The bible is written in such a way

Yes I know. They've also muddled or used Ephraim and Ephrata

However the children of Ephraim are never referred to as Ephraimites in the Hebrew Bible. They are sometimes referred to as Ephathrites - Judges 12 and

1 Samuel 1:1 And if any man be of the harpies, they shall be scouring the mountains of Ephraim; And his name was Elkanah the son of Jeraham the son of Elijah, the son of Thoah son of Tzuf, Ephrati.

Both use the Hebrew for Ephratah for Ephraim.

Still, as most of it is made up I'll not disagree with you.

 

1. Set your mind for an open, honest inquiry.
2. Forget about all the opinions, biases, and interpretations from others. Is your mind inadequate to the task that you need other people to decide for you?
3. Read a book in the canon.. one of the biographies of Jesus is a good starting point.
4. Ask yourself while reading: 'What is the writer intending, here?'
5. If you can't see a passage clearly, go on to the ones that you can. Most of the time, unclear passages are elucidated by others.
6. Truth and understanding will be revealed, if that is your goal. That is the case for any quest for knowledge and understanding.

There is nothing that mysterious or confusing in the books of the Canon. Most were written with a simple message, to a wide audience. An open mind, and reasonable thinking ability is all that is needed. Divine Revelation may come, later, but the texts are plain enough for anyone to grasp.

 

You quote different passages from different translations, and complain about the labelling of a place, 3 millennia removed?

 

1 Chronicles 21: Here we have a story where Satan provokes David to number Israel, then there is a pestilence that kills seventy thousand men, God gets blamed by the writers for the pestilence, a common theme in the Old Testament, the writers hate the census, so David builds an alter on a threshing floor and the plague ends.

What really happened there? Did God kill 70,000 people, is there some story in David saying to let it be on him and not the innocent, or did the census data correlated with the deaths identify the threshing floor, and stored grain, where the fungus contamination was?

“Aflatoxin B1 and total fumonisin contamination and their producing fungi in fresh and stored sorghum grain in East Hararghe, Ethiopia.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27161169

How could God see that he has done evil, and repent, if he was never given a law to break?

You do not need a law to break, to do evil. The whole difference between the old and the new, the old always blamed God, but the new blames us. Like Job’s tormenters knew everything and he in the end admitted “I know that I know nothing,” oops, that’s Socrates, “I have uttered that I understood not,” that’s Job. Job beat Socrates to the punch when it comes to an important point in philosophy.

“Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2)

We get into trouble when we think we understand everything, we create a law, and make it holy, an unamendable constitution, that is why “For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” (2 Corinthians 1:20)

We do not need a letter of the law, a “holy” Koran, which kills, forever and unending, the spirit frees us from tyranny and makes us have respect for speech. There with a spirit we must judge what is right and wrong, no law is handed to us, Matthew 7:20 says, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them,” that requires our judgement of anyone who claims to speak for God.

We could go to John 8:44, to see the father of sin, people who would kill Jesus for speech. John 8:47, “He that is of God heareth God’s words.” Were they listening to God or a law? We cannot get to the truth with a law.

This is not the spirit; this is stifling it:
"[9.32] They desire to put out the light of Allah with their mouths, and Allah will not consent save to perfect His light, though the unbelievers are averse."

“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Corinthians 3:17)

Therefore, I used the spirit to judge whether God killed 70,000, because David counted Israel, and find the writers were wrong, also know I don't need a law to tell what went on there, or to judge for myself.

 

All of the above is fine - regardless of whether or not it is speculation. None of this however, relates to the question I posed initially.

You start out claiming 1) God is good and previously you have claimed 2) this Good God can be found in the Bible (not sure if you went as far as saying that this Good God "is" the God of the Bible).

I agree that one can find a "good God" in the Bible but, there is also the evil God depicted in the OT.

 

I look for very specific attributes in God. As we have corresponded many times, I look for a necessary being. I am able to find a necessary being, a sovereign God, in the God of the bible.

As for Jesus - I am left to believe that Jesus is God's character incarnate.

I can author a character that knows that they are a character and that I am their author. I can even create a dialog between myself and my character. That dialog is not a conversation; it is a condescension. There is another way by which an author can condescend to his characters. The author an write himself into his novel work as himself. He would be no less the author because he is also a character, and his character would be no less a character than any of his other characters. Jesus Christ is God's character incarnate.

The author/character paradigm represents the extent of my imagination. I cannot imagine a more sovereign-to-subject relationship. However, I am aware that, somehow, some way, God is infinitely more sovereign over His creation that an author is over his novel work.

 

Please, re-cut and paste. I am not able to follow your train of thought. I'm just not getting the connections, let alone the flow, of ideas between the above quotes.

 

I did not infer that from the bible, although many do. I inferred a good God that reveals both good and evil, both what He is and what He is not.
Learning what a thing is not is an inevitable consequence of learning the extent of that thing.

 

problem being is you can't demonstrate in any way that this god of yours exists.

 

If Joseph went home to Nazareth after Jesus birth, circumcision, redemption and Mary's ritual cleansing as Luke says, they would have been in Nazareth after 40 days. And Luke tells us they stayed there while Jesus grew up.
On the other hand Matthew says Joseph took Jesus to Egypt to escape Herod. Now it was at least a year after the birth that Herod died. How could Joseph and Jesus be in Egypt and Nazareth at the same time. Then when Herod was dead Joseph was told to go to Nazareth. Why was it necessary to tell home to go to his real home - Nazareth. Bethlehem was not his home anyway. Joseph had no property there. .Luke says they had to find somewhere to stay.

