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 drseinfeld
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Greatest prophet? Moses or John the Baptist? |
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Posts: 6236 12/30/05 15:01:55 |
Dt 34:10 And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,
Lk 7:28 For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. |
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Steve Wells |
Re: Greatest prophet? Moses or John the Baptist? | #1 | ||
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Posts: 914 12/30/05 17:23:38 |
Thanks again, DrSeinfeld. I've added it to the contradictions.
Steve Wells
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Yark Hutprancer |
Re: Greatest prophet? Moses or John the Baptist? | #2 | ||
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Posts: 3808 12/30/05 17:35:40 |
Quote:How many prophets were NOT born of women?! I don't see this as a contradiction. The Moses verse says that he was the greatest in Israel until the time that passage was written. But, if John were greater than Moses, then the John passage would be correct when it was written. "If I were God, and I made myself into a regular ol' person, I would have written down the stuff I said myself. I would have had people there with me taking notes. I wouldn't rely on people from the generation after my death to get the story right." - i would be an astronaut on the SAB Message Board |
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Badsidhe |
Re: Greatest prophet? Moses or John the Baptist? | #3 | ||
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Posts: 3190 12/30/05 18:41:04 |
I agree with Yark. No contradiction here.
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Steve Wells |
Re: Greatest prophet? Moses or John the Baptist? | #4 | ||
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Posts: 914 12/30/05 18:57:37 |
Darn! I'm not doing too well today, am I? (And you guys are awfully hard to please!)
I'm really not too sure about this one. "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses" sounds to me like it there wasn't a prophet like Moses before or after. He was the greatest period. It was both a statement about the past and a prediction of the future. But it could just mean that Moses was the greatest prophet up to that time (which I'm sure is what all the believers would say), in which case John the Baptist could be even greater. Generally I like to go with the "when in doubt, throw it out" rule. So that's what I'll do in this case (though I'll just comment it out for now, so I can add it back later if I change my mind). Thanks for your input. That's what's so great about doing a project like this in the internet with a discussion board. Mistakes can be corrected and what is done can be undone. Steve Wells
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Badsidhe |
Re: Greatest prophet? Moses or John the Baptist? | #5 | ||
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Posts: 3190 12/30/05 20:09:07 |
Quote: I would agree, if this statement can be shown to be a purposeful prophecy, then there would be a problem. Or, if the entire Bible (OT and NT) was written at the same time, it would be a problem. However.... The "not a prophet since" was written just after Moses's time (right? I dunno, really- I've seen it proposed that Moses wrote about his own funeral). Therefore, at the time of the writing of the first passage in question, there had not been a comparable prophet since Moses. ...then again, I've not read much of the Bible, so I'm just going off of what is presented here in this thread..... |
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Yark Hutprancer |
Re: Greatest prophet? Moses or John the Baptist? | #6 | ||
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Posts: 3808 12/30/05 21:29:18 |
It seems like there are a couple of oddities here, though.
1. Why would Moses refer to himself as the greatest prophet of all time? This leads me to believe that this was NOT written by Moses. He could have, I suppose, but it just seems strange. 2. How in the hell was John the Baptist a greater prophet than Moses? It seems to me that the Jews had their greatest and then the Christians decided to have a greatest, too. Maybe the guys who wrote that John was the greatest probably didn't realize that Moses had been called the greatest. "If I were God, and I made myself into a regular ol' person, I would have written down the stuff I said myself. I would have had people there with me taking notes. I wouldn't rely on people from the generation after my death to get the story right." - i would be an astronaut on the SAB Message Board |
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Galip |
Re: Greatest prophet? Moses or John the Baptist? | #7 | ||
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Posts: 4 12/31/05 12:38:10 |
'If I were God, and I made myself into a regular ol' person, I would have written down the stuff I said myself. I would have had people there with me taking notes. I wouldn't rely on people from the generation after my death to get the story right." -
Yark, I hope I am not taken as putting my nose into your debate upon that topic, but I enjoyed the last paragraph and quoted. That I can understand the reason that causes you to say these. There is already such a book, Koran. The Torah was cahnged into lies by Jews that even Saul Paul the creator of the present Christianity admits this in the first chapter of his letter to Romans. They changed the Truth into lies and changed the Glory of God into the image of man(!) and other creatures...etc. He himself says these, but also he changes the Truth into lies. I would recommend you to read the topic I have sent, 'Here is the Refutation of the Christianity by the Bible' or 'the Christ of the Bibles is already a brainchild' Any of the prophets that Allah sent never declared that he was the greatest of them, but after each died, people attributed lie words to them, as they also changed the Torah and Bible into lies. But it is of course true to say that each prophet did greater acts than any other of them came before or after himself. |
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Steve Wells |
The Quest Study Bible to the rescue | #8 | ||
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Posts: 914 12/31/05 13:44:32 |
I know I shouldn't do this, but I can't help it. I'm changing my mind again.
