Originally posted by Steve K.:
I wish you were right about all the bibles being the same Author but they are not. They say the same thing in SOME places not in all. In SOME places they are COMPLETELY opposite.
Good DAY!
Overall, Steve, I am right... the Bible, any Bible, is about salvation and eternal life, about God's love for the universe (and I, for one, am not conceited enough to believe this wondrous love is just for Mankind but rather all sentientkind and all things, great and small, as has been already stated by writers greater than I).
The furor raised over minutiae by Bible literalists, KJVonlyites, and the like reminds me greatly of John Godfrey Saxe's wonderful poem on precisely this subject:
The Blind Men and the Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe
American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) based the following poem on a fable which was told in India many years ago.
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“ ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!׆
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
In the love of Christ,
--Ralph
