Sometimes I feel like the Bible is a load of nonsense...

[revellish]

I mean, I read it, interpret it, seek to understand it, but sometimes it feels like I'm just jumping through hoops to try to make it make sense and work in the real world where people's lives are shit and the world is often shit.

Argh.

Only sometimes? That's how I always feel about the bible - it is perfectly possible to go through life without referring to the bible at all, you know. Probably helps if you're not even trying to be a Christian though.

The Bible is confusing and much of it conflicts.

I suppose that life was shit two thousand years ago as well, but in different ways.

Many christians have never read a Bible. Many christians can't read.

Which part of the Bible are you having problems with. I have to admit I find Revelations impossible to understand. I suppose a lot depend on how infalliable you believe the Bible to be. A lot depends on life circumstances.

Hi revellish.

I'm sorry that you feel that the world is shit. I would say that it's this negative view of the world that is colouring your view of the Bible and making it hard for you to read it in a positive light. Do you think that if you felt more positive generally you'd also be able to read in a more positive light?

I'm not being facetious here, so I'm sorry if that sounded glib (it's late and I may not be putting what I want to say across very well). I am assuming, from your OP, that you want to continue to get some sort of spiritual nourishment from the Bible, but are finding it difficult to do so, rather than that you think it's a 'load of old nonsense' and don't care...

The Bible is a vast and varied text (or, rather, collection of texts), and as others have said, there's much there that's unclear or difficult to deal with... If you're feeling negative, perhaps the best thing is to go back to the Gospels and the fundamental 'good news' that they contain, and take that as your starting point.

Last Sunday's reading was utter gobbledygook.

The ancient Hebrews worshipped anthropomorphised volcanic activity, which explains why the Bible doesn't make much sense. Once you that fact in mind, it will make sense. Try reading it again, starting with Exodus and look out for references to fire/mounains/rivers of fire/brimstone/lake of fire/thunder/lightening/holy hill/blazing furnace/etc......

Google 'OH MY VOLCANO' as well because that will certainly help make the whole thing crystal clear.

It depends how your church is pushing you to treat the bible, and/or what your background tells you it is meant to be for. If you view it as a series of accounts of humanity's interactions with God, and their interpretations of that interaction, then it is a lot easier to treat it "lightly" and not get too bogged down in it.

But if you're trying to make it work in a more literal way as "God dicated this word by word and it's meant to be all very important and useful to me here and now" then I think it's very difficult.

What do you hope to get out of reading it? And is it the Old Testament or the New Testament which gives you problems?

If it's the Old Testament, then I think you have to remember that they were working from a world-view which is quite different from ours, so you have to think what they at the time of writing felt about God and life and try to see what they were getting at from that angle.

The New Testament is a bit more straightforward as it's at least putting religion across in a similar way to current church teaching, but they still lived very different lives from us in many ways, and some of the teaching had more to do with dealing with their society and its issues rather than applying directly to life here and now. So again you have to think "What did this mean to them? How were their lives affected by this issue?"

You don't say

Really good advice from Tuo and AMumInScotland. My favourite bits to read when nothing seems to make sense are Job (which is all about how nothing seems to make sense) and the Psalms. There is so much in there about how as you say OP the world is often shit and people's lives are shit. And there are also times when the psalmist is able to say that God is all goodness, all justice, all life, all love. You don't have to take them literally they're human expressions of anger, despair, hope, love and trust in God but they've helped me get through places where none of it made any sense.

Ah, niminy, I was going to suggest the Psalms too. I once heard someone read Psalm 13 in the aftermath of something really tragic and it was incredibly moving - painful but also hopeful.

Oh my goodness! I completely forgot that I started this thread until I was looking for some help and noticed that all you lovely people replied to me!! I am so so sorry!

To be honest, I'm a leader in my church so I 'know' what a bit of what has been said, and it is what I would say to someone else if they said what I posted a while back. But I just don't know if it cuts it anymore. I still believe (most!) of it, but I'm struggling with the institutional side of church life. I believe in God, and I would certainly class myself more on the liberal side of things (no lake of fire or anything like that) but as a feminist I'm finding it increasingly difficult to read the Bible without getting annoyed or frustrated. I also think that the church in general is hugely misogynistic. In so many ways I used to think that active Christians in churches could do so much to 'change the world' and make a difference but I feel like I'm losing that belief because so many people just seem concerned about their own problems and their own lives to notice that there is a huge world out there with massive issues of injustice going on and that we need to do something about it, not just sit and focus on our own small part of the world...

Anyway, I'm ranting and not very erm, comprehensible... I just need to find some solid ground somewhere in this whole thing.

quite not what

I think what I mean is, I'm fine with Jesus... but I don't know about much beyond that..!

