Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: phys-bb@garnet.berkeley.edu Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: 1 Kings 13 Message-ID: Date: 17 Nov 89 09:42:02 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 50 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [In article chl@m1.cs.man.ac.uk. (Charles Lindsey) asks about 1 Kings 13. There are two prophets, who he calls Foo and Bar. Foo is told to go home without eating or drinking. Bar says he has seen a vision, and it's OK to eat with him. So Foo does. Bar then denounces Foo for violating the Lord's word, and say Foo will die. He does. --clh] >1) Are we to take this story as it stands, or is it reasonable to postulate >that it got garbled sometime before the writer of Kings set it down? Well, both taking the story as it stands and postulating that it got garbled are reasonable, but intuition tells me that to say it's garbled just because it's confusing is a little hasty.i >2) If the story is taken as it stands, who was the true prophet? Foo? Bar? >Both? Neither? They were both prophets in that they both spoke forth the word of God. Foo spoke the word of God to Jeroboam speaking of doom to Jerry's house. Bar spoke the word to Foo holding Foo to his word that he would not eat in that house. I'm not sure what you mean by 'true prophet', but certainly both compromised, or had mixed motives. >3) I think Foo could justifiably claim that he had been "set up" (if he had >still been alive, that is). But if so who set him up? Bar? Or God? The latter >does not accord with my current beliefs about the way God interacts with his >people, although in the context of Old Testament thinking it can just about be >imagined. Whether or not he was set up is a minor point compared to the major point --which we must not miss here--that Foo, the man of God, was faithless to God when he ate with Bar. God told him not to, and yet he did. It reminds me of the story of the serpent telling Eve, "Did God really say not to eat that apple? He didn't really mean it. . ." >Now I do not think we can expect a single "correct" answer to these problems. >But there must be some range of "acceptable" scenarios that believers could >reasonably hold. Perhaps others on the net can help clarify this range for me. > >Charles Lindsey. Well, I've not come near to giving a complete answer, but I think it's worth thinking about. By the way, thanks for bringing up this chapter. It's nice to see other Christians not afraid to figure out what the Bible really means. phys-bb@garnet.berkeley.edu / ". . .into the narrow lanes, \ (John Warren) \ I can't stumble or stay put. . ." / [If you are willing to postulate that God is testing Foo, he might have given Bar the vision that Bar claimed. So it could be that eveyone is telling the truth. In that case, Foo was indeed set up, by God. --clh]