Validity of the Bible

To me, the image in Revelation of “the Conquering Christ” also seemed incongruous with the picture of Jesus during his ministry on Earth. Until I notice that the Jesus in revelation is “armed” with a sword coming out of his mouth (pretty hard to engage in literal sword battles by swinging your mouth around!) And Jesus rides into “battle” with a robe already soaked in blood, before he has killed any enemies. I think this symbolism means he rides into battle with a robe soaked in his own blood–that given in sacrifice for his enemies. Yes, it is a picture of final judgement of evil, but one carried out by Jesus’s message (“a sword which divides”), as opposed to Jesus doing any literal slaying, I think.

I always considered the sword from the mouth as symbolic of the Word of God, coming from the mouth and all.

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This is kind of one of the issues I have with the way some people defend or talk about the Bible. Stuff like “I asked God” is personal. It’s not really “proof” for anyone except you.

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I am not sure this is relevant. You said: “Jesus never negates OT teaching, but always upholds it.” I showed you four or so examples of where Jesus clearly did not uphold the OT teaching in the New Testament. Your statement is demonstrably false. If you said Jesus upheld significant portions of the Hebrew Scriptures at the time I would not have disagreed with you. Clearly Jesus disagreed with and overturned portions of the OT in the Gospels. Of course, the OT is not entirely consistent anyway. Jews are well aware of how scripture can be used against scripture.

Also, all the instances I cited had really nothing to do with Pharisees except hand washing. The food laws in the OT are the commands of God and therefore, the concern of all good Jews. So are the laws and regulations on the sabbath and the certificate of divorce. None of those are rabbinic additions to the OT. None of them are traditions of men. They are plainly and unequivocally the “commands of God” in the OT. Slinging mud at pharisees is just a deflection from this. Not to mention the rabbinic additions were necessary given the nature of the OT laws.

And you are assuming Jesus’ disciples were starving and that the Pharisees were actually out patrolling grain fields on a sabbath. This is polemical caricature. What we know as factual is there were disputes in the early church over food laws and Gentiles upholding the Jewish law. Odd if Jesus settled all this in the beginning as in Mark. These later disputes are cast into his ministry where he ends up defending the practices of the later church. And recall, it is God who kills a man dead in the OT for gathering firewood on a Sunday. I guess if you didn’t make the proper preparations the day before a sabbath and are hungry on the day itself, God might expect you to fast. Read Numbers 15: 32-36. This man was gruesomely stoned according to this narrative. Try Exodus 35:1-3. If you are cold you can’t light a fire on a sabbath or you shall be put to death. Many parts in the OT make this clear, any work on the sabbath warrants death. And that includes lighting a fire or gathering firewood. Yes, the rule is barbaric and ridiculous. I agree, But let us not try to pretend it was the Pharisees, a minor sect at the time, who burdened the people. These ridiculous rules and burdens are in the OT attributed to God. There is no ambiguity here. Literalism is the problem.

So while you say “The idea that people would starve on the sabbath rather than eat some food is laughable to God” I agree completely, but that doesn’t work for the God of conservative OT interpretation. Because stoning, and I urge you to think about how brutal and barbaric a death by stoning actually is, clearly was not laughable to whoever wrote that account. It was their conception of God. Pick up sticks on a Sunday and get stoned.

Also, I don’t think any moral command in the Bible is given to all people at all times. Everything is conditional, subjective and entrenched in the worldview it was given in. And I extend that to the New Testament as well. I am not going to go tell homosexuals in a committed, loving relationship they are committing a grotesque sin that God detests because a Jewish tentmaker spoke against the practice 2,000 years ago in a personal letter to a church.

