Can we trust the bible?

[Moey]

You're looking for the Bible to give you facts. No wonder you're disillusioned and disappointed. If you want facts, look in a text book. If you want inspiration, look in a book of creative writing. If you want revelation, look in the Bible. Otherwise, stop your griping.

I think what we have learned is that the bible is nothing but a fiction novel that a large amount of people have trusted as fact.

 

[sojourner]

Maybe he "loves" his own people, the Jews, but everyone else can go to hell. (which makes him a racist)

I Samuel 15:2-3
Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ***.

YHWH is vengeful and a genocidal maniac.

You're formulating an opinion of God based upon one snippet of scripture? How typical of the agnostic. What I can't understand is, why is the Bible not good enough to be of any use to you in revealing God, but it's suddenly good enough to "prove" what you want it to "prove?"

 

[sojourner]

I think what we have learned is that the bible is nothing but a fiction novel that a large amount of people have trusted as fact.

**sigh**

ONCE AGAIN for those who weren't listening the first time:

We don't trust it as fact.
If you knew something about literature, you'd know that there's a difference between fiction and myth. Maybe you should spend some time figuring out the difference.

What we've learned is that you haven't learned a thing.:sad4:

 

[Moey]

Can you really ask people to pick up a fiction novel and ask them to believe what's written in it as fact?

 

[sojourner]

Can you really ask people to pick up a fiction novel and ask them to believe what's written in it as fact?

Sure, there are facts within fiction novels. But you don't read them like textbooks. Same with the Bible. ONCE AGAIN: We don't read the Bible for the facts. Why do you keep living in that fantasy world? Move on with your life.

 

[Moey]

Why do you have to try and insult me? Can you not participate in a peaceful debat?

You may not read the bible for facts but in my religious past it was preached from as fact. Children are told that the stories are true account of what happened. But we don't know that do we?

 

[sojourner]

Why do you have to try and insult me? Can you not participate in a peaceful debat?

You may not read the bible for facts but in my religious past it was preached from as fact. Children are told that the stories are true account of what happened. But we don't know that do we?

Let's turn that around, shall we? I'm a member of the clergy. The Bible is one of the trusted tools of my trade. To be told that it's "nothing but made-up fiction that can't be trusted" is insulting. At least I'm not telling you that you're going to go to you-know-where...:areyoucra

I can't help it if, in your former life, you went to a church that treated the Bible as fact. That just quite simply is not valid scholarship. Why are you insisting that I take it as fact, just because you were forced to? Can you say, "Double standard?" I think you can!

 

[Moey]

I tried several churches and all pastors acted like it was a factual text book. When questioned about any part of it they became upset that someone would not take it as fact based on faith. So you can imagine that until someone like yourself corrected me than i would think all christians thought that way.

Now, I was just trying to get my opinion accross to you. If you were insulted that was not my intent.

 

[Prometheus]

So...this is all about you. Not all about what is truth.

You asked me to define what I, personally, think constitutes the whole Bible. I did that. I gave you my opinion, which is what you asked for. Please, stop twisting my words.

The facts (once again) aren't important. The stories are. You can think that's irresponsible if you want to, but then...it's my faith, not yours.

In one breath you accuse me of not caring about truth and in the next breath you say that facts aren't important? Perhaps, I'm missing something here, but I thought facts are truth.

You're hiding behind some pathetic loyalty to a picayune treatment of the minutae of the stories. You can't see the forest for picking at each leaf on each tree. Step back and look at the bigger picture. You might see more than you really are comfortable seeing.

Oh, I get it now. I'm not supposed to want any real evidence for my beliefs. I should just believe whatever I'm told and not question things. Right, gotcha.

Why not? The Bible doesn't tell us that those were his last words. The Bible says that Jesus said thus-and-such. Why couldn't Jesus have said all of it?

No, the Bible does tell us those were His last words. Perhaps you should read the passages. In both Luke and John, He says these phrases and then immediately dies. Is there another definition of "last words?"

You're looking for the Bible to give you facts. No wonder you're disillusioned and disappointed. If you want facts, look in a text book. If you want inspiration, look in a book of creative writing. If you want revelation, look in the Bible. Otherwise, stop your griping.

Revelation would be truth. Revelation would be facts. Revelation is not fiction nor fantasy.

We have the Tradition, of which the Bible is part. You're trying to hold me to a position of sola scriptura. That's heretical and it doesn't work. Jesus is founded upon the actions of his Body on earth, not upon something that you're trying to morph into historical fact. You don't get to just make up a criterion for faith and then claim that everyone who doesn't adhere to that criterion is wrong. How unrealistic is that!

Once again, you claim there is a Jesus and that He did all these great works. Yet, you freely admit that the Bible is fiction so you have no foundation to say what Jesus did one way or the other.

Thank you. Now everybody knows "how much you know." Zip. You're spouting claims about something of which you have neither the slightest clue, nor the slightest respect. Why are you even here?

Hmm, but you said,

Given the fact that none of the gospel writers were eyewitnesses, it's amazing the stories are as close as they are.

