[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

Elempi, if you don’t mind me saying so, you seem to be going through some fairly tortuous paths to explain some of these passages from the Bible.

What parts? If tortuous, that says more about my failure so far to sufficiently understand and explain than it does about God's porpose.

Originally Posted by SPM

And, as you appear to accept, they are merely theories, designed no doubt to make the unpalatable more acceptable to those who regard the Bible as fact but are uneasy about the rather “fire and brimstone” aspects of the Old Testament God.

It depends upon which one you refer to. Some of my replies are more theoretical, others are more strongly held and more defensible.

Originally Posted by SPM

(Which are, incidentally, quite out of keeping with his portrayal in the New Testament – did he, like many new fathers, undergo a personality change with the birth of his son?)

Hmm.... tortuous and 'out of keeping' are in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. After all, descriptions of the complexities of reality have always run the risk of seeming so. It should be said that 'tortuous' does not necessarily equal 'incorrect'.

Originally Posted by SPM

But the story of Abraham and his son has always struck me as quite horrific. God asked him to sacrifice his son – and he was just about to do it! OK, so God had no intention of Abraham actually killing his son, but even to ask him to do so is unpardonable in my view. Especially since he was merely seeking to test Abraham’s faith. He was effectively saying: “I am not sure if you believe in me, so kill your son to prove that you do”. Doesn’t that seem rather vain? My own reaction would undoubtedly have been: “Well, if that’s the kind of God that you are, I’d rather not believe in you, thank you very much”. And so, off to Hell with me simply because I was unwilling to kill my son (surely a sin in God’s eyes anyway). That just doesn’t seem right.

You're not Abraham. I can assure you that God will not put such a test to you any time soon, because you are not anywhere near the place with God, if all my reading of your words are any indication, that Abraham was when God tested him in this way. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it would be fair to say that God's test to you, SPM, is simple belief that a God who loves can allow evil into the world. Abraham had already exhibited faith to take God at his word to go to a foreign land with no certainty of wellbeing or future wealth, had been promised a son in his old age, by a wife almost as old as he, and had been established in his new land because he did believe. And God had actually spoken to him on numerous occasions so that there was a real and deep relationship. This final test was for Abraham to prove that he still put God before the son God had given him. Vain? No, because this test was not an end in itself. God had a purpose to save humans from themselves through this man's seed, and it was necessary that this man put God first in his life, or else God would have found it necessary to go find someone who would. Why did God need Abaraham to put Him first? Mary. There had to be a precedent and likelihood of people putting God first, a tradition of holiness, so that a young woman in the time of the Roman Empire would submit her body to the purpose of God. "Let it be to me as you have said." God never tests us for vanity. Such would be a misunderstanding of Him.

Originally Posted by SPM

Now, as I understand it, the traditional Christian approach is that one either accepts the Bible as a whole, or one does not accept it at all. And this is one of the things that has always troubled me about Christanity as a faith (and all faiths which adopt a similar approach). ...Why cannot Christians accept that not everything in the Bible is cast-iron fact, yet still maintain their faith in God?

LotR never claimed to be divine revelation. Tolkien would have been horrified. By contrast, the Bible speaks of itself as revelation from God, inspired by the Holy Spirit. If God is who he says He is in the Bible, then it is necessary to believe him as he presents himself. To disbelieve any of the Bible is to place human understanding as greater than God's revelation. There's a verse in the Bible that says "lean not on your own understanding, but upon every word that comes from the mouth of God". It's that kind of message that keeps some of us who follow Jesus saying to ourselves things like 'I don't understand it', but that says more about me than it does about what I'm reading. It is I who lack understanding, not God who lacks justice, or goodness, or what have you. Not long ago I tended toward a universalistic approach to the understanding of life after death. But then I made choice of "Okay, God, no more 'yeah buts'." I was humbled, finally stopped competing with God. (yeah, go figure, me competing with God ... how foolish can one get? ) Since I made that choice, so much that I used to misunderstand has become clear.

Originally Posted by SPM

And nor do I accept a God that is willing to relegate decent, law-abiding, moral people to Hell just because they don’t believe in Him or adhere to a particular way of worshipping him.

Decency, law-abidingness, and morality are not enough, nor are they the issue. It's all about who Jesus is.

I've answered this above. Those who have taken a more "flexible" approach (which included me until recently) have compromised their faith. How they can hold to what they do, without holding to the rest, is a rather tragic demonstration of irrationality.

Lhunardawen's answer is good as far as it goes. But faith should never be irrational. If someone believes that Jesus died and was raised by God, that person should be convinced based on the best reasoning he or she can muster.

Originally Posted by alatar

How do angels mate with humans, one creature being completely spirit while the other material? Sucubi/incubi perhaps? Or do fallen angels have some kind of inherent physicality?

