The Mistakes of Christianity

Here's an article to help explain the EIGHT trips that Moses made to Sinai.

The trip where the Ten Commandments was revealed is not the same trip outlining God's covenant with the Jews and your list is part of the covenant, not the commandments.

www.hebrew4christians.com...

Originally posted by allenidaho

Originally posted by micmerci

Why not rebut the debunking of the first point? Or are we just brushing over that?

Sure. Let's talk about the "debunking" for a moment. I was right. He was wrong. That about sums it up.

If you have read Exodus 20:1, you would know that this part of the bible is not what was transcribed onto tablets. At this point in the story, God has appeared at the top of Mount Sinai to speak to the Israelites. God starts with the first ten items that are commonly mistaken for the ten commandments. But he doesn't stop there. He goes on with even more rules about how to treat your servants, how to treat personal injury, how to protect your property, what your social responsibilities are and so forth all the way to Exodus 23:19.

After the speech ends, Moses builds an altar and spends the next 40 days on Mount Sinai where God made a couple of tablets for Moses and said here, take these with you. But Moses never read them aloud. He smashed them.

So God hits a few folks with the plague and Moses scurries back up the mountain where God tells him to chisel out two more tables. At Exodus 34:10, he says:

Then the Lord said: “I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the Lord, will do for you. 11 Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 12 Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. 13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles.[a] 14 Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

15 “Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.

17 “Do not make any idols.

18 “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt.

19 “The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. 20 Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons.

“No one is to appear before me empty-handed.

21 “Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.

22 “Celebrate the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering at the turn of the year. 23 Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord, the God of Israel. 24 I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the Lord your God.

25 “Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Festival remain until morning.

26 “Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.

“Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

27 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

Allenidaho, I think you just debunked your original post with this follow up post. Did you even understand what you posted here?

How do you figure that? It's the exact same information.
That is Exodus 34. The ten commandments. Which it even calls so by name.

reply to post by allenidaho


The Ten Commandments are clearly outlined in Exodus 20 and were given verbally.

The incident in Exodus 34 is a separate event.

The Ten Commandments themselves are ethical in nature. The commandments described in Exodus 34 are ritualistic in nature.

The commandments given in Exodus 34 are clearly expanding on the original Ten Commandments. They are a continuation in order to define the original. More instruction was given so that there would be no more misunderstandings as to what God expected of them, most likely as a result of the golden calf issue, and what it would take in order to keep their covenant with God.

Do any of these "mistakes" have significant bearing upon the Christian faith? If so, I don't see it.

Christians accept the "biblical figure" of "Jesus" as the son of God. To accept grace fully, you don't necessarily have to have the correct name...In fact, it would be much better if we were not given a name at all.

As concerning the "ten commandments", as previously mentioned, there are many more than simply ten. If people of faith are only concerned with those particular ten found in Exodus, then I'm sorry but they're doing it wrong.

I would hate to send you on a fool's errand, but if you must find "mistakes" then I suggest you look into some of the more critical aspects of Christian history...

The first being the life and teachings of Christ.
2)Apostolic Age
3)St. Ignatius - Early Church Leadership
4)Eucharisitc Liturgy
5)Apostles' Creed
6)Edict of Milan
7)NT Canon
8)Latin Vulgate
9)St. Augustine
10)Council of Ephesus/Council of Chalcedon
11)Christian Monasticism
12)The Schism of 1054 - Church authority and theological beliefs concerning personage
13)The First Crusade
14)Summa Theologica
15)Protestant Reformation
16)Catholic Reformation
and ending with the KJVB

It's an in-depth work...but I'm sure you'll actually find "mistakes" that are more legitimate than those that you previously posted....

A2D

Originally posted by Deetermined
reply to post by allenidaho

 

The Ten Commandments are clearly outlined in Exodus 20 and were given verbally.

The incident in Exodus 34 is a separate event.

The Ten Commandments themselves are ethical in nature. The commandments described in Exodus 34 are ritualistic in nature.

The commandments given in Exodus 34 are clearly expanding on the original Ten Commandments. They are a continuation in order to define the original. More instruction was given so that there would be no more misunderstandings as to what God expected of them, most likely as a result of the golden calf issue, and what it would take in order to keep their covenant with God.

No. You are wrong. The ten commandments are clearly outlined in Exodus 34 and written onto two tablets as such. If you accept Exodus 20 as the ten commandments, you have to completely ignore Exodus 21, 22 and 23 which are all of the other "commandments" which God gave verbally.

At Exodus 24, it says:

12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”

This refers to the two tablets on which the Ten Commandments are written.

At Exodus 32:

15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets

19 When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain.

Which brings us to Exodus 34:

34 The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. 3 No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain.”

27 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

reply to post by allenidaho


Explain to me why you think the ten commandments in Exodus 34 would take precedence over the ones listed in Exodus 20. Why would ritualistic commandments take precedence over ethical commandments?

By the way, you might want to review the commandments that Jesus said took priority in the book of Matthew. They all revolved around the ones listed in Exodus 20, not the ones listed in Exodus 34.

Matthew 22:36-40

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Matthew 19:16-19

16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,

19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Jesus never told the Jews that it was imperative for them to keep the commandments listed in Exodus 34, even though he did observe feast days with his disciples.

reply to post by allenidaho

You're missing something obvious.

The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

Who wrote the words on the tablets, the Ten Commandments? According to the text, "The Lord" did, and the Lord is not Moses in that sentence.

