Filling Out Your Theological Bracket - Part 1
Decisions, Decisions - Bible Brackets Part 2
What Did Jesus Say? - Bible Brackets Part 3
Where Did The Bible Come From? - Bible Brackets Part 4

To many Christians, the concept of biblical inerrancy is as fundamental as salvation itself. It’s one of those core beliefs that they cling to tightly, refusing to even consider the alternative. It’s written into most church’s statements of doctrinal beliefs. Any suggestion to the contrary is quickly silenced, or you will likely be labeled a heretic. If our bible is not inerrant, then our whole belief system falls apart, right? If there may be an error in it anywhere, then it might as well be full of errors, and Jesus becomes a fictional character like the tooth fairy. Like the domino theory… if one falls, they all go down (assuming we didn’t stand them up too far apart). If we accept that it may contain an error, then we can just determine that the parts we don’t like must be in error, and we basically get to create our own customized bible.

I know many of you right now are saying, “YEAH, RIGHT! EXACTLY!!” I know because I used to make the same arguments. However, if you’ve read the previous 4 parts to this series, you know that making a declaration of inerrancy is very complicated. You have to pick something specific to be inerrant. Is it the English words in the 1995 updated version of the New American Standard Bible? Or do you go back one step farther to the Greek manuscripts that are in existence today, and say they are inerrant? and if so, which manuscripts, because there are a lot of them, and very few, if any, are identical. I’m guessing that if you can get most scholars to speak honestly, they will say that they believe that only the original Greek manuscripts were inerrant. OK. That’s something I can’t really argue with. I mean, how could I argue with it? They don’t exist any more! That would be equivalent to you and me arguing over whether a Tyrannosaurus Rex could be trained to fetch a stick. We could argue for days, but neither of us will ever be able to win that argument, considering there are no more T-Rex’s around to fetch. So I don’t understand why Christians insist that everyone unwaveringly buy into the inerrancy of the original manuscripts.

So, getting back to the question introduced in the first paragraph above… I confess, I no longer believe in the chicken little approach to inerrancy that the sky will fall if I don’t hold to inerrancy. I do not believe those conclusions will be inevitable. Could somebody “rationalize” their beliefs like that? Sure. Just like any Christian could reason, “if God forgives all my sins, then I might as well go Tiger Woods crazy, and kick a few babies while I’m at it.” Does that happen? Maybe some people have thought that way. But those people are very much the exception rather than the norm.

Do I believe the original manuscripts were free of errors. Yes, probably. But I’m not going to tell George that he must believe it also, considering I have no evidence to support my case, except for my own faith. And even if I believe in the inerrancy of the original manuscripts, how does that benefit me today, considering that does not make my English bible error free?

In the next entry, I’ll write about how the belief of inerrancy, or lack thereof, impacts our lives and thoughts. We’ll try to figure out why it’s so important to some Christians.

The Cryptic

I must admit, this Facebook User is the one that irritates me the most.  The Cryptic loves posting updates that nobody has any idea what they mean.   If there were rules for Facebook updates, I think the 1st rule should be that it should be able to be understood.  Teenage girls seem to be good at this, but that doesn’t let middage aged men off the hook either.  I think teenagers like to say something so cryptic that only their best friend will understand because they were talking about it just 5 minutes ago, like “… he did it again!”  Maybe they forget that the updates actually go to all of their friends.  Here’s just a few that I’ve recorded over time, all are real status updates, with my comments in brackets.

Green stuff, yuck.
      [probably better to just keep this to yourself, regardless of what you are actually talking about]

can’t believe that just happened
      [if you could fill us in on what you are talking about, maybe we could help you believe it]

No you didn’t!
      [I don’t know what I did, but if it annoyed you greatly, then we are even.]

love, respect, and trust
      [not sure if this person is a fan of these things, or is complaining, or has lost these, or what, but now I’m not feeling these much about now]

OK, that’s the last straw!
      [but unfortunately probably won’t be your last post]

fool me once…
      [I’m gonna bet you’ve been fooled a lot more than that and just didn’t know it.]

that was sooo not cool
      [are you referring to your own status update?]

