, than did the apostles themselves—many of whom wrote unashamedly of God's severe judgments upon sinners, as well as His love for them—and expressed total confidence in the Old Testament judgment passages. I have said repeatedly that the God of Paidion's theology is totally one-dimensional—certainly far more so than any real person ever was or could be. I keep hearing denials of my statement about this, but denials sound hollow in the face of the self-evident.

I agree that the OT prophets sometimes spoke for God. As I see it, at other times they "put words in God's mouth," so to speak... they portrayed God as hating his enemies (Jesus taught us to love our enemies), wreaking vengeance upon them (Jesus taught us to pray for them).

This has been answered thoroughly in previous threads. All I can say is that these claims exhibit the shallowest of conceivable readings of a book (Jesus' Bible) that deserves a far more responsible consideration. The Old Testament tells us that God "hates" sinners. Jesus told His disciples that they must "hate" their parents, wives and children. Why tell us that Jesus said to love our enemies, without also seeking to harmonize this with His command to hate family members? Don't all responsible handlers of scripture recognize a figure of speech when reading Jesus' statement about hatred? What prevents them from recognizing the same when it occurs in the Old Testament? Such selective evidence-handling bespeaks a carelessness concerning truth—especially the truth about God—that I find reprehensible.

No wonder Jesus and the apostles quoted the parts of the OT which portrayed God as He truly is, and omitted the parts that protrayed Him as controlling and punishing.

It seems incredible that any man who takes the written records of Christ's life seriously could make such an outlandish misrepresentation of their contents, since Jesus clearly cited the flood and the destruction of Sodom as true events. However, Paidion's way out of this contradiction is to say that Jesus knew, and was endorsing, some account of the flood and Sodom contrary to the Genesis accounts. Genesis declares these things to be divine judgments. Paidion thinks Jesus expected His audience to see them as natural phenomena. I have asked Paidion for any evidence he might provide, by appeal either to scripture or to natural laws, that might suggest that events like a total flood, covering the earth for a whole year, or fire and sulphur from the sky destroying a civilization, might be caused by natural phenomena—which Noah and Lot could foresee in adequate time to escape.

The only original sources of information about the flood and Sodom's destruction known to Jesus, his listeners, or ourselves, are the records of Genesis. This record not only allows, but insists that these events were direct, pre-announced, divine judgments upon sinful people, rendering impossible an argument that Jesus wanted His listeners to be aware of some contrary explanation of the phenomena.

Well, Paidion knows how to get me going. I have spent hours in face-to-face dialogue with him in the past, and know him to be a very amiable fellow. We agree about many things, but it is exasperating to attempt a serious dialogue on a scriptural topic with a person who personally stands in judgment over the testimonies of Moses, of the Prophets, of Jesus, and of the apostles—but who nonetheless claims to understand Jesus better than those who lived with Him, and whom He appointed to tell His story.

Without the testimony of these God-appointed witnesses, we are left to divine, or to speculate blindly, as to the nature of God and of Jesus. Paidion says he knows such things, but he has no reliable sources that he can implicitly trust for his information. In the process, he creates a God and a Jesus contrary to those reported by the Christ-authorized writers. We can take our pick between the Christ of the Gospels and the one whom Paidion has managed to imagine only by ignoring many of Jesus' clear statements. The choice seems like a no-brainer.

My previous dialogues with Paidion (including a multitude of ignored challenges I have presented), can be found in the following threads:


September, 2008 It's A Thin Line Between Love and Hate... ‪http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=112

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May, 2012 ‪Does God still inflict national or generational judgment? ‪http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=4054

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August, 2012 Did God Really Do This? ‪http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4152

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July, 2013 OT equivalent of militant Islam? ‪http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=4518

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April, 2014 Proof Text for Eventual Restoration ‪http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=4786

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May, 2014 Is God a Hypocrite? ‪http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=4813

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Laws of the Israelites, posted May 1st, 2015 http://theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f= ... &start=140