which comes first? relationship or the good book.

michel said:

I think the purpose of the Bible was for us to understand God, once we have a relationship with him (not the other way around).

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Michel, I hope you don't mind me isolating this qoute. My friend Jack, an atheist in Liverpool (UK) heard the same arguement from a Christian once and said that without the Bible Christianity would not exist today. I like the arguement and think it is pretty straight forward. Today the equation is simple
no bible = no Jesus/tribune God.


It is an interesting point..because before the bible and the torah there was nobody worshipping the judaic God. It is a unreasonable statement to suggest you would be a Christian, or there would be any Christans at all today if there was no bible or guide to follow to help you develop what to believe.

People may have a greater propensity to want to have or believe in a God but to construct details that a group can accept --aka peer acceptance takes literature which is the slot the bible fills.

robtex said:

Michel, I hope you don't mind me isolating this qoute. My friend Jack, an atheist in Liverpool (UK) heard the same arguement from a Christian once and said that without the Bible Christianity would not exist today. I like the arguement and think it is pretty straight forward. Today the equation is simple
no bible = no Jesus/tribune God.


It is an interesting point..because before the bible and the torah there was nobody worshipping the judaic God. It is a unreasonable statement to suggest you would be a Christian, or there would be any Christans at all today if there was no bible or guide to follow to help you develop what to believe.

People may have a greater propensity to want to have or believe in a God but to construct details that a group can accept --aka peer acceptance takes literature which is the slot the bible fills.

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Of course not; I'll be interested to see where it goes though!

robtex said:

It is an interesting point..because before the bible and the torah there was nobody worshipping the judaic God. It is a unreasonable statement to suggest you would be a Christian, or there would be any Christans at all today if there was no bible or guide to follow to help you develop what to believe.

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People were worshipping the Judaic God, robtex. The Torah was oral before it was written. Same thing with the Gospels.

edit: Hm, for that matter, the Qu'ran was oral for a while too, but only for a very little while.

In our culture, we have a propensity to go out immediately and put things down in print. That's a recent trend in humanity, and I think it's mistaken to view older texts through the glasses of our highly written culture.

Booko said:

People were worshipping the Judaic God, robtex. The Torah was oral before it was written. Same thing with the Gospels.

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For how long back? There is a time period where the religion did not exist because PEOPLE did not work out an agreement on it. As a matter of fact during and before the time of Judiasm there were other Gods and religions because different groups agreed on that doctrine or oral tradition over judiasm.

Booko said:

edit: Hm, for that matter, the Qu'ran was oral for a while too, but only for a very little while.

In our culture, we have a propensity to go out immediately and put things down in print. That's a recent trend in humanity, and I think it's mistaken to view older texts through the glasses of our highly written culture.

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Putting it in print is a good way to measure it. There are scores of bibles and hundreds of branches of Christianty because of the non-agreement on the religion which further illustrates that the strength of the religion today is strongly hinged on the printing of the Bible. That propensity of putting things down in print has gone from propensity to need.

First Century Christians had no Bible. Are you suggesting that they were not Christians?

The scriptures have been given a non-scriptural role by many Christians: a book of laws to be followed. It's the Spirit's job to teach, to convict and to change our hearts. Way too often we miss out on the Spirit's teachings because we fail to see that he exists and so we substitute our failed understandings of the scriptures for his incredible power.

robtex said:

Michel, I hope you don't mind me isolating this qoute. My friend Jack, an atheist in Liverpool (UK) heard the same arguement from a Christian once and said that without the Bible Christianity would not exist today. I like the arguement and think it is pretty straight forward. Today the equation is simple
no bible = no Jesus/tribune God.


It is an interesting point..because before the bible and the torah there was nobody worshipping the judaic God. It is a unreasonable statement to suggest you would be a Christian, or there would be any Christans at all today if there was no bible or guide to follow to help you develop what to believe.

People may have a greater propensity to want to have or believe in a God but to construct details that a group can accept --aka peer acceptance takes literature which is the slot the bible fills.

Click to expand...

I don't see how the Bible (which when one reads it, they are being led by the Church because the Bible is the product of the Church) can be valuable as a guide to understanding God only after we find God on our own. If it is valuable as a means to understand God at all, then it is always valuable in understanding God.

How can you justify that it helps us understand God but somehow it is incapable of helping us to find God in the first place?

Personally, I am of the opinion that God reveals God. We can't find God ourselves by any method.

Some people believe that God is the Bible, but the Christian confession is that the Bible is God's revelation of God. If the Bible has anything to do with God, then it is useful at any time in our spiritual journey.

