I have three questions. Take your pick.
1
Is God above the law or not?
It would seem to me that the answer to this question is an obvious no. Jesus had to die because of the weight of the law. If God was above the law then he would just forgive everyone without sending his son to pay for the debts.
But then there is a problem. Deuteronomy 24:16 says,
The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
This, presumably, is directly from God.
Then in 2 Samuel 12:13-20, David's son is tortured and killed by God because of sins committed by David.
So... is God above the law or not?
2
1. Men accidentally corrupted the Bible despite trying not to (example: compare the list in Ezra 2 with the list in Nehemiah 7)
2. Satan is more intelligent and more powerful than any man
3. Satan is motivated to corrupt the Bible
4. ???
5. Satan cannot even corrupt the Bible to the same degree that man has
If you admit that Satan actually has corrupted the Bible, then boy are you in trouble. So premise 4 must be, "God manually prevents Satan from corrupting the Bible."
But then why doesn't God also manually prevent scribes from corrupting the Bible, especially if we can agree that they are probably praying for such divine intervention (John 14:13)? This would not be a vulgar miracle, nor would it be the overriding of free will. I know that some Bibles will be corrupted by man - I could easily type one up myself and change some things - but why has God allowed the corruption of the text to get so bad that there is not a single perfect copy on earth? And how does this reconcile with Psalms 12:6-7?
3
1
Is God above the law or not?
It would seem to me that the answer to this question is an obvious no. Jesus had to die because of the weight of the law. If God was above the law then he would just forgive everyone without sending his son to pay for the debts.
But then there is a problem. Deuteronomy 24:16 says,
The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
This, presumably, is directly from God.
Then in 2 Samuel 12:13-20, David's son is tortured and killed by God because of sins committed by David.
So... is God above the law or not?
2
1. Men accidentally corrupted the Bible despite trying not to (example: compare the list in Ezra 2 with the list in Nehemiah 7)
2. Satan is more intelligent and more powerful than any man
3. Satan is motivated to corrupt the Bible
4. ???
5. Satan cannot even corrupt the Bible to the same degree that man has
If you admit that Satan actually has corrupted the Bible, then boy are you in trouble. So premise 4 must be, "God manually prevents Satan from corrupting the Bible."
But then why doesn't God also manually prevent scribes from corrupting the Bible, especially if we can agree that they are probably praying for such divine intervention (John 14:13)? This would not be a vulgar miracle, nor would it be the overriding of free will. I know that some Bibles will be corrupted by man - I could easily type one up myself and change some things - but why has God allowed the corruption of the text to get so bad that there is not a single perfect copy on earth? And how does this reconcile with Psalms 12:6-7?
3
Jesus is like Pinocchio. He's the bastard son of a carpenter. And a liar. And he wishes he was real.