Gospel Editing Precludes Divine Inspiration

[dizerner]

This is getting a little comical and a bit unbelievable.

Dizerner, why are requiring psimmond to give such a detailed and full account to your one statement? I didn't see anything like what your asking for when you simply rhetorically posed a question which paralleled life as you might see it and his description of something else.

Apparently you're not following a simple chain of logical thought. It is being suggested in this thread that:

1. The OT paints a very nasty picture of God.
2. (implied second proposition)
THEREFORE: The OT God is not God.

Now it's easy to see what the #2 has to be: God cannot be very nasty (in our estimation of course). So I turn this same argument he uses against the OT to physical life as we know it on earth.

1. Physical life paints a very nasty picture of God.
2. God cannot be very nasty.
THEREFORE: I will become atheist?

I think his argument logically leads to atheism pretty clearly and directly. If you feel I'm off topic with my short little posts pointing out a contradiction in his argument, let me know and for you, I will stop posting.

[psimmond]

dizerner,

I'd like to address some of the comments in your reply to me and also in your reply to Jeremiah:
You don't know me and you don't know what my family has been through, but overall our lives have been spared much of the suffering that is a reality for many around the world. That being said, I never said or implied that because my life is good, it is therefore not extremely nasty for others. I also never compared my children getting hurt to the suffering of a sex slave or cocaine addict. So I'm having a difficult time connecting my answer to your reply:

Because life is good for you and your children, it's not extremely nasty for many other people throughout time? I see no counter argument for you to reject the proposal that overall, human life paints a very nasty picture of God. What does your children getting hurt have to do with a girl raised from birth to be imprisoned as a sex slave and forced to be addicted to cocaine?

Now, in your response to Jeremiah you said...

1. The OT paints a very nasty picture of God.
2. (implied second proposition)
THEREFORE: The OT God is not God.

Now it's easy to see what the #2 has to be: God cannot be very nasty (in our estimation of course). So I turn this same argument he uses against the OT to physical life as we know it on earth.

1. Physical life paints a very nasty picture of God.
2. God cannot be very nasty.
THEREFORE: I will become atheist?

I would respectfully disagree with both of your arguments.

In the first one I would add this to statement 1: The OT also paints a beautiful picture of God! And if the OT only painted a nasty picture of God, your conclusion would only be true if you could establish that God cannot be nasty.

In your second argument, I would also add this to statement 1: Physical life also paints a beautiful picture of God! I agree with your second statement, but your conclusion seems to be coming out of left field. I believe that physical life often paints a nasty picture of God for those who believe that God causes all suffering. I don't believe that. But I have known strong Calvinist (not atheists) who declare that God's sovereignty means he causes all things and simply accomplishes much of his will through human agents that lack libertarian free will.

Are you trying to make the point that I will become an atheist (if I'm not one already)?

[psimmond]

Steve wrote: You earlier said that you believe Jesus could have been wrong about Moses. And from whence gained you the competence to see the truth more clearly than Jesus did, and to sit as His judge? Surely, if Jesus (and Paul) believed everything written by Moses to be from God (as they both declared that they did), and you insist that Moses did not always speak or write from God, then you are claiming yourself to be right and Jesus to be wrong. Why, then, would you accept anything He said, including "Love your enemies," if He was so totally wrong in His ethics as to endorse the whole Law and the Prophets, which you have discovered to be flawed?

Steve, from whence gained you the competence to see the truth more clearly than I do, and to sit as my judge?

I think we need to tone things down a bit...

I don't believe Jesus or Paul believed everything written by Moses was from God (since neither of them declared that they did).

I'm a follower of Christ, not a follower of Moses. Jesus flat out said he didn't know everything, but that doesn't shake my faith in him as the Messiah. My faith is not in the Torah. It is not in the Bible. My faith is in Christ, who lived a sinless life and died so that my sins could be forgiven. He rose from the dead ensuring that death will not separate me from an eternity with God.

Steve wrote: I was not making an issue of the "formerly-married" or "never-previously-married" status of the women, but of the fact, to which you objected, that all the women, of both types, would be taken into Israelite society and would be available, just like other women, for marriage. I don't know why you would think that this would be more or less immoral in the case of virgins than in the case of widows, but both would be included.

My point was that you are speaking of the situation as if it involved rape and violation of women (you seem particularly concerned about the virgin women, for some reason, more than others).

This response makes no sense to me, which makes me think I might have done a poor job of making my point, so I'll try again: My point was that the women taken by the soldiers in Deuteronomy 21:11-14 were most likely virgins and not widows since they were mourning the death of their fathers and mothers. If the captives in Deuteronomy 21 were all of the women (as you said in an earlier post), there would be no reason to say these girls had to mourn both their fathers and mothers.

I hope this is now clear.

