wavydaby

Just because your opinion is backed up by other opinions does not make an opinion right, it just makes it a "popular" opinion. We all know what opinions are like........ I am not going to say how I came back in to the folds of the flock of the Lord, however I will say that my proof of His existance is NOT in the bible. I do not need to say the bible is 110% literal. I know God exists, I have personal proof of what he did for me. I have faith that the essence of the bible is correct. That Noah did have an ark, that he saved alot of animals. To what extent, I do not know. Do I think that it was every land based mammal, no. I think the "world" at that time was centered around the Middle East and he saved those animals in that part of the world. I use the quotes around "world" because at even the time of the middle ages before Columbus discovered the americas or Marco Polo went to China on a boat, people didnt think out side of Europe as even exisiting. The "world" was very small in people's minds back then. The discovery of the America's didnt make God or the people who wrote Genesis wrong, it changed the CONTEXT of their meaning of "world" Which is why, I can not take the entire bible literally. Jesus, died, was buried and rose again. Literal. When Catholics take part of communion, we share in the (not looking up the right word) transfiguration of the Lord's commandment at the last supper to "take this and eat of my body" and the wafers are transfigured in to the body and the wine in to the blood of Christ. We are taking that commandment Literally, but to some people, thats pishpaw, that must be figurative. You take your verses that you and your scholars want to take literally, We will take our verses that our scholars want to take literally. One only sees what one wants to see. One who holds on to "proof" more tightly in his hand than faith will often see "proof" slip thru his fingers. I for one, will hold on to my faith, to my experiences, to my God in my way. I do not have the answers to bring more people to God. Would I love to say I brought an Atheist to the Lord? Yes, but I think its more of a "notch on my belt" arrogance at this point than a true desire to bring someone to God. All I can say is He is out there, He is watching, He loves us. God takes only the good in people, Satan takes the bad. Go read CS Lewis, he explains it better than I can. (the whole series, not just the first one)

Which brings me back to a statement I made looong ago in this post. Divorce is bad in the bible. Divorce is legal in this country. Why arent the right wingers forcing stricter divorce laws? Because its based on a biblical belief. Adultery is no more wrong than Homosexuality according to the bible. IF we want one law that is based on the bible, we must fight for them all. Which in a free society is WRONG. Just because God thinks its bad, we can not enforce those laws upon our society. I know God doesnt like divorce, I know God doesnt like ANY sin. BUT what is a sin to me is NOT a sin in other religions or to non-religious folks. Just because we make it legal in this country to do something, does not mean that as a God-believing person, Im gonna run right out there and do it. I still have my principals and my God to answer to. The fact remains that some people dont feel they have a God to answer to and they have rights as well. The right to marry and the right to divorce. And if we had laws to prevent me from leaving him legally, I would have fought that tooth and nail. Just as God forgives sinners. I think he forgives stupid mistakes too. And no matter what our laws allow or dont allow, HE expects us to obey Him.

Again, we can not take Genesis literally. God's days are not our days. Time means nothing to Him Why should we put our time contraints on Him. To do so would be to take it literally, and wrong

I am having trouble finding what I am looking for, but lets take Genesis for what its worth. 7 days. Who's days? My days here as measured by 24 hrs? God's days that Paul say are thousands of years? Genesis says days. Paul says Gods days are 1000's of years. Genesis does not say how long a day is. Paul made this assumption. Am I to take Genesis literally or am I to believe Paul? IF this is the case, we are told in Genesis that the flood waters stayed for 150 days. There was no difference in the way that the author wrote day for creation as opposed to day for flood Water. I say Paul made an assumption. I say that is an allegory of what happened in creation. I say you can not take the words "day" as literal. I say my faith tells me that God made the world. I also say that I believe the bible storys are true of Jesus's death and resurection. Did he heal the sick, did he change water to wine? yes! I say that its translation and interpretation of scriptures that cause the bible not be able to be taken literally. And I dont need resounding proof of God's existance in a book. Any book. He has put his finger on my heart and I feel it. (except on Sunday when I tell Him to put His finger on the snooze bar) I know what God has done for me. I know what has been done in the past. I have faith. Maybe its blind faith. But I dont need resounding proof written somewhere to believe in God. Maybe that is the difference between us. You demand the proof. I dont care if I have rock solid evidence that I can show people. I dont care to have it. I can tell you by my experience what let me back to God. I can not show you or anyone "proof". Someone will always have "other proof" to unprove it. Maybe I am being "holier than thou" by saying IMHO, its better if you believe if you dont have showable proof but still believe. The more I write "proof" the more it looks wrong to me. And if you think my humor is blasphemous, I say God has a since of humor.. look at the platopus. Its a mammal.. it lays eggs, but milk feeds its young, It has webbed feet and a tail, yet has fur.

