While I would agree that the original written word was given without error, I would not agree that Jesus, the Word, means the original written word. He is the Word, the expression of God's will and purpose and character, at the beginning (John 1:1-5) before there was any written word, before there was any creation.

Regarding Ezekiel 28:16-19, perhaps you have a doctrinal hangup because you don't want to read the passage as it was given and written, that it is a prophecy against the king of Tyre (28:1, 11). Virtually all recent translations present the verses you mention in the past tense, including the Jewish Publication Society (Tanakh) which is based solely on the Masoretic text. This is only an issue for you because you want to superimpose your own ideas about Satan and angels onto the passage. As an allegory, the imagery is consistent with the fall of Satan, which occurred in the garden, but as a prophecy, the subject is stated to be the ruler of Tyre.

Back to John 10:34, Jesus did not apply that to the Pharisees, he applied it to "them... to whom the word of God came" (10:35). Since the Pharisees read the Law from Moses' seat (Matthew 23:2) they should have paid attention to Psalm 82, where God's disapproval of those who received his word but did not follow it was expressed. Shouldn't we follow context in the scriptures so as not to make the same kinds of errors they did?

Perhaps if I had your idea of predestination I would think God unfair too, but the statement of scripture is that human life began when God formed a man of dust and breathed life into him and he "became a living soul". The flesh man comes before the spiritual man, and similarly subsequent human life begins in a mother's womb, as the Psalmist said, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." Ps 139:13 NIV As we live and grow, each of us chooses our way in this world, none of us are compelled to sin or condemnation. Pharaoh was not an innocent victim of a capricious God. Fifteen times the text in Exodus 7-14 mentions the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the first five times and seven times altogether it is Pharaoh who hardened his heart. Pharaoh and his people were already guilty of a great evil in regard to the Israelites and in regard to their idolatries. God determined to hold them accountable and set forth a lesson for their generation and many that followed. It was not in any sense a malicious act toward an innocent man or nation. But as Paul points out emphatically in Romans, God has the power, and authority, and right to do what he will with mankind. Similarly, God made his sovereign choice between Esau and Jacob based on his foreknowledge of these men before they were even born, but he did not compel or encourage Esau to become "godless" (Hebrews 12:16). God was not unkind to Esau, but he chose Jacob with a foreknowledge of what would be and extended mercy to him for the sake of the future that could be (the stress on God's mercy in Romans 9:10-16). Esau's outcome was prophesied but not determined by God. The outcome was based on Esau's choices. Otherwise, why warn us against being like him (again, Hebrews 12:16).

To know the outcome is not the same as to cause the outcome. God can know what will happen without being the cause of it. Even as a parent, I sometimes have known what my children were going to do or say, because I know my children. When I have known what they were about to do, whether I approved or disapproved, I did not by knowing become responsible for their choice or action, nor have I determined it for them. Scripture says that God knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10) and that he knows all our days before one of them passes (Psalm 139:16). God's sovereign choices are based on knowledge, not on determinism.

It does baffle me how you assert that God doesn't give second chances, but also seem to have a personal belief, quite apart from scripture that some beings are going to be recycled at least three times in different sorts of existence to determine their eternal fate. The Bible is rather more conservative about that. With to mankind we read "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him." Heb 9:27-28 NIV And regarding angels we have 2 Peter 2:4-9, "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; ... then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,..." NASU Once around for mankind, once around for angels, and that part is already a settled matter, the rebellious angels held in tartarus reserved for judgment. No incarnation for angels, no second or third go-rounds for angels or for men.

And back we go to the first chapters of Genesis. I wondered when we'd get around to the day-age idea for Genesis 1. Peter's statement in 2 Peter 3:8 says nothing about the days in Genesis 1 or any other Biblical day. I've never known anyone who wanted to turn Moses' 40 days on Sinai into 40,000 years, but to do so makes just as much sense as turning the days of Genesis 1 into periods of 1,000 years (or any other period than just what is said, a day). The first chapter clearly defines what it means by a day in verse 5. God had created light, and separated it from darkness (1:3-4). He called the light day, and the darkness night, and then, as defined, we are told "there was evening, and there was morning - the first day." The same formula, evening and morning, is used throught the first chapter to describe day by day. God was utterly clear and emphatic. Considering the cycle of light and dark, it becomes absurd to imagine days of vast duration, since plant life was brought forth on the third day (1:11-13), and plants depend on the regular daily cycle of light and dark. Similarly, when God made the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day, he directly connected them to the already established cycle of day and night, and said that they would mark seasons and days and years (1:14-20). Again and again the first chapter tells us that a day is a day. Of course, 2 Peter 3:8 doesn't say anything about this at all. Nor does it say, as people have too often twisted it, "one day IS a thousand years." Peter says there that with the Lord "one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day." Like, or as, meaning that God is not bound by time and can be utterly patient for his purposes, which is exactly what 2 Peter 3:9 goes on to say, "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." NASU

The use of the word "day" in Genesis 2:17 can be read quite literally. Death entered the world when man sinned (Romans 5:12-14). Man became subject to death that day. More than that, a real death occurred that day. Paul spoke of his own choice to sin in these terms, "Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good." Rom 7:9-12 NIV Paul was still living in a body (though subject to death) but he said when he sinned, he died. Likewise, when Adam and Eve sinned, they died.

Please notice, Louis, that Genesis 1:30, "it was so," is in reference to what God said he gave for food. The thought begins in 1:29. It is not in reference to what God told man to do in 1:28. It is not "and they did so."

It seems like beating a dead horse to comment yet again on Genesis 2:1. As you record, the Hebrew word for "host" there can be found 19 times in the Old Testament meaning the heavenly bodies. That is, the 18 verses you list plus this one, Genesis 2:1. The "am" ending points us to whose "host" is being described, namely the host of heaven and earth -- all those things described as being created in chapter one. The "host of them" is the "host of heaven and earth." Please see in your Hebrew text that Nehemiah 9:6 has this same form and usage, and give it a rest. God made it all, that's what Genesis 2:1 affirms, the whole vast array of everything created in heaven and earth was done at the end of six days, and it was very good.

And no, Adam wasn't "alive," to tell Moses his perspective. That is what writing is for. Moses isn't "alive" to tell me his experiences and revelations either. But I can read them.