Also, since you seem to think the situation did not involve violation of the women, do you think the female captives were happy after one month of mourning the slaughter of their people (including their parents) to climb in bed and have sex with the men who did the slaughtering? And have you ever asked a woman for her point of view on this?

[steve]

Steve, from whence gained you the competence to see the truth more clearly than I do, and to sit as my judge?

I think we need to tone things down a bit...

Not me, Friend. You seem to be totally oblivious to how serious your error is. You have replaced the actual Son of God with a sentimental human fabrication. Where did I get the competence to judge your views as heretical? From your own statements! You have fallen into one of the chief errors of Marcion, the first great heretic of church history. As Tertullian, speaking for the mainstream Church of the late second century, pointed out, "The separation of the Law and the Gospel is the fundamental work of Marcion" (Against Marcion, 4:6).

You have created for yourself a different Jesus, as surely as did Joseph Smith—and that is not a matter of opinion, but of incontrovertible fact to anyone who reads your statements and accepts the New Testament record. If you do not accept the New Testament record of Christ, then why not just say so outright and be done with any pretense of being a disciple of Jesus. The word "disciple" (the synonym for "Christian"—Acts 11:26) actually has a definition given by Christ (John 8:31)—but since you do not accept what He said about Moses and the Law, perhaps you see no reason to consult Him about the terms of discipleship either?

I don't believe Jesus or Paul believed everything written by Moses was from God (since neither of them declared that they did).

Your fictional Jesus (and your fictional Paul) did not believe everything Moses wrote. Clearly, no biblical witness exists for the existence of such a person as your sentimentalized version of Jesus. Can you show any? You have made no attempt thus far to do so. The Jesus known from the Gospels, and the Paul who established the Christian faith among the Gentiles, said very plainly that they believed everything in Moses and the Prophets (Matt.5:19-20; Luke 16:17; 24:25-27; Acts 24:14; Rom.7:12).

And it was not a small matter with them. Jesus defined His very mission as being to fulfill every jot and tittle (every minute detail) of the Law (Matt.5:17-18), and said that any person (like yourself) who diminishes any of the Mosaic laws "will be called least in the kingdom" (Matt.5:19-20). You might argue that you don't mind humbly taking the position of "least" in the kingdom, but you would only be ignoring the fact that Jesus is describing that as a bad thing in His sight.

Your Jesus did not believe everything in the Law was valid, or if He possibly did, you argue, He was less enlightened than you are, because you know better than He about that. In a recent post (responding to my question of what you would say to Christ's question, "If you do not believe Moses' writings, how can you believe my words?"), you wrote:

I would ask him if he was omniscient. (I'm pretty certain he would say "no" since he told his disciples he didn't know everything.) I would ask him if he had ever in his life made a mistake or misspoke.

So your answer to Him would, essentially, be, "What do you know?"

Your statement intimates that, since Jesus was not omniscient, you might reserve the right to disagree with Him concerning the validity of Moses' writings. Amazing! So you ought to be the Master, and He should be your disciple. He might have some valuable things to learn from you!!

The real Jesus who lived on earth actually saw Himself as the final fulfillment in a centuries-long, reliable stream of God's self-revelation—which included Moses, the Psalms and the Prophets (Luke 24:44). The artificial Jesus that you have created did not think (or if He did, He was mistaken) that these former inspired spokesmen were reliable witnesses.

The real Jesus lambasted the Jews for failing to believe Moses, and said that this defect in them would prevent their believing in Him (John 5:45-47; Luke 16:31). His concern has been vindicated in your case. You first decided not to believe Moses, and this has led to your rejection of the Christ of scripture, who unconditionally validated Moses (Luke 16:17).

The Jews would have done well to disbelieve Moses, if the man in fact was spewing ungodly sentiments in the name of Yahweh. A man who presumed to speak in the name of the Lord, and was misrepresenting God, was to be put to death, by the the decree of both Moses and the prophets (I suppose you don't believe that either). It may seem a light matter to you for a divinely-appointed spokesman to misrepresent God—Heck, you believe even Jesus was guilty of doing so! Moses is known to have misrepresented God only once, and it caused God to deprive him of entrance to the promised land. Or, perhaps, you don't believe that either.

God once said to Miriam, "Why were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" (Num.12:8). You may vainly hope that God did not really say that (since it is recorded in the Torah, over which you have made yourself judge and jury), but the writer of Hebrews believed this statement to have been genuinely from God (comp. Num.12:7-8 with Heb.3:2, 5), and you are taking a dangerous risk in hoping your intuitions are more correct than the witness of both testaments! In any case, you do not seem to have that element of the fear of God that would caution you about the danger of misrepresenting God's messengers (including Jesus)—a deficiency which I find absolutely terrifying.

