Egyptian Mythology

[Joe Sperling]

I believe it is very possible that the reason the name the "Lord Jesus Christ" is not popping up much on this thread is because it is called "Egyptian Mythology" and the person who started the thread claims to be a Buddhist. But besides that I can't think of much else.

-Joe

[Will Jones]

Heide,

Why were some books left out of the bible? I was just reading a history book about the gospel of Phillip (?)  that never made it's way into the bible?

We know for a fact that Christianity spread very quickly and that it took hundreds of years before Constantine called the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.  During that time and after the various church gatherings used their favorite collection of scriptures.  If you read Eusebius' Church History (also called Ecclesiastical History), he describes the process from his perspective as to why certain books were accepted or rejected.  

I stopped at this point in my writing to do a search and found this excellent link with further links:  http://www.ntcanon.org/Eusebius.shtml

Though there were many different perspectives on beliefs and practices in the early Christian gatherings of the first three centuries (and thereafter), the Council of Nicea was called (and Councils after that) to decide on which creeds, scriptures, beliefs, etc. would be considered orthodox.  Scriptures that appeared unorthodox (too Jewish, too Gnostic, etc. ) and were not widely used and accepted by most gatherings were generally not accepted.  But, a few books made it in or out of the cannon with some disagreement:  For example, James, Jude, 2 Peter, Revelation, 2 and 3 John were iffy but were accepted over time.  On the other hand, books that were widely used back then and still exist today, books I would highly recommend Christians read, are The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (called the Didache), The Epistle of Barnabas, and so many others that almost made it into the cannon!

You can find a whole treasure trove of these writings online at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/  On the left hand side in front of the name of every text you will see the date that scholars give to the approximate time of writing and you can compare it to the books in the Bible that are also listed!  There are also many of the Early Church Fathers online too!  I am glad you asked this question because now I know this site exists!    I wish I had this site about 10-15 years ago because I would not have had to carry around all those dusty, heavy books in the library!

Read and be blessed!  The Didache is especially interesting as it states very clearly many rules that the early Christians followed.

After a bit of searching, there are many gnostic texts missing from the site I gave above.  You can find them at http://www.gnosis.org/welcome.html.  For a brief introduction on early Christians and Gnostic beliefs, check out The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels.  Very interesting read but quite a bit "out there" from orthodox Christian beliefs.

[Will Jones]

David and others,

Some of the secular or scholarly books that I have read sometime state that the Egyptian god Osiris, like Prometheus and many others, was very similar to Jesus.  The fact that Jesus was similar to Osiris--a god-man savior of virgin birth who came back to life again--might shake the faith in some because they believe or were led incorrectly to believe that certain mythological themes are unique to Christianity.  I have also heard Christian preachers and apologists state that these similarities are from the devil to try and steal people's faith.  I think this is silly for a number of reasons.

I will use the Prometheus myth as an example.  
(1) Prometheus shares many similarities to the story of Jesus.  On first glance, we see that Prometheus was a titan who in some sources was the creator of humans [creator].  The gods and humans used to feast together until a rift between gods and man occurred [Garden of Eden].  Prometheus, unlike the other titans who sided with the father of Zeus, sided with Zeus when Zeus and the younger gods overthrew the elder gods; thus, Prometheus was not bound in Tartarus--the lowest hell mentioned in 2 Peter 2:4 like the other titans or "angels" [Angelic Rebellion].  Prometheus, more than others, loved humankind and eventually went against Zeus who wanted to keep humans in thrall to the gods [God so loved the world...].  Prometheus took sacred fire from heaven, went down to earth, and gave it to humans so they could have fire to have a better life [I came that you might have life more abundant...].  But this got Zeus angry and he had Prometheus chained to a crag on a high mountain where an eagle would come and eat his insides everyday [crucifixion].  So Prometheus was a type of pre-Christ by his sacrifice for humans.
(2) Yes, there are similar themes, but there are also significant differences in details.  For example, Hercules eventually kills the eagle and rescues Prometheus who then becomes reconciled with Zeus.
(3) There are many different sources used to compile the story of Prometheus.  As I mentioned in the first point, in some sources of the Prometheus-Savior myth, Prometheus is the creator of humans.  But if you discount that source, this chips away at the special relationship notion that Prometheus has with humans.
(4) Like Ecclesiastes said, "There is nothing new under the sun."  There are only so many themes that we have to work with.  Some people like Jung believe there is a collective unconscious that contains many archetypes or universal themes such as the notion of "rebirth," "sacrifice," etc.  There are certain patterns in stories and movies because, as some argue, we are wired to tell and receive stories.  Regardless, many stories of history and fable contain similar themes.

