(Top) Leanne Pantone
I cannot walk on water. No matter how hard I try or what tools I use to help me, I simply cannot do it. As a matter of fact, no other human can do it either, except one.
Only one person can walk on water and did. That person is Jesus. I know this is true because it is written in the Bible. I do not believe that it is some story passed down from generation to generation that was exaggerated over time. I believe that this actually happened for two reasons.
The first is when you consider Hebrew culture. The people of that culture grew up memorizing things. That is how they learned and passed things along. There was little room for error. Memorization was a way of life during that time, like hunting was a way of life for the Native Americans.
The second reason is that the Bible is God-inspired. Jesus himself said that it was infallible (John 10:35). Since Jesus is the Son of the Living God, He wouldn’t lie about that.
By taking a literal interpretation of the Bible one will consistently see a pattern of glorification of God. Take away such an interpretation and man is glorified. By saying that the miracles that Jesus performed are simply hyperbole, one will see a way for man to be enlightened. Glory is taken away from God and applied to man. What hope is there then for someone who believes in God but denies the reliability of the Bible?
Of course there are metaphors and parables in the Bible. For example, when Jesus says He is a gate or a door, He isn’t really. It is just a metaphor. However, the miracles that were said to have been performed I believe were indeed performed. I have no idea how they were performed, nor can I understand everything that God does. All I know is that God is greater than me, and even if He tried to explain Himself to me, I wouldn’t understand. Look at it this way, as presented in the movie, “The Mothman Prophecies,” “you are greater than a cockroach, but have you ever tried to explain yourself to one.”
More proof that the Bible is accurate lies in the visual results of the miracles. Actual witnesses of Jesus’ time died because of their faith as a result of what they saw Jesus do. I’m sure there aren’t many people willing to die for something that can’t be seen.
I’ve also heard that the parting of the Red Sea is a natural occurrence, which happens every 17 years, and God’s people were just at the right place at the right time. The answer to this, I was told and believe, is if this really is true and the sea is shallow enough to walk across at a certain time, then how was it that all of those people drowned in such shallow water.
If the Bible really was not accurate, then there would be some dissention between the different manuscripts. However, there’s 99 percent agreement among different manuscripts of the Bible, which is far more than any other ancient writing. Also the gospels were written within 40 years of Jesus’ death and resurrection. There’s even some research that suggests they were written within four years. That does not leave much time for stories to get twisted and distorted. The manuscripts of Plato were written 900 years after his death, why is it that his writings are not under as much scrutiny as the Bible?
Finally, the biggest and greatest argument for the Bible being historically and literally accurate is that Jesus was God. God can do anything. I am God’s creation. Who am I to say that the things that Jesus and God did weren’t actually done? It would be very arrogant of me to say that the Bible is false, that creation didn’t really happen or that something like Jesus walking on water was impossible. Of course it is impossible, but only for you and me, not God.
(Bottom) Ryan Mulloy
If Adam and Eve were banished from paradise, how come the dinosaurs didn’t eat them?
Okay, so maybe you think that’s not really proving my point, but you might want to read the rest of what I have to say, whether you have a strong belief in the Bible or not. We do know that the dinosaurs existed and it was before man, but how come the Catholic Church and the Bible claim that Genesis is the beginning of all time. Last time I read it, they said the world was done in six days and then God rested on the seventh, but the dinosaurs existed 65 million years ago for a pretty long time.
But this is not about dinosaurs. This is about the Bible. My feeling that maybe parts of the Bible are not real stems from many things. Growing up I believed the stories of Adam and Eve and the wicked Snake, played by the ugly Satan. When I got to about sixth grade, the teacher shocked me in telling me that the creation story was just written to explain man’s free will. I refused to believe it.
Freshman year in high school, my teacher, a nun, told me the same thing. But instead of telling us and getting to the next subject, we were given many reasons why Adam and Eve was pure fiction. I am not saying it is a bad story. It is good, and a rewrite would give us more than we need. It is simple as it is, but it is too simple.
Science and the Bible do not mix. I guess you can call me “Doubting Thomas,” because while I have faith in God and his Divine plan, the facts and theories of evolution prove to be the way to go. Sure, God may have created the first life on Earth, but the first thing close to man was a friggin ape. Was Adam an ape? Was Eve his ape girlfriend?
The stories are just too simple and the facts outweigh the faith. For instance, the opposition mentioned the 17 years fact about the Red Sea. It is fact. The sea could part for at least a mile and it apparently happened every 17 years. It is my opinion that while God can perform miracles, He gave us free will. It is our job to get things done, and He is just a guide. It is my opinion that He told them where to go and when to arrive at their location.
There was also a fact about a disease that killed off children in Egypt. The disease killed off young children in their pre-teen years. But no one knew about it for the longest time so the best way to explain it would be to call the disease the Angel of Death. Like any good fiction as well, the heros need to survive, so you take something strange like a lamb’s blood, something no one would suspect to be good, and you use it to save the good people.
After a lot of soul searching, I have come to the realization that there are just too many gaps in the Bible for it to be believed word for word. The Bible is just too simple of a book for my faith and understanding. For instance, why is there not coverage of the young adult years, those years before we pick up on him at the age of 30? What are we missing out on? I would think the gaps would scare the faithful readers because I have always believed that Jesus was just like any other kid, just not knowing He was the Son of God. And how much would it shake your faith to the foundation to find out that maybe Jesus was afraid of being the Son of God.
The Bible is a fine tool to follow if you want to know how to live your life. The stories, and the parts that I believe are an excellent example on how to live your life if you want to be a good person. Other things are there to explain, like Adam and Eve. And the end of the Bible, the Book of Revelations, is enough bloodcurdling fiction to scare you straight. (Who predicts anything, really? I remember Y2K.)
