daring dueler Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 when reading or hearing a bible passge how do you interpret it are you literal or do you take it into comtext? i personally am a contextualist i look for a greater meaning behind everything in it -most of the bible is not historical or scientifioc truth yet its all true in teaching.for an example the adam and eve stroy i beleive in evolotion but this doesnt mean its fake it sybolizes mans struggle with sin rite? i think soo. a literalist would most commonly beleive that we where made in gods image as adam and eve , but why do we give god human traits whe he ,she,or just god is not human as we beleive? the people who wrote the bible were not there when jesus was alive so how can they say he was born in a manger honestly? its obviosly made up soo they would have history to jesus ...i am religious but i havnt gone to church in years because like most contexualists i beleive church is not a great importance and its more of letting god act through each of us. plus most of the stories are parables and do you think that jesus' apostles asked if they were all true..no...they knew that it was made up to teach a lesson. what are your veiws? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reborn Outcast Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 Uh-oh is all I have to say about this thread... I look for a deeper meaning in the Bible passages because I believe that God had it written in riddles and stuff because he wanted you to search deeper for the real meaning, and in that way, come into closer contact with Him in a sense, through your understanding of His word. And what do you mean how did they know and it was all made up? God TOLD them through visions and prayer. Read Revelations. John wrote that book ON AN ISLAND and everything that he saw was a vision from God of waht is to come. And how did they know he was in a manger? Because of the wise men, shepards, and townsfolk that came from all over to see him. And of course the parables were made up, FOR A REASON. The disciples DID ask questions because they did not understand. Go look up the definition of "parable". But Jesus also did MIRACLES. That was proof of what He was teaching and who He was. And read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. THEY WERE THERE WITH JESUS FOR ALL THOSE THINGS except in the beginning which talks about His birth. That information was provided by God and the wise men and everyone who went to see Jesus when he was born. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reborn Outcast Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 Originally posted by daring dueler but why do we give god human traits whe he ,she,or just god is not human as we beleive? What human traits? List me some. If you're referring to versus in the Bible that say things like. "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day." -Genesis 3:8 That doesn't necessarily mean that God was physically "walking" in teh garden. It just means that his Spirit was there. I would like to see some examples. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daring dueler Posted February 7, 2003 Author Share Posted February 7, 2003 yes i understand that is what was meant but what im saying is that some people belaive he was walking plus,,,,they said he was angry (a human quality or trait) thus we give him the qualities of humans to better understnd god...have you ever seen the movie o' god? it shows him as a man and he explains its so people could understand him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reborn Outcast Posted February 7, 2003 Share Posted February 7, 2003 Ah yes God does get angry in multiple places in the Bible. But you have to realize that he was here (I know its hard for human brains to envision this) but hes been here forever and he always will be. Since humans are His creation, how do we know that anger, or love, or caring, were not given to us by God? They could be part of Him, just transferred into us. Hatred and sin have been given to us over many many generations by the Devil every since Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. So to sum it up... I think that He gave us those traits, they are not "human made" and therefore, we didn't give them ti Him in the Bible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daring dueler Posted February 7, 2003 Author Share Posted February 7, 2003 but how do the people know that he has these traits they dont know god...even if he does act through all of us. i realize he was there and will alwayz be here. but never the less we dont know his traits ,he has compasion sure. but we still give him traits, we cant see him as a being about the planet so we see him as man its about literalism or cantextualism...... they show him as man to be better understood im not saying hes like that but they portray him like that so people could understand thats why i say we give him human traits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi_Monk Posted February 7, 2003 Share Posted February 7, 2003 the people who wrote the bible were not there when jesus was alive so how can they say he was born in a manger honestly? its obviosly made up soo they would have history to jesus All of the Gospels were written within the first century; the Gospel of John (as well as Revelation) and the Gospel of Matthew were actually written by two of Jesus' Apostles; the Gospel of Mark was written by Simon Peter's secretary and the Gospel of Luke (and the Acts of the Apostles) was written by one of the followers of Paul (who wrote 14 of the 21 Epistles). Added to that, Jesus told John to take care of Mary, his mother--and she obviously would have been there at Jesus' birth. While John's Gospel starts with John the Baptists' preaching and Jesus' baptism at around the age of thirty, Luke--as a disciple of Paul who would have gone with him to the early Councils including the Council of Jerusalem--would have come into contact with John. