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Original poster

Questions on the bible

128 replies

ACubed · 21/01/2017 11:53

Hello all, back again as have had some thoughts on my mind lately , would love any thoughts on this.

If God is omnipotent why would he need to ask people things (Adam for example) or test people's faith?

If he does love us, again why test the faith?

This leads on to: if the bible is the true word of God, why would he go out of his way to get things wrong - for example saying that there are two lights on the sky which go around the earth. Surely god could have told us the earth goes round the sun. It's like he's going out of his way to convince people the things written are not true.

Does anyone's know Of any creation stories which say the earth is round and orbits the sun?

OP posts:

FreshStartIn2017 · 25/01/2017 13:11

I'm no expert but I understand some books from the bible were removed and are no longer followed, do you know anything about this?
I think you're likely referring to the catholic apocrypha? These books were never found in the Hebrew canon. They were added around the 5th Century, they don't claim to be inspired or divine, and none were referred to by any other books or people in the bible. They were included by the Catholic Church , and then later taken back out again during the reformation. Some churches still have them today, particularly Catholic Churches, but not mainstream Christianity.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.gotquestions.org/amp/lost-books-Bible.html?client=safarii*

Also how do you feel about the Book of Mormon, would you count that as part of the bible, and if not why not?

Joseph Smith claimed to have received a message from an angel in the 1800's, and so write his own version of the bible. He seems to have forgotten Revelations (the last book of the bible) warns against adding to the words written within the bible, which is exactly what Joseph Smith tried to do.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CriticismoftheBookof_Mormonn*

CalmItKermitt · 25/01/2017 13:25

You'd think that God, being omnipotent, would have foreseen the problems caused by different people interpreting the bible different ways, and made it clearer.

BertrandRussell · 25/01/2017 13:27

"Some churches still have them today, particularly Catholic Churches, but not mainstream Christianity"

When you say "mainstream Christianity" what do you mean?

LunaLambBhuna · 25/01/2017 13:31

I would imagine Fresh means Protestant denominations.

I think Catholics would say they're pretty mainstream though!!

niminypiminy · 25/01/2017 13:33

Sorry, Fresh, I don't think you can refer to the Roman Catholic Church as not mainstream Christianity. It's the largest denomination in the world!

The Apocrypha (Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, Baruch, 1 & 2 Maccabees and some other bits are considered to be part of the Bible by Roman Catholics and the Orthodox churches (who have some other books in addition to these). They are regarded as 'deutero-canonical', that is, a secondary level of material but still inspired by God. Protestant churches tend to disregard the apocrypha, though this is not a hard and fast rule.

BertrandRussell · 25/01/2017 13:34

Yes, I assumed that too. I was just interested in what a bible believing young earth creationist considered "mainstream"........

JustAnotherPoster00 · 25/01/2017 13:40

You'd think that God, being omnipotent, would have foreseen the problems caused by different people interpreting the bible different ways, and made it clearer.

A naturalist called Sean Caroll says (ill paraphrase badly so please look for him on youtube) if god had spoken to the people, you would find his words in a the same book no matter what the culture where as if it was a development of cultures to have gods then you would expect different gods in different books (something like that)

BertrandRussell · 25/01/2017 13:44

It's fascinating that on another thread, two of the posters on this thread and I read the same brief bible passage and all 3 of us understood it significantly differently.

niminypiminy · 25/01/2017 13:51

He's a cosmologist, apparently. So not somebody with specialist knowledge of how cultures develop, or of how languages work, or of the Bible, or Judaism or Christianity, or anything like that. Why should we pay any attention to what he says on this topic?

I'll say it again: the Bible is a collection of writings by people, made over a long period of time in many different circumstances. It contains writings that are biographies, letters, poetry, prayers, chronicles, prophetic visions and more. These writings are inspired by God, not written by God and not dictated by God (if you want that you must go to Islam).

niminypiminy · 25/01/2017 13:53

It's fascinating that on another thread, two of the posters on this thread and I read the same brief bible passage and all 3 of us understood it significantly differently.

Fascinating, yes, but not surprising to anyone who has tried interpreting texts as you might do if you studied any discipline in the humanities.

BertrandRussell · 25/01/2017 13:56

I don't find it surprising at all. But it is surprising that anyone, knowing that, would think of the Bible as a 100% reliable handbook and not open to interpretation.

ErrolTheDragon · 25/01/2017 13:57

Part of the difference in interpretation arose from a fairly subtle difference in translation.

niminypiminy · 25/01/2017 14:19

I don't think of it as a handbook not open to interpretation. Those are meagre metaphors.

I'd prefer to think of it as an inexhaustible well, an library, a banquet, a treasure trove, an infinitely rich source of inspiration, consolation, questions, problems, beauty, horror, joy, sorrow, stories, poetry and wisdom. I meet God in the Bible in the multiplicity of interpretations, the paradoxes and questions just as much as - perhaps more than - in the bits that seem plain.