As you comment yourself, this little problem didn't seem to bother Tolkien as it relates to Thingol and Melian. My sense is that angels apparently had the ability to incarnate. But even that is different from Jesus. They did not choose to humble themselves so as to be born of a woman. The New Testament speaks of Jesus' resurrection body in such a way that it seems to be perhaps more real than our own, as if maybe this is what could have been for Adam and Eve had they passed their test; but that last bit regarding Adam and Eve is speculation, of course.

Originally Posted by alatar

Though you may simply be stating what others have said, I agree that it's a bit convoluted and makes God seem less omnipotent as He must rely on human agents to execute peoples so that His plan will succeed.

This is a very important point. By allowing humans free will, God has necessarily placed limits upon his own omnipotence. This is rather frightening concept that most Christians don't want to try to get their minds around, but when you look at it, it's pretty obvious. What is also necessary to conclude from it, is that God is an exceedingly brilliant craftsGod (can't exactly say craftsman although we could about Jesus I suppose), in that he still works all of human free will with all of its mix of good and evil and chaos into his ultimate plan for the good of those that love him and keep his word.

Originally Posted by alatar

And just how does one destroy spiritual beings by breaking the material bodies?

They were not destroyed, but imprisoned. Check out 2 Petere 2:4-5.

Warning: speculation: regarding sub-human or super-human, I've been wondering these last few years about such myths as the minotaur, or hippogriffs, or what have you. Now, they may just be fantasy, but if one posits the power of fallen angelic beings to incarnate as they wish and commit whatever unspeakable acts they wish to, who knows what might not result? But as I said, that's just speculation.

As to "literally": Where the Bible speaks literally, I read it literally. Where is speaks metaphorically, I read it so. Where it speaks mythically, I so read it; however, I take my lead from Tolkien and do not equate myth with falsehood.

Originally Posted by Bethberry

...the developing stages of a people's awareness of what or who God is.

I think this aspect is there to be found in the bible, but this does not remove (what I understand to be) the reality of its divine inspiration.

Originally Posted by Bethberry

One problem with this POV is that is sounds similar to arrogant assumptions about human progress.

This is something I wrestle with. What I come down to is that I will inevitably be seen as arrogant by some people, and that is something I have no control over. What I can control is what I say and write. By accepting the Bible on its own terms, as God's word, I am led to certain honest conclusions with all due humility, aware that it seems like arrogance to some.

Originally Posted by Bb

The other problem with this approach to revelation is that it tends to understand the Old Testament solely in terms of the terms set out in the New Testament. There's misrepresentation here.

I suppose this could be viewed as a problem. I don't. I take my lead from Jesus who said he and the Kingdom of God were the fulfillment of the OT.

Tolkien's insistence is all the more perplexing given that the Church never insisted upon conversion of a heathen partner. It required a promise that children be brought up Catholic, but it never forced conversion on the partner as a condition of marriage. Strange that Tolkien who was so anti-bullying in LotR should have been so demanding in this instance. ... Does that tombstone, stating Luthien and Beren, imply something here?

Now there's a fascinating thought! Anyway, Tolkien's insistence in this one case, being as odd for him as it was, emphasizes the importance with which he viewed it.

Hell is probably the single most difficult stumbling block. I realize that no matter what I say with this one, it's going to seem like an insult. I can't help that, and I don't mean it that way. I had a bit of an epiphany that hell is actually best seen as God's final grace to those who refuse him. 'What about the fire and brimstone?' you may ask, or the lake of fire? Here's a case in which I see those things as metaphorical. Hell is best understood as the absence of God. Not that God is absent from anywhere in existence; but humans have this unusual gift that they can choose not to be a part of God's reality. It's stunning, really. But God does finally say to some, "Your will be done; exist for eternity without Me." I can imagine this feeling like a lake of fire, or like fire and brimstone, especially if the person must live with the regret of "if only I had allowed him in, but I finally know better." That's hell enough.

Originally Posted by Formy

LMP has bravely stuck it out, but for the most part it feels like he's just standing here taking the blows for Christianity, doing his best to apologise and admit the validity of other people's questions, while the non-Christians seem to just be standing there inflexibly, willing to throw out monkeywrench after monkeywrench, while refusing to admit the potential "maybe it could be" validity of a single Christian viewpoint.

I had to laugh about this. However, I don't see it quite that way. I'm more than happy to entertain the questions, tough as some of them are. Wrestling with them honestly helps me to understand my faith better, and it just doesn't matter what the motivations are of others on this thread. I'm responsible for mine alone. But thanks for the support, Formy. As to everything else you said, I say 'yes'.

There's a certain sense in which I think the 'pearls before swine' analogy is not apt to this thread. Swine were unclean, and content to live in their filth, and were apt to mistake pearls for more of their filth. Given that all who post here have a high regard for Tolkien, I would say that the analogy does not obtain, on that merit alone. Must run..... dinner and a conference...... back later.....