Define God

Diest TKO wrote:

neologist wrote:

First of all, the fact that the bible may be misrepresented to justify many wrongs, does not make the bible unreliable.

Actually, it does if you are arguing that the bible is the ultimate source to teach from. It actually does. Tough pill.

neologist wrote:

We in the US can scarcely agree on the constitution.

At least we have a system to amend the constitution. At least we learn from our mistakes in the constitution.

neologist wrote:

I have heard the 'hasn't been updated' argument before. What is there about 'love God and love your neighbor as yourself' that needs updating?

The execution. The practice. The insentive.
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That sounds more like a people problem than a "textbook" problem.

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I assure you, things like slavery, equal rights for women, child abuse, and systemic control guilt ARE a textbook problem. It's easy to distance yourself from those like you in the past, but it doesn't make your book/scripture any less dangerous.

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Diest TKO wrote:

I assure you, things like slavery, equal rights for women, child abuse, and systemic control guilt ARE a textbook problem. It's easy to distance yourself from those like you in the past, but it doesn't make your book/scripture any less dangerous. . .

You have failed to establish a causal connection.

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casual?

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Odd choice of adjective.

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Odd idiosyncrasy in your reading ability. Laughing

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neologist wrote:

Odd idiosyncrasy in your reading ability.

You're going to have to explain.

I don't know what demands a casual connection because I can't wrap my mind around the idea of what a casual connection is. Further, I did make a connection, so I am confused as to why a casual connection is what was needed, or failed.

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Causal: Of, involving, or constituting a cause

Casual: Being without ceremony or formality; relaxed

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Another casualty in the battlefield of semantics. I have to check which causality lead to that...

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Another casualty in the battlefield of semantics. I have to check which causality lead to that...

"i was beguiled by santa!"

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Casualties often happen without apparent cause.

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Yes, but they do have, often, a parent cause...

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zing!

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Diest TKO wrote:

I assure you, things like slavery, equal rights for women, child abuse, and systemic control guilt ARE a textbook problem. It's easy to distance yourself from those like you in the past, but it doesn't make your book/scripture any less dangerous.

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I have personally known some illiterate people who are just as capable of causing (and have caused) those same problems without ever having read anything.

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tinygiraffe wrote:

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The Jews (in general; not all) accept the Hebrew scripture prophecies about the messiah; however, they do not consider the messiah to have arrived yet.

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right, and the bible is the reason they think he hasn't. your version of it is longer, but it includes (rather than discards) the same parts of it in question.

See 2 Timothy 3:16. The Bible from Genesis to Revelation was written by Jews under divine authorship. They were entrusted with the care and preservation of the Word.

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why do you interpret it differently than they do?

I try to avoid personal interpretation "like the plague."

One problem for the Jews waiting for the Messiah is that he will appear from the tribe of Judah. They have trouble identifying who belongs to that tribe since tribal records were destroyed in 70 AD.

Matthew to Revelation discusses his appearance, death, resurrection, return to heaven and events that are still future that he will be directly involved in. It also discusses problems that Jews had converting to Christianity (no easy task).

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Genesis 40:8 and 2 Peter 1:20 explain what is needed to come to the same conclusions. In actuality, as you have noticed, most folks come up with their own interpretations or conclusions.

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but it also explains what's needed to come to different conclusions. how do you know you aren't one of the people drawing his own interpretations? and what do you think of "midrash?"

Let me answer this with a question. How do you know whether someone is lying to you or someone is telling you the truth?

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I accept Scripture as the authority; and I also accept that most people today do not accept it as authoritative. Perhaps this accounts for any perceived "edge" that you feel I might have.

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maybe, but actually i don't believe most people have an edge... maybe no one does overall.

The one real "edge" I see is available to most if not all people. It is what the Bible calls being "meek; teachable." Some people tend to "know it all" while others tend to listen, observe and learn.

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i think everyone has his own, but i don't think there's a single right interpretation. if the scriptures are written by the god of abraham, i have to assume (for now) that midrash was intended. that's where we seem to disagree.

Let's test this out. Try Reading Psalm 37 & 72, then let's compare notes.

Dr. Jacob Neusner explains that the word 'Midrash' is based on a
Hebrew word meaning 'interpretation' or 'exegesis'. He shows that the
term 'Midrash' has three main usages:
1. The term 'Midrash' can refer to a particular way of reading and
interpreting a biblical verse.
2. The term 'Midrash' can refer to a book - a compilation of
Midrashic teachings.
3. The term 'Midrash' can refer to a particular verse and its
interpretation.

