Posted on 11/08/2006 5:35:46 AM PST by girlangler
A woman who was bitten by a snake at a church that neighbors say practices serpent handling died of her wounds hours later, a newspaper reported. Linda Long, 48, was bitten Sunday at East London Holiness Church, where neighbors said the reptiles are handled as part of religious services, The Lexington Herald-Leader reported Tuesday.
Long died at University of Kentucky Medical Center about four hours after being bitten, authorities told the newspaper.
"She said she was bitten by a snake at her church," said Lt. Ed Sizemore of the Laurel County Sheriff's Office.
Handling reptiles as part of religious services is illegal in Kentucky. Snake handling is a misdemeanor and punishable by a $50 to $100 fine.
Police said they had not received any reports of snake handling at the church.
Snake handling is based on a passage in the Bible that says a sign of a true believer is the power to "take up serpents" without being harmed.
Church officials could not be reached for comment.
Stop twisting the words of the Gospel.
It's positively sickening.
The Gospel says arousin "to take up, to bear away, to remove" - the notion here is obvious to 99.999% of all Christians who have ever lived. When snakes threaten people and a Christian boldly steps up to protect himself or others by removing (arousin) the snake, he will not be harmed.
Likewise, if a malicious person attempts to poison a faithful Christian they will not be harmed by drinking the poison.
Anyone who reads the Scripture as an encouragement by Christ to tempt God and deliberately place themselves in danger by playing with venomous snakes or drinking poison for kicks has not only misread the verse but every other verse in the Bible.
Tempting God and presumption are sins, and Christ is not commanding anyone to sin, despite your sinister misinterpretation.
See post #39.
Not true? So Christ spoke silly words, then?
I did not say that. I pointed out the words that are being misinterpreted by the snake handlers.
And yes, it is a completely bogus interpretation.
Jesus' words (when referring to serpents) were allegorical -- the word "serpent" is representative of Satan and demons - Satan is referred to in scripture as a serpent; indeed, the first time we see Satan in the Bible, he comes in the form of a snake.
There are also some in North Carolina. Don't sell them short on ignorance.
You are welcome to the interpretation - but it's not my personal one. Far better interpreters than I have come to these conclusions.
My version is in English, what language is arousin, and which version of the Bible do you have?
Arousin is Greek, and in this case I am using the Textus Receptus.
What about speaking in new tongues, casting out devils, and healing hands?
The same rule applies.
Christ is not saying that Christians should go out and actively invent new tongues just so they can speak in them.
He is saying that new tongues will come upon Christians as a sign.
He is not saying that Christians should encourage people to become demonically possessed just so demons can be cast out - he is saying that when Christians do encounter a poor soul who is possessed that Christians will be able to cast the demons out.
He is not saying that Christians should go out and deliberately injure or infect people just so they can heal them later for fun, He is saying that Christians will be able to heal sick people that they encounter.
I have long felt that the Bible, like the Koran, must be read in the original language to be understood properly.
The original language is extremely useful, but a knowledge of the culture and history of Israel is just as important in interpretation.
No one actually knows how to read the original language of the Koran - a good portion of the of the Koran is so obscure that people can only guess at what some of the words and phrases might mean.
It is not written entirely in standard Arabic - some parts were morphologically and definitionally obscure to people who were alive when it was written.
The Greek of the New Testament, by contrast, was fairly standard Koine Greek and there is not a single word in the Greek text whose meaning or etymology is obscure.
If I am not mistaken, every single word in the Greek New Testament is attested somewhere else in Greek literature, while there are hundreds of words in the Koran which never occur elsewhere in Arabic and many of which appear to be Nabataean.
--Jesus' words (when referring to serpents) were allegorical -- the word "serpent" is representative of Satan and demons - Satan is referred to in scripture as a serpent; indeed, the first time we see Satan in the Bible, he comes in the form of a snake.--
This has been an unfortunate problem for REAL snakes, most of which are quite beneficial killers of truly harmful rodents. Too bad Satan didn't take the form of a rat, or worse, a rat flea!
New movie potential: "Snakes in a Church".
I love rattlesnakes!
They taste just like frog legs.
Yep, I usually pass by the harmless ones, and kill the poisonous ones.
Yawn
--I am cautious that they do not get wrapped around the undercarriage so's not to bring them home--
A way for lazy reptiles to establish themselves in other parts of the USA. Those trucks coming up from Me-hee-co should bring in some neat stowaways (and I'm not talking about the human ones either).
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