Thank you, I appreciate the clarifications.

: 'Never surrender a premise, no matter...'
: Are you talking about me or yourself here?

You, of course. I won't surrender a premise without cause, and have my share of failings in terms of stubborness, but like it or not, I haven't noticed any willingness on your part to reconsider or modify any assertion you've made, whether it defies the facts or not. You have repeatedly dismissed evidence and warrants because you don't like the source, or are just certain it "can't possibly be true."

: 'The fact that something doesn't fit your own predetermined world view...'
: Who has the predetermined world view here?

I'll tell you, Susan, I've had the classes, I've read the books and articles, I've entertained the questions and had my own crises of faith. Having looked at both sides, or the various sides, I am convinced that the Bible is the best authority, from the one infallible authority, and that Biblical Christianity is the one and only genuine solution to the questions that matter. So far you haven't brought any new issues to the table, and there really aren't any new issues to bring. Every little bone of contention you've tossed out has been in the literature for a long time, about 150 years, and is scattered all over the web. You can read the same standard questions about supposed Biblical errors on various atheist sites, various moslem sites, and various anti-creationist sites. You can find them argued on numerous message boards and find pages dedicated to refuting each of them, and several others. Meanwhile, back to SA, you have bought into a world view that seems to make it impossible for you to actually consider the problems with the frame of reference - the world view - that you have built your own conclusions on. Yes, it looks to me like you have a predetermined world view.

: 'You have accepted a particular school of thinking...'
: Not at all, but I respect Bible research and scholarship, especially
: when conducted without denominational bias. This is why I hold the AB in such high regard.

I don't think you do respect Bible research and scholarship. At least, I've seen no evidence of it. You have defined a very narrow range of "sholarship" that you deem acceptable, and it is a school of thought that can be labeled "historical-critical" or "higher criticism" or just plain skeptical. You have shown no interest in any other school of thought, and routinely dismiss any source that doesn't fit the historical-critical mold. I have offered you citations and references from Presbyterians, Baptists, Catholics, Jews, agnostics, Jewish Methodists and various others, and you have simply dismissed them and popped out with the same assertions. I guess that's "without denominational bias" since you seem to dismiss any source that doesn't conform to your determined regard for the AB.

: 'Your paraphrase...is not quite what I said.'
: Actually, caf, I believe it's exactly what you said, "It isn't really
: a motion verb. That's an accomodation to English"'

No, please go back and read what I wrote, both the original and #740. The quote snip was a quote, but your accompanying summary was not an accurate paraphrase. You added a generalization in your response that I did not have.

: '"zarah" means to rise, come up...'
: I'm not questioning that, but the NET says that the word used here
: was 'JRZ', which DOES seem to be a motion verb.

The verb is transliterated as Wazaarach or more generally zarah or zarach. I'm sorry if the transliteration is confusing. There is no place in the Old Testament where it is used in reference to motion... It is not a synonym for "rise" or "go up." Haven't I been down this road before?

: 'The sun appears in the morning...'
: Well, not really in the way that a leprosy sore appears. The sun
: SEEMS to 'rise' or 'come up' little by little. But that is only
: an illusion - it is the earth that is moving.

You're taking issue with the usage in the Hebrew Bible, not with me. I didn't write the passages where the verb is used. That's how it is used in the passages previously cited.

: 'The Moody Bible Institute...'
: Talk about a 'predetermined world view'!!! Chicagoans call it the
: Mighty Booble Institute, but that is beside the point.

Yes, that is exactly what I mean when I refer to a predetermined world view, and is the reason I've previously mentioned the logical errors of hasty generalization, poisoning the well and throwing out the baby with the bath water. Neither arrogance nor ridicule are conducive to finding and buying the truth. I wouldn't want to over generalize about Moody Bible Institute or their publishing arm. Like many other publishers, they have some good material, some bad, some that doesn't amount to anything. It is a shame your prejudice leads you to mere dismissal, rather than considering good tools from various sources.