Instead of being bothered that many mythological and historical figures have shared similar themes and similarities with the life of Jesus, just accept that there is nothing new under the sun as I mentioned in my last point.  Instead of looking these similarities as coming from the devil, why not accept them as God preparing the way for the coming of Jesus by introducing all these themes that are a rich part of mythology, history, story-telling, and cinema?

Just because Christianity SEEMS to have borrowed or came after stories of other mythological figures, does not invalidate Christianity.  (Some will argue that Osiris and Prometheus shows that Jesus is not unique.  Well, Babe Ruth was one of many baseball players but there has never been a baseball player like him and likely there never will be.)  These similarities in themes just proves what Jung and Campbell believe:  that there are many themes or archetypes that can intertwine in myths which can enrich our lives.

Here are two excellent links that discuss the Osiris-Jesus comparison.

http://www.geocities.com/intheword1/resurrection_of_osiris_.htm

http://www.geocities.com/intheword1/ohsighris.htm

[David Mauldin]

Thank you Will for you indepth thoughtful post.  I came across a story concerning Osiris that parralles the interaction between King David and one of his prophets, "thou art the man!". Over the weekend I was researching the enemies of the Egyptians.  Probably the most  irritating was a group known as the Hittites! Interesting? During the late 1800s C.H. Pember wrote, "Earths Earliest Ages" Why? Because the Bible didn't jive with the evidence everyone was discovering. In his book Pember attemps to find a way around the standard interpretations about creation.  In 1980 Don Richardson has tried the same thing with his book "Eternity in their Hearts"  He deals with the fact that Redemption/blood sacrafice etc is found in every culture.  My experience with his books is that they fail to really answer the questions and contradictions about  the exclusiveness of fundementalist doctrines.

[Will Jones]

Very interesting indeed about the Hittites!

During the late 1800s C.H. Pember wrote, "Earths Earliest Ages" Why? Because the Bible didn't jive with the evidence everyone was discovering.

Indeed, in the last two hundred years there has been so much new evidence in terms of finding new MSS, books excluded from the canon like Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi [spelling?] Gnostic writings.  For example, the Assumption of Moses mentioned in Jude 9 was not printed in English until the early 1800s and the same goes for many other non-canonical books I give links to earlier on in this thread.  Just think archeology itself did not really kick off until the 1800s and we have learned so much since then--like the fact that dinosaurs walked the earth at one time!  Instead of accepting these new findings, many Chrisitians started scrambling to explain them away and the Princeton scholars developed the false notion of the inerrancy of the Scriptures.

My experience with his books is that they fail to really answer the questions and contradictions about  the exclusiveness of fundementalist doctrines.

 Fundamentalism is a product of a strong reaction to the rise of science.  Fundamentalism as a movement is not yet 100 years ago, though the roots of Fundamentalism did exist before 1905 in the halls of Princeton.  Some secular scholars see Fundamentalism as the swan song to religion, as a last ditch attempt to advocate a dogmatic black-and-white-ism in a grey world.  I guess time will tell.  But isn't it ironic that a movement that intended to preserve Christianity could be the very movement that contributes to the great falling away the Bible hints at simply because this movement advocated a view of the Bible that demands a belief in inerrancy that most people do not accept?

