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[Be Creative]

So, morality is relative to the time and place?

[jimwalton]

Morality is objective, but some rules and their punishments are relative to time and place. Murder is always wrong (though we have many legal categories of murder/manslaughter/homicide, etc.); rape is always wrong, etc. But our rules about marijuana, homosexuality, doctor-assisted suicide, etc. may change depending on the time and place. People have different opinions about those issues, and they are still being debated, but our rules about them change. Witchcraft in the NT is still considered to be sinful, but it is no longer on the list of capital crimes. So also homosexuality. In the NT it is still considered sinful, but it is no longer a capital crime.

[Ceiling Grows]

> With the miraculous, we have objective and verifiable (for the people who saw them)

But I assume you'd reject these from Islam or Hinduism? If I'm correct, upon what basis would you do this? How can you verify, simply from written antiquity, that a supernatural event occurred or didn't occur since the claims and reasons for subscribing to them are the same? What about modern claims of supernatural or paranormal events (voodoo resurrections, alien abductions/experimentation, mediums, claims of contacts with the deceased etc.)? How do you evaluate these and reach a conclusion? My experience is that theists (and others ascribing to the supernatural or paranormal) will make claims based upon things that a) they experienced but have no empirical method by which to validate them or, b) claim that since a group of people all shared the same experience that the claim has to be valid. I submit that neither of these can bring about certainty because Christians would reject claims like these from Muslims and Muslims would do the same of Christians.

[jimwalton]

No, I would not automatically reject these from Islam or Hinduism. The verification of a miracle, or its possibility, is not dependent on one's religious position but more objectively on whether it happened or not. I don't believe that Jews and Christians are the only people in history who have ever been able to do miracles, and so we have to evaluate the event from the viewpoint of reality, not from the bias of one's religious choice.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to structure a science experiment to evaluate miracles. Often they are spontaneous (no time to set up all my equipment!), unpredictable (I haven't established my hypothesis and control group yet!), and unrepeatable (Wait, Moses, put the water together and then part it again so I can catch it on video!). Miracles were certainly objectively observable by those who were there, but often left behind no archaeological remains for later study (walking on water, multiplying bread, healing a blind man, etc.) They happen, people see them, and that's it.

And as far as a shared experience, we know two things: (1) There is no such thing as group hallucinations, but (2) just because a group of people claim to have had the same visual experience doesn't mean it happened, though it may have.

[Sure Breeze]

> Treated by the Bible as a literal place

But it's not literal. Adam/Eve aren't real people as literally written in the Bible. This means original sin isn't literally eating the fruit either.

> RAISING of LAZARUS from the DEAD. It is written as a historical event

But nobody ever came back from the dead so this is fiction.

I'm a bit surprised that you didn't write about Moses or Noah which are discussed more than Lazarus. I'd like to hear your thoughts on those literally fictional accounts and if you think they have any bearing to history as written.

> That Paul had a spiritual experience that he considered to have actually happened

Obviously we have no way of proving this. What about the resurrection of Jesus? Christians tell me it is required to be a literal even when we know nobody comes back from being dead. What are your thoughts?

[jimwalton]

By what evidence or on what basis can say with such certainty "It's not literal"? Or that Adam & Eve aren't real people?

Here's my conclusion: Through the process of divinely-guided evolution humanity came about. When hominids evolved to the point of being spiritually capable and moral culpable, God knew that they were still mortal ("made of dust," Gn. 2.7), and wanted to give them the gift of life with him (Tree of Life, 2.9). But to have a relationship with Him (since he was holy), there was a moral component to sharing life (Tree of K of Good & Evil). God took two representatives of homo sapiens sapiens ("Adam" and "Eve") and put them in a place where he could form a relationship with them and he could reveal himself to them (The Garden, Gn. 2.15). The two were historical beings, but also served as representatives of the human race. Being typical hominids, their behavior was characteristic of all. They were subject to sin, they proved that, but God initiated a plan to redeem them from that, to pay for their sin for them, and to give them life.

So on what basis can you say with certainty the Garden of Eden was not a literal place and that "Adam" and "Eve" were not real people?

