Debating specific details of Bible stories

[Zzyzx]

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Often in these threads there is debate about details of New Testament stories, sometimes hinging on the exact meaning of words used by Jesus and/or upon the intent of various writers.

HOW can anyone know exactly what Jesus may have said 2000 years ago? He did not leave writings that we can examine. There do not appear to have been records of his words made at the time. The earliest surviving records were compiled hundreds of years later. How can anyone know the intent of ancient writers?

The Gospels are said to have been written decades or generations after the supposed speeches – by people who cannot be identified with any agreement or certainty by Christian scholars and theologians. There is no way to verify the truth and accuracy of the ‘quotations’. There are no outside / disconnected sources to support the claims (particularly those of supernatural or ‘miracle’ nature).

The writings were selected by churchmen (under auspices of Roman officials) to reflect certain points of view – and were subject to various translations, editing, revisions, and hand copying by scribes over the centuries; resulting in fifty versions of the Bible in English alone.

Yet, people claim to know exactly what was said and what was meant by statements and individual words.

HOW can they know such things?

[Jagella]

Often in these threads there is debate about details of New Testament stories, sometimes hinging on the exact meaning of words used by Jesus and/or upon the intent of various writers.

HOW can anyone know exactly what Jesus may have said 2000 years ago? How can anyone know the intent of ancient writers?

HOW can they know such things?

As I'm sure you are aware, nobody can know if the stories in the New Testament really happened or what Jesus said if he existed to say anything at all. All we have are documents with testimonies and stories about Jesus and other gospel characters. Those stories can be fiction as easily as fact. So the presumed experts make educated guesses which they publicize in journals and in books hoping that people especially other presumed experts agree with them. Bart Ehrman, for example, writes to get other Bible scholars to take him seriously. So what you may read in his works isn't so much truth but what scholars may agree is truth.

It's a scam if you ask me. The public is being misled by Biblical studies.

[Divine Insight]

The Biblical stories are provably false to a point where there really cannot be any doubt.

The whole idea of Christianity and Jesus being the Son of Yahweh is way too little too late. The Bible had already proven itself to be false long before this.

The story of the Canaanites proves the fallacy of the Bible. The Canaanites has supposedly rejected God, yet they were sacrificing their very own babies to God.

The theological argument is that the Canaanites were sacrificing their babies to a "false God". A God that doesn't even exist at all.

The problem with this is that the creator God who created the Canaanites would have needed to create them to be so extremely stupid that they couldn't even tell the difference between rejecting a "real God" versus sacrificing their babies to a "false God" that doesn't even exist.

For the Bible to be true the Canaanites could not have been atheists, nor could they have been worshiping any false gods. The only way the Canaanites could be true is if they recognized the existence of the Biblical God and simply rejected him and refused to obey him. But then they would know that there are not other gods to go off sacrificing their babies too.

So the Bible gave itself away as false superstitious mythology long before Jesus was ever born. And there is nothing that could be said or done in the New Testament that could save the Old Testament from its own obvious fallacies.

It could have been possible for Jesus to save the New Testament had Jesus refuted the Old Testament and proclaimed it to be a false picture of God. But let's face the truth here. The New Testament has Jesus standing behind every jot and tittle of the Old Testament. So this reveals the fallacy of Jesus as well.

[bjs]

[Replying to Zzyzx]

Traditionally, orthodox Christians have said that the accuracy of the scriptures is a matter of faith. It is the Holy Spirit, not the human writers, that orthodox Christians put their faith in.

[Zzyzx]

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Traditionally, orthodox Christians have said that the accuracy of the scriptures is a matter of faith. It is the Holy Spirit, not the human writers, that orthodox Christians put their faith in.

Of those I would ask how they know about 'the Holy Spirit'

And, perhaps also observe that if 'the Holy Spirit' was involved in production of 'scriptures' (directly or by influencing writers), it doesn't seem to have been able to get its story straight -- and it told a lot of strange tales.

It might make more sense to regard 'scripture' as a compilation of ancient tales, myths, legends, and folklore spiced with pious moralizing.

[bjs]

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Traditionally, orthodox Christians have said that the accuracy of the scriptures is a matter of faith. It is the Holy Spirit, not the human writers, that orthodox Christians put their faith in.