[paul hohulin]

Actually I think Don Richardson makes some valid points in his book Eternity In Their Hearts.  The distortion of general revelation down through time in folk religions around the world has been clearly illustrated through not only Christian, but also secular scholarship.  The social Darwinists have been disappointed in their findings.  And rather than the Fundamentalists I think the social Darwinists are scrambling for answers.
Having grown up in a pagan culture with 2000 different dieties I learned firsthand about the distortion of general revelation.  My parents translated the Bible for a people with no written language, but who had a rich oral tradition which had vestiges of monotheism in it.  Within their tradition was belief in one good Supreme Creator who created everything, the story of the flood, a moral code similar to the ten commandments, and the practice of sprinkling blood over their doors.  This was in a culture in the Philippines that is halfway around the world from where the Bible originated.
What is interesting is that the 2000 different dieties all had negative conotations to their names.  The people lived in fear and bondage to these dieties until the word of God came to them and revealed the good news about the one good supreme God who was in their oral tradition.  The word of God cleared up the distortion and their society was delivered and changed.  I have seen demon possessed witch doctors come to Christ and give testimony to the changing power of the special revelation given in the translated written word of God.  When I first left the Philippines there were maybe 100 believers in that area.  When I went back 14 years later almost the entire society was Christian.  The atmosphere in the villages was free from the domination of the powers of darkness.  The people had been set free.

The reason we see so many parallel accounts of what is in the Bible, is because of the general revelation which God gave in time past, that has been distorted through time.  That is why God gave special revelation starting with Abraham and down through Christ.  Men will always try to suppress the truth of God whether it is general or special revelation.

Romans1:18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

Jesus Christ is the Truth.  God has communicated truth in many different ways down through time and now He has spoken very clearly to the world in the person of Jesus Christ His Son.
Hebrews 1:2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.

[David Mauldin]

Has anyone ever read "The Bible Code"?  In it the author provides future predictions after the fact. So also much of what is written in Eternity in their Hearts. Mr. Richardson takes primitive culture myths and projects Christianity into them.  The same is seen in "Jews for Jesus" presentations.  After a while a person just about gets sick of hearing things like "...these three bread crumbs represent the Trinity..."  Etc  I think what Richardson is identifing is the universal capacity we all have for God/religion itself.  He then takes these things and fits them into his theology!

[Oscar]

While attending a lecture yesterday at the Philosophical Research institute  given by Matthew Fox He noted that on an Egyptian tomb that dates back before Isaiah is found the passage of "scripture"  ...give bread to the hungry, light to the blind, freedom to the captives..."  This confirms to me that the Hebrews are really Egyptians and that their religion has its origins in Egypt.

Dave,

Concerning your conclusion that "the Hebrews are really Egyptians and that their religion has its origins in Egypt."

This reminds me of the old saying that a little knowledge is dangerous.

FYI some very serious DNA studies have been done on both the Egyptian population and the Jewish population.  This was announced in the past couple of years on PBS' NOVA programs.

The one study dealt with the origin of the modern Egyptians.  It compared DNA from mummies with that of modern Egyptians and it showed that the modern population is pretty much descended from the Ancient one.

The other study was for the purpose of verifying the claim of a tribe of black Africans who live in South Africa, have some Jewish pracitices and beliefs, and claim that they are descended from David.   It showed that the indeed ARE descended from the Hebrews.

But my point is that if the Egyptians and Hebrews were closely related peoples it would have been evident to the experts  examining the DNA.

Being an amature ethnologist, archaeologist, Biblical critic and theologian may be fun....but I would't suggest that you quit your day job real soon.

Do you realize that your argument is "someone had thoughts similar to something it says in the Bible, so the religion of the Bible is derived from the guys that had the thoughts first."

Have you ever heard of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc?  

Tom

[David Mauldin]

Tom in case you and I are not getting something clear let me explain my point.  When I was a "Born Again" Christian I was taught that the Bible was "The Word of God"  It (The Bible) was "Divine Inspiration"  So my point is Why then is there so much evidence that  "Divine Inspiration" is taking place elsewhere?  Doesn't this seem to contradict the "Uniquness" of the Bible?
My observations leed me to believe that the Hebrews have adopted their ideas of Heaven from Egypt, Christians have adopted their ideas of  the God/Man from Greece. Yet I could be wrong!
Yes I too enjoy NOVA and will admit it when I seem to be  wrong! (I think the info about the South Africans is great! )This is the joy I have at being an open minded explorer! Allbeit "amature" No Tom I don't agree that Knowledge is Dangerous"  I agree with Thomas Jefferson that we should explore, investigate,  open up everything to debate and reason. Tom it may not be your experience but while I was a Born Again Christian I had to put everything into cartegories, Saved....Lost  etc. But I don't see it that way anymore.  I think you are an intelligent person who has a lot to offer. I have enjoyed the exchange of ideas on this BB.

