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Sunday, November 12, 2006

Despite His Glorious Omnipotence...

...there are 3 things God cannot do...

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

To me it seems a little flimsy to base one's belief that the bible can not lie only on a quote from the bible . . . saying that it can not lie. I mean what it its a lie? I'd want something a little more concrete. Say maybe a mountain range with that spells out the words.

November 12, 2006 11:25 PM  
Blogger Eric said...

When determining how old a piece of rock is do you carbon date a dried fig leaf? No, you test the rock. Why then would you seek outside the Bible for proof of its authenticity?

Besides which, if you did see a mountain with the words "GOD CANNOT LIE" across its face, would you believe that it was a natural phenomenon? Of course not-- we've both seen pictures of Mt. Rushmore.

If you want proof, the proof is-- as they say --in the pudding.

November 12, 2006 11:36 PM  
Blogger Dan Trabue said...

Sinners can't get in to heaven? Jesus would be a pretty lonely God, then.

Born again sinners? Folk who've accepted God's gift of grace - who remain sinners, forgiven, but still sinners - we will populate heaven.

Otherwise, I agree with the other two conditions - God doesn't lie and God doesn't change.

Provided, of course, that we realize that people lie and people change and people have been wrong about God.

November 13, 2006 7:48 AM  
Blogger Eric said...

No Dan. No sinners. Only the Bride of Christ....

When we accept God's gift of salvation, through his son Jesus ONLY, it is our souls that are redeemed, NOT our bodies. Our bodies won't be redeemed until the resurrection or, if we are truly blessed, at the Rapture, but the simple truth is there won't be a single sinner in Heaven.

That's not to say we weren't sinners in our earthly flesh, for it is true that now, in this flesh, we are sinners, albeit saved by Grace, which simply means God will not hold us accountable for the wages of our sin-- Christ has paid that debt. But the moment we are called home this sinful body is left behind... And we cease to be sinners.

November 13, 2006 9:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You can't use an egg to prove its precedence of the chicken. Likewise using a verse from the bible to prove the truth of the bible is illogical. As well one verse can not verify the entirety of the canon. At the most the Titus verse _might_ verify the book of Titus. When that book was written the modern bible wasn't bound together.

November 13, 2006 2:29 PM  
Blogger Eric said...

It is not illogical. You don't test the yummy-ness of a new recipe for pumpkin pie by trying a slice of carrot cake.

The Bible proves its authenticity by virtue of its consistency; by virtue of its consistency of message. Rather than try to explain in my own words I'll bow to someone else...


"Many people contributed to the writing of the Bible. Actually the Bible is a collection of writings from about forty contributors, thirty in the Old Testament and ten in the New Testament. For example, the Psalms are a collection of the works of several authors, of whom David, the "sweet singer of Israel", is the best known. But psalms were also written by Moses, by Asaph, by a man named Ethan, and by the sons of Korah.

"The accounts which have been preserved in the Old Testament date from the earliest times and were both written down and transmitted orally. As time passed they were collected together and received by the Hebrews as coming to them by God's mandate. The prophets transmit God's message to humans, while many of the Psalms articulate cries of people to God. Yet these psalms are also preserved in the Bible as part of God's message to mankind.

"The New Testament stories and teachings were widely circulated among the early Christian churches. The letters of Paul to the Christians in several cities were likely the earliest writings now found in the New Testament. But many other letters and epistles were circulated as well. Gradually it became clear to the early churches which writings were truly inspired and which were spurious or simply edifying messages from pious authors.

"It is truly amazing that all forty of these authors, spread out over 1600 years, have such a unified message in spite of their great diversity in language, culture and time. There is a reason for that! The reason is that these forty or so writers are all secondary authors. There is actually only one primary author, the one who inspired all the human authors, the eternal God.

"Christians believe that the Bible came to us from God himself, who used all these human authors to give us his message, through the presence and inspiration of his Spirit. He did not simply give dictation to these authors, because we observe their unique personalities and varying styles of writing shining through. But God's message, God's authorship, is always there, providing in the end through all the years, exactly what he wanted us to have. In this way the Bible is our own ageless treasure."

November 13, 2006 11:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes EL it is truly amazing that a document that has been reinterpreted multiple times and edited over the course of 2 millennium might be internally consistent. The Dungeon and Dragons series of books have been authored by scores of different people and is internally accurate. No one accepts that as proof of its truth though.

November 14, 2006 1:41 AM  
Blogger Dan Trabue said...

El, I hate to side against you on this one, but there is an element of faith required to accept the Bible (whoever's translating it and interpreting it) as God's Word. There is nothing we can point to and say, "see? Based upon these factors - x, y and z - we can know that the Bible is God's Word!"

That's why it's called "faith."

Now, do I think the Bible, aptly interpreted, is the Book of Truth? Certainly, without a doubt. And I also know that it can be poorly interpreted and misinterpreted. But I don't know of any objective way to "prove" its legitimacy to someone looking for objective evidence.

It would be my suggestion that this is what we're to do with our lives.

November 14, 2006 7:50 AM  
Blogger Eric said...

The bible was copied and translated to other languages. Copied. Not edited. It's groups like the "Jesus Seminar" that actively edit the bible.

November 14, 2006 9:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The myth is that eskimos have 40 different words to describe snow. If you had to copy and translate and eskimo document to english could you get all the nuance and meaning right? What if you took the resulting english document and then translated that into french elementary school? And at the same time sanitize the descriptions of whale hunting so you don't frighten the kids? Would the meaning still be 100% accurate?

The bible was originally written in Hebrew. Then translated to greek in different versions with various amounts of success. Then that was translated into Latin by the early catholic church. Then finally a very bad latin version was quickly translated into the King James Version that is the basis for modern christianity.

November 14, 2006 1:18 PM  

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