: 'In English, about the only way to say it is "sun rise". What other expression do we have?'
: Well, for starters, how about daybreak, (crack of) dawn, sunup,
: first light, hand me that Roget's Thesaurus and I'll give you a dozen more.

I'm tempted, but no. The problem for the translators in the passage(s) in question is that the Hebrew word for "sun" is there. We have the verb and the word "sun." The English equivalent is sunrise. There are other Hebrew expressions and combinations rendered daybreak (as in the NIV, Genesis 32:24 - you should like that one, it has the Hebrew word that does mean "rise," an actual motion verb, but it is connected to the word "day" not the word "sun"); and dawn (see NIV, Genesis 19:15 - you should like that one too, same verb as Genesis 32:24, it means to arise or go up, but it's used with the word for "morning" not the word for "sun"). Sunup of course is not particular improvement on sunrise, is it?

: '(The geocentric universe) cannot be established as fact...'
: 'There is nothing observable or testable that excludes a geocentric universe'
: Well, I'm not sure that you're saying what you seem to be saying
: here - if you are, I think astronomers and cosmologists, of which
: I am neither, would surely not only disagree, but provide all kinds
: of proof to the contrary. As a layperson, let me provide just two, based on common sense:
: 1. Does the circumference of a circle have a center (that is a
: center point on the line itself)? Does the SURFACE of a sphere,
: such as the earth, have a center? I think not, and neither does
: the universe, for the same reason. The word 'China', as you probably
: know, means 'central kingdom'. Of course, to the ancient Chinese,
: China was the center of the world. Unknown to them at the time, so was Rome, Jerusalem, etc.
: 2. If we assume that the earth is the center of the universe, then
: not only our sun, but the entire universe must revolve around it,
: and this can be easily observed with a telescope. Thus a star,
: for example, 1 light year from earth (VERY close in astronomical terms)would have to circumnavigate an orbit (around the earth) of 6.28 light years (C=2piR) every 24 hours, far, far, beyond the speed of light, which is all the speed there is! Caf, I can't believe you're serious here, but again, maybe I'm misunderstanding you. If so, please explain.

I'm not going to dwell on this, because it's irrelevant, other than the reason I mentioned it, which is that many things we accept as proven facts are actually working premises, or even less. That is the case with the non-geocentric universe. Your thought in point 1 is most likely valid if we live in an unbounded universe, but that is a premise, not a proven (or provable) fact at this time. There is a great philosophical attraction to the premise of an unbounded universe for materialistic cosmologists, and philosophical repugnance for the idea of a bounded (and potentially geocentric) universe. The former has not however been proven or provable, nor the latter disproven or disprobable, at this time. Your evidence in point 2 is not a point at all, because whether or not the universe is geocentric says nothing about the movement of the earth itself or the motion of everything else in relation to it. You are thinking too literally, or classically. The premise of a geocentric universe would not require a stationary earth. The revolution of the earth appeals to our common sense, given the magnitude of the universe as we know it, but has been a slippery issue for experimental proof (as Mickelson and Morley found), but there is credible, if limited, evidence for it.

: 'The Bible is not merely a human product with human understandings and misunderstandings.'
: Here I disagree, but I have a problem with the word 'merely'. The
: Bible is not a 'mere' book, but a very special one, and the reason
: it is so special is the human scholarship that has gone into it,
: for example, the painstaking assembly of Genesis, as we have discussed,
: from pre-existing, unrelated threads. I have no problem with someone
: claiming that the Holy Spirit guided this scholarship.

As described, the Bible would in fact be nothing special. A good encyclopedia could be described the same way, or perhaps the works of Will Durant. Your regard for the idea of inspiration by the Holy Spirit is something we've touched on before, and is not consistent with the claims of Paul, for example, for Biblical authority. See previous posts for citatations about that. In the Bible, while Ezra surely was a scholar, Amos certainly was not. What Amos contributed was nevertheless fully embraced as coming from the mind of God. Jesus chose a non-scholarly crew to row his boat. While Paul and Luke might have been scholars in some convential sense, the other New Testament writers were not. That is the very point emphasized in Acts 4:13. The authority of scripture does not come from scholarship, and is not dependant on scholarship, whether ancient or modern. The authority of scripture is, more than anything else, the authority of truth.

