What makes the Bible so believable for people?

Apologes · Sep 12, 2018

Nowhere Man said:
You obviously didn't pay attention. I already mentioned earlier it was a compilation. At any rate it's still in the format of one single book for which it can be altered redacted and change to fit. The Book of Mormon and Jehovah Witnesses versions of the Bible are good modern day examples as well as numerous others.

It being printed as one book today holds absolutely no bearing on the topic at hand. These are individual texts we're talking about and as such they need to be approached individually. To fail to do so is to resort to obfuscation, a game you'll have to play with someone else.

What strikes me as strange is that names throughout the narratives are so important yet for some strange reason or another the dismissal of the names of the very writers of those same books are not viewed as just as important given that anybody could have written anything.

The author's exact name being unknown has nothing to do with the role a certain name may play in a text's narrative. At least you failed to provide any argument in favor of that.

No textual critic will dismiss a text whose author can be even so roughly constructed just because the exact name is unknown.

Regardless, we know exactly who wrote some of the texts.

I'll be interested if you could determine the members of the councils by name .

First Council of Nicaea - Wikipedia

I know for a fact you you can't, so clearly you won't be able to provide any names.

It's clear from your remarks that you don't know anything at all... Have fun wasting someone else's time.

exchemist · Sep 12, 2018

Nowhere Man said:
Well that would be alright for inspiration and such as long as it's made with the admission that its not factually a true account that had happened in history, but rather from the mind of the person who wrote it's passages and narratives.

I can certainly see value drawn from that in terms of inspiration and such. But believing such in terms of alleging it's true and factual is a different story. There's no value however in making up and or embellishing things that really never happened.

Well that is the issue, really. There is no real reason to think that Jesus cannot have been a historical figure, even if a lot of the events mentioned in the New Testament may not have been historical. Most Christians probably treat a lot of the NT as historical, though not all do. Either way, it is the teaching and example of Jesus, as reported in the NT, that has inspired Christians ever since.

A lot of the stories in the Old Testament have not been taken literally for almost 2000 years. Early fathers of the church like Origen, and Jewish scholars at that time, interpreted them figuratively, just as they read Homer. (The vogue for treating the entire bible, OT and NT, as literal is a recent and highly retrograde development, dating from the c.18th and 19th, and taken up mainly in the United States.)

So to write off the bible simply for not being a historical account is rather to miss the point. It is a literary work, full of metaphor, analogy and allegory. This calls for study, interpretation and explanation, just like Shakespeare. Sunday church services devote a fair bit of time to this, through readings of selected passages and a sermon. This is how people mostly become acquainted with the bible, I think. It is rather heavy going if you just sit down and read it from cover to cover. Almost as bad as Lord of the Rings, in fact (though not quite).

Audie · Sep 12, 2018

Apologes said:
The question "Who wrote the Bible?" is a naive one. The Bible isn't a single book, it's a collection of dozens of different pieces of literature from different time periods, genres and authors. It makes little sense to talk about the authors of the Bible as a whole as it's too broad of a question to get a substantiative answer. Instead, we need to look at each individual piece found in it.

In doing so we'll move away from the one-sided narrative that you present and see that it's very much a mixed bag. While we don't know who exactly wrote some of the books in the Bible like the Pentateuch, we do roughly know the time period in which it was created and who the authors could've been. Name-dropping would be nice, but it is not necessary as we have a good picture of where and how these texts came to be. Contrast this to works like the Pauline Epistles which we know with nearly absolute certainty to have been written by Paul himself (with several being pseudepigraphical) and your point about the Biblical authors being completely unknowable comes crashing down.

One might pardon your ignorance on the above issue (though it doesn't take much more than a mere Wikipedia article to defeat it) but your lumping of an early Council of Nicea with the incredibly late Council of Trent (two events with completely different purposes) is both baffling if not revealing.

I'll leave it to you to elaborate further on the relevance of the attendees being unknown to the question of biblical reliability and in the meantime I'll simply point out that it's completely false since we know very well who started the councils, for what reason and what the results were.

None of these are necessarily reasons to distrust it.

That's a non-sequitur. Just because Christians disagree on certain doctrinal truths doesn't mean that there are no such truths in the texts.

Even if granted this would at best leave you with a stalemate of not knowing if it is divinely inspired or not. It wouldn't prove it to be fraudulent.

Far from obvious. Support your argument.

There is no defense against nuance

Kelly of the Phoenix · Sep 12, 2018

KenS said:
Perhaps you misunderstood the application or, perhaps, they communicated wrongly since I have never found a Christian that limited their relationship to just what is written.

I have had Christians literally tell me on this and another religious forum that:
A: God cannot go against the bible and/or
B: if God told them the bible was a lie, they don't have to worry about such a scenario, because it would never happen, because the bible is the Truth.

