This is a conversation between me and a non believer in yahoo chat:

sherifair1: hello
sherifair1: happy thx giving
sunriseinbama: you too
sunriseinbama: did you have a good one?
sherifair1: yes
sherifair1: r u a christian ?
sunriseinbama: yes
sherifair1: sorry
sherifair1: i do not believe
sunriseinbama: why sorry
sherifair1: can u help me
sunriseinbama: oh, atheist?
sunriseinbama: where are you?
sherifair1: ca
sherifair1: oxnard,ca
sherifair1: i read a lot about juses,but my mind can not acceptthat he is the son of god
sunriseinbama: how old are you?
sherifair1: alot i asked the sky for somehelp
sherifair1: 30
sunriseinbama: are you american?
sherifair1: i'm lost
sherifair1: yes
sherifair1: my father and mother from uk
sunriseinbama: i c
sunriseinbama: well, to be a christian means that you have to believe that Jesus is God's son, you have to read the bible, and then you believe on faith
sherifair1: what u wanna to say,i'm a bad man ?
sunriseinbama: no
sunriseinbama: no way dear
sunriseinbama: I don't know you
sunriseinbama: gathering from your user id, I wasn't sure where you were from
sunriseinbama: I have a lot of foreign friends
sunriseinbama: if you see my profile, you will see the link to my web page
sherifair1: do u believe in the son of god ?
sunriseinbama: Yes
sherifair1: why god need a son
sunriseinbama: when you read the bible, it kind of comes to you, you feel different inside
sherifair1: alot i read
sherifair1: what is the difference between adam and juses
sunriseinbama: God sent His only begotten son to take away the sin of the world, to make a way to heaven
sherifair1: he can forgive us without killing his son
sherifair1: and why he need a son?
sherifair1: he is not like us
sunriseinbama: in the old testament days, animals had to be sacrificed to cover sins
sherifair1: and
sunriseinbama: but God sent Jesus to take away the sins of the world by shedding his blood on the cross
sunriseinbama: that all who believe in him, shall not perish but have everlasting life
sherifair1: again what is the difference between adam and juses ?
sherifair1: we can say adam also is the son of god?
sunriseinbama: Jesus has always existed with God in heaven as a spiritual being
sherifair1: why our book changed?
sherifair1: i hate the jewish
sunriseinbama: Adam was the first human created
sherifair1: i hate them
sunriseinbama: why?
sherifair1: they were the reason
sunriseinbama: ok, can I ask you this, in trying to understand more about you, are you a muslim?
sherifair1: i'm try to get it,but i'm a afraid
sunriseinbama: afraid of what?
sherifair1: it is strange
sherifair1: i read a part from the holy book
sunriseinbama: well, I am against the teaching of the muslims
sherifair1: it is different
sherifair1: in the bible always story and ( the man said,the juses said.........not direct word )
sherifair1: they did not believe in that book because it was changed
sunriseinbama: Jesus spoke in parables to give his listeners and idea of what he was talking about
sherifair1: why the book changed
sherifair1: i hated them
sunriseinbama: which book are you referring to?
sherifair1: bible
sherifair1: it is someone speak and tell about juses
sunriseinbama: The King James Version is the closest translation to the original transcripts
sherifair1: so how can we trust him
sunriseinbama: faith
sherifair1: may be he forget or cheat
sunriseinbama: faith is believing without seeing, just as you can feel the wind without seeing it, you know it is there, the same is true with God
sherifair1: jaims said in the bible that he got sex with boys,what is that mean
sunriseinbama: that is not in the bible
sherifair1: like the pain in mind without seeing it
sherifair1: but why god need a son
sherifair1: who was his wife
sunriseinbama: he has no wife
sherifair1: marry
sunriseinbama: he didn't need a wife
sherifair1: also need not a son
sunriseinbama: Jesus is spiritual
sherifair1: he can creat any
sherifair1: so why son
sherifair1: why not adam and eve
sunriseinbama: God created the devil also
sunriseinbama: Adam and Eve were created from the dust of the earth, Jesus was spiritual, not physical form until he came through Mary
sherifair1: and devil make us lost
sherifair1: we say about god that he have a son
sherifair1: we accept what the devil try to do
sherifair1: we did not even obey what the bible said
sherifair1: we did not even know what will happen after death
sunriseinbama: that is because we are flesh and the flesh is weak and gets tempted by the devil
sherifair1: do u think after we do every thing we wanna to do that juses come take us to the heaven?
