[Offcr. Albert Martin]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

I'll tell you at least FIVE parts of the Bible they don't take literally:

The four Last Supper accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke, & 1 Corinthians) and John 6 (For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink)

[Brother V]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

"Brother V," my husband and I are both Christians.

Jenny, the God presented in the Bible, taken literally, is incoherent and full of direct contradictions. I cannot reconcile all verses. Neither can you. So we can be honest and admit that, or we can play pretend that all the verses fit together. I choose to be honest.

I look for a reading that makes the most sense of the text as a whole. That means there are verses I will chalk up to human error. That may mean the cognitive, social, historical, or psychological limitations of the author. Or it may mean mistakes made in the collecting, editing, translating, and teaching of the work from this day to now. Guided by the Holy Spirit, we as a faithful community can identify and correct those mistakes.

Professor Brown

What kind of christian doesn't take the bible literally?

Please o' wise one, can you go through the entire bible (KJV1611) and tell us which verses we are to take literally and which are ... um... not ones we are supposed to follow.

Or maybe you just pick and chose the verses that seem to fit into your happy little definition of christianity and say "oh that doesn't matter anymore" or "well, see you have to understand the 'CONTEXT' of the times and since it's now 2k8 that doesn't matter". Maybe you are one of those people who think that all one needs to do is follow the New Testament (and not even all of that) and the 10 commandments (the ones in Exodus 20 and OBVIOUSLY not the ones in Exodus 34, cuz those don't apply anymore).

Most pastors influence their churches by the verses read (or never read) in their churches. They will influence by the emphasis put on verses, or just breeze right through the ones they don't like. They influence by the "version" or "translation" of the "bible" that they use.

But I've never heard a christian pastor say that we don't have to believe the bible to be true (like you have done).

I've heard catholics say that, but not christian pastors.

Why would you claim to be a christian, when the ONE BOOK that provides the basis for your faith, you reject?

YIC
V

[JennyD]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

If the Holy Spirit's so great, why didn't it guide the authors of the Bible to correct those mistakes while writing it? That'd seem a lot simpler.

If He'd done that, Brother, then our Mrs. Brown would not have the opportunity to assert herself as greater than God.

[Brother Temperance]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

Jack, I may be the strange woman to you...

You're a woman who thinks she can teach people things. That makes you strange by definition.

I look for a reading that makes the most sense of the text as a whole. That means there are verses I will chalk up to human error. That may mean the cognitive, social, historical, or psychological limitations of the author. Or it may mean mistakes made in the collecting, editing, translating, and teaching of the work from this day to now. Guided by the Holy Spirit, we as a faithful community can identify and correct those mistakes.

If the Holy Spirit's so great, why didn't it guide the authors of the Bible to correct those mistakes while writing it? That'd seem a lot simpler.

[JennyD]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

"Brother V," my husband and I are both Christians.

Jenny, the God presented in the Bible, taken literally, is incoherent and full of direct contradictions. I cannot reconcile all verses. Neither can you. So we can be honest and admit that, or we can play pretend that all the verses fit together. I choose to be honest.

I look for a reading that makes the most sense of the text as a whole. That means there are verses I will chalk up to human error. That may mean the cognitive, social, historical, or psychological limitations of the author. Or it may mean mistakes made in the collecting, editing, translating, and teaching of the work from this day to now. Guided by the Holy Spirit, we as a faithful community can identify and correct those mistakes.

Professor Brown

So, Mrs. Brown, you deny that God is omniscient and omnipotent?

After all, you have declared His Word to be inaccurate, and not what He wants us to read -- that YOU must imagine what He wanted it to say, and fix it FOR Him. That means that either He isn't aware of errors, or He doesn't have the ability to fix them.

Which is it? Is He weak, or out of touch?

Or do you not believe in God at all? I'm thinking that's far more likely.

I do not see you as being "honest", as you say. You are picking and choosing those parts of the Bible which present the facets of God YOU wish to see, and disposing of the rest. WE acknowledge that God is far more complex than the hippiesque caricature you portray.

[Professor Brown]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

"Brother V," my husband and I are both Christians.

Jenny, the God presented in the Bible, taken literally, is incoherent and full of direct contradictions. I cannot reconcile all verses. Neither can you. So we can be honest and admit that, or we can play pretend that all the verses fit together. I choose to be honest.

I look for a reading that makes the most sense of the text as a whole. That means there are verses I will chalk up to human error. That may mean the cognitive, social, historical, or psychological limitations of the author. Or it may mean mistakes made in the collecting, editing, translating, and teaching of the work from this day to now. Guided by the Holy Spirit, we as a faithful community can identify and correct those mistakes.

Professor Brown

[JennyD]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

My dear Professoress Brown -

It seems to me that you read the Bible with an agenda.

You have a preconceived notion of God as being all-loving. You believe that everyone goes to Heaven, and that God loves sinners and the unfaithful. You then read the Bible, looking for support for your imaginary "all-loving hippie God", and ignore anything which contradicts it, or declare it "mistranslated" or "metaphorical" or "the work of misguided men".