[Oscar]

Tom in case you and I are not getting something clear let me explain my point.  When I was a "Born Again" Christian I was taught that the Bible was "The Word of God"  It (The Bible) was "Divine Inspiration"  So my point is Why then is there so much evidence that  "Divine Inspiration" is taking place elsewhere?  Doesn't this seem to contradict the "Uniquness" of the Bible?
My observations leed me to believe that the Hebrews have adopted their ideas of Heaven from Egypt, Christians have adopted their ideas of  the God/Man from Greece. Yet I could be wrong!
Yes I too enjoy NOVA and will admit it when I seem to be  wrong! (I think the info about the South Africans is great! )This is the joy I have at being an open minded explorer! Allbeit "amature" No Tom I don't agree that Knowledge is Dangerous"  I agree with Thomas Jefferson that we should explore, investigate,  open up everything to debate and reason. Tom it may not be your experience but while I was a Born Again Christian I had to put everything into cartegories, Saved....Lost  etc. But I don't see it that way anymore.  I think you are an intelligent person who has a lot to offer. I have enjoyed the exchange of ideas on this BB.

Dave,

A few comments:

1. "Why is there so much evidence that "Divine Inspiration" is taking place elsewhere"?  "Doesn't this seem to contradict the "uniqueness" of the Bible"?

Dave, you seem to believe that someone, somewhere made a claim that everything mentioned in the Bible is unique to the Bible, and was never known anywhere before the authors of the Bible wrote it down.   Many of your criticisms seem to flow out of this idea.  But is your assumption true?  I don't know that anyone has ever claimed this.  Can you cite such a statement?  

If not, all you are doing is making a straw man arguement.  You are "disproving" something no one beleives.

2. "My observations "leed" me to believe that the Hebrews adopted their ideas..."  
 
This is why I asked you about Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.
This is a very common logical fallacy that claims that whatever happened before some event, caused it.  But is inadequate to really demonstrate causality.

For example, Thomas Jefferson once said, "Truth is great, and will prevail, if left to itself."   Once I was reading about this in a book on famous quotations which pointed out that an ancient Egyptian had said almost the same thing!

Does that prove that Thomas Jefferson copied it from the ancient Egyptian?  No Dave, it doesn't.  All it shows is that people in different cultures think about the same things.  You would need a lot more information to establish such a link.  You seem oblivious to this and jump to broad, sweeping conclusions.  

When I was an undergraduate the Cultural Geographers believed that Megalithic structures originated in Egypt, and then the idea spread into the Mediterranean area and then into Europe.

This was because they made an assumption that you seem to be making.  It is based on the Darwinist paradigm of "descent with modification"  Something begins, and then develops over time into something else.  However, it is now known that the idea was being misapplied.  

In the 1980's carbon 14 dating was recalibrated by comparing the dates with dendrochronological dates. (tree ring dates) This gave us a very high degree of accuracy back about 5000 years. It was discovered that the megaligthic structures of Europe are frequently OLDER than Egyptian ones.  Stonehenge is older than the Pyramids.  

So Dave, what I am saying is that you seem to come to conclusions on very limited evidence, and frequently make logical errors.  You keep saying that GG fooled you, ie, played you for a sucker.  It looks to me like you are still on a very similar path.  

3. "Yet I could be wrong"   So, act accordingly.  Search, discuss what you are finding out.  But don't come to conclusions so easily and so quickly.  Remember Dave, that is what you did regarding George Geftakys.  Why is doing the same thing with Campbell or someone else a good idea?

Thomas Maddux

Wh

[Joe Sperling]

David----

I read Verne's post and wanted to ask the same thing of you concerning the statement "When I was a born-again
Christian". I take this as meaning "I used to be a born-again Christian, but now I believe differently". If one is truly born-again you cannot become "un-born-again". That would be like my posting right now and saying "When I used to be alive I believed this way, etc."