sunriseinbama: if you have accepted Jesus, you will go to heaven
sherifair1: what about my mistakes
sunriseinbama: none of us are free from sin
sherifair1: so
sunriseinbama: as long as we are on this earth we are going to sin
sunriseinbama: but God sent Jesus to take away our sins if we ask him too, if we accept the truth that he is God's son
sherifair1: again we lost the way
sunriseinbama: Jesus made a way for us to go to heaven
sherifair1: he can forgive without his son
sherifair1: how come he saw his son be killed and doing nothing
sherifair1: that is not acceptable
sherifair1: where our mind
sunriseinbama: because He (God) knew it was the only way to save us (human beings); Jesus's blood had to be shed to pay the price for our sins
sherifair1: god need not a son and killed to forgive us
sherifair1: why
sherifair1: he can forgive without son
sherifair1: he can do any and every thing
sherifair1: we all of this story
sunriseinbama: well, number one you have to ask God to give you an open mind, and also to open your eyes to the truth
sherifair1: if we r going to the heaven already ,so what we doing here in the earth now?????????????
sherifair1: why all of this story
sherifair1: not eyes
sherifair1: but hearts
sherifair1: our hearts are blind
sunriseinbama: if we are not "saved" (confessing that Jesus is God's son and asking for forgiveness, and asking Jesus to come and live in our hearts) we will go to hell
sherifair1: open circle without the right answer ,why god need a son,why he accept to be killed ?what was his action?why all of this story?what we r doing here right now we suppose to be in the heaven right now ? what about the other profetsmoses..........?why he did not choose any one of them?god speak directly to moses but he did not to juses ,so why he suppose to his son ?
sherifair1: i think we need to fix our hearts
sherifair1: our believe
sherifair1: we are all lost the right way
sherifair1: we are listenning to the devil not to juses
sherifair1: juses never say in the bible that he is the son of god
sunriseinbama: He does too?
sherifair1: who wrote the book said ,not juses
sunriseinbama: God says in the bible, "this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased/"
sherifair1: not juses
sherifair1: the writer not juses
sunriseinbama: The books were written by prophets of God, then in the New Testament, were written by disciples and followers of Jesus after his death on the cross
sherifair1: this the story
sherifair1: that all the people listen to it
sherifair1: why we have differnt vesions
sherifair1: does the religion changed
sunriseinbama: a lot of it depends on where were raised and what we were taught
sunriseinbama: there are many different religions
sherifair1: which book u believe in
sherifair1: many religion???
sherifair1: so many gods?
sunriseinbama: yes
sunriseinbama: look at India, they have many Gods
sherifair1: one good and one religion
sunriseinbama: I mean gods
sherifair1: u lost the way
sherifair1: more than i lost
sherifair1: u need to fix ur believe
sherifair1: one god
sunriseinbama: my belief is that there is only one true God
sherifair1: one religion
sunriseinbama: and his son is Jesus
sherifair1: different gods
sherifair1: u make me laugh
sherifair1: i thought that u will guide me
sunriseinbama: are you trying to convince me that I don't need to be a christian or are you seeking my help?
sherifair1: help me and help ur self
sherifair1: we need the truth
sunriseinbama: I don't need help
sherifair1: we need the real book
sunriseinbama: I know the truth
sherifair1: the written one
sunriseinbama: and I have faith
sherifair1: fix it
sunriseinbama: Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven and eternal life
sherifair1: fix ur heart
sunriseinbama: I'll defend it to my death
sunriseinbama: my heart belongs to Jesus Christ
sherifair1: juses is the profet
sherifair1: not the son of god
sunriseinbama: you must be muslim
sunriseinbama: only muslims believe that
sherifair1: they make us in the wronge way
sherifair1: i'm try
sherifair1: believe me i'm try
sunriseinbama: well, friend, I've told you everything I can possible think of but you twist things around
sherifair1: this is a strange
sherifair1: they believe in every thing juses say ,but not i the written book
sherifair1: bye
sunriseinbama: Good luck my friend, I will say a prayer for you tonight, that Jesus will touch your heart and remove the blinds from your eyes so that you can see the truth


OK, where did I go wrong? I want to know the right thing to say if I ever encounter such questions again.

