The Bible, an important document. How can it be understood?

[Alceste]

Women had "absolutely nothing" to do with writing it. How did the writer know what happened to Esther in the private room?

How does Tolkien know what Bilbo was doing when he was invisible?

 

[savagewind]

I think in this context the obligation is on you to provide your hypothesis and the evidence supporting it. Do you have any evidence that there is a consistent message of peace in the Bible? Is God portrayed as a peaceful being? Does Jesus die a peaceful death? Is the underlying of Bible stories, like Adam and Eve, Noah's ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. one of kindness, compassion, tolerance and acceptance?

There is enough evidence already to prove it is not for learning. It is for telling.

"not for learning" can mean it is not beneficial to learn it. But that is not what I mean. You say it is not for learning peace and tolerance. That is correct. What is it telling? It is telling us about the end. Why?

 

[savagewind]

No. Regardless of the truth of that claim, it is one which involves an extremely vast number of diverse topics from the incredibly complex nature of cultural and international dynamics, the current state of economic, military, technological, and other global forces affecting conflict, textual and theological interpretation, biblical Hebrew and ancient Greek, and on and on.



In which case the first thing you might want to establish is that there is any unified socio-cultural entity 'the Hebrews" allowing us to understand the bible as a "document" (as the thread title puts it) and a cohesive work produced by that socio-cultural entity ("the Hebrews").

The Jehovah's Witnesses do a pretty good job.

But it can't be proved. It must be trusted. You cannot prove your mate will never be unfaithful. But you must trust that she or he will be faithful.

 

[savagewind]

How does Tolkien know what Bilbo was doing when he was invisible?

This is rhetorical

 

[MysticSang'ha]

With perhaps one or two exceptions.

Ruth and Esther? I was under the impression - if those are the exceptions - that the authorship of those two books weren't resolved. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

How does Tolkien know what Bilbo was doing when he was invisible?

Hold on! You can't use that as a comparison. Everyone knows that Bilbo himself wrote There and Back Again and Frodo (with help) added to it creating The Red Book of Westmarch which Tolkien only translated from Westron. It's all historical. That's been proven by science.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The Jehovah's Witnesses do a pretty good job.

But it can't be proved. It must be trusted.

This is a historical debate section. Debate is about showing evidence for your view. Not telling people something and saying they have to trust it, which is about as close to the exact opposite of debate as one can get.

You cannot prove your mate will never be unfaithful. But you must trust that she or he will be faithful.

If my hypothetical "mate" leaves the house in the company of a different very good looking individual every week, and uses my credit card to pay for a hotel room called "lover's retreat", then I have pretty good reason to wonder if she or he will be faithful.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Hold on! You can't use that as a comparison. Everyone knows that Bilbo himself wrote There and Back Again and Frodo (with help) added to it creating The Red Book of Westmarch which Tolkien only translated from Westron. It's all historical. That's been proven by science.

We ought to talk about this, you know. There and Back Again is the key to world peace. So, what happened to it? Isn't it the key to undoing all the bad things in the world? Let's face it, There and Back Again has been raped. Big time.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

We ought to talk about this, you know. There and Back Again is the key to world peace. So, what happened to it?

Good question. I think we must focus on what the hobbits passed on to us. It was written by them for us, but it has been corrupted by Hollywood and popular culture.

 

[billthecat]

Boy, can you follow me around RF and explain to your fellow Christians that my opinion of the Bible was God's decision? Some of them seem to think I came up with it myself.

I didn't say that your opinion of the Bible was God's decision. I said that if you believe the Bible to be false and useless, God may decide to throw something your way that would challenge that belief. You have free will to choose what you think of the Bible and of God... and free will to ignore God.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Good question. I think we must focus on what the hobbits passed on to us. It was written by them for us, but it has been corrupted by Hollywood and popular culture.

And I'm a female human. It was "written by them" for me. You know - it wouldn't bother me one bit if I found out that the writer of There and Back Again wasn't a hobbit. Maybe he was human, you never know.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

And I'm a female human. It was "written by them" for me. You know - it wouldn't bother me one bit if I found out that the writer of There and Back Again wasn't a hobbit. Maybe he was human, you never know.