Interesting discussion!!! I know that the Calvinist position is that the relationship must come first in order for proper understanding of the Bible. One can read the Bible without a relationship with God but it would be like eating corn flakes without milk.

Another interesting aspect of this discussion is the thoery of "Q" which goes as such: taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_document#External_links

The Q document or Q (Q for German Quelle, "source") is a postulated lost textual source for the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke.
The recognition of 19th-century New Testament scholars that Matthew and Luke share much material not found in their generally recognized common source the Gospel of Mark, has suggested a second common source, termed the Q document. This hypothetical lost text—also called the Q Gospel, the Sayings Gospel Q, the Synoptic Sayings Source, and in the 19th century the Logia—seems most likely to have comprised a collection of Jesus' sayings. Recognizing such a Q document is the essence of the "two-source hypothesis."
The two-source hypothesis forms the simplest and the most widely accepted solution to the synoptic problem posed by textual correspondences between the two gospels, with the Gospel of Mark forming one source, and Q the other.

I have also read that "Q" is a collection of verbal "sayings" that made it into the cannonized scriptures in places like 1 Cor. 15, etc. that the eariest Christians memorized in order to remind themselves of what their faith entailed. Most of this is very much considered thoery still but it is interesting non the less. More info can be found at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/q.html

Sincerely,
SoliDeoGloria

robtex said:

before the bible and the torah there was nobody worshipping the judaic God. It is a unreasonable statement to suggest you would be a Christian, or there would be any Christans at all today if there was no bible or guide to follow to help you develop what to believe.

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People had to have worshipped the Judaic God before the Bible was written. After all, it is a record of human worship of God. People didn't sit around a campfire and make the Bible up and then worship God. It is a record of the people's worship of God, witness of God, and testimony to God.

angellous_evangellous said:

(which when one reads it, they are being led by the Church because the Bible is the product of the Church)

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The scriptures disagree with this.

II Peter 2:19 And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. NIV

The church was never meant to replace the Holy Spirit. While much of the Scriptures are more a blog telling us how man has tried to find God, I fully believe that the Spirit controlled what was written to inspire faith.

Romans 10:14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" NIV

NetDoc said:

First Century Christians had no Bible. Are you suggesting that they were not Christians?

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Close. I am stating that Christianties shelf-life would have not have made it as long as it had without a book. They were Christians before the good book, which took a few hundred years to write, because they shared an oral history. If Paul hadn't of put the idea of Christ together Christianity wouldn't be around today either.

NetDoc said:

The scriptures have been given a non-scriptural role by many Christians: a book of laws to be followed. It's the Spirit's job to teach, to convict and to change our hearts. Way too often we miss out on the Spirit's teachings because we fail to see that he exists and so we substitute our failed understandings of the scriptures for his incredible power.

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Excactly Pete. Your religion (most religions) need that book or before the book, oral shared info to guide them because you are not in contact with Jesus. Your religion has hundreds of denominations because when enough people read the same story so many interepret it is differently.

My guess, and I have not done my homework on this, but my guess is that what makes a Christian today is really different than what a Chrisitian was in 100-300 ad because of the information shared.

The fact that there are splits and various interepretations of the data present, and that data variation results in splits (like mormons, Catholics baptists having different texts) shows that the book is the guide not the man. The man being Jesus. If it were true that you have a relationship with Jesus first and than the good book and many books turned out so different, with so many interpretations than one would have to believe Jesus is amazing indecisive and changes his mind on a whim giving out a mixture of information to the "hearts" of different groups. Groups, I might add who have come together as denominations based on which writings they accept.

angellous_evangellous said:

I don't see how the Bible (which when one reads it, they are being led by the Church because the Bible is the product of the Church) can be valuable as a guide to understanding God only after we find God on our own. If it is valuable as a means to understand God at all, then it is always valuable in understanding God.

Click to expand...

I don't think most Christians have actually read the Bible. Just key concepts are solidified in it. Those concepts being John 3:16, the resurrection, original sin, the second coming and the 10 commandments. There may be more or less based on denomination but they key concepts are solidified by being bound in that book. If they were not in that book for most denominations, espcially the part about Jesus being the savior, if they were not perserved in print, today it is unlikey they would exist. Oral tradition helped in spots of history for those first few hundred years but

1) it was orally agreed on data, not info felt in each of their indivdual hearts. aka someone sold them that idea they didn't all just spontaneously "get it".

2) The text itself is a keep-safe that insures the idea of Jesus makes it from century to century to century with a high degree of accuracy and probablity. If the book didn't exist, I think that the idea of Jesus would have dropped dramatically as time went on.

