The Atheist Challenge:
“I understand a man of your caliber have trouble with honesty & simple basic truth. Just plead the fifth.”
The moment that you say that the Bible needs to be “interpreted” you have already lost the debate. Is there an ultimate authority here on earth telling you how to interpret the Bible? No.
This means that what the Bible says depends on the whims of the person interpreting the Bible.
My Response (10-22-22, “5 days ago on 10-27-22):
There are well-known Rules of Interpretation that are very helpful as guides to reaching or confirming what is a correct interpretation.
The “whims of the person interpreting the Bible” is not the basis for determining what the Bible says or means.
You probably cannot read any written text without in some sense interpreting what you have read should it be that you suppose you understand it.
When two interpretations differ, it is possible to determine whether one is right and another wrong, or they both are wrong, but if the two interpretations are contradictory, they cannot both be right.
Atheist Reply (10-24-22):
Jerome Smith there is no logic , when speaking about Religious cults. To believe in this type of utter lunacy you have no reasoning , and lack the mental capacity to understand magical characters with magical powers never have existed in our reality. Ft or example this picture lmao .You believe these things are real and that is a lie
My Reply (4 days ago on 10-27-22, or 10-23-22):
It is clear that your mind is made up already and not open to reason, logic, and evidence or open to learning anything new about the Bible.
So much for your implied claim of superior knowledge of the Bible manifest or implied by your posting on a site named “Christians do you REALLY know your Bible.”
Of course, if you have such a closed mind, you can hardly claim to really know your Bible!
To suppose that the Bible is composed merely of iron age superstitions, ideologies, and mythology reveals the height of your ignorance about the Bible.
Atheist Reply (10-22-22, 5d ago on 10-27-22):
If you have to interpret the Bible , that means each person can perceive any understand there gullible mind manifest, why does the alleged word of God need to be interpreted .If is all true ? You truly sound ridiculous & not well .
My Reply (5d ago on 10-27-22, thus 10-22-22):
Apparently you did not read with care and understanding what I wrote below:
“You probably cannot read any written text without in some sense interpreting what you have read should it be that you suppose you understand it.
“When two interpretations differ, it is possible to determine whether one is right and another wrong, or they both are wrong, but if the two interpretations are contradictory, they cannot both be right.”
Am I to suppose from your responses to my comments that you do not know how to properly interpret what you have read?
It may be that each person who reads the Bible sometimes comes to an interpretation of it that differs from what the text actually says.
If the person is sincerely reading the text with the intent of understanding it correctly, further actual study and re-reading of the text will lead them to a more accurate understanding.
The Bible is a self-explanatory Book, and a self-correcting Book such that sincere and careful readers will discover that if they misunderstand what the Bible says in one place, the misunderstanding will be corrected when that misunderstanding contradicts what the Bible teaches more clearly for the reader in another place in its text.
Atheist Reply (4d ago on 10-27-22, thus 10-23-22):
Being black& knowing my cultures history ,It’s greatness , before Europeans found civilization, Your cult is white supremacy existed and has no relevance to us Educated, conscious Nubian people. We not suffering from post traumatic slave syndrome. Your rhetoric , is plantation programming. Wrong Black Man
My Response (3d ago on 10-27-22, thus 10-24-22):
All you are doing by posting such memes as you have above is further demonstrating your lack of knowledge about the Bible.
You have drifted far astray of your Opening Post, which shows you are unable to defend or rationally discuss the issue of your OP, or demonstrate any knowledge of what is involved in Bible interpretation.
Atheist Reply (3d ago on 10—27-22, thus 10-24-22)
You sound ignorant.
You sound stupid , if gods word is perfect , you take it as is because what your saying is the word isn’t perfect if it has to be interpreted & each will interpret it according to there own understanding , what you saying Jerome smith is ridiculous
Your cult means nothing & is a lie made up. History has proven that
My Response (10-27-22):
Apparently you have never read or better, studied with care, any of the works of K. Kitchen, such as The Reliability of the Old Testament. So much for any claim you might make that history has proven the Bible to be a lie.
Before making such wild and meaningless claims you would be helped by learning more about the subject first.
Atheist Response to me (3d ago on 10-27-22, thus 10-24-22):
[In a meme:] “If you can’t take faith to court as evidence of something is true/then what makes you think having faith in something makes it real? Can you tell the judge you have faith that a person is the murderer because God told you so?”
My Reply (10-27-22):
And who makes the claim of taking “faith” to court as “evidence”?
Once again you demonstrate your lack of knowledge about the Bible and the evidence that supports its truth and validity.
You would be greatly helped if you read with care the book by Simon Greenleaf, The Testimony of the Evangelists. You surely would learn a thing or two from Greenleaf on the subject of evidence.
More recently, Mark Lanier, another legal expert, has written a book titled Christianity on Trial and another book titled Atheism on Trial.
Yet another pertinent title written by Eric Metaxas, Is Atheism Dead? contains enough evidence to show you are very mistaken about these matters.
Atheist Response (from 3d ago as of 10-27-22, thus 10-24-22):
Jerome all messed up lies lol
My response (10-27-22):
It is clear that you have little to no knowledge about the subject of Bible interpretation.
Many years ago the first Christian book that I bought about the Bible was a book by Milton S. Terry, titled Biblical Hermeneutics.
I studied it carefully. I read it through three times while I was still in high school where I was enrolled in the Electrical Curriculum, studying to become an electrician. I subsequently went to work for Michigan Bell Telephone Company as a generator room operator.
The book is about 700 pages long and very informative.
That is where I started in my careful study of this subject.
I continue to study this subject. So it might be that I know more about interpreting the Bible than you do.
Atheist Response (3d ago on 10-27-22, thus 10-24-22):
Jerome smith your dense & incapable of under standing reality and your post reflect how twisted , sick and uneducated you are.I will nolonger engage you either , This Black MAN dosent deal with republican , evangelical , racist & bigots & elec deniers , or trump supporters . Ill post but ignore you & you brainwashed bullshit.
My Response (10-27-22):
I see you have given up on discussing the subject of Bible interpretation. Thank you for your interaction on and mostly off this subject. I don’t ignore anyone myself, but always welcome further interaction and discussion based on solid scholarship and careful reasoning.
So much for your support of the implied claim beneath this site’s title, “Christians do you REALLY know your Bible.”