Here's what the Quest Study Bible says about it: Quote: I guess the folks at Zondervan forgot about Luke 7:28. Maybe they'll change their mind, too, in the next edition. BTW, here's Dt.34:10 in the NIV. Quote: Since John the Baptist was "since then", he couldn't have been the greatest prophet "among those born of women," could he? Steve Wells
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Badsidhe |
Re: The Quest Study Bible to the rescue | #9 | ||
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Posts: 3190 12/31/05 14:18:04 |
Quote: Before you put it back, maybe we should discuss it more? I'm still convinced this is nothing. Quote: OK..... does the Quest Study Bible trump the KJV? Or your/our own interpretation of it? It seems silly to accept a "Quest Study Bible" as an authority on the matter, especially when I'm sure they promote other things which you would disagree with, such as "God exists"- also no doubt found within the "Quest Study Bible". Quote: I think that is most likely. Of course, that is probably not something they would admit to. If somebody were to point out that Luke 7:28 says elsewise, they would have some fancy apology for their interpretation, no doubt. Quote: When is "then"? If "then" is the "time of Moses", then between the time of Moses and the time Dt 34:10 was written down, no prophet was greater. Bible to Badsidhese translation of Dt 34:10: "Since the time of Moses, until now as I sit down and write this, there has been no greater prophet than Moses. Maybe tomorrow there will be a greater prophet, or next year. Maybe a few years after I'm dead; I have no way of knowing. But for now, there is none greater." Now, if Dt 34:10 was written after John the Baptist existed, we would have a clear contradiction. I guess the question is, what is the time being referred to when the author says "since then"? My opinion = time between Moses and when the Dt author wrote it down. You seem to be making the case that the time in question is the time between Moses and when the Luke author wrote his (Luke author's) opinion down. Is this an accurate assessment? |
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Argy Lacedom |
Re: The Quest Study Bible to the rescue | #10 | ||
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Posts: 2429 12/31/05 15:14:05 |
Quote:I wonder whether timing is relevant at all. The bible is supposedly the inerrant and inspired word of God. He is omnisient and unchanging over all time. If he caused a thing to be written in the past should'nt it be true for all time? Unless, perhaps, timing/context clearly indicates otherwise. ________________________________________________________________________
If there is evil in the world in lies in the lack of doubt. I am suspicious of the idea of the righteous. - Tilda Swinton |
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Steve Wells |
Re: The Quest Study Bible to the rescue | #11 | ||
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Posts: 914 12/31/05 15:39:32 |
Quote: Well, it's already back, but don't let that stop the discussion. If I'm convinced that it "is nothing", I'll take it down again. Quote: I don't consider the Quest Study Bible to be an authority on anything. But its note on Dt.34:10 shows that some believers think the verse says that Moses was "the greatest prophet ever." Since Jesus says that John the Baptist was the greatest prophet ever, it looks like a contradiction to me. (So I've marked it that way.) Quote: Since Dt.34:10 was supposedly written at the time of Moses (by him according to Dt.1:1), "then" could hardly mean that Moses was the greatest prophet from to time of Moses to the time of Moses. Or do you think that's what it means? (I know that Deuteronomy wasn't written by Moses and wasn't written until much later than the time that he supposedly lived, but that's not what Deuteronomy says or what most fundamentalists believe.) Quote: No, that's not what I'm saying. The time in question is from the time of Moses on. Deuteronomy 34:10 is saying (it seems to me and those nice folks at Zondervan) that Moses was the greatest prophet to ever live (except for Jesus, of course, who they don't count for some reason). He was simply the greatest -- greater than John the Baptist, greater than Jesus, greater than Muhammad (peanut butter and jelly be upon him), greater than Joseph Smith, greater than Mohammed Ali, greater than all of them put together. That's what the "then" in Dt.34:10 means to me. Steve Wells
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Badsidhe |
Badsidhe the Obstinate Apologist | #12 | ||
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Posts: 3190 12/31/05 19:52:15 |
Quote: But..... you don't consider it to be an authority on anything, but it is authoritative enough to influence your reasoning on the passage? 1: So many times I've seen a believer argue that "My NIV version says (whatever contradiction in question) this way, which isn't a contradiction", and a skeptic will say "well that's fine but we use the KJV here, and the KJV shows a contradiction." 2: It seems strange using a believer as an "authority" on interpreting the Bible, when we spend so much time here not accepting believers as "authorities" on Biblical passages. Quote: You are considering the Dt.34:10 passage as a prophecy, as well as a report on current events? |