You are projecting the later influence of the Pharisees back to the time of Jesus. I disagree with this completely. The Gospels reflect Christian interaction with Pharisees. Don’t get me wrong, Jesus would have debated with everyone as that it what Jews did. But the extensive hostility and polemical caricature more likely represents what happened between Christians and pharisees in the last third of the first century. Assuming pharisees were elitists and not simply devout Jews is Christian polemic. Later on we know they were greatly loved and respected by the people. Having them evil and burdening the people is Christian anti-semitism based on the Gospel narratives. Also assuming they had significant influence over the synagogues and the majority of the Jews during Jesus’s time is a major assumption not born out by historical data. They were a minority sect, small in number, whose traditions were not universal.

The facts are the OT regulated and permitted a husband to divorce his wife as long as he granted her a certificate of divorce. This was common convention and accepted as appropriate for a long time. Jesus completely rejected this and said this is never how God wanted it. He cited marriage into the created order (much like Genesis 1 ties the Sabbath into the created order). So you say God merely tolerated it until Jesus? How about slavery and misogyny? Does he just tolerate those too until the time is right? Or should we stop treating the Bible like a theological encyclopedia and realize God had to speak through immoral people shallow world views? Im sure in a thousand years people will look back at us in the same way.

The only shame is confusing theological writings as modern bios. Most scholars do not agree with Sir William Ramsey. That is false. Critical scholars don’t view the Gospels as historically reliable in the sense you think. Only those who confuse apologetics with history think this. Sure, they have a lot of history embedded within but it has all been filtered and theologized. For those not living in an illusory, evangelical realm, this is what scholars in universitys think of the Gospels and Acts:

  1. None of the authors are known. They are all anonymous.
  2. We don’t know their exact provenance. We have guesses.
  3. We don’t know anything about their earliest composition and dissemination. Only that Matthew and Luke got a hold of Mark pretty quickly.
  4. They stem from 30-80 years after Jesus died and were not written by eyewitnesses (recall they are all written in Greek).
  5. They have theological differences and err on many details (how did Judas die, the birth of Jesus, tomb details and Resurrection appearances etc.) which illuminate the different theologies of the authors and common conventions of the time.
  6. They engage in polemic caricature (e.g. portrayal of pharisees).
  7. They do not represent independent sources. Matthew and Luke copied the text of Mark and there is a high probably John is dependent on synoptic Gospel material as well.

None of what I just said is even remotely controversial in the scholarly world today. Maybe a conservative seminary will tell you different but critical NT scholars largely agree on all this, including the devout Christians ones. The basic outline and life of Jesus can be secured on historical grounds but not a lot of specific details beyond that. You must trade history for theology at that point.

I am not recasting Jesus in my own image. I am simply refusing to uncritically harmonize the divergent portraits of him together. Harmonization is a dirty word to me despite its usefulness. Seen too many apologists use it to make Jesus agree with them or to force fit everything together so they can tote their conservative Christian punchline. When a person harmonizes everything to fit their preconceived notions they aren’t doing actual research or assessing the evidence fairly. Scripture cannot serve as conscience and corrector in that case.

Vinnie

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Since you put it like that… I’m not usually one to call an agnostic atheist a senseless fool, but if it push comes to shove, and the gay culture is forcing it’s view upon my way of life, those words just might come out.

As a gross caricature of God’s holy covenant of marriage, where the two become one, (marriage) as a representation of God’s utterly unique triune nature. The one concept to ever cross the lips of man where unity and diversity are ultimately real.

