What is the religious defense of this Jesus Christ quote?

[Vicki Q]

So wait, yet another story and not real? I might as well be reading a Dr. Strange comic book. He also represents good and defeats evil thru magic, and I'll add, without out the threat of hell with eternal torment and suffering.

No, an acted parable is real, but uses an action to illustrate a wider truth.

Examples include Paul's prophecy with Agabus and the belt, symbolising Paul's future captivity, Also the wilting of the fig tree- despite the outward appearance of religiosity in C1 Israel (leaves), there was no genuine fruit (true righteousness), so God would destroy Israel. Also Isaiah walking naked and barefoot to symbolise that Cush and Egypt would be lead away in that state.

[Vicki Q]

And please educate me, is NTW the JW version?

NTW is NTWright; at the beginning of the post I acknowledged that I was stealing his argument.

Maybe we need to return to bibles only printed in Latin.

Latin? No- those were bad translations. Bibles in the original Ancient Hebrew/Greek, please.

I find it eye opening that the 'word of god' can't stand on it's own for the average educated reader. Could it be that is no longer impactful/applicable until someone ads their own slant? Why was it included (or not removed) if it was a local letter for local people that no longer exist?

As I'm sure you've worked out by now, I'm not a fundi, which means I get to use genre. Bear* with me.

We know that there was no historical Prodigal Son, yet Jesus used an 'untrue' story to illustrate the need for Israel to come to His party. He can steal an unhistorical story from Egypt knocking around the Middle East for a long time  (this) and give it a dramatic twist as a trailer to His resurrection (Lazarus and Dives).

Given God's demonstrable liking for this style of education, it follows that the bears* story can also be a parable illustrating that attacking God ends badly.

The downside to not being a fundi is that I have to manage complexity. Like we do with Maths, Languages, Physics...  

So, in what is a broken world with many things that don't work as they perhaps should, I'll have to continue to work with RATS



All the best.

[Fake Messiah]

The downside to not being a fundi is that I have to manage complexity. Like we do with Maths, Languages, Physics...  

The thing what you do is not different from a fundie or any other Christian that disagrees with: you all use the same tropes of metaphor, wrong translation, context to get the Bible to say exactly what you want it to say.

[brewer]

So wait, yet another story and not real? I might as well be reading a Dr. Strange comic book. He also represents good and defeats evil thru magic, and I'll add, without out the threat of hell with eternal torment and suffering.

No, an acted parable is real, but uses an action to illustrate a wider truth.

Examples include Paul's prophecy with Agabus and the belt, symbolising Paul's future captivity, Also the wilting of the fig tree- despite the outward appearance of religiosity in C1 Israel (leaves), there was no genuine fruit (true righteousness), so God would destroy Israel. Also Isaiah walking naked and barefoot to symbolise that Cush and Egypt would be lead away in that state.

What a coincidence that only the religious use that term. There' nothing like making your own definitions to support something that never happened.

[brewer]

And please educate me, is NTW the JW version?

NTW is NTWright; at the beginning of the post I acknowledged that I was stealing his argument.

Maybe we need to return to bibles only printed in Latin.

Latin? No- those were bad translations. Bibles in the original Ancient Hebrew/Greek, please.

I find it eye opening that the 'word of god' can't stand on it's own for the average educated reader. Could it be that is no longer impactful/applicable until someone ads their own slant? Why was it included (or not removed) if it was a local letter for local people that no longer exist?

As I'm sure you've worked out by now, I'm not a fundi, which means I get to use genre. Bear* with me.

We know that there was no historical Prodigal Son, yet Jesus used an 'untrue' story to illustrate the need for Israel to come to His party. He can steal an unhistorical story from Egypt knocking around the Middle East for a long time  (this) and give it a dramatic twist as a trailer to His resurrection (Lazarus and Dives).

Given God's demonstrable liking for this style of education, it follows that the bears* story can also be a parable illustrating that attacking God ends badly.

The downside to not being a fundi is that I have to manage complexity. Like we do with Maths, Languages, Physics...  

So, in what is a broken world with many things that don't work as they perhaps should, I'll have to continue to work with RATS

[pic deleted]

All the best.

Thanks for the NTW clarification.

Maybe you missed the 'Latin' point. If a person has to be told that the bible says/means (as when printed in Latin) by others (that are not god-jesus and have an agenda) then the bible fails to stand on it's own.

Correction, some one said that 'jesus used' decades later. 'God's demonstrable liking', nope, humans telling other humans what their particular version of god does/says.

You can believe what you want, I won't try to change it/you, but I won't validate the belief either.