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Steve Wells |
Re: Badsidhe the Obstinate Apologist | #13 | ||
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Posts: 914 12/31/05 22:01:33 |
Quote: No (as I said before), I don't consider the Quest Bible to be authoritative. But (as I said before) its note for Dt.34:10 shows that some believers think the verse says that Moses was the greatest prophet that ever lived. I don't think Moses was the greatest prophet that ever lived. I don't think that Moses was a prophet, I don't think he wrote Deuteronomy, and I very much doubt that he ever lived. But some Christians disagree with me, and the Quest Bible's note for Dt.34:10 substantiates that fact. Here is the way I view contradictions. I try to figure out what a passage means in its context, but without regard to other passages in other books of the Bible that were written by other people at other times. So I dont try to make Dt.34:10 agree with Luke 7:28 or Heb.3:3. Dt.34:10 can say (as I think it probably does) that Moses was the greatest prophet to ever live, and I am not concerned that Luke and Hebrews may disagree. Now the Quest Bible and most other believers (and even some skeptics) look at it differently. They look at the whole Bible as though it were written by the same person at the same time. One of the reasons that the Quest Bibles note on Dt.34:10 is of interest to me is that they would carefully avoid any possible contradiction between their interpretation of this verse with that of other verses in other books. In this particular case, however, they either messed up and interpreted it without considering how it might contradict Luke and Hebrews, or they weren't aware of the potential contradiction. In either case, they interpreted it honestly, without regard to other passages in other books of the Bible (otherwise they would have omitted the note or changed their interpretation to avoid the contradiction). But there's more that to it than that. When I look at a passage, I try to consider what are the other reasonable interpretations of the text. For most verses there is a long list of possible (and actual) interpretations. Look, for example, at the way Waterrock and David disagree on the verses affecting the determinism/free will question. The result is that an honest interpretation of one verse may contradict another honest interpretation of another verse. That is, in my mind at least, a contradiction. So I am interested in how David, Waterrock, the Quest Bible, Catholics, JWs, Moonies, Mormons, Muslims, etc. interpret particular verses. And I try to point out the contradictions between the various interpretations. None of these interpretations (including my own) is authoritative to me. None of them affect my "reasoning on the passage" in question. But all affect the way that they are treated in the SAB, because it is the contradiction between the various interpretations that is highlighted. The best contradictions are the easy ones. Was John the Baptist Elijah? Who was Joseph's father? How did Judas die? Who tempted David to number the people? etc. These aren't a matter of interpretation; they are a matter of honesty. But who was the greatest prophet? Well, now there you can have some honest disagreements. And maybe you and I just disagree on how this one should be treated. Steve Wells
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Yark Hutprancer |
Re: Greatest prophet? Moses or John the Baptist? | #14 | ||
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Posts: 3808 01/01/06 01:54:17 |
Quote:You must be a muslim. I have spent a great deal of time reading the Quran. I haven't read it completely as I have the Christian Bible (KJV and much of the NIV and NASB), but I have read enough to recognize it as a pack of myth, bad morality, and barbarism just like the Bible. I have also spent a lot of time talking with Muslems. I find no reason to believe that their religion is any more valid than the Christian religion. You say that people have tried to attibute lies to your prophets. Well, how do you know that the things that you believe are true about your prophets are not also lies? "If I were God, and I made myself into a regular ol' person, I would have written down the stuff I said myself. I would have had people there with me taking notes. I wouldn't rely on people from the generation after my death to get the story right." - i would be an astronaut on the SAB Message Board |
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Yark Hutprancer |
Re: The Quest Study Bible to the rescue | #15 | ||
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Posts: 3808 01/01/06 02:04:33 |
I see what you are doing, and it is your website. How you categorize contradictions is obviously up to you.
