[Vision2020] Reply to Ralph Nielsen--God Never Lies

[Michael]

John D Writes:

 

Michael <metzler at moscow.com> wrote:

> I'm assuming this is meant to only be funny.

No, not really. I'm curious to know how you can literally believe in a
document that is not even internally consistent.

How do you explain the previously listed inconsistencies?
http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2006-June/031444.html

 

 

 
Me:
 
Well, I still think this is primarily meant to be funny. But I'll go along:
 
> God lied about snakes eating dust (Genesis 3:14).
 
Isn't this metaphorical?
 
  
> God lied when saying that Jacob would no longer be called Jacob (Genesis
32:28), because he later called him Jacob himself (Genesis 46:2).
  
I would imagine that this would have been a Hebrew phrase meaning that
Jacob's name was to be changed, or that Jacob would now be given a second
new name. I doubt this was not meant to be a prophetic utterance.
 
 
>  God lied when he said that bats are birds (Leviticus 11:11-19).
  http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Chiroptera
<http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Chiroptera&contgroup=Eutheria>
&contgroup=Eutheria
  
 
Different linguistic cultures always cut up the world in slightly different
ways.  What is a bush for one group might be a tree for another.  There is
no error here, just a different typology than our current scientific one.
 
 
>  God lied when he said insects have four legs (Leviticus 11:23).
 
This is not what is stated: rather insects are "four-footed" those that
"walked on all fours." Quantitative precision is not the meaning of these
two phrases. 
 
> God lied when he said that Abraham didn't know the name Jehovah (Exodus
6:3), because Abraham named a place after Jehovah (Genesis 22:14).
  
Ex. 6:3 is a formal use of YHWH, where as Abraham merely called a place
YHWH-jirah, "The Lord Will Provide."  God did not say Abraham did not know
the name "YHWH."  God said he did not call himself by this name; he did not
make himself known by this formal use of YHWY, which is true.
 
> God lied when he said that he did not give instructions for burnt
offerings (Jeremiah 7:22), because he gave many instructions in Exodus.
  
This is what Jeremiah actually says: "For I did not speak to your fathers,
or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt,
concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices."
 
> God lied when he said that the city of Tyre would be destroyed and never
inhabited again (Ezekiel 26:21). It's now the fourth largest city in
Lebanon:
  http://tyros.leb.net/tyre/
  
 
God is referring to the people ("you will never be found again"), not the
piece of real estate. 
 
>  Jesus lied about mustard having the smallest seeds in the world and about
them producing trees (Matthew 13:31-32, Mark 4:31).
  
Jesus would not have dazzled the crowd with new scientific information and
facts about how men will one day walk on the moon.  Rather, he would have
simply spoken in terms of the received understanding at the time.  Whether
or not mustard seeds were the smallest seed or not was not even the point of
the parable.  
 
>  Jesus lied when he said that no one asked him where he was going (John
16:5), because Peter asked him (John 13:36).

 

This one has got to be for the mere funny bone.

 

Michael

 

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