[Ferrocyanide]

Secondly, it's not about baldness. There is no indication anywhere that Elisha went prematurely bald, and he lived long after these events. Elijah had only just gone to heaven, and that context makes it clear that Elisha had done the ritual head shaving that was funeral custom at the time.

No one said that it is about baldness. There are a lot of details missing from the Bible and it is possible that the author chose not to state at which age Elisha began losing his hair. It is even possible that he was like Charlie Brown.
There is no mention that Elisha did any funerary custom either.

The word BALD appears 25 times in the Bible.
There isn’t a single case where it names a specific jew and says that he started to go bald.

Elijah had only just gone to heaven, and that context makes it clear that Elisha had done the ritual head shaving that was funeral custom at the time.

A shaved head is a bald head. That’s according to the language of the Bible.
Let me give you some examples:

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Leviticus 21:5 KING JAMES VERSION
They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.

^^^^^That is a commandment. It is saying do not shave your head. I don’t know why they aren’t using the word SHAVE. The word SHAVE does appear many times in the Bible.


Another example:

Micah 1:16 KING JAMES VERSION
Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee.

^^^^^Make thee bald means to shave your head. Your head is shaved and therefore, you are bald according to the language of the Bible.

Another example:

Ezekiel 27:31 KING JAMES VERSION
And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing.

Another example:

Jeremiah 16:6 KING JAMES VERSION
Both the great and the small shall die in this land: they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them: {16:7} Neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.

Thirdly, the Hebrew words used for 'boys' cover a spectrum from ankle biters to army ready young men. Think 'hoodie'. And lots and lots of them. Not nice if they take agin' you.

The text qualifies them as “little children”.
Anyway, whether they are 5 y old or more is irrelevant. An immoral act has taken place by the jewish god. He resorts to murder.

Fourthly, the town was a hotbed of religious tension, and the youths were on the God-disliking side. The writer is clearly telling us it's all about to kick off, with 'it' being Elisha's head.

That’s an interpretation of yours.
There is no indication that the story is fake. It is the story of Elijah and Elisha. Why would they tell us a true story, about a couple of real guys, telling us about their activities, and suddenly insert a few lines of fake story?

How does a christian decide which lines are real and which lines are made up? You gave your reasons but these are poor reasons.

At which point in the story, God intervenes to protect His servant against His enemies; a bear, which was probably in the woods for the well known reason, and didn't appreciate the disturbance, decides to demonstrate the possible consequences of excessive noise.

You said that the jewish god intervenes to protect his servant. In other words the jewish god made the decision to have the 42 little children killed.
Protect? That is an interesting choice of words here.

What would the jewish god do if someone spits on Elisha? Shove an atomic bomb down someone’s throat and blow him up?

It's a parable. It picks up on a number of key themes that occur throughout the OT. God looked after those of His people who were faithful. If God's people bring up their children to oppose God, it doesn't end well. Otherwise, nothing to see here.

If it is a parable and all of it is just parable, then the jewish god has not helped his people. He hasn’t done anything negative either.

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[Ferrocyanide]

Thanks for the NTW clarification.

The NWT = New World Translation.

Yes, it is the Bible used by Jehova's witnesses. I have downloaded the PDF from their website.

[brewer]

Thanks for the NTW clarification.

The NWT = New World Translation.

Yes, it is the Bible used by Jehova's witnesses. I have downloaded the PDF from their website.

Why in gods name WHY???

[Ferrocyanide]

The NWT = New World Translation.

Yes, it is the Bible used by Jehova's witnesses. I have downloaded the PDF from their website.

Why in gods name WHY???

https://youtu.be/th6t0scrw_o?t=34

Well listen, chief.
Your company built the fucking thing.
Now I got to deal with it?
I don't have time for this bullshit.

[CuriosityBob]

Quoting from the bible, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household." - Jesus Christ, Matthew 10:34-36

How would theists defend Jesus here? It's my favorite biblical quote when I want to point out that Jesus is a dick.

It is incumbent upon us to understand what is written and what is translation. What bible translation are you quoting from?

If you go back to the Greek as written then the verse reads very differently.

"Think not that I am come to send [ballō - to throw or let go of a thing without caring where it falls] peace. I came not to send [same word, same meaning as before] peace but a sword [machaira - this is not a sword as we imagine but a small sword or large knife, its use here is figurative to mean judgement]. Freed of the constraints placed on it by translation it now says (me paraphrasing);

"Think not that I am come to carelessly discard peace. I have not come to carelessly discard peace but to bring judgement." This is setting up the next lines, where he then explains that judgement will set a man against his father, daughter against mother, etc.