You give no evidence in your responses that you have even read the statements of Jesus or other writers that I have provided in my challenges to you. Maybe you don't think it necessary to check your beliefs by what Jesus and Paul actually said—or perhaps you don't care what they said, since you seem to have set arbitrary boundaries for what you will believe, regardless what they said.

As one charged with the quality control of this forum, I am going to have to insist that you either demonstrate, by something like honest exegesis, that your representation of Christ is not heretical (that is, that the real Jesus had reservations about some parts of the Torah or the Prophets), or that you refrain from promoting your artificial makeshift of a christ at this forum.

Also, since you seem to think the situation did not involve violation of the women, do you think the female captives were happy after one month of mourning the slaughter of their people (including their parents) to climb in bed and have sex with the men who did the slaughtering? And have you ever asked a woman for her point of view on this?

I have not involved myself in any debate over what makes a person happy and what does not. Many of the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount do not seem calculated to cater to temporal human happiness. That has never been the issue in my discussions, and I fail to see why it should be in anyone else's when seeking truth.

I have concerned myself with the question of the Law's authenticity. Since David, every Prophet, Jesus and the apostles all celebrated the holiness and the perfection of the Law, we are in the position to decide between two options:

1) believe the truth; or
2) worry about temporal emotional happiness.

I have always held the sentiment expressed by A.W. Tozer: "If I can have either truth or happiness, give me truth. I will have eternity to be happy."

[Jason]

Steve, are you familiar with Greg Boyd's take on this issue? I had an opportunity to chat with Greg about this once and I can't really find fault with his view (which, to my knowledge, has not been brought up in this thread). In essence, Boyd says Moses did write everything attributed to him, but God always condescends to meet a particular culture where it is (even appearing as a war-like God when the occasion warrants). We acknowledge this in discussing some of Paul's more cultural statements, such as head coverings during prayer or the length of one's hair. I've heard you make this same point when lecturing.

Boyd's view, which I think is called Accommodation Theory, states that we don't receive a fully-orbed view of God from his dealings within a particular culture. He also rightly takes a Christocentric view of reading the Old Covenant. Paul teaches us that it's impossible to interpret the Law without Christ and reading it as the ancient Jews did will lead us into error.

2 Corinthians 3:7-18:
7But if the ministry that produced death – carved in letters on stone tablets – came with glory, so that the Israelites could not keep their eyes fixed on the face of Moses because of the glory of his face (a glory which was made ineffective), 8how much more glorious will the ministry of the Spirit be?

9For if there was glory in the ministry that produced condemnation, how much more does the ministry that produces righteousness excel in glory! 10For indeed, what had been glorious now has no glory because of the tremendously greater glory of what replaced it. 11For if what was made ineffective came with glory, how much more has what remains come in glory!

12Therefore, since we have such a hope, we behave with great boldness, 13and not like Moses who used to put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from staring at the result of the glory that was made ineffective. 14But their minds were closed. For to this very day, the same veil remains when they hear the old covenant read. It has not been removed because only in Christ is it taken away. 15But until this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds,

16but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom. 18And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

[steve]

Hi Jason,

Boyd says Moses did write everything attributed to him, but God always condescends to meet a particular culture where it is (even appearing as a war-like God when the occasion warrants). We acknowledge this in discussing some of Paul's more cultural statements...Boyd's view, which I think is called Accommodation Theory, states that we don't receive a fully-orbed view of God from his dealings within a particular culture. He also rightly takes a Christocentric view of reading the Old Covenant. Paul teaches us that it's impossible to interpret the Law without Christ and reading it as the ancient Jews did will lead us into error.

You probably know that I really like Gregory Boyd, while disagreeing with a few of his views. However, I have no problem with Boyd's view on this, as you have expressed it. He is thereby affirming that the Law was given by God's direction. It was not, therefore, Moses' misguided invention, as Paidion and psimmond have argued.

Of course, it is difficult to see how God might have given Israel the land of Canaan without it involving war with the Canaanites. He could have pulled a "Sodom and Gomorrah" thing with the whole society, but this would not have left any infrastructure (houses, farms, roads, etc.) for Israel to benefit from. But whether He chose the sword of Israel or the fire and brimstone from heaven, it would have involved Canaanite deaths—though not of the most unpleasant kind imaginable.

It is clear that the Law did not portray every aspect of the character of God as perfectly as did Jesus Christ. However, even in the passage cited from 2 Corinthians 3, that covenant ("the covenant of death") had its measure of "glory"—that is, of its manifestation of God's character. By referring to Moses' face shining, Paul is calling attention to the time when God passed by and declared His "name" (Ex.34:5) or His "glory" (33:18) to Moses. The content of that revelation is said to have been as follows:

“The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6-7)

So, even in the inferior covenant's manifestation of God's character, we "behold the goodness and the severity of God" (Rom.11:22). In fact, the "glory" that was seen in Jesus, according to John, consisted in His being "full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). New Testament scholars have suggested that this last phrase is intended as a paraphrastic reproduction of God's words to Moses: "abounding in goodness and truth" (above). If so, then John is saying that the glory of the New Covenant, seen in Jesus Himself, was not different in kind from that which was revealed to and through Moses—only in clarity.