They "started writing the Bible" hundreds and hundreds of years after the stories had begun to be told. The writers were drawing together stories from several traditions.

So when I said the Bible was circulating stories written hundreds of years after Christ was dead, it's nothing like what you said? Oh, wait, that's exactly what you said.

As for my comment on the Council of Nicea, I was in err to believe it had compiled the canon of the Bible. This is an untrue assumption which I revoke and apologize for.

So, to sum up every post I've made to you so far into one simple question, how do you know Jesus and His life as portrayed in the Bible is in any way trustworthy?

 

[Moey]

Therfor Jesus may not have actually exsisted.

 

[wizanda]

All doubter = read digest, these time lines

Zechariah 11 = Yeshua = potters field prophecy
Habakkuk 2 = Yeshua = Pharisees = fake Christianity
Ezekiel 39 = Israel was cut off for all of this
Zechariah 3 = Simon being named the stone (peter)

Anyways they are a few, yet have loads more that tally across time, that is theoretical impossible to happen, without prior knowledge of future events….so is it trustworthy?….allot is if also checked in original languages and then all John, Paul and Simon (stone = peter) need removing as all Pharisees and fake (Balaam teachings), which is also foretold!

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The Tanakh is poetry and politics, mythology and folklore, political bombast and civil code, all conflated, massaged, mediated and informed by multiple cultures over a span of centuries. It contains inspiring truths and despicable falsehoods, hints of brilliance and threads of ignorance, intimations of humanism and evidence of rank xenophobia - in short, the entire spectrum of what one might expect from a thoroughly human yet oft times exceptional religio-political endeavor.

 

[sojourner]

You asked me to define what I, personally, think constitutes the whole Bible. I did that. I gave you my opinion, which is what you asked for. Please, stop twisting my words.

And you did a real good job of demonstrating that, what you think of as "absolute" is not absolute at all. You said "read the whole thing." But what you meant was, "Read the whole thing...according to my definition." But have you ever stopped to consider that, just maybe, what you're conceptualizing is not "the whole thing" -- only part? Did you form your opinion about the Bible based upon "the whole thing"...or only upon part?

The facts (once again) aren't important. The stories are. You can think that's irresponsible if you want to, but then...it's my faith, not yours.
In one breath you accuse me of not caring about truth and in the next breath you say that facts aren't important? Perhaps, I'm missing something here, but I thought facts are truth.

Not always. Innocent men go to jail all the time because of the facts that don't add up to the truth.

Oh, I get it now. I'm not supposed to want any real evidence for my beliefs. I should just believe whatever I'm told and not question things. Right, gotcha.

Sorry, no. Questioning is fine. But you don't have to cut down the trees and have no forest left, just in order to examine each leaf. Doctors don't kill the patient in order to examine him.

of it? No, the Bible does tell us those were His last words. Perhaps you should read the passages. In both Luke and John, He says these phrases and then immediately dies. Is there another definition of "last words?"

First of all, neither of those authors says, "These are Jesus' last words." They're telling a story, not giving a news report. Second, regardless of what Jesus did or did not say, it's clear that both authors report that Christ did, in fact, die on a cross at the hands of the Romans. That is infinitely more important to the mythos than what Jesus said while he was busy dying.

Revelation would be truth. Revelation would be facts. Revelation is not fiction nor fantasy.

Revelation is truth. But revelation can come through stories that are not factual.

Once again, you claim there is a Jesus and that He did all these great works. Yet, you freely admit that the Bible is fiction so you have no foundation to say what Jesus did one way or the other.

I didn't say the Bible was fiction. You said it was fiction. I said it was revelation.

So when I said the Bible was circulating stories written hundreds of years after Christ was dead, it's nothing like what you said? Oh, wait, that's exactly what you said.

Right. First of all, the gospels were circulated some time after Jesus' crucifixion, but not hundreds of years -- more like 70-85 years, or so. However, we suspect that the documents from which the synoptics were written much, much sooner (prior to the year 40 c.e., in fact). Secondly, I was speaking of OT stories, not NT gospels.

So, to sum up every post I've made to you so far into one simple question, how do you know Jesus and His life as portrayed in the Bible is in any way trustworthy?

Because I believe the Bible to be revelatory.

 

[ker crypter]

l think you can trust the bible to give you a good ldea of what it means to be morally responsible

 

[gingernater]

l think you can trust the bible to give you a good ldea of what it means to be morally responsible

yes but its so musch more. Its gives you major insites into who god is and his chartiristics. And its his living word for us. Its so musch more than teaching morals

 

[ker crypter]

yes but its so much more. Its gives you major insight into who god is And its his living word for us.

but l know all that already, l am at peace with my god. l never searched for the answer. l found the question.lt may sound strange but you'll find all the answers to the universe in front of your face, not in a bible. lm glad you find insight in the bible, thats what its there for and for that l believe you are a good honest person. Personally l think they are the same stories that have been told since the beginning of time and they are good ones but they dont really interest me much anymore. lm a firm believer in instinct and that god is innate.