Acts 4:13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
Acts 4:18-20 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." (from New International Version)

Most of the scholars then, and now, were sitting in the critics chairs.

: 'Ecclesiastes...does not make the absurd errors of fact found in
: the myths of all other peoples...'
: Whoa, ALL other peoples? Talk about hasty generalizations, and
: this also ignores the fact that much of the OT was itself 'borrowed'
: from other cultures. Satan, for example, never mentioned before
: 1 Chronicles, comes from the Jews' exposure to Persian Zoroastrianism during the Exile.

A generalization, yes, but not too hasty. I'll gladly retract it if you know of some nation's myths that don't make such errors. And no, Satan is not mentioned for the first time in 1 Chronicles. Satan is of course mentioned in Job, but we'll leave aside the question of the time of Job's writing, which was discussed in a different thread recently, and won't be helpful now. In fact it wouldn't even help if we found Satan in Genesis, since your foregone conclusion about the writing of the Bible forces the whole into the mold you've just described. No matter when Satan is first mentioned in the text, your documentary hypothesis is going to presume Persian myth fathered the concept. It's circular reasoning, and quite unbroachable by any thought outside the circle.

: '(You) have adopted a humanistic slash-and-burn approach to the Bible...'
: I am not a humanist, and my experience has been that most humanists
: don't have a great deal of interest in the Bible.

I did not say you are a humanist. I said you have adopted a humanistic approach to the Bible. Rather than argue the point, here is a definition from dictionary.com, and it is a fair description of your approach to scripture, as we've seen it here.
humanistic adj 1: of or pertaining to a philosophy asserting human dignity and man's capacity for fulfillment through reason and scientific method and often rejecting religion; "the humanist belief in continuous emergent evolution"- Wendell Thomas [syn: humanist] 2: of or pertaining to Renaissance humanism; "the humanistic revival of learning" [syn: humanist] 3: pertaining to or concerned with the humanities; "humanistic studies"; "a humane education" [syn: humanist, humane ] 4: marked by humanistic values and devotion to human welfare; "a humane physician"; "released the prisoner for humanitarian reasons"; "respect and humanistic regard for all members of our species" [syn: human-centered, humanist, humanitarian]

Of course, you do not reject religion per se, but you do value reason (scholarship) or a particular school of thought above revelation. Nevertheless, you seem more a deist than than a humanist, in terms of the specific meaning of that word.

: 'The Brittanica said...'
: It's good that you use the EB as an expert reference, Caf. Published
: by my former employer, the University of Chicago, the EB is indeed
: a fine source of FACTS on almost anything. Have you ever read the
: Macropedia section on Biblcal Literature? It addresses many of
: the topics we've discussed here. Are their experts as knowledgable
: here as with regard to rumination? I especially call to your attention
: to the section on authorship and dating.

And yet, the EB is not without philosophical bias, and it has an overwhelmingly agnostic-materialist perspective, and generally does not include different perspectives. I have read the EB on Biblical literature. I do believe the Biblical adage I shared in a previous post, "test everything, hold on to what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). You do not seem to be willing to understand that the historical-critical methodology is deeply flawed, based wholly on imaginitive manipulation of the text, not on data. Where the Brittanica has data, I value it for what it is.

: 'When Jesus cites Leviticus, He cites Moses...when He cites Deuteronomy, He cites Moses...'
: When I cited the Thesaurus a while ago, I cited Roget, whose name
: is on it, tho' I realize he had nothing to do with writing it.

