Pastor Mikey extending his KJV: He still doesn't get it, but at least he's getting closer!
I never thought I’d see the guy fess up, but finally Pastor Mikey (though he still employs verbal trickery, dodgery and subterfuge) admits one can’t take the Bible literally! Let’s not take my words for it but look at his own from his most recent blog (‘Is The KJV Bible the Literal Word of God’?) to which he answers “You Better Believe It!’ but in fact his own words betray that we can’t.
Why is Mike’s mind so damned screwed up on what ought to be an obvious issue? I suspect because his biblical education, training (what with an online school) is simply too primitive and superficial to process the nuances of exegesis and what a literal, inerrant document really means. And in addition, because of his deep denial on the existence of errors – he ends up using mental debris and bollocks to conceal what otherwise would be obvious!
In a previous blog I patiently showed and explained seven clear errors for which there is no issue that they are errors, unless one dishonestly tries to change word meanings. As I also showed in a follow up blog, this tactic doesn’t work! The error still remains – such as the one that fowl have four legs – but Mikey changes the meaning to refer to general “creepers” – referencing insects – which have EIGHT Legs – so he’s still wrong!
Another major error I showed - which entails NO "exaggerations", or use of "hyperbole", had to do with the circumference of the "molten sea".
To repeat and reference the error fromKings 7:23 :
"He made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about."
The geometrical figure shown in the blog:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/02/bible-logic-or-bible-idiocy.html
more or less captures the basic object ("molten sea"). D is the object's diameter. The claim is that there is a line that "did compass all round about it" - which can only mean the circumference of the bowl. The circumference, from basic math (given that π = 22/7, approximately) is:
Circumference = π x Diameter = π x D = (22/7) x 10 cubits = 220/7 cubits
and therefore:
Circumference = 31. 4 cubits
In other words, the error made by the writer is failing to see that "30 cubits" doesn't cut it! It doesn't make the circumference of the bow but falls SHORT by:
31. 4 cubits - 30 cubits = 1.4 cubits!
In a way this is the ideal example to show his tomfoolery because it is purely mathematical, and there's no room for trickery, verbal obfuscation or introducing nonsense examples like "it's raining cats and dogs" as a bogus example of literally interpreting something which is patently docetic. Hence, it's clear he's confusing literal examples with docetic ones and ending up in a mental ditch.
Obviously, if the author of the Kings cubit reference was off by as much as 1.4 cubits then he was in error. The argument that "God inspired" him therefore sheds light that his god is a classic ignoramus if 30 cubits is the best answer he could get when it demands 31.4 cubits (or at least 31 cubits if rounded off).
Thus, the BIBLE CANNOT BE DIVINELY INSPIRED!
It is human-inspired which is precisely why it reflects so many human errors, misconceptions and limitations - such as:
Being off so much in a simple math computation,
confusing animals which chew the cud with those that don't, and
mixing fowl up with mammals that "go on all four"
Rather than admit the inerrant ploy fails, Mikey keeps insisting it doesn't - with predictable results.
Now, for his explanation:
"When you see exaggeration in the Gospels , do not force a literal interpretation or you will miss the real meaning of the passage . Imagine , as I previously mentioned , the awful implications of thinking that gouging out your right eye would actually cure the problem of lust . We should take the Bible literally insofar as it being the LITERAL "God breathed" Word OF God , but not take all the WORDS literally . And , NO , that is not a contradiction ! Let me explain . Last month I took an exam on New Testament Biblical Backgrounds ( BBL 450 ) , and received an 88% on it . I told my wife , "I thought I'd do better than that , I studied forever for that test." Now , obviously , I didn't study "forever," but the words were mine "
Firstly, his prosaic example of "forever" is off for several reasons. First, he isn't giving the illustration from a book in which more than 1,000 copyists had a hand in committing thousands of pages and millions of words to paper. He's using one simple turn of phrase common in modern usage. Second, he's not factoring in at all the alteration in meaning in going from one original language (Aramaic) to later ones, such as Latin, Greek then English. He isn't processing that even the best translations commit errors even when the translators are the best...at the top of their game. The reason is not anything to do with the translators, but because people using different languages think differently using those languages! THIS is where the docetic meaning arises, which can't be grasped via literal interpretations! (Something we learned the first week in Biblical Exegesis at Loyola, but which they evidently never taught Mikey at the South Florida Bible College)
Thus his example, using "forever" is as witless and irrelevant as his other one referring to his kids getting MTV "when Hell freezes over".
When Mike refers to the "real meaning" of the passage, he is in fact referring to the meaning that circumvents and surpasses mere literal words, hence the inner spiritual or docetic meaning. This is what we are taught in actual exegesis - not the literal interpretation of scriptures. So long as one is going after the literal, he will come a cropper, running into errors which then are undermining his belief, or worse, running into thousands of contradictions that can't be reconciled no matter how many verbal ruses and trickery one uses.
In the end Mike is hoist on a dual petard: He wants and demands that his Book be read as a literal truth, but because he enlists hermeneutics he can't do it! It's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. This is why he ends up spouting his own contradictions such as "we're to take some words literally but not all the WORDS literally". Which is bare bollocks since one either takes the words literally (if they're inerrant) or not - there's no "boths". Yet, his absolutism has his mind and brain so poisoned he can't relax his efforts to demand absolute LITERAL standards -when they just aren't there. Rather than accepting this, he consumes hundreds of hours in mental energy trying to rationalize errors that are obviously errors, as well as trying to reconcile contradictions that can't be reconciled. Going so far to dismiss the latter as “inconsistencies" despite the fact that Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines inconsistency as: "That which is inconsistent involves involves variance, discrepancy or even contradiction, especially from the point of view of truth, reason, or logic."
Thus, all his efforts nothwithstanding, he ends up looking like a fool. His best tactic is to maybe take a lot more tests, and learn more until such time he subdues the absolutist -literalist and inerrancy- demanding authoritarian inside and allows the emergence of the more substantial thinker that understands docetic contextuality.
Alas, this may be too big a chasm for his mind to cross, given his limited educational background, but one can hope. After all, he's already conceded that we must not " force a literal interpretation or we'll will miss the real meaning of the passage". Now, if he'd only go the next step and ponder what the real meaning is!
No comments:
Post a Comment