Virgin Mary

katydid

Festus wrote: »

If the Bible had anything to say about the age of the earth I would accept it but it doesn't, does it.

I'm more interested in finding out why SafeHands hates God, Mary the Mother of God, and the Catholic Church so much.

It has plenty to say on the age of the earth. Bishop Usher worked out it is six thousand years old, give or take a year. He based it on counting back the generations in the genealogies.

So, I'll ask you again; do you believe the earth is six thousand years old?

Festus

katydid wrote: »

It has plenty to say on the age of the earth. Bishop Usher worked out it is six thousand years old, give or take a year. He based it on counting back the generations in the genealogies.

I have no interest in the eisegetical notions of Bishop Ussher.

katydid wrote: »

So, I'll ask you again; do you believe the earth is six thousand years old?

What does it matter what I believe? If you are looking to label me just call me a Catholic.

Safehands

Festus wrote: »

I accept what the Bible says. The Bible says that God created Adam and Eve and I accept that. There is no requirement on me to prove the Bible is true.

You on the other hand are presenting an unsubstantiated assertion that you either cannot prove or are unwilling to prove.

My brother swears he saw pigs flying around the moon through a powerful telescope. I can't prove he didn't so I'll just have to take his word for it I suppose.

Festus

Safehands wrote: »

My brother swears he saw pigs flying around the moon through a powerful telescope. I can't prove he didn't so I'll just have to take his word for it I suppose.

Is he sure it was pigs and not a flying teapot?

Sounds suspiciously like one of your old arguments from the existence of God thread

Safehands

Festus wrote: »

Is he sure it was pigs and not a flying teapot?

Sounds suspiciously like one of your old arguments from the existence of God thread

Same point though, No matter what he saw I can't prove he did not.

Festus

Safehands wrote: »

Same point though, No matter what he saw I can't prove he did not.

Perhaps you should get a more powerful telescope of your own

Deranged96

hotmail.com wrote: »

The plausibility of the immaculate conception is in shreds these days. Joseph was Jesus' biological father, that's if there was a Jesus at all.

Jesus existed, that's a historical fact that's actually well documented. There are two Jewish (non-biased) historians' accounts of him from their day.

I think one of the historians was called Josephus, not sure of the other.

katydid

Festus wrote: »

I have no interest in the eisegetical notions of Bishop Ussher.



What does it matter what I believe? If you are looking to label me just call me a Catholic.

"eisegetical"? What does that mean?

You don't need to have an interest in Bishop Ussher for his calculations to be accurate according to the lifespans listed in the genealogies in the Bible.

It matters what you believe because if you believe the Bible literally it affects how I, and no doubt others, react to what you say. I'm not sure what point there would be as describing you as a "Catholic", as that doesn't say much about this issue. Not all "Catholics", in fact most "Catholics", don't believe the bible literally.

katydid

Deranged96 wrote: »

Jesus existed, that's a historical fact that's actually well documented. There are two Jewish (non-biased) historians' accounts of him from their day.

I think one of the historians was called Josephus, not sure of the other.

It's a fact, but it's not well documented. Very few references, in fact. You're right about Josephus, I'm not aware of any other.

Festus

katydid wrote: »

"eisegetical"? What does that mean?

It means the eisegete didn't actually read the Bible but rather read into it.

katydid wrote: »

You don't need to have an interest in Bishop Ussher for his calculations to be accurate according to the lifespans listed in the genealogies in the Bible.

Do you believe his calculations to be accurate?

katydid wrote: »

It matters what you believe because if you believe the Bible literally it affects how I, and no doubt others, react to what you say. I'm not sure what point there would be as describing you as a "Catholic", as that doesn't say much about this issue. Not all "Catholics", in fact most "Catholics", don't believe the bible literally.

You are describing methodologies for attacking the poster and not the post. I don't care what you or other posters believe outside of what is revealed by what you post.

As a Catholic I believe what the Church teaches. Does that answer your question?

Deranged96

katydid wrote: »

It's a fact, but it's not well documented. Very few references, in fact. You're right about Josephus, I'm not aware of any other.