Been there, had this discussion already. You had no reason to raise the question of authorship, the statement I made could have been taken exactly in the way Jesus' statements are taken - I was purposely ambiguous and allowed you the option of reading it as "the section of the Bible called Moses" rather than "the man called Moses" but it's a burr under your saddle and you can't seem to leave it alone. Jesus cited Leviticus and Deuteronomy as "Moses," and so do I. Why is that an issue for you? Isn't your assertion that "he had nothing to do with writing it" a bit extreme even for your position on Moses? Of course, Moses is described as writing 3 times in Exodus and twice in Deuteronomy. He is described as giving Joshua the Book of the Law in Joshua 1, and we could go on, but I'll just leave it again with a New Testament statement, Mark 10:5, where Jesus says Moses "wrote you this law," referring to Deuteronomy 24. Jesus and the Pharisees thought Moses wrote something, at least in Deuteronomy. The Sadducees believed that too, as in Mark 12:19. I know it seems funny, but I take the testimony of Mark, and the testimony of Jesus and the first century Jews, over the testimony of nineteenth century German skeptics who fathered the reductionist philosophy of Biblical interpretation you've embraced. I'll take Jesus and Moses over Bultmann or any of his predecessors, or successors, thank you.

: 'He is not far from any of us, and we will find Him if we search. (Acts 17:27).'

: Please continue to Acts 17:31: 'For He has fixed a day in which
: He will judge the whole world by means of A MAN HE HAS CHOSEN (my
: emphasis)' Chosen from among whom? We'll come back to this in a minute.

: 'Now, essay, "no claim of literal truth"?'
: What I said was (go back and read it again) that the Writings were
: a COMBINATION of the factual and the fictitious, with no claim of
: total literal truth. I have no reason to doubt that Boaz married
: Ruth, nor have I any reason to doubt, as you do, that the events
: in Tobit took place just because they were recorded a few years later.

Umm, that word "total" wasn't in your post, which I left intact word for word when I responded in #740. You didn't say, "no claim of total literal truth." You said, "no claim of literal truth" was ever made about "the Writings" until "Fundamentalist Christians" began to do so. Tobit of course never made it into the Writings, and wasn't part of this discussion. Your assertion that "Fundamentalist Christians" invented the idea of "literal truth" in "the Writings" was wrong, but consistent with your stated perspective on the Bible and people who believe it.

: 'You have a foregone conclusion...about Luke getting it wrong...'
: No, caf, you have a foregone conclusion about Luke getting it right.
: Secular history seems to confirm different dates and events than
: he reports. Matthew himself contradicts Luke several times, leaving aside the genealogy.

Different emphases and purposes do not equal contradictions. Regarding Luke getting it right, he does so demonstrably again and again. The list of critical questions directed at Luke is much shorter today than it was when the critics started chopping away in the 18th-19th centuries, because new evidence from archaeology and ancient sources in the 20th century has supported Luke again and again in his facts, his dates, his personalities and his terminology. There are compelling reasons to trust Luke when we lack evidence, because he is consistently right wherever we have evidence. But why did you pretend that you were "just asking" a question when you brought up Quirinius and the census, when in fact you were purposefully baiting, already knew the questions, weren't interested in the answers?

: 'Hostility toward the information posted at that link...'
: You are confusing hostility with indifference. As a matter of fact,
: several of their stated beliefs are the same as my own. On others
: we differ. There is no hostility. They are not attempting to have
: their list of beliefs taught in public school science classes.

I think you'd better go back and read your response on that one. I'm not that dense in perceiving ridicule and hostility. That wasn't indifference, SA. Go back and read your own comments.

: 'The Bible....offers no hope of coming to God apart from Christ.'
: Luke 10:25-28, John 5:28-29 do not support you here. One earns
: eternal life, 'comes to God' as you say, by loving God, loving his
: neighbor, keeping the commandments, helping the poor, just as Jesus taught.

