So where DID Cain get his wife?

Elaine · Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 1712 Location: Derbyshire

May I suggest Bobby, that your inference that I am using a pretext, is merely a deflection of what the bible verses I used actually say.

If you choose, read the whole chapter, as I did, and put it into context. It will still say exactly the same.

If I was using scripture out of context you may have had a point, but I am using scripture completely in context.

Try re-reading the 10 commandments.

God wrote on stone a short account of creation. Why else did we have a Sabbath. Moses wrote this to be passed on through the generations.
In John chapter 5 v45-47 Jesus said

"45"But do not think I will accuse you
before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your
hopes are set. 46If you believed Moses,
you would believe me, for he wrote about me.
47But since you do not believe what he wrote,
how are you going to believe what I say?"

This is a perfectly valid scripture to use in this discussion.
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bobbyc · Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 1367

No Elaine you are not quoting the verses from John in their context. The setting of them is Jesus telling the Pharisees that they rejected him because they would not believe what Moses wrote concerning the coming of the Son of Man. They read the scriptures but did not see that Jesus was the promised messiah. That is light years away from me not holding a literal belief in the opening chapters of Genesis. I am not a disbelieving Pharisee. Therefore my comment about you using a text as a pretext still stands. The only deflection is me disagreeing with the way you are seeking to apply those gospel verses.

Elaine · Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 1712 Location: Derbyshire

Sorry Bobby, but I have to disagree.

To say that was all Jesus meant is your interpretation.

Jesus said

"If you believed Moses,
you would believe me, for he wrote about me.
47But since you do not believe what he wrote,
how are you going to believe what I say?"

This is concerning all of what Moses wrote about Jesus, including about the Pharisees not seeing who Jesus was.

Of course it could mean just as you believe, but it can, and probably does, mean so much more.
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God put me on this earth to do a number of things.
Right now I'm so far behind I'll live forever!!!!!

Covenanter · Joined: 28 Aug 2006 Posts: 1446

Elaine, Bobby,

I am inclined to agree with what Bobby is saying - if he believes in Jesus as God & Saviour, then the words of Jesus to the Pharisees do not apply.
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Elaine · Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 1712 Location: Derbyshire

bobbyc · Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 1367

Thank you Cov (for the second time tonight!).

Elaine, perhaps we could look a little more closely at John 5. It begins with Jesus healing the lame man at the pool of Betesds (alt. Betsaida or Beth-zatha). This healing was done on the sabbath and Jesus was quickly rebuked and reprimanded by the Pharisees. His response is to say that "My Father never stops working so why should I?"(verse 17). The very next verse explains why the religious leaders "tried all the more to kill him" because not only was Jesus disobeying the Sabbath but "he had spoken of God as his Father, thereby making himself equal with God."

Following a claim that Jesus is not acting alone or independently but is doing the Father's will, Jesus then builds a case to support his claim. Citing first of all John the Baptist and then his own miracles Jesus confronts the Pharisees with the fact that they have ignored John, ignored Jesus' own miracles and therefore ignored God the Father Himself. (verses 31 through to 38). Next Jesus appeals to scripture (the Old Testament obviously) "You search the scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the scriptures point to me!. Yet you refuse to come to me so that I can give you this eternal life." (verses 39 & 40). Now we get to your quoted verses where the key one is surely verse 46. "But if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me because he wrote about me." The whole chapter has been about Jesus proving to the Pharisees that their expected and promised messiah has come among them but they will/do not recognise him despite the testimony of John the Baptist, the miracles Jesus has done and scripture itself. It's not about picking and choosing what to believe it's about ignoring signs pointing to Jesus being the Messiah.

Exegesis is the study and teasing out of what scripture actually says. Eisegesis is when a piece of scripture is misinterpreted often precisely because its context is ignored or forgotten in an attempt to make it prove or mean something that it does not. I honestly believe that I have done exegesis but you have done eisegesis.

bobbyc · Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 1367

Jesus nowhere makes mention of the Pharisees adopting a pick'n'mix approach to scripture. They have simply not seen that the writings of Moses (about the messiah) point to Him.Therefore to take what Jesus told the Pharisees and fashion a new application about believing in the literal truth of Genesis is both inappropriate and wrong.

