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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Omega: [QB] Hehe. Well, hey, if you've got any ideas regarding that, feel free to post 'em. :) [i]20. What happened to 42 little children who teased God's prophet Elisha for being bald and he cursed them in the name of the Lord? Two bears came out of the forest and killed them all.[/i] Well, to nitpick, the bears killed 42 of them, which may or may not have been all of them. This is another example where I just have to assume God knows what he's doing about capital punishment. [i]21. What reason did God give for tormenting Job? Satan dared me, so I destroyed Job for no reason at all.[/i] Important detail: God did none of it. He allowed Satan to, which is a completely different concept. But that's a detail. The real meat of the issue is, does it really qualify as destroying Job? God CREATED Job, and gave him everything he had. It all comes down to how you look at life: if you look at life as something you deserve, then it's pure torture, because it's never good enough, because I SHOULD have all these nice toys. But if you look at life as something you don't deserve, then every second, rich or poor, sick or well, is still a blessing. And that was the whole point. [i]22. According to the bible, what does Satan look like? A red dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns. Are there still adults in the 21st century who believe in the existence of Satan? If they do, they are forced to picture him as a mythical 7-headed dragon, the only physical description of Satan given in the bible[/i] Yes, and I'm sure four physical horsemen will come along and destroy the world, too. Satan is no more limited to the form of a dragon than Jesus is limited to the form of a human being, or God is limited to the form of the afore-mentioned thunderclouds. [i]23. How does the biblical god treat haughty women? He puts scabs on their heads and uncovers their private parts.[/i] Funny, my translation says "forehead". I guess there's some disagreement about the meaning of that term. Under any circumstances, the point of the entire passage taken in context is that Israel is getting arrogant, and the women are an obvious sign of this. Therefore Israel will be made low, women and all. The women will no longer be running around in miniskirts and jewelry, if I may be allowed an anachronism, but will instead be destitute, sick and without clothing. [i]24. In dollars (shekels), how much is a woman worth? Half a male[/i] Ah, here it is! "If any one of you makes a special vow to give a person to the Lord, you may give money instead of the person." This is what Jephthah should have known! But back to this particular point. This is saying that the work a woman does in the temple/tabernacle is worth less money than the work a man does. Seems reasonable. If I recall, during her period a woman was considered cerimonially unclean, meaning she could only work in the temple 3/4 of the time a man could. Toss in the general rule that men are stronger than women, which would have been even more true in the social and historical context in question, and the difference in work-value seems quite reasonable. [i]25. What happens if a man rapes an engaged virgin in the city, and no one hears anything? They are both stoned to death.[/i] If the woman doesn't cry out, apparently implying consent, yes. I will admit that the law as written doesn't seem to take into account the idea of the woman being gagged, but I would argue that God obviously didn't intend for a gagged woman to be stoned just because she couldn't scream. It isn't consistant with the purpose of the law, just like letting someone die on the Sabbath when you can help them wouldn't be. Also, given the crowding of cities of the time, rape would be a difficult thing to pull of without being caught, which is an important bit of context. [i]26. What is the Mosaic Law punishment for being handicapped? You are not allowed in church[/i] The temple (or tabernacle) wasn't equivalent to a modern church building in any sense. The further you went into the temple, the fewer people were allowed there. Priests were set apart from the rest, being descended from Aaron. Handicapped Levites of the line of Aaron, however, were not allowed to be priests. (This guy desperately needs to actually read the verses he's quoting.) They still worked in the temple if possible, but they couldn't be priests. The idea of priests was intended as a symbolic gesture of the holiness of God. "Hey, see these people that are really really holy, physically perfect, no possible complaint from any angle? They're not good enough to come into the heart of the Temple where I dwell. Even the best of them can only do it once a year, because I'm, like, really freaking holy. Totally." [i]27. According to the Bible, when may a husband have sex with his wife? Not during her menstrual period[/i] Now correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it possible to transmit disease this way? Maybe not commonly today, but we have better medical treatment than they did. Of course, the real question is why women are considered cerimonially unclean during their period. There are a number of possible answers, but the one that most occurs to me is, to give them a break! If they're cerimonially unclean there are fewer things they can do, and the workload is lightened. Just a thought. [i]28. How should you feel when you dash babies against the rocks? Happy.[/i] That may be the most impressive instance I've ever seen of taking a single verse out of context. (If you want combined verses, check Matthew 27:5, Luke 10:37b, and John 13:27.) This is a psalm, the lament of a Jewish captive in Babylon. The point isn't that you should go around killing children, the point is that whoever destroys Babylon will be (he hopes) blessed, because Babylon has really really pissed the writer off. [i]29. How many human generations were there before Jesus? 62. --The bible got it wrong by two orders of magnitude. History and archaeology prove that there were more than a mere 62 generations before Christianity. The species Homo sapiens has existed for 100,000 - 200,000 years, which would be at least 5,000 generations.