NationStates Jolt Archive

i suppose so.
Oh, well. ;)

because they fought it out then and we take it on faith NOW, we dont need to hash it out again. it is what it is and only a miracle can add to it. or a bigass schism. every sect of christianity is its own authority for the bible and its interpretation.



it depends on what you mean by a newer version. if it means wholly new material, it would take something along the lines of the miracle that occurred when the ancient councils decided on the bible and got it right.
Wait, what was the miracle? That they agreed, or that they got it right? But how do we know they got it right?

(Frankly, if I had to label something "miraculous" it would be that they agreed on anything at all.)

where would this new stuff come from and why would we think it was the inspired word of god? it would require a very strict test--the kind of test that the book of mormon fails for all but mormon christians.

there can be new translations of the bible. as you know, there are many different translations in english alone. there was also an altering of the books of the bible by protestants at some point in time, making the catholic and protestant bibles different. <avoids saying something disparaging about protestants>.

but those are refinements on our understanding of the word of god. if he's not going to send us a new testament written in english, we have to do our best with what we have.
Exactly, but then, those refinements are the words of men, not of god. So, should they be used or not?

in the end, i believe that it is declared a matter of faith that must be accepted as true because it would be just too hard to go over and over and over the various possible christian texts and beliefs every generation. it was a viscious fight that no one wants to go through again.
I bolded the last part because I think it sums up the matter perfectly.

The fact is, the question "Who wrote the Bible" cannot be answered to the satisfaction of any of the parties who care, neither those who believe God wrote it nor those who want to prove he didn't. And as to the parties who don't care and have no business caring, such as myself, any answer, good or not, would be utterly irrelevant.

I don't really want to continue this because I don't want to keep sounding as if I'm critiquing Christians' beliefs. I am not. My questions were merely trying to get at the why of some people's fervent belief that it is vitally important for God himself to be the direct author of the books. More than anything else, the bolded statement above answers that for me. It does not make me think they are necessarily right, but it does help me understand why they feel so strongly about it.

My source is Torah, if I am talking about the oldest incarnation of Hebrew faith - because that is where most of the evidence is going to remain - what is left of it. I could look to the whole Tanakh, and do - if I am not specifically looking for information about the earliest period.

But, from reading the text, you can see that - whether or not the story is real (and thus, really chronological) there is a chronology to the writing of Torah texts. Genesis is obviously the text which had most of it written first, the early chapters of Genesis written before the later chapters, the first book before the second.

So - if I want to know what the belief was of the first Hebrew priesthood, most of my evidence is going to have to come from the very opening of Torah, and get progressively less and less 'weighted' as I read.

I'm not looking at interpretations - I am looking at the 'pure' text, such as it is.

And the oldest texts talk about human life as being three things - body, spirit and soul - none of which are suggested as lasting any longer than the life of the person. The only way one can live longer, is apotheosis - which (one assumes) returns us to the original Adamic state, and makes us 'like' God. We can't progress of survive past death - we can only have our life extended.

So - when we look at Sheol - why should we add to what is there? The raw meaning is the grave. Where would I borrow extra imagery from? It isn't a matter of adding my own interpretations - it is a matter of seeing what is there... a finite soul, a finite spirit, a finite flesh. In that context, 'the grave' probably means 'the grave'.

(By the way, the 'culture' which I am a product of is an accumulation for Christian traditions on top of somewhat lapsed Judaism... my mother is C of E, but her father was Jewish.)

I could look for reasons to assume that early Hebrew religion DID have an afterlife... but there is nothing in the pure text to support it. If one looks at Christianity, an example of a religion which plays a strong 'afterlife' suit... there is a lot of repetition of the specifics of the afterlife - how to get there, how this life effecs it, what happens if you are bad. On the contrary, Torah shows a very direct approach - no explanations of how to 'get there', nothing about what we can do to affect it.

If one looks at the laws, the laws affect human existence, and are punished within the scope of human existence. Where a 'crime' is greater than one life is worth, there is no mention of eternal damnation - instead, the punishment continues on to the next generation. It is hard to read Torah as a text that allows for afterlife.

And, I'll admit - there seems to be a tendency to read these old texts that way - but I think that is because the whole Tanakh is considered, rather than looking at Torah in isolation, as a window to the earliest, purest form.
You, yourself, are interpreting the text as you read it. You can never read any text "in isolation" because its isolation is broken by the presence of your own thoughts. My own approach to primary documents research is to place them, as much as I can, into the context(s) in which they were created and have been used. I do this hoping to dilute the influence of the context that will inevitably be created by my own personal experiences, biases, beliefs and expectations. So I personally disagree with your statement that your understanding of Torah is free of modern, post-Christian influence because you have looked at it "in isolation." The fact is that, despite your good-faith efforts, I still see a lot of Greek thinking in your descriptions of what ancient Jewish beliefs were.

I bolded that one paragraph, however, because I wanted to say that, viewing the writings in their broader cultural and theological contexts, and especially in the context of Judaic critique and analysis of scripture, what you describe there is just the beginning of theological arguments that suggest to me, very strongly, a particular conception of what the human soul is -- especially in relation to God -- that in fact does allow for an afterlife belief. But as I said earlier, it is far, very far from the one held by the Greeks. It requires a person raised in a post-Hellenic culture to reconsider, first, their conception of what the "self" is and to question whether it is tied in any way to individual identity. It also requires a rethinking of what "life" is, what living beings are, what God is and what God does. It suggests a relationship between people and God that is radically different from anything in Greek thinking and, therefore, anything in Christian or Islamic thinking.