At any rate, they clearly feel the bible "wears the pants in the relationship", not God.

On the other hand, the people who tend to say this the loudest are also people who think they are messengers or prophets or angels or messiahs or God or something. It might be contributory.

Kenny · Sep 12, 2018

Kelly of the Phoenix said:
I have had Christians literally tell me on this and another religious forum that:
A: God cannot go against the bible and/or
B: if God told them the bible was a lie, they don't have to worry about such a scenario, because it would never happen, because the bible is the Truth.

At any rate, they clearly feel the bible "wears the pants in the relationship", not God.

On the other hand, the people who tend to say this the loudest are also people who think they are messengers or prophets or angels or messiahs or God or something. It might be contributory.

Well... if you take that in the context of their perspective, if God said in His word "For God so loved the world that He sent His only son that whosever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life", then indeed God will not go against the scripture that is in the Bible and we don't have to worry that He lied about it because what He said in that scripture is the truth".

gnostic · Sep 12, 2018

Valjean said:
Argumentum ad populum?
Social benefits of conformity and fear of consequences of dissent?
Religion as a social club?

People believe what's convenient.

That...all that...would hold true for all religions, and not just those who follow the bible.

But the worse sorts are found in Christianity and Islam.

These two try to convert everyone, and on many occasions (as history have shown), those with the wills and powers, they will use intimidation and violence, to get what they want.

As to the Bible itself.

As Nowhere Man have pointed out, there are inconsistencies, flaws, and other anomalies, clearly showing that the bible “is not perfect”.

But then again, what other religious scriptures or texts have “perfection” written over all of them? What scriptures have no errors, no flaws, no inconsistencies?

None. None of them. Absolutely none of them.

But one of the major problems with the bible (as well as with all other scriptures) - other than the errors - is the use of symbols and metaphors.

Now, I can understand that using metaphors and symbols can be helpful and useful, in conveying messages.

But the problems with symbols and metaphors:

(A) Some may take them, “literally”, which mean these people have already misunderstood the purpose of using symbols or metaphors.

(B) Metaphors and symbols can have more than one meaning...in fact, they can have many different meanings. So people can interpret them in any number of different ways, and that can lead to inconsistencies.

With different interpretations or different opinions, it can lead people to arguments, and arguments could lead them to confrontation. And confrontation can or might escalate to violence.

Some religions, or even some sects, are more peaceful than others. While others, unfortunately are not peaceful at all.

Dan From Smithville · Sep 12, 2018

Faithofchristian said:
I don't get where you think nobody knows who wrote it, did you even bother to ask someone or anyone, I don't get how you could possibly think nobody would know.

I saw nobody to day, and they said they use to be somebody, until people started to blame somebody and now people call somebody a nobody. Nobody said they are sick and tired of people always saying nobody knows. When they don't even bother to ask someone or anyone. It's always blaming nobody.just because nobody knows, that's no reason to blame nobody, maybe someone or anyone may know, try to ask someone or anyone if they know. don't just blame nobody.
Nobody said they trying real hard if people would give them a chance to be somebody again.

The authors of the Bible are unknown. Some people attribute portions of it to specific individuals, but there is no authority to support the attribution.

The text of the Bible has been well studied and what we do know is that a number of different individuals wrote the various parts of the Bible over a long period of time. Based on analysis of the text, well discussed portions of the Bible like Genesis are clearly a collation of more than one version into a single story. This is true of both the creation story and the story of Noah. The story of Noah is, itself, a plagiarized version of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

allfoak · Sep 12, 2018

Nowhere Man said:
Honestly I can't think of a single thing.

The gospels were written to be a spiritual catalyst for those seeking the kingdom.

gnostic · Sep 12, 2018

Skwim said:
Another one of those pulpit messages used to assuage the flock and keep its heads nodding "amens." That the Bible is free of error isn't at all true; not by a long shot, but if believing it helps you get keep your Bible intact, so be it.
However, as a small challenge, consider that 1≠ 2, and to say it does would be a mistake, and to say that 8 = 18 would also be a mistake. Yet the Bible presents just such a mistake.
2 Chronicles 36:9 (KJV)
9 Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.

2 Kings 24:8 (KJV)
8 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. And his mother's name was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.

That does pose as a problem, when different books give different numbers or ages.

Then there are those, like in Genesis genealogy (Genesis 5 and 11), where the same chapters and verses might differ from each other, depending on the language they were written on.

For instances, in many of the ages when a father have his son of the line (Genesis 5 & 11), the Hebrew source (Masoretic Text or MT) and Greek sources (Septuagint Bible).

The Septuagint often differed from the Masoretic Text (MT), by 100 years.

