Bible Contradictions

[mwtech]

I used to be a Christian and only recently become an atheist after studying the Bible enough to notice the flaws. I believe the Bible in itself to be contradictory enough to prove itself wrong, and I enjoy discussing it with other people, especially Christians who disagree. I would really like to have a one on one debate with any Christian who thinks that they have a logical answer for the contradictions in the Bible. The one rule I have is that you can't make a claim without evidence, whether from the Bible or any other source. I am interested in logical conversation, and I don't believe that any Christian can refute the contradictions I have found without making up some rationalization that has no evidence or logical base.

[mwtech]

[Replying to post 140 by edform]

Not a problem. I was afraid you might have missed it as it was sandwiched between a lot of other conversations.

[LightSeeker]

[Replying to mwtech]

Sorry if I brought that about.

By the way, I'm a neighbor. East Tennessee.

[Idealist]

[Replying to post 106 by Idealist]

Really? You've never drawn a conclusion based on scholarship and then participated in debate about it? I would hardly call that process 'extremist'. And is it really your conclusion that all christians and atheists do nothing more than cherry pick? There are no christians or atheists that present valid syllogistic arguments and conclusions?

That position would seem..... extreme. It appears your first post was meant to also be your last, as you see no value in being here among the silly cherry-pickers.

It seems you have totally redefined my message to fit your vindictive style. I never said there were no good reasons for debate, or that ALL atheists and Christians do nothing but "cherry-pick." I purposely limited myself to a few words written by you which seemed designed to stir-up an emotional, as opposed to a scholarly, response. And now you've just done it again.

[edform]

[Replying to post 99 by edform]
The bible attests that Jesus fulfilled prophesy by being born of a virgin. It states that the prophesy is found in Is 7:14:
Sadly, this is a false translation and an obvious fraud. The actual honest Hebrew translation is thus:
Behold, the young woman has conceived-[is with child)-and beareth a son and calleth his name Immanuel."
("Hinneh ha-almah harah ve-yeldeth ben ve-karath shem-o immanuel")

Let me set my position on this passage down first. The passage you refer to is Matthew 1:23 which in the King James Version is…

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

I believe that the KJV is wrong, the word in Matthew is not the Greek equivalent of the English word ‘virgin.’

The majority of translations of this passage, in all of the languages I can read, render it in much the same way, but not all: the Rogers-Coverdale edition of Tyndale has…

Behold a *maid* shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shalt call his name Emmanuel, which is as much to say, by interpretation, as God with us.

The English word ‘maid’ can have the inference ‘virgin,’ but only when used in virgin-or-not contexts. Its formal meaning is ‘a young girl, who is not yet married,’ and in older forms of English, when this archaic word was used, society was such that an expectation of virginity applied to females of the nubile but unmarried group.

Tyndale – the source of the phrasing in the Rogers-Coverdale editions was William Tyndale himself – was a very learned man and chose his substitute words with unique intuition and attention to detail. As an example, he was the originator of the use of the English word ‘sin’ for the Hebrew word ‘chatta’ah’ and the Greek word ‘hamartia.’ All three words are terms from marksmanship and they all mean ‘miss the mark.’

In the NT the word ‘parthenos,’ which the KJV and others give as ‘virgin’ in the Matthew citation from Isaiah, occurs 13 times and most of the uses involve unmarried daughters, a point recognised by Louw and Nida in their splendid two-volume lexicon. They say…

A female person beyond puberty but not yet married and a virgin (though in some contexts virginity is not a focal component of the meaning).

They then point to Acts 21:9 – he had four virgin daughters… and say

The emphasis seems to be upon the fact that the daughters were not yet married.

…and go on to point out that the wise and foolish ‘virgins’ were all desperate to get into a wedding feast which is a parabolic reference to the marriage supper of the Lamb – in other words, it is their unmarried status and not their possible virginity that is described.

In another place L&N cite 1 Corinthians 7:25 – ‘concerning the *unmarried*, I do not have a commandment from the Lord.’ And I would add verse 36 of the same chapter which plainly means – ‘But if any man think that he is behaving unreasonably toward his ‘unmarried daughter…’

Louw and Nida then add…

Some scholars interpret ‘parthenos’ as referring not only to those who have never married, but also to widows and widowers who have not remarried. The meaning of ‘unmarried persons who are not necessarily virgins’ is well attested in Greek from classical times.

