Do not trust your bible

[Zzyzx]

.
Over and over in these threads Christians attempt to defend bible story inconsistencies or errors by claiming "translation error" or occasionally "transcription error." They often go into long explanations of the Latin or Greek words and give their opinion on "the real meaning" of words in the bible.

Not only that, but there are considerable differences in word use (or translation or interpretation) between the many different versions of the bible.

In a current thread a religionist complains that when opponents take statements from the bible to mean exactly what they say, they are attempting to apply modern usage to ancient texts. Are bibles in general use NOT using (or attempting to use) modern language? Are they written / edited for ancients or for modern people?

If bibles in common use cannot be trusted to say what they mean and mean what they say, WHERE are bible believers supposed to learn truth? Not many are linguists fluent in ancient languages.

[OnceConvinced]

Yes, supposedly modern translations have been updated for our modern lingo. If they are not translated properly then whose fault is that?

One of the things I had issues on in my Christian walk was the whole "reinterpretation" issue. No matter where I went you'd have Christians taking scripture and then trying to redefine the meaning of it by going back to the ancient Greek or Hebrew and trying to make out the words mean something different to what they said in the English texts. I found it very frustrating. It really started to become impossible to determine what was the correct translation and what wasn't. A fruitless exercise.

I would have to say it was probably one of my biggest issues as a Christian. Why couldn't we have a translation that was translated correctly and actually meant what it says?

Of course now I look back and I see that Christians use the bible and retranslate it and reinterpret it simply to back up their own beliefs. It's not a matter of looking at what the bible says, taking it at face value and coming to a conclusion. These Christians are always taking other preconceived ideas and allowing those preconceived ideas to influence how they read scripture.

We skeptics just want to take it at face value and we SHOULD be able to, but the average Christians won't let us. There always has to be another meaning, but can you get any Christians to agree on what those meanings are? Good luck with that one! That's why now, I won't normally entertain these other meanings. I take it at face value, after all if it's not what the writer meant, then it shouldn't be translated that way.

[bjs]

Over and over in these threads Christians attempt to defend bible story inconsistencies or errors by claiming "translation error" or occasionally "transcription error." They often go into long explanations of the Latin or Greek words and give their opinion on "the real meaning" of words in the bible.

Since we are speaking in English about texts written in Greek and Hebrew, an accurate translation would be a valid part of the discussion.

If you question what someone says is “the real meaning� of a word, there are ample resources both in stores and online to allow you to check for yourself.

Not only that, but there are considerable differences in word use (or translation or interpretation) between the many different versions of the bible.

I will have to ask you to support this claim. There are a few poor translations, and some passages that are exceptionally difficult to translate. However, most respected translations agree on the basic meaning of nearly every passage in the Bible.

In a current thread a religionist complains that when opponents take statements from the bible to mean exactly what they say, they are attempting to apply modern usage to ancient texts. Are bibles in general use NOT using (or attempting to use) modern language? Are they written / edited for ancients or for modern people?

Perhaps you could provide this example for us. There have certainly been many examples on this forum of people ignoring the historical context of a passage in order to create the appearance of “inconsistencies� in the text.

The various books of the Bible were written by ancient people for their contemporaries. The text has universal applications and has been translated in the modern languages, but it was written for a specific culture. To fully understand the universal meaning we often need to understand the original culture.

If bibles in common use cannot be trusted to say what they mean and mean what they say, WHERE are bible believers supposed to learn truth? Not many are linguists fluent in ancient languages.

It has been said, “Do not read the Bible. Study it or leave it alone.� There are ample resources for those who want to study the Bible. There is no need to be fluent in ancient languages. There is only a need to want to understand.

[bluethread]

In a current thread a religionist complains that when opponents take statements from the bible to mean exactly what they say, they are attempting to apply modern usage to ancient texts. Are bibles in general use NOT using (or attempting to use) modern language? Are they written / edited for ancients or for modern people?