When I made that remark about what culture produced you, I did not mean your religious upbringing. I believe you were raised and lived most of your life in the UK and now live in the US. I assume you were educated in the UK and participated in family and social life there. British culture most certainly is heavily influenced by Hellenism and Christianity. You can thank the Romans for that. So, no matter what, your thinking starts from the very base you were decrying because it is the cultural matrix that defined and defines your social reality. You must constantly be aware of it and strive against it when trying to understand cultures that were not so influenced.

For instance, I keep seeing in your remarks about afterlife a suggestion of what "afterlife" means. Your remarks about it seem to take their form from a set of expectations of what "afterlife" is supposed to be and what it is supposed to entail. What I am suggesting is that a set of afterlife beliefs that do not conform to that, will still be afterlife beliefs as long as they are beliefs about things that happen after life.

I continue to assert that Jewish beliefs do include ideas about things that happen after we are dead that are more complex than "the grave and then nothing." Unfortunately, to go into them here would hijack the thread into a discussion of esoteric religion that is waaaaay beyond the scope of the thread topic.

Not necessarily the way it should be. As I said, Alma's quote was along the right lines rather than perfectly explaining the result.

<snipping a brilliant post merely to save space>

We can learn much from it, even if we don't believe a word of it.

Thank you, Myu, for that excellent and cogent post. :)

Not necessarily the way it should be. As I said, Alma's quote was along the right lines rather than perfectly explaining the result.

The idea is that it's to be treated as a work of literature (albeit by divine inspiration). The story is, on one hand, just that, regardless of whatever else it might be. The main characters are not always heroes, nor are the losers always villians. Sometimes well-intentioned individuals get things horribly wrong, and sometimes the most foul people manage to cause a lot of good. But there's always a story to be told with lessons to be learned, even where the stories themselves can be thought of as fiction. Of course, they may not be, but to all intents and purposes, this need not necessarily matter.

Essentially, the Bible, like the personal faith of modern Christians, is being viewed by this "allegorical orthodoxy" as written both as a result of and to describe the many responses of people to the God therein rather than as a definitive account of any such individual. The Psalms, to many, embody the spirit of the text, and it is no surprise that they occur right in the centre of the narrative. In a world where Religious Experience is commonplace, such a story can speak to people on so many levels.

(Personal interpretative example time - You can stop reading if you don't want to see one such idea)

For the Old Testament, this seems obvious. Check it out; so many different attempts to understand this figure that, at first, appears to be so obviously defined in the history of the Jewish people (within the story). And yet none of them seem satisfactory, as even the most casual reader will notice.

A formal challenge to these approaches is found in the New Testiment and its build up with the supposition of the incarnate God. Jesus as a character responds to God in a way that on one hand makes sense to us from an ethical perspective and also moves the story along by consciously undermining the established doctrine of the temples. It leaves their notions exposed and humiliated, and a new kind of response to this redefined God appears as a result of the work of Paul and his followers; a response that is not itself without criticism, given the reluctant to drop the old ways of law and custom, and the frustration and dischord among the disciples of Jesus in deciding what to do can be seen throughout the Acts regardless of how they see themselves.

But Jesus as a character strikes a chord; we, too, begin to see precisely where things are going wrong, and as Jesus is brutally savaged, we get a rare glimpse into just how much pain it must cause this person to understand that the very thing he wanted to teach them in the first place has become their bitter enemy. Of course, his divine powers serve as a useful literary device in ensuring that he gets the last laugh and that, in the process of his own rebirth, he gives his wishes for the world a second chance.

Again, it does not need to be actually true in reality in order for this challenge to be appropriate within its own scope. This is a story about peoples' attempt to understand and relate to a proposed divine being. It has morals to tell about how easy it is to get things wrong, it gets us thinking about what we think the laws and moral codes of our society really are, but it's ultimately a powerful story about firstly a figure in a position of great power and responsibility and secondly about how the subjects and servents of this figure relate to it. We can learn much from it, even if we don't believe a word of it.Again, what allegorical meaning does the killing of 450 non-Yhvh priests on Elijah's order have? What can you learn from this story, even if you don't believe a word of it? Mind to point out the morals there?

Again, what allegorical meaning does the killing of 450 non-Yhvh priests on Elijah's order have? What can you learn from this story, even if you don't believe a word of it? Mind to point out the morals there?
Sure, though I did allude to such a meaning in my earlier post. To people wondering about what Beleriand is talking about, the story of Elija challenging the priests of Baal to a contest of Gods is what leads to this outcome:

Then Elijah commanded them, "Seize the prophets of Baal. Don't let anyone get away!" They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there.
The allegory is a story telling you about a religious man that, in holding himself to be divinely justified, went on a mass freakin' slaughter. That he has done the wrong thing would seem to me to be almost certain, and I find it extremely difficult to read anything else out of that, but it is also the case that, although he is behaving incorrectly, the divinity lying behind him is also certain (within the scope of the allegory).

We can easily draw parallels with similar stories in our everyday lives about times when we think we're right with such absolute certainty that we refuse to even so much as give our opponents the air to breathe. NSG discussions, for example, are very clear applications of the allegory, where individuals not only believe but believe with absolute and unshakable conviction, and as a result their time here devolves into mudslinging, flame wars and the inevitable finality of a permanent ban from the forums.

One moral of the story is that being people can turn into complete monsters based on a verifiable truth they have ascertained, even where this truth need not back up their actions. All that happened in Elijah's case was that God proved its existence to them. Our certainty that we believe in the right things does not mean we will always behave in the right way, and even when faith in our systems and our experiences is unshakable, we need to remain mindful of our thoughts and deeds to ensure we are not allowing ourselves to be driven to evil.

I think, anyway, that this is a lesson we all need to learn. And, whether or not a historical Elijah actually did kill 450 Baal priests after demonstrating palpable evidence of his God's existence, this lesson remains appropriate.

