tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post115240619790227835..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: The Exegetical Carelessness Of John LoftusRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1152470022727850852006-07-09T14:33:00.000-04:002006-07-09T14:33:00.000-04:00John Loftus wrote:"Of course, what we have in the ...John Loftus wrote:<BR/><BR/>"Of course, what we have in the Bible is an evolving understanding of the nature God, so we have these 'contradictions.' You grab on to the final view of God reflected in the Bible, especially the NT, and say that this is what they believed all along."<BR/><BR/>We haven't just "grabbed on to the final view". I gave you examples of the implausibility of your position from the book of Job, which some scholars consider the oldest book of the Bible. I also cited an example from Exodus 15, another of the oldest books of the canon, in which a reference to the arm of God surely wouldn't have been meant to refer to a physical arm. I've also cited evidence against your position from 2 Samuel, Isaiah, and other books written hundreds of years before the New Testament era.<BR/><BR/>Besides, the later Old Testament books and the New Testament use the same sort of language you're citing from the older Old Testament books. And you asked what justification a Christian would have for concluding that God the Father doesn't have a body. Why would you ask for such justification if you knew that the later Old Testament and the New Testament would offer such justification for a Christian?<BR/><BR/>In your article, you made some references to the New Testament. For example:<BR/><BR/>"What did early Christians think about heaven (remember, Jesus supposedly bodily ascended to sit at the right hand of God on a throne and to rule in a heavenly city, with mansions [John 14:1-4])? We must step back in time before the rise of modern astronomy to see the universe as they did." (http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/07/does-god-look-like-this.html )<BR/><BR/>So, while you do sometimes refer to "the ancient Hebrews", you also sometimes refer to the New Testament. Your article lists New Testament passages, like Luke 1:51, in its sections about the body parts of God.<BR/><BR/>And when you do discuss the pre-Christian Jews, you sometimes cite 2 Samuel, Isaiah, and other later books of the Old Testament, not just the earliest Old Testament books. Yet, now you want us to believe that you only had the earliest Old Testament books in mind. I don't believe you.<BR/><BR/>You cite Genesis 3 as if that passage proves that the earliest Jews thought of God as having a body. How could you possibly draw such a conclusion from that passage? Christians have acknowledged that God sometimes takes on a body in some Old Testament passages, and Christ took on a body in the incarnation. If a passage in Genesis or elsewhere would refer to God taking on some physical form, how could you possibly know that the author of the document in question must have believed that God <I>always</I> had that physical form? You're assuming things you can't prove. If God only <I>sometimes</I> takes on a body, then there's no contradiction of Christian doctrine involved.<BR/><BR/>In addition to the bodily manifestations we read about in Genesis, we also see references to other physical objects, such as fire and a cloud. Why do you single out the references to body parts?Jason Engwerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1152407510523244742006-07-08T21:11:00.000-04:002006-07-08T21:11:00.000-04:00John, I haven't made any commitment to respond to ...John, I haven't made any commitment to respond to everything you write, much less respond within two hours, nor did I make any commitment about this response in particular. But we do often answer your claims shortly after they're posted. Steve made a comment along those lines in a previous post (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/07/why-debunk-debunkers.html ), and you seem to have misinterpreted that comment, much as you frequently misinterpret the Bible.Jason Engwerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com