It is also very significant in the context we are looking at that in the few places in the NT where sexual purity is intended, the word ‘parthenos’ is accompanied by qualifying words or phrases…

2 Corinthians 11:2 …that I may present you as a *chaste* virgin to Christ.
Revelation 14:4 These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins.

In the Matthew verse, by choosing ‘maid’ for ‘parthenos,’ Tyndale correctly applied the consensus of meaning from the other uses in the NT and used a word that indicated that the girl in the prophecy was sexually mature but unmarried.

The conventional use of ‘parthenos’ as ‘virgin’ originates in Christian mishandling of this very Matthew passage and in discounting the body of evidence from classical Greek that gives the word the value ‘unmarried’ without reference to virginity.

In fact ‘parthenos’ is the exact lexical and cultural equivalent of the Hebrew word ‘almah’ as is the English word ‘maid.’ In all three languages, and in all three cultures – Hebrew, Greek and Medieval English - a girl who had reached sexual maturity, but was not yet married, was expected to be a virgin because all three cultures operated bride-price systems – the marriageability of daughters involved financial considerations dependent upon the virginity of the girls.

My point here is that Matthew was not the author of what you so ungraciously called a fraud; he used the Greek word that correctly represented the original Hebrew – and good old William Tyndale, recognising that, also chose the correct substitute word – ‘maid.’

The idea that Mary was still a virgin when she became pregnant with Jesus does not occur in Matthew. We only know this was the case because she asked Gabriel: ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?’ - Luke 1:34.

The New Testament tells us that the origin of Jesus from the nubile, but unmarried, girl Mary was a fulfilment of the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 and that Mary was actually a virgin. Matthew, however, was more accurate than examinations of the meanings of words by us at this far remove of history can reveal. To see this we need to look at the circumstances of the Isaiah prophecy and I’ll do that in a moment, but I first want to make a couple of comments on what you posted.

[Replying to post 99 by edform]
The bible attests that Jesus fulfilled prophesy by being born of a virgin. It states that the prophesy is found in Is 7:14:
Sadly, this is a false translation and an obvious fraud. The actual honest Hebrew translation is thus:
Behold, the young woman has conceived-[is with child)-and beareth a son and calleth his name Immanuel."
("Hinneh ha-almah harah ve-yeldeth ben ve-karath shem-o immanuel")

Almah, everywhere it is used in the OT, means a maid, or young woman who has reached the age of consent - whether a virgin or not. Further, in every place in the OT where a virgin is described, the word used is 'bethulah'. And yet, even when Hebrew scholars pointed out the translation error to the nascent church - they maintained this fraud anyway.
Therefore, this is not even a prophesy of a future event, but an accounting of an already completed one - and it is a product of fraud. Why does the NT falsely call this a prophesy, and why did they dishonestly translate the Hebrew?

First point: your ‘honest translation’ of the Isaiah 7:14 original is wrong. The verbs in the first clause are present tense. Transposing them into the perfect tense, while it may be convenient to your argument, is not permissible; they must be left with the present tenses intact or perhaps given the allowable alternative, future, weight. The attempt that Jewish teachers make to suggest a done deed, or even a long-done deed, by the past tense variation is dishonest.

The correct translation of the first clause is: ‘Listen up, the maid conceives and bears a son…’

The presence of the definite article in ‘ha-almah’ indicates that the girl in question was known to the people Isaiah addressed or even that she was present and Isaiah pointed to her – ‘that maid.’

Your second clause is no better, although Jewish teachers trot it out all the time. The correct translation is: ‘…and the calling of his name is Immanuel.’ it is not possible to say from the text who actually coins the name, but your version twists it so that uninformed readers will assume his mother was the speaker.

Even if ‘qara’ was used as a verb, the difference between first person feminine singular and second person feminine or masculine singular is pointing and that is not in the original but was done by the very Jewish folk who want to beat the Christians with it. The prophecy is actually addressed to the House of David – the royal family – so the most obvious translation would be ‘you will call.’

As I indicated a moment ago, present tense verbs can be given future tense meanings in Hebrew, so the verse can be represented by either of the following alternatives…

Listen up, the maid conceives and bears a son, and the calling of his name is Immanuel.
Listen up, the maid will conceive and bear a son, and the calling of his name will be Immanuel.

For supporting evidence read the story of the conception of Samson carefully; the language of the angel to Manoah’s wife is identical and the very obvious translation is: ‘You were barren and look, now you are conceiving.’

