RevGadfly's response to Mike Abernathy -- McKinsey's Biblical Errancy Forum Group

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Date Posted: 04:34:34 03/28/02 Thu
Author: Paul for the Rev
Subject: RevGadfly's response to Mike Abernathy

kloMcKinsey wrote:

>Could someone straighten him out.
>
>Dennis
>
>Subject: Your errancy pamphlets
>Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 20:06:03 -0600
>From: "Mike Abernathy"
>To:
>

RevG

Hello Mike. Mr. McKinsey forwarded your message to the B.E. panel, where like
minded people assist him with his workload.

Mike:
>Dear Sir,
> I've taken a look at your pamphlets on errancy, and many of the points are
well made. Several of them, however, seemed foolish and naive. These are from
your two pamphlets.
>
>

pamphlet:
>3. God created Adam, so he must have been perfect. How then, could he
>have sinned? Regardless of how much free will he had, if he chose to
>sin, he wasn't perfect.
>

Mike
>God never said Adam was perfect. He was created with potential- the potential
to sin. He was not created evil, but chose that path for himself. Calling him
perfect would be like calling any killer perfect. The killer had the potential
to be perfect, but he wasn't.

RevG

First of all, the story of Adam is allegory, not a historical event. Adam is
simply the Hebrew word for 'mankind'; and Eve is a Greek version of the Hebrew
word:
Lexicon for Strong's Number 02332 Go to Gen 3:20
02332 Chavvah {khav-vaw'}
causatively from 02331;; n pr f
AV - Eve 2; 2
Eve = "life" or "living"
1) the first woman, wife of Adam

So the allegory is that man became preoccupied with life and turned his back on
YHWH. It is Christians with their strange doctrine of original sin passing down
the generations, although this conflicts with the teachings of the Jewish
scriptures. As allegory, the message has nothing to do with perfection.

Second, if we want to take this as a historical event, then the issue becomes a
nightmare of contradictions and blasphemy. It implies that a perfect God with a
perfect mind somehow created something imperfect; it also implies that a talking
snake [the creature in the text is identified as a beast of the field, not a
fallen angel] somehow steals the creation away from the perfect God and the God
instead of admitting his own error, curses children [adam and eve were morally
speaking children] instead of correcting the error. Imagine if we went out
tomorrow and found our car not starting, would we curse it, or would we fix it.

If ever you read the story Frankenstein, you would realize the real villian
isn't the monster, but his creator who refuses to take responsibility for his
actions. In short, the novel has the creature judge his creator, who is found
wanting.

It is silly to read an allegory as a historical event.

pamphlet:
>
>13. We are told the Bible has no scientific errors, yet it says the bat
>is a bird (Lev. 11:13,19), hares chew the cud (Lev. 11:5-6), and some
>fowl (Lev. 11:20-21) and insects (Lev. 11:22-23) have four legs.
>

Mike
>Hares chewing cut, I'm not sure about. The insects and birds, I'm also not
sure about. But the bats, I have somewhat of an explanation for. Back in
biblical times, the modern scientific classification system was non-existent. A
bird may have been "a thing that flies" and bats may well have been labeled with
birds. We honestly have no way of knowing the exact classification system they
used back then.

RevG

What a lame excuse, we are not talking about some silly old Jew here, but about
some divine being who states the above error. A bat is not a bird, and one is
not expecting too much to expect an omnscient being to set the record straight.
If YHWH said the above, then his knowledge of nature was no better than the
average Jew of the time. As for Hares, the Bible is wrong on two counts: 1) they
cannot produce cud, therefore they cannot chew it, and 2) they divide the foot,
although the bible says they don't.

pamphlet:
>
>14. Matt. 27:9-10 quotes a prophecy made by Jeremy the prophet. Yet, no
>Bible believer has ever been able to show me where it lies in the Book
>of Jeremiah.
>

Mike
>Not every word that Jeremiah said was in that book, and not every prophecy was
recorded in there. He could have made thousands more.

RevG

How do you know that the Jews did not record every prophecy made by Jeremiah?
How many prophecies do you think he made? Whoever wrote Matthew uses this
prophecy in an attempt to prove Jesus fulfilled the messanic prophecies; if he
can just make it up [without evidence, that is EXACTLY what he opens himself to
being accused of], then why not say that this prophecy applies to Jesus?

Eze. 14: 9, "9 If a prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the Lord, have
deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him, and will
destroy him from the midst of my people Israel."

That fits Jesus perfectly.

Mike
>
>Skipping several self explanatory and non objective ones.....
>
>
>6. How could Jesus be our model of sinless perfection when he denies he
>is morally perfect in Matt. 19:17 ("And Jesus said unto him, Why callest
>thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God")?
>

pamphlet:
>There is a difference between perfect and good- anyone should be able to figure
that out. Also keep in mind that while being called good is an opinion and
cannot be clearly determined, perfection in the sense that he was using it is a
clear cut line.

RevG

There is a difference? Are you assuming that a person morally perfect isn't
good? Jesus said that only god was good, excluding himself from the definition;
you are assuming that he didn't mean it the way it is written. If so, then the
burden lies on you to demonstrate it.

Mike
>
>I also noticed that many of your so called arguments are based on what you
think God SHOULD be and not what he is.

RevG

The bible is what the Jews thought God was, not what God actually is; we can
assign expectations on God. For example, we can expect God to have superior
morals to Gandhi, not inferior morals to Hitler. Yet the god portrayed in the
Bible is unstable and deceptive. For example, he orders David to carry out a
census, and when David obeys, YHWH takes the opportunity to flex his muscles and
kills 70,000 people without any good reason. He also makes this confession which
discredits this 'god' as being divine.

Ezek. 20: 25-26,"25 Wherefore I GAVE THEM also statutes that were not good, AND
judgments whereby they should not live; 26 and I POLLUTED THEM in their own
gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb,
that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the
Lord." Here bible god admits to instituting human sacrifice; so how can suck a
fickle and evil entity be deserving of any respect?

Mike
>
>Another reason you gave to refute the bible I saw is when Jesus said that he
would now take up his cross ((I forget the exact wording and verse, but you
quoted it.)) Keep in mind that in those days, crucifixion was commonplace.
Many saw it as a cruel sport. It would bring about large crowds to cheer on the
death. Rest assured that back then, everyone knew what the cross was- death.

RevG

According to Acts, Jesus was hung on a tree [a punishment reserved for traitors
to their people], not nailed to a cross. And Paul says he was hung from a
gallows. How did the audience know that Jesus would be nailed to a cross?

Mike
>
>I expect that all but two of these arguements will be easily ignored or refuted
some way, and the main ones I wanted to touch on are the bat as a bird and the
cross. The contradictions in the character of Biblical men are also
enlightening and really make me think.

RevG

Without the ability to think for oneself, one is left a victim to be taken
advantage of.

peace

Rev Gadfly
--
II Cor. 12:16, "Nevertheless, crafty fellow that I am, I took you in by DECEIT."

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