The allegory is a story telling you about a religious man that, in holding himself to be divinely justified, went on a mass freakin' slaughter. That he has done the wrong thing would seem to me to be almost certain, and I find it extremely difficult to read anything else out of that, but it is also the case that, although he is behaving incorrectly, the divinity lying behind him is also certain (within the scope of the allegory).

We can easily draw parallels with similar stories in our everyday lives about times when we think we're right with such absolute certainty that we refuse to even so much as give our opponents the air to breathe. NSG discussions, for example, are very clear applications of the allegory, where individuals not only believe but believe with absolute and unshakable conviction, and as a result their time here devolves into mudslinging, flame wars and the inevitable finality of a permanent ban from the forums.

One moral of the story is that being people can turn into complete monsters based on a verifiable truth they have ascertained, even where this truth need not back up their actions. All that happened in Elijah's case was that God proved its existence to them. Our certainty that we believe in the right things does not mean we will always behave in the right way, and even when faith in our systems and our experiences is unshakable, we need to remain mindful of our thoughts and deeds to ensure we are not allowing ourselves to be driven to evil.

I think, anyway, that this is a lesson we all need to learn. And, whether or not a historical Elijah actually did kill 450 Baal priests after demonstrating palpable evidence of his God's existence, this lesson remains appropriate.What? The morals in this story is that killing in the name of God is a good thing. After all, it is Elijah who is rewarded in the end. So the message in this clearly is: "to kill an infidel is not murder, it is the pathway to heaven", a justification used in the Crusades. And as you say, it does not really matter whether a historical Elijah actually did kill 450 Baal priests after "demonstrating palpable evidence of his God's existence" (as if), the lesson remains about what kind of mind the Jewish god and all his followers in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are. Submit or die.

What? The morals in this story is that killing in the name of God is a good thing. After all, it is Elijah who is rewarded in the end. So the message in this clearly is: "to kill an infidel is not murder, it is the pathway to heaven", a justification used in the Crusades. And as you say, it does not really matter whether a historical Elijah actually did kill 450 Baal priests after "demonstrating palpable evidence of his God's existence" (as if), the lesson remains about what kind of mind the Jewish god and all his followers in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are. Submit or die.
I think you're seeing something there, which is that the "Submit or die" mindset is, quite frankly, ethically reprehensible, and that here we have a clear cut example of such reprehensible action being displayed by people who supposedly represent and think they are justified by the God they're trying to portray.

But I also think you're missing the fact that the perspective is deliberately skewed to the viewpoint of the person or people who are at the time narrating the story to us, which prevents you from viewing it as an allegory for anything other than what the "fundamentalist" Christians say that it must mean. The story is told, at this point, from the view of the old Jewish order, and as such we can't treat the narrator as the unquestioning and neutral truth of what takes place during the story but rather must look at them as a character in itself. They are going to see the events and understand them in the way that they are talking about; under the flag of supposed justification.

Of course it's appalling. This is what the people in the story believed was the right response, and to us this feels not only wrong but actually genuinely evil. But in our literary analysis rather than literal analysis, we can realise that just because they think they're being rewarded for doing the right thing does not actually mean they are either being rewarded or doing the right thing.

As you read on in the tale of what happens to them next (with the narrators constantly switching around and applying their own filters), those very people are subjected to challenge after challenge after challenge that they completely fail to deal with, and we can see that they have been making several serious errors in this notion of divine authority that they believe is theirs by birthright. And yet somehow that thread of God-granted universal superiority survives time and time again. No rational challenge seems to shake it, no amount of false repentence keeps it from coming back into power. Even in the world painted in the story where God exists in a very real and active sense, this zealotry to the Temples occurs and is no less mistaken.

There are so many parallels to be drawn here with how the religious respond to God in today's world. The qualities we see in Islam and Christianity as collective bodies today often echo the legalistic and political selection in perception and justification that is being so plainly demonstrated, in this very story, to lead to murder, and in other cases to oppression, control and war. That they continue to tell this story to justify their own collective expansion and control in spite of this understanding is perhaps the most shocking example ever that what it has to say has very real and immediate application.

But as I said earlier, it is far, very far from the one held by the Greeks. It requires a person raised in a post-Hellenic culture to reconsider, first, their conception of what the "self" is and to question whether it is tied in any way to individual identity. It also requires a rethinking of what "life" is, what living beings are, what God is and what God does. It suggests a relationship between people and God that is radically different from anything in Greek thinking and, therefore, anything in Christian or Islamic thinking.

Even Christianity and Islam --and in ancient times, Greece --have their mystics.

Just a question that has been in my head... we are often told Moses wrote the first five books - but there is no reason to believe he could read OR write, lest of all in Hebrew. Also - the fifth book describes the funeral of... you guessed it... Moses. So - it's unlikely he is the literal author of that scripture.

Much of the Old Testament is very reminiscent of other, earlier, scripture and texts from neighbouring cultures... so we should perhaps suspect some influence.

None of the four Gospel texts have names on the original Greek texts, so - and names attached to them are 'best guesses'.

So - why do we 'believe' we know who wrote the books?


The other question is - we are also told that God 'inspired' the whole thing - but again, why do we believe this? Isn't it equally likely that the whole history of Christianity has been a trick, and the text was actually dictated by Satan himself?

As far as the Torah goes, it was not written down for the first 800 years - it was passed on as an oral tradition, much as the modern Koran is memorized in many areas where copies on paper are not freely available.

They memorize the Koran in the madrassas primarily to carry on this tradition - memorization without interpretation.

Not sure how accurate this is at retaining information, but that's why the Torah actually is musical, and is literally sung, instead of just being read. The tune is a mnemonic.

