The Tower of Babel

[Redbeard The Pink]

Ok Ronny, you seem to be a pretty typical catholic bloke with a pretty typical approach to Biblical inerrancy. You've asserted (if I understand you correctly) that Jesus and the New Testament are all literal, and that the Old Testament is mostly metaphors between whose lines we must read to get the over-arching message, and that message is that God is patient, loving, and forgiving, and that man is wicked and rebellious.


First off, that is a drastic oversimplification of the Old Testament, and it aims to sweep so much under the carpet. OT Jehovah is not a kind god. He repeatedly wipes out huge sections of the human population (including nearly everyone in that whole Flood thing that's technically scientifically impossible), he condones and regulates slavery (in both Testaments, actually), he treats rape as if it's not a big deal while eating shellfish and homosexuality are both named as abominations, he demands the blood of animals and humans (including children) as sacrifice for arbitrary sleights for which he invents the rules and punishments...your god is a dick, dude. In both Testaments.


His ability to forgive revolves around the spilling of blood, up to and including that of himself/his only child. You know how many people have to die before I can forgive someone? Zero. I don't have to hurt so much as a fly in order to grant forgiveness for wrongs committed against me.


Now, this creates an interesting dilemma, because it means that Jehovah can't be both all-loving and all-powerful. It means that either Jehovah chooses to never forgive unless someone is punished, or he is unable to forgive unless someone is punished.


If he chooses to levy punishment for forgiveness, he's not even as loving as I am, for I can grant forgiveness to my enemies without having to punish them. If he's not as loving as I am, then he isn't all-loving.


If he is unable to forgive without punishing, then I, a mere human, can do something he can't, which means he isn't all-powerful. Furthermore, it means that he is not the objective source of universal morality because there are apparently rules which he has no choice but to adhere to.


You also seem to be ignoring some things about the New Testament. If the OT is Jehovah-inspired, but written by men (and therefore factually inaccurate by implication), how is that any different from the New Testament. The NT books, just like the OT books, were written  years after the events are supposed to have happened, mostly by anonymous and pseudonymous human authors and then redacted, rewritten, and recopied various times before even beginning to resemble the versions we have now. By your own standard, how is the NT any more or less metaphorical than the OT?


Furthermore, if the NT is literally true, I have some questions about it.


When the women got to the tomb on Easter morning, was the stone already rolled away, or did an angel roll it away after they got there?


On that same morning, how many women went to the tomb, and which ones?


If the creation account in Genesis is metaphorical, why does Paul write in his epistles as if it's historical fact?


When Jesus arrived at Jerusalem the week of his betrayal, how many donkeys did he ride into the city? Was it one, or two?


According to the genealogies presented for Jesus in the Gospels, who was Joseph's father?


Was Jesus crucified on the first day of Passover, or the next day?


If God didn't really lose his son (seeing as how he was allegedly raised from the dead and now lives in Heaven), then how is that actually a sacrifice?


Finally, if Jesus himself is so great and the OT is just a metaphor, why does Jesus expressly uphold all OT law? Why does he say that calling people "fool" puts you in danger of hellfire, but then turn around and call various people fools throughout the gospels? Why does he condone and reinforce slavery? Should we really be emulating this guy?