Quote from damir00:
in my opinion, if i may respectfuly suggest, that's where your thinking goes astray. assuming there is supposed to be some obvious, consistent message from disparate writers scatttered across continents and millenia is about the same as going to home depot, buying hammer, and assuming the CEO of Stanley wants you to build a house with it.
Talmud - basically a record of Jewish arguments over scripture - at one point refers to Tanakh - what c'ians call the "old testament" - as being a collection of stories for women, children and the feeble-minded. yet we preserve it - because the value isn't in the writing, it is in the reading and deconstructing.
scripture isn't going to give you the answers - but you shouldn't expect it to because it was never meant to.
Israel -> "to struggle with G-d".
abraham is important not because he was the "first" monotheist - but because he challenged G-d. because he was the first to demand from G-d a covenant as tought as the one people believed G-d demanded of them. if you want to get ultra-allegorical about it, abraham is important because he is the first to create a god in his own image rather than assume he is a reflection of a godly image.
Damir,
I always enjoy your posts - especially since we occasionally agree
- but I definitely have to disagree with some of the above. Of course, I don't for a minute want to speak for the Jewish community as I don't understand the nuances of reformed/orthodox/conservative/Hasidic, etc., but on the Christian front I think you are missing several key points. (Actually, you're probably not missing anything, but I feel that you're argument misses them.)
1. Evangelical Christianity is REMARKABLY consistent on core doctrines.
2. Evangelicals only disagree on peripheral issues such as what we've talked about on this thread such as "how hot is hell" and "how do you baptize somebody?" and "what kind of music do we want in church?", etc.
3. The explosive growth in Christianity is coming almost entirely from the evangelic (and of course charismatic) communities.
So while I agree with your underlying philospophy, I can't agree with your conclusion. There 's a Proverb that I love: "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; it is the glory of kings to uncover it"
I agree with you in the sense that there is much much analysis, debate, discovery and freedom to interpret that God has given us.
But where I disagree is where you say that there was no intent by God for consensus on core doctrines by God. Again, I think you see remarkable consistency amound evangelicals, which represent 1000's and 1000's of different churches and denominations worldwide.
Now all that said, I realize you're a Jew and have only an outside interest in Christian consensus, but my point is this: evangelicals universally interpret scripture similarly in core doctrines and I would argue that Scripture can be interpreted consistently on the stuff that really counts.