JustAnotherPoster00 · 25/01/2017 15:50

I meet God in the Bible in the multiplicity of interpretations

Do you meet him when he encourages rape, murder or infanticide?

FreshStartIn2017 · 25/01/2017 15:58

It's fascinating that on another thread, two of the posters on this thread and I read the same brief bible passage and all 3 of us understood it significantly differently.

They was you suggesting Jesus told Thomas he was a second class citizen, when in actual fact he gave Thomas exactly what he asked for, and said that Thomas believed because he has seen for himself, and "blessed as those who do not see yet still believe".

Any interpretation that Jesus was being nasty to Thomas is not an interpretation. It a twisting of, and adding to, his words. Anyone can do that!

niminypiminy · 25/01/2017 16:04

In the sense that I think meeting God includes questioning and being angry at him, yes. I have a special love for the difficult bits of the Bible because they do challenge us -- is this is what God is like, is this what people thought God was like, how do these passages resonate with the atrocities that happen now?. I'm not interested in easy answers but in hard questions.

FreshStartIn2017 · 25/01/2017 16:25

Justanotherposter you keep on repeating these accusations from thread to thread, but you don't seem to recognise that the bible is quite an honest account of humanity, warts and all. If man had followed God they wouldn't have met a premature death. They wouldn't have gone to war and they wouldn't have committed other atrocities.

You don't need to like God judging people for him to go ahead with it. In fact, I don't know a single criminal who celebrates they've been caught and are going down for the crime. They're all angry at the judge and a lot think they shouldn't be punished.

BertrandRussell · 25/01/2017 16:28

"They was you suggesting Jesus told Thomas he was a second class citizen, when in actual fact he gave Thomas exactly what he asked for, and said that Thomas believed because he has seen for himself, and "blessed as those who do not see yet still believe"."

Interesting-which translation has "as those"? Isn't it usually "are those"? Which definitely suggests (and I am not alone in this!) that those who believe without seeing are more blessed, because they have faith. This is ivery much in line with other passages, such as Luke 4.12.

BertrandRussell · 25/01/2017 16:34

"You don't need to like God judging people for him to go ahead with it"

No, but some of the things he judges for are a bit arbitrary, to be honest. To quote Browning "There's a great text in Galatians, Once you trip on it entails Twenty nine distinct damnations, One sure if another fails"

Fink · 25/01/2017 19:12

I know that this thread was sort of along the lines of 'honest questions from an agnostic' so I'll try to keep 'in-fighting' (charitable and fraternal, I hope) between denominations to a minimum, but I think your account of how the canon of Scripture came to be codified is very biased and factually inaccurate, Fresh.

For a start, it is not true that the deuterocanonical books were a 5th century addition to an already fixed canon. There was no preexisting canon. Secondly, those books were always part of the debate and included in some of the earliest lists, as we're several NT books, they didn't suddenly appear from complete non-interest in them in the preceding centuries to be shoved into the canon. And thirdly, they are not the only books not to be cited by other books so I don't really see how that can be an absolute criterion for canonicity.

As for anything but reformed churches being 'non-mainstream', I think it's probably stretching the definition a little to imply that people who make up two-thirds of Christians are not mainstream. But at least you didn't say non Christian, which is what I often get.

Original poster

ACubed · 25/01/2017 20:50

bertrand I'd love to hear the full passage you were all interpreting differently, would you mind posting it?

Can I add some more questions to anyone who follows a mainstream religion:
How/when did you feel you knew god existed? I'm so keen to hear! I can remember thinking a lot about this in maybe Reception or Year 1 and just felt like the existence of a god didn't answer any questions. The main question for me has always been 'Why are we(or the universe) here?' If someone answers that with "because a god created us" I would just think "why is god here?". It doesn't answer anything for me, though I know this is a question that cannot really be answered.

My second question is if you were born into another religion, for example Hinduism which doesn't stem from Abraham, or even an Amazonian tribe, do you feel you would have followed that religion? To me it seems total luck what religions people are born into, and I think I would be more convinced if the same religion had originated globally without people being in contact with each other, as alluded to by a previous poster.

OP posts:

BertrandRussell · 25/01/2017 21:02

ACubed- John 20: 24-29.

ErrolTheDragon · 25/01/2017 21:10

You need to look at a couple of different translations including the RSV.

Original poster

ACubed · 25/01/2017 21:16

Seems to me like Jesus is having a bit of a moan at Doubting Thomas for not believing without seeing him, but it says the others saw him and then believed he had returned.
So is he also feeling a bit eggy that they only believed after seeing him? I guess not if he's saying "Peace be with you"

OP posts:

ErrolTheDragon · 25/01/2017 22:13

Its the passage which I grew up hearing being used to teach that faith without proof was superior to needing evidence.

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