Is the LDS Church really led by prophets?

[Ahab]

Rob said...

This from someone who will never believe what we do

[Rob Bowman]

semlogo,

I have no idea what personal revelation you think I claimed to receive. Something about "infinity"? I really can't recall any such revelation (let alone one "falsified mathematically").

Rob, I think this is an important point that you've overlooked. You claim to understand Jesus, but we have an example here in this forum where you received a personal revelation that is empirically wrong, and falsified mathematically. How can you explain this?

[Rob Bowman]

ELF,

I'm done with you. As long as you keep up this nonsense about me being dishonest, there's no point in me trying to reason with you further.

So, if I understand what you are attempting to say is that while you don't believe that Joshua was a Prophet, you still believe what the Bible say about him.

I find that to be quite dishonest. I say that you cannot reject Joshua as a Prophet, and still believe what the Bible has to say about him. Several people have shown you that Joshua was a Prophet. You have chosen to reject the evidence. The one simply does not allow for the other.

You can choose not to accept my position, but that doesn't make my opinion that you reject the OT Prophet Joshua any less valid.

[Ahab]

As I understand the term's usage in the Bible, a prophet is someone whom God has called to function in a public ministry as God's revelatory spokesperson, i.e., someone who speaks publicly on behalf of God to convey revelations from God to other people. Such a person publicly speaks in a mode of saying God's words with introductory expressions such as "hear the word of the Lord" or "thus says the Lord" or "the oracle that God gave" or the like. Joshua is something of a borderline case at best, according to this definition.

Why do you see him as "borderline" when he actually fulfills all of that criteria, including the fact that he has been called a prophet?

Joshua was the man God spoke to and through as God lead the house of Israel into the land God promised to them, and he made it clear on several instances that what he was saying had come from what God had told him.

Are you also a little fuzzy or borderline on the fact that the book of Joshua is a book of scripture that was written by Joshua, either personally or by his scribes?

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Where are you getting the idea that "Pundit" status indicates that he is a person who doesn't say things which are not true?

Just seems a lowering of the bar. But he does not like speaking to the likes of me.

[Ahab]

Just seems a lowering of the bar.

Not to me, according to what I understand a Pundit to be.

[zerinus]

Are you saying you don't see his insistence that Joshua was not a prophet as a rejection of Joshua as an OT prophet?

How much more clear does he need to be before you see that is what he is doing?

I got the impression that he initially made a mistake when he said that Joshua was not a prophet, but afterwards when it was explained to him he realized that he had made a mistake, but was being too obstinate to admit his mistake. Now, after reading his post #300, I am beginning to think that you may indeed have a point!

[Rob Bowman]

zerinus,

Jeremiah had much to commend him as a prophet of God. First, what he said agreed with the Scriptures already in Israel's possession, and in fact was a faithful proclamation of truth previously revealed. Second, Jeremiah boldly condemned his own government and people and (unlike some modern prophets!) was willing to go to prison and be persecuted for taking an uncompromising stand. Notice that these two points go together: had Jeremiah condemned his government because it interfered with his ungodly activity, that would not have been good evidence that he was a true prophet of God! Third, and closely associated with the second point, Jeremiah's role as a prophet brought him nothing of material or social value. He was not highly esteemed by any significant group of people in his own day; he had no devoted group of followers praising him and making him the central focus of their religious organization. The lack of any temporal benefit and indeed the negative repercussions, along with the fact that he spoke the truth as already revealed in Scripture, combine to make a strong argument that he was indeed a prophet of God. Of course, after the fact, we can all see that Jeremiah was indeed a prophet of God.

The people of Ninevah also had good reason to consider Jonah a prophet of God. Since there was no love lost between Jews and Ninevites, the fact that this Jew would preach repentance to the people of Ninevah must have been difficult to explain except on the view that he really was God's prophet. If they knew that Jonah was personally hostile toward the Ninevites, as we know from Jonah 4:1-2 that he was, that would only have underscored to them the fact that he was sticking his neck out to bring them a message he personally didn't wish to bring. In addition, the people evidently were aware that they did have much from which to repent, so Jonah's message rang true. Of course, if they had heard about what happened to Jonah at sea, they would have had even more reason to take his message seriously!

Your question rather misses the larger context of this thread, however. I concede that not every OT prophet has credentials proving his status that we can verify today. Some we can, some we can somewhat, and probably some we cannot verify. But this really doesn't get at the heart of the problem I have posed in this thread.

If you had lived in the days of Jeremiah, let's say, what evidence would have had to convince you that he was a prophet? What evidence do you think the people of Nineveh had that convinced them that Jonah had been a prophet, so much so that they believed in him and repented of their sins?

[Rob Bowman]

Ahab,

Regarding Joshua, you wrote:

Why do you see him as "borderline" when he actually fulfills all of that criteria, including the fact that he has been called a prophet?

CFR! Where in the Bible is Joshua called a prophet?

