Mat 12:39-41 But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet;...The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
Our Lord Jesus called Jonah a prophet, not a story. And He verified the repentance of Nineveh to the preaching of Jonah.
BTW-I'm not a creationist who believes the everything was created in six LITERAL days. The text is murky and I'm not sure it states that. However people are mistakenly to think man "evolved" and the scriptures are wrong on this because it's not "scientific". Well neither is making an iron ax head float or a Virgin Birth. You can't pick and choose which miracle to believe in.
Mat 22:43-44 He *said to them, "Then how does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying, 'THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, "SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I PUT YOUR ENEMIES BENEATH YOUR FEET"'?
Yet you say this is "subject to interpretation."? But the ONLY doctrine that I stated doesn't have any support in scripture you defend by quoting some church father.
Let's summarize. You don't believe in the Genesis account of creation. You've argued that the Virgin Birth could possibly be done in other ways. You denied Jonah existence even when our Lord stated he was a prophet and preached to Nineveh. And you denied a string of prophetic verses including one our Lord Jesus interpreted. What you have defended was scientists, evolutionists, and flawed teachings.
And I called "Dilbert" a man, when he is a cartoon charecter...We really don't know if Christ was merely refering to a charecter in Jewish Scripture that was intended by the writer to be merely a parable. Personally, I am open to either possibility. It does not matter one way or the other whether there really was a prophet who convinced the entire capital of the Assyrians to suddenly put on sack clothes...
Are you saying the Virgin Birth didn't happen?
Of course I am not saying that!!! I am saying that science will never be able to prove anything regarding the Virgin Birth. This belief is based solely on faith.
That doesn't mean anything (age of the earth based on rock ages). It cannot be proven-only surmise. But the data from which they develop their "theory" could be flawed.
Scientists can figure out the age of materials using various means that can be duplicated over and over. Through such experimentation, they can "surmise" that a rock is a particular age. I am not aware of anything that has cast doubt on the age of the universe - at least it is over 10 billion years old. Even if science was wrong, say only one billion, that still forces us to re-consider our view on the scientific claims of the Scriptures. I personally don't think God is trying to tell us the date of the earth, but using a story, similar to a fable, that explains particular spiritual truths of His love for man and His creation of the universe out of nothing.
If I am wrong, that the earth is actually 6000 years old, how will this effect my spiritual growth and life in Christ? Frankly, it is a big ado over nothing. By refusing to countenance the earth's old age, you are merely making Christians look like foolish anti-science superstituous people. Until the evidence shows the contrary, it is more feasible to consider the creation story as a vehicle to tell God's plan of WHY He created us, and not HOW He created us.
You can't pick and choose which miracle to believe in.
Miracles still happen today - but we are not required to believe in them. Whether Scripture is relating an actual historical accounting of a miracle, or using a literary device to convey something of deeper meaning, it is not always clear. The Church does hold to particular miracles as being historical, such as the resurrection and the Virgin birth of Christ.
Interesting. Every single verse that I've brought up that has historically been interpreted as I have you question; even the statement David made about "my Lord". This was also the text our Lord Jesus referred to in support of Himself
Harley, we are on the same side here! I, too, believe that the Scriptures are pointing to the Messiah. But this takes a different approach to Scripture then a Jew would take. Quite honestly, the OT has different ideas of the Messiah. Very few people considered that he would be God or that he would suffer the death of a crinimal - or hang on a cross. A Sola Scriptura Jew would have a very difficult time coming to believe that Jesus was the Messiah without looking at the Bible from a whole different perspective. Thus, Christianity was an innovation for Jews.
Let's summarize. You don't believe in the Genesis account of creation. You've argued that the Virgin Birth could possibly be done in other ways. You denied Jonah existence even when our Lord stated he was a prophet and preached to Nineveh. And you denied a string of prophetic verses including one our Lord Jesus interpreted. What you have defended was scientists, evolutionists, and flawed teachings.
You can't seem to follow my arguments. I am not holding to any of them per sec. I am merely playing "devil's advocate", looking at Scripture from a Jew's point of view. Quite simply, you claim that Christianity was a natural succession of Judaism. That shows very little knowledge of Judaism and how they looked at Scriptures. Early Christianity had very little success among Jews. It was much more accepted by Gentiles who didn't have the Jewish paradigm.
And as usual, you place people into a little box because you see things black or white - me vs. them. We just don't know if God was intending to give a scientific lesson on how the earth was created. Evidence in nature (which God created, by the way) tells a different story. Since the Scripture is inerrant, it is YOUR reading of it that must be wrong. It must be that God DIDN'T mean to discuss the astrophysics behind how the moon was created...
I never said I didn't believe in the Virgin Birth - I said science cannot prove or disprove it. It is a statement of faith, which, as a Catholic, I accept. And nor did I deny ANY of the prophetic verses. I am saying that the JEWS did not accept them. Perhaps you should read postings more closely before you make such sweeping and false generalizations. Nowhere did I say any of the above that you claim for me.
Next time you are sick, please call your minister and make sure you don't take any drugs, or seek medical help. Obviously, you believe that science is a source of false knowledge, which crumbles like a sand castle when confronted with biblical statements about the age of the world, the classification of animals, and so on. Why? Because, to you infallibility of the Bible is in the literal sense, like reading a fairytale.
When Galilleo showed crater-studded lunar surface to Roman clergy, they dismissed it as an "illusion" created by the devil the way my older daughter dismisses dynasaur bones (she learned that in a Baptist church, by the way!), "in order to deceive us."
The Church simply held the view, based on Scripture, that the "heaven" is the sky above us and that it must be perfect because that's where God resides, so the Moon, one of the celestial spheres, could not possibly have imperfections! That sounds like some arguments on this Forum I have seen thus far.
It is clear that the writers of both Testaments believed that God "comes" from the heaven (sky) above us (which is completely contrary to Orthodox/Catholic teaching of God as being a Spirit who is uncircumscribed and present everywhere).
When he showed that, by brilliant observations of Venus, that it was the Sun that didn't move, he was accused of "vehement heresy" and -- thanks only to his advanced age and fame -- sentenced to house arrest, having been exhonorated by the Catholic Church only in the 1992, after 350 years of official censure.
What was his "heresy" HD other than using reason that God gave us to discover how boundless and great His glory, made manifest in His Creation.
To this day, we have people who berate science as something "evil," or incapable of proving anything. You see, science is not concerned with why things work, but how. More importantly, science doesn't have to convicne you that it works. It simply does. So, your sad little jabs at science as being unable to show the age of the rocks, speaks volumes that your mind is still back 350 years with the accusers of Galilleo (who believed that the earth was flat).
The only reason I brought up things such as bats, hares and so on, is because we know for certain that the Bible is flat out wrong on those, which makes one wonder if that is simply because our copies are imperfect and the original was perfect, or because it really doesn't matter if anything in the Bible happened as it has been described, but rather that the spiritual message that was revealed to the writers is conveyed.