Bible Questions?

At least you're reading.

I guess that's something.


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Perhaps not possible of the earth but child's play for the mind.

 

1. The Devil didn't show Jesus these places physically over the mountain, but mentally showed it to him.
2. Even literally speaking, this was the known world at the time, with no need to show any vast riches on the other side of the world, because it probably did not exist, or if it did would have been completely unknown to Jews at the time.

 

A good adjunct to that question would be If Jesus was alone in the wilderness, who is recording these events.

 

God.

 

Telepathy?

 

Perhaps, but I'm not sure. Either way he did not physically show Jesus these places, he merely showed the images of them probably in some sort of vision.

 

He died.

 

Was Jesus incorrect when he said that the mustard seed is the smallest seed?

Forthe record epiphytic orchids have the smallest seeds.

And since there are no trees in the mustard family, mustard seeds do not grow into trees large enough to support bird nests...

Matthew

13:31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:

13:32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

 

You're forgetting that the parables used examples that the people of the time would have understood. Jesus could have said it was like the smallest electron in an atom, rather than a mustard seed, but who would have understood? Even the brightest scientists did not know of atoms in Jesus' time. The people at the time probably would have understood a mustard seed as being the smallest seed. Also, the orchids you mentioned are native to Southern Africa, far out of the reaches of the typical Middle Eastern person's knowledge.

You're looking for factual errors in the Bible but forgetting the context in which these parables were set in....

 

Why would Jesus state that a mustard plant grows into a tree?

 

The whole statement is an approximation and not an exact measure.
I don't know how many epiphytic orchids there are in the indigenous ecology.
There are many bird species that make their nests in shrub and bramble.
Birds of the air are ideas, ideas that as they are cultivated or grow, become circumstances.

 

Does the bible state how many giants made up the Amorite race?

Did something conveniently destroy all evidence of there former civilization, and if so does this count as genocide?

Amos

2:9 Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.

 

Actually it was not all a struggle between the Israelites and the Amorites. In Joshua there is a war with the Amorites in which 5 of the kings of Amorite were killed, but in 1 Samuel 7:14 there was peace.

Also, there is archaeological evidence of Amorites who lived in the Canaanite city of Gibeon. So you are wrong in saying all evidence of the Amorites have been lost.

 

How is that evidence of a race of giants?

 

It's evidence of one of their cities... It's evidence they lived there....

 

Were there giant doors, did thy unearth a graveyard filled with giant skeletons?

Giant artifacts such as cups that would suit the needs of someone roughly 100 feet tall?

I don't see any evidence, care to post a link?

Also do these passages give seperate creation accounts?

Genesis 1:25-27
(Humans were created after the other animals.)

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image.... So God created man in his own image.

Genesis 2:18-19
(Humans were created before the other animals.)

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

 

These are indeed separate accounts. The first is God's act of creation, The second is mans hierarchical interpretation of God's creative act. The first shows man to be equal in creative nature, the second shows man to be at odds with both god and creation.

 

First of all they who said anything about them being 100 foot tall? The Bible says they were tall, strong people, but for all we know it could have just been "giant" compared to the other Jewish peoples. 100 foot tall? Where have you got that from?

First point to note is that the creation story is compiled from two sources. Genesis 2:4b-2:25 has been found in it's written form, to have been written centuries before the first account of Genesis, which was not written until during or after the Jew's Babylonian captivity. This is apparent in it's use of different words, literary styles and terms for God's name.

Also Genesis 1 is a chronological account. Genesis 2 is not obviously a chronological account. I paraphrase Genesis 2 and the apparent contradictions, and how they parallel to Genesis 1:

5) At one point there were no plants because there was no rain and no one to work the land.
6) Then God used springs to water the Earth (so, now there were plants).
7) Eventually, God made man.
8) God planted a garden for that man - but there were already plants, just not previously a garden created specifically for that man.
9) God planted trees in that garden. Trees already existed - but, now, God specifically planted trees in that particular place.

By that viewpoint, both stories are in agreement. Genesis 1 tells the entire 7 day story. Chapter 2 of Genesis, from verse 5 onward, is a parallel account that takes up at a point in the third day, after dry land appeared but before land plants were created and supplies details not furnished in the broad outline found in Genesis chapter 1.

 

How many men did David kill?

Samuel 10:18

And David slew the men of seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand horsemen.

Chronicles 19:18
David slew of the Syrians seven thousand men which fought in chariots, and forty thousand footmen.