If one followed God first and the bible second there would be no need to "sell Christianty" to anyone. They would just "get it."

angellous_evangellous said:

How can you justify that it helps us understand God but somehow it is incapable of helping us to find God in the first place?

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Nate the word here to define is "find". When you say find God, do you mean, under your bed, in the closet, in the desert, in a dream, a voice from around the corner, an emotional output ect ect. We can all find the book irregardless what we believe and choose it as a guide for morality or not, partially or in whole. We can physically pick it up, read it, smell the leather, get the pages damp by reading it in the tub, leave it in the car by accident when late to church ect ect.

But finding the bible and "finding" God, are two different uses of the word find. I am saying people would be more apt to find their own God, their own system and their own way if they didn't have a book to guide them in their beliefs.

Let me give you another religion to use as an example. In Paganism, and this could be a topic of speculation itself, but in my opinion in Paganism, literature plays a much smaller role in the religion. A Pagan finds his God(s) and Goddesse(s) in the trees, hills desert, rain ect ect. The result of this is a very diverse theory on what God(s) is to a Pagan. The glaring execption to this is Wicca. Wicca is much more singular on beliefs including rituals holidays and the like. What sets Wicca apart, and makes it more solidified is a text and shared oral context more closley linked to the idea of dogman that is used Christianity.

robtex said:

For how long back? There is a time period where the religion did not exist because PEOPLE did not work out an agreement on it. As a matter of fact during and before the time of Judiasm there were other Gods and religions because different groups agreed on that doctrine or oral tradition over judiasm.

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Centuries, afaik. But still it seems like I'm somehow missing your point here.

Putting it in print is a good way to measure it. There are scores of bibles and hundreds of branches of Christianty because of the non-agreement on the religion which further illustrates that the strength of the religion today is strongly hinged on the printing of the Bible. That propensity of putting things down in print has gone from propensity to need.

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I would submit that sectarianism often had much more to do with power plays than actual theology, at least in the last milennium or so. Any organization that can command the fierce allegiance of so many is a great temptation for those who would wield power and influence. I've seen this happen personally on at least 2 occasions, when churches split into something else.

In addition, if printing the Bible is supposed to strengthen the religion, why is it that sectarianism exploded at the point in history where the print was made more readily available? With 7000+ divisions and counting, there appears to be no slowing down of that trend.

robtex said:

My guess, and I have not done my homework on this, but my guess is that what makes a Christian today is really different than what a Chrisitian was in 100-300 ad because of the information shared.

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What makes a Christian today is the same as it was 2,000 years ago. The acid test remains:

John 13:35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." NIV

robtex said:

The fact that there are splits and various interepretations of the data present, and that data variation results in splits (like mormons, Catholics baptists having different texts) shows that the book is the guide not the man. The man being Jesus. If it were true that you have a relationship with Jesus first and than the good book and many books turned out so different, with so many interpretations than one would have to believe Jesus is amazing indecisive and changes his mind on a whim giving out a mixture of information to the "hearts" of different groups. Groups, I might add who have come together as denominations based on which writings they accept.

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Again, the MAIN issue is how the Holy Spirit works. You see different beliefs, and they seem to be legion. I see different understandings and as they get closer to Jesus they naturally get closer together.

Think of getting to Orlando. Your path may be FAR different than mine, depending where in the world you are coming from. That doesn't make our destination any different. In fact the closer we both get to Orlando, the more likely our paths will converge.

Booko said:

Centuries, afaik. But still it seems like I'm somehow missing your point here.

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To put it in really brief terms. The bible is here today amoungst the people. I am going to assume there is no dispute on this. One can go to a bookstore, a book shelf or a church and get one. I personally have three in my home. Jesus by contrast ain't here. I can't meet him at his house, at the grocery store, call him on the phone or bum a ride from him cause I have a flat tire. People may have spirtual means of "finding him" but physically he ain't here. The book is what is keeping the religion alive. If and when Jesus has encore preformance he will be the guide over the book (and realize every generation of Christians seem to produce a large group who thinks he is coming back in their lifetime), but until them in the physical absense of Jesus, and irregardless of how one defines their reality, the book is the ONLY tangable access to the key points of the religion at the moment. (Sorry I lied I said short).

Booko said:

I would submit that sectarianism often had much more to do with power plays than actual theology, at least in the last milennium or so. Any organization that can command the fierce allegiance of so many is a great temptation for those who would wield power and influence. I've seen this happen personally on at least 2 occasions, when churches split into something else.