There are lots of good books to help give an overview or understanding of the bible - one I found helpful was "Dig deeper" by Benyon and Sach and there is also Vaughan Roberts "God's Big Picture" which helps to show how the bible fits together as a whole and how the OT points forward to the NT. I do find that praying for help to understand the bible makes a difference and treating it as God's Word i.e inspired by Him (though I appreciate that not everyone believes this - I just know that when I decided to trust that it was from God and trust God on the parts I didn't understand it all started to come alive for me) - for me that doesn't mean it all needs to be interpreted literally - of course there are different writing styles - poetry etc and the context needs to be considered too.

I hope you find the answers you are looking for.

Hi Revellish, I don't post here often, but spend quite a bit of time reading posts on this forum. Just wanted to offer you my support really. I've not been Christian long and still find church-life challenging at times and I often feel as you put it - I'm fine with Jesus but don't know much beyond that! A while ago I found myself Googling "What do Christians believe?". I found a website (www.christianity.org.uk/index.php) that summarised:
1)There is a God
2)God touched this planet two thousand years ago in Jesus
3)That matters!

Whenever I'm feeling a bit fed up with it all I try and remind myself that I do believe the above 3 points and it's worth carrying on. Sometimes I read the Bible and it does seem to be a load of rubbish. But I guess I try to think of the Bible of the best book we have to help us understand the history of God's relationship with man and the life of Jesus. I struggle with the idea of it being infallible though. I'm currently reading a Philip Yancey book - The Jesus I Never Knew. I'm really enjoying that and finding it brings to life many of the things he did and said. Anyway, good luck with your search.

Thanks zulubump, I think that in times like this (when I'm questioning everything and can't settle down!) I agree with you - I just have to hold on to those truths.

Thanks for the encouragement everyone.

I don't like The Old Testament I try reading it, but just keep thinking "this is a load of tosh" The NT, fine, but not the OT. The people seemed so vicious and downright evil. Surely, God would never have sanctioned any of that?

ds2 also keeps asking why God spoke to people in the OT, but that he can't hear God speaking to him when he says his prayers

www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+1&version=NKJV

That is a truly awful read and anyone who has faith in that religion is also condoning genocide.

1 Samuel 15:2,3

2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy [a] everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' "

The Bible is the most passionately defended book of evil ever.

Revellish - yes, I totally get what you mean. There are times I struggle with the Bible and the church, but when I remind myself to come back to my core beliefs and look at Jesus it all falls into place, somehow. Both the bible and the church are written/founded/supported by fallible people. People made in the image of God and at times doing their best to be more like Jesus but who fail. The church can be a frustrating place, especially as you say when people seem so damn inward looking, when there is a world out there that needs us, needs justice, needs people to stand up for the poor and downtrodden.

The bible I believe is the word of God, but that doesn't mean every word is literal and needs following to the letter - that would be somewhat worrying if true. There is richness, poetry, metaphor - and stories of life against the backdrop of living in some harsh times amongst harsh peoples - unless reading the OT with some kind of contextual basis it's fairly impossible. As in the quote above from Foghorn, much of the OT is hard to get our 21st c western heads around. A different world. different thinking, and ascribing all sorts to God. And yet God was described far more in the OT as a God of justice and compassion than an angry and vengeful being. Interesting that

I love the bible, actually, in its' entirety - there is so much to be found in it about a God who loves us and who came among us, and a world yearning for something more, longing for the justice and peace and beauty which underneath it knows is meant to be. And will be.

madhairday....please tell me where is the compassion of god to be found in the following and where is the richness, poetry and metaphor in it? My feeling is that there are not as many metaphors in the OT as religious people would have me believe but that the M word is banded around to smudge the truth, which is not very Christian is it?

Judges 1

The Continuing Conquest of Canaan
1 Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the Lord, saying, ?Who shall be first to go up for us against the Canaanites to fight against them??

2 And the Lord said, ?Judah shall go up. Indeed I have delivered the land into his hand.?

3 So Judah said to Simeon his brother, ?Come up with me to my allotted territory, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I will likewise go with you to your allotted territory.? And Simeon went with him. 4 Then Judah went up, and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand; and they killed ten thousand men at Bezek. 5 And they found Adoni-Bezek in Bezek, and fought against him; and they defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. 6 Then Adoni-Bezek fled, and they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and big toes. 7 And Adoni-Bezek said, ?Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to gather scraps under my table; as I have done, so God has repaid me.? Then they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died.

8 Now the children of Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it; they struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire. 9 And afterward the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who dwelt in the mountains, in the South,[a] and in the lowland. 10 Then Judah went against the Canaanites who dwelt in Hebron. (Now the name of Hebron was formerly Kirjath Arba.) And they killed Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai.