Why God needed a Son...

God is a Spirit. Sins can only be forgiven through a perfect human sacrifice. Only God is perfect. Jesus was God. He needed a Son in order to save man.

In the Old Testament the Jews would sacrifice lambs and rambs that were without blemish. They sacrificed them now to be forgiven of their sins but to postpone judgement. Postpone judgement until Jesus was crucified. Old Testament Christians were saved in believing that Jesus would come and take away their sins. New Testament Christians are saved by believing that Jesus came and took away our sins.

Only through His Son do we have salvation. When God looks at you (a Christian) he does not see you (the imperfect sinner). He sees his son.

The answer is LOVE. "for God so LOVED the world...."
God sent his only son out of love for us. H e sacrificed His son out of LOVE for us. He made a way for all mankind to have eternal life by showing the unltimate sacrifice(His own Son) of LOVE. God could not use any previous prophets or adam, or anyone becasue their sacrifice would have been blemished with sin, Jesus lived a perfect, holy life without sin and thus His sacrifice was PERFECT. God neveer has and never will accept a less-than-perfect sacrifice.
The person in the above dialog sounded atheist, new age or totally void of christianity. When online it is good to know some websites ro direct people to. They may not own a Bible. www.blueletterbible.org is very good.

I think that what the fellow was getting at was something like. "If God is all powerful, then why did he decide he needed to sacrifice his son to be able to forgive mankind of their sins?" And that is an interesting question. Saying that, "In the OT animal sacrifice was required and Jesus replaced that" is insufficient, then the question just changes to "why did God require animal sacrifice? He's all powerful, I'm sure he could have established a different plan."

So I think this is a good question, but I don't think anyone has given a good answer. The need for the sacrifice of the Son of God is unclear, unless there is some principle to which God (even though he be all powerful) also must abide, that required such an eternal and unending sacrifice.

I will get back on monday but the short answer is

A) it was ordained from the beginning
B) we needed a living breathing example that we could hold up as a litmus to test ourselves against, WWJD which should actually be WDJD (What DID Jesus Do) because there is not an instance you can refer to that Jesus did not teach about or go through himself.


Back in two days!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">A) it was ordained from the beginning</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Playing Devil's Advocate here, Why? Who ordained it? God? Why did he ordain it?

I guess the question of, "Why did God need a Son?" is more about why did God decide to do it that way instead of another? Which is a valid question.

Steve - answer part B is a good one, but just leads to another question - "Why couldn't someone else be that example?"

Someone might answer because Jesus was perfect, but he wasn't the only perfect person, the Bible does tell us that </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">1 THERE was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here's what I think - overcoming sin was only part of the equation. God needed to have a Son, because someone needed to be able to conquer death also. Maybe I'm crazy, but I believe that Jesus is the literal offspring of God and Mary - i.e. half-man/half-God. Only such a being has the power over life and death that Jesus had. Part of God's plan for us is to overcome death and be resurrected, the only one who could open that door was Jesus Christ, a man who had the powers of God. He laid down his life voluntarily and then took it up again.

Someone else can play devil's advocate now.

I lied about coming back.... everyone is napping so I have some free time


Ordained from the begining. </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
Revelation 13:8
All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast?all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">God ordained it. Why did HE need a son? HE didn't, we needed a savior. It would do no good (for our faith) for God to have come down as pure deity and sacrificed himself for us. It would've set an unbelievable example that most would give up on and cause disbelief. Without getting into a trinity argument it was also God that died on the cross that day.
I differ on Jesus's flesh being the result of a sexual act between Mary and God. The bible clearly mentions it was the Holy Spirit who 'caused' Mary to be with child.

