Quote :

"It's full of bad writing... poor sentence and story structure, contradictions, etc."

That's largely due to it having been translated.

We have this same problem today, it's the same place that "someone set us up the
Bomb. Make your time" comes from.

No translation could ever retain the poetry and lyricism from its original, unless the original authors learned the other language and rewrote it.

12/27/2012 4:59:09 PM

Quote :

"Have you read Genesis? Within the first 3 verses Eve is created twice, in two different ways. Cain finds a wife despite he and his family being the only people on the planet. "

OK, I thought you were saying that it is full of noob typos or something. Thanks for clearing that up.

I give an artistic license for everything that you mentioned. the technical correctness of it is bogus, obvi, but it doesn't impact the greater meaning.

Quote :

"For what it's worth, my take on religious texts generally is that while they aren't generally internally consistent (even with the NT retcon) if folks can get something meaningful out of them without using it to harm others, more power to them."

Exactly.

We could spend for ever arguing about the bible. But the Bible is not the problem, the problem is that church has become a profit driven industry (or has it always been that way?) and to get people to come (and donate) the resort to heated and controversial topics to make people believe that the world is going to pot.

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 5:02 PM. Reason : d]

12/27/2012 5:01:00 PM

It's always been about power and profit. Jesus was very anti-authority, that's part of what made him so dangerous and unpopular with the Jewish church at the time.

It's ironic that his teachings became the basis for a massive, hierarchical power grabbing monstrosity only a few hundred years after his death.

12/27/2012 5:05:13 PM

Quote :

"you are not just giving rules for people to follow, you are giving them an example to follow"

I agree that the Hero Pattern is a good basis for a story, hence why they conferred so many aspects of it to Jesus
http://department.monm.edu/classics/courses/clas230/mythdocuments/heropattern/default.htm

12/27/2012 5:11:01 PM

Well, for all we know Jesus may have exisisted and these may be his actual teachings. It is impossible to say for sure though, although the places where there would be records of him come up empty. Jesus is a very specific example.

But, the Bible is not the issue here. How many times do I have to say it?

12/27/2012 5:40:02 PM

Quote :

"Basic biblical stories have appeared in or been the basis for many books, there's no doubt, but it's not a well written book. It's full of bad writing... poor sentence and story structure..."

Quote :

"Have you read Genesis? Within the first 3 verses Eve is created twice"

you seem to have "chapters" and "verses" confused. astound us some more with your biblical insight.

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 6:09 PM. Reason : .]

12/27/2012 6:05:59 PM

Wicked burn!

Just kidding, that's some seriously low-hanging fruit.

12/27/2012 6:16:33 PM

Quote :

" It is impossible to say for sure though"

I don't think it's impossible.

12/27/2012 6:55:40 PM

^^^Furthermore, I thought the first "creation story" was about how the unwashed masses were created, while the second one is where Adam (Hebrew for "man") and Eve ("source of life") were created in the Garden of Eden (related to the Aramaic for "fruitful, well-watered") in isolation of the teeming masses outside.

Quote :

"No translation could ever retain the poetry and lyricism from its original, unless the original authors learned the other language and rewrote it."

I first thought "wait, what about The Message, which was translated from the original languages in highly idiomatic English?"

But then I realized that you instead referred to the ancients doing the rewriting, which was obv. impossible with resp. to English, because not even its distant ancestor Old High German existed when they lived; it's a shame, because if the Bible weren't considered so inscrutable, people wouldn't be so willing to believe that the answer to any issue can be found somewhere in there.


Finally, the person who noted that the Bible was cobbled together from numerous source documents was right on the mark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Bible

Quote :

"Few biblical books are regarded by scholars as the product of a single individual; all have been edited and revised to produce the work known today."

You can also find a vivid diagram of the likely origins of the first four books of the Bible here, under an article for a now-outdated hypothesis for the authorship of the Pentateuch whose terminology still informs contemporary scholarship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis#After_Wellhausen

12/27/2012 8:00:30 PM

^ Are you like, a self loathing catholic or something?

12/27/2012 8:53:51 PM

no, I am an atheist

and surprisingly enough, not even raised Catholic (more like "fire and brimstone" Baptist)

12/27/2012 10:01:51 PM

well, you have just cited wiki twice, which means that you are one of those people.

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 10:13 PM. Reason : d]

12/27/2012 10:12:51 PM

Someone who cites evidence, the natural enemy of Believers?

12/27/2012 10:53:53 PM

since when is citing wiki... evidence? I brought some interesting discussion to this thread, what exactly is being contributed here from wiki?

And why is it that whenever somebody defends the bible, you have to paint him as some evangelical dolt. Do you not try to understand something before you hate it? The issue here isn't christians verses atheist, or defending christianity. It has nothing to do with christianity, the issue is the huge gap between what the bible is intended to do and what it is being used to, by both the right and left sides. It is about hating something without really spending the time to try to understand. I mean, I can understand hating the likes of Conor Oberst or Kesha without really understanding them, but when it come to something that is thousands of years old, you think people would at least look into it first. A scientist would investigate and read it critically before casting it aside. That is what we should all be doing here.

