From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Sun Mar 02 2003 - 19:29:21 EST
John Burgeson wrote:
>
> Iain Strachan wrote:
>
> "(2) Concerning the "fruits". Interestingly, we had a sermon in church where
> we heard an example of an Orthodox Jew who was converted to Christianity
> just upon reading Matthew Chapter 1. This had much to do with the layout
> (the three "14's" of generations), and the fact that 14 is the numerical
> value of "David"."
>
> Two comments:
>
> 1. "I heard a sermon which said" is perhaps the weakest sort of anecdotal
> evidence for anything which touches on matters of this kind. I have heard
> more than my share of "Christian" stories, told in church and otherwise,
> which were made to appear truthful but were, in fact, simply "lies told for
> Jesus' sake." I give the above account a credence fact of -- say -- .00001%.
>
> 2. It is interesting to note that the specific text this fanciful account is
> based upon is, itself, a rather good example of a logical error (disproving
> inerrancy) in scripture. So if the story is true, the person described was
> converted by hearing something non-factual. Which could happen, of course;
> people testify often to having been converted by ICR's arguments. But it is
> a shaky kind of transformation experience, I'd observe.
Burgy -
Basic agreement on both points but I think you overstate both a bit.
1) I think few preachers who use the modern Jonah, the proof of Joshua's long
day &c are "lying" in the sense that they know the claims to be false but use them
anyway. In most cases it's probably a combination of naivete, laziness about checking
sources, and ignorance of science to the extent that they don't know what's plausible &
what isn't. The response of one preacher when I told him that the Joshua story (which
he's used in a newsletter, not a sermon) was spurious was instructive. No argument,
surprise &c, just "Oh - I guess I'd better not use that any more."
2) I'm not sure just what "logical error" you mean in Mt's geneaology.
Certainly the evangelist forced the data into the 3 x 14 pattern, so it's not an
historically precise geneaology. But that "disproves inerrancy" only if one equates
inerrancy with "Just the facts ma'am." (You may recall lengthy debates between me &
Glenn on this.) As a theological statement that Jesus is the Davidic Messiah (d + w + d
= 14) it works. Of course it isn't a _proof_ that Jesus is the Davidic Messiah.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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