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Post by The Herald Erjen on Aug 3, 2018 11:58:39 GMT
This episode from the New Testament remains controversial to this day. I even had a friendly disagreement with my august colleague Drystyx about it. So who thinks Ananias and Saphira were innocent victims, and who thinks they were a couple of creeps? I lean more to the couple of creeps scenario.
Strangely perhaps, I am reminded of General Fromm's involvement in the 1944 conspiracy to off Hitler and get Germany out of a war it was losing. Fromm was okay with Hitler being assassinated and the Nazis thrown out, but only if it worked, and he would have no part of a failure. The entire plan hinged on Hitler dying, and then Hitler turned up alive, so Fromm quickly had General Olbricht and Colonel Stauffenberg shot to cover up his complicity. It did him not much good as Joseph Goebbels (the Nazi equivalent to the Holy Spirit?) saw it for what it was and then Fromm was shot. Seems to me there are some things where you're either in all the way or you're out all the way. No holding back. No sitting on the fence and waiting to see which side is going to win.
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Post by Arlon10 on Aug 3, 2018 12:24:46 GMT
Whatever the details of that story, I believe the important thing to remember is that it could be very wrong to induce some general case from that specific one. It probably doesn't mean people will die by magic in every case. It could mean they should not die by anything but magic. It could mean those people died from something like shame, or perhaps their guilt was more serious for other reasons not listed.
Obviously if you are going to go around trying to apply some rule to every case even remotely similar to every passage of the Bible you find, you can easily get it wrong. Bible interpretation is not a job for amateurs. This particular passage makes that obvious.
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Post by The Herald Erjen on Aug 3, 2018 12:31:35 GMT
Whatever the details of that story, I believe the important thing to remember is that it could be very wrong to induce some general case from that specific one. It probably doesn't mean people will die by magic in every case. It could mean they should not die by anything but magic. It could mean those people died from something like shame, or perhaps their guilt was more serious for other reasons not listed. Obviously if you are going to go around trying to apply some rule to every case even remotely similar to every passage of the Bible you find, you can easily get it wrong. Bible interpretation is not a job for amateurs. This particular passage makes that obvious. Two things are not for interpretation: 1) They lied. 2) They died.
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Post by Arlon10 on Aug 3, 2018 12:41:29 GMT
Whatever the details of that story, I believe the important thing to remember is that it could be very wrong to induce some general case from that specific one. It probably doesn't mean people will die by magic in every case. It could mean they should not die by anything but magic. It could mean those people died from something like shame, or perhaps their guilt was more serious for other reasons not listed. Obviously if you are going to go around trying to apply some rule to every case even remotely similar to every passage of the Bible you find, you can easily get it wrong. Bible interpretation is not a job for amateurs. This particular passage makes that obvious. Two things are not for interpretation: 1) They lied. 2) They died. Perhaps, but I am not seeing a general rule to apply anywhere else. I suspect some liars might escape justice till judgement day.
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