Yes, I think you're exactly right. I am rather rigid on those subjects. :)
On the other hand, I get the distinction between "personal" and "catholic" that I think kosta is making, but, at a guess I'd say the adversarial rhetoric hinders the discovery of meaning and intention.
I would really like to know what the Latin position is. I think I understand that the Orthodox position is that God is wholly impersonal. I know that both of you are familiar with the development of Christian philosophy/theology over the last 500 years or more (a subject I am now studying for the first time), and so you both know that the concept of "God is personal" (or not) is HUGE. :)
As an adult type person (allegedly) I haven't thought that Jonah or Job were actual histories.
This goes right to the heart of Biblical authority. While the Bible certainly DOES use many techniques to convey information, such as parables, songs, poems, other allegory, and straight factual historical recitation, how do those stories READ to you? I take them at face value because they are not vague "there once was a man". They contain names, places, and other specific details which one would think would be checkable. Unless it is obvious, as with virtually all parables, how is one to know what is fact and what is fiction?
I mean no disrespect by this but Kosta is on the record saying that the Exodus never happened, which means that the first Passover never happened for real (God killed, and all). Jesus obviously celebrated the Passover "religiously". Was He celebrating a lie? This is the type of stuff that gets my shorts in a bunch. :)
So both of you can jump on me if you like. But I think truth would be better served if you both articulated in positive terms what you think the Bible is good for.
No need my friend. You raise good points. :) Concerning positive terms about what I think the Bible is good for, I would lead with this:
2 Tim 3:16-17 : 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
I do consider "all scripture" to be the whole Bible, and from what I can tell of the Catechism, it "appears" to agree.
With that disclaimer. I think God is MORE than, not less than, "Personal". From this I conclude that it is okay to use "personal language" about Him as long as we're all clear that it's analogical. For example, When I get angry I have physiological events and, generally, my thinking and self-control are diminished. Also, I can get angry without their being a good reason for me to be angry.
If we think those things are of the essence of wrath, we cannot attribute wrath to God, duh. But if we think of wrath as a determination and choice to set right what is wrong (or something like that) then We can say that god is wrathful.
Our Hindu and Buddhists friends, mostly, would say that Karma is something like the 'working out of balance and justice'. THAT's impersonal. WE would say, "God rises up in anger and scatters the foe (Ps 68 or somesuch)". Our language insists on will and choice with an implication that what we technically refer to as the Great Hoo Hoo in the Sky (hereinafter TGHHITS) has something like a will and, at the most hoo-hoo-ish level chooses to be as He is. Whereas for Plotinus and for the Eastern religions I wold VENTURE to say that TGHHITS sort of just is.
For us LOVE, even the kind that involves eros, is one of the highest activities, and not, as in a fantasy of an erotic ecstasy, because we lose our selves and our wills, but because we find them as we give them up. For Us TGHHITS IS LOVE and DOES LOVING -- LOVES. And there is SOME useful similarity between what TGHHITS does and what we do that we can use the word "LOVE" meaningfully to denote both. It's not that we have NO idea, it's that we have a highly inadequate idea, as in a glass darkly. Finally, TGHHITS is personal, I sometimes at least am not, and am probably never completely personal, and won't be until I see God.
If you have any problems with this, just repeat the Mantra: Dawg is Right. You will find that it all becomes clear.
As to the Bible and the accounts of Job and Jonah: Job is enigmatic whether it happens just that way or not. That it is in the canon means to me that I should bash my head against it until God tells me something. Having done at least some bashing, I think there is an awful lot in that book! Wow! How humans are jerks, How God is merciful with our jerkiness, How suffering brings us to the brink and there is where we meet God, and on and on and on. I think the "Stylized" beginning and ending and the sort of "speeches" of the alleged comforters indicate a highly "Crafted" account in any event. That, in itself does not suggest it didn't happen. I'm more concerned about the historicity of "Uz" as a sho' 'nuff place.
I don't think, even if Jesus did - but I am of course open to correction, that a great fish toted Jonah around in his belly and then vomited him out on a beach. I Do think that if God gives you a mission, you might as well obey now unless you want to smell like fish guts. I DO think that God loves even the Ninevites (and also much cattle) and if he can love Ninevites, why he might even Love Calvinists! Maybe.
And I think that NEITHER the frightening aspects of preaching repentance, NOR the confidence that God is gentle and forgiving excuses me from preaching repentance and any other ministry. He may choose me to be a vehicle of His gentleness after all.
ANd I think that I, along with the rest off the human race, may TALK like I want all men to be saved and to have things work out for them and so forth, because I like to think of me as a very nice guy. But in fact, I am mean and small and petty and when good things happen to bad people or even to people who give me a touch time, instead of praising God for His mercy I can find myself being so angry I'd just as soon die. And I think that God may mercifully afflict me in such times to bring me back to myself and to Him.
