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What's the point of re-gurgitating AI over and over? AI is pretty terrible at reciting known history, and even worse at theology. You keep appealing to a source that is, for my money, somewhere between 'unreliable' and 'bad actor.' When you quote AI, you REMOVE credibility from anything it...

Your dramatization is off-base. The Council of Nicaea didn't consider Enoch for canonicity. They also didn't consider ANY other books for canonicity, because that was not the purpose for the council. The purpose for the council was to authoritatively establish doctrine regarding the...

1st Samuel wasn't written by Samuel. Should we also view it skeptically?

Uh... no it wasn't. It was never canonized by the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches. Only the Ethiopian church canonized it, and they never removed it.

I voted no, but it's a soft no. I don't think committing a sin and not repenting before death dooms one to hell. I don't think there are certain 'mortal sins' that can do that, either. I think of salvation in terms of adoption. Can one be adopted, and then subsequently become not-a-son...

That doesn't seem like a meaningful differentiation. Abraham asked for a son, and he got... not only a natural son in Isaac, but THE Son in Christ, and the nations for his posterity. He believed and it was credited to him for righteousness. What is the point you've set out to make? It's lost...

I see the system of sacrifices being part of the Levitical priesthood, rather than The Law. There's always a little weirdness when we say The Law, because we might mean the 10 commandments, or the 613 mitzvot, or the entire Pentateuch. FWIW, I wasn't speaking of the whole Pentateuch.

Is it needful to blame someone? IMO, blame is only useful when it leads to a correction. Like, if my son takes the last ice cream bar from the freezer and leaves the empty box sitting there... blame is appropriate because we can correct that behavior in the future. If Bob in accounting is...

You just contradicted yourself.

This - biometric security (based on fingerprints or eyeball scans) has been a disaster so far. When someone steals your fingerprints or retinal scan, how do you change them? You can't

I see Moses' Law as being largely punitive. The Israelites violated the terms of it even before they knew them. Israel never inherited the blessings associated with the Mosaic Law - and Moses doesn't spend much time enumerating them. He spends comparatively a large amount of time on the...

John 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. In the words of Ricky Ricardo... "you got some splaining to do!"

Job seems relevant. Nobody could be found to serve as a Judge over God. I think... we still can't find a judge for THE JUDGE.

Hebrews 8 is a callback to Jeremiah 31. It quotes it several times, and the "new covenant" was proclaimed by Jeremiah already in the 8th century BC. The prophets... Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, Hosea, Amos... they are ALL ready to dispose of the Levitical priesthood. They all proclaim...

That's an interesting list. Aren't the Ishmaelites (#2) and Hagarenes (#4) the same people? Hagar was Ishmael's mother. Amalek (#7) is one of the tribes of Edom (#1). There's some overlap.

The English word animal comes from the Latin word anima, which is also the word translated as soul in the Vulgate (Latin Bible). So... Animals ARE souls, by definition of the word. People have something more, usually we call it a spirit.

"God can't" is almost always an error, but... The point of the story seems to be that mankind is in reprobation. There seems to be no salvation for Adam and his descendants. For men to be saved, they need to be adopted OUT of Adam's lineage and into a different one.

As nearly as I can figure, the Magi showed up at the Jewish capital because that's where they expected the newborn king to be. Can you imagine how awkward that conversation was? Guard: Sire, there are 3 magicians requesting an audience Herod: Ok, show them in Melchior: Greetings, O King...

That seems wrong to me. Adam seems to be unelect. His descendants are in reprobation.

I don't think that the Torah was meant to be predictive. It's more a case of Jesus and His disciples scrupulously working to model their actions in fulfillment of the Law, than anything else.