You also claim that the whole (as you say, the "tenor of the work") is very different from its parts. Hundreds of pages of laws are irrelevant because they don't fit your ideas about what the Bible SHOULD say.

You are naturally horrified to find that there is a True Christian(tm) Church in existence. We at Landover do not imagine a God of our own liking and then pick and choose verses of the Bible to support our vain imaginings. Rather, we read GOD'S WORD and discover Him in the words He chose to reveal Himself to us.

Allow me an analogy:

Let's suppose you and a True Christian(tm) were part of an experiment. The experimenter asks you to look at a series of pictures, then write down the animal made up of the constituent parts.

The first picture shows some fur. The second picture shows an eye, and the third is a shot of what looks like a duck's bill.

You write down, "Cat". Why? Because you saw fur and an eye. Cats have fur and eyes; you like cats; therefore, it must be a cat. The duck's bill? Well, that obviously got mixed up in the pictures by accident. The experimenter made a mistake. Right?

The True Christian(tm) waits until she sees ALL of the pictures, then figures out which animal includes ALL the parts . . . a platypus.

That's the difference, dear, between your approach to the Bible and that of a True Christian(tm). We look at the WHOLE series of parts and understand God based on ALL of His parts, rather than picking a few parts we like and declaring the rest to be errors or irrelevant.

[Daisy Mae Johnson]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

Again, I'll ask........

If she is a wife, then why is she not in the kitchen making him delicious meals and treats instead of being in here trying to undermine us True Christians?

AND did her husband giver her permission to be on here?

[Brother V]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

Jack, I may be the strange woman to you, but to someone else I'm the wife of his youth. And God tells him:

"Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love." Proverbs 5:18-19.

Somehow, the fact that God is saying that about me to my husband more than balances things out.

Professor Brown

Perhaps you are familiar with the book of Ezra, (perhaps not). One of the more interesting aspects (in my opinion) was when Ezra dissolved all the marriages between the Israel people and the people of the land.

Ezra 10:10 And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel.

11 Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives.

They even sent away the women that had children from these mixed marriages. (The law is in Deuteronomy 7:3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. because mixed marriages will dilute the purity of the religion.)

Are you in an unbiblical mixed marriage?

YIC
V

[Professor Brown]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Proverbs 5:3,4

Jack, I may be the strange woman to you, but to someone else I'm the wife of his youth. And God tells him:

"Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love." Proverbs 5:18-19.

Somehow, the fact that God is saying that about me to my husband more than balances things out.

Professor Brown

[Brother Temperance]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

We believe you, Sister Jenny. Is there a way to give a grade higher than an A+?

Doubleplus A? Freedom A+?

[Daisy Mae Johnson]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

I tried to speak with you in the spirit of the Gospels. You spat back at me selected verses, wrenched out of context, and asked me to demonstrate that you do not follow the Bible. Very well. Over the next week, I and my 30 Christian Studies students will keep track of all posts made here. We will independently look for statements that are un-Biblical or anti-Biblical. Only if 3 or more of us cite a post will I include it in the final report. We will then post our results, and grade you from A to F.

Professor Brown

Why aren't you in the kitchen making a honey baked ham and bunny shaped cakes? Has your husband given you permission to be here?

[Ezekiel Bathfire]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

Over the next week, I and my 30 Christian Studies students will keep track of all posts made here. We will independently look for statements that are un-Biblical or anti-Biblical. Only if 3 or more of us cite a post will I include it in the final report. We will then post our results, and grade you from A to F.

Professor Brown

Have you consulted Numbers 30 on the matter of vows made before The Lord by a woman. If so, is your husband or father agreeable? Or are you a widow?

Or is it that you would intend to cheat and misrepresent Landover Baptist Church and thus have not sworn before The Lord?

[Ahimaaz Smith]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

That's Jesus talking friend.

A+

Read ye the Book! Read, and REPENT!

A (would have been an A+, but OEJ, my friend, you buried the lead)

Funny YOU should quote that verse...That's the verse you always seem to reject when we bring it up...

C- Officer Martin, at Landover we respect you and the other men of law enforcement as Real American Heroes(r), but, on the whole, we find our Pastors to be more qualified to interpret the Word.

Judge not, that ye be not judged applies to those who do not believe 100% in the Bible. Consider 1 Corinthians 5:12-13, For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth and 1 Corinthians 2:15, But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

What would you know about the Bible. Go back to your stained cup and drink the blood of the prophets, heathen.

A+

I, for one, look forward to this "audit". No, seriously.

We believe you, Sister Jenny. Is there a way to give a grade higher than an A+?

[JennyD]

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Biblical Audit Underway

I think it should be quite entertaining to see what Ms. Brown and her 30 imaginary friends "students" come up with. Who knows, perhaps we've overlooked some method by which the Unsaved will be damned, and she will find it for us. <snort>

It's always worthwhile <chortle> to have an additional review! I, for one, look forward to this "audit".

No, seriously.