Of those I would ask how they know about 'the Holy Spirit'

I am unsure what aspect of the word “faith� is not making sense to you.

And, perhaps also observe that if 'the Holy Spirit' was involved in production of 'scriptures' (directly or by influencing writers), it doesn't seem to have been able to get its story straight -- and it told a lot of strange tales.

I suppose that what is strange is a matter of opinion and cultural background.

It might make more sense to regard 'scripture' as a compilation of ancient tales, myths, legends, and folklore spiced with pious moralizing.

That would be the definition of the non-Christian view. You are free to it, but simply stating it does not somehow make it more commendable than the Christian view.

[Divine Insight]

I am unsure what aspect of the word “faith� is not making sense to you.

The problem I have with religious people and their "faith" is that they seem to need to have some dogma associated with their faith. It's their faith in the dogma that I find undesirable.

What I mean by this is that people seem to need to have some sort of tale to believe in. They can't simply place their "faith" in the idea that there may be an afterlife where perhaps there is some "justice" and decency.

The problem I have with the Biblical stories is that they don't represent my idea of "justice" or "decency". In fact, to the contrary they seem to be quite literally "hell-bent" on condemning anyone who refuses to believe and support their dogma. And I don't mean this so much about the followers of the religion but rather this appears to me to be a major part of the decree of the scriptures themselves.

When I realized the Bible cannot be true, and that Jesus cannot possibly be a sacrificial lamb of an egotistical God who apparently becomes angry and wrathful toward anyone who merely doesn't believe in him, I didn't instantly become an atheist.

To the contrary, I continued to believe that there may very well be a spiritual aspect to reality and perhaps there is a life after death and that include justice and decency.

There's no need to believe in the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh, or Jesus to have "faith" in the idea of supernatural decency.

In fact, Christianity and the Bible don't even represent justice or decency. So clinging to that dogma is unproductive.

As I have often stated on these forums, Buddhism represent a far more decent religion and picture of a God. The God of Buddhism isn't a petty wrathful God who is hung-up on his own ego. That type of God simply isn't required to have "faith" that there might be more to life than meets the eye.

In fact, there are actually many religions that have far higher moral standards and Gods than the Hebrew God of Abraham.

But for some reason Christians have fallen into the trap of believing that either the Bible must be true, or there is no God, and therefore no possibility of an afterlife or justice and decency.

Because they have been convinced of this, they really have no choice but to support the Biblical picture of God at all cost. Anything less represents to them "no God at all", and that is simply a thought that they cannot bear to accept.

So they would rather put all their support behind an indecent immoral religion than to face the possibility that their might not be a fairy God Father.

I have come to accept whatever reality might be.

If there is no God and no afterlife then so be it. If that's the truth then why cry over it?

On the other hand if there truly is a decent and just God, I most certainly would have no reason to fear that.

Only the Christian God would I need to fear. Because the Christians have created a God who hates anyone who refuses to believe in him specifically. They have created a God who would have no choice but to hate me.

What kind of a nasty God would the be?

You just cannot have a credible religion with a God who hates people just because they don't believe in him. Especially when there is no rational reason to do so.

Just as you say, the ONLY reason to believe in the Biblical God is by "faith", not because there is any credible evidence for the existence of this God.

But why would I want to place my faith in a God who is so egotistical that he hates anyone who simply doesn't believe in him on bad evidence, or more correctly, on no evidence at all.

There is absolutely no good evidence that the God created by the Hebrew legends is anything more than a very poorly created man-made myth.

After all, I'm a decent person. Why should I see the Biblical God as being such an ignorant immoral jerk if I'm a decent person?

If the God of the Bible was truly a decent God I should have absolutely no problem seeing that at all. But there's nothing in the Bible that indicates to me that the Biblical God is even remotely good.

In fact, the very idea that he would pull such a dastardly stunt as purposefully orchestrating to have humans brutally crucify himself on a pole to hold over my head as a guilt trip, is ignorance beyond ignorance.

I have absolutely no reason to place any "faith" in a God who would pull such an ignorant dastardly stunt as that.

That's just utterly disgusting, IMHO. And totally uncalled for.