Mara bar Serapion

katydid

Festus wrote: »

It means the eisegete didn't actually read the Bible but rather read into it.



Do you believe his calculations to be accurate?



You are describing methodologies for attacking the poster and not the post. I don't care what you or other posters believe outside of what is revealed by what you post.

As a Catholic I believe what the Church teaches. Does that answer your question?

Oh, you mean "exegete" and "exegesis". Still confused; what has critical interpretation of scripture got to do with working out simple time sequences?

Well, I haven't done the calculation myself - life's way too short - but give or take a hundred years or so, I'm sure he's accurate enough.

So do you think that all "Catholics" who don't take the bible literally, as you do, are not "real Catholics"?

By the way, you never did address the points I made about Biblical inaccuracies...I wonder why?

Festus

katydid wrote: »

It's a fact, but it's not well documented. Very few references, in fact. You're right about Josephus, I'm not aware of any other.

Does this help?

http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/is-there-any-evidence-for-jesus-outside-the-bible/

Peregrinus

silverharp wrote: »

My focus is what's not in the bible. Leave the birth aside as it's part of the nt . I just put it to you that based on the nt alone that the first followers would not have worshiped Mary as a god like person and if it crept in a couple of hundred years later then its just later Christians making stuff up or pulling in beliefs from other religions

And my point is that the first followers didn't have any NT, and therefore whatever they believed or didn't believe was not going to be influenced at all by what was or wasn't in the NT.

We have good reason to think that, in the absence of the NT, the first followers did believe in the virgin birth.

We have less reason - no reason, actually - to think that they believed in Mary's perpetual virginity. And it's certainly true that, when the community started to document its knowledge, memories and understandings (in the texts that we now know as the NT) they did not include anything suggesting that they believed in Mary's perpetual virginity.

This isn't conclusive, though. There is no "Book of Mary" in the NT. Everything we know about her we are told in the context of its relevance to someone else - usually Jesus. We know about the virgin birth because it's the virgin birth of Jesus. If Mary gave birth to any other children, the NT scriptures do not bother to mention it. Sure, they mention brothers and sisters of Jesus, but are these children of Mary or, e.g., children of Joseph by his first marriage? We're not told. The original audience for whom these texts were written probably knew the answer to that question, one way or the other, but it doesn't appear in the texts, because it's not relevant to the points the writer wants to make, which are all about Jesus, not Mary. In terms of their role in the story he is telling, it doesn't matter whether James the Brother of the Lord is a full brother, a half brother, a step-brother, an adoptive brother, etc, so he doesn't mention it. The result is that later generations of readers cannot tell from the text alone what kind of "brother" James was.

It's tempting to conclude from this that the author wants us to accept that James was a brother in the dominant sense, i.e. another son of Mary's, on the basis if that if he meant something else he would have said so. But this would be a mistake. Remember, the readership knows what kind of brother James was - he is only 10 or 20 years dead when the text is written; many in the readership knew him personally. All we can legitimately conclude is that the author was not wishing to make any point about the kind of brother that James was.

Right. Skip forward a generation or two. Now we have a community of Christians who don't remember what kind of brother James was (or don't necessarily remember) and who have no documentation on the subject (because the gospels don't mention it). But they also have a - remembered and documented - awareness of the virgin birth. And they are reflecting on this. Why would it matter that the birth was a virgin birth? What would it signify? What does it tell us about Jesus? About Mary? Sure, Isaiah prophesied something about a virgin birth, but why? Why a virgin birth, as opposed to some other sign or wonder? Etc, etc.

They are asking questions not addressed in NT texts, and so they are not going to take the NT texts as determining the answers. They answer them instead by theological reflection. They come up with (among other things) the perpetual virginity of Mary.