The errors of the Pharisaic Jews illustrate how totally dependent upon Christ and the New Testament we are to put the attributes of God in their proper perspective, as I understand Boyd to be affirming. It is a mistake, though, to suggest that the Father, whom Jesus revealed, exhibits any attributes that were absent from His Old Testament revelation, or lacks any of those found there.

[psimmond]

Well Steve, I've never been compared to Joseph Smith before!

I looked up the verses you gave (Matt.5:19-20; Luke 16:17; 24:25-27; Acts 24:14; Rom.7:12) and none of them say what you claim they say, but of course you must have known that since you surely read them before posting them.

Steve wrote: Your statement intimates that, since Jesus was not omniscient, you might reserve the right to disagree with Him concerning the validity of Moses' writings. Amazing!

Why? Do you believe the mustard seed is the smallest seed? You don't?!!!! Amazing! Who do you think you are to judge Jesus and set yourself up as his Master!

Steve wrote: You give no evidence in your responses that you have even read the statements of Jesus or other writers that I have provided in my challenges to you.

I have read them, but I see no reason to respond to them. You already did this game with Paidion. You ask him to respond, he does and then you tell him his views are ridiculous. So it would be a waste of my time and yours.

I was disappointed to see the way you completely avoided addressing whether or not the female captives were violated by going off on a tangent about happiness...oh well...

As one charged with the quality control of this forum, I am going to have to insist that you either demonstrate, by something like honest exegesis, that your representation of Christ is not heretical (that is, that Jesus had reservations about any part of the Torah or the Prophets), or that you refrain from promoting your artificial makeshift of a christ at this forum.

Since you don't like my dishonest exegesis, Brother, I'll refrain. (Just to be clear, do you want me to refrain from posting on any and every topic, or just on this specific issue?)

[steve]

psimmond,

Every scripture I listed proves my point to any objective reader. The fact that you think otherwise speaks volumes about either your competence or honesty in seeking to find the meaning of scriptural statements—and tells me all I need to know about your agenda.

How can Jesus saying, "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the Torah to fail," or Paul saying, " all things which are written in the Law and the Prophets" be said to not refute your claim that neither of them said they believed everything Moses wrote?

How could Jesus castigate the men on the road for failing to believe "all that the prophets have spoken (this would include Moses, the greatest of the prophets, and who is specifically included by name two verses later)," while Himself not believing all that they spoke?

The fact that your misunderstanding of Jesus' statement about the mustard seed (you think He was mistaken) makes you feel justified in rejecting His whole view of God and of morality (since He based much of these teachings on the Law, which you, being wiser than He, take the liberty of rejecting) proves that you place yourself above the authority of Christ and are not what the Bible (Jesus, particularly) defines as a Christian. No one who places his own opinion above that of Christ is a Christian, by definition.

You are obviously either blind or in total denial—I have not yet discerned which, but your view is blatant heresy, and your attitude is putting you on my watch list. However, being the tolerant fellow that I am, I don't object to your posting on other topics. We do not require people to be Christians in order to participate.

[mattrose]

I haven't read through this whole thread, but I'm surprised the tone has escalated to this seemingly negative level.

I think it's a bit of a tricky situation

Most all of us would agree in some form of the doctrine of progressive revelation.

So, in a sense, we would all leave room for some inferiority of Old Testament commands

At the same time, those inferior laws were progress at the time, and I doubt someone like Moses would have thought they were lacking.

Is it heresy to believe the Old Testament is inferior to the New in terms of fullness of Revelation? Clearly not!

Is it heresy to believe the Old Testament laws weren't even given by the One True God? Historically, yes. That is technically heresy.

But holding a heretical belief doesn't necessarily make someone not a Christian. They can just be mistaken.

[steve7150]

At the same time, those inferior laws were progress at the time, and I doubt someone like Moses would have thought they were lacking.

Is it heresy to believe the Old Testament is inferior to the New in terms of fullness of Revelation? Clearly not!









To me it's not that the OT commands were inferior , it's more like some info is missing, like a puzzle missing a few pieces. Also it's really interesting that early in the NT Satan is introduced to challenge Jesus and he claims dominion of the world by his offer , yet hardly anything is revealed about him in the Torah. So somehow i suspect there is some Satanic activity involved in some OT situations where he is not explicitly mentioned.