Ah, so a "religionist complains that when opponents take statements from the bible to mean exactly what they say, they are attempting to apply modern usage to ancient texts"? Is that exactly what that "religionist" actually said, or is that just your interpretation of what was said? Did this "religionist" actually refer to "opponents" or did that "religionist" merely ask that a principle of word usage be applied consistently? Since the OP makes a point of "taking statements" to "mean exactly what they say", I would presume you would be careful to present exactly what was said. Did you?

[Divine Insight]

It has been said, “Do not read the Bible. Study it or leave it alone.� There are ample resources for those who want to study the Bible. There is no need to be fluent in ancient languages. There is only a need to want to understand.

The problem with this is that it's basically an insult to people's intelligence.

For example, who wrote the "resources" that Christians claim are available for those who want to study the Bible?

Christian "Bible Study" is dishonest from the get go. I say that it's dishonest because it's not an honest study. It seriously isn't. It's a "study" that begins with the basic assumption that the Bible is indeed the "Word of God", and therefore it must necessarily make sense. So every effort possible is undertaken to makes every possible excuse for it. Even to the point of actually tossing our hands up in the air and confessing, "This text makes absolutely no sense at all to us,... therefore,.... we must have faith that God has answers that are beyond our ability to comprehend, etc."

In fact, that type of excuse is actually used in "bible study" anytime a bible study student seriously presses for meaning answers. And some students are SERIOUS. They want to know if the bible is TRUTH, they aren't just going to sit around pretending that it has to be truth no matter what. That attitude is a dishonest "study".

In fact, theology shouldn't even be permitted in academia unless theologians are willing to at least consider the possibility that their theological dogma could be false. Clearly Christian seminary colleges do not even remotely entertain that possibilities. In fact, if they have any students who are seriously pressing that conclusion those students are typically asked to LEAVE.

And all kinds of excuses are made for asking them to leave. Like saying, "Look if you aren't willing to consider that this theology might be true then why are you bothering to study it? Which itself is a dishonest stance to take. Because students who realize that the bible cannot be true are not rejecting the possibility that it could have been true, they are simply looking at the evidence against it and realizing that it can't be true.

And that is a valid academic assessment.

If theology were an honest academic subject, then there should be at least as many "theologians" who are convinced that the Bible is false as there are those who believe it to be true.

Where are the "theologians" who believe the Bible to be false? There probably aren't any precisely because once a theologian realizes that the Bible is false they are no longer considered to be a "theologian" but instead they are not considered to be an "atheist" and belong in some "enemy camp" somewhere.

This is one reason why I actually get ticked off that people consider me to be an "ex-Christian" simply because I came to the realization that the Bible is false.

It's actually hogwash to call me an "ex-Christian". On the contrary I am a Christian who came to the sound and certain conclusion that the Bible cannot possibly be true. It's simply not possible. Especially VERBATIM.

A "literal Bible" is impossible. And no amount of excuses for poorly translated languages or excuses like "You need to understand the culture that wrote it" etc., can save the Bible.

The Bible cannot be salvaged as it is written. The God portrayed in the Bible simply cannot be infinitely intelligent, wise, benevolent, or moral. It's simply not possible. The Bible simply does not describe such an entity. On the contrary the Bible describes a God who is every bit as stupid, ignorant, immoral and male-chauvinistic as the society who made up this God.

There is no way to "salvage" the Bible.

And far more importantly is the question, "Why would anyone even want to salvage the Bible?"

The Bible proclaims that humans are to blame for all the ills of the world. We are at odds with our creator. We innately hate him and rebel against him from birth. Moreover the only way we could possibly be saved from our disgusting nature is be this God having his own corrupt priests beating the hell out of his his innocent son and nailing him to a pole. An act that we are all now being held responsible for and must condone on our behalf.

That is such an absolutely depressing and disgusting picture of reality why would anyone in their right mind want that to be true?