Second point: your claim that everywhere the Hebrew Scriptures speaks of a virgin it uses the word ‘bethulah’ is wrong. In one passage at least, ‘bethulah’ does not mean virgin…

Joel 1:8 - Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

…and another indicates it may not mean virgin without supporting information…

Genesis 24:16 - And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up.

And Almah definitely means virgin in one verse at least. Describing the female complement of Solomon’s house, Song of Solomon 6:8 says…

There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number.

Now – What did Isaiah mean by his speech to the royal party, and Ahaz in particular, assembled to check out the water supplies because a siege of the city was in the offing.

We can pin down the dates of these events fairly closely from a combination of Bible and secular sources – there’s a wonderful book ‘The mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings’ by Edwin R Thiele that unravels the accession dates and lengths of reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah and a lot of Assyrian and other records are now in published translation. From the available information it is plain that the girl spoken of was Abijah the daughter of Zechariah the Priest and that she was betrothed, not married to Ahaz – hence the use of ‘almah.’

I should also have added that the idea that the girl in question was Abijah the daughter of Zechariah the priest and that she was only engaged to the king, not married to him at the time in question is one which occurs regularly in the commentators - including Jewish ones. It is also possible to reason out the timing with the help of Dr Thiele's book 'The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings' and this very much supports the idea. My original source of the thought was a suggestion in a book called 'Studies in Isaiah' written by the Christadelphian scholar Harry Whittaker, but the most prominent 'independent' source is W.A.Wordsworth. It was also offered by J.W.Thirtle in his book 'Old Testament Problems.’

Isaiah was actually sent to offer the king God’s protection and further, to offer him a miraculous sign to prove that God could protect him. Ahaz refused with a mock pious – I won’t put God to the test and that that point Isaiah blew up and made the prophetic speech.

Isaiah 7:13-16
And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

The question that matters is: what was the sign? Christian convention has it that it was the birth of a son to a virgin, which is nonsense. They add - the prophecy was that by the time the boy was weaned the confederate kings that Ahaz feared would be done away with. This is also nonsense.

1. The phrase ‘For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good’ does not refer to weaning: it is the standard form of the responsibilities required of a bar-mitzvah boy – one who has learned to discern right from wrong and choose the right. SO the timescale was almost 13 years – 9 months of pregnancy and 12 years till the boy would be ready to become a son of the Law – age at bar-mitzvah was 12 years back then the Jewish historians tell us.

2. Ahaz was a cynical and wholly corrupt villain who had already murdered his firstborn son by sacrificing him in the fire. The idea that he would have been willing to wait until the child was born to establish that it was a boy and confirm the prophet’s qualifications, and then wait out even the weaning period for safety is ludicrous. To expand the second period out to cover the years till the boy was old enough to shoulder his own responsibilities to the Law adds a further level of the ridiculous.

The sign that Isaiah gave was not a virgin pregnancy, nor was it a virgin pregnancy resulting in a boy. So what was it?

It’s blindingly obvious, and it confirms the importance of the present tense active verbs in the first clause of what Isaiah said – ‘Listen up, that young woman is conceiving and will bear a son!’ The king had lain with Abijah that very day and she was in the process of becoming pregnant and the outcome would be a boy. The sign was that Isaiah knew what Ahaz thought was his own dirty secret, that he had deflowered an honourable young woman, before marriage made it legitimate. Why do you think Zechariah allowed his daughter to marry such a vile monster? He had no choice, Ahaz would have cooked up some story to cover his tracks otherwise and the girl would have been liable to execution.

So…
1. Matthew did not falsify his version of Isaiah’s prophecy; his words are a valid representation of the exact meaning of the original Hebrew.

2. Isaiah used a word to describe Abijah that was accurate – she was nubile and unmarried, but she was not a virgin.

3. Cultural expectations of girls in the ‘almah’ category was always that they should be virgins. This is why Isaiah used ‘almah.’ It applied equally to Abijah who was not a virgin and to the woman he saw in the distance, who was.

4. Your claim that Isaiah’s words were a record of an actual event and not a prophecy is wrong...

The facts do not support you. The wording shows that the prophet diagnosed an unknown situation and shocked the king by revealing it. So it was a short term prophecy at least.
The Jewish commentators don’t support you either. They are clear that Isaiah’s prophecy had a long term, as well as a proximate, fulfilment and that it applies to Messiah. Parallels between what is to be expected in Messiah’s reign and what actually happened during Hezekiah’s – for he was the boy of the prophecy – are frequent in their discussions.

5. Matthew’s record of the birth of Jesus simply claims that it fulfilled what Isaiah promised. You haven’t offered anything that disproves the claim.

