Hawkins

Who defined and endorsed slavery and polygamy? It's people back to the point can be deemed as the "most moral humans on earth". Asking Israel to fight against a system defined so is counterproductive and a distraction. God harshly, and with ups and lows, trained up Israel to be a messenger to bring forward the message of salvation. This is the priority. We may have overestimated Israel if we think that it can achieve the priority and fighting the habits from the "most moral humans" at the same time. To put it another way, God allows (or rather didn't command them to fight) because their heart is hard.

Isaiah 14:17 the man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home? The devil's effort is to corrupt the world. Humans deemed to be "the most moral" ones could possibly be the least corrupted. God's priority is not with this corrected, instead He goes through Israel to bring forward salvation to humans such that humans will be saved independent of their works, but faith which matters.

What being common with slavery is that, it's not a priority for God to fight a system defined by the most moral men on earth. It will be a distraction on maximizing the saving of souls. Israel as humans can't fight a system defined and endorsed by the most moral humans on earth, they can't fight slavery and they can't fight polygamy to a high standard. At the same time, it's not the priority either. Israel is for God to convey His message of salvation. The priority is rather whether the Jews are capable of being loyal to God and faithful to the message (the Scripture) to be conveyed. Fighting the influence from their surrounding cultures is less of a priority, (or rather it is a distraction as Israel is already too rebellious to carry forward the message with priority), unless the culture could potentially destory Israel. Under that circumstance, God commands to eradicate the Canaanites. God is harsh towards the Jews when they failed to stay close to God for the message to convey. There's no more time to fight against the world with its systems endorsed by what deemed as "the most moral humans". God allows such influence because its inevitable. Mosaic Law is to regulate what is necessary instead of forbidding the world habits and their influence completely (that will be with extra difficulties and will be a distraction to human salvation). Matthew 19:8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. If there's one occasion where "it was not this way from the beginning", then there could be other occasions as well. All because "hearts were hard", as influenced by a world with systems defined by men who can be deemed as "the moral ones on earth".

It's like asking why there's no ancient human trails on top of today's New York city. Archaeology heavily depends on how the ancient site is conserved.

God is to convey truth through the maximum level of anicent human capability. Noah's story exists as myths in different cultures. It means humans can only convey historical truth in the form of a story. Even so, without God's effort and enforcement, the story will turn into myth at the end. In stories, God has the human emotion and reaction such that He's understandable by ancient humans when putting Him and His deeds into the corresponding story form. God has foreknowledge, He's going to establish a framework of truth for the Jews, a people with male circumcised, to carry forward God's truth to reach today's humans. Abraham's story has multifold meanings. 1) While Canaanites had the common practice of children sacrifice for the idol gods, God let Abraham demonstrate (to later Jews) that he has the same if not bigger faith to the true God. 2) God demonstrates that He actually disallows children sacrifice, such that children sacrifice is never part of the Jewish customs. 3) God demonstrates the a goatscape is finally used to atone for the death of humans, the life of his own son for the descendants of Abraham and all mankind.

It's rather a misconception due to modern education. Looking for evidence is an educated or implanted mindset during our formal education since childhood till graduated from university. What evidence do you have for Biden or Trump winning the votes in 2020 election? The mass majority has none. Humans don't rely on evidence to get to a truth. They rely on something else which requires us to overcome our own educated mind to find out! That said. Archaeological evidence gathering is done on extremely rare conditions where the ancient trail has not been overridden by active human activities. Usually this refers to a remote site not accessed by humans for an extended long time. You can't do archaeological research in the center of New York city to tell what happened on top of it 2000 years ago, as most historical trails were already overridden by human activities alongside history itself. Most histories are unsupported by evidence, the more ancient they are the more so. The nature of history, in terms of conveying truth, is by means of and in the form of human testimonies, instead of evidence.

Humans are educated (since childhood) to fallaciously think that history should be evidenced. However the very nature of history is that, it is composed of human testimonies inviting faith to believe. What evidence shows that you ever ate eggs before the age of 2? Only when you own mom said so.