Hi Rave. I have the same issues with the Bible and I myself contest its validity.
I make my argument by starting with Genesis and the Garden of Eden story.
It would be reckless, to make an example, to hide my firearm in my child’s bedroom, and tell my child not to play with it.
It would be reckless to assume that my child will listen to my instruction, and in fact, if I would do such a thing and my child has an accident with my firearm, I can be sure to have criminal charges brought against me for firearm negligence, possible manslaughter and child negligence, and I will be deservedly prosecuted for such a crime.
God is almighty and wise, according to the belief, and could have placed the Tree of Knowledge on the Moon, yet He chose to put it in the Garden, and told Adam and Eve not to touch it, and an accident did happen.
Then He preferred a blood sacrifice above anything else, when Abel sacrificed animals to Him, and Cain tried vegetables.
If God was wise, He would have known that such favouritism will cause a conflict of interest beween two brothers.
Then, to jump many other inconsistencies in the Bible and get to the crucifixion of His only Son, Jesus Christ, it is claimed that God loved us so much that He sacrificed Jesus, so we may be saved.
I promise you that if I would kill my own son, just to show my affection, Christians will judge me and call me a sociopath.
Religion was invented by smarter people to cause fear amongst those who must subject themselves under a king’s rule.
If you don’t respect me as your king, God has ordained me, and you will be punished!
Our fear of the unknown must also be rationalized, and religion is the answer.
However, religion is a moral compass, and gives us identity.
The teachings of Jesus has plenty of wisdom in it, and I use his teachings in my daily life, that really works for me.
I am neither for, or against religion. We just need to keep an open mind, and maybe we can learn something new by respecting each other’s faith.
Interesting topic, though!

There are exceptions to rules and norms. Don’t be a Pharisee. See what I did there? They weren’t actually like that…but isn’t the authority of men over women tied into the created order as well by the NT? Might as well sprinkle a little misogyny on top of our homophobia.

Vinnie

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…in marriage, and modeled by the self-sacrificial love of Jesus.

(and depending on your denominational affiliation, Church government)

I’ll let my fiancé know I’m to be her boss when we officially get married in November. I’ll be sure to list her among my property like the tenth commandment does (Exodus 20:17). The first step to fixing a problem is recognizing it exists. Unfortunately, not all Christian’s do. I guess we just pay lip service to the idea of two actually becoming one.

Vinnie

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In a deep way, I’m glad it hasn’t been that easy for me…

How about that part about being a theological liberal and still believing in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins?

We might have different models of atonement. I find satisfaction and penal substitution problematic. I opt for a solidarity model. I think it cuts through the “blood magic” of antiquity. But I leave some issues open because I can’t know all the details of how Jesus saved me. I know that it is Jesus who brought me to God. The incarnation of His son opened up my eyes and bridged the gap that separated us. Without Jesus I would not have been saved. This does not mean I think his death was an absolute necessity for salvation or that children who die in infancy or lived before Jesus are not or cannot be saved etc. There are a lot of theological issues here.

But no. I don’t think Jesus stopped some original sin or satisfied some necessary punishment God’s sense of justice requires. Maybe. But I don’t buy either one.

Vinnie

Basically, I just believe I can have his righteousness given to me. That’s what it ultimately comes down to when his Spirit convicts you of your sinfulness.

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I don’t know how or why God would forgive me. I am just grateful for it and thankful to Jesus who opened that door.

Rave…I appreciate your interest and your desire to think through what you are reading in the Bible.

But what exactly are you reading? Saul said what to who about which? Cite the passage please…Saul does not fare well in the Bible. Recall the famous episode where he consulted the witch at Endor. Yes, Saul was anointed by the prophet Samuel in 1 Samuel 9…and then was rebuked by Samuel in chapter 13 of that book…and rejected by God in the 15th chapter… As for historicity and so forth, there IS evidence of fortified cities, writing, administrative work, and international trade connections between Judah and other ANE states around the time of David … details like the grant mentioned in 1 Samuel 17:25 is typical procedure for the times—found also in Ugaritic literature…there are names, places etc in the biblical text that are known to have existed at the times in which they are said by the biblical text to actually have existed. There is a lot of ancient history — not just biblical – that has people scratching their heads. It does not stop people from looking into it. They do not necessarily write off various historical texts just because they do not understand one part or another…

“Weird” morals? You mean like “thou shalt not commit adultery”? Again… a little more specificity than just “I don’t know if there are any [contradictions] or not, but if there are, that makes it harder to know…”

I think you are right to be thinking about this. But you seem to be spouting stuff you have heard without looking much into it. That is just how it seems to me.