I can't imagine a single solitary Christian being upset by learning that Christianity is totally false. What are they going to be upset about? That it's not true that they were at odds with some God and were responsible for him having to have his only begotten son crucified to pay for their sins? Who in their right mind could be upset to discover that there is absolutely no truth to that tale?

To discover that Christianity is false should be the "BEST NEWS" any Christian could ever hope to hear.

Yet here they are going to extreme lengths to try to support this religion against all odds. No matter how utterly absurd and contradictory the religion has been shown to been, they continually make up excuse after excuse after excuse to try to save it.

Why?

It would seem to me that any sane human who is thinking clearly would drop this religion like a hot potato at the very first reason they had to believe it might be false.

Why defend a religion that demands that you are at odds with your creator to the point where your creator had to have his perfectly innocent son horribly crucified to pay for you disgusting sinful nature?

I can't believe that Christians are so passionate about keeping this religion afloat at all cost.

The only possible explanation I can imagine is that they have come to believe that either Christianity is true, or atheism is true. And since they can't even begin to handle an atheistic existence, even Christianity, as dismal and depressing at it is, beats a universe that has no apparent purpose at all.

That has to be to. Christians have simply been convinced that it's either Christianity or atheism. And since they can't handle atheism they'll defend Christianity to their graves.

And most of them don't even have a clue about the Eastern mystical religions, or are simply so convinced that they are false that again, they can only see either Christianity or atheism. So that's the dichotomy they are desperately trying to avoid by doing everything in their power to keep Christianity alive at all cost.

It truly is a disgusting picture of reality. I mean, if Christianity is true, then we as humans are utterly disgusting, and so is our creator for that matter. He's no better than we are based on the way he acts in the Bible.

I'm not an 'ex-Christian. I am a Christian. I'm a Christian who came to the realization that Christianity can't possibly be true, and that this is actually a very good thing to boot. I'm a Christian who truly has something to rejoice about. No demigods were harmed on my account I can assure you of that.

[historia]

If bibles in common use cannot be trusted to say what they mean and mean what they say, WHERE are bible believers supposed to learn truth? Not many are linguists fluent in ancient languages.

I think it is decidedly naive to assume that anyone can just pick up a 2,000 year old text written in a time, language, and culture very different from our own and expect to understand it without any aid.

And, historically, Christians have always known this. There have always been members of the Christian community (i.e., pastors and theologians) who could translate and interpret the text for the laity. That tradition of interpretation continues to be vital to Christianity. Even the Reformers, intent on establishing the authority of scripture, cite the early Church fathers, and especially Augustine, at length.

[Divine Insight]

I think it is decidedly naive to assume that anyone can just pick up a 2,000 year old text written in a time, language, and culture very different from our own and expect to understand it without any aid.

Why is that naive? If a supremely intelligent creator was seriously behind inspiring these writings specifically for the purpose of communicating to the objects of his creation then why shouldn't it be crystal clear to any human who might read it?

And why didn't this God himself see it to that it was properly translated into all languages? If he's so capable of inspiring people to do things and speaking to people from burning bushes and clouds, he should have no problem at all with this trivial task.

And, historically, Christians have always known this. There have always been members of the Christian community (i.e., pastors and theologians) who could translate and interpret the text for the laity. That tradition of interpretation continues to be vital to Christianity. Even the Reformers, intent on establishing the authority of scripture, cite the early Church fathers, and especially Augustine, at length.

Which Christians have always known this?

The Catholic Church tried to establish a Papal authority that would be the ordained spokesperson for the word of God. This actually gave the God a perfect opportunity to us these Popes precisely for this purpose. But historically we know that none of these Pope had any direct line to any supreme intelligence.

And then we have the "protesting" Protestants who protested against one mortal man interpretation scriptures for another man. In fact, the Protestants today commonly 'Boast" that the Holy Spirit has guided them personally in their ordained understanding of the scriptures. They know precisely what God wants from us and the rest of us are totally in the dark and hopelessly misguided.