IMHO, no "good" God would ever pull such an ignorant stunt as that.

I certainly see no reason to place my faith in the idea that I was created by such an ignorant God.

In fact, I would be far happier to hear that there is no God or afterlife at all, than to hear that the God of the Hebrew Bible is true. The latter would be disgusting news as far as I'm concerned.

You need to realize that according to the Bible the whole crucifixion thing was God's idea, not man's.

Men would be nothing more than helpless puppets in the whole Biblical saga.

Why anyone would want to place their faith in that saga is beyond me.

There are far better religions that are far more worthy of placing our faith in if we want to believe something just as a matter of faith.

[Tcg]

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Traditionally, orthodox Christians have said that the accuracy of the scriptures is a matter of faith. It is the Holy Spirit, not the human writers, that orthodox Christians put their faith in.

Of those I would ask how they know about 'the Holy Spirit'

I am unsure what aspect of the word “faith� is not making sense to you.

Using it in this reply doesn't make sense to me. Faith may lead one to accept the story of the Holy Spirit, but it doesn't create it. Christians rely on the Bible for that story and thus the problem. They must first rely on the trustworthiness of the tales of the Bible concerning the Holy Spirit, before they can by faith accept them. Their faith in the Holy Spirit hasn't lead them to accept the idea of the Holy Spirit, their faith in the Bible has.

It might make more sense to regard 'scripture' as a compilation of ancient tales, myths, legends, and folklore spiced with pious moralizing.

That would be the definition of the non-Christian view. You are free to it, but simply stating it does not somehow make it more commendable than the Christian view.

No, it wouldn't be the non-Christian view. I know many Christians who would agree with Zzyzx's description of one way to approach scripture and yet oddly still find scripture inspirational. Of course the truth about scripture isn't determined by which groups hold which view, so it's a moot point.




Tcg

[Divine Insight]

Using it in this reply doesn't make sense to me. Faith may lead one to accept the story of the Holy Spirit, but it doesn't create it. Christians rely on the Bible for that story and thus the problem. They must first rely on the trustworthiness of the tales of the Bible concerning the Holy Spirit, before they can by faith accept them. Their faith in the Holy Spirit hasn't lead them to accept the idea of the Holy Spirit, their faith in the Bible has.

Not only this, but according to these stories we were created by a creator who could not create so much as a single solitary human who was any good.

According to these tales we are all worthless sinners who deserve eternal damnation, and the only way to avoid getting what we supposedly deserve is to condone having our creator brutally crucified on a pole on our behalf.

Holy mackerel! If that's our reality, then we are in extremely sad shape.

And it also doesn't say anything good about our creator's ability to create humans.

I mean, think about it, this is a story about a creator who is an absolute failure.

Not only are none of the humans this God created worthy of their own salvation, but according the New Testament, Jesus proclaims that only a few will be save anyway. This leaves the vast majority of humans created by this creator God to be damned.

This is not a story of a successful creator.

To the contrary, this is a story of a creator who is extremely inept at creating humans. Even the few who are saved are supposedly unworthy of being saved on their own merit.

This has to be the most depressing religion ever invented by mankind.

This religion necessarily tosses justice right out the window. How is it justice to save undeserving sinners from deserved damnation by granting them undeserved mercy?

That's just the opposite of justice.

This whole religious paradigm is nothing short of insane. Truly. How can anyone argue any differently? Christianity is entirely based on giving undeserved sinners undeserved amnesty. How does that equate to justice or morality?

And we're supposed to have FAITH that this is our true reality?

Are you kidding me?

I would much rather believe that it's as false as it could possibly be.

If I'm going to believe something on pure faith, I would much rather have faith that Christianity is false. Why in the world would I want it to be true?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to Zzyzx]

Traditionally, orthodox Christians have said that the accuracy of the scriptures is a matter of faith. It is the Holy Spirit, not the human writers, that orthodox Christians put their faith in.

Then these Christians ought to be honest and upfront about what it is they are doing here, in this field, versus what they might do in other fields. A professor saying to his class of students who are learning how to build nuclear reactors that he is being guided by some invisible, intangible holy spirit that only he sees, ought to be given the boot from his job.
If you disagree, please explain why.