Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: smith_c@ncsatl.uucp Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: 1 Kings 13 Message-ID: Date: 24 Nov 89 03:41:54 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: National Computer Systems, Atlanta, GA Lines: 31 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu On the FooBar debate: Without a Bible handy, it seems to me that Foo, a true prophet, was punished by God for failing to have confidence in the Lord. The Lord had given Foo true visions yet Foo trusted another prophet before he trusted in the Lord. Hmm, the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc., are always railing against the false prophets. Woe to you, Jeremiah says (I think), who go around saying, "Thus says the Lord," and it isn't true. If you dream dreams, say so; if you speak the words of the Lord, speak truly. Foo did not trust in the Lord because he assumed that another prophet's words were more valid than his own vision. The Lord doesn't ask trick questions or give out trick commands. Either you obey the Lord or you don't. God doesn't give out contradictory commands, the author of this passage seems to say. I'm not sure I always go along with that, though my understanding may be flawed. For example, God tells David to take a census of the people, and is pleased when David obeys him. The people rail against David, and God punishes David for conducting a census of the people. Censuses were generally unpopular since they were often used by rulers to give out "draft notices." Ditto the prophet of a foreign god, Balaam, who prophesied the words of Yahweh nonetheless, and then an angel of the Lord barred his way, and his donkey spoke to him, saying, "There's an angel there, dummy, go around him," or something like that because the angel was trying to kill him for obeying the word of God. I haven't figured out that story yet. -- Sincerely, gatech!ncsatl!smith_c [You might want to look at it. There's no particular question about why Foo is punished. The question is why Bar lied to him. Bar is said to be a prophet, and he reports his claim as a prophetic revelation. The rest of the passage shows him as a reasonably upstanding person. So the whole thing seems odd to many readers. --clh]