I believe what is possible David is that you were born-again but have really strayed away. A year after I was saved I strayed away and began reading a book called "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda. In his book he mentioned a deity named "Babaji". I began to pray to this deity, and truly believed for a short while in Hindu teachings. One night(and I know I am only relating an "experience" I had) while asleep this Babaji visited me in a dream. He said nothing but beckoned me to follow him.

I felt very excited to see him, but I had this ominous feeling of great fear at the same time. In the dream he beckoned again but I began running. I then awoke. At that moment a very clear recollection of Jesus Christ burst in upon me. I truly remembered the Good Shepherd, and at that moment all other "gods" appeared so small and HE so huge. I fell upon my knees and asked his forgiveness. I threw away the book and never again have I felt any need to "search" for any other god. I believe the Lord opened my eyes through this very strange event. I point it out because I believe it is possible to be "born-again" yet stray away so badly that we become truly "blinded".

Unfortuantely a few years later I wandered into a "Bible Study" led by the Assembly and the Lord had to "open my eyes" regarding himself once again. But I have never doubted since that time that Jesus alone is the Lord. I believe he is calling to you too David, and secretly speaking to your heart in his "still small voice". I believe he is calling to you to return to himself--not in anger, but in his merciful kindness---ready to accept you the moment you turn to him.

Bear with me for sharing this strange story with you about the dream. We don't believe by our "experiences" but by faith, but I do believe God can speak to us in a myriad of ways--he'll use anything to call us back to his sweet mercy.

God bless you,  Joe

[Will Jones]

For everyone:

People like to think that we all choose what we believe.  Sometimes, through our cultural upbringing and personal experiences, our beliefs choose us.  Often we decide things according to our feelings and will not accept evidence because it contradicts what we presently believe.  We see what we want to believe.  If our desire is to find the truth--the reality beyond what our fallible and finite faculties are able to take in and comprehend--and we are willing to accept whatever we find (in a variety of sources over time) then we will arrive at a better understanding of that great puzzle of reality.  As Tom wrote, nobody should rush into forming beliefs because the light we accept might plunge us into darkness.

We all must constantly test "the light," the knowledge, that we have.  Our faith, pistis, is our "firm persuasion" of what we think reality is.  However, our faith cannot be so set in stone that we refuse to change it if things pop up that challenge what we have previously believed.  I used to believe that the Bible was inerrant, but I saw too many things that contradicted that.  Rather than give up everything I believed or just ignore these facts, I spent years studying and came to what I believe is a proper, balenced outlook.  It took many years, but I am not finished yet... Not until the day I die.

Sadly, you can easily spot people who are set in their ways, who are refusing to examine the light in them, a light that may very well be darkness.  Such people get very upset when you don't agree with their view of the world and do their very best to try and convince you that they are right; they get angry or upset when you present evidence to them that goes against what they WANT to believe is truth.  Such people do not believe in cogent dialogue, but in dogmatic diatribes.  Such people tend not to be very tolerant of others views because they feel a need to convince others (really a form of convincing themselves) that their black-and-white views are the truth in this very grey world.  

Is this thread a passionate dialogue to SHARE our ideas about what we believe could be the truth or is this thread an attempt to PREACH one particular version of the truth.  I am sharing and I will not even venture to try and judge who is preaching.  As I said before, people will listen to you nowadays if you share with them, but not if you preach at them.

I agree that knowledge is not dangerous, but a little knowledge could be dangerous, that is, taking your knowledge from limited source materials that advocate one particular view of the world.  Most people--especially Christians--spend their time reinforcing their beliefs by never straying too far beyond "sound doctrine" for fear that it will affect their faith.  As a result, they miss out on so many things and seem so "out of touch" to people they are trying to witness to.  To be a balenced, open-minded individual who is living in the 21st Century, you have to be well read and aware of the past and present.

