Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: ebb tide

How about simply reading the Bible, instead of reading things into the Bible? The Bible clearly states that Mary was married to Joseph. The Bible clearly states that Jesus had brothers and sisters. Why is it therefore wrong to conclude that Joseph and Mary enjoyed a happy normal marriage and that Jesus had brothers and sisters? We have no problem believing that Adam and Eve consummated their marriage. Why do we doubt that Mary and Joseph consummated their marriage? The Lord commands us to be fruitful and multiply after all. Physical intimacy between a husband and a wife is a precious gift from God.


317 posted on 06/16/2014 6:28:01 AM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 300 | View Replies ]


To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines; Elsie; ebb tide
How about simply reading the Bible, instead of reading things into the Bible?

May I butt into this and make a brief comment? This seems a strangely provocative suggestion. The Bible is not, after all, a set of stereo instructions. It is a gathering of diverse, in both content and perspective, grouping of letters and books. It was written under the inspiration of the Spirit, but isn't automatically read that way, and attests itself to the inherent pitfalls and difficulties in interpreting what it contains. As the Ethiopian eunuch himself recognized, how can one understand what is read without someone to show him? Consider all the pharisees and saducees who had spent their lives in scholarly study of the scriptures, and yet were so completely misguided.

Your statement above strikes me as similar to what I was discussing with Elsie about the peculiar Evangelical approach to the Bible which sees it entirely apart from its place within the faith community. It sounds like you see the Bible as something you should read, determine what seems right, and then judge the entire 2000 year Church against. That is unnatural, if I may say. You say the Church reads into the Bible, but I see the Evangelicals as doing so, or at least reading it out of the Bible, so to speak. What you are saying here just sounds like a person coming to the Bible from the backside and then being shocked that others came from the front.

325 posted on 06/16/2014 7:16:01 AM PDT by cothrige
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 317 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson