Re: Hyers' Article - Cods Wallop!

Dick Fischer wrote:

"The Jews had a way of dealing with false prophets - they stoned them."

Well, maybe they were supposed to (Deut. 18:20), but offhand I can't think of a single biblical instance where they did. Instead, the people often tolerated and even honored false prophets (e.g., 1 Kings 22). Jeremiah repeatedly confronted respected prophets who said Judah would suffer no harm from her enemies (e.g., 23:16f; 28)--right before Nebuchadnezzar did his number on their kingdom. As a rule the OT Jews didn't recognize the truth until it hit them over the head.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Dick Fischer<mailto:dickfischer@earthlink.net>
  To: ASA<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 4:46 PM
  Subject: Re: Hyers' Article - Cods Wallop!

  Dave wrote:

    Your question about a text having to be inerrant in order to be inspired is one of recent origin.

  The Jews had a way of dealing with false prophets - they stoned them. Primitive perhaps, but it had a way of separating the truth heard from God versus what could have been a Satanic deception. So if anybody thought they heard from God they were free to speak out, but if they were proven wrong they had an early opportunity to meet their Maker face to face. But that is the importance that was placed on the truth. Make a mistake - pay with your life.

  The necessary elements of being saved versus being condemned had better be carefully spelled out. No one wants to spend an eternity suffering hellfire and brimstone on a technicality. We need to be able to separate fact from fiction. The parables are exactly that. Christ defined them. The writers identified them, and we should certainly be able to tell the difference between a parable told to relate a principle and a historical narrative.

  For example, let's say Christ rode an Arabian stallion into Jerusalem in an act of bravado. But the writer decided to make it a donkey for the purposes of aligning with prophecy. Would we see no problem there? It is not a question of inerrancy we are talking about, but of bona fide biblical truth versus biblical error.

  In short, Hyers in his article used Christ's parables as a lever to bring discredit to the genuine historical aspects of the Genesis account.

  Dick Fischer - Genesis Proclaimed Association
  Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
  www.genesisproclaimed.org

<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>
Received on Tue Mar 2 01:15:37 2004