Interestingly, according to the most greatest hobbit proof (the middle earth cosmological argument), if it is possible that There and Back Again was written by a hobbit, then necessarily I am a female human for whom There and Back Again was written.

 

[savagewind]

It's in historical debates because the Bible is a historic document. I thought that was obvious. It is a part of history correct? Or maybe the elfs delivered it yesterday? Thanks for the Tolkien laughs.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It's in historical debates because the Bible is a historic document.

The description "historic document" isn't all that clear. It could mean it is historic in the sense that Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address and the assassination of the archduke franz ferdinand are historic (i.e., points in or pieces of history that are generally regared as important). Alternatively, you could be saying that the bible is a collection of historical documents that not only inform us about the past, but were intended to.

Either way, that doesn't merit placing it in a historical debate forum unless you intend to offer a thesis or theses concerning how one should understand the relation between the bible and history and why this is so. A historical debate involves asserting and defending claims about the past. It doesn't mean talking about something produced in the past and saying we should understand it as a guide for individual and social policy.

 

[Alceste]

I didn't say that your opinion of the Bible was God's decision. I said that if you believe the Bible to be false and useless, God may decide to throw something your way that would challenge that belief. You have free will to choose what you think of the Bible and of God... and free will to ignore God.

Mostly boring and mostly fictional =/= false and useless. It is very useful for understanding the historical and ideological origins of many of the social problems of Protestant and Catholic culture. Some of the parables, proverbs and philosophies it conveys are quite useful - love your neighbour, judge not lest ye be judged, it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god, yada yada. The useful parts are not very different from the useful parts of any other human stories, though. I believe we all have certain aspirations in common, and most of our holy books - including the gospels - touch on them, if only briefly. Even our ordinary books which make no claims to holiness communicate these aspirations. Peace, security, health, compassion, kindness, etc.

 

[billthecat]

Good question. I think we must focus on what the hobbits passed on to us. It was written by them for us, but it has been corrupted by Hollywood and popular culture.

What was Tolkien's role? Should he have let his wife write part of it? Is it all applicable to Hobbits today, or does it serve only as allegory and moral philosophy? Why are there so few females in Middle Earth? Are all Hobbits gay? How do they make more Hobbits? Do Hobbits have belly buttons? Why was Tolkien a devout Roman Catholic? Could a Hobbit be Pope? Are their heads too small for that Pope hat? Why do Popes wear that hat? Voldemort sounds like a Middle Earth name to me. Do the Smurfs live in Middle Earth? There is only one female Smurf.

 

[Alceste]

Good question. I think we must focus on what the hobbits passed on to us. It was written by them for us, but it has been corrupted by Hollywood and popular culture.

In complete seriousness, I did once meet a man who was convinced the Lord of the Rings was literally true. He was my neighbour in Toronto. He was going through a phase of extreme hallucinogenic drug abuse, and probably a schizophrenic episode as well.

 

[savagewind]

The description "historic document" isn't all that clear. It could mean it is historic in the sense that Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address and the assassination of the archduke franz ferdinand are historic (i.e., points in or pieces of history that are generally regared as important). Alternatively, you could be saying that the bible is a collection of historical documents that not only inform us about the past, but were intended to.

Either way, that doesn't merit placing it in a historical debate forum unless you intend to offer a thesis or theses concerning how one should understand the relation between the bible and history and why this is so. A historical debate involves asserting and defending claims about the past. It doesn't mean talking about something produced in the past and saying we should understand it as a guide for individual and social policy.

I tend not to agree. Anything surviving TIME is History. It has survived, wounded though. Is it important? Why or why not?

 

[savagewind]

I don't want a religious perspective. I want a secular perspective. So then, what forum does it fit please?

 

[Alceste]

I don't want a religious perspective. I want a secular perspective. So then, what forum does it fit please?

It depends what you're asking and I'm not quite sure what that is, but this might be a good fit:

General Religious Debates - Religious Education Forum