11 From there they went against the inhabitants of Debir. (The name of Debir was formerly Kirjath Sepher.)

12 Then Caleb said, ?Whoever attacks Kirjath Sepher and takes it, to him I will give my daughter Achsah as wife.? 13 And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb?s younger brother, took it; so he gave him his daughter Achsah as wife. 14 Now it happened, when she came to him, that she urged him[b] to ask her father for a field. And she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, ?What do you wish?? 15 So she said to him, ?Give me a blessing; since you have given me land in the South, give me also springs of water.?

And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.

16 Now the children of the Kenite, Moses? father-in-law, went up from the City of Palms with the children of Judah into the Wilderness of Judah, which lies in the South near Arad; and they went and dwelt among the people. 17 And Judah went with his brother Simeon, and they attacked the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. So the name of the city was called Hormah. 18 Also Judah took Gaza with its territory, Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory. 19 So the Lord was with Judah. And they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland, because they had chariots of iron. 20 And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said. Then he expelled from there the three sons of Anak. 21 But the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem; so the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.

22 And the house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. 23 So the house of Joseph sent men to spy out Bethel. (The name of the city was formerly Luz.) 24 And when the spies saw a man coming out of the city, they said to him, ?Please show us the entrance to the city, and we will show you mercy.? 25 So he showed them the entrance to the city, and they struck the city with the edge of the sword; but they let the man and all his family go. 26 And the man went to the land of the Hittites, built a city, and called its name Luz, which is its name to this day.

Supposedly god ordained highlights, or lowlights, of the above...

they killed ten thousand men

they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and big toes

Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off

Now the children of Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it; they struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire

children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who dwelt in the mountains, in the South,[a] and in the lowland.

Then Judah went against the Canaanites who dwelt in Hebron

From there they went against the inhabitants of Debir

Whoever attacks Kirjath Sepher and takes it, to him I will give my daughter Achsah as wife

And Judah went with his brother Simeon, and they attacked the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it

Also Judah took Gaza with its territory, Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory.

And they drove out the mountaineers

Then he expelled from there the three sons of Anak.

And the house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them.

they struck the city with the edge of the sword

Is being struck by the edge of the sword a metaphor for something? Is 'utterly destroyed it' a poetic explanation for something nice? Is 'went against' this 'richness' you talked about?

You will also see examples of exploitation in this chapter. One woman is handed over as a wife to some stranger and is said to have received land and springs of water in return. That was designed to encourage women to not put up a fight when being handed over to strangers as part of bribes. The spy was said to have set up his own city. How outlandish is that? That was designed to encourage future allies from the enemy sides.

Cutting off of thumbs and toes.....hands and feet of opposite sides.

Know your religion! Know where it came from! Know what it spawned!

Your religion came from volcano worshipping genocidal land grabbers and it spawned a religion that is currently into genocidal land grabbing and the cutting off of hands and feet.

Know thyself!

www.apostatesofislam.com/media/handcutting.htm

Er...ok. In a rush but didn't want you to feel I was not engaging with you, Foghorn.

I don't think I said that all OT texts were metaphorical, I said clearly that there was a mix of metaphor, poetry, and accounts of lives lived. The story of the Israelites, an account of lives in war and peace, in the context of extremely harsh circumstances. We cannot possibly come to these accounts with 21st c eyes only; an amount of contextual reading is required to get some sense of it. It is harsh, ugly, horrible, and I would never say the accounts such as you have posted are 'metaphor'. They're historical accounts.

However, like any historical documents, to take certain parts and highlight them over and above the surrounding parts is at best misguided. For instance, the Deuteronomy passage outlining the need for 'taking all' contradicts earlier passages outlining the need to only take soldiers. Research has shown that, in fact, Israel's war methods were in direct contradiction with the harsh realities of the other nations around them. Rape and looting, for example, were penalised by death. While certain directives appear to tell them to 'kill all', evidence shows that this didn't happen, in fact.

There's no denying the awfulness of it, but I'm simply pointing out how we cannot just look at a small amount of biblical text and make snap judgments about it, or about what God is like.

I stand by my earlier point. God is more often referred to as full of mercy and compassion, justice and love, than of vengeance. We cannot just read the story. Some wider reading needs to go into it, and some understanding of the stories of life at the time.

I'm also not sure why you are using the terms you are to describe 'God' if you believe God is a volcano, anyway...

However, I was really replying to the OP and standing with her in her difficulty with some biblical texts. Some are downright impossible to get our head round. And some are utterly incredible, wonderful, life giving. But I think we need to be prepared to study round the difficult texts at least a little. If we are not prepared to engage, it's hiding away, and when we do engage we can find some really interesting details that throw things into different lights. :)