You may or may not share the conclusion they reach, but you can't refute it by saying (a) it's not in the NT texts - they know that already - or (b) we have no reason to think that the first generation of believers accepted the perpetual virginity of Mary - they know that too. If you're going to dismiss the virgin birth on these grounds, then I think you also have to dismiss the Incarnation, the Trinity and a number of other fundamental Christian beliefs which were nutted out in the early centuries of the church. And of course you can do this if you want, and defend doing so. But I don't think you have any basis for singling out perpetual virginity, while accepting other beliefs arrived at in a similar way.

hinault

katydid wrote: »

It has plenty to say on the age of the earth. Bishop Usher worked out it is six thousand years old, give or take a year. He based it on counting back the generations in the genealogies.

So, I'll ask you again; do you believe the earth is six thousand years old?

You're contradicting yourself.

Bishop Usher and others take information in the Bible to derive how old the Earth may be.
But the Bible itself doesn't say that the Earth is a given age.

If you think about this a bit more.
Different cultures use their own generic means to measure timespan.
Should we apply the rules of the Julien calendar to measure biblical time? Gregorian calendar? Rosh Hashanah? Hijri Calendar? Babylonian calendar?

What calendar should we apply to the Bible to quantify how old Earth is?

Peregrinus

Ussher takes data from the bible, also data from other ancient sources, makes some assumptions (which he explicitly acknowledges) to fill in gaps in the data, reads the data with a distinctively modern mindset and then calculates the age of the world. One of his assumptions is that the information taken from the bible is historically accurate.

He does this early on in the modern era. He is basically applying a enlightenment hermeneutic to a pre-enlightenment text.

Other modern scholars (of the time) applauded his efforts, seeing his research and his conclusions as a triumphant example of how the application of modern scholarly methods to existing texts and data could result in a better understanding than we had before. SFAIK, nobody at the time criticized his assumption that the bible texts were historically reliable because there was no reason to; geology, paleontology, etc had not yet produced evidence to the contrary. To treat the texts as historical, Ussher didn't have to ignore any inconsistent evidence. Eminent scientists such as Newton and Kepler made similar calculations (with broadly similar results) but Ussher's was regarded as pretty much the last word, due to the care and attention he lavished on it, and to the variety and detail of the non-biblical sources he drew on to supplement the information in the bible.

It wasn't really until well into the 19th century that Ussher's chronology was seriously questioned, when the underlying assumption of historicity was called into doubt by physical evidence. By then, though, Ussher's chronolity was well-established, and had been embraced by the Plymouth Brethern, and other newly-emerging biblical literalist sects. It beat out other biblical chronologies on account of being included as a note or appendix in many printings of the King James Bible in the 19th century, and it is this which led (and still leads) many Young Earth Creationists to prefer Usher's creation date of 4004 BC over rival chronologies. I mean, if it's in the King James Bible it must be true, mustn't it?

The ironic end-point is that a view which was once held to be a triumph of modern enlightenment scholarship over superstition, ignorance and credulity is today seen as more or less the complete opposite.

silverharp

Peregrinus wrote: »

And my point is that the first followers didn't have any NT, and therefore whatever they believed or didn't believe was not going to be influenced at all by what was or wasn't in the NT.

We have good reason to think that, in the absence of the NT, the first followers did believe in the virgin birth.

Again just to clarify my problem you have the first followers and you have a later writing down of whats important to christians. The NT is written anywhere from a hundred years later so plenty of time to capture anything thats important to christians. So as far as I am concerned any crucial foundational points of the religion will have been known and written about. It mentions the virgin birth (assuming that whole term isnt a mistranslation of young woman) but Ill leave it for now that the first christians believed this concept. I am still left with the point that there is no logical jump to the whole worship of mary and her god like stature within the catholic religion. Using the argument that other beliefs were pulled in later doesnt help the case of Mary apart from saying that the church has a habit of making stuff up.
I'd put it to you that Jesus from the bible could just as easily be horrified that Christians were worshiping his mother. And based on the fact that first century christians didnt and that such an important point was not mentioned in the NT that the worship of Mary is a later fabriation

katydid

hinault wrote: »

You're contradicting yourself.

Bishop Usher and others take information in the Bible to derive how old the Earth may be.
But the Bible itself doesn't say that the Earth is a given age.