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daring dueler Posted February 8, 2003 Author Share Posted February 8, 2003 i take it you are a literalist. anyways this isnt like a person link or chain all the who knew who doesnt matter as stroies change from person to person. there are i think 2 birth stories including john and i think matt....ones in a house and ones in a manger. one has animals that arnt even from the desert thats the one in the manger. how do you explain that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C'jais Posted February 8, 2003 Share Posted February 8, 2003 "Take-no-prisoners"-literalists are a disgrace to modern science. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi_Monk Posted February 8, 2003 Share Posted February 8, 2003 i take it you are a literalist. I'm a literalist about some things and not about others. When I'm reading the Gospels, I take it mostly as the historical account of eye-witnesses; but Genesis, especially, I see as a parable. anyways this isnt like a person link or chain all the who knew who doesnt matter as stroies change from person to person. there are i think 2 birth stories including john and i think matt....ones in a house and ones in a manger. one has animals that arnt even from the desert thats the one in the manger. how do you explain that? Matthew skips over the actual birth of Jesus and tells the story of the Magi, who arrived afterward. There's no contradiction, just some elapsed time. And the Gospel that tells about the birth is Luke's. And I don't know what you're referring to about animals that aren't even in the desert. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Skywalker Posted February 8, 2003 Share Posted February 8, 2003 oh-boy... I could see this one coming... Well first of all I am an atheist. But I have/do read the bible to debate as well as look at the ethical and moral concepts of different faiths centered around the bible. I am a contextualist in a sense... but only to certain extents... in other cases I flat out think its a bunch of --------. Regardless of your faith I still believe that the bible does have SOME good messages... but you can find those same messages in almost every religion in the world even if it is not centered around the bible... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daring dueler Posted February 9, 2003 Author Share Posted February 9, 2003 yeah everything is true but only in a sence....most is not historically but as a lesseon it all is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowTemplar Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Originally posted by daring dueler when reading or hearing a bible passge how do you interpret it are you literal or do you take it into comtext? As most of you will have guessed by now, I don't give squat about what's in the Bible... But I am actually reading it, and now that my big, ugly History project is done, I can perhaps get on with it... You have to put everything into context. If, for example Jesus 'bin' Nazerath says that "Your will be done." Then you need to look into the context to find out that he's actually telling his followers to practice Culture Imperialism. As for all the 'truth' in the book... I don't see any. It has been obsolote for almost 20 centuaries (remember that NT was written by a guy who hadn't seen the actual events, who had a clear interest in perverting the story, and was a generation younger than the actual events: He fulfills all of the criteria for a bad source). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dvader28 Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 i'm a literalist....the number of times i've opened a carton of juice in a supermarket and got done for it....well, it does say "open here" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi_Monk Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 You have to put everything into context. If, for example Jesus 'bin' Nazerath says that "Your will be done." Then you need to look into the context to find out that he's actually telling his followers to practice Culture Imperialism. First of all, wouldn't it be Jesus bar Joseph to the eyes of the world; and secondly, wha? As for all the 'truth' in the book... I don't see any. It has been obsolote for almost 20 centuaries (remember that NT was written by a guy who hadn't seen the actual events, who had a clear interest in perverting the story, and was a generation younger than the actual events: He fulfills all of the criteria for a bad source). The New Testament was not all written by one person. If you're talking about Paul, as I said before, he is only responsible for 14 of the 21 New Testament books, a sizable chunk but far from the whole thing. Nine of the books (including two of the Gospels) were written by men who knew Jesus and followed him for three years; the Gospel of Mark is believed to be the dictated report of Peter, chief of the Apostles, and Luke came at his Gospel from a scholar's bent, and reports that he only wrote his Gospel "after investigating everything accurately anew." All of the Gospels were written within what could have been Jesus' lifetime were it not cut short by execution. All of the writers of the Gospels (the four books that tell the history of Jesus, his preaching, death and resurrection) were eye-witnesses or interviewers of eye-witnesses. As for Paul himself, well, he got beheaded for his work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C'jais Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Originally posted by Jedi_Monk If you're talking about Paul, as I said before, he is only responsible for 14 of the 21 New Testament books, a sizable chunk but far from the whole thing. He