> Raising Lazarus

But how do you KNOW nobody ever came back from the dead? In the Arctic tundra, the woolly bear caterpillar (Pyrrharctia Isabella; the Isabella Tiger moth) freezes solid to the point where all life functions cease. The heart stops beating; no ingestion or excretion; no brain function; no respiration. And yet in the spring it comes back to life and continues on its merry way. Resurrection is scientifically possible, and occurs regularly in this caterpillar. Someone may object that Jesus’ resurrection and the life cycle of the wooly bear caterpillar are not in the same category of phenomena, since the caterpillar is merely in a stage of dormancy safeguarded by a cryoprotectant. And yet death manifests many of the same qualities: cessation of all life functions, an absence of any attribute characteristic of vitality, and complete dormancy. While dormancy implies only a temporary suspension of function with expectation of renewal, Christian theology treats death in exactly the same manner, and the resurrection of Christ is specifically designed to prove that such is the case. When we die, according to Christian theology, the body enters a state of dormancy ("sleep"), awaiting a future bodily resurrection. Jesus' successful and effective resurrection is the guarantee of exactly that renewal from dormancy that we see in the caterpillar. The difference in perspective contrasts the natural view of death as the end of all life with the Christian view of death as the bridge to eternity.

> Moses

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I have no evidence that I had a bad stomach ache last week, but that doesn't mean I didn't. I stop to think about what evidence we might find of a guy named "Moses." He was raised in Egypt and spent about 40 years there, so that might be our best bet. Nothing has obviously shown up yet, but that doesn't close the books on it. There is a lot that hasn't yet been discovered. Then he spent 40 years in the Midian wilderness as a shepherd; I wouldn't expect any archaeological evidence of that. Then he spent 40 years at the helm of Israel wandering around the desert, unknown to all other people groups. We have mountains of written evidence about that, but skeptics tend to set that all aside and want something other that that. Like from where? He was a tribal leader of a wandering band. The record we have is from the people who were there.

> Noah

There are many corroborating records from around the world, from different cultures, of a flood. Now, I don't happen to believe that Noah's flood was a global event, but a massively regional one. As such, it wouldn't necessarily leave behind anything for archaeologists (or even geologists) to find, especially if it happened before 20,000 BC, which is altogether possible. Again, because no evidence exists doesn't prove that it never happened. Lots of things happen that leave no trace of their occurrence in the geological record. I'm surprised that you think they are verifiably fictional accounts.

> The resurrection of Jesus.

Yes, it has to be literal, or we might as well through our Bibles in the trash and walk away from Christianity. Everything we believe hinges on the literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus.

> we know nobody comes back from being dead

Because you haven't experienced it doesn't mean it's impossible. Hundreds of people claim to have seen Jesus resurrected from the dead. The evidence for the resurrection from the historical record is strong. Because we can't go back with a video camera, or because we can't interview those people doesn't mean it's reasonable to simply toss aside their claim as if they're idiots. That's dealing with the evidence prejudicially.

[Yummy Yummy]

The Garden of Eden for example, how much of that story is literal? You suggest it was intended to describe a literal place. Were Adam and Eve literally the first homo sapiens? Did Adam literally lose a rib in the construction of Eve? Did animals literally talk in a language that the humans could understand?

[jimwalton]

Here's my conclusion about Genesis 2: Through the process of divinely-guided evolution humanity came about. When hominids evolved to the point of being spiritually capable and moral culpable, God knew that they were still mortal ("made of dust," Gn. 2.7), and wanted to give them the gift of life with him (Tree of Life, 2.9). But to have a relationship with Him (since he was holy), there was a moral component to sharing life (Tree of K of Good & Evil). God took two representatives of homo sapiens sapiens ("Adam" and "Eve") and put them in a place where he could form a relationship with them and he could reveal himself to them (The Garden, Gn. 2.15). The two were historical beings, but also served as representatives of the human race. Being typical hominids, their behavior was characteristic of all. They were subject to sin, they proved that, but God initiated a plan to redeem them from that, to pay for their sin for them, and to give them life.

> Did Adam literally lose a rib in the construction of Eve?

No. There are so many things to say here. First of all, in Genesis 2.21, the word used for "the man" is ha adam meaning "human." It's a category, not a personal name. The text is talking about something that happened to all humanity, not just one guy. While one guy is the focus of the text, what is happening to him is representative of what was happening to the whole human race. His representation role here is more important than what is happening to him as a person.

Second, the "deep sleep" is the world for a supernatural trance (tardema). This is not surgery while he is anesthetized, but a vision that God is giving to humanity through the one man. It's a message about a spiritual truth, not an operation. (They would have absolutely no understanding of surgery anyway.)

Third, the word for "rib" (tsela') in Genesis 2 is never used of an anatomical part anywhere else in the Bible. It occurs about 40 times and refers to a "side." It's typically directional (north side, south side), or structural (the sides of the box). More interestingly, it is mostly used of a side when there are only two sides that tend to come in pairs or matching sets.