If you think about this a bit more.
Different cultures use their own generic means to measure timespan.
Should we apply the rules of the Julien calendar to measure biblical time? Gregorian calendar? Rosh Hashanah? Hijri Calendar? Babylonian calendar?

What calendar should we apply to the Bible to quantify how old Earth is?

The Bible lists the genealogies back to Adam, who was supposedly there at the beginning of the world, so logically, by calculating the ages in years of the descendants of Adam, you get the age of the world.

A year is a year in every culture, calendars simply divide it up differently.

Peregrinus

silverharp wrote: »

Again just to clarify my problem you have the first followers and you have a later writing down of whats important to christians. The NT is written anywhere from a hundred years later so plenty of time to capture anything thats important to christians. So as far as I am concerned any crucial foundational points of the religion will have been known and written about. It mentions the virgin birth (assuming that whole term isnt a mistranslation of young woman) but Ill leave it for now that the first christians believed this concept. I am still left with the point that there is no logical jump to the whole worship of mary and her god like stature within the catholic religion. Using the argument that other beliefs were pulled in later doesnt help the case of Mary apart from saying that the church has a habit of making stuff up.
I'd put it to you that Jesus from the bible could just as easily be horrified that Christians were worshiping his mother. And based on the fact that first century christians didnt and that such an important point was not mentioned in the NT that the worship of Mary is a later fabriation

There’s a couple of misconceptions here, silverharp.

First, Christians of varying traditions venerate Mary, with differing degrees of emphasis in the different traditions, but they don’t worship her; worship is reserved for God alone. In the present discussion the distinction may seem a bit finnicky, but within Christianity it’s a matter of controversy, and if we use the “worship” terminology the discussion is at risk of being derailed. So best to avoid it.

Secondly, it’s not true to say that the NT texts are written “anywhere from a hundred years later”. In fact they are all written within about 80 years of the death of Christ, and most of them – including the texts we are discussing here – well within that period. The earliest NT texts, the letters of Paul, start being written within 20 or 25 years of the death of Christ. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are our principal sources for Mary, are written between probably 40 to 70 years after the death of Christ, but Mark in particular could be earlier than that.

Thirdly, it’s a mistake to think that the NT represents “a later writing down of what’s important to Christians”. They were never part of a grand project to document Christianity. The various texts were written at different times, by different people, for different people, and for different (usually quite limited and focussed) purposes. As noted, there is no “Book of Mary” or anything like it; no-one ever set out to capture comprehensively the knowledge, belief and understanding that the first-generation church had of Mary. That may be unfortunate in some ways, but it does mean that we can’t argue that, if a particular Marian tradition is not recorded in the NT, it did not exist.

Fourthly, there is no possibility at all that the NT references to the virgin birth are a mistranslation of a Hebrew word meaning “young woman”. You can make this argument in respect of the one-line prophecy in Isaiah that “a virgin shall give birth”. But the NT texts were composed in Greek, not Hebrew, and the degree of detail they give surrounding the virgin birth, the annunciation by the Angel Gabriel, Mary’s protests about her virginity, Joseph’s surprise at her pregnancy, etc, etc, make it clear that the writers definitely intend us to understand that Mary conceived and gave birth virginally. You can argue, if you want, that that is simply not credible. But you cannot argue with a straight face that it’s a mistranslation.

As for beliefs about Mary being “pulled in later”, it’s unquestionably true that certain beliefs – including perpetual virginity – were developed later (if by “later” we mean after the first generation of Christians). You haven’t offered any evidence or argument, though, to back up your suggestion that they were borrowed from other religions, and I don’t see any need to postulate this to account for the development of the beliefs. We can see the seeds of all of them in the documented beliefs of first-generation Christians. So – no offence – a postulated borrowing from other religions is not backed up by any evidence, and not needed to account for what we see.