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/3176/hebrewbiblebookstimelinss2.th.gif (http://threetwoone.org/diagrams/hebrew-bible-books-timeline.gif)

Oh no! Someone posted a tiny graphic at me! :o

You, yourself, are interpreting the text as you read it. You can never read any text "in isolation" because its isolation is broken by the presence of your own thoughts. My own approach to primary documents research is to place them, as much as I can, into the context(s) in which they were created and have been used. I do this hoping to dilute the influence of the context that will inevitably be created by my own personal experiences, biases, beliefs and expectations. So I personally disagree with your statement that your understanding of Torah is free of modern, post-Christian influence because you have looked at it "in isolation." The fact is that, despite your good-faith efforts, I still see a lot of Greek thinking in your descriptions of what ancient Jewish beliefs were.

I bolded that one paragraph, however, because I wanted to say that, viewing the writings in their broader cultural and theological contexts, and especially in the context of Judaic critique and analysis of scripture, what you describe there is just the beginning of theological arguments that suggest to me, very strongly, a particular conception of what the human soul is -- especially in relation to God -- that in fact does allow for an afterlife belief. But as I said earlier, it is far, very far from the one held by the Greeks. It requires a person raised in a post-Hellenic culture to reconsider, first, their conception of what the "self" is and to question whether it is tied in any way to individual identity. It also requires a rethinking of what "life" is, what living beings are, what God is and what God does. It suggests a relationship between people and God that is radically different from anything in Greek thinking and, therefore, anything in Christian or Islamic thinking.

When I made that remark about what culture produced you, I did not mean your religious upbringing. I believe you were raised and lived most of your life in the UK and now live in the US. I assume you were educated in the UK and participated in family and social life there. British culture most certainly is heavily influenced by Hellenism and Christianity. You can thank the Romans for that. So, no matter what, your thinking starts from the very base you were decrying because it is the cultural matrix that defined and defines your social reality. You must constantly be aware of it and strive against it when trying to understand cultures that were not so influenced.

For instance, I keep seeing in your remarks about afterlife a suggestion of what "afterlife" means. Your remarks about it seem to take their form from a set of expectations of what "afterlife" is supposed to be and what it is supposed to entail. What I am suggesting is that a set of afterlife beliefs that do not conform to that, will still be afterlife beliefs as long as they are beliefs about things that happen after life.

I continue to assert that Jewish beliefs do include ideas about things that happen after we are dead that are more complex than "the grave and then nothing." Unfortunately, to go into them here would hijack the thread into a discussion of esoteric religion that is waaaaay beyond the scope of the thread topic.

I'm not bringing some 'post-Greek' or 'post-Christian' understanding of 'afterlife' to the material. My only definition for 'afterlife' in this context is 'something that happens after life'. Looking at Torah - that's nothing - unless you include the getting buried bit, to which, one assumes, the 'victim' is not especially cognisant.

I'm not corrupting my thought processes with my cultural matrix - I ignored my upbringing, and focused solely on the text. If the text says 'you die, that's it' it doesn't matter to me what my Catholic father thought - it doesn't impact the material. You say you read in context of the time - I say... how can we honestly know anything about the time? The only source we have is Torah - so I have to read it in isolation.

I agree that "Jewish beliefs do include ideas about things that happen after we are dead that are more complex than "the grave and then nothing." However - I don't think the evidence supports us assuming that this current structure has historically always been so.

Oh no! Someone posted a tiny graphic at me! :oAnd you don't click on tiny graphics to get them in a larger version?

And you don't click on tiny graphics to get them in a larger version?

I tried that. I tried stretching it, too. To no avail. You sent me a picture of some evidence, which is nice... but not the same thing as 'some evidence'.

I feel I should be using the phrase "much more betterer" in there somewhere. And, "You're not making any sense".

I tried that. I tried stretching it, too. To no avail. You sent me a picture of some evidence, which is nice... but not the same thing as 'some evidence'.

I feel I should be using the phrase "much more betterer" in there somewhere. And, "You're not making any sense".Then you must indeed find out all by yourself when the respective parts of the Tanakh were written, since you don't trust nobody else. Until then you are of course forced to think that the biblical texts were indeed written in the sequence they are published.

I tried that. I tried stretching it, too. To no avail.
For what it's worth, you can remove the ".th" extention in the file name to expand it. :cool:

Then you must indeed find out all by yourself when the respective parts of the Tanakh were written, since you don't trust nobody else. Until then you are of course forced to think that the biblical texts were indeed written in the sequence they are published.

Have you read any of the books that come after "The Wizard of Oz"? After the 'Wizard' relinquishes his claim on the throne of the Emerald City, Dorothy's friend The Scarecrow reigns in his place. He becomes a kind of king of scarecrows - the very definition of a strawman, you could say.

Ok you know what? Just because you choose not to beleive dosn't mean we all have to. I mean, of all the faiths their are, from Dublin to Toykyo and from Moscow to Mecca, I find it seriously saddining and troubleling that some of you happen to beleive that the human race occurd by accident. Their is no way we have survived the past 14 thousand years of our recorded history without some sort of divine help. Their has to be something out there that keeps mankind from destroying itself every 1/2 cebtury. I mean, if you can't beleive in god, beleive in your species and our right to rule over this planet. More to come

For what it's worth, you can remove the ".th" extention in the file name to expand it. :cool:
?? just clicking on the thumbnail should do.
and that would lead you here: http://threetwoone.org/diagrams/hebrew-bible-books-timeline.gif

Ok you know what? Just because you choose not to beleive dosn't mean we all have to. I mean, of all the faiths their are, from Dublin to Toykyo and from Moscow to Mecca, I find it seriously saddining and troubleling that some of you happen to beleive that the human race occurd by accident. Their is no way we have survived the past 14 thousand years of our recorded history without some sort of divine help. Their has to be something out there that keeps mankind from destroying itself every 1/2 cebtury. I mean, if you can't beleive in god, beleive in your species and our right to rule over this planet. More to come

We have no right to rule this planet. Dinosaurs were the dominant species on this planet hundreds of millions of years ago. They died out, something else replaced them, something else replaced them, and so on and so forth until here we are. And when we die out, which we will eventually do, something else will replace us, and the world will go on.
We have no claim to the rulership of this planet besides our own twisted view of might makes right.

