He wrote:
<<There are no verses that heap contempt upon the Jews. The Bible carefully distinguishes between who a person is and what a person does. God, through the prophets, told the Jews that they were doing wrong. He said that they would be punished for the things that they did. They were never punished because they were Jews. When God ordered the Jews to destroy this group or that group, He always described it as punishment for something they had done.>>
This is so full of contradiction. "God distinguishes between who a person is and what a person does." Well, well. That is why we are all tainted with original sin as we are conceived. It is christian theology that we are born deserving of hell, let's remember. Each person did absolutely nothing to deserve this, but Hutchinson says that god distinguishes who they are from what they do. "God...said that they would be punished for the things that they did." However, we know nothing about those who may have had anything to do with the death of Jesus, they were not punished in any way recorded by history. What he is talking about is the descendants of those people. Does he have any proof that all Jews throughout the ages were solely descended from those who may have participated in the crucifiction, leaving aside, for the moment, any proof that *that* story ever happened?
And in the Old Testament, the Jews (or Israel) were punished when the *king* did something "wrong." Like when David attempted a census, a plague sent by god killed thousands of his subjects. Sounds to me like they were killed solely for being unfortunate enough to be David's subjects and not for anything they did.
When god ordered the Jews to destroy this group or that group, he wanted them to slaughter the descendants of those who had done anything. This is even postulating that resisting an invading army intent on stealing your land, can be considered a crime. The god also insisted that they kill the women and the children, (except of course they could keep the virgins for later rape and enjoyment) so what exactly did they do, that they were punished for?
Matt 27:25 "Then answered all the people, and said, His blood [be] on us, and on our children." OK, not contempt, but eternal guilt for the crime of deicide.
I put in the traditional Orange battle cry, indicating that my last name indicates that I am of (distant) Scots ancestry, mixed in over the years with quite a bit else. Genealogy tells me that some of the family passed through Ireland. Because of your insults against Martin Luther, whom you equated with the wacko Koresh and with Hitler, I jokingly referred to you as a Papist, as only a secret Catholic would say anything so insulting about the founder of Protestantism.
I presume my jokes are way too esoteric, as this is the second time in a week, I have had to provide an explanation. It is not any fun, believe me.
Take my bible..., please!
-- "Mankind shall not be free until the last king is strangled in the entrails of the last priest." Diderot <<Dithyrambe sur la fete des rois>> Greg Erwin: ai815@freenet.Carleton.ca VP, Humanist Association of Canada godfree@magi.com "Ask me about excommunication"