However, I still hold that, from an unbiased skeptic's reading of these texts, this is not necessarily a contradiction. Perhaps you should make clear in your entry the specific interpretation that makes this a contradiction. "If I were God, and I made myself into a regular ol' person, I would have written down the stuff I said myself. I would have had people there with me taking notes. I wouldn't rely on people from the generation after my death to get the story right." - i would be an astronaut on the SAB Message Board |
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Steve Wells |
Re: The Quest Study Bible to the rescue | #16 | ||
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Posts: 914 01/01/06 02:43:35 |
I agree, Yark, that this one is not "necessarily a contradiction." It is possible to find interpretations for the three passages (Dt.34:10, Lk.7:28, and Heb.3:3) that avoid a contradiction, and that, from a believer's point of view anyway, is sufficient.
I try not to call something a contradiction unless I think that reasonable interpretations can result in contradictory statements. That's why I removed the "Can the world hate Christians" contradiction. I don't think there are any reasonable interpretations of the verses that result in a contradiction. Steve Wells
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Badsidhe |
Re: Badsidhe the Obstinate Apologist | #17 | ||
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Posts: 3190 01/01/06 08:18:29 |
Quote: If this is the standard that determines what goes in the "contradiction" category, then these two passages are in contradiction. However, when a believer presents his case and, as part of his argument, says, "The Bible was written by over 40+ authors over a very long period of time" (which happens to be the most common explanation I've personally seen), hopefully we'll all jump in and revisit this contradiction. |
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Diskeyezed |
Re: Badsidhe the Obstinate Apologist | #18 | ||
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Posts: 851 01/01/06 08:37:54 |
Quote: Most Christians that I know are well aware of the fact that the Bible was written by several different people over a span of time. Of course, they do believe that they were all inspired by the Holy Spirit, so in that sense they believe it to have had one source, but not that it was penned by one individual. "As for the truth, it seems like we just pick a theory." -- Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls
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Diskeyezed |
Re: Greatest prophet? Moses or John the Baptist? | #19 | ||
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Posts: 851 01/01/06 08:46:26 |
Quote: lol  It was apparently a figure of speech for humans. Kinda like when the Bible specifies one "that pisseth against the wall," it's using a figure of speech for males (which, ironcally, most modern translations leave out in favor of simply saying "man," despite being in the Hebrew). Quote: I have to agree with this. "As for the truth, it seems like we just pick a theory." -- Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls
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Steve Wells |
Re: Greatest prophet? Moses or John the Baptist? | #20 | ||
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Posts: 914 01/01/06 12:25:40 |
Okay, I give up.
I've changed (downgraded) the "Who was the greatest prophet?" from the contradictions to the interpretations category. Dt.34:10 can be interpreted (even by skeptics apparently) to avoid (what appears to me to be a fairly clear) contradiction. I hope that satisfies everyone (but I'm sure it won't). Steve Wells
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