Good post, Steven.

I was at Huntington Beach pier this Saturday and saw Ray Comfort
http://www.livingwaters.com/pie.shtml
preaching to the crowd and
getting a lot of flack from one fellow.

As Ray Comfort used the 10 commandments to convince people that they
were liars, thieves, blasphemers, etc., this one guy started accusing
him of taking just one part of the Bible and ignoring the rest, and he
says "Do you offer up a lamb every month for Rosh Chodesh?" And Ray
Comfort asked him if he was Jewish, and the guy looked left and right
and then nodded his head. Ray said, "I'm Jewish too" and the guy quickly
said no, he wasn't because he was a Christian. Ray had a good answer,
and said a Chinese is still Chinese if he becomes a Christian, as does
anybody else. If a Jew is no longer a Jew, then what race is he, does he
suddenly become an Eskimo or something? Can a man change his race by
changing his beliefs? Paul said "I am of the stock of Israel" - and
Jesus and all the apostles were Jews also.

The guy then said he believed in a God of love that would not be as
harsh as Ray said, to put someone in hell for sin. And Ray pointed out
that this guy was really the one who was taking just part of the Bible
and ignoring the rest because God is clearly a God of justice in the Old
Testament. Ray did a great job.

There is a link on kahane.com to one of Meir Kahane's debates with
Dennis Pragger who said he was defending Judaism from Kahane's beliefs
(i.e., that Israel is for the Jewish nation, not for Arabs). After
enduring some pointed insults from Pragger, Kahane said, "I want to ask
you a question so our audience knows who we are dealing with here," and
he asked him if he (Pragger) believes the Bible is the very words of
God. Pragger said something like, "I believe the content we have to day
is consistent with the message of God that he probably gave Moses" and
that was it. Kahane cleaned his clock with that one. Kahane at least
took the Bible literally, and with that question he showed that Pragger
was an amateur lightweight, and despite his "conservative" reputation is
actually a "liberal" when it comes to the Bible.

The modern defenders of Judaism often fall in this category, and really
dance all around when you point out exactly what the Bible says. They
rush to alternate readings, alternate definitions of words, and
alternate interpretations given by their "learned sages" that twist what
the Bible clearly says. Bromberg's Rabbinic Bible was also compiled by a
literalist (Ben Chayam) who eventually got saved because of his fidelity
and belief of the words as written. I think Christians should be careful
not to mimic this "liberal" approach to their "conservative,
fundamentalist" readings of the Bible. The end never justifies the
means. If we can't say "I have the Bible God wanted me to have in my
language [The KJV] and I believe every single word of it without error"
then we become lightweight infidels like Pragger arguing over all the
mountain of historical and scholarly debate that never ends as long as
the question keeps being asked, "Yea, hath God said...?"