Knock, knock.
      [might have been cool if they actually had a joke to go with it, but no, apparently just knocking to hear their fingers rattle]

And then there are the one word updates.  Like “…ouch”, “… pass”, “… evil”, “… snorkel”.  I guess these people are just too lazy to type a complete thought or even a sentence fragment.  Or maybe they are big fans of the old gameshow PASSWORD, and we are all supposed to guess.  Or maybe they aren’t getting as much attention as they want and are just trying to remind people they are still alive, while not being too pushy.

And of course, the ever popular Facebook update of “Samantha is…”  I always wonder if this post is on accident because they don’t know how to use Facebook, or if it’s on purpose because they are just so philosophical…  or they need help figuring out what they are… or they are equating themself to God, because the Bible says that’s what God’s name is… “IS”.  I’ve been tempted to reply with “IRRITATING”, but never actually have.  But at least this post wastes the least amount of the reader’s time, because there’s only 2 letters to read.

Filling Out Your Theological Bracket - Part 1
Decisions, Decisions - Bible Brackets Part 2
What Did Jesus Say? - Bible Brackets Part 3

When it comes to the inerrancy of Scripture, Christians often act as if the bible just fell out of the sky in its present condition as a perfect gift from God to all mankind.  But unfortunately, that’s not exactly how it happened.  I mentioned in Part 3 some of the steps involved in how we come to understand that Jesus said, “For God so loved the world…”, or at least something similar to that.  But there was a lot more to it than just that.  For example,  for the books we call the New Testament, men actually wrote many of these “books” as simple letters to other people or churches.  The book of Romans was a letter written by Paul to the church in Rome.  It might be surprising to some, but there were a lot more letters written by Paul (and others) than just the ones that are currently in our bible.  For example, we have 2 letters that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church.  But there also exists a 3rd letter to the Corinthians that is not in our bible.  It’s now considered part of the New Testament apocrypha, along with a lot of other writings.  This NT Apocrypha is not to be confused with what is often called the Catholic/Orthodox apocrypha.  So, over many centuries of early church history, the church leaders debated and eventually determined officially which books would be in the bible, and which books would not.  And there are still disagreements even to this day over certain books.  If you are Catholic, your “Bible” contains different books than if you are Protestant.  Martin Luther, the Father of Protestantism, argued to have the books of Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation removed from the Bible in the 1500’s.  He was unsuccessful.  I’ve heard at least one preacher today say that he does not think the book of James should be in the Bible.

So regardless of what branch of Christianity you belong to, you need to understand where the Bible you use came from.  It was compiled over many centuries through debates, votes, and even bloodshed, by church leaders that most Christians have never heard of it.

To make things even more complicated, there are many different Greek manuscripts of the New Testament books.  Some prefer certain manuscripts over others.  Which is correct?  Most Christians just trust, without much thought, whatever some unknown bible scholar decided for them many years ago.

And if that wasn’t complex enough, there’s one more step to go through, assuming you cannot read Greek. In order for you to read the Bible in your language, it had to be translated from Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek into English.  But unfortunately, there is not a computer software program that can spit out exactly what the original authors meant when they wrote what they wrote about 2000 years ago.  From the most recent count, there exists today about 450 different English translations of the Bible.

Are they all inerrant?  Can they all be different and yet still be inerrant?  Or are only some inerrant?  If so, which ones are inerrant, and how did you decide?  Are the actual English words inerrant?  Many people say that God inspired the original authors in their writing.  So did God also inspire the church leaders that choose which books to put in the bible?  Did he inspire Martin Luther?  Or those that opposed him?  Or neither?

Did you know that we do not have ANY of the original hand written biblical manuscripts?  We have copies that have been made over the years.  Did God inspire the many copyists over the years, or at least protect the texts from errors creeping in by copyists?  By the way, we know the answer to this is “No”, because we know there are many copyist errors and/or disrepencies in the Greek manuscripts, insignificant or not.  Did God inspire the translators to protect them from errors being introduced during translation?  If so, which translators were inspired?  The KJV translators?  Or the NIV translators?  Or another one of the 450 English versions?

For those that claim the bible is inerrant, there are lots of questions that must be answered in order to make that declaration.  Tough questions.  Questions that I’m guessing most Christians have never even thought of.  I often wonder if Christians who argue and debate so passionately over their doctrines really even understand where their bible came from.  And I wonder if preachers that seem to have it all figured out sometimes forget (or ignore) where their bible came from.  Or maybe they just need to explain to the rest of us how they figured it all out.  Because there are many preachers and Christians that really do have it all figured out, or at least they want us all to think that they do.