The need for a savior to come from God resides in us being the cause of the divide between man and God (Adams sin) God rebridged the gap through his son being incarnate in a human form and living sinlessly. We could never achieve our divine destiny without God reaching back to us. We would never be able to save our wretched selves no matter how 'good' we were. Belief in Christ is the filter that permits one to return to God when this life is over vs the "other option"


Joel
(about Job. God had people who were disiplined throughout time and he rewarded them accordingly. See Abram, Noah, Lot, Elijah etc. Just a note the word 'perfect' that you quoted in Job is actually translated "Blameless" in modern english. It comes form the hebrew word (Strongs #8535) "et" which is transliterated into the more recent "tam" (pronounced 'tawm') which holds this definitions:
1. perfect, complete
1. complete, perfect
1. one who lacks nothing in physical strength, beauty, etc
2. sound, wholesome
1. an ordinary, quiet sort of person
3. complete, morally innocent, having integrity
1. one who is morally and ethically pure

I included all the options but in Job 1: it holds to definition 3. While that is close to perfect it is more correct to say blameless which would infer that if Job had made mistakes he properly sacrified to cover them according to OT Law.

Thanks for the responses; I love coming here. Here's what another reader wrote on a local forum here in Alabama:

Hi Southern,
Reading your post I can't help but think that the person you were conversing with was stringing you along. I could be wrong and hope I am but the person seemed more interested in confusing you than seeking understanding. Somehwere in 1st Corinthians it says that God is not the author of confusion. When there is confusion and if we believe God isn't the source then we know that man is the source of confusion. The person you were conversing with is likely of no faith. If what he/she says is true about the parents then I can understand why there is no faith. The English as a majority don't believe in God. I think the proper term they would use is "rubbish" when speaking of a faith. The person seems to show me that their interest wasn't in God because the questions asked weren't so much in regard to God as much as they were pointed to you as a person with faith. In other words, if we were talking about baking a pie and you were trying to tell me how to bake the perfect pie when in my mind I already knew how. I would humor you and play with you in an attempt to make you doubt yourself. This person wanted to anger you. You did good by not giving them what they wanted.
If you read Genesis the 1st chapter. You will notice that God gave Adam one rule to live by. You will also notice that God's creation went beyond the Garden of Eden. Did God know that Adam would transgress? Did God know that satan would be the result of the transgression? Why did satan confront Eve and not Adam? Why did Adam blame Eve for his transgression and Eve blame the serpent for hers? Those are some things for you think on and study the Bible for the answers.
God told Adam not if but when he ate of it he would surely die.
God doesn't speak of saving them but warned them of falling, leaving them a choice. God's words were clear and His one commandment was left with a choice.... To believe in God or not. Satan brought confusion into the scene and Adam and Eve both chose to listen to satan.
God already knew this would happen... If you continue to read the Bible you notice signs that indicate the coming of Jesus and the antichrist.
God didn't change His word because it would indicate confusion. Death was satan's desire because he could get the souls because God didn't speak of salvation for the soul. Death of man was satans gain... Maybe we had to wait for the right people to come along with the right hearts before Christ could be conceived righteously. Maybe we had to wait for things to change a certain way in order for Christ to be needed as a human. God needed a son because we needed salvation. God had Himself given us paradise and left it upto Adam and Eve to have a faith in God's word of which they discarded. A human had to come and live and set examples regarding God's word as being the only truth. This man had to be born, live and die in righteousness and this man also had a choice. Jesus could have allowed satan to tempt Him as Adam and Eve had allowed. Jesus chose God's word, which Adam and Eve didn't choose. The fall of Adam and Eve is our curse but the rise of Christ is our salvation. If Adam and Eve were another image, one of God, and they trangressed. Then Jesus would need to be in the image of man to save us all. Again we have a choice to believe in God's word according Jesus a man or to be confused according to satan. Satan is confusion and causes us to doubt God's word. Christ was strong enough to overcome satan's temptations and I am not aware of another human able to. Satan sought to take the life of Jesus and he used man, jews and gentiles, to accomplish this. I suppose satan didn't realize that in doing this, he was doing God's will and enforcing God's word and promises. Jesus had a choice to die or get off of the cross. He had a choice to be captured or not. IF he thought like we do, he had choices. Jesus didn't think like us and so He didn't have a choice because confusion is the other option. Today is nbo different for people as it was before Christ or during Christ.... We all have an option. If you know and believe that God is not the author of confusion and that satan offered confusion to Adam and Eve and then Christ, who was born of a woman who was born of sin. Then it would make sense that God needed a son, an example, an heir. Humans had thousands of years to look to God in faith and it wasn't until Christ, who through flesh, accomplished God's will and corrected the first transgression and all of the others that followed. We now can choose to believe in Christ and seek to understand how and why He died for us. Or we can choose not to. In other words we can be with God according to His word or we can be with satan according to his confusion. The difference is believing in God's word, His son and Righteousness or not. We seek understanding and or confusion, as people.
If you took a wire coat hanger and twisted as many times as you could in any and every direction that you could and set it on a table as a piece of artwork. Some would love it and others would seek to untwist it. If we see ourselves as that twisted piece of wire, some love it and others seek to straighten it. We can straighten it but only through the instruction and teaching of Christ based upon the word of God.
I hope I haven't confused you with this.
I would also suggest keeping a distance from the person you were conversing with because this person was seeking to twist what you have straight while being happy with being twisted himself.

