re: University of Arkansas hanging posters of the Ten Commandments around campus

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How is a law requiring this freedom?

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Whose freedom is being violated by this being displayed?

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It is not a question of whether anyone’s “freedom is being violated.“

It is a question of whether government is engaging in an activity which is specifically prohibited to it by the Constitution.

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You should have the talk with Squirrelmeister, then. He thinks the Bible was changed after the Jews returned from captivity.

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That’s not true. You never even seem to grasp what I’m even alleging. There was no Bible, at least not an authoritative collection of scriptures in the non-Christian Jewish community until about the 2nd century CE.

Texts such as Hosea, Habakkuk, Amos, and “first” Isaiah were definitely written before the Babylonian exile, and are largely untouched. They have the polytheistic “divine council” worldview and one of my favorites is the two Canaanite deities - in your Bible it will be “Plague” and “Pestilence” most likely - walking in front of and behind Yahweh doing Yahweh’s bidding (destruction).

During the exile and post exile we have 2nd and 3rd Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, most of the Psalms, Malachi, Zechariah, Deuteronomy, and books of Samuel and Kings.

Even later, during the Persian period we have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ruth, Ester, and more. Plus we have the writings of the other sects of Jews who were banned from the temple as outcasts who wrote books such as 1 Enoch, book of Noah, book of Giants, and Jubilees as a counter to what they viewed as bastardized Persian-Jews “Pharisees” (the word for “Persian”) who they considered apostates to the “true” religion.

Some of these books contain bits of much older material. For instance, most scholars say the song of Deborah is one of the oldest bits, and that the song of Moses in Deuteronomy predates the compilation of Deuteronomy.

At any rate, most of what you consider the Hebrew Bible was compiled and redacted well into the Persian period and even into the Hellenistic period. Modern unbiased scholarship demonstrates that what we call the Hebrew Bible was settled around 200CE by Rabbinic Judaism, an offshoot of the Pharisee brand. Sadducee and Zealot brands died out. Essenes and Alexandrian Jewish communities largely became the original Christians who worshipped the two powers in heaven - the high God El Elyon “ton Theos” and the second god “ton Logos”.

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Not boiling a goat in its own mother's milk relates to worship?

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Yes. It was likely a Canaanite religious ritual to garner fertility blessing from the Canaanite gods

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You are most likely correct here Foo. When it is convenient to you, you accept the ideas of secular scholarship.

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So say "don't take on foreign religious rituals". Why be so hyper specific on this one specific ritual? He wasn't hyper specific when he said not to worship other gods.He said no other gods, not just this one or that one.

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The issue is that those rituals weren’t foreign. The Jews were a branch of the Canaanite culture. Whenever the Bible says over and over NOT to do something, it means it is/was rampant in Jewish culture and they were trying to stop the practices. Do NOT have buttsecks with another dude. Do NOT worship all the other gods. Do NOT boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

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It is a question of whether government is engaging in an activity which is specifically prohibited to it by the Constitution.

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It isn't.

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However, it makes even less sense if it was written by two different authors (the same chapter??). You wouldn’t think that the second author wouldn’t have read what was written a few verses earlier? Or a few chapters earlier? Who do you think wrote it? Do you think they didn’t even check that same chapter before distributing the text?

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That’s how much of the biblical texts have been compiled. Multiple traditions and multiple short stories all woven together by later editors and redactors.

Look at the flood story. It’s really two stories woven together. Was it a raven or a dove? Was it 2 of each animal or 14? Was it 40 days or 150 days? Did the water come from the fountains of the Tehom or did they come from the windows of heaven?

Think about how Saul met David. He meets him. Then he meets him again for the first time. Then he meets him again a third time for the first time. Wasn’t David your armor bearer, Saul? Didn’t he play the harp to drive out the evil spirits from Yahweh? Why the hell are you asking AGAIN who this boy is? He really was meeting him for the first time those three times. Those were three contradictory stories of how Saul met David. The compiler thought they were all important and wanted to include all the versions. Was the compiler stupid? No. He just didn’t think some idiot 2500 years later would take it as literal and historical.

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Don't shortchange your offering by putting some old produce on the bottom and covering it up with fresh, better quality produce, in other words. Which makes perfect sense.

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If you use another mother goats milk how is it any better?

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In exodus 34, from a separate source and separate tradition and separate author (though both stories may have been edited and redacted by other scribes)

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Same source, tradition, and author.