You can also argue, if you wish, that beliefs which developed after the first generation of Christians are inauthentic, and “real” Christianity should accept (and Jesus would accept) only the beliefs which are explicitly, directly documented in the New Testament. If you want to make that argument, go for it; you will find some Christian traditions that agree with you (though I have to say they are fairly marginal to mainstream Christianity). But, again, I can’t see any basis on which you would make that argument about Marian beliefs but not about Christological beliefs. If you’re going to make this argument, I think you have to be consistent with it. Most of the Christian beliefs you will be discounting under this approach have nothing to do with Mary.

hinault

katydid wrote: »

The Bible lists the genealogies back to Adam, who was supposedly there at the beginning of the world, so logically, by calculating the ages in years of the descendants of Adam, you get the age of the world.

A year is a year in every culture, calendars simply divide it up differently.

I'm well aware of what the Bible lists and how Usher used what is listed to try to derive a timespan.

You're still refusing to think.

Like Bishop Usher you're assuming that the biblical reference in Genesis, for example, refers to a day = 24 hours.

Genesis says Methusalah lived to be 969 "years" old.

What was a day according to the Bible? What was a year according to the Bible?

silverharp

Peregrinus wrote: »

As for beliefs about Mary being “pulled in later”, it’s unquestionably true that certain beliefs – including perpetual virginity – were developed later (if by “later” we mean after the first generation of Christians). You haven’t offered any evidence or argument, though, to back up your suggestion that they were borrowed from other religions, and I don’t see any need to postulate this to account for the development of the beliefs. We can see the seeds of all of them in the documented beliefs of first-generation Christians. So – no offence – a postulated borrowing from other religions is not backed up by any evidence, and not needed to account for what we see.

You can also argue, if you wish, that beliefs which developed after the first generation of Christians are inauthentic, and “real” Christianity should accept (and Jesus would accept) only the beliefs which are explicitly, directly documented in the New Testament. If you want to make that argument, go for it; you will find some Christian traditions that agree with you (though I have to say they are fairly marginal to mainstream Christianity). But, again, I can’t see any basis on which you would make that argument about Marian beliefs but not about Christological beliefs. If you’re going to make this argument, I think you have to be consistent with it. Most of the Christian beliefs you will be discounting under this approach have nothing to do with Mary.

I dont need to show where the belief came from, i suggested one source based on the practice of ideas being imported into a religion from other religions but the source of it doesn't matter once its reasonable to suggest Jesus or the original apostles were unaware of it. You have restated that I can make the argument but not commented on why its not a valid point. Just because most catholics don't question it is not an answer.
As you are stating it I could cheekly say that catholics are happy to believe "fan fiction". The view of mary is indistinguishable from a man made set of ideas built up over time. If you want to widen and suggest other christian beliefs have developed in a similar manner if they are not a reasonable inference from the ideas in the nt then absolutely, more "fan fiction" .

Festus

silverharp wrote: »

I am still left with the point that there is no logical jump to the whole worship of mary and her god like stature within the catholic religion. Using the argument that other beliefs were pulled in later doesnt help the case of Mary apart from saying that the church has a habit of making stuff up.
I'd put it to you that Jesus from the bible could just as easily be horrified that Christians were worshiping his mother. And based on the fact that first century christians didnt and that such an important point was not mentioned in the NT that the worship of Mary is a later fabriation

Sorry mate but who worships Mary? I think you misunderstand what Catholics do and one thing we do not do is worship Mary. We worship God and God alone.

God Bless

+

katydid

hinault wrote: »

I'm well aware of what the Bible lists and how Usher used what is listed to try to derive a timespan.

You're still refusing to think.

Like Bishop Usher you're assuming that the biblical reference in Genesis, for example, refers to a day = 24 hours.

Genesis says Methusalah lived to be 969 "years" old.

What was a day according to the Bible? What was a year according to the Bible?

I'm not assuming anything or agreeing with Bishop Ussher. I'm just pointing out what a literal reading of the Bible does and how ridiculous it is.

I am well able to think. I know time is measured differently in different civilisations, but the natural year is the natural year, no matter how the intervening periods are calculated.

Of course, "year" could itself be a mistranslation, I'm not familiar with the original term. One way or the other, it makes the idea of reading the bible literally ridiculous. There is no literal reading.

hinault

katydid wrote: »

One way or the other, it makes the idea of reading the bible literally ridiculous. There is no literal reading.