Steve, I don't believe Jesus was the result of a "sexual act." But I do believe that God is literally his father.

Also all of those definitions, blameless included, essentially amount to someone who is without sin. I've never thought that it is impossible for man to be sinless. Maybe Job was just an exceptional human. While Jesus was perfect because he was the Son of God. I don't think it's fair to say Job couldn't have been blameless/perfect. I mean, he obviously had to have some incredible qualities to remain so.

but joel the bible clearly says in Romans 3:10-20

'10. As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;11. there is no one who understands,no one who seeks God. 12. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." 13. "Their throats are open graves;their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." 14. "their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." 15."their feet are swift to shed blood;16. ruin and misery mark their ways,17.and the way of peace they do not know."18. "there is no fear of God before their eyes." 19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law,so that every mouth may be silenced and the wole world held accountable to God. 20.Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

Verses 21-31 add to what i just typed out but my hands are a little tired, it talks about righteousness through faith but yet even that only comes through Jesus and even then we are not perfect because even after we are saved we as humans sin, we just regocnize our sin and ask for forgiveness again but because we are human(like i just said) we continue to sin. Jesus never sinned and He never needed forgiveness, thats why Jesus was the One and only. Because only He was completely perfect(even with his humanity and that only because He is God).

Then I guess those verses in Romans contradict Job 1.

Not my problem.

but thats the thing the bible doesn't contradict itself because its the inspired word of God and God doesn't contradict Himself. So the perfection is Job 1 has to be different.

Sure, I guess - if you say so. I think the language in Romans is ambiguous enough to allow for Job to be perfect. I also think that a Book that covers over 3000 years in History is likely to include some contradictions. These are not errors by God, but errors of men as they have done their best to preserve and distribute God's word. It happens.

Question: Paul states "As it is written..." at the outset of those verses. Exactly what scripture is he quoting?

Does he necessarily have to talking about another scripture, maybe, just maybe his meaning is more so "as it is written" mean as it is written at this moment. Just a thought.

Job 1 describes the man Job as a man lacking nothing . Not sinless.from the Hebrew word "tam" meaning more like complete and not lacking as a whole. to be complete, finished, whole, as the complete parts of a watch or a piece of machinery for instance. he was upright as a chief among his people,pious toward God,kind to his family, just to his neighbors,benevolent to the poor. The word perfect to describe him means utter simplicity,sincerity, being free from guile and evil intention toward anyone, having no part lacking in outward life,conduct or religion.
job actually made two great "mistakes" if you will... 1. claiming the Lord takes away, not charging the devil with bad times but charging God. and 2. Job 2:10 again blaming god for evil that happens to us. in Job 40:1-6 and 42:1-6 Job acknowledges his sin. In no way was he perfect as in Christ.

