13:19 What is "hard to understand" about Paul is what Paul himself admits. He has a bias. His Theophany occurred suddenly, post-pentecost. His Theology reflects the sudden conversion bias. Paul has Inspired writings, for sure. But we often put the cart before the horse. We put theology before the gospel. Jesus said "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" Tell the children about the kingdom, and the pearl of great price. It is so simple, You are on the right track, keep going!
That's the problem with god and the Bible, it Should be easy to comprehend. Also it has many contradictions and its history is very hit and miss. There was no mass exodus from Egypt, nor was there a Abraham nor Moses!
If we allow that God is an eternal being (as in, without beginning) who is outside of our experienced physical reality, who designed the entire system (down to DNA and quantum mechanics) and created it out of nothing, I don't see how you can claim that "god and the Bible...Should be easy to comprehend." Practically everything in it would be an over-simplification! As for the mass exodus, it's far more honest to say that "we are lacking archaeological evidence to validate a mass exodus from Egypt ever occurred," but that is far from proving that it never happened. For a long time many people believed Israel's King David wasn't a real person. Then, in 1993 a stele discovered at Tel Dan "verified" the Davidic Kingdom's existence archaeologically. I don't know how on earth you would "know" if Abraham or Moses ever existed, because they never reigned over the kind of settlement that builds things out of stone--their existence was nomadic, and it would be nigh-on impossible for anything less than stone to survive with a name intact on it. "nor was there a Abraham nor Moses" is a claim that simply cannot be verifiably substantiated as true or false in any meaningful way. If we can look at an ancient religion and culture (that persists until today) who find their very identity in being Abraham's descendent, and consider that their 3000+ year old set of religious texts considers these to be real people, it seems quite presumptuous to write them off as non-existent.
13:19 What is "hard to understand" about Paul is what Paul himself admits. He has a bias. His Theophany occurred suddenly, post-pentecost. His Theology reflects the sudden conversion bias. Paul has Inspired writings, for sure. But we often put the cart before the horse. We put theology before the gospel.
Jesus said "the kingdom of heaven is at hand"
Tell the children about the kingdom, and the pearl of great price. It is so simple, You are on the right track, keep going!
"we put theology before the gospel" is well-said.
That's the problem with god and the Bible, it Should be easy to comprehend. Also it has many contradictions and its history is very hit and miss. There was no mass exodus from Egypt, nor was there a Abraham nor Moses!
If we allow that God is an eternal being (as in, without beginning) who is outside of our experienced physical reality, who designed the entire system (down to DNA and quantum mechanics) and created it out of nothing, I don't see how you can claim that "god and the Bible...Should be easy to comprehend." Practically everything in it would be an over-simplification!
As for the mass exodus, it's far more honest to say that "we are lacking archaeological evidence to validate a mass exodus from Egypt ever occurred," but that is far from proving that it never happened. For a long time many people believed Israel's King David wasn't a real person. Then, in 1993 a stele discovered at Tel Dan "verified" the Davidic Kingdom's existence archaeologically.
I don't know how on earth you would "know" if Abraham or Moses ever existed, because they never reigned over the kind of settlement that builds things out of stone--their existence was nomadic, and it would be nigh-on impossible for anything less than stone to survive with a name intact on it. "nor was there a Abraham nor Moses" is a claim that simply cannot be verifiably substantiated as true or false in any meaningful way. If we can look at an ancient religion and culture (that persists until today) who find their very identity in being Abraham's descendent, and consider that their 3000+ year old set of religious texts considers these to be real people, it seems quite presumptuous to write them off as non-existent.