Ok you know what? Just because you choose not to beleive dosn't mean we all have to. I mean, of all the faiths their are, from Dublin to Toykyo and from Moscow to Mecca, I find it seriously saddining and troubleling that some of you happen to beleive that the human race occurd by accident. Their is no way we have survived the past 14 thousand years of our recorded history without some sort of divine help. Their has to be something out there that keeps mankind from destroying itself every 1/2 cebtury. I mean, if you can't beleive in god, beleive in your species and our right to rule over this planet. More to come

I disagree. I think humans are fairly adaptable... and that, even though lots of them die from time to time, there is no really good reason to suspect we would all have died out without 'divine' help.

If that's the best argument there is for a 'god' or 'gods' (especially considering how many humans have been killed in the name of a god or gods), I think it makes a pretty good argument for a godless world.

Men wrote the Bible but it was inspired by the God.

Men wrote the bible, but when you look at it, it describes the roman empire... It were just christians prophetising the end of the Roman empire, one who opressed them, nothing more. 666 means NERO the emperor at the time thought to be the time the bible was written. Armegedon are the "barbarian hords" bringing rome to its knees. etc etc.

-snip-
Don't just be troubled. Use the motivation of your sadness to try to work out why people think what they do and then work out how to address their concerns.

I don't really want to continue this because I don't want to keep sounding as if I'm critiquing Christians' beliefs. I am not. My questions were merely trying to get at the why of some people's fervent belief that it is vitally important for God himself to be the direct author of the books. More than anything else, the bolded statement above answers that for me. It does not make me think they are necessarily right, but it does help me understand why they feel so strongly about it.

our little discussion has bumped up against what i consider to be the central problem of christianity--that is has to be TRUE.

this is why there is so much bitter fighting between christian sects. it is essential to get it right. you get it right by having your opinion agree with scripture and the other guy's opinion disagree with scripture. every time you see someone prove that....infant baptism is a bad practice....they pull out the bible and start quoting scripture that supports their view. if you are WRONG, you might well end up offending god and be damned for it.

it is therefore essential that the bible be correct. there is no other way to figure out the will of god. guessing isnt good enough. for a christian the bible is the bottom line of correct belief.

well theres the problem eh? we know that there were dozens of other christian books floating about the roman empire at the time of the council of nicea. we dont even know who wrote most of those books. we know that the men who made the decisions of what to put into the bible were no wiser than people are today. we know that there were many competing views of jesus, his ministry and his divinity. we know that politics played a big part in forming the christianity that ended up accepted as orthodox--pro-roman, anti-jewish, anti-"feminist", i could probably come up with more.

objectively there is NO reason to think that anyone got it "right". it can only be taken on faith that the stories of jesus bear any resemblance to an actual person who existed 2000ish years ago. and further, since most of the stories of jesus are obviously cribbed from other sources, it is unlikely to be objectively true.

the need pull the truth out of a book that cannot BE true is, in my opinion, an insurmoutable problem.

Men wrote the bible, but when you look at it, it describes the roman empire... It were just christians prophetising the end of the Roman empire, one who opressed them, nothing more. 666 means NERO the emperor at the time thought to be the time the bible was written. Armegedon are the "barbarian hords" bringing rome to its knees. etc etc.

I could argue this but I am going to use wise discretion and not to.

Ok you know what? Just because you choose not to beleive dosn't mean we all have to. I mean, of all the faiths their are, from Dublin to Toykyo and from Moscow to Mecca, I find it seriously saddining and troubleling that some of you happen to beleive that the human race occurd by accident. Their is no way we have survived the past 14 thousand years of our recorded history without some sort of divine help. Their has to be something out there that keeps mankind from destroying itself every 1/2 cebtury. I mean, if you can't beleive in god, beleive in your species and our right to rule over this planet. More to come

larger type doesnt make your post better.

so what "god" is implied by our amazing 14,000 year run?

Men wrote the bible, but when you look at it, it describes the roman empire... It were just christians prophetising the end of the Roman empire, one who opressed them, nothing more. 666 means NERO the emperor at the time thought to be the time the bible was written. Armegedon are the "barbarian hords" bringing rome to its knees. etc etc.

yeah, ive read that about the book of revelation but what about the other 72 or so books?

Who Wrote "the Bible"?



God wrote it of course ! I'm hoping the original is found someday so I can get a look at his handwriting.

It could be true, I dont know, nobody knows. Fact is there are many people who say things and are believed by thousands sometimes million, who in the end turn out to be scammers. The bible was written by men a while after Jesus died, stories often get exagurated, they often are. Everybody from that time is dead. There were scammers in those times too. Just because it was written 2000 years ago doesnt make it true, or because its from a book. Because then I could write a book saying jesus never existed and thus make it true.

It's all so vague and many cult followers were absolutely convinced to the bone that their religion was correct when they were proven to be nothing more then suicidal.

I made a choice to not follow a book blindly written by people who could easily have been scammers or just mad at the roman empire. I dont want to be caught thinking just one second after death: "shit there really is nothing is there? did I just devote my life to emptieness?"

the need pull the truth out of a book that cannot BE true is, in my opinion, an insurmoutable problem.
I would contend that it is impossible to pull the truth out of any book, whether true or not, but that pulling truths out of a book, even one that is not an accurate and authoritive source of history or whose actual contents make an apparently flawed attempt to depict truth itself, on the other hand, is very much possible. I have made an attempt at an example of it myself the past few pages.