I'm sorry, but there are a couple of problems with your conclusion here. The statements in the passages mentioned do not stand alone. John says, for example, that loving God means loving his child, and that we must believe in his son Jesus (1 John 5:1). Jesus said that "if God were your father you would love me" (John 8:42) and that "if anyone loves me, he will keep my teachings" (John 14:23). It is impossible to "love God" or keep his commandments apart from Jesus, whom he has sent (see what Moses said, as quoted in Acts 3:22-23).

: 'You are attacking a straw man here...poisoning the well...'
: No, I'm not, nor am I gilding the lily or belling the cat.

Of course you were, because you were dismissing the information presented about Quirinius and the census by going off on a completely unrelated topic, that you yourself brought up.

: '(Jesus) being equal with God...'
: Mt 12:18 says, 'Here is my SERVANT, whom I have CHOSEN (I said we'd
: come back to this - chosen from among whom?)'. Read Is 42:1-9 for
: the entire quote, a CLASSIC description of the Messiah - the SON
: of God, the MESSENGER of God, the SERVANT of God. Is that equal?
: And by the way, why do you think God quoted Isaiah here, rather
: than saying something original?

Your point, and its relevance are not clear to me here. Jesus was and is willing to submit to the Father, "the head of Christ is God," (1 Corinthians 11:3b). Perhaps though, you shouldn't make overmuch stress on the "equality" aspect of that willing submission, since the same passage mentions that "the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man." Jesus came, "not to be served, but to serve." (Matt. 20:28)

: '...mis-statement about what the gospels and Paul say about the
: resurrection appearances of Jesus.'
: What is mis-stated? Mark, who presumably got his infromation from
: Peter, says nothing about appearances. Zilch. Only that the women
: found the tomb empty and 'they were afraid'. I am saying only that
: the risen Christ does not seem to have been the same as before. When
: Jesus raised Lazarus, by contrast, Lazarus was seemed to be much
: the same as before he died. He looked the same, he didn't walk
: thru walls, that we know of, he could be touched. The risen Christ
: told MM not to touch Him? Why not? Is it possible there was nothing
: physical to touch? Just asking. Also, Lazarus, one may assume,
: eventually died again, sooner or later. It's not the same thing.

Seems like your quote slipped a little bit. What I wrote was "You offer a gross mis-statement in summary of what the gospels and Paul and Acts say about the resurrection appearances of Jesus." And your previous statement which I was responding to was a rhetorical question, "Rose physically from the Dead, even tho' no one recognized Him and He walked through walls?" A bit of sarcasm, eh? So, is that right, no one recognized Him? Shouldn't we go back and read those accounts a little more scrupulously? Not everyone immediately recognized him, that is true, and yet the accounts are only of those who did in fact recognize him, whether immediately or after an interval of being together, which is quite different from "no one recognized Him..."

It is not "possible there was nothing physical to touch." Far too many words would be required to respond adequately, but in the accounts we have various people touching him, immediately near the tomb, and in the upper room later on. We have the undisputed record of the empty tomb. We have the physical action of handling bread and eating bread and fish. We have it that Jesus "breathed" on the disciples. It is clear that the gospel accounts and Paul intended to convey the clear message that Jesus was bodily resurrected. Read 1 Corinthians 15. Certainly the raising of Lazarus is different than the resurrection of Jesus. That is why the word resurrection is only used in reference to what has happened to Jesus, and will happen when the Lord returns. Resurrection is a different concept than merely reviving a body, but it includes reviving the body.

The question about Jesus' statement in John 20:17 is raised in virtually every Bible class that comes to it, Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Jesus said this to Mary Magdalene near the tomb. It is unfortunate that some English versions render this "do not touch me." However, Matthew reports that when Jesus met the women, that same morning, "They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. (Matt 28:9 NIV) We have two different verbs here. Mary had a natural inclination to grab Jesus, and perhaps did before he made the statement reported in John 20:17. The NIV does very well in translating that statement as "do not hold on to me."