Yet you ask another poster whether or not he/she accepts that the Bible says that the Earth is 6,000 years old.

Festus

katydid wrote: »

I'm not assuming anything or agreeing with Bishop Ussher. I'm just pointing out what a literal reading of the Bible does and how ridiculous it is.

I am well able to think. I know time is measured differently in different civilisations, but the natural year is the natural year, no matter how the intervening periods are calculated.

Of course, "year" could itself be a mistranslation, I'm not familiar with the original term. One way or the other, it makes the idea of reading the bible literally ridiculous. There is no literal reading.

You may find reading the Bible literally ridiculous and you may even find that literally reading the Bible is ridiculous. That is up to you. Many Christians and most Catholics would disagree.

If the Bible is not meant to be read literally then parts like the Ten Commandments and the Gospels do not make sense. In fact much of the Bible ceases to make any sense if it is not read literally. It might as well be literally not read for all the good that would do.

Perhaps you are confusing literal with literalist... a horse of a different colour and perhaps the one you wish to target.

Ussher is a classic example of a literalist. For him 6 days was 6 days. He completely missed 2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4. If he had read that and understood it would have estimated the age of the world at 12,000 years - a little bit closer to the actual age.
However if you literally understand 2 Peter 3:8 rather than take a literally understanding of it the age of the earth could be 12,000,000 years. It all depends.

katydid

Festus wrote: »

You may find reading the Bible literally ridiculous and you may even find that literally reading the Bible is ridiculous. That is up to you. Many Christians and most Catholics would disagree.

If the Bible is not meant to be read literally then parts like the Ten Commandments and the Gospels do not make sense. In fact much of the Bible ceases to make any sense if it is not read literally. It might as well be literally not read for all the good that would do.

Perhaps you are confusing literal with literalist... a horse of a different colour and perhaps the one you wish to target.

Ussher is a classic example of a literalist. For him 6 days was 6 days. He completely missed 2 Peter 3:8. If he had read that and understood it would have estimated the age of the world at 12,000 years - a little bit closer to the actual age.
However if you literally understand 2 Peter 3:8 rather than take a literally understanding of it the age of the earth could be 12,000,000 years. It all depends.

It IS ridiculous for anyone to claim that you can read the bible literally. It is in fact impossible, because of the contradictions. As I pointed out before and as you've conveniently ignored, one example is the two different accounts of the Potter's Field. Matthew says the chief priests bought it with the money Judas threw down, but Acts says Judas himself bought it. They can't both be right.

Just one example of many how how it is impossible to read the bible literally. And no, most "Catholics" or other Christians don't read it literally, because most people are intelligent enough to know that two contradictory statements can't both be right.

So explain what, in your opinion, is the difference between "literal" and literalist". The only difference I know is that the former is an adjective and the latter a noun...

As you say, it all depends. And if it all depends, you are not reading the text literally.

katydid

hinault wrote: »

Yet you ask another poster whether or not he/she accepts that the Bible says that the Earth is 6,000 years old.

Because he/she says the believe the story of Adam and Eve because it says it in the bible. I'm just trying to establish if they believe everything it says in the Bible and take it as the same face value.

Festus

katydid wrote: »

It IS ridiculous for anyone to claim that you can read the bible literally. It is in fact impossible, because of the contradictions. As I pointed out before and as you've conveniently ignored, one example is the two different accounts of the Potter's Field. Matthew says the chief priests bought it with the money Judas threw down, but Acts says Judas himself bought it. They can't both be right.

Nit picking just so you can justify and be comfortable with your rejection of God is childish.

katydid wrote: »

Just one example of many how how it is impossible to read the bible literally. And no, most "Catholics" or other Christians don't read it literally, because most people are intelligent enough to know that two contradictory statements can't both be right.

The field was bought so both statements are right.
The money came from the high priests originally and Judas threw it back so both statements are correct.
Even though Judas threw the money back at the high priests they still considered it his money as it was now blood money so both statements are correct.