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If sectarianism exists at all it would be in illustration of the power that doctrine has over "religion of the heart". The splits, and there are a lot, a heck of a lot of them, are transacted by doctrine, not by "heart-felt communications with JC". The relationship exists by the bounderies of the shared information that becomes doctrine.

Booko said:

In addition, if printing the Bible is supposed to strengthen the religion, why is it that sectarianism exploded at the point in history where the print was made more readily available? With 7000+ divisions and counting, there appears to be no slowing down of that trend.

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exactly!! I don't know about the 7000 number. I don't think there are that many branches but, as different works come into print a correlating factor is more splits in the religion. That is a measurable way in which one can show the impact of the book on the religion as opposed to the impact of the "relationship with God."

NetDoc said:

What makes a Christian today is the same as it was 2,000 years ago. The acid test remains:

John 13:35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." NIV

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Pete, if you notice in your qoute you said, NIV. New International version. Why, if there is only one Jesus does he need different versions of his work?

There are scores to hundreds of different ideas of what a Christian is today. Some ideas which are mutually exclusive are
1) one who see the bible as the inerrant word of God
2) one who see the bible as the inspired word of God

There are those who follow the catholic canon and the pope, those who only see the kjv as the authorized version of God (called av1611), those who see mormonism as the one true faith, jehovah's witness, christian scientists ect ect...

Did Jesus give them all differnt messages, does he change his mind that much or is the literature the aspect of their religion that binds them in agreement on what Jesus and God is?

NetDoc said:

Again, the MAIN issue is how the Holy Spirit works. You see different beliefs, and they seem to be legion. I see different understandings and as they get closer to Jesus they naturally get closer together.

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They aint' getting closer together. The mormons and the baptists are anywhere close to an agreement on most things and aren't gonna get there ever. What seperates them is their indivdual scriptures. That is a measurable and quantifiable way to say, with certainty that the book and oral traditions define the religion, as opposed to ones relationship with intangable spirtual being.

NetDoc said:

Think of getting to Orlando. Your path may be FAR different than mine, depending where in the world you are coming from. That doesn't make our destination any different. In fact the closer we both get to Orlando, the more likely our paths will converge.

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Lets use your orlando analogy. I am going to assume and tell me if I am wrong, in this analogy getting to Orlando is the parallel to getting closer to Jesus and God.

Lets say we both start in Sacramento Cali. Now you have a map that says take IH 5 south to IH 10 in Los Angles going west but go north to avoid the state of alabama and come back south when you hit Tenn. going through GA. The reason is your map says alabama is dirty and ain't fit for driving. Hey who are you to argue..its what the map says. Now you can't Orlando. I mean you could pray to it and all but the map has got the idea right there in front of you.

Now my map...and just so you know my map is much better than yours, says says go diagonal to Texas than cut west when I hit Houston and go straight through Alabama. Now I ask you did we have the same journey to florida and more importantly to your spirtuality, Is spritual part to your religion the journey or the end result? Cause we both ended-up in florida but did you just make it to florida to get there or did you experience the drive along the way? If you experienced the drive.....you consulted your map.

robtex said:

I don't think most Christians have actually read the Bible. Just key concepts are solidified in it.

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I can sense a reductionist view of Christians and the Bible. I would not be so quick to reduce the Christian or Church's relationship with the Bible to a mere reference book or prooftext. We do read the text worldwide as a sacrament.

Those concepts being John 3:16, the resurrection, original sin, the second coming and the 10 commandments. There may be more or less based on denomination but they key concepts are solidified by being bound in that book. If they were not in that book for most denominations, espcially the part about Jesus being the savior, if they were not perserved in print, today it is unlikey they would exist.

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I agree that the Bible is the source for Christian theologizing and dogma. I can't speculate as to how Christianity would look without the Bible, but I agree that it would be different.

Oral tradition helped in spots of history for those first few hundred years but

1) it was orally agreed on data, not info felt in each of their indivdual hearts. aka someone sold them that idea they didn't all just spontaneously "get it".

2) The text itself is a keep-safe that insures the idea of Jesus makes it from century to century to century with a high degree of accuracy and probablity. If the book didn't exist, I think that the idea of Jesus would have dropped dramatically as time went on.

If one followed God first and the bible second there would be no need to "sell Christianty" to anyone. They would just "get it."

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1) I don't think that you have evidence by which you can prove that the church fathers or apostles arbitrarily agreed on data without a feeling in their hearts. When I read the NT, I see a writing that the authors and preservers actually believe to be true - not just factually true, but spiritually true. We can't view the Bible as a science book. It's art.