The Protestantisms are the most hypocritical of all the Christianities. They profess that the Holy Spirit is to guide the individual readers whilst simultaneously professing that only they have a valid understanding of the scriptures.

Who can we trust to interpret "God's Word" for us?

You telling us that we can't trust God to have done it right the first time.

So now we need to place our trust in some mortal theologian. And which one? Which of the myriad of disagreeing theologians should we place our trust in?

We can't trust GOD!

We're stuck with having to trust some shady TV evangelist I guess.

Unless we want to become Catholic and place our trust in the Pope.

We obviously can't trust either God or Jesus. In fact, Jesus never wrote down a single solitary thing. Why is that?

A God who demands that we obey HIS WORD, and he never even bothers to write anything down?

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that if Jesus was "The Word Made Flesh" then he should have had a clue how important it is to write things down in a very clear and unambiguous manner.

If anything is crystal clear, it's that the Bible is NOT.

In fact, if the Bible had been clear in the first place there would have never been any need for Jesus to come and straighten thing out arguing with the scribes and pharisees (the very keepers of the Bible).

The Jews, Muslims and Christians would all still be Jews. There wouldn't be an symphony of disagreeing biblical myths. The religion would have never fallen into pieces in the first place if God could be TRUSTED to know how to communicate efficiently to his own creation.

The mere fact that none of these religions agree with each other, and they can't even agree among themselves is proof positive that no one has a clue what these biblical tales are even trying to say.

If there is a God behind the Bible he has got to be the most inept God possible to have created such a highly confused and fracture religion as the Abrahamic religions are.

Even if we single out Christianity and trash Judaism and Islam as being "obviously wrong" then we still have an absolute mess. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Christianity has more disagreeing denominations and sects than Judaism and Islam combined. Christianity is probably in the worst shape of all the Abrahamic factions.

Catholicism was the only faction of Christianity that ever had a hope of being meaningful. But now with all it's child-molesting priests, etc., even it doesn't appear to be very divinely inspired.

I think it's just a hopeless cause to try to keep these ancient myths alive. They clearly have no more merit than Greek mythology. Why are people so bent on clinging onto them at all cost.

They seem to be willing to forfeit all reason to cling to these religions. It really appears to be an act of extreme desperation. Why bother clinging?

It's like they just can't imagine a world without a judgmental God and a promise of an after life. So they will do anything to try to salvage these myths. Anything at all. Even if it means believing that they can't makes heads or tails of it so they'll have to just place their faith in some preacher.

That can actually be extremely dangerous. How can anyone be sure they aren't placing their faith in another Jim Jones, or David Koresh, etc.?

And even these TV evangelists with their huge churches and congregations could be nothing but monetary based scams. Many of them have been exposed to have been precisely that.

Who can we trust if we can't trust God?

[bluethread]

I think it is decidedly naive to assume that anyone can just pick up a 2,000 year old text written in a time, language, and culture very different from our own and expect to understand it without any aid.

Why is that naive? If a supremely intelligent creator was seriously behind inspiring these writings specifically for the purpose of communicating to the objects of his creation then why shouldn't it be crystal clear to any human who might read it?

Objects plural is th operative term here. As the Scriptures say, "It is not good that the man should be alone." We are created as social beings. It is not necessary that Adonai's ways be crystal clear to any human who might read the writings He inspired, just that it be sufficiently understood among His people. "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people." So you see it is not singular, it is on hearts, not a heart, and it is not universal because it is for His people.

And why didn't this God himself see it to that it was properly translated into all languages? If he's so capable of inspiring people to do things and speaking to people from burning bushes and clouds, he should have no problem at all with this trivial task.

No problem, He just has no such obligation.

[Divine Insight]

"But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel"

Why would a creator of all humanity be involved in the politics of a specific nation? And what would that have to do with the rest of us?