So divorce is ok in case of adultry, what if I simply realised, I hated the man who I thought I could change? I married for stupid reasons, (My love can save him) am I to be stuck with the jerk???? He didnt cheat on me. He was just in general an ass in other areas of life. I speak from experience.

Carlene, I hope your granddaughter will be ok. Goodness knows I couldnt answer that question. I still think that at that age, a child is still too easily swayed in one way or another to have to burn in hell over not having gone to church. But, again, that is for God to decide. BUT I will pray that HE take in to account her age and innocence and let her in to heaven.

But maybe he did at 12 -14 or until he was married? I was saved at one point. I do good works. For a very long time I didnt believe in God, in between that time frame of being saved and coming back to God, i still did good works, I still acted as a good woman. Granted I did some stupid crap, but that not withstanding, Did I lose my salvation in that time? I did I get it back? Had I died in that time, would I have gone to hell? Would that period of unsaving meant I lost my grace? The point is, I believe that yes, you can lose your grace where you once had it. I know at the time before I had my issues, I was VERY believing, I did do good works! I know when I was not believing I still did do good works, just not because God wanted me to, but because I knew they were the right thing to do. I came back to God, cause he showed me the way. And trust me, I was pretty far away from God in my dark days. So you are saying that even if I had died during that time, I would have gone to heave because at one time I did believe in God?

Yes, salvation brings the good works, but what good is it for the rest of mankind if salvation did not bring out the good works in mankind? I believe at 12, (I think thats what Carlene said) her father did take God in to his heart, and he was saved. But it was proved that he stopped doing Godly works. Was he or was he not stripped of his salvation? How is it then that you can say that you dont have to do good works and be accepted by God? Is it that you dont do good works OR bad works? You mearly are lawful neutral and are saved alone?? That I do not buy

Bjean, I know why GB's name keeps popping up, i just wish it didnt.

But, Ron, they do, its a matter of getting up and doing your faith or just sitting on your tush. Because I am saved, I want to do good works. But want is not enough, I still must do them. We still must hold up our bargan to the Lord. What the good work is that I do, is defined by the Lord and I. Spell out for me the other side where you would not be doing good works, but still be saved. Is the fact that I am mearly breathing doing God's good works?

Opps, I forgot a Point 6 in my rambles Since translation is an art and not an exact science, I can not take the bible literally. I can take the bible literally for the point is trying to make however. And again, in Genesis, it says God created the heavens and earth and all in it in 6 days... later in there it says 1 day. Do I care howmany days that God took to create us? Nope, not one bit, cause I don't think God has a 24 hr day anyway. Time has no meaning to Him. Do I care that he did create us, you betcha! Do I think its a sin that I dont care howmany days he took, no. Are there more examples where I dont take it literally, but only the jist of the text? Yes. I still say that one can not take the WHOLE bible literally, parts, yes. Inspired by God, written by Man.

This was a respectful answer, and the tone was different than what you have said in the past. In the past, the tone you had was more negative. I appreciate what you have said and not made enbolden statements where the tone leads me to believe that you alone are correct. I will say this that, while you are saved, you are changed and you will do good deed/works. Doing those good works sometimes is not just a matter of doing it by your state of being saved. Sometimes doing those good works is a matter of actually having to think about what you are going to do and choosing to do them. It can be a very difficult decision to do a particular "good work". What I am saying is that being saved, you will want to do good works, but sometimes doing those good works is HARD. I am not "earning forgiveness" while I am doing a good work, I am living the life that Christ wants me to. Its symnatics that I am trying to point out and for the life of me can not get my mind to spit out what I want it to say. You MUST do good works. I can accept Christ, but being saved will not MAKE me do good works, I must MAKE me do it. And sometimes I must put myself in to the position to do the good works. I can not let the good works "come to me" I do have to rely on myself to complete my part of the bargan with Christ. It reminds me of something that a single friend told me once. She told me that if God wanted her to have a boyfriend/spouse, He would get one for her. I told her if that if she wanted a boyfriend (which she did), God helps those who help themselves. Am I making any sence to anyone but myself? Sorry, I have wording issues.