Now, such Truth is not always singular, and it is perhaps this that you feel uneasy about. What an institution of literary analysis of Biblical truth will do is to explicitly force people to acknowledge that they're going to have to scout out different meanings for themselves and to yield these meanings to investigation by others. No more "Bible says this, so I win" type arguments can hold ground in the light of historical skepticism, since there will inevitably be a multiplicity of meaning coming out of discussion and meditation on it. But this scenario has existed bibically for as long as we can remember; the Bible yields support for many opposing ideas and beliefs without lending itself particularly to any given one of them. All the shakeup will do is to displace people who hold the easy "truths" as given straight there on the page to be the Bible in its entirity.

I would contend that it is impossible to pull the truth out of any book, whether true or not, but that pulling truths out of a book, even one that is not an accurate and authoritive source of history or whose actual contents make an apparently flawed attempt to depict truth itself, on the other hand, is very much possible. I have made an attempt at an example of it myself the past few pages.

Now, such Truth is not always singular, and it is perhaps this that you feel uneasy about. What an institution of literary analysis of Biblical truth will do is to explicitly force people to acknowledge that they're going to have to scout out different meanings for themselves and to yield these meanings to investigation by others. No more "Bible says this, so I win" type arguments can hold ground in the light of historical skepticism, since there will inevitably be a multiplicity of meaning coming out of discussion and meditation on it. But this scenario has existed bibically for as long as we can remember; the Bible yields support for many opposing ideas and beliefs without lending itself particularly to any given one of them. All the shakeup will do is to displace people who hold the easy "truths" as given straight there on the page to be the Bible in its entirity.

i dont disagree with you

but where does that leave christianity if its NOT the revealed word of god that can be used as an absolute guide to the truth of god's will?

without jesus what can it possibly mean to take jesus christ as my personal lord and savior?

without it being the word of god what does it really matter if i turn the other cheek or not? go to church on sunday? take the sacraments?

who is the pope, or jerry fallwell or the archbishop of canterbury, or the current prophet of the mormon church to tell me what to do? their morality is no more special than any other morality i might use.

who is the pope, or jerry fallwell or the archbishop of canterbury, or the current prophet of the mormon church to tell me what to do? their morality is no more special than any other morality i might use.and that would be different if jesus or god were true?

and that would be different if jesus or god were true?

it very well might be.

it very well might be.how? why would someone's morality depend of jesus or god being true?

how? why would someone's morality depend of jesus or god being true?

well that seems to be a different question than the one you asked before.

if the bible is literally true, it would be a very good idea for me to accept jesus christ as my personal lord and savior and to adopt christian morality as my personal moral code. AND to take the opinions of learned christian men and women as to exactly the best way to do that.

if the bible is true, i have an eternal life to prepare for.

i dont disagree with you

but where does that leave christianity if its NOT the revealed word of god that can be used as an absolute guide to the truth of god's will?

...

without it being the word of god what does it really matter if i turn the other cheek or not? go to church on sunday? take the sacraments?

who is the pope, or jerry fallwell or the archbishop of canterbury, or the current prophet of the mormon church to tell me what to do? their morality is no more special than any other morality i might use.
I can't answer these points for you. I don't know about the authority of the institutions or their structures in this regard, and I suspect that they will need to be radically rethought in the occasion that the literary Bible manages to take root.

But even where the meanings and teachings of the book may need to be reconsidered, the Church will still be ideally placed to act as the forum within which such conversations can be had and questions can be raised and also as the means by which other people can be invited to join in and to be brought up to speed on the different kinds of issues being dealt with. Evangelism, as the act of actively asking questions regarding God to the world at large and giving information to others about what is being talked about, where the current trends in ideas are and how, when and where they can join in, may still have an important role to play, even where it can no longer claim to definitively provide the answers to these questions.

Besides, with the formality of the sacraments relaxed, you may find you have more reason to do them yourself out of appreciation and worship, and the Church will still be able to provide the atmosphere that many are looking for in their wish to engage with God on both a personal and a congregational level.

... without jesus what can it possibly mean to take jesus christ as my personal lord and savior?
This one, on the other hand, I might be able to contribute something towards.

The fact is, I've never been able to fully understand what this means in the context of the present day Church anyway, since it appears to require certain statements and decisions of thought that would have little to do with what they constantly tell us it actually is. You can believe certain things about history, you can behave certain ways now and you can hope for certain things in the future, but none of these, whether in themselves or whether collectively, really seem to point towards the Living Christ. Not even the faith that these things have been, are now and always will be can express what it means to have Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour.

Christ, to me, is what Christianity takes to be the name of the personal entity that they have met in the realm of spiritual experience. That the existence of an actual historical Jesus, the systems of modern ethics or the wishes for a new ideal world may come into question in the doctrine of your understanding does not change the being that has been encountered first-hand. It may not have the properties you always thought it had, but it will remain your Jesus, regardless of what our re-evaluation of the written accounts of God-inspired men may throw at us or what you may choose to call him/her/it later.

To take Christ as your Lord and Saviour is to relate to him with an open, humble and grateful heart. That won't change just because we read books in slightly different ways.

if the bible is literally true, it would be a very good idea for me to accept jesus christ as my personal lord and savior and to adopt christian morality as my personal moral code. AND to take the opinions of learned christian men and women as to exactly the best way to do that.what is christian morality? and why do you need a savior?

if the bible is true, i have an eternal life to prepare for.one that is worth it? I would see eternal life rather as a burden.

what is christian morality? and why do you need a savior?

christian morality is outlined by jesus in the gospels. the need for a savior is a chrisitian concept. if you need more, ask a theologian.


one that is worth it? I would see eternal life rather as a burden.

it doesnt matter if its worth it or not; it doesnt matter if its a burden or not. according to the bible we get one. its either eternal bliss or eternal torment. (unless you are in a sect who doesnt believe in hell)

christian morality is outlined by jesus in the gospels. the need for a savior is a chrisitian concept. if you need more, ask a theologian. what is outlined by jesus in the gospels? what kind of morality?

it doesnt matter if its worth it or not; it doesnt matter if its a burden or not. according to the bible we get one. its either eternal bliss or eternal torment.does jesus ever speak of torment?