If this God's "covenant" is with "The House of Israel", then it has nothing to do with me. I don't see where I have anything to do with "The House of Israel".

And why didn't this God himself see it to that it was properly translated into all languages? If he's so capable of inspiring people to do things and speaking to people from burning bushes and clouds, he should have no problem at all with this trivial task.

No problem, He just has no such obligation.

What do you mean he has no obligation? He most certainly does.

He's supposed to be a God you can TRUST? Have you forgotten that?

He's also supposedly a "Fatherly God" and we are supposed to be his Children.

Would you argue that a mortal man can father children and then just walk away and ignore them because he has no obligation to raising them properly and seeing to it that they have a good and truthful education?

I'm sorry Bluethread, but the claim that the Biblical God has "no obligations" to humanity is baloney. In fact, if he's supposed to be the trustworthy dependable Fatherly figure that Christians like to claim he is, then he's got tons of obligations.

If you want to God who has no obligations you'd be better off worshiping Zeus. Zeus has no obligations because he's neither trustworthy nor a Fatherly God. Zeus can kill you just because he feels like it and for no other reason.

The Christian God can't behave like that. The Christian God is supposed to be righteous, and trustworthy. With those characteristics come tons of responsibility. The excuse "God can do anything he wants and is not obligated to anyone or anything" cannot be used in Christianity, because as soon as you make that claim you are simultaneously proclaiming that the Christian God is neither trustworthy, nor righteous.

So yes, the Christian God is under a lot of obligations if he is going to live up to being trustworthy and righteous.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either your God is trustworthy and righteous, or he's not. And to demand that people obey his every command, whilst simultaneously allowing his commands to be completely misunderstood and ambiguous, even contradictory is totally unacceptable?

Are we supposed to stone our unruly children to death or not?

Are we supposed to bash the babies of our enemies against rock and be happy whilst doing it or not?

Are we supposed to be killing heathens who blaspheme against the word of God or not?

The Old Testament says that we are supposed to be doing these things. And Jesus proclaims that not one jot nor one tittle shall pass from law until heaven and earth pass.

So exactly how are we supposed to be behaving? Which commandments are we supposed to follow and which ones are we supposed to dismiss as being utterly absurd and immoral?

If there is a God who demands that we must obey his every command, then he most certainly is obligated to make sure that we know precisely what his commands are and what they are not.

So you "God who has no obligations" is a God who is totally untrustworthy, undependable, and irresponsible. There is no excuse for such a lazy complacent God. A God who sends mixed messages. I have no clue what what I'm supposed to be doing to pacify the conflicting contradictory commandment of this mythological God.

For all I know I should be out bashing someones babies against rocks because they are the children of the enemies of God. And here I am sitting at home trying to stay out of trouble. I'm on my way to hell because I'm not obeying the commandments of our LORD GOD.

And here you are making excuse for this God for not making himself crystal clear proclaiming that he is under no obligation to be crystal clear.

I totally disagree. If there's a God who demands that I obey his every commandment without exception then I need to know precisely what those commandments are without any ambiguity at all.

And I don't want to be worshiping the wrong God.

Is Jesus God? Or is Jesus a false prophet who blasphemed againt God just as the Jewish Priest found him guilty of?

Is Allah God? Should I be flying planes into world trade centers?

Or is some other religion entirely the message from God? Maybe I should be worshiping God through Buddhism and listening to the voice of the Dalai Lama as the voice of God?

I have no NO CLUE. And therefore I cannot trust God because he has not made it clear what I am supposed to be doing. The Christian God is especially screwed up in his mixed messages.

[Unhand Me Sir]

Are they written / edited for ancients or for modern people?

Written for ancient people and edited for modern people. What else could they be?

The Bible texts are a fascinating and enigmatic window on the ancient world. They need to be reclaimed from religious people twisting them to fit a modern agenda.