The right clings onto the bible, and the left clings onto science. Both sides have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.





[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 11:23 PM. Reason : still undecided]

12/27/2012 11:11:10 PM

^It's evidence that Kurtis636 wasn't talking out his ass about the Wholly Babble.

12/28/2012 12:41:45 AM

Gilgamesh!

12/28/2012 12:43:26 AM

I think that saying that the bible "is bad writing" qualifies as such.

It's like saying CCR is bad music because some of their songs are difficult to understand.

12/28/2012 12:59:13 AM

DP, gotta love how shows up in a bible thread

"Few biblical books are regarded by scholars as the product of a single individual; all have been edited and revised to produce the work known today.

OK, this doesn't really mean anything. What matters is the source document: the message, the clarity, the purpose of it all. Sure, you can look into who wrote it to maybe get possible clues into the themes, or maybe if several different people wrote it to see if there is a broad influence.

I feel the same about the people that debate if will shakespeare really is shakespeare and if he really did write the plays. Why is that o important? Does it change the impact and significance of his plays?

[Edited on December 28, 2012 at 1:07 AM. Reason : dp]

12/28/2012 12:59:43 AM

shakespeare wasn't espousing hamlet to be god, so i'd say it's a little different, yeh

12/28/2012 7:34:16 AM

CCR has very straight forward simple songs.

Maybe we would be better off if the bible was treated like a long play rather than the word of god and a reason for ridiculous bullshit.

[Edited on December 28, 2012 at 9:12 AM. Reason : 1]

12/28/2012 9:09:06 AM

^^also it's not like we're encountering difficulties translating Shakespeare into a language that didn't exist until long after he died

12/28/2012 9:57:19 AM

^^ From a logical standpoint, that is how it should be read. It doesn't have to have supernatural powers to serve its purpose. The problem is that, you have to give it supernatural powers to control people.

12/28/2012 12:49:32 PM

If I didn't come with the implied supernatural power we wouldn't be talking about it right now.

12/28/2012 2:01:31 PM

And Bingo was his name-o.

All this academic brilliance is all well and good but the book IS a religious text even if BanjoMan doesn't think it should be.

12/28/2012 2:04:29 PM

Well, guys, I can see that you all don't want to have a discussion here, so bdmazur, let's go grab us a lane

12/28/2012 2:53:07 PM

"not having the discussion I want to have" is not the same as "not having a discussion". I know it's really easy to be dismissive of people who have different opinions, though.

12/28/2012 2:55:42 PM

well, what exactly is your argument? Let's start with that.

12/28/2012 3:04:30 PM

I don't really have a thesis to put forward in this thread other than "religious concepts" are non-scientific hogwash that you can't really discuss anyway. With no objective basis in reality there's no common ground or definitions so discussion is pointless. Anyone can claim that their interpretation or experience is superior with no way to prove it.

12/28/2012 3:08:33 PM

Well, of course it is not scientific. Nobody should be approaching religious documents with a scientific metric, because they do not exist to teach anything about science. They are there to pass on ideas that serve to provide guidance, hope, and lessons about humanity.

What about the story of something like Prometheus, that is religious is not? Think about the idea presented there: self-sacrifice. Now there a gazillian of those, but they aren't under fire. So ask yourself, why is the imitatio christi under fire?

It is not because it is hogwash, it is because it is currently being misused and is the victim of misdirected hate. I am just asking the liberals to wake up, and realize that they are heading down the same path as the conservatives, is it not obvious?

12/28/2012 3:20:33 PM

There's a difference between literary concepts and "religious" concepts. You can't just disavow all the baggage that religion adds to conceptual notions. Religious concepts are generally truth statements, not opinions and as such should be scrutinized scientifically (since science is our current best method for determination truth).

Prometheus isn't under fire because no one currently believes it to have been true. Everyone recognizes it as the mythology that it is. It's not just the messages of the Bible that attract derision, it's the very real implementation of those messages on planet Earth as well (though this thread was specifically intentioned not to discuss this).

As far as imitatio christi is concerned, I'm not buying it completely. The Gospels and the Epistles are filled with lectures and rules. The Gospels are essentially Jesus sermoning and then dying. And that's not even mentioning the OT, though while it doesn't have much to do with this topic, you haven't differentiated between the OT and the NT in your claims of Biblical brilliance.

TL;DR: Religious concepts are completely distinct from whatever literary genius anyone picks up from the supposed holy texts.

12/28/2012 4:12:58 PM

The bible is the word of god which 2 billion people follow.

No one would care about it if Constantine didnt win that random battle. There are plenty of similar books that were written and forgotten.

With that being said the story arc of Christianity and the Church from around 200 ad to around 1700ad is much more interesting than the bible.

What's your point about liberal and conservatives?

12/28/2012 4:20:10 PM

We could make a very competent religion out of the Star Trek TNG series.

12/28/2012 4:25:37 PM

Some people do.

12/28/2012 4:30:33 PM

Quote :

"What's your point about liberal and conservatives?"