I have entirely too many posts in my head so I am going to make points, possibly to the simple reader as basically random. 1. Strong's Con. (abrvd) This dictionary of ancient words is very nice. I understand what it is. At first I did not. I have looked at 3 editions of this book, an old one a friend had, one at Books a Million and one online. What you are not seeing that I have said is that it reads like a thesaurus. What has been translated in many many instances is, bear with me, "xyz word" is more of a phrase and this is the basic single word or phrase or context that you can mean in english. My point being is that I can take ANY phrase in ANY bible and it will translate CORRECTLY by using the standards of translations. HENCE, the bible that you read and the bible that I read, are saying the same thing in slightly different words, that WE as a people use and skew the definitions words of on a daily basis. For example: (NOT out of the bible) I say, "hand me a fag" You hear something along the lines that I want you to "pass me a gay man." An English person may hear, "give me a cigarette" Someone else may hear "pass me a stick" What did I mean? Pass me a stick. How could you have understood? Well, you have to know the context. In three hundred years from now, Someone in outer space says, "this was funny, she wanted him to pass her a branch." Is that wrong? I say no. A branch not on a tree is a stick. A stick on the ground was once a branch. Point I am making thru a rambling triad of words? Translation of words and context are important. HOWEVER, translation is not perfect, no matter who is doing it. It is an art. Point 2: It is still not resonating with me correctly when you say things like, " I read many bibles" or "show me a prodistant church that only uses the KJV". I say again, WHY??? If you can not understand what one bible says, that makes the non-understandable bible obsolete. Use a diffferent one. Are you comparing the verses out of one to another to get what you want out of them??? For example, one bible uses "females" and the other uses "women" so you use the verse that says "women" in it so mean to exclude "minor female children". Point 3: Carlene, you are a better speaker than I am. So for many of the things that I want to say, I say, "Yeah! what you said" Point 4: Can we leave BuSh out of this? I do not like the man nor his politics, however, can we stay on talking about the real God, and not someone who think he has God's ear? (snicker) Point 5: No matter how many times yousay I am putting a twist on your words Ron, you still think that I am gonna go to hell, EVEN though, I have accepted the one and only Jesus Christ as my savior and still go to a Catholic Church, while trying not to do bad things on a daily basis and occasionally confessing my sins to a priest and doing some "our Fathers" and "Hail Mary's" *End Rambling*

Ok, Im sorta back. I need to go back and read over some posts, but I have a question. It looks to me that the Strong Concordance was written, in essence backwards. By this I mean, Strong took the KJV of the bible and justified it with defintion. Not creating a newly translated bible. Everywhere I look, its always, Strong's Concordance of the KJV. And still the concordance gives a varity of "possible words that can be used" in places. Its like I am looking at a thesaurus, not a literal transalation. I could do this with ALL versions of the bible and still fit in to Strong's definitions of what the words are.

But see.. there in lies my problem. You can translate single word for word or look at a sentence and translate it, and get different meanings. I havent done any research on the way the Strong Concordance was translated as opposed to the others. Unfortunatly, I am going to be swamped all weekend. This will probably be my last post til Sun nite. Although.. I will be nit picky on this one... We arent supposed to work or shop or do anything but pray on the Sabbeth.. and at one point, everything was closed in SC and GA on Sundays because of this. But we changed the law. Many Right Wing Christians were very against this. Some small towns in SC still have the "blue laws" as they were called. Was it wrong to change it to open stores? What is your oppinion? NOT BEING sarcastic.. but please show verses to support opinion. thanks....

Ya lost me.. we are talking about single words and phrases.... Please clarify

Ron, I guess thats where we differ. I have studied three different languages, French, German and Latin. Latin for 8 years. In studing those languages, expecially with the latin, you learn that sometimes that foreign language does not have a specific english word to translate to. Sometimes with a word, you can turn it in to a whole phrase or a word that means mostly like it. I had a rather "unique" professor (private school, not Catholic) in high school Latin. He gave us a rather "common insult". I can not remember the exact Latin, (Nonconcubarium Illegitimus) but I remember the phrase. Us, being the good little high school students we were translated the phrase as, "Do not allow the illegitimate sons cast you downtrodden." Which was not incorrect. However, the actual meaning that those "whipper-snappers" meant was "Don't let the bastards get you down." What I am trying to say is that sometimes you may get a literal translation, some times not. Translation of something is a interpretive science. you can give someone a dictionary and a document to translate and give someone else the exact same material, and you can come up with different translations that may or may not get the "essence" of the original meanings across.