A. T. Robertson was an old Greek scholar, his published work entitled Word Pictures in The Greek New Testament explains the phrase this way: Touch me not mee mou haptou. Present middle imperative in prohibition with genitive case, meaning "cease clinging to me" rather than "Do not touch me." Jesus allowed the women to take hold of his feet ekrateesan (NT:2902) and worship prosekuneesan (NT:4352) as we read in Matt 28:9. The prohibition here reminds Mary that the previous personal fellowship by sight, sound, and touch no longer exists and that the final state of glory was not yet begun. Jesus checks Mary's impulsive eagerness.

I think Robertson was a Baptist, so maybe I'd better offer a second source. Here's an excerpt from the United Bible Societies New Testament Handbook Series: John 20:17 Do not hold on to me (RSV "Do not hold me") translates a present imperative in Greek which suggests the meaning "stop holding on to me" or "stop trying to hold on to me." NEB, JB, and NAB all render "Do not cling to me." NAB indicates in a note that this means literally "Don't keep touching me," while NEB gives an alternative translation, "Touch me no more." Mft brings out this same force in "Cease clinging to me." (from the UBS Handbook Series. Copyright (c) 1961-1997, by United Bible Societies) The quote from John offers no support to the idea of a merely "spiritual" resurrection, and completely supports a bodily resurrection. But then, since you usually read from the TEV, and sometimes the JB, surely you knew that already.

: 'No, He didn't say "it would be within a few generations at the most".'
: Well, here is precisely what He said: Mt 10:23, Mt 16:28. Mt 24:29-34.
: 'ALL THESE THINGS will happen before the people now living have
: all died'. Is that a few generations? The quotation from 2 Peter
: is not particularly relevent, and as we have discussed, 2 Peter
: was a 2nd century AD plagiarism of Jude.

As I said, a humanistic slash and burn approach to the scriptures, and no intent to ever surrender a premise, just dump it out again and again. Jude must have really been confused, since he thought he was quoting from 2 Peter. With regard to what would happen within the generation, we have several things, not including Jesus' second coming. We have the coming of His kingdom with power, and we have the proclamation of the gospel, and we have the destruction of Jerusalem, all referred to as within the time frame of the generation, and all fulfilled.

: 'Luke has the maternal genealogy...'
: He doesn't say that, he say that Joseph was the son of Heli. Also,
: Matthew identifies Mary's family as Levites.

Where did you think you saw that, about Mary's family? It isn't in the Matthew I read. Maybe you're thinking of Luke's reference to Mary being a relative of Elizabeth, and that Elizabeth was of the tribe of Levi (see Luke 1:5, 36)? Pardon me if I don't explain this one again.

: 'Adam the son of God...'
: This ignores millions of years of humankind prior to the time of
: Adam as indicated by the genealogies.

You know, you really could profit from reading some of those creationists that you deplore. You've accepted some absurd modern myths yourself, and make God out to be a liar. Not a good thing.

: Caf, I have no problem with Jesus walking on water, I have no problem with accepting things by faith that cannot be proven. Where we seem to differ, however, is that I also have no problem with knowing, or learning, where the rocks are. In this series of exchanges, I've tried to point out to you, and the other readers, where I think some of them are, or might be.

A very unlikely path, established by trial and error, I suppose. Yes, I've heard and told the story of the fishermen before. The story does somewhat illustrate the value of careful observation and critical thinking. However, most fishermen would not park a boat up against submerged rocks, because the bottom would be torn out of the boat in no time. Nevermind hoping for success with the submerged rocks by trial and error, SA, the Rock of Ages stands tall and clear, revealed in God's word, the Bible. Don't even count on being able to go back to the shore for what you didn't bring, plan ahead, you know, that 10 virgins story.

I'm glad you "have no problem with Jesus walking on water." It puts you out of step with your favorite sources, if you mean it, but then you don't quite say you believe it. I hope you do in fact believe it, not as an existential choice to accept something that you don't think is really real, but that Jesus did in fact walk on the water as reliably reported by eye witnesses.