2) I'm not sure if Jesus would be forgotten. Being as it is, we can't specualte on it.

Nate the word here to define is "find". When you say find God, do you mean, under your bed, in the closet, in the desert, in a dream, a voice from around the corner, an emotional output ect ect. We can all find the book irregardless what we believe and choose it as a guide for morality or not, partially or in whole. We can physically pick it up, read it, smell the leather, get the pages damp by reading it in the tub, leave it in the car by accident when late to church ect ect.

Click to expand...

I mean that God is "located" by faith. I may sound Buddhist, but God is located beyond us and must be found by faith. I don't see God, so I locate God by faith when I pray. I have to find God because I am not god, or rather, God must find me - and I must have the gift of being aware that I am found, but God remains unlocated. It is like going from nothing to nothing in Buddhism.

But finding the bible and "finding" God, are two different uses of the word find. I am saying people would be more apt to find their own God, their own system and their own way if they didn't have a book to guide them in their beliefs.

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I did not use the word for both the bible and God for a very specific reason. Obviously. I was pointing out a flaw in Michel's thinking.

If the book is a record of God's work and character, then it would be useful to us. Why would a record of other peoples' experience of God be useless? We are a community - we're not so individualistic that we all need a different path to God.

robtex said:

Pete, if you notice in your qoute you said, NIV. New International version. Why, if there is only one Jesus does he need different versions of his work?

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I just typed a huge response to this and lost it.

Jesus doesn't need different versions... we do.

In short, we need new translations because the original and secondary languages are constantly in flux.

angellous_evangellous said:

I can sense a reductionist view of Christians and the Bible. I would not be so quick to reduce the Christian or Church's relationship with the Bible to a mere reference book or prooftext. We do read the text worldwide as a sacrament.

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I don't think the percieved relationship with Jesus is useless or worthless but more that it is predicated on the existance of an agreement on what Jesus was as opposed to a simutaneously feeling in a mulitude of hearts.

angellous_evangellous said:

I agree that the Bible is the source for Christian theologizing and dogma. I can't speculate as to how Christianity would look without the Bible, but I agree that it would be different.

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That is what makes this debate topic difficult. Nobody can because we only have one history to pull from. One where a bible was produced.

angellous_evangellous said:

1) I don't think that you have evidence by which you can prove that the church fathers or apostles arbitrarily agreed on data without a feeling in their hearts. When I read the NT, I see a writing that the authors and preservers actually believe to be true - not just factually true, but spiritually true. We can't view the Bible as a science book. It's art.

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I am sure they did have "feelings in their hearts" but the also agreeded. To reach that agreement they discussed and wrote and canonized pre-written texts. That agreement and the current agreements is what gives the religious branches their strength today.

angellous_evangellous said:

2) I'm not sure if Jesus would be forgotten. Being as it is, we can't specualte on it.

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That is an area you are much more knowledgable than I on. I would surmise however, that hundreds if not thousands of tribal and older religions were lost before the time of Christ because they were not written down eventually.

angellous_evangellous said:

I mean that God is "located" by faith. I may sound Buddhist, but God is located beyond us and must be found by faith. I don't see God, so I locate God by faith when I pray. I have to find God because I am not god, or rather, God must find me - and I must have the gift of being aware that I am found, but God remains unlocated. It is like going from nothing to nothing in Buddhism.

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Ironically buddhism doesn't have a God. One is as buddha the man was, when one is awake. I don't want to steer the thread too far off on buddhism other than to say buddhists do severly de-emphasis text but in their case, and it can't be used as a generality, but in their case, the end result is a non-belief in a God.

angellous_evangellous said:

I did not use the word for both the bible and God for a very specific reason. Obviously. I was pointing out a flaw in Michel's thinking.

If the book is a record of God's work and character, then it would be useful to us. Why would a record of other peoples' experience of God be useless? We are a community - we're not so individualistic that we all need a different path to God.

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Nate, let me put it to you a different way. You are a religious leader in your community. I am going to assume you have spread the gospel of Jesus to others who were not Christians at the time you talked to them. Many of them felt "something" but couldn't tell you what that "something" was. You told them (or other religious leaders) that it was Jesus because you had the literature to draw from. Something becomes Jesus when there is a prior agreement as to what that something is. If there was no community agreement something would just stay something.

I don't think the percieved relationship with Jesus is useless or worthless but more that it is predicated on the existance of an agreement on what Jesus was as opposed to a simutaneously feeling in a mulitude of hearts.

This just seems like a false dichotomy.