A few comments and questions for some posters:

David,

Here is a link for you that I found this morning that deals with Osiris and the notion that Christianity did/didn't borrowed ideas from other religions:
http://www.rationalchristianity.net/copycat.html

Verne,

Your position for a believer like myself makes a lot more sense if we can agree that you may have thought yourself a born-again Christain, but were clearly mistaken. Let me know what you think.

As someone whose salvation was called into question simply because I don't believe the Bible is reliable in matters of 21st Century science, I think it is quite silly for people to claim to know what another person's standing is before God.  Nobody can say with any absolute certainty that they are saved until they stand before the throne.  You can have assurance of salvation based on your understanding of the Bible's message, but not 100% certainty.  Faith is not certainty.  So, pray tell, why does it make more sense in your understanding of Christianity that people have never been born again when they have chosen, for whatever reasons, to reject Christianity?  Verne, are you willing to admit that the light in you could be darkness?

Tom,

I have written about this earlier on in this thread, but until recently Christians assumed that the message and themes of the Bible were, on the most part, unique to Christianity simply because there was not much work to examine similarities in myth, etc.  This is one of the reasons so many Christians reacted so strongly to the findings of the archeologists, Textual Critics, Scientists, etc.  

What cannot be disputed is that we are affected by our culture and our environment.  There has also been cross-cultural exchange of ideas and goods since early times.  Christianity does contain ideas that were the same or similar as pagan beliefs.  But it is impossible to prove if these beliefs were "borrowed" consciously or if they just developed in similar ways independently.  We do know that Christmas and Easter were pagan practices that were incorporated into Christian ritual 300 years after Jesus died, but tracing the development of intellectual history is much more difficult.  Nevertheless, there have been many informative studies on how Paul was influenced by Greek philosophy, have the Jews were influenced by the Babylonian Captivity, and how Jesus might have been influenced by Greco-Roman culture.  

Proximity to Sepphoris: Nazareth joins the ‘burbs’

Jesus is often presented as a ‘hick from the sticks’. But Nazareth, while a small village of around 1,600-2,000 inhabitants, was only a few miles from Galilee’s largest city, which at that time under Herod Antipas was also its capital: Sepphoris, which had a population of around 40,000 inhabitants. The fact that Jesus is not said to have gone there in the Gospel narratives is a subject that also needs to be considered, but not until we focus on the proximity of Nazareth to a small but nonetheless significant hub of Greco-Roman culture. To put it bluntly, Jesus was not like a farmer from rural Idaho; he was more like someone from the home of my ancestors in Oranmore, Co. Galway in Ireland. It is a small place, easily missed, and one could imagine someone from a city asking (to paraphrase Nathanael), “Could anything good come from Oranmore?” (to which the answer is, of course, an emphatic “Yes!”). But while the place is small and insignificant in and of itself, its inhabitants are close to one of Ireland’s major cities. In fact, tourists pass through Oranmore all the time (they rarely stop, though), because it is right on the road from Shannon Airport to Galway City. Nazareth was thus more like ‘the Burbs’ than ‘the Sticks’. Yet here we need to be cautious: there was nothing like modern suburbia, in the sense of a place where people live in slightly more up-market homes who commute into the city to work. But a woodworker from Nazareth might potentially have had opportunities to work in a city of this size, and would certainly have occasionally gone in to trade. Would he ever have attended the theatre? The likelihood is hard to judge, but even if we decide it was unfeasible for economic reasons, a young person from Nazareth would have been in contact with people who had gone to the theatre, and who had studied in Greek schools. What else would he have seen? The city was not home only to Jews, and Galilee did not have the special dispensation Judea had prohibiting images, so Jesus would have seen Greco-Roman cultic objects in his youth as well. He was exposed to Greco-Roman culture, as all Jews in this period were, regardless where they lived, but not in exactly the same ways. The magnificent splendor of the city of Sepphoris, described by Josephus as “the ornament of all Galilee”, was visible from the village of Nazareth, and the walk to Sepphoris would have taken about an hour. “A city on a hill cannot be hid.” We must assume that Jesus knew the city and felt its influence on his life.

            In addition to Sepphoris there were four other cities within about 15 miles of Nazareth.