You wrote:

Are you also a little fuzzy or borderline on the fact that the book of Joshua is a book of scripture that was written by Joshua, either personally or by his scribes?

CFR again: where does the Bible say that Joshua wrote the book of Joshua?

[Kevin Christensen]

SNIP

I concede that not every OT prophet has credentials proving his status that we can verify today. Some we can, some we can somewhat, and probably some we cannot verify. But this really doesn't get at the heart of the problem I have posed in this thread.

Ahem. Perhaps this does, from my FAIR paper on Biblical Keys for Discerning True and False Prophets, which provides abundant references.

"Wherefore, by their fruits shall ye know them."

Claim a True Prophet must make:

[Vance]

How sad and pathetic that Rob's argument has reduced him to denying the prophetic status of Joshua.

[semlogo]

semlogo,

I have no idea what personal revelation you think I claimed to receive. Something about "infinity"? I really can't recall any such revelation (let alone one "falsified mathematically").

I have to apologize - I confused you with a different Rob! Sorry about that. I need to keep better track of who I'm talking to.

[Ahab]

Ahab,

Regarding Joshua, you wrote:

CFR! Where in the Bible is Joshua called a prophet?

I and other LDS have called him a prophet, and I have known other Christians who have called him a prophet, too.

Perhaps you misunderstood. I don't accept your idea that all things must be written in the Bible before someone can know that something is true, including whether or not someone is truly a prophet of God.

You wrote:

CFR again: where does the Bible say that Joshua wrote the book of Joshua?

Heh, so enlighten me, if you can, Mr. Pundit. If you don't think Joshua or his scribes wrote the book of "Joshua", who do you think wrote it?

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

How sad and pathetic that Rob's argument has reduced him to denying the prophetic status of Joshua.

That was just strange

[ELF1024]

That was just strange

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Heh, so enlighten me, if you can, Mr. Pundit. If you don't think Joshua or his scribes wrote the book of "Joshua", who do you think wrote it?

I think it was my son Joshua...wait he is only 31. I vote the old Joshua...you know the one who saw God with Moses and led the children of Israel into the promised land and parted the Jordan River.

[Vance]

The Book of Joshua,

So called not because he is the author, but because he is the principal figure in it. It describes1 the conquest of Canaan (chs. 1 - 12);2 the allotment of the land among the tribes and Joshua

[zerinus]

ELF,

I'm done with you. As long as you keep up this nonsense about me being dishonest, there's no point in me trying to reason with you further.

You are being dishonest. You know enough about the Bible to know that Joshua fulfills every requirement of being a great OT prophet. Your insistence that he isn't against your own better knowledge amounts to nothing less than dishonesty of the most blatant kind. You are being dishonest with yourself, not with us. Nobody round here is going to be persuaded by that.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

The Book of Joshua,

So called not because he is the author, but because he is the principal figure in it. It describes1 the conquest of Canaan (chs. 1 - 12);2 the allotment of the land among the tribes and Joshua

[Ahab]

The Book of Joshua,

So called not because he is the author, but because he is the principal figure in it. It describes1 the conquest of Canaan (chs. 1 - 12);2 the allotment of the land among the tribes and Joshua

[Ahab]

BTW

[zerinus]

Add this to that, which I think makes that even better:

He has already been given all of that and more, but turns a blind eye to it.

[Ahab]

He has already been given all of that and more, but turns a blind eye to it.

Something about a gift and a giver of a gift and a question asking what good is a gift to others who don't want that gift comes to my mind.

Oh, well. Different strokes for different folks.

[Rob Bowman]

semlogo,

No problem.

I have to apologize - I confused you with a different Rob! Sorry about that. I need to keep better track of who I'm talking to.

[Rob Bowman]

Ahab,

You wrote:

I and other LDS have called him a prophet, and I have known other Christians who have called him a prophet, too.

So, some guy not using his real name (I assume!) on an Internet forum calls Joshua a prophet, and that makes him one?

You wrote:

Perhaps you misunderstood. I don't accept your idea that all things must be written in the Bible before someone can know that something is true, including whether or not someone is truly a prophet of God.

Perhaps you misunderstood. I simply asked for references supporting the identification of Joshua as a prophet. "Ahab says so" wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

You wrote:

Heh, so enlighten me, if you can, Mr. Pundit. If you don't think Joshua or his scribes wrote the book of "Joshua", who do you think wrote it?

This forum apparently labels anyone with a certain number of posts a "pundit." It doesn't mean anything else, so far as I know.

I have no idea who wrote the book of Joshua. The best guess is that it was written sometime between the days of Samuel and Solomon, and it's really difficult to be more precise than that. It may have been edited centuries later into the more-or-less continuous narrative that we have in the books Joshua through 2 Kings. For a judicious introductory discussion of the issue, see, for example, Andrew E. Hill and John H. Walton, A Survey of the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000).