Qui facit per alium, facit per se

katydid wrote: »

So explain what, in your opinion, is the difference between "literal" and literalist". The only difference I know is that the former is an adjective and the latter a noun...

As you say, it all depends. And if it all depends, you are not reading the text literally.

Oh, I do read it literally. and I do literally read it. But I am not a literalist.

I already gave you my opinion on what a literalist does as opposed to what Catholics do.

A literalist reads that God created the world in six days as meaning that the world was created in 6 days.

A Catholic reads that God created the world in six days and understands that God created the world and it was completed in anything from six days to as long as it takes in God days because the Bible also has a commentary on what a day can be for God.

katydid

Festus wrote: »

Nit picking just so you can justify and be comfortable with your rejection of God is childish.



The field was bought so both statements are right.
The money came from the high priests originally and Judas threw it back so both statements are correct.
Even though Judas threw the money back at the high priests they still considered it his money as it was now blood money so both statements are correct.

Qui facit per alium, facit per se



Oh, I do read it literally. and I do literally read it. But I am not a literalist.

I already gave you my opinion on what a literalist does as opposed to what Catholics do.

A literalist reads that God created the world in six days as meaning that the world was created in 6 days.

A Catholic reads that God created the world in six days and understands that God created the world and it was completed in anything from six days to as long as it takes in God days because the Bible also has a commentary on what a day can be for God.

Nit picking? Two totally different accounts in a book in which you claim everything is true is nit picking? I think you need to invest in a dictionary. You'll also find that, as I said, literalist is the noun belonging to the adjective "literal". They mean the same thing; a literalist is a person who is literal.

Acts says "Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.". I see no suggestion there that the priests took his money after his death. The sequence is quite clear; he acquired the field then killed himself.

You've dug yourself a huge hole here, linguistically and rhetorically speaking. Do you want a ladder to crawl out?

Festus

katydid wrote: »

Do you want a ladder to crawl out?

No need. I can stand on Eric Lyons shoulders.



Who Bought the Potter’s Field?

by Eric Lyons, M.Min.
The description of Judas’ death is not the only problem skeptics have with Acts 1:18. Since Matthew 27:5-6 says the chief priests used the betrayal money that Judas threw on the temple floor to purchase the potter’s field, critics contend that a contradiction exists because Acts 1:18 indicates that Judas purchased the field with the blood money. Obviously, Judas could not have purchased the field because he gave the 30 pieces of silver back to the priests before hanging himself. Thus, to say that Judas bought the potter’s field is incorrect…right? Wrong!
I suppose if common sense and unbiased reasoning were omitted from this discussion, then one might conclude that these differences represent a legitimate contradiction. If one believes it is wrong to say a father bought a car for his son, when in actuality the son purchased the car with $5,000 his father gave him, then I suppose that Acts 1:18 and Matthew 27:5-6 are contradictory. If one believes that it is wrong to say an employer purchased a meal for his staff, when it really was one of the employees who handed the money to the waiter, then the events recorded in Acts 1:18 could be considered fictitious. But what reasonable person would reach such conclusions as these?
Acts 1:18 simply informs us that Judas furnished the means of purchasing the field. One is not forced to conclude that Judas personally bought the potter’s field. As in modern-day writings and speeches, it is very common for the Scriptures to represent a man as doing a thing when, in fact, he merely supplies the means for doing it. For example, Joseph spoke of his brothers as selling him into Egypt (Genesis 45:4-5; cf. Acts 7:9), when actually they sold him to the Ishmaelites (who then sold him into Egypt). John mentions that “the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples)” (John 4:1-3). And when the Bible says, “Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him” (John 19:1), most people understand that he simply ordered Jesus to be scourged, not that he actually did the scourging himself. The same principle is recognized in law in the well-known Latin maxim, “Qui facit per alium, facit per se” (“he who acts through another is deemed in law to do it himself”).
Whether one says that Judas “purchased a field with the wages of iniquity” (Acts 1:18), or that the chief priests “bought with them the potter’s field” (Matthew 27:7), he has stated the same truth, only in different ways.