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Yahweh says he will (kathab, Strong’s 3789) on the tablets. That Hebrew word used could be to physically inscribe, but it also can mean to describe or to record. This is why when it is meant that Yahweh physically wrote it, in exodus 31 it says he wrote it with his own finger. In exodus 34:1, it is ambiguous. Did Yahweh describe the words to Moses, or did Yahweh physically write it for Moses?

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I can tell you are getting desperate.

Strongs has the word used 226 times, and only 5 times is it translated as describe or survey rather than a form of writing, and 4 of the 5 times are in Joshua when describing the land, and the other time is in Judges.

You are attempting to make it seem like God didn’t write on the tablets but told Moses what to write it down while God was just describing them. That’s silly considering the context, which is why all English translations use “write”. That is a universal testimony. Are you going to go with the consensus this time?

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The almighty context, which you ignore and hate. Yahweh commands Moses to “kathab” the words from Yahweh.

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I’m the one using the context. You are looking at one other verse and claiming that is the only thing that matters.

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This next verse we have “he” three times. Was Yahweh there with himself for forty days? No, that was Moses. Did Yahweh not eat or drink for forty days? No, that wouldn’t be impressive - Yahweh doesn’t need to eat or drink. That was Moses. The third “he” is obviously Moses, as was the previous two successive he’s. From the context in verse 27, Moses is doing what Yahweh commanded.

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Again, the fuller context helps us understand who the “he” is. You are using that context for the first two but not the third.

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Moses lives… if Moses wouldn’t have done what Yahweh commanded in verse 27, he have ended up as Adam was supposed to end up as (mowt ta muth). Yahweh doesn’t take kindly to his chosen ones pissing him off - he would have struck him dead on the spot, as he does with everyone else who pisses him off.

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God judges disobedience, yes. The issue is whether or not Moses was commanded to write the 10 commandments on the tablets. He wasn’t because God did it. There was no fear of being punished for not writing them on the tablets if there was no command to do so. He was commanded to cut the tablets and bring them to God, and Moses did that.

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What was done with oxen and sheep? Not only do we know from the Bible but from archaeological evidence. They were taken from their mother, their throat was slit, blood pouring onto the altar, and then they were set on fire. You want to argue “same” doesn’t mean “same”. You want to use “biblical hermeneutics“ to ignore passages you don’t like in favor of other verses in other books written by other authors. If you want to understand the context of what exodus 34 is, you have to look at that set of verses written by that author to see what that author meant.

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I agree we have to look at other verses to understand what is going on. You don’t want to do that when it hurts your narrative.

I gave you other verses that explain what happens. The Levites replaced the firstborn of the nation. We are told that. Did the Levites get sacrificed like the animals? No. They went into service to God at the temple.

All the verse in question says is that both children and animals are dedicated to God. It doesn’t say what happens to them as part of that dedication. What happens is described elsewhere, and nowhere does it describe the children as being sacrificed (killed). Quite the opposite: God condemns such practices.

Even if you want to take such a position, God also commands the children to be redeemed, which means to not redeem them would be sin. If you want to say that the redemption is from sacrifice, then even so, God is commanding the people not to sacrifice the children but to redeem them.

No matter how you slice it, you are wrong.

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Hebrew Yahwism was rooted in Canaanite Polytheism and child sacrifice. It’s in the archaeological record. It’s in the Bible. Also the Bible says Yahweh doesn’t like child sacrifice and never commanded it. Then the opposite is recorded in Ezekiel, your favorite chapter. Different authors with different ideas and theologies that contradict each other.

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God commanded against human sacrifice. The reason why God condemned Israel and Judah so many times is because they worshipped false gods and participated in false worship like child sacrifice. God commanded against it. There is no contradiction with Ezekiel. You are just doing the same thing with that passage as you are with Exodus 34 , which I’ve demonstrated you are abusing.

Love it. All universities should have the Ten Commandments posted in every classroom, and if they don’t funding should be pulled ASAP.

As SCHOOLS, both Arkansas and Ole Miss are in much better shape than LSU. Bel Edwards allowed the total POS Tate to be hired, and LSU foolishly went in the CRT/DEI direction.

Sad, really.

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Pretty much.

"I deem anyone who disagrees with me a kook."

I find it especially hilarious that he mentioned WLC specifically. That guy would pull down his pants and spank him intellectually until he cried uncle. And it wouldn't take but minutes to get to that point.

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Squirrel has the worst imaginable takes on the Bible and Christianity. He is wrong about nearly every issue he ever discusses.

Now it's clear why: he only listens to "scholarship" biased against Christianity. He doesn't even realize that admission outed him as a clown.