(unless you are in a sect who doesnt believe in hell)so my belief determines whether i can go to hell or not?

what is outlined by jesus in the gospels? what kind of morality?

does jesus ever speak of torment?

so my belief determines whether i can go to hell or not?

its always seemed to me that the kind of morality advocated by jesus is the stuff that would make for a good companion in eternity. you have to love your fellow man, you have to forgive no matter how often you are asked for forgiveness, you have to be childlike, turn the other cheek, be nice to those less fortunate.

jesus spoke of being tossed into the fiery pit. now there IS a book of apocrypha called the apocalypse of peter where hell is vividly described and heaven seems to consist of cool clothing and nice hair. it didnt make it into the bible but its an interesting read. i think paul talked about torment or maybe in other epistles someone else did. im not good at remembering whats in the non-gospel parts of the new testament because i mostly dont understand them.

yeah, your BELIEF determines your fate. weird eh? its a gnostic notion. its not enough to "accept jesus as your personal lord and savior" (thats an evangelical christian phrase btw) but you have to accept the RIGHT jesus as demonstrated by correct belief.

yes, i know its problematical.

Even Christianity and Islam --and in ancient times, Greece --have their mystics.
Every religion has mystics, and if you read my post again, you will see that I never implied anywhere that Christianity, Islam, or the Greeks lack(ed) mystics. Only that certain kinds of mystical/esoteric ideas took root in Greek philosophy and were transferred to Christianity by the Greeks and Romans and, later, to Islam by an even more vague (because later) cultural influence. Judaism's early mystics were much less influenced by Greek culture and, therefore, exhibited different mystical/esoteric ideas.

I'm not bringing some 'post-Greek' or 'post-Christian' understanding of 'afterlife' to the material. My only definition for 'afterlife' in this context is 'something that happens after life'. Looking at Torah - that's nothing - unless you include the getting buried bit, to which, one assumes, the 'victim' is not especially cognisant.
I disagree. It seems that you and I read the same text and I see things that you don't, and you see things that I don't. This sort of thing happens all the time.

I also take issue with your insistence that you do not bring some post-Greek or post-Christian understanding to the matter. I do not see how you can avoid it, having been steeped in it all your life, just as I am. But that is neither here nor there. If you and I cannot agree on the basic content of Torah, then we will have a hard time going forward on this matter in this thread.

I'm not corrupting my thought processes with my cultural matrix - I ignored my upbringing, and focused solely on the text. If the text says 'you die, that's it' it doesn't matter to me what my Catholic father thought - it doesn't impact the material. You say you read in context of the time - I say... how can we honestly know anything about the time? The only source we have is Torah - so I have to read it in isolation.
You are taking my statements both too literally and too personally. I am talking like a cultural anthropologist. You are talking like an expert defending his research. The scale of my focus and the scale of your focus are totally different, it seems.

I agree that "Jewish beliefs do include ideas about things that happen after we are dead that are more complex than "the grave and then nothing." However - I don't think the evidence supports us assuming that this current structure has historically always been so.
That is a reasonable objection, but one that I tend to disagree with, as I said. However, I don't think it is appropriate to pursue this aspect of the matter here. It's also not very important, I guess.

our little discussion has bumped up against what i consider to be the central problem of christianity--that is has to be TRUE.

this is why there is so much bitter fighting between christian sects. it is essential to get it right. you get it right by having your opinion agree with scripture and the other guy's opinion disagree with scripture. every time you see someone prove that....infant baptism is a bad practice....they pull out the bible and start quoting scripture that supports their view. if you are WRONG, you might well end up offending god and be damned for it.

it is therefore essential that the bible be correct. there is no other way to figure out the will of god. guessing isnt good enough. for a christian the bible is the bottom line of correct belief.

well theres the problem eh? we know that there were dozens of other christian books floating about the roman empire at the time of the council of nicea. we dont even know who wrote most of those books. we know that the men who made the decisions of what to put into the bible were no wiser than people are today. we know that there were many competing views of jesus, his ministry and his divinity. we know that politics played a big part in forming the christianity that ended up accepted as orthodox--pro-roman, anti-jewish, anti-"feminist", i could probably come up with more.

objectively there is NO reason to think that anyone got it "right". it can only be taken on faith that the stories of jesus bear any resemblance to an actual person who existed 2000ish years ago. and further, since most of the stories of jesus are obviously cribbed from other sources, it is unlikely to be objectively true.

the need pull the truth out of a book that cannot BE true is, in my opinion, an insurmoutable problem.
These are extremely interesting insights. Rather than answer them tho, I'll just point to what Myu In The Middle already said because he/she said it better than I could. I'm starting to feel less than unique, the way Myu expresses my thoughts so well for me. ;)

i dont disagree with you

but where does that leave christianity if its NOT the revealed word of god that can be used as an absolute guide to the truth of god's will?
I would say that is a question each Christian must answer for him- or herself. I would further say that each Christian either does or likely will face that question anyway, because the arguments within Christianity about the Bible cannot help but inspire some doubt, some time.

without jesus what can it possibly mean to take jesus christ as my personal lord and savior?

without it being the word of god what does it really matter if i turn the other cheek or not? go to church on sunday? take the sacraments?
There are Christian sects that do not believe in the literal divinity of Christ (sects such as the Unitarians) that already deal with these questions. My understanding is that they take the view that every Christian's relationship with their God is direct, not through intermediaries such as saints or saviors. To them, Jesus is the exemplar of what they should be doing, not some seemingly supernatural connection without which they cannot hope to receive their God's blessings.