 

In the main, the Hebrew agrees with. There are mistranslations and omissions from the Hebrew.

 

I suggest reading outside the Bible first. The background upon which it was written, culture of the time, Judaism. Many Christians have little understanding of the real Bible. There is nothing in the OT that refers to Christianity's Messiah. If you understand Judaism and its scriptures you will see this. It's Hebrew scriptures, written by Hebrews for the Hebrew nation - up to 600 years before Jesus the Jewish preacher. 'Prophecy' is for the immediate time, not the distant future. I can just imagine Jahweh telling Hosea 'When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son' By the way, Hosea, Israel actually means Jesus who I will send in about 700 years time, but don't mention that to anyone'.

There's nothing confusing or nysterious? Is that why we have so many different sects - Christian and otherwise?

 

Don't forget the role that Bethlehem plays in the fairy tale. It was supposed to be the birthplace of the ancient guy who would rule but had not been born. It is a tangled web of prophecy.

 

No, not doing it.

 

That would be the Jewish Messiah according to Jewish belief. But he would be a human with the ability to lead the Jews into Battle - and win. Yahweh would rule the 'world'. How? Who knows.

 

At no point does an author lose "rule" over his novel work, not even if he writes himself into his novel work as himself. He would be no less the author because he is also a character, and his character would be no less a character than any of his other characters. His character could die on a cross, and he would still be in complete control.

 

The only reason we know about the zombie Jesus character is that Paul made him up and spread the lie about his existence.

 

I get your point but in the case of the Bible that would be assuming it is a novel. It clearly isn't, unless the author had limitless knowledge. The Bible contains much genuine history, rudimentary science gathered from Greece and Egypt, and knowledge of ancient myths and stories. It borrows from other religions and religious styles e.g.Ugarit. Numerous writing styles etc. The writer contradicts himself in places, and has erred in others. Hardly the work of a god, or a single man.

 

I'm convinced that Jesus, as a Jewish Preacher, existed. The disciples made him into a miracle working Son of God. Paul used and adapted the OT to 'confirm' this. There are too many references, outside of early church references, to a Jesus. Most do not refer to him as more than a preacher. The fact also, that the Jews were vehemently against the Christians even before Paul, indicates that someone was behind this new 'sect' as the Romans called it. That was before Paul even started his ministry. Paul spent 14 years after his conversion in the region of Syria 'learning his trade' (Christianity) before even starting his recognised ministry.

 

There are no legitimate references to such a Jesus character during that time period. There were no newspapers, magazines, radio, tv. At the most such a persona would have been a local personality and completely unknown outside of his local town.

The Paul character went around trying to convince people in distant lands that a Jew had been crucified for their sins and had risen from the dead. How dumb would you have been to have believed that, even 2,000 years ago?

 

Not at all. If he spent 3 years travelling and preaching he would have become well known. Particularly as he would have been popular in his criticism of the religious hierarchy.
Tacitus reference to Jesus and his crucifixion is generally accepted as genuine. Josephus mentions him - one reference being questionable. Both were Roman Historians. Both were born around a couple of decades of Jesus death. Tacitus is probably the greatest Roman historian who covered the history from the first decade of the 1st century. What history we know of the time mainly comes from him. Probably aided by his statesman father-in-law.

The lands weren't that distant that Paul could not have been challenged on a lie. The Jews themselves in these towns would have called him out. They didn't deny his claims, except that Jesus was not the Messiah. Even Agrippa I and Agrippa II had heard of the crucifixion

I don't think you understand the superstition of the period. Roman families followed the general Roman gods, then the city god and had their own family gods.
Greek cities were the same. That's why Paul had so much trouble with local 'god' worshippers. So superstitious they had a statue to an unknown god - in case they insulted some god.

 

On the plus side....... The Bible is written in such a way as to fit with all time lines.......
even ones where really scary events are delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed.......
in a time line where a much greater amount of the Holy Spirit / Ruach ha Kodesh has been poured out......


https://www.near-death.com/science/research/future.html#a03

 

A gifted psychic Levi Dowling back in the 1880's or so wrote that Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus travelled all the way to India and even Tibet.... before returning to the Roman Province of Judaea.

My guess as to why Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus did not teach in Tibet.......
and why he only read there... could be because he believed in the idea that
"if it ain't broke...... don't fix it!"

Buddhism..... may have been closer to the truth in the first century than just about any other religion.....
at least when it comes to the Afterlife.....

https://reluctant-messenger.com/aquarian_gospel_036_042.htm

 

It is true that the local yokels were superstitious twits. They had originally bought his fairy tale but once they had time to think about it they started to kick it to the curb. When Paul saw that the people had wised up he got pissed and a started to insult them.

 

Hardly. The Churches in Asia Minor were the basis of the modern church. In 325 CE the number of Bishops at the Council of Nicea was 318 (St Athenaus - generally accepted figure). The Majority were Greeks, some Roman and even one or two from outside the Roman Empire (Persia)+

Most of Paul's troubles were caused by the Jews. Occasionally the locals kicked up when Paul did them out of trade. (Silversmiths).