And this is not just a kind of result of the exercise of asking "What is the meaning of Jonah" but it is or should be part of my daily exchange with God -- when I see a worm attacking a plant or feel a sultry east wind, I should be looking for God's merciful rebuke.
With all due respect to Charlton Heston, I don't think the waters rose up as they did in the movie. And I'm not sure if all the tribes of Israel were in Egypt. I think a people descended from Abraham and clamming his covenant and all that, were wonderfully delivered from Egypt and that the deliverance involved some signs and wonders not necessarily scientifically inexplicable, but that meant that the were able to go through a place that was normally under water and that when Pharoah's chariots and horsemen followed their wheels were clogged and the water returned and they had a very bad day.
Sing to the Lord for exalting He has exalted; horse and driver (they didn't ride 'em in those days, and I think the word usually translated as "rider" is close enough to the word meaning "chariot", that "Driver" is good) has He hurled into the sea.
I mention the translation issues because an OT prof maintained that Miriam's song must have been composed much later when people rode horses, and I don't think that is necessarily so. I think it could be the read deal and handed down from the days of the actual exodus. Yep. I think that happened.
Pardon haste and incompleteness or incoherence. Haste is what's happening right now.
There is simply no evidence to back up biblical claims that Exodus happened or that the Hebrews ever lived in Egypt. Exodus 12:40 says that the Hebrews lived in Egypt for 430 years.
Exodus 12:37 tells us that 600,000 men, not counting their children, left Egypt in the Exodus (this is repeated also in Numbers 1:45-46). We have hundreds of thousands of people allegedly living in one place for over 400 years and leaving absolutely no archeological trace of their presence!
We also have close to a million people roaming the deserts of Sinai for 40 years and leaving no archeological presence whatsoever, but there is plenty of archeological evidence of Egyptian presence in Sinai at the alleged time of the Exodus.
Since the end of the Three Day War (1967), the Israeli archaeologists have been working in overdrive for 40 years and found no evidence to back up biblical claims.
Numbers 13:26, 20:1, 20:14; and Deuteronomy 1:46. tell us that out of these 40 years, the Israelites spent 38 eight years in one single location! You'd think that a settlement of one million people would yield some evidence of their presence in that location, which has been found and positively identified (Kadesh-Barnea).
More importantly, the son of Rhamses II, Merneptah, conquered Canaan a generation after the alleged Exodus. An existing stela (stone monument with inscriptions), dating to the 13th century BC, speaks of this event. The document makes no mention of Exodus which surely would have served as a motive for revenge against the Israelites.
Archeological evidence found in the Sinai suggests that the Egyptians had military and other installations in the peninsula at the time of the alleged Exodus. The Egyptians had no difficulties cross the Red Sea. The Egyptians present in the Sinai would have laid waste to Israelites during their alleged 40 year presence there. There is no evidence of any long-term siege or mention of a campaign against the Israelites either from from Israeli or Egyptian sources.
Finally, historical documents also show that Egypt had control over the Canaan and all the way up to Syria on occasion during the New Kingdom (ending in the 11th century BC), and that if any of the stories about the Exodus were anything other than Israelite myths, the Egyptians would have eradicated Israelites from the face of this earth.
It's a legend.
All you offer is the Bible. By saying that Christ necessarily believed a lie you are sing the scare-tactic that may discourage many for all the wrong reasons. Christ could not have believed a lie, because what the Gospels teach is incompatible with God killing the first-born, both human and cattle! That would make God, who is Life, the God of death!
It is also ridiculous, for the lack of a better word, that an all-knowing God needed the blood of lambs as "markers" for Him to know which household was Jewish in order to spare them his wrath!
I have my reason and you have yours. One thing is certain: again, extraordinary biblical claims fail to be corroborated by extraordinary evidence; big time.
Your assessment of Orthodoxy remains mistakenly and positively dead wrong, FK. Kolo has spent much of his time providing you with Orthodox sources and teachings.
I have personally provided you with official Church teachings, liturgical texts and what not; apparently all in vain. You either refuse to acknowledge or actually cannot comprehend Orthodox mindset and are forced to twist it into something it is not.
Orthodox Catechism teaches that we have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and through Him only. Otherwise, God is ineffable, a supreme Mystery.
He remains a mystery...The way of negation corresponds to the spiritual ascent into the Divine abyss where words fall silent, where reason fades, where all human knowledge and comprehension cease, where God is.
It is not by speculative knowledge but in the depths of prayerful silence that the soul can encounter God, Who is ‘beyond everything’ and Who reveals Himself to her as in-comprehensible, in-accessible, in-visible, yet at the same time as living and close to her — as God the Person." [Orthodox Catechism]
I think that should settle any further dilemmas and prevent any further misstatements regarding Orthodoxy and God being (im)personal. If in doubt, consult the reference which has been given to you in the past. If you do, you won't make statements like the one I quoted you on above.