So in the Masoretic source in Genesis 5, it stated that Adam 130 years old when he became father of Seth, but in the Septuagint, that same verse say Adam was 230 when Seth was born. The same things happened with Seth to Lamech, where the Greek texts differed to the Hebrew source by 100 years.

And the funny part is that in regarding to the passage regarding to Methuselah, where different codices of the Septuagint (Codex Alexandrinus CA and Codex Vaticanus CV) give different ages to Methuselah when he became father to Lamech, respectively 187 (which is thesame age given in Hebrew MT) and 167 - a 20 year’s difference.

Not only that, in the CA, Methuselah died 6 years before the Flood, while CV say that he died 14 years after the Flood (according to Masoretic Text, Methuselah died in the same year as the Flood).

And if add the Samaritan Torah to the mix, you get different ages again Genesis 5 & 11 to the Septuagint and Masoretic.

And when you add all the ages (when their sons were born) in Genesis 5, you would get 3 different dates to when the Flood occurred: 1656 AM (for MT), 2256 AM (Septuagint) and 1307 AM (Samaritan Torah).

/E: Note that the Vulgate bible and the apocryphal Book of Jubilees agreed with the Masoretic Text, regarding to genealogy given in Genesis 5 & 11.

gnostic · Sep 12, 2018

Dan From Smithville said:
The authors of the Bible are unknown. Some people attribute portions of it to specific individuals, but there is no authority to support the attribution.

That holds true regarding to the authorship of each gospel.

No one knows the real author, and attributions to those 4 gospels occurred at least in the early 2nd century CE.

Faithofchristian · Sep 12, 2018

Nowhere Man said:
Honestly I can't think of a single thing.

Nobody knows who wrote it, with any degree of certainty. No names of the original authors, nobody knows who was on the Council of Trent , Council of Nicea Etc.

It's obviously been redacted , has incomplete information and has gaps in its narratives. Side-by-side variations are noted in each version of the Bible that exist today to substantiate that is indeed the case.

The Bible clearly is not a divinely inspired collection of books either , evidenced by Christianity's vast and varied amount of denominations and sects, who, to this day remain visibly at odds with ongoing issues over interpretation and meaning, making it clear there's no evidence of any type of guiding hand at play to indicate it now or was ever divinely inspired to begin with at its inception.

There's no real support or proofs to the notion of divine harmonization between one author with another throughout the Testaments over significant periods of time to substantiate any type of harmony exists because each subsequent book could be "harmonized" with each proceeding book by simply reading what each proceeding book said and conveniently changing the subsequent book to "fit" each narrative to uphold the claim that the subsequent authors did not know what the preceding authors wrote making such alleged harmony between books a divine proof a Biblical accuracy and credibility.

Oral tradition is actually worthless. If it wasn't, it could have been used and demonstrated today as a living testament of reliability and accuracy but it isn't for a reason. Obvious reasons.

Hence the requirement for writing something down , and we've seen how effective that can be.

Why would anybody be willing to think the Bible is for one reason or another a proper foundation to base an entire religion on and in cases, people's own lives to point of believability that it would trump logic and science?

It's maybe because people like yourself that makes people like myself to believe in the Bible.
Because people like yourself have no knowledge or understanding what the Bible is actually about.

Therefore what you don't understand you criticize it.

Faithofchristian · Sep 12, 2018

Dan From Smithville said:
The authors of the Bible are unknown. Some people attribute portions of it to specific individuals, but there is no authority to support the attribution.

The text of the Bible has been well studied and what we do know is that a number of different individuals wrote the various parts of the Bible over a long period of time. Based on analysis of the text, well discussed portions of the Bible like Genesis are clearly a collation of more than one version into a single story. This is true of both the creation story and the story of Noah. The story of Noah is, itself, a plagiarized version of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

So you say,The Authors of the Bible are unknown, That's amazing. How did you arrive at that assumption.

gnostic · Sep 12, 2018

1213 said:
Science is in constant change. It would not be wise to base world view on it, when after couple of years it may again claim something else than today.

Bible doesn’t really change, so it is better foundation. And that atheists can’t show even one mistake or error in the Bible, I think it is really good. Also, I have seen it to be correct in many things that I think people would not know or understand or even chose without God.

I am not an atheist, but read my first reply (the one to Skwim), regarding to Genesis 5 and 11, regarding to the ages of most patriarchs, of when they became father’s to their successors.

Twilight Hue · Sep 12, 2018

Faithofchristian said:
It's maybe because people like yourself that makes people like myself to believe in the Bible.
Because people like yourself have no knowledge or understanding what the Bible is actually about.

Therefore what you don't understand you criticize it.

What is the Bible about then?