And just to help you - It's clearly spelled Strider....

So I now see, but Aragorn was such a poser, so it didn’t register that you would wish to be associated with him.

Ed Form

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 106 by Idealist]

Really? You've never drawn a conclusion based on scholarship and then participated in debate about it? I would hardly call that process 'extremist'. And is it really your conclusion that all christians and atheists do nothing more than cherry pick? There are no christians or atheists that present valid syllogistic arguments and conclusions?

That position would seem..... extreme. It appears your first post was meant to also be your last, as you see no value in being here among the silly cherry-pickers.

It seems you have totally redefined my message to fit your vindictive style. I never said there were no good reasons for debate, or that ALL atheists and Christians do nothing but "cherry-pick." I purposely limited myself to a few words written by you which seemed designed to stir-up an emotional, as opposed to a scholarly, response. And now you've just done it again.

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[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 106 by Idealist]

Really? You've never drawn a conclusion based on scholarship and then participated in debate about it? I would hardly call that process 'extremist'. And is it really your conclusion that all christians and atheists do nothing more than cherry pick? There are no christians or atheists that present valid syllogistic arguments and conclusions?

That position would seem..... extreme. It appears your first post was meant to also be your last, as you see no value in being here among the silly cherry-pickers.

Moderator Warning


Also, you have been here long enough to KNOW that sarcasm is uncivil, in spite of any percieived provocation.


Please review our Rules.

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[edform]

[Replying to post 129 by edform]

We seek our "vision" of truth with no barricades. We open ourselves to spiritual interpretation.

9) Blessed are you that you did not waver at the sight of Me. For where the mind is there is the treasure.
10) I said to Him, Lord, how does he who sees the vision see it, through the soul or through the spirit?
11) The Savior answered and said, He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind that is between the two that is what sees the vision- Gospel of Mary

There is no gospel of Mary; it's a bogus, wholly uninspired, and worthless fiction.

[Replying to post 129 by edform]
We choose to follow those scriptures which provide clarity, even outside of Canon to define what's in Canon. This is a path, not a theology. As referenced above, Jesus says:

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.- Matthew 10

So if Jesus said his words are "spirit", where does that leave the soul and body. Mary gives an idea that the mind is torn between the two. In the beginning, man was body and soul. In transgression, he was given the spirit. He now had knowledge and no longer a slave, ie an animal

Thus began the battle for the soul, the flesh pulling (mind) one way, the spirit another.

John 6
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.


Quicken means "make alive". Unseen yet understood. You are correct, it is what the mind perceives, of seen and unseen. A path of understanding through knowledge, the knowledge (word) the Son came to give.

Human beings do not 'have' a spirit or soul in any sense indicating a separate element of their constitution; human beings 'are' souls - the original Hebrew definition from the first few chapters of Genesis is 'a body that can breathe.' In every place where Scripture uses the word 'soul' of a human being it indicates the human being himself. Where it uses 'spirit' it indicates the set of the human being's thinking. God can drag soul and body apart because he can remove the ability a human being has to breathe causing him to become a lifeless corpse - no longer a soul, just dust.

Ed Form

[edform]

I am aware that there are two meanings that the word tempt can take. I don't disagree that biblical authors knew this too. My argument is that whether or not you call what Abraham went through a test, he was tempted by God to do it.

In straightforward, meaning-of-words-in-the-dictionary, terms you are incorrect. God *ordered* Abraham to turn Isaac into smoke. There was no temptation involved.

After I said that the thing God required was so awful that the word temptation could not have applied – no one, least of all Abraham, would have seen the requirement as beneficial, and therefore attractive - you went on to say…

I have to disagree with you here. You say that it could not be tempation because there was no incentive for Abraham. I thtemptation is incentive, even if it may not be completely pleasant. Abraham is regarded as one of the most faithful servants of God. He lived to do God's will, and took pleasure in doing it. The fact that he is willing to do something as extreme as sacrificing his son, proves how much it means to him to do what God wants. Abraham is tempted to kill his son, not because it pleases him to do so, but because doing it will please God. The motivation behind temptation doesn't mean it wasn't temptation. He could be motivated by a desire to kill his son, which is obviously not the case, or he could be motivated by his desire to please God, which clearly is the case. The temptation was there no matter the motive, command, or authority behind it.