The biggest thing is that Luther set the tone for support/non support for books to be in the non-Catholic bibles. His arguements are the ones mostly used to support those decisions

More from that site Luther was not content even to let the matter rest there, and proceeded to cast doubt on many other books of the Bible which are accepted as canonical by all Protestants. He considered Job and Jonah mere fables, and Ecclesiastes incoherent and incomplete. He wished that Esther (along with 2 Maccabees) "did not exist," and wanted to "toss it into the Elbe" river. 12) Although the New Testament does not quote any of these books directly, it does closely reflect the thought of the deuterocanonical books in many passages. For example, Revelation 1:4 and 8:3-4 appear to make reference to Tobit 12:15: Revelation 1:4 Grace to you . . . from the seven spirits who are before his throne. {see also 3:1, 4:5, 5:6} Revelation 8:3-4 And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God. {see also Revelation 5:8} Tobit 12:15 I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who present the prayers of the saints and enter into the presence of the glory of the Holy One. St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:29, seems to have 2 Maccabees 12:44 in mind. This saying of Paul is one of the most difficult in the New Testament for Protestants to interpret, given their theology: 1 Corinthians 15:29 Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? 2 Maccabees 12:44 For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. This passage of St. Paul shows that it was the custom of the early Church to watch, pray and fast for the souls of the deceased. In Scripture, to be baptized is often a metaphor for affliction or (in the Catholic understanding) penance (for example, Matthew 3:11, Mark 10:38-39, Luke 3:16, 12:50). Since those in heaven have no need of prayer, and those in hell can't benefit from it, these practices, sanctioned by St. Paul, must be directed towards those in purgatory. Otherwise, prayers and penances for the dead make no sense, and this seems to be largely what Paul is trying to bring out. The "penance interpretation" is contextually supported by the next three verses, where St. Paul speaks of Why am I in peril every hour? . . . I die every day, and so forth. As a third example, Hebrews 11:35 mirrors the thought of 2 Maccabees 7:29: Hebrews 11:35 Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life. 2 Maccabees 7:29 Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God's mercy I may get you back again with your brothers. {a mother speaking to her son: see 7:25-26} If nothing else, you are getting me to read more of the bible and scholarly works on it.

Reading more on that site (http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ110.HTM) It seems that Martin Luther wanted a bunch of books out of the bible. And Other New testaments make reference to those books

For other information: ) They were included in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament from the third century B.C.), which was the "Bible" of the Apostles. They usually quoted the Old Testament scriptures (in the text of the New Testament) from the Septuagint. Forgot to add website: http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ110.HTM

My NAB has the apocrypha in it. Why would any other NAB not have it in there? (These seven books are: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (or, Sirach), and Baruch)

I am going to admit, I have been remiss. I thought the big huge bible on my bookcase was NIV, it is in fact a huge New American Standard Bible, which on the inside cover is the "authorized stamp" of the Congress of Cardinals. (Big wigs in Rome for the Non-Catholics) I appreciate the answer, but I still have a problem with the KJV, which was, according to several sites, a revision of a revision from the Greek text. That, and its missing books. What is your take of the books of the Nag-Hadami (spelling here may be off) They are old texts, as old as any, many of the books of the bible were found there. Many other writtings of the word of God were there too. Why is it wrong to study those and gleen information about God from them?

Ron, I didnt even know what you were trying to say, I skipped it. However you said For most study the NIV is good. How can you say a particular translation is "ok enough" for some study and not all? Why would one bible be the "gold standard" yet you choose to look at another verision? That makes no sence to me at all. Why bother to look at the shorthand, when the longhand is "perfectly fine" Oh, and there isnt much you can say about the Church that will offend me. I, however, reserve the right to defend it. As I do about my entire faith. I am defending my faith. I have brought facts to the table, heck, I even clarified a quote YOU pulled out of the bible that even you were short in defending on homosexuality. Then you went on say that I took part of it "out of context". Which I wanted, I guess, "to nit-pick" you on answers to my questions. I do not accept anyone's beliefs on faith. I do not cower to anyone's brow beating, unless they can hold true to facts and answer the questions I have. Yes, I "nit pick". When I took my senior biology thesis to my professors, they 'nit-picked' the bloody hell out of it. They wanted to know where I got my facts, show them my research data, show them the calculations where I drew my conclusions. It was not enough for me to take a line out of a text book and say, 'here is the truth.' I had to prove it was.

Yup, I personally hate commericals, unless they are ones people tell me are funny and I have to watch them. So that's why I am usually a day behind everyone to watch tv shows. I *heart* my TIVO!!!!!