The Gamer

These people are hard core (aka freaks).  They devote hours of time honing their skills and climbing the fame game ladder.  When I first started Facebooking, I would see constant updates related to people playing Mafia Wars.  At first it was rather entertaining, reading about people looking for boxing rings, pig heads, a crucifix tattoo, or whatever it is they look for.  I would play along and comment just to irritate them, telling them I’d give them a lime green shoelace in return for a yellow submarine, but that got tiresome… eventually.  These Mafia War posts continued to clutter my Home Page… but THEN… I found something… what has to be the most powerful feature of Facebook… The “HIDE” button.  Oh yeah.  A lot of people don’t know about this great little button.  If you hover over a post on your Home Page, a little word “Hide” appears over to the right, and if you click on it, you can hide that type of post from showing up on your Home Page.  So a long time ago, I just hid all Mafia Wars posts, and Facebook became much more enjoyable.  There are a lot of options with the “Hide” button, but unfortunately, “Hide all dumb stuff” isn’t one of them.  Maybe they will come up with one of those in the next Facebook upgrade.

Then there are the other games, single player type games, like Bejewled Blitz.  I have friends and relatives that tried to get me into this, and I even tried it a couple times, but when my score is like 5,000, and they just scored 250,000, I quickly determine it’s a stupid game.  My cousin Sherrie is a professional Bejewler (I think that’s what they are called).  Either she’s really good, or she’s found a way to cheat.  Not sure which.

And there are the Farklers.  I’ve received many invitations to Farkle, but have never actually played it.  And if I did, I probably would not admit it.  It just doesn’t sound right.

Then there are all the other networking game requests I get like Farm Town (or Farmville), Fish World, Zoo, Café World, or whatever they are called.  I just don’t get these games.  I guess I just don’t have time to spend on building an imaginary farm, or zoo, or aquarium.  Maybe I’m missing out.

Just to let everybody know, I have blocked all the gaming invitations, so if you were wondering why I haven’t responded to your invite, it’s because I don’t actually see them anymore.  For those of you that would like a reprieve from all the games, just learn how to “BLOCK” and “HIDE”.  Makes Facebook much more enjoyable.  Some of you may enjoy hiding me, haha.

The Joiner

This Facebook User is often seen joining groups. They are just suckers for cool groups. I think they actually mean well. But I still have to chuckle at most of them. And most all (if not all) of the groups that promise you something are just scams started by somebody to see how many gullible people they can get to join. It’s like a contest to see who can get the most people to join their group by promising crazy things. One of the most popular groups was the one that promises to tell you what other people are looking at your profile page. Then there are the petition type groups that say if we get 1.5 gazillion people to join, Facebook promises to go back to the old Facebook, because we all hate this new one. People start those groups all the time, but unfortunately Facebook has never once changed anything because a lot of people joined a group, and I don’t expect them to anytime soon. The most recent popular group people are joining has to do with adding a “Dislike button”. Like all the other goofy groups, I’m pretty sure this one is a scam also.  I’m thinking about starting a group called, “Help Us Reach 1,000,000 Members and Get a $1,000,000 Check from Microsoft”, or “Just Need 5,000,000 Members to Achieve Peace in the Holy Land.”  I wonder how many I could get to join.

I’m not a member of many Facebook groups, except a few of the ones local to Waxahachie that don’t promise anything. But I did create a group called “The Rusty Davis Global Control Society”, with the purpose of it being that all the people named Rusty Davis in the world can get together and plan how we will take over the world. So if your name is not Rusty Davis, don’t even think about trying to join. So far, I am in the only member, but I’m expecting it to explode any time now.