I am struggling to come to terms with the fact that you are actually capable of thinking like that. A loving father – and the Abraham’s love for Isaac, following the many decades through which he longed for him, and the remarkable way in which his birth came about, is one of the strongest emotional bonds described in Scripture – A loving father wouldn’t consider such a thing to please anyone – there is more to it than that.

I am not going to comment on each individual passage you provide because I don't think whether or not Abraham and Isaac believed in resurrection or not is relevant to the original point--that what Abraham went through was temptation.

If that is the way you propose to deal with the discussion, then I’m wasting my time. I didn’t offer ‘individual passages,’ I made a systematic examination of the event to show that Abraham and Isaac agreed to do as God had ordered. If you don’t think through what I write, there is no point in writing, and certainly no point in putting in the work. You give the impression that you are a non-believer with an axe to grind: a mission to prove to yourself that you have no reason to believe. So I’ll simply end with two statements and then drop out…

1. God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son.
2. Abraham and Isaac agreed to do it.

Finally then, one last idea…

Genesis 21:12
And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
The New Testament prophets pick up on this specific promise – the line of descent by which the promises would proceed would be the progeny of Isaac. Yet when Abraham was ordered to go and do away with his son, Isaac had no wife and no children. Someone who was completely convinced that God would keep his promises, and who also believed that the promises required Isaac to have children, would realise that the order could not possibly mean the end of Isaac – either God would let him do the deed and then raise Isaac immediately in order to get the line of progeny under way, or God would not let him do the deed. We can see that he had reasoned that the second of these two outcomes was what would happen because he told Isaac that God would provide a lamb.
I conclude, therefore, that God knew that Abraham would do as he was told, and also knew that his faithful friend had correctly understood his character – had understood that God would never permit him to do anything so awful.

The scripture you quoted as evidence that everyone knew that Isaac would be the one through whom the promise was fulfilled, took place after Abraham had already begun the sacrifice.

This holds no bearing in the temptation argument because this knowledge came about after the temptation. Abraham's faith could have just as easily lead him to believe that God would give him another son, just as he had given him isaac, and the new child would fulfill his promises. We do not know what Abraham thought. All we know is that God told him to sacrifice his son, and that Abraham desired to follow God's commands and tried to sacrifice his son. I would call this temptation for reasons explained above.

‘In Isaac shall thy seed be called’ was said to Abraham by God during a family celebration of the fact that Isaac was weaned – in other words, more than 30 years before the events on Mount Moriah.

Ed Form

[mwtech]

In straightforward, meaning-of-words-in-the-dictionary, terms you are incorrect. God *ordered* Abraham to turn Isaac into smoke. There was no temptation involved.

You have just restated your first original position without giving any counter argument to my claim. For the exact reasons I just stated, I will say I disagree with you. If this is not your interpretation, then I can't change that, but if you want to debate, you need to counter my claim.

After I said that the thing God required was so awful that the word temptation could not have applied – no one, least of all Abraham, would have seen the requirement as beneficial, and therefore attractive - you went on to say…

I have to disagree with you here. You say that it could not be tempation because there was no incentive for Abraham. I thtemptation is incentive, even if it may not be completely pleasant. Abraham is regarded as one of the most faithful servants of God. He lived to do God's will, and took pleasure in doing it. The fact that he is willing to do something as extreme as sacrificing his son, proves how much it means to him to do what God wants. Abraham is tempted to kill his son, not because it pleases him to do so, but because doing it will please God. The motivation behind temptation doesn't mean it wasn't temptation. He could be motivated by a desire to kill his son, which is obviously not the case, or he could be motivated by his desire to please God, which clearly is the case. The temptation was there no matter the motive, command, or authority behind it.

I am struggling to come to terms with the fact that you are actually capable of thinking like that. A loving father – and the Abraham’s love for Isaac, following the many decades through which he longed for him, and the remarkable way in which his birth came about, is one of the strongest emotional bonds described in Scripture – A loving father wouldn’t consider such a thing to please anyone – there is more to it than that.

This is the kind of emotional bias that gives me reason to think that some Christians are not capable of looking at the Bible as a work of literature as well as a Holy Text, but are reading into it whatever they want to believe. I am capable of thinking this way because I can read the passage without already having decided that there was cooperation involved. And without this bias, for the reasons I gave and that you did not counter with any evidence, I saw evidence that it was unknown to Isaac that he was going to be sacrificed.

I am not going to comment on each individual passage you provide because I don't think whether or not Abraham and Isaac believed in resurrection or not is relevant to the original point--that what Abraham went through was temptation.