Joel33(and others), when Paul states " as it is written" he is quoting from multiple O.T. verses (Psalms.Ecclesiastes and Isaiah).If you need specific verses and cant locate them on your own, I can provide them in detail. God's word is perfect , inspired of the Holy Spirit written by hand by men and accurate and without flaw. A little study and deep searching always proves the fact. However, Joel, when you find something that supports your own belief system you choose not to look deeper, you just say "not my problem", when in fact it is. The simple fact that you do not beleive the Word of god to be infallible speaks volumes as to other things you do beleive that are contrary to the word of God.
If you were just being devils advocate (no pun intended) then good job.
Nabster

I've stated elsewhere that I believe the Bible to be translated correctly from the original at about a 98% efficiency ratio. I simply believe that errors of men have crept in over time. This is not rejecting the infallability of the Bible as I believe the original texts, were they available would be pure.

I also don't see what the problem would be with Job being perfect. I do agree that he made a couple of mistakes, but that was after Job 1:1 states that he was perfect. I guess that I would say the difference between Job and Christ was that Job was only perfect up to that point in Job 1:1 whereas Christ was perfect throughout his life. So yes, I do see a difference.

I would like specific references to what Paul is quoting and from where.

Thanks.

Romans 3 verses 10-18 as follows.
verses 10-12 are from Psalm 14:2-3 and 52:2-4
and Ecclesiastes 7:20. Romans 3 verses13-18 are from Psalm 5:9-10 and Psalm 10:7 , 36:1-2 , 140:3 and Isaiah 59:7-8

The only "problem" with any other man being 100% perfect is that it would contradict the scriptures that say Christ is the only man who lived without sin. I do beleive Job was as righteous a man as lived. And a shining example of how we should endure during trials and difficulties.
There are some translations in the KJV which could be debated about tense and grammar, but the translation is accurate. Even the O.T. when compared to dead sea scrolls was found to be perfectly accurate , even over hundreds and hundreds of years. I use a Hebrew greek study Bible and the Dakes annoted Bible as well as some other study materials to help me understand and locate origins and original word meanings etc. they are very helpful and enlightening and help me gleen deeper meaning than just a reading of the text. I highly recommend them. It is the Dakes bible I used to give the above scripture references and comment on Job's character.
Nabster

I agree, Job doesn't make it through the book of Job as 100% perfect, but at the outset, I think he was.

My problems with the Bible, as I've thoroughly revealed elsewhere. Stem from it's inception. I don't believe that the men who assembled the various holy writings that existed around 300 AD or so (when the Bible was first canonized) were without an agenda.

You cannot cite the Dead Sea Scrolls as support for biblical inerrancy - the dead sea scrolls contain many scriptural writings that are not included in the Canon of the Bible. Citing the Dead Sea Scrolls to authenticate that which stands in the Bible also condemns the Bible for not including all of its writings. Aside from that, the Dead Sea Scrolls can only be used to substantiate what is in the Old Testament - not the New Testament.

Moreover, the Dead Sea Scrolls are not "original texts" and since no original text exists, the notion that the Bible is infallible and unchanged is one that is based purely on faith. And that's fine, you are free to believe that it is 100% accurate. It is misleading, however, to imply that this has been scientifically verified.

Similarly, I am free to believe that changes have been made to the Bible over time and that perhaps there is other scripture that should have been included in the Bible, but wasn't when it was first compiled.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Joel33:

You cannot cite the Dead Sea Scrolls as support for biblical inerrancy - the dead sea scrolls contain many scriptural writings that are not included in the Canon of the Bible. Citing the Dead Sea Scrolls to authenticate that which stands in the Bible also condemns the Bible for not including all of its writings. Aside from that, the Dead Sea Scrolls can only be used to substantiate what is in the Old Testament - not the New Testament.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You *can* cite Dead Sea Scrolls as support for biblical inerrancy - it verifies the accuracy of scripture that was handed down separate from the scripture contained within the scrolls. The scrolls may have also contained a good recipe for pancakes - that doesn't mean it should have been in the Bible as well or negate the validity of the corroboration of common scripture.

Job's 'perfection' can easily be described as Steve did earlier - blameless. Noah and Abraham were described in the same way:

http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?passage=GEN+6:9;GEN+17:1;DEUT+18:13;&version=KJV

To put it in today's terms, we can be considered 'perfect' when we ask forgiveness for our sins. At that moment in time we are sinless, God has forgiven and forgotten them. Other than the asking and accepting, it's nothing we've done that makes us perfect, it's Christ's sacrifice - "What can make me whole (perfect/blameless) again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!"