As for the question of whether it really matters if you turn the other cheek or not, this is what you and I got into an argument about earlier.

I simply do not believe that the majority of people who identify as Christians would, if the Bible were proved totally ungodly tonight, suddenly turn into vicious evil bastards by morning. "Turn the other cheek," "do unto others etc," "love thy neighbor etc," "blessed are the peacemakers," all such teachings have profound value and their value is expressed in their words, not just in the mouth that first said them.

As I often say to Bible literalists, if there is no god, it will not automatically become ok to kill, rob, rape, lie, cheat, steal and otherwise be a shit towards others. I also point out that many non-Christians who do not believe that Jesus was special and do not worship (or don't even believe in) the god Christians worship nevertheless live by those very rules, even though we have no personal lord and savior to tell us to.

The mere fact that there is variety of thinking and variety of experience in this matter, should give you some leeway in figuring out what you, as a Christian, think Christianity really is or should be. If it helps you (rhetorical "you") to think that the Bible is literally the word of God, then by all means, believe it. But if you doubt it, do not throw the baby out with the bath water, as it were. Do not just assume that the entire belief system is worthless because just one of its precepts has to be reconsidered.

who is the pope, or jerry fallwell or the archbishop of canterbury, or the current prophet of the mormon church to tell me what to do? their morality is no more special than any other morality i might use.
Well, who are they anyway, except humans who have read the same book you can read yourself (thanks to Luther and Gutenberg)?

Judaism believes that the Torah (Five Books of Moses) was written by G-d Himself, with Moses writing it down (except for Moses' funeral and afterwards, Joshua wrote that down).

I am not sure who wrote down the rest of the Old Testament - I think the prophets did, but I'm not sure.

But... what is that faith based on?


Faith is based on faith. We don't need facts, because we're putting our faith into it. but I think that everyone needs to believe something. Not necessarily a religion or a philosophy, but they do need to have faith in morals or ideals or something.

These are extremely interesting insights. Rather than answer them tho, I'll just point to what Myu In The Middle already said because he/she said it better than I could. I'm starting to feel less than unique, the way Myu expresses my thoughts so well for me. ;)
I don't know whether to apologise or thank you for the flattery. ;)

There's an interesting meta-point to be made on this, of course. There are almost certainly other people out there who would identify with what we're talking about; I know I've many friends who have willingly gone astray down this road on many aspects of dealing with uncertainty. The problem is that with uncertainty comes a necessary lack of confidence. It takes a lot of courage to be able to overcome the natural embarrassment of admitting that we really do not know for sure what we're talking about, and it is even harder to be publicly open about it, especially when we're challenging a society so deeply rooted in conviction.

Overcoming the natural absence of authority in our thinking is, indeed, a phenomenal challenge both to Christians and to the rest of us. We are not the Jesus of the Bible; we do not speak on behalf of God. But I can speak on behalf of myself. We can talk to each other about our experiences and feelings, about our thoughts, hopes and dreams, about our concerns and doubts, and about our own responses to history, to scripture, to God and to each other. And, y'know, maybe going out and doing that is good enough. :D

Kreynoria;12561644']Faith is based on faith. We don't need facts, because we're putting our faith into it. but I think that everyone needs to believe something. Not necessarily a religion or a philosophy, but they do need to have faith in morals or ideals or something.

Why?

I do not have a 'belief' structure, or 'faith'. My life is happy coincidences, and the continual revelation that what seemed to be cause has had what seems to be effect.

Why would I need 'faith'?

As for the question of whether it really matters if you turn the other cheek or not, this is what you and I got into an argument about earlier.

I simply do not believe that the majority of people who identify as Christians would, if the Bible were proved totally ungodly tonight, suddenly turn into vicious evil bastards by morning. "Turn the other cheek," "do unto others etc," "love thy neighbor etc," "blessed are the peacemakers," all such teachings have profound value and their value is expressed in their words, not just in the mouth that first said them.


now this is where *I* dont understand YOU. its not a choice between moral and immoral.

its a choice of moral codes. just as an atheist isnt morally adrift because of rejecting god, neither would a person who was forcibly shown that their christian belief was based on lies suddently be morally bankrupt. she would simply be free to decide for herself what her moral code should be.

depending on how the bible was shown to be false....

she might have to follow a new moral code based on the new truthful bible. in some ways, this was true of the mormon church when it added in new precepts to christianity the most famous of which is polygamy. (a rule now in suspension that could be brought back under the right circumstances)

if she is shown that everything about christianity is false (and comes to believe that) she might, as you say, still feel that christian morality is right for her. or not. she might decide that that whole forgiveness thing is stupid and feel free to reject it, for example. she might decide that the whole area of christian sexual morality that she was brought up with is hopelessly sexist and feel free to reject it since there is now no possible downside to her eternal life. she would then have to come up with a new sexual morality that fits her life better.

in theory a christian does not have a choice of moral codes. whether or not they follow christian morality, it is still their standard. because its what GOD wants, they must follow it or risk his anger. if that moral code is no more the word of god than advice *I* might give out on how to live a good life, there is no need to make the effort to fit it into your life. you can reject any part of it that seems unreasonable to you.

These are extremely interesting insights. Rather than answer them tho, I'll just point to what Myu In The Middle already said because he/she said it better than I could. I'm starting to feel less than unique, the way Myu expresses my thoughts so well for me. ;)

lol

other people can be smart too!

i dont have a problem with either of your points of view. its certainly as valid an approach as blind faith is and in most ways is necessitated by modern knowledge of the universe.

the "my religion is completely right and yours is wrong whenever it disagrees with mine" approach to religion is not healthy for the planet. too many wars have been fought over whose idea of god is most right.