got his hands on the whole thing. Beyond making stuff up himself, that he had never observed, he likely edited the rest, so it could fit better with his idea of it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi_Monk Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 He [Paul] got his hands on the whole thing. Beyond making stuff up himself, that he had never observed, he likely edited the rest, so it could fit better with his idea of it all. St. Paul died between the years 65 and 67; the Gospel of Mark was written circa A.D. 70, and John's Gospel and Revelation were both written after the year 90 with Paul dead over 20 years. Added to that, the difinitive canon of the New Testament was not compiled until the Council of Carthage in A.D. 397, so how would he know what to edit? And these Gospels began as letters written by Apostles and their disciples and sent to congregations that were not convenient for them to visit in person (and there were many more of them than just the four, including the apocrychal Gospels of Peter and Thomas); it would've taken quite a feat for Paul to gather them all and then edit them (especially since, as aforementioned, he was dead before some were written ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C'jais Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Originally posted by Jedi_Monk St. Paul died between the years 65 and 67; the Gospel of Mark was written circa A.D. 70, and John's Gospel and Revelation were both written after the year 90 with Paul dead over 20 years. ...Which makes them just as much bad sources as Paul. Seriously though, you don't trust a document that's been through so many editions, translations and biased interpretations as this, do you? Whoever Jesus was, he was a great man. But to claim divine inheritance today would equal getting you locked up in a safer place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reborn Outcast Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Originally posted by C'jais He got his hands on the whole thing. Beyond making stuff up himself, that he had never observed, he likely edited the rest, so it could fit better with his idea of it all. Ah and the likely proof for this is... oh wait... we don't have any to say he edited it. Many of Paul's books were letters to the churches. Tell me where he could have edited to fit his purposes. This is irrelevant since JediMonk already corrected me. The fact remains, though - Paul wrote 2/3 of the Bible. The rest was written by people even more distanced from it than him. - C'jais Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi_Monk Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 ...Which makes them just as much bad sources as Paul. As aforementioned, John was the Apostle John, who was with Jesus from his baptism in the River Jordan, roughly three years (a first-degree of separation). And Mark was Peter's disciple (a second degree of separation). Josephus wrote his history Antiquities of the Jews after all of the New Testament was finished--how many degrees of separation did he have to the events he related? And he was no more a secular source than the Apostles, being a Jewish person writing a history of the Jews. Seriously though, you don't trust a document that's been through so many editions, translations and biased interpretations as this, do you? How many documents do we have from the ancient world that are original? Much of what we think we know comes from these editions that have been copied and translated many times over the centuries and millennia, and with the original documents lost forever. This is irrelevant since JediMonk already corrected me. The fact remains, though - Paul wrote 2/3 of the Bible. The rest was written by people even more distanced from it than him. - C'jais 2/3 of the New Testament, not the Bible. The Old Testament is based on the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Jewish Scripture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi_Monk Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Whoever Jesus was, he was a great man. But to claim divine inheritance today would equal getting you locked up in a safer place. Or get you Crucified back then, which is exactly what happened to him Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C'jais Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Originally posted by Jedi_Monk Or get you Crucified back then, which is exactly what happened to him Yup. But these days, you'd get locked up, before you had any chance to gather even a few gullible souls. Personally, given the choice of following either Christ or Dalai Lama, I'd follow the Lama instead - his views are up to date, he speaks about relating to real world problems instead of promising us heaven if we live life according to He and he doesn't freak out on authorities as JC did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reborn Outcast Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Originally posted by C'jais his views are up to date Who's to say the Bible can't translate like that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C'jais Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Originally posted by Reborn Outcast Who's to say the Bible can't translate like that? Ahhh! But then, dear Reborn, you are interpreting it in context. *GASP* /solemn silence ensues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandalorian54 Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Parts of the Bible are ment to be taken literally like the ten comandments. but others are meant to be taken metaphorically like being born again. I'm sure this was probably already mentioned but I just read a bit of the first post and wrote this, I can't be bothered to read the whole thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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