Conservatives don't get the bible and misuse it, liberals don't get the bible and shit on it. Can we not agree on that?

12/28/2012 5:15:45 PM

IMO, although typical libs. don't "get" the bible, the few people who actually do get it are also libs.

12/28/2012 7:08:43 PM

Quote :

"Conservatives don't get the bible and misuse it, liberals don't get the bible and shit on it. Can we not agree on that?"

You have absolutely no way of determining that your way of "getting it" is not a "misuse" or a "shitting on". Did you write, edit, and compile the fucking thing? I can say with certainty the Council of Nicea wasn't convened for the purpose of creating a work of literary genius that shouldn't be taken literally but revered with awe for its brilliant symbolism and meta-framework.

12/28/2012 7:59:45 PM

Quote :

"Have you read Genesis? Within the first 3 verses Eve is created twice, in two different ways. Cain finds a wife despite he and his family being the only people on the planet. The Gospels don't contain the same birth story... you would think that something like a Virgin birth would be significant enough to be mentioned by all 4 Gospels. Hell you would think that the two that do mention it would at least agree on where he was born. They don't."

Really? You're going to complain that all 4 Gospels don't have all of the exact same details included, even if the details that are given among them don't generally conflict? Come on, maaaaaaan. I'll give you the 2 creation stores in Genesis, but then you are, again, taking the convenient stance that whatever the Bible says happened is the only thing that happened. Cain finding a wife? Is it completely impossible that a creator being, I dunno, made other people?

12/28/2012 8:44:04 PM

^The genealogies in Matthew and Luke conflict: In particular they claim that Joseph had two different fathers.

Quote :

"Cain finding a wife? Is it completely impossible that a creator being, I dunno, made other people?"

This is exactly why I thout Genesis 1 had God creating a bunch of people outside of Eden, while Genesis 2 was a more special creation inside Eden.

12/28/2012 9:22:52 PM

Quote :

"You have absolutely no way of determining that your way of "getting it" is not a "misuse" or a "shitting on". Did you write, edit, and compile the fucking thing? I can say with certainty the Council of Nicea wasn't convened for the purpose of creating a work of literary genius that shouldn't be taken literally but revered with awe for its brilliant symbolism and meta-framework. "

Well, I think that we can all agree that the literal interpretation is not to go and assault homos. Which is what the right think.

And I think that we can all agree that it is not some useless piece of shit bad writing that makes good toilet paper.

And, yes, nobody truly knows why it was originally created, but it is what it is.

12/28/2012 9:57:52 PM

Actually the literal decontextualized interpretation of Lev. 20:13 is to smear the queer: http://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Leviticus%2020:13

Quote :

"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them."

-NRSV

12/28/2012 10:04:40 PM

Oh, now you just went there

12/28/2012 10:11:39 PM

I think the way the Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) put it sounds funnier (the Jews called this book Vayikra, "And He called"): http://www.afii.org/OJB.pdf

Quote :

"If an ish also lie with zachar, as he lieth with an isha, both of them have committed to’evah; they shall surely be put to death; their dahm shall be upon them."

This suggests a contextualized interpretation, specifically that it is pederasty that is condemned, rather than male homosexual acts in general (this also fits well with 1 Cor. 6:9, where the Greek words for the last types of people who "will not inherit the kingdom of God" probably mean "catamites" and "pederasts"): http://www.jstandard.com/content/item/redefining_leviticus_2013/20995

12/28/2012 11:01:58 PM

What I find funny about that whole situation is that it is one line from one chapter from one book out of the entire OT, and yet they run to it and practically form and entire crusade around it. It is one of many dated relics in the OT, and it is very opportunistic/hypocritical of christians to cling TO THAT SPECIFIC ONE.



[Edited on December 28, 2012 at 11:16 PM. Reason : z]

12/28/2012 11:14:13 PM

Actually there are like 6 or 8 verses that the bigots point to: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibh.htm

12/28/2012 11:55:19 PM

religion, culture, tradition: they're all 10,000 years obsolete.
Emotion, hormone response: 100,000 years obsolete.
Philosophy: 500 years obsolete.
Science: if u not in it, you're a dumbass

12/29/2012 12:15:10 AM

nobody is arguing against science.

12/29/2012 12:20:33 AM

oh so you're one of those Booker T Washington types. appeaseing the religulous isn't a solution.

curing disease, discovering new worlds and civilizations, learning about black holes: denying the total superiority of Science is blasphemy.

it's like saying you can win at poker by using your feelings. who do you think you are? Luke Skywalker?

12/29/2012 12:33:36 AM

You're like the new DumbasSxBoY, jcgolden

12/29/2012 1:14:07 AM

Sorry I've been so absent from the conversation but I am really enjoying some of these responses. I'm on the road (and only able to post from my phone which is difficult) but as soon as I get back I will have a lot to say.

12/29/2012 1:58:51 AM

Lewisje is the king of pretending like he knows about everything by quickly googling it. Seriously, any topic and the dude is an expert.

12/29/2012 12:54:44 PM