Facebook Users: Part 2 - The Feeler

This is the person that wants everybody to know how they feel, but usually doesn’t explain why.  The Feeler posts updates such as “Michael is tired”, “Sally is angry”, “Charlie is bored”, “Cathy is confused”, “Joe is hungry”.  I guess these people just think that sharing their feelings is important.  I’ve always wanted to respond to these with something like, “Sally, who ticked you off?” or “Cathy, what is so confusing?” or “Charlie, if you are bored, go do something productive, help somebody, read a book, pull some weeds, clean the toilet”.  But then I figure if they wanted us to know why, they would have told us to begin with.  Maybe its some kind of inside communication that only a couple of their close friends understand.  Unless… they are fishing for somebody to ask them why, just testing us to see if anybody cares.  But the funny thing is that when people do ask them “Why…”, they usually do not respond with an explanation.  Maybe the person that asked wasn’t the person that they wanted to ask.  Or maybe they are just too tired, bored or confused to answer.

And by the way, I have over 500 friends to gather data from. That’s not bragging, just making a point so that if you see one or two or six things in here that seem familiar, there’s really only less than a 1 in 500 chance that I’m actually talking about you specifically.  So don’t get mad and come TP my house or nuthin. And honestly, if you don’t fall in here somewhere, you probably don’t use Facebook at all.

So to kick it off… We’ll start with:

Part 1 - The Detailer
This is the person that thinks everybody wants to know every detail of their day, especially where they are and what they are doing. Such as, “I’m eating a bagel”, “I’m at the airport”, “I’m eating a bagel at the airport”, “I’m in the turn lane”, “I’m going to bed”, “I’m about to change the toilet paper roll”, “I’m finished changing the toilet paper roll.”

I think you get the idea. And these people are very valuable Facebookers because without them, our Facebook Home page would look really empty.  Of course the downside is that we have to do a lot more scrolling down to find updates that uhh… require more attention.  But hey, if getting carpal tunnel from scrolling is the worst thing that happens, at least I can feel confident in knowing that Suzy is about to pick up her dry cleaning.  How else would I know if she doesn’t broadcast it to all 342 of her close Facebook friends?

Facebook Detailers are kind of like remote controls… we continually wonder how we ever managed to get along without them.

The event that triggered this wondering happened yesterday when I had both the boys at home with me, Gramm, my 1 year old, and Jaxon my 6 year old.  I’m busy working on my laptop on the couch, and Gramm climbed up on the chair at my desk and was playing with the keyboard and mouse that goes to our computer.  I thougth… “he’s not screaming… just let him play and enjoy the rare few minutes of quietness…  What’s the worst that can happen??”  Sidebar: Never ask that question.  Nothing good ever comes from asking that question.

So a few minutes later I’m still working… enjoying the quiet… and then I hear voices, which I realize are coming from the computer that Gramm is “working on”.  I look up, and Gramm is watching the movie Apollo 13 on my computer, and in full screen mode nonetheless.  I said, “Gramm, what you doing???” half forgetting that he can’t talk yet.  I didn’t even know we had Apollo 13 on our computer.  My oldest, Jaxon, is standing behind him watching also now.  I asked Jaxon, “How did he do that?” hoping that he might have seen what Gramm did to play the movie.  Jaxon replied with, “I’ll fix it,” and takes over the drivers seat from Gramm.  That wasn’t exactly the response I was expecting, but figured as long as there is still no screaming, I’ll just go with it, and get back to working on my stuff.

Again, a few minutes later, I decide to check on Jaxon to see how he’s doing, and to see if there is any smoke coming from my computer.  When I get over there, Jaxon says, “Daddy, look what I did!”  I’m always surprised at what I see after I hear that.  So I look, and this time there is a slide show playing, also in full screen, of our family pictures.  Many of the pictures I didn’t even know we had, but just lots of random pictures from different times and places.  I said, “Jaxon, that’s cool.  How did you do that?”  He replies, “I just banged on all these letters here.”

So I guess if the Fonz was living in our day of technology, that’s probably what he would be like.  Just banging on a keyboard and having things like Apollo 13 and family slideshows start right up.

While I’m sure I’ve left out many, those above have to be a few in the discussion.  Considering the historical importance of these videos, can you imagine the lengths people have gone to to preserve the original footage of these videos?  Can you imagine the money spent to make sure these videos are properly archived and protected so they will still be around hundreds of years from now?