This is closely tied to what the Final Judgment lawfully/legally is, and what the Covenant lawfully/legally is. The Judgment of Law is applicable to both angels and humans alike. However for the reason that the much more intelligent fallen angels (as led by Satan) can have a vital effect on humans that less intelligent humans are (without their owe awareness) kept captive. No one (human) is righteous, not even one in front of the Judgment of Law. To humans, Jesus is the only way. That being said. The nature of the Judgment of Law is that, it's an objective judgment on one's past and one's behavior. It's an assessment of one's obedience. All humans without exception would fail such an assessments. Obedience is one of the two determining factors whether an entity with freewill can live with a completely sin-incompatible God in eternity. For that matter, Law is more like a promise from God that if one can pass the Judgment of Law, God would bear with him in eternity no matter what (like a Shepherd to His sheep). Law, which as we speak is still perceivable by the angels however is no longer demonstratable to humans living in the corrupt world - our planet Earth. God has to demonstrate the nature of Law through the Jewish covenants (more on the Mosaic Covenant). Mosaic Covenant has a strict definition that only a circumcised Jew is lawfully/legally a Jew. You are not lawfully a Jew without the circumcision. Covenant, which is only applicable to humans is granted through the blood of Jesus Christ. Any covenant (including the Covenant of Rainbow through Noah) cannot be lawfully signed off if without God's self-sacrifice through Jesus Christ at a certain point of humanity. Unlike Law, Covenant however is not an objective judgment. It's rather a subjective judgment by a God who is capable and just. Since it is a subjective judgment instead of an objective judgment, it's not limited to judging one's past and one's behavior. God is capable of judging one's heart/mind, God is capable of even judgment one's future (we don't know to which extent this would apply though). That's why unlike circumcision as demanded by a Jewish covenant in the sense of Law, baptism is subject to the subjective judgment of Jesus Christ. In terms of the New Covenant, baptism defines a Christian (the same token as how circumcision defines a Jew). However when Jesus sees fit, you can exempt from this if you have a good reason (as Jesus sees, not you) not to be baptized. An example is the thief besides Jesus on the cross. The thief won't have a chance to be baptized, he however is endorsed by Jesus as a lawfully and legally valid Christians. The judgment is subjectively belongs to God the Son in this case. You need to be baptized to be lawfully reckoned as a Christian, unless Jesus sees that you have a good reason not to be so. Or to simply put, when Jesus says that you are dead then you are dead, when He says that you are alive then you are alive. That's what a subjective Judgment could mean. By Law, when you said "Oh Lord" in your mouth, you may be saved as Law cannot judge heart to tell whether it is a lie. However Jesus Christ can tell who you are even when you fulfilled the Law by saying "Oh Lord" with your mouth. That lies the difference!

It's human mind which limits God. Humans have to assume that, 1) Humans understand time But in reality no human actually know the nature of what time itself is. Just as Einstein once put, time is not a stable physics unit but instead SPEED is. In both Relativity and Quantum Physics TIME is never a stable physics unit. We take for granted that time is evenly progressive forward, but our physics simply disagrees. We don't actually understand how time behaves. Our assumption that time being stably and evenly advancing forward is based on our speculation on our current environment, not the environment how earth and our universe began. 2) Earth was created in our universe (in terms of time and space) This is yet another huge assumption. Nowhere in the Bible says that earth was created in our space/universe. More likely, earth was created else where which is a 'void'. My theory is, earth was created else where, outside of our space, and was 'move' into our space on Day 4. That's why sun and stars only appear on Day 4. Before Day 4, earth is not inside our space but in an 'adjacent' space where the light source is artificial (i.e., not necessarily from a sun). Earth was created in an empty space which was a void, till forests were formed. Only then it was moved into our space. All our today's dating method is based on the decay of isotops. Now the question is how isotops behave if earth is moved in and out of our space? There's no physics on this. The Bible is a witness about what happened on earth after (but not before) it is moved to our space. 3) Earth stays in its current position all the time (in terms of time and space) Even after being moved into our space/universe, it by no means says that God didn't touch it ever since. In contrary, for Israel to steal time to win a war, God 'made the sun stands still'. No one know what God did in terms of human physics. Possibly God manipulated time and space for the effect of the 'frozen time'. If so, again there's no physics on how the isotops should behave during this time and space manipulation. In a nutshell, with our limited human mind we assumed too much and too fast to build up our theory on what the Bible would like to say.

The "sons of God" may refer to other homo erectus including the Neanderthals. They married human women to give birth to the giants. The other possibility is "sons of God" refers to angels breaking laws. They tried to make humans to take their form to marry the pretty women. But their limited knowledge can only allow them to make the homo erectus such as Neanderthals. They then take on the "human form" in order to marry human women. That gave birth to the giants.

I use Wordsearch instead. I have more than 1000 books worthy of more than 5000 bucks, including tons of commentaries. However, Wordsearch discontinued after being acquired by Logos. Logos is never as good as Wordsearch.

First I made a whole explanation. It's not even honest to refer it to as a random pull. Second. no one in this world can come to a conclusion that he can actually understand the book of Revelation in full, let alone the 666 puzzle. Face it. This could be the only fact you need to know!

Do you realize that this is just yet another assertion? "666, in all likelihood, refers to Caesar Nero" You made zero valid argument by far, already after 2 posts. lol. Sometimes it's funny to see people behaving this way in a discussion board. lol.

Your feeling expressed doesn't form any valid argument though. Actually sometimes people are speechless by showing only some meaningless feelings and assertions.

So? Even so I don't think it invalidates anything, except at the semantic level. How you choked over anything won't form any valid argument at any level though. Take care buddy.