Presumably my previous post filled an allocation of words in a single post because I have had to use this second post to complete what I wanted to say.

The bible version I quoted by the way is the New Living Translation since that's the one immediately to hand.

Sisyphus · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:44 pm Post subject:

You are spot on Bobby. I went back through John 5 to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

John 5:47 does in fact bolster Elaines original point but only if taken completely out of context to the chapter. Taken in context to the whole it doesn't support that stance at all.
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".... love thy neighbour as thyself." is the hardest thing I have ever done....

Elaine · Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 1712 Location: Derbyshire

watcher · Joined: 19 Jan 2007 Posts: 60

Having watched ( Icon_wink

) this debate unfold, I'd just like to come in here with a specific point about John 5. It seems that the Pharisees were so blinded by their legalistic approach to the law (eg. healing cannot take place on the Sabbath) that they were incapable of seeing that Messiah would have the divine authority to put compassion and mercy before strict letter-of-the-law rules and regulations and that Jesus' healing ministry was, in fact, testimony to his Messiahship. They simply couldn't see beyond their own wooden, unimaginative understanding of the Law or the fact that it would find its 'end' or fulfilment in the person of Jesus the Christ, who proclaimed that love of God and one's fellow-man resumed the whole of the law.

He had already said (5:39) that the whole of Scripture (ie the Old Testament) pointed to his person and I think that now (in 5:46) he is thinking of a specific passage from Moses which demonstrates their wilful, perverse blindness rather than making broad assertions that the whole of Moses' writings - the Pentateuch - were about himself and thus that every single verse in them should be taken in a literal sense, as if not doing so would be tantamount to rejecting him, or not having saving faith.

The passage I'm referring to is Deuteronomy 18:15, where Moses tells Israel that God will one day raise up a prophet like himself (though as the archetype of the greater to come) and the people must listen to him. The apostle Peter significantly cited this text in one of his harangues to the people of Jerusalem, as recorded in Acts 3:22, clearly applying it to Jesus Christ and warning (in v.23) that anyone who does not listen to him will be cut off from God's people. (Think of the scene of the Transfiguration, where God says clearly, "This is my Son, whom I love. With him I am well-pleased. Listen to him!") Now, not to listen to Christ or heed his words and put them into practice is to violate God's command and to challenge the authority of his Messiah - which is precisely what the Pharisees were guilty of when they did not heed his words and rejected him, thereby rejecting the prophecy and warning of the Moses they claimed to follow so loyally ("for he wrote about me".)

I would suggest, therefore, (on the basis of exegesis rather eisegesis, pace Bobby) that this is the whole thrust of John 5:46 and has this specific application rather than the wider extrapolation which some have made here - though it goes without saying that those who do not heed Christ's words ("the words of eternal life" - John 6:68) will share the fate of the unbelieving Pharisees.
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In Thy light we see light."
- Psalm 36:9

Elaine · Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 1712 Location: Derbyshire

Watcher, welcome to the debate.

It has wandered some what off topic, for which I take responsibility.

Also, it is only me that seems to find the connection between (the later part of) John 5, and the original point being discussed.

The reason I make this connection, to me at least, is obvious. I stand by the connection.

To everyone, take from it what you will. I see a definate resemblence between the pharisees not being able to see who Jesus really was because they were to busy looking for the messiah they wanted, and christians who have changed Jesus (God) into their image because they, too, do not believe what Moses wrote.

Moses wrote so much more than prophecy about Jesus. He wrote of Jesus being there at the beginning, as creator, yet the pharisees couldn't see this either. But it is confirmed at the beginning of Johns gospel.

Just as the pharisees couldn't see who Jesus was because they didn't make the connection between Moses writings and the man they saw before them. They didn't see that the Messiah was also the Creator. They didn't see that the Messiah would also be God. They didn't see the Messiah as bringing healing and forgiveness. They didn't see the miracles were part of who the Messiah is.

They had altogether been to busy building their own picture of the Messiah that they missed the point completely. And I believe that some christians today are so busy building their own picture of Jesus, that they miss the point too.
_________________
God put me on this earth to do a number of things.
Right now I'm so far behind I'll live forever!!!!!

Sisyphus · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:57 pm Post subject:

-theophilus- · Joined: 24 Sep 2006 Posts: 562

Point well made Sisyphus.
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