So what's happening is that God is giving humanity a vision that the female is just as much a part of ruling over creation, as a co-regent or an equal, as the male. The woman is "bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh," meaning that the two share a kinship bond of greater than even the blood of family. She is his "counterpartner," not his subordinate. She is "of him," not below him. What Adam says in 2.23 pertains not just to him and her, but to all humankind. The archetypal (please don't read in "metaphorical) element is that all womankind is equal to all mankind ("from his side"), and they relate to God as co-regents and co-priests. Equal in being and worth.

> Did animals literally talk in a language that the humans could understand?

The Hebrew word for serpent is nahash, which is indeed the common word for snake, but it also possibly means "able to stand upright." There are all kinds of verbal possibilities here. For instance, nahash is the same root as nehoset, which means "bronze." So the shiny, upright snake in Number 21.9 is the same root: it was a literal thing, but a spiritual symbol. "Snake" could also be a word play, because the Hebrew word for "deceive" is very close to it, and is the same root as for magic and divination. Snakes in the ancient world were very much associated with spiritual powers, magic, and cultic rituals. So what if this "thing" (the nhs) was a spiritual power, represented to the woman as a bright creature, speaking "spiritual wisdom", and yet was deceiving her—the word for snake? Just a little bit of research changes the whole picture.

[You may worship me]

> Jesus spoke in terms of doing away with old wineskins, of fulfilling the Law, and of ushering in a new kingdom complete with a new manifesto (The Sermon on the Mount), where the sacrificial system, the food regulations, and even the Law itself (the 10 Commandments, rules about the Sabbath, and even the priesthood and the Temple) would no longer be binding.

He was also explicit that Heaven and Earth would pass away before any shift in the applicability of the law occurred. There is no textually-defensible reading of the Bible in which Jesus actually does away with OT law in any fashion that would have taken effect already. He personally assures us that, while Heaven and Earth remain, nothing has changed.

We can legitimately argue about whether many of the OT laws ever applied to non-Jews in the first place, but the idea that Jesus changed something here is a non-starter in biblical terms.

> It's not a matter of dropping what we find uncomfortable or what we want to drop while keeping the ones we still like, but following the teaching of Scripture wherever it leads us.

It looks a bit more like following your intuition wherever you want, provided you can fashion some means of arguing that the Bible doesn't expressly conflict. The Bible never actually says that we were ever supposed to stop killing witches. It just doesn't. At most, we can say the NT doesn't reinforce the mandate to kill witches. Standard rules of textual interpretation do not allow for construing that silence as a revocation.
The real causal work here all seems to stem from this notion of witch-killing falling out of favor in secular circles. The religious community (in America, anyway) has bowed to external pressure on the subject.

To some extent, this also bears back upon the textual question. If the words of Jesus were the impetus for dropping the practice of witch-killing, wouldn't the practice have fallen out of favor around the time the words of Jesus became available? Christians kept right on killing witches for almost 2,000 years after that. Trying to tie this capitulation to secular pressure back to some theological shift effected by Jesus is exactly what I'm talking about when I say it sort of looks like you're all making it up as you go.

[jimwalton]

> He was also explicit that Heaven and Earth would pass away before any shift in the applicability of the law occurred

Ah, there's a nuance here that's worth mentioning. He doesn't say there won't be a shift in the applicability of it. He does says it will not pass away until all is fulfilled, but he is not implying "nothing has changed." A world of things has changed, and He is that change. That's how Paul can say, on the one hand, that "we uphold the Law" (Rom. 3.31) and on the other hand "we are not under Law" (Rom. 6.14). Jesus changed everything.

> It looks a bit more like following your intuition wherever you want, provided you can fashion some means of arguing that the Bible doesn't expressly conflict. The Bible never actually says that we were ever supposed to stop killing witches. It just doesn't. At most, we can say the NT doesn't reinforce the mandate to kill witches. Standard rules of textual interpretation do not allow for construing that silence as a revocation.

This is a great point and reflects really good thinking on your part. It has to do with the context of theocracy. Civil law (the capital crimes) was intended for Israel as a theocratic state. When Israel/Judah fell (586 BC), the civil law became defunct with it. The civil law was not intended to be carried out by every government in history. It is no longer something secular governments are responsible to carry out.

The NT doesn't have the job of either affirming or disaffirming the information from the OT. The NT is there to reveal Christ, and therefore it's not a criteria for determining OT law. The more pertinent question is "What is the nature of the OT law?" First of all, it's pertinent to ancient law. Secondly, it's situated in the old covenant, and pertains to that covenant. It's telling how Israel should act based on the culture of the day. Third, it pertains to sacred space. We can't extract the law from those contexts. Just because it's in the OT doesn't mean it's a law for all time. It doesn't legislate for us.