I understand personal inspiration can come from reading such works, however I don't see any quality in particular thats all that special or unique that really sets it apart from any other books out there.

Twilight Hue · Sep 12, 2018

Faithofchristian said:
So you say,The Authors of the Bible are unknown, That's amazing. How did you arrive at that assumption.

Well if you have the actual names of all the people that actually penned each book in the Bible, that would be extremely helpful.

Faithofchristian · Sep 12, 2018

Nowhere Man said:
What is the Bible about then?

I understand personal inspiration can come from reading such works, however I don't see any quality in particular thats all that special or unique that really sets it apart from any other books out there.

Alot of Christians have no idea themselves what the Bible is actually about and who.

The Bible is all about God's elect and God's very elect.
Therefore unless a person is of God's elect and the very elect, they will have no idea what the Bible is actually about.

God's elect and the very elect, are those who stood with God against Lucifer's rebellion in heaven.
When Lucifer lead a third of the Angels in heaven in rebellion against God.

The elect and the very elect stood with God, against Lucifer's rebellion, in the first earth age.

And are now, making ready to fight with Christ Jesus against Lucifer's army in the soon coming tribulation. That Christ Jesus spoke about in Matthew 24:21-22---
---"For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened"

Note that those days shall be shortened)
If those days were not shortened, the elect would hardly make it,
So where do you suppose that would leave the average person ?

I can look at the world how things are going and see how those things are all lining up to Bible prophecy.

I read all that you said, but little do you realize, the Bible in which you criticize, gives prophecy about people like yourself that would come speaking about things they know nothing about.

And to think that prophecy was given a little over 2000 thousand years ago. And is now being fulfilled before peoples eyes and they don't even see it.

The book of Jude verse 10---"10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves"

That's what I call amazing. How Prophecy given little over 2000 thousand years ago are now being fulfilled.

Faithofchristian · Sep 12, 2018

Nowhere Man said:
Well if you have the actual names of all the people that actually penned each book in the Bible, that would be extremely helpful.

It's evidence by reading each book as to who wrote each book.

Dan From Smithville · Sep 12, 2018

Faithofchristian said:
So you say,The Authors of the Bible are unknown, That's amazing. How did you arrive at that assumption.

It is not an assumption. It is a conclusion based on the evidence. Nothing amazing about it. Any rational person can do it.

Dan From Smithville · Sep 12, 2018

Faithofchristian said:
Alot of Christians have no idea themselves what the Bible is actually about and who.

The Bible is all about God's elect and God's very elect.
Therefore unless a person is of God's elect and the very elect, they will have no idea what the Bible is actually about.

God's elect and the very elect, are those who stood with God against Lucifer's rebellion in heaven.
When Lucifer lead a third of the Angels in heaven in rebellion against God.

The elect and the very elect stood with God, against Lucifer's rebellion, in the first earth age.

And are now, making ready to fight with Christ Jesus against Lucifer's army in the soon coming tribulation. That Christ Jesus spoke about in Matthew 24:21-22---
---"For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened"

Note that those days shall be shortened)
If those days were not shortened, the elect would hardly make it,
So where do you suppose that would leave the average person ?

I can look at the world how things are going and see how those things are all lining up to Bible prophecy.

I read all that you said, but little do you realize, the Bible in which you criticize, gives prophecy about people like yourself that would come speaking about things they know nothing about.

And to think that prophecy was given a little over 2000 thousand years ago. And is now being fulfilled before peoples eyes and they don't even see it.

The book of Jude verse 10---"10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves"

That's what I call amazing. How Prophecy given little over 2000 thousand years ago are now being fulfilled.

This is just silly.

Fortunately, Christ did not take to this sort of obtuse elitism and exclusionism.

Dan From Smithville · Sep 12, 2018

gnostic said:
That holds true regarding to the authorship of each gospel.

No one knows the real author, and attributions to those 4 gospels occurred at least in the early 2nd century CE.

Some Christians are so insecure in their beliefs that the mere mention of these facts causes paroxysms. What kind of Christian would rather live with lies than accept and come to understand a truth? Fortunately, I'm a big boy. I seem to be able to handle it and be able to go on to converse rationally, and happily I would add, with those nonbelievers that are knowledgeable of the history. I don't consider the Bible to be dictated by God anyway and I see no reason it has to be. It is flawed just as the people that wrote it and follow it are. If it was perfect...well, we would never learn anything on our own.

What makes the Bible so believable for people?

Active Member

Veteran Member

Veteran Member

Well-Known Member

Face to face with my Father

The Lost One

Recently discovered my planet of origin.

Alchemist

The Lost One

The Lost One

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

The Lost One

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Recently discovered my planet of origin.

Recently discovered my planet of origin.

Recently discovered my planet of origin.