Links relating to Sepphoris:

http://religion.rutgers.edu/iho/sepphoris.html

http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/archaeology/zippori/Index.HTM

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/sepphoris.htm

Taken from http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/jesus/influences.htm

We have to be open and tolerant.  Now, I am not advocating that we do not believe anything because we can't know anything for sure; I am just saying that we should have faith, firm persuasion, that is willing to change if presented with enough evidence over time.  We can have strong views but they should not be so strong as to be inflexible when proven wrong.

[MGov]

I'm always confused by these long 'dissertations'(Verne - a big word) of 'I did it my way'(Frank Sinatra??) type logic.  If God is truly God then He is not confused and He has His way.  Pray and ask Him to reveal the truth to you.
That was my 2 cents towards this thread.
MG

[al Hartman]

     There is, of course, the old saw about the two clergymen who disagreed over what God wanted them to do.  After extensive arguing, one of them finally told the other, "OK, fine then!  You go ahead and serve God in your way, and I'll serve Him in His way!"

     What i understand Will to be saying is that, Yes, God has his own way, and it is so vast and glorious and wonderful that no one of us is ever going to comprehend it to the point that there is no more for me to learn, and y'all can just come to me to check the truth of what you believe from now on.  
     It's kind of like Teddy Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick."  It's "Trust God and remain teachable."

al

[Oscar]

Will Jones wrote,

"We all must constantly test "the light," the knowledge, that we have.  Our faith, pistis, is our "firm persuasion" of what we think reality is.  However, our faith cannot be so set in stone that we refuse to change it if things pop up that challenge what we have previously believed.  I used to believe that the Bible was inerrant, but I saw too many things that contradicted that.  Rather than give up everything I believed or just ignore these facts, I spent years studying and came to what I believe is a proper, balenced outlook.  It took many years, but I am not finished yet... Not until the day I die."

Will, regarding your statement that you used to believe that the Bible was inerrant, but saw too many things that contradicted that.

For the past 10 years I have worked as a volunteer with Reasons to Believe minstries.  This ministry, founded by a Christian astronomer named Hugh Ross, has assembled an impressive team of scientists, theologians, linguists and philosophers to deal with people's objections and questions.  All the members of this organization are inerrantists.

I have also learned many answers to seeming problems with the scriptures while taking classes and reading.  One thing I have learned is that we don't have to passivly accept the objections of scholars that work on naturalistic assumptions.  They are dismissive of real evidence that confutes their claims.  

It is a good idea to check out their claims before believing them.  For example in one of your (very lengthy) posts you claimed the The flood story of the Bible has been proved to be taken from the Gilgamesh Epic, and the creation story from the Enuma Elish.

Will, did you ever actually READ the Enuma Elish?  I had to do it last November for a Biblical Archeology class I took.  It was a wretched experience.  What confusion...and it is obviously a politically motivated document to show the superiority of Babylon and its chief god Marduk.  Page after page of the infighting, lying, murdering pagan gods...nothing like the Creator God of Genesis.

Here is a quote from K.A. Kitchen, a Christian archaeologist regarding this.

"In the early days, Old Testament scholars seized upon even trivial comparisons between Enuma Elish and Genesis 1-2.  Thus, the Hebrew word tehom, 'the deep', was derived from Ti'amat, the goddess personifying the salt sea waters.  However this kind of support is much too fragile to sustain the theory of Hebrew dependence upon the Babylonian epic, A FACT LONG SINCE RECOGNIZED.  Tehom/Ti'amat are Common Semetic.  Thus thm occurs not only in Ugaritic in the 14th/13th centuries BC, but also now as ti'amatum in the archives of Ebla a thousand years earlier still.  In both cases, simply as a common noun, 'deep', 'ocean abyss'."


He goes on to list several authorities that reject the idea of Hebrew dependence on Mesopotamian legends.

It has long been claimed that the text of the OT was written down at Babylon during the captivity, (7th century BC).  Imagine how upset the fellows that say this were just a few months ago when a ninth century BC inscription described in the OT was found.  That, according to their ideas, can't happen.  But, it did happen.

So, I don't think the case for a Bible full of factual errors has been made yet.

God bless,

Thomas Maddux