Saturday, October 8, 2011

Literal and Innerrant Are Not the Same Thing - Part II

Hello everyone. In a previous post titled "Literal and Inerrant Are Not the Same Thing," I pointed out how absurd the Bible becomes if we take every word absolutely literally (which is okay, because...inerrant and literal are not the same thing). There, I focused largely on the Old Testament, so here, I'll focus on the New Testament.

"Falling Asleep" - They sure talk about falling asleep a lot, and often in contexts when you'd think they would speak of death, not sleep. For example, in 1 Corinthians 15:6, we read (regarding Christ after His ressurection), "After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep..." Last I checked, them being asleep doesn't make them not alive. Heck, if they really needed to ask them about it right away, they could just wake them and ask them...(see also Acts 7:60, 1 Thessalonians 4:14, and others).

Earthen Vessels - The light of the knowledge of Christ is kept in earthen vessels. So, where are these clay jars, and what are we supposed to do with them? How is knowledge stored in a clay jar in the first place (2 Corinthians 4:6-7)?

Children of the Devil - The devil has literal human offspring (so it turns out Little Nicky wasn't so far-fetched) (John 8:44, Acts 13:10, 1 John 3:10).

The Last Supper - This goes far beyond the debate between the typical evangelical interpretation of the Lord's Supper (that the bread and wine are symbolic for body and blood), and the Catholic/Lutheran interpretation (that the elements literally are Jesus' flesh and blood). Regardless of what happens in the ritual, their are a lot of problems that occur when we look at the actual last supper. Jesus tells the disciples that the bread that they are eating is His body. But, this is before His resurrection, when His body had the same limits of our own. How could that have been His body? His body was there sitting next to them. And if it came from his body, 1. it wouldn't be bread, it'd be human flesh, and 2. what about the large portion of flesh He would have been missing. And what of the blood? Why did the authors say it was wine, if in fact there it was blood? Or was Jesus' blood actually made of wine (Matthew 26:26-29)?

2 Corinthians 5:1-9 - People speak of 2 Corinthians 5:1-9 as being about the body and the soul and dying and heaven. However, Verses 1-8 say nothing of the sort. The body and the soul never even come up. It just tells us about some tent that I guess Paul and the Corinthians (and perhaps us) all live in on earth, and how God has another building for us to live somewhere in the heavens. It is only in Verse 9 that Paul brings up the body, totally unrelated to anything said before.

"Clothed With Christ" - Apparently, at least for the Galatians, they could wear Jesus like clothing, and they are clothed by Him upon baptism. How does one get clothed in another person?!?! And how big must Jesus be, if He can be turned into clothes for so many people...? (Galatians 3:27).

Parables? - Many so-called "parables" are not parables, because Jesus never says that they are. He just tells the audience that a set of events occurred, and that is that (e.g. Luke 15:11-32,16:1-13).

Water in June 4 - Aside from saving us from our sins and giving us the right to be called children of God, Jesus, at least when he walked the earth, had access to special water that would make you never thirst again (4:13-14).

The Tongue - The human tongue is literally a fire, and sets things on fire (James 3:6).

1 Corinthians 3:10-16 - Apparently, people use Jesus as a foundation for a building (how does that work?!?!), and are judged depending on how fireproof their buildings are.

(More to come, I assume...)

*All scripture is quoted from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

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