have just read your book again, you know I think its growing on me. I also think I need a life because I have read it way to many times. Anyway good work my friend, I swear its different every time I read it.

I think its about five or six now… I have lost count and it was a bit difficult to read because I have annotated quite vigriously in the margins, I’m such a relaxed person. 😆

I’m not sure why it is different, the words are obviously the same unless you are magic. Maybe different things resonate or confuse or baffle me every time. I think it has a slightly new meaning now that my own father has come out, I get it a bit more and it opens a window to a perspective that makes me uncomfortable to think about but for that very reason obviously needs to be considered.

*shrugs* the power of the written word will always amaze me 😀

Our subjective experinces do not negate the fact that, somewhere, there are absolute truths. The meaning of a text can vary depending on the authors intent, the author of the bible is God. One author, one scripture, one meaning.

Christianity becomes nothing more than a haphazard set of random belief systems if we all attempt to approach scripture through our subjective experience. I read Stalin’s speeches today and go “what a lot of propaganda” but the intent was to uplift the people, to encourage them to continue in their work for the good of Russia and the benifit of “father” Stalin. If I come at the text from my subjectivity it looses all its original meaning.

I am not trying to suggest any kind of correlation between Stalin and God, but the concept is the same. There has to be absolute truths, otherwise why even bother to be a Christian? What makes Christianity so special if it hinges on our subjectivity and not Gods?

I believe that our understanding of something can be hindered by our lack of experience, I will never really know what it is like to be a man because that isn’t apart of my experience. When we experince something new text on that subject can be enriched for us, we can identify with it, but the authors ultimate meaning has not changed.

Thats exactly what I was getting at Anthony and thats why I said it doesnt take away from what has been written. Fact is God didnt personally write the Bible, it was written by man via inspiration through the Holy Spirit or by at very rare times the audible voice of God. The gospels write of the life of Jesus and none of the four are exactly alike and you see some ways what Jesus said as perceived through the eyes of the author but again it doesnt change the basic message. Jesus was God on earth with us, in the flesh and the gospels give account of that, yet each author writes differently as they wished to tell or thought would be the most important things to record, I guess as John said, if they were to write everything Jesus said and did, no place in the world could contain the books, thats a lot of ground work in 3yrs of earthly ministry.

lol

Yeh might just do that, be great to write a review amongst all the others D