If that is the way you propose to deal with the discussion, then I’m wasting my time. I didn’t offer ‘individual passages,’ I made a systematic examination of the event to show that Abraham and Isaac agreed to do as God had ordered. If you don’t think through what I write, there is no point in writing, and certainly no point in putting in the work. You give the impression that you are a non-believer with an axe to grind: a mission to prove to yourself that you have no reason to believe. So I’ll simply end with two statements and then drop out…

1. God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son.
2. Abraham and Isaac agreed to do it.

First of all, you have again just restated your original claim and offered no counter argument to my rebuttal. I did not ignore what you wrote and I did read through it thoroughly more than once. your many passages lead up to the conclusion that Isaac knew he was going to be resurrected so he cooperated in the sacrifice. I already stated that I don't think Isaac knew he was going to be sacrificed. I also stated that I don't think that their motivation behind doing any of this changes whether or not they were tempted to do it. So instead of nitpicking every verse you gave me, I let you know that I did not find it relative to the point that Abraham was tempted.

Secondly, I have no axe to grind, and I am perfectly content in my beliefs. But like any scholar should be, I am interested in furthering my knowledge. Talking to someone who has a different viewpoint than I do is a good way to do that. I find it offensive that you would suggest not only that I don't really believe what I say I do, but that I am attacking you in order to make myself feel better. That is simply not true.

Finally then, one last idea…

Genesis 21:12
And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
The New Testament prophets pick up on this specific promise – the line of descent by which the promises would proceed would be the progeny of Isaac. Yet when Abraham was ordered to go and do away with his son, Isaac had no wife and no children. Someone who was completely convinced that God would keep his promises, and who also believed that the promises required Isaac to have children, would realise that the order could not possibly mean the end of Isaac – either God would let him do the deed and then raise Isaac immediately in order to get the line of progeny under way, or God would not let him do the deed. We can see that he had reasoned that the second of these two outcomes was what would happen because he told Isaac that God would provide a lamb.
I conclude, therefore, that God knew that Abraham would do as he was told, and also knew that his faithful friend had correctly understood his character – had understood that God would never permit him to do anything so awful.

The scripture you quoted as evidence that everyone knew that Isaac would be the one through whom the promise was fulfilled, took place after Abraham had already begun the sacrifice.

This holds no bearing in the temptation argument because this knowledge came about after the temptation. Abraham's faith could have just as easily lead him to believe that God would give him another son, just as he had given him isaac, and the new child would fulfill his promises. We do not know what Abraham thought. All we know is that God told him to sacrifice his son, and that Abraham desired to follow God's commands and tried to sacrifice his son. I would call this temptation for reasons explained above.

‘In Isaac shall thy seed be called’ was said to Abraham by God during a family celebration of the fact that Isaac was weaned – in other words, more than 30 years before the events on Mount Moriah.

Ed Form[/quote]

Thank you for the correction. Although I still don't see how we can know that 30 years passed from the weaning of Isaac to the sacrifice, I see how this would support your claim that Isaac knew he would not die until he had a descendant. If you would care to support any of your other rebuttals to my counter argument, I would be happy to continue debating with you. Or if you want to agree to disagree on any topic, we can just move on to another one. I do not debate to try and convince you I'm right. I just enjoy the discussion. It isn't like one of us has to be declared winner. No need to drop the debate just because you didn't convince me.

[Danmark]

Human beings do not 'have' a spirit or soul in any sense indicating a separate element of their constitution; human beings 'are' souls - the original Hebrew definition from the first few chapters of Genesis is 'a body that can breathe.' In every place where Scripture uses the word 'soul' of a human being it indicates the human being himself. Where it uses 'spirit' it indicates the set of the human being's thinking. God can drag soul and body apart because he can remove the ability a human being has to breathe causing him to become a lifeless corpse - no longer a soul, just dust.

Ed Form

[Emphasis applied] Certainly it is true "Human beings do not 'have' a spirit or soul in any sense indicating a separate element of their constitution."
There is no such thing as 'spirit' or 'soul'. Consciousness arises from matter: specifically the 100 billion neurons in the human brain, each neuron having 1000 connections. This is a mind boggling [no pun intended] number of connections. The ancients had no clue as to these facts and invented the concept of 'soul' or 'spirit' to account for consciousness. We have progressed beyond this primitive analysis. We no longer need "God" or primitive/magical concepts to understand either consciousness or nature. The debate, at least among rational, educated folks, has long been over. There is no longer a need to invoke explanations from the witch doctors.