God's love and the destruction of Sodom? How is this reconciled?

[joelr]

I've known where Tunisia is about 40 years, if that helps. And frankly I'd expect most people to know even, since it was the birthplace of the Arab spring.

Try to consider this with a bit more seriousness if you will.

If a Phoenician city (in this instance one in Tunisia) is doing child sacrifices.... then, logically, one can expect the same ships that transmit goods and culture and political power are of course spreading those throughout Phoenicia.

Culture spreads. It's part of why a people is labeled with a name, like Phoenicia: because they share a culture.

Ergo, the very strong likelihood is that of course such would be practice in more than just 1 city. After all, child sacrifice has been common throughout all the world. (Child sacrifice - Wikipedia)

We already have excellent information from 2 Assyriologists and Dr. Brendon Benz, Associate Professor of History suggesting the Canaanites did not engage in child sacrifice. So random speculation isn't needed.
But it is true, many ancients didn't mind killing children as long as they were of another culture. The Israelites were instructed to kill all children in 6 cities which is exactly as bad as child sacrifice. As is Yahweh dumping a plague on 70,000 people. That's killing all the children at once.
Even though the stories are just myths, the Israelites don't get a pass. They would probably have killed everyone in those cities had they invaded.
Even if a culture engaged in child sacrifice you don't completely kill every living thing? Wiping out cities is far worse than sacrifice?

 

[joelr]

In the scripture, Israel is instructed not to do as the Canaanites they are replacing have done.

e.g. -- Deuteronomy 12:31 You must not worship the LORD your God in this way, because they practice for their gods every abomination which the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

In the scripture Israel only keeps this commandment for a time, and then breaks it.

They begin soon enough to worship the Canaanite idols.

When Israel breaks the command not to sacrifice children to idols -- and has significant child sacrifice then happening -- God through prophets warns them of destruction if they don't turn away from it. They don't turn, and in time that destruction comes on Israel, as warned.

Not how history is taught. The Israelite high priests decided that not worshipping only Yahweh was the reason for all the invasions and during the 2nd temple period they re-worked the OT and focused on one God.
Then they were invaded by the Greeks and then the Romans.

 

[joelr]

Whoever translated the gospel of Matthew, which was originally written in Hebrew, into the Greek and much later into English, are guilty of making many errors, such as riding the donkey colt, and having Matthew saying that Isaiah said that 'virgin' would become pregnant etc, when in fact Matthew was no idiot, he would have known that it was impossible for Jesus to have ridden the 'Jenny' donkey and her colt at the same time, and he also knew that the prophet said that a 'young unmarried woman' would be with child and bear a son.

Was written in Greek and sourced Mark.

"The Gospel According to Matthew was composed in Greek, probably sometime after 70 ce, with evident dependence on the earlier Gospel According to Mark."

 

[thomas t]

I am a literalist, I take the Bible literally expept prophecy. I don't make God a liar. Now you say

Nobody reads Aramaic anymore and the autographs are lost to time.

Instead, the autographs were destroyed. The translations became a mish-mash of errors and ministrations, and roughly 35,000 different sects of Christianity emerged.

I think the translations from Aramaic into Greek... are error free.
In my opinion, God wanted his Gospels to go through the lense of a Greek interpretor.
30000 denominations is not God's fault, I think.
Translations into English might contradict each other and even themselves.
But the Greek text I believe to be errer free.

Concerning the donkeys: I think that Jesus wanted to ride a colt of a donkey when the masses came to salute him. He wanted the humble message that such an animal could convey.
However, since a colt of a donkey might not have been used to carrying loads during a large time span, he took another donkey for the first hundreds of meters, I suppose.
And then, in front of everyone's eyes, he changes the animal to come accross even more humble.

That's at least my interpretation of the story.

 

[joelr]

I am a literalist, I take the Bible literally expept prophecy. I don't make God a liar. Now you say



I think the translations from Aramaic into Greek... are error free.
In my opinion, God wanted his Gospels to go through the lense of a Greek interpretor.
30000 denominations is not God's fault, I think.
Translations into English might contradict each other and even themselves.
But the Greek text I believe to be errer free.

Concerning the donkeys: I think that Jesus wanted to ride a colt of a donkey when the masses came to salute him. He wanted the humble message that such an animal could convey.
However, since a colt of a donkey might not have been used to carrying loads during a large time span, he took another donkey for the first hundreds of meters, I suppose.
And then, in front of everyone's eyes, he changes the animal to come accross even more humble.

That's at least my interpretation of the story.

Historians do not agree. The Greek text is what all biblical historians deal with and there are thousands of errors.