Who wrote down all the other stuff, which you are confusing with the Ten Commandments? According to the text, Moses did, and Moses is not the Lord in that sentence. The final "he wrote" is ambiguous -- it could be either the Lord or Moses, and there's nothing to say that Moses didn't write his own copy of the Ten Commandments, independently.

So, with two writers, there are obviously two things being written -- the Ten Commandments, written by the Lord, and a bunch of other stuff, written by Moses.

Mystery solved, and all you had to do was carefully read the text.

reply to post by adjensen


I don't think so. More likely, it was either a continuity error in the story or that your God was a liar.

reply to post by allenidaho


So, I demonstrate that the text clearly states something other than your theory, and your conclusion is that either the text is wrong or "God is a liar", because you cannot possibly have been in error?

So much for whatever minuscule shred of credibility you might have retained up to that point.

reply to post by adjensen


So you are saying that there were two sets of stone tablets. One set written by God and the other set written by Moses. Is that what you are implying?

Originally posted by allenidaho
reply to post by adjensen

 

So you are saying that there were two sets of stone tablets. One set written by God and the other set written by Moses. Is that what you are implying?

No, the text doesn't say that Moses wrote all the extra stuff on stone tablets, so there's no way to tell what he wrote it on, or whether there was another set of tablets, though probably not. Pretty easy to fit the Ten Commandments on stone tablets:


All that elaborate text in v34, he'd be carving in a font so small you couldn't read it.

reply to post by adjensen


Why would you think that? It says in the text that the commandments were written on the front and back of each tablet. And it gives no dimensions as to how big or small each tablet was. So you are only assuming the text wouldn't fit.

It also specifically states that Moses wrote the Ten Commandments onto the tablets in Exodus 34. Directly from the chapter:

And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments

Which means Moses definitely wrote commandments onto stone tablets. And if he only chiseled out two tablets as commanded, what about the other two you claim exist? Where are they? When did God write on them?

reply to post by allenidaho


As I said, the "he wrote" in that sentence is ambiguous -- it could be either of them, but since the earlier passage said that God wrote them, the implication is either that "he wrote" refers to God, or that Moses made another copy (which did not have to be on stone tablets -- the only stone tablets referred to in that text are the ones that God said he was going to write -- there were other means of writing at the time, and one presumes all the other stuff was put down in that manner.)

All we can conclude from the text is that God wrote the Ten Commandments on stone tablets, to replace the ones that Moses had broken, and that Moses wrote all the rest of it, with the writing material being not indicated, though logic would indicate that it would not be on stone tablets.

reply to post by adjensen


That's not right. What we do know is that there were only two tablets:

So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands

And we know that Moses wrote directly onto the tablets:

Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

Originally posted by allenidaho
reply to post by adjensen

 

That's not right. What we do know is that there were only two tablets:

Correct.

And we know that Moses wrote directly onto the tablets:

Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

That's where your error is -- go back to the original text:

The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

That states clearly who wrote on the tablets -- God did. As a result, the later "he wrote" refers to God, not Moses.

reply to post by allenidaho


At least Christians aren't out in the streets rioting and burning cars because of unemployment.
At least Christians aren't out in the streets cutting soldiers throats open.
At least Christians aren't out in the streets hanging homosexuals from street lights.
At least Christians aren't out in the streets placing IED's that maim soldiers and innocent people.
At least Christians aren't out in the street forcing you to convert to Christianity by force.
At least Christians aren't out in the street cutting little religious schoolchildren up because they believe in the wrong god.

Shall I continue? But do you know who does all the above? Muslims. Yet, you remain silent on the atrocities they commit on a regular basis instead opting to bash a now peaceful religion. Yes, Christians have done many wrong things, made many mistakes. But it's like beating a dead horse over and over and over and over and over and over again. It's not looking like you or any other "atheist" wants to discuss Christianity, because that's been done time and time again. Your thread and thoughts aren't anything novel. They've been said time and time again. I.e. beating a dead horse.

You have a personal issue with Christianity, hence this thread. If you really were against religion, you'd be trying to educate people regarding Islam. Because once you've "defeated" the "horrible" Christians, know who's going to take their place and make you their bitch? Muslims. You think Christians are so bad? Wait until your daughters cannot go to school. Or killed because she wore the "wrong outfit".

Christianity hasn't been on the same level as Islam since hundreds of years ago. Islam goes unabated in what they do which is actually quite vile.

I'm tired but most importantly tired of such idiotic threads. Goodnight.

Originally posted by Auricom
reply to post by allenidaho

 

At least Christians aren't out in the streets rioting and burning cars because of unemployment.
At least Christians aren't out in the streets cutting soldiers throats open.
At least Christians aren't out in the streets hanging homosexuals from street lights.
At least Christians aren't out in the streets placing IED's that maim soldiers and innocent people.
At least Christians aren't out in the street forcing you to convert to Christianity by force.
At least Christians aren't out in the street cutting little religious schoolchildren up because they believe in the wrong god.

Completely wrong.

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www.examiner.com...

Click here for more information.

Originally posted by allenidaho
You need to understand that this thread only exists for my sheer enjoyment. It may be sad. Even sadistic. But I know how easy it is to get you all worked up over your religion.

I'm afraid that you're going to get all butt-hurt over this, but I don't think that anyone got all worked up over your thread. You made a number of claims that were easily disproven, provoked some conversation and indulged in egotism.

It's both childish and churlish, if you don't mind the alliteration, but hardly a big deal.

It's good to know, however, that you start threads with the purpose of acting in a sadistic manner and getting people worked up. It helps to know who to ignore in the future.

Eric