I intentionally left out one video from the list above, one that I believe may possibly trump all of them for some people.  I’m talking about the original video footage of the first moon landing, the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.  I’m sure we’ve all seen that horribly grainy footage of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon for the first time.  But what you may not know is that the footage you’ve seen is only a copy, not the original.  That’s because for many years now, NASA has not been able to find the original footage.  Just recently on the 40th anniversary of the first moonwalk, NASA has finally admitted that the original footage the astronauts took of the first Apollo 11 moon landing was “accidentally erased“.

Uhhh…. are you serious?  Is this a joke?  You accidentally erased it?  Did you need some tape to record the latest American Idol episode?  and you forget to pop off that little tab that prevents recording over it?  NASA, do you really expect us to believe you are THAT STUPID?  Maybe you shouldn’t answer that.  The only 2 options we have are:

1) NASA are complete idiots, on par with Raymond Barone who accidentally taped the Super Bowl over his wedding ceremony, or
2) They are lying.

I’m sorry, but honestly, those are the only 2 options we have.  Which is it?  Personally, I’ve believe they have been lying for a while now.  But hey, I don’t want to be that conspiracy nut guy.  Also, compare the video quality that you’ve seen from the cameras used on the moon in 1969 with others.  Just for comparison sake, the original Star Trek series was filmed, in color, in the ’60’s before we supposedly landed on the moon.  You can see the dates above in the 1st paragraph for some of the others, including the two movies filmed in 1939.  And the best NASA could do in 1969 was that terribly grainy footage that looks like it was filmed back in the 1800’s.  Well actually, even some in the 1800’s look better than what NASA gave us in 1969.  Heck even the Gilligan’s Island episode where the Russian cosmonauts land on the island looks more believable, and that was filmed in 1965.  But hey, lets cut NASA some slack.  How could they have possibly known that this video footage would be important to anybody?  And you know NASA is always trying to save money where they can, so they were probably just trying to do the environmentally friendly thing and resuse their old video tapes.

Actually, if you want to know what I believe, I don’t believe anybody landed on the moon in 1969.  I think this video link is more likely what really happened: Real Moon Landing Video

If you notice on the video, this was originally posted on a website called moontruth.com.  I remember reading that website a couple years ago and getting a lot of good information on the fake moon landing.  But now, the website is gone.  I wonder what happened to it…  Oh noooo….  They GOT HIM.  Poor guy.  At least now, I can say this ahead of time.  If I end up going missing in the near future, you will all know what happened to me.  Check NASA’s secret basement.  I’ll be banging my cup on the door to the tune of the Gilligan’s Island them song.  Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale… a tale of a fateful trip…

I’ve done most of the diets out there.  I even tried cutting back on ketchup, but that didn’t last long.  Atkins says ranch dressing is healthy.  Just about every other diet calls it white death.  Some say eat less, some say eat more.  It’s kind of like arguing over religion.  Everybody has good arguments for their theory, and everybody has success stories to show.  Don’t you love those before and after pictures?  He started out as a hippo wearing a fur coat and ended up as Michael Phelps.

Here are some tips I’ve found that work very well.  I’m planning on writing a book on dieting in the future, hopefully before I die of a heart attack.  If you follow these rules closely, I can guarantee you success.

1. When you are eating food that you would normally eat with a fork or spoon, try losing the utensil and eating it with your hands.  Like spaghetti, a big piece of chocolate cake, banana pudding, etc.  Sound goofy?  Well do you want that six-pack abs or not?
2. Right before every bite, yell loudly “FATTY WANT MORE ______!”  and just fill in the blank with whatever you are eating.  This one works especially well if performed properly.
3. And for those of you that have already figured out a plan for #1 and #2, you may only eat while there is at least one other person in the room.
4. I’ve seen diets that tell you to chew each bite 16 times.  That may work for some people, but not me.  The concept is good, but the plan is too soft.  My plan says to chew each piece 100 times.  This helps in 3 ways.  1) You may get tired and fall asleep before finishing a meal, and 2) your food begins to taste like it was mixed in a blender, and 3) much less yelling.
5. This tip #5 was inspired by tip #4.  Take your favorite meal, say for example, pizza and cheesecake, and put it into a blender and turn it on high for a couple minutes.  And don’t forget your drink.  This tip pretty much works with anything except in the event you eat an ice cream milkshake for lunch.

I’ll leave you with these 5.  I don’t want to give away all my secrets to show up in somebody else’s book.