[/i] All that evidence can be interpreted in different ways. We've been over all that before, though, so I see no need to go into it right now. [i]Matthew and Luke also contradict each other: both genealogies claim to go through Joseph, the father of Jesus (Matthew 1:16; Luke 3:23. Why Joseph? Wasn't God the father?), yet their lists disagree in length and in names--except for Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, an intersection that proves they were not intended to be separate lines. They also contradict the Old Testament genealogies, conveniently deleting and adding in order to make the numbers fit a pattern.[/i] Joseph would likely have been kept in the geneology in a patriarichal society, even if it was really Mary's line. As for the lines intersecting, so Mary and Joseph were related several generations back. Meh. Oh, and the term "son of" doesn't always mean "son" as we understand it, it could also mean descendent. Skipping generations to hit the highlights is insignificant. [i]30. What Christmas tradition is expressly forbidden in the bible? Christmas trees[/i] Um... those verses (Jeremiah 10:2) seem to me to be referring to carving wooden idols, or possibly building temples to false gods. Anybody else see that? I mean, why would you nail Christmas trees together? The point was that Israel shouldn't worship other gods, as always. [i]31. According to Jesus, what must you do to have eternal life? Sell everything you have and give all the money to the poor[/i] Just so you know the context of this, a man came to Jesus, said he'd followed the law all his life, and asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him to sell all he had, give it to the poor and follow him. The man then left sad, because he had lots of stuff. Jesus said TO THAT MAN that he should sell everything. One proposed explanation is that the man was like the people Jesus mocked for tithing: he obeyed the letter of the law, but he ignored the more important matters like justice and mercy. If he had understood the law, he wouldn't have accumulated so much for himself instead of helping others. Another proposed explanation is that the idea was to illustrate the impossibility of entering heaven because of your own works. The disciples later asked "Who, then, can be saved?" To which Jesus replied "It is impossible for people to save themselves, but everything is possible for God." You can't keep the law perfectly, much as this man claimed he had. [i]In America, where state and church are separated, Christians should not tithe--unless they want to be doubly taxed![/i] Again, the problem is looking at this from a rule-based system. We own nothing, what we have we have so we can do good with it. If we can best do good by giving some percentage of our income to our church, then that's what we should do. If not, we should come up with something else. [i]32. According to Jesus, how should Christian disciples treat their parents? Parents should be hated[/i] The concept of hate here is rendered in more modern translations as a will to abandon. The point is that Christ must be the most important thing in your life, above your family and yourself. If you don't, then you can't love your family at all because you can't understand what it means to truly do so. [i]33. According to Jesus, how should slaves be treated? They should be beaten for disobedience, but not more severely then they deserve.[/i] [i]Why doesn't the bible--supposedly inspired by an all-loving deity--ever hint that there is something wrong with such a brutal social institution?[/i] Slavery in this country was a brutal social institution in the vast majority of instances. However, slavery as it existed in ancient Israel was a completely different concept. People became slaves because they couldn't pay debts, or because they were prisoners of war. Hardly the self-perpetuating institution we had here two centuries ago. Further, slaves were released every seven years! The ONLY reason people consider slavery in Israel to have been evil is because the word is translated as "slave", and the definitions are so different I'm not sure that translation can be justified. Of course, now that the real issue in question has been addressed, I note that the scripture in question doesn't address slavery at all! It doesn't say "slaves should be beaten", it says, in effect, "lazy servants (i.e. those who know the truth and don't act on it) will be punished severely." [i]34. What did Jesus say about peace? "Don't think that I came for peace on earth. I came to start wars." --Are these the words of a good man?[/i] Jesus was saying, "Conflicts will arise over what I say," not that starting wars was his goal. Obviously he was right. :) [i]35. Which one of these phrases did Jesus not say about witnessing?[/i] Well, the point here was to get to Jesus saying that his testimony was both true and not true. In John 8:13, the Pharisees say that his testimony on his own behalf was not true, i.e. not acceptable in court, because two witnesses were required by law. Jesus said that his father also testified on his behalf. John 5:31 was simply Jesus quoting the same law the Pharisees quoted later. [i]36. What personal sacrifice for "the kingdom of heaven" was Jesus talking about when he told his disciples, "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it"? Castrate yourself.[/i] The verses in question say nothing of the kind. The context makes it obvious that Jesus is saying that it's hard not to get married. Some can, for various reasons including castration, some can't. If you can survive not getting married, do it. [i]37. According to New Testament medical advice, what should you do if you are sick? Ask the church elders to apply oil to your skin and pray for you.[/i] DLU's local Biblical scholar with no apparent job description actually preached a mini-sermon on this a few weeks back. His opinion is that sickness here refers to spiritual sickness, which is certainly a possibility. We have to consider the body to be relatively unimportant. Another possible explanation is that it doesn't say you SHOULDN'T seek medical attention. :) There, that's about 2/3 of it. Anybody want me to finish it up? [/QB][/QUOTE]
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