At 1:04 both Ehrman and Licona admit there are mistakes in the Greek gospels.

At 32:00 Bart Ehrman gets into some of the issues in the gospels that cannot be reconciled.

Rather than focus on small mistakes he focuses on theological mistakes. His debate partner apologist Mike Licona isn't able to disagree.
But there are many other issues that Christian scholarship has long admitted to, the 2nd ending of Mark suggests the text was tampered with

"Both the shorter and the longer ending are considered to be later writings, which were added to Mark. Scholars disagree whether verse 8 was the original ending, or if there was an ending which is now lost."

or the fact that the gospels are no longer considered to be separate accounts but the Synoptic gospels all rely on Mark to different degrees.

"It is quite impossible to hold that the three synoptic gospels were completely independent from each other. In the least, they had to have shared a common oral tradition. But the vast bulk of NT scholars today would argue for much more than that.3 There are four crucial arguments which virtually prove literary interdependence....."

The reasons why scholarship finds Mark to be the most likely source is outlined here:
The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org


The gospels were written in Greek not Araimaic. The oldest fragment of a gospel we have is a piece of Mark that is late 2nd century or early 3rd. That is a copy of possibly hundreds of earlier copies. Ehrman talks about this in his debate.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I am a literalist, I take the Bible literally expept prophecy. I don't make God a liar. Now you say



I think the translations from Aramaic into Greek... are error free.
In my opinion, God wanted his Gospels to go through the lense of a Greek interpretor.
30000 denominations is not God's fault, I think.
Translations into English might contradict each other and even themselves.
But the Greek text I believe to be errer free.

Concerning the donkeys: I think that Jesus wanted to ride a colt of a donkey when the masses came to salute him. He wanted the humble message that such an animal could convey.
However, since a colt of a donkey might not have been used to carrying loads during a large time span, he took another donkey for the first hundreds of meters, I suppose.
And then, in front of everyone's eyes, he changes the animal to come accross even more humble.

That's at least my interpretation of the story.

But you do "make God a liar". You simply refuse to understand the science that refutes the myths of Genesis. Since the evidence those are based upon would have had to be planted purposefully to hide events from the past that would be lying. An all powerful God could plant false evidence but it would be an act of lying to do so.

 

[thomas t]

But you do "make God a liar". You simply refuse to understand the science that refutes the myths of Genesis. Since the evidence those are based upon would have had to be planted purposefully to hide events from the past that would be lying. An all powerful God could plant false evidence but it would be an act of lying to do so.

we had a debate on this.
I explained to you why I don't discuss with you anymore: it's my impression that you don't usually back up anything you say.
Here in the thread we find a perfect example of this:
you were asked if the Gospels come with dates. This is all you had to reply, it was a 4 words answer:

In a way, yes.

no source, nothing. Neither scripture nor science. Just empty declaration.

If the others are keen to debate with you, they can go ahead. I won't. This is not the quality of discussion I wish to have interacting with someone here on RF.
This does not mean I suddenly agree with anything you've said.
Even if you reply and I don't reply back: be sure, I don't take anything you say as truth.

 

[thomas t]

Historians do not agree. The Greek text is what all biblical historians deal with and there are thousands of errors.

At 1:04 both Ehrman and Licona admit there are mistakes in the Greek gospels.

At 32:00 Bart Ehrman gets into some of the issues in the gospels that cannot be reconciled.

Rather than focus on small mistakes he focuses on theological mistakes. His debate partner apologist Mike Licona isn't able to disagree.
But there are many other issues that Christian scholarship has long admitted to, the 2nd ending of Mark suggests the text was tampered with

"Both the shorter and the longer ending are considered to be later writings, which were added to Mark. Scholars disagree whether verse 8 was the original ending, or if there was an ending which is now lost."

or the fact that the gospels are no longer considered to be separate accounts but the Synoptic gospels all rely on Mark to different degrees.

"It is quite impossible to hold that the three synoptic gospels were completely independent from each other. In the least, they had to have shared a common oral tradition. But the vast bulk of NT scholars today would argue for much more than that.3 There are four crucial arguments which virtually prove literary interdependence....."

The reasons why scholarship finds Mark to be the most likely source is outlined here:
The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org


The gospels were written in Greek not Araimaic. The oldest fragment of a gospel we have is a piece of Mark that is late 2nd century or early 3rd. That is a copy of possibly hundreds of earlier copies. Ehrman talks about this in his debate.