Midrash, as best as I can tell, could be compared to Seminary education. Most people let their spiritual leader tell them what to believe. I believe this is a "big mistake" to quote an actor turned governor.

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for someone who's been studying the bible for 25 years to have missed out on the entire concept of midrash is a tragedy, because you miss out on the way the bible's been read since well before jesus's time.

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but it also explains what's needed to come to different conclusions. how do you know you aren't one of the people drawing his own interpretations? and what do you think of "midrash?"

Let me answer this with a question. How do you know whether someone is lying to you or someone is telling you the truth?

mostly via cues you can't get from text, and by cross referencing the information with everything else i can find on the matter. the former doesn't apply, and the latter we can both do. so again, i fail to see how you have an edge that would enable you to find the "one true meaning" when we can't.

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The one real "edge" I see is available to most if not all people. It is what the Bible calls being "meek; teachable." Some people tend to "know it all" while others tend to listen, observe and learn.

i would never consider a person "meek" who instead of taking responsibility needs to shove all the world's problems on to non christians and jews. of course, that isn't all you've done, i'm sure you do take some responsibility, but the point applies i think.

furthermore the fact that you reject midrash, which isn't like seminary by the way, seems you're much less willing to learn/much less teachable than someone who rejects the idea that the bible is concrete. who is more willing to learn? someone who can listen to the merit of fifty explanations, or someone who insists his is the only one with merit?

who is more meek, the one who knows he might be wrong, or the one who thinks he knows he can always tell which is right? i think you're many things, but i see no signs of meekness. i see patience, i'll give you that, but i think it's the patience of the conqueror, the crusader, the hunter- not the meek. i find it very difficult to believe you come here to learn anything. after all, you're one of the few of us with the "right" interpretation!

jesus was meek. he seemed to pull out midrash when others pulled out laws. you can find accounts of him doing it in the bible.

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hankarin wrote:

Diest TKO wrote:
I assure you, things like slavery, equal rights for women, child abuse, and systemic control guilt ARE a textbook problem. It's easy to distance yourself from those like you in the past, but it doesn't make your book/scripture any less dangerous.

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I have personally known some illiterate people who are just as capable of causing (and have caused) those same problems without ever having read anything.

Relavance = 0.

The acts of the book are no less wrong because of any other's actions.
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tinygiraffe wrote:

for someone who's been studying the bible for 25 years to have missed out on the entire concept of midrash is a tragedy, because you miss out on the way the bible's been read since well before jesus's time. jesus was meek. he seemed to pull out midrash when others pulled out laws. you can find accounts of him doing it in the bible.

Thank you for the lecture. You're the midrash expert, not me. Now, please give me an example. I would be pleased to consider one.

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Diest TKO wrote:

hankarin wrote:
Diest TKO wrote:
I assure you, things like slavery, equal rights for women, child abuse, and systemic control guilt ARE a textbook problem. It's easy to distance yourself from those like you in the past, but it doesn't make your book/scripture any less dangerous.

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I have personally known some illiterate people who are just as capable of causing (and have caused) those same problems without ever having read anything.

Relavance = 0.

The acts of the book are no less wrong because of any other's actions.
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The acts of the book are no less right because of any other's actions.

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Sorry. Not a two way street. The bible is bad independant of how people act.

What you tried to say earlier was that people who don't read the bible do bad things as well. This is not a congruency that yeild reversibility. Sorry.

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hankarin wrote:

You're the midrash expert, not me. Now, please give me an example. I would be pleased to consider one.

well for instance, when you interpret "whore of babylon" as the catholic church, and mormons interpret it as all non-mormon churches, and others consider him/her to be the antichrist, and others interpret it to be israel/judea, specifically the nation of people who rejected jesus as the savior.

i would say that this isn't the best example i could possibly think of, but it's the first one that comes to mind. ordinarily when people talk about midrash, they're referring to the old testament.

but midrash isn't possible if you think there is only one true meaning. the difference between your stand and my stand is that you think "one true meaning" confirms your point of view, where i think your point of view necessitates, depends on midrash being legitimate- without midrash, your point of view simply would not exist in the first place. but it opens up the bible to many other interpretations as well.

most importantly, midrash is interpretation. you think midrash is wrong by default, but there isn't a default. midrash can be right or wrong, but there can be more than one "right" interpretation, so long as the bible is worded on more than one level.

the point of midrash is to read on each level, with the knowledge that we don't know how many levels there are. to reject it is to reject the meaning of scripture, and keep only the words.

you participate in midrash all the time, but you insist it's false, and that you don't do it yourself. you can call it what you want to, and you can tell me you don't do it, but it's there for anyone to see.

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