I started watching the video at minute 32 as you suggested and by minute 35 he was still talking in generic terms. So why did you come up with minute 32. Nothing happened there.
Even if his discussion partner could not disagree: I do.
I think the Bible is 100% trustworthy and error free.
Including the ending of Mark.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

I am a literalist, I take the Bible literally expept prophecy. I don't make God a liar. Now you say



I think the translations from Aramaic into Greek... are error free.
In my opinion, God wanted his Gospels to go through the lense of a Greek interpretor.
30000 denominations is not God's fault, I think.
Translations into English might contradict each other and even themselves.
But the Greek text I believe to be errer free.

Concerning the donkeys: I think that Jesus wanted to ride a colt of a donkey when the masses came to salute him. He wanted the humble message that such an animal could convey.
However, since a colt of a donkey might not have been used to carrying loads during a large time span, he took another donkey for the first hundreds of meters, I suppose.
And then, in front of everyone's eyes, he changes the animal to come accross even more humble.

That's at least my interpretation of the story.

You know, Thomas the mistake can be interpreted a variety of ways, Maybe he did this and then did that, it's all determined by the mind of the reader trying to figure it out. Is that what God really wanted--for millions of people to sit and scratch their heads as they try to figure out what in the heck Matthew was trying to say--and then come up with thousands of possible explanations?

 

[thomas t]

You know, Thomas the mistake can be interpreted a variety of ways, Maybe he did this and then did that, it's all determined by the mind of the reader trying to figure it out. Is that what God really wanted--for millions of people to sit and scratch their heads as they try to figure out what in the heck Matthew was trying to say--and then come up with thousands of possible explanations?
View attachment 49071

there is a very good point you're making. Why could God not be more specific so everyone knew at once, if Jesus changed donkeys mid-way... or if he just fell off or what ever...
The thing is, my fellow Christians from the church I play music in, they know an estimated 5% of all the Bible.
If God would go into great detail with everything including the donkeys... the only thing that would happen would be my brothers and sisters knowing only 2% of what is written.
Maybe they would figure out the correct order of animals Jesus rode upon... but don't know why Pentecost happened, for exampls.
In order for this to never happen, God was nicely concise with the donkeys.
This is my point of view.

 

[Subduction Zone]

we had a debate on this.
I explained to you why I don't discuss with you anymore: it's my impression that you don't usually back up anything you say.
Here in the thread we find a perfect example of this:
you were asked if the Gospels come with dates. This is all you had to reply, it was a 4 words answer:

Yes, and you lost epically. You lost so badly that you still refuse to discuss it.

no source, nothing. Neither scripture nor science. Just empty declaration.

If the others are keen to debate with you, they can go ahead. I won't. This is not the quality of discussion I wish to have interacting with someone here on RF.
This does not mean I suddenly agree with anything you've said.
Even if you reply and I don't reply back: be sure, I don't take anything you say as truth.

Don't need any since as you stated above, you refuse to discuss it. I am willing to have a discussion, but you have to be willing to learn.

 

[halbhh]

I said Canaanites not Carthaginians?

We understand of course that what makes a culture a culture is the spread of common language, viewpoints (cosmologies, etc.), religious practices and such -- culture.

So, that part of the Phoenician area wasn't inside of what is called Canaan isn't relevant, but instead the relevant part is whether the Phoenicians did child sacrifice, and the (Oxford) link I offered helps show that strong possibility. So, instead of no evidence, there is a suggestive enough connection even if one doesn't believe in the Hebrew bible at all (atheistic view for instance) that such could be plausible expected to be present in Canaan. Also note that evidence of such practices have been found around the world. (see that wiki link also). Expecting there could be such likely happening inside Canaan then isn't an unlikely guess then, but is instead is a reasonable guess, even for an atheist.

But myself personally, I doubt there would ever be a undisputable conclusive evidence to validate the more crucial things in the common bible -- as such would actually make the common bible then very contradictory against itself, as it over and over emphasizes God requiring belief without seeing evidence ahead of time. Clear and conclusive evidence before faith would obviate or pre-empt 'faith' -- disallow it to happen.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

there is a very good point you're making. Why could God not be more specific so everyone knew at once, if Jesus changed donkeys mid-way... or if he just fell off or what ever...
The thing is, my fellow Christians from the church I play music in, they know an estimated 5% of all the Bible.
If God would go into great detail with everything including the donkeys... the only thing that would happen would be my brothers and sisters knowing only 2% of what is written.
Maybe they would figure out the correct order of animals Jesus rode upon... but don't know why Pentecost happened, for exampls.
In order for this to never happen, God was nicely concise with the donkeys.
This is my point of view.

That's one way of looking at it. Perhaps you're right.