That is already a very good starting point: recognising that “some bits are this, some bits are that”.

This is key, and you already have picked up the key and recognise its importance.

“The Bible.” Sometimes it helps to throw away that term. Instead, replace it with something like “this collection of often wildly disparate books”. For example go to any book-reader’s book shelves or to any town library and you’ll find books about a wide range of topics from ‘Caribbean History’ to ‘Car Maintenance’; from ‘Queens and Kings of England’ to ‘Quantum Mechanics’; from ‘Harry Potter’ to ‘Himalayan Geography’. That’s just what one would expect, indeed wish, from a good range of books.

Likewise with our collection, “the Bible”. Like the library, its component books cover a range of different topics and a range of different genres. All of them can speak “the truth” in its own world of discourse. The fictional ‘Harry Potter’ contains deep truths, but its truth won’t “speak truth” to my current ‘Car Maintenance’ problem. Nor would the truth of the ‘Car Maintenance’ book “speak truth” to my frantic revision for tomorrow’s ‘Queens and Kings of England’ exam.

Within the Christian faith, we hold that this collection of books holds deep truths about God. This is an act of faith from within the Faith. And in exploring, with faith, our collection of books, we seek truths that are appropriate to each book, primarily in its own time and place, and after that, by extension, to us in our time and place.

The Bible is for us who already in the faith. Those outside may well dispute it; that is up to them. For those of us from evangelical backgrounds, our task is not to convince them that “the Bible is true”; that is not evangelism. Perhaps the task is rather to lead them to that faith in God, subsequent to which we can, by faith, then explore the truths of “the Bible”.

So this collection of books is for us in the faith. And within the faith we hold its varied truths to be valid, understanding that each of these various truths has a particular scope.

Does that help?

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This is apropos yet again:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Weird morals, as in some are good, and then some not so good.
Leviticus 25. 44-46
“‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.”
I could be wrong here, but I don’t think this is so great. There were also some parts where they permitted beating of the salves as long as they recovered quickly.
Also, may I have a source to some of the stuff you mentioned about the historicity?
And the verse was in 1 Samuel

But this is the thing…
Faith, faith, faith, more faith.
I can have faith in anything and believe it’s true.
And bear in mind here I’m not claiming it’s false, but I don’t simply think “faith” is a good answer.

You’re not wrong in claiming this isn’t great, I’m not going to stand here and say slavery was amazing but we have already discussed this on another thread, remember? Let’s look at these verses:

Exodus 21:20 "Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.

We need to imagine how would this sound to original audience. 1st of all beatings as punishment were very common back then and most were subject to them, slave or not. And this verse clearly states you cannot just kill your slave, even if unintentionally, without consequences. So it gives certain protection to slaves, acknowledges they have value (apart from monetary one). This would most likely sound novel to the ancients slave owners.

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Thanks Ravetastic…As I said, I like that you are trying to comprehend what the Bible is about, whether it has “legs” historically and culturally, and why it says some of the things it says. I am with you on that, and I like that too in fact.

There are two general subject categories in your above response. One is your query for “a source to some of the stuff you mentioned about the historicity?”

The second is the mishmash of references (named and alluded to) in the two paragraphs above question number one. You named Leviticus 25:44-46…alluded to a passage in Exodus 21 that is part of a previous discussion with Marta…and then said that a passage I wondered about is “in 1 Samuel.” The latter, of course, leaves me guessing since there are 31 chapters and many more verses in First Samuel.

Since your first question is more straightforward, let’s just cite that “stuff I mentioned about the historicity”.
…I was referring to a note I made by 1 Samuel 17:25 —which was that the act of exempting the father’s family from taxes — yes, it has always paid to have friends in high places, and the royal palace could order that sort of thing. It is also in Ugaritic literature of that era…and I got this while reading a book called Ancient Israelite Religion. First Samuel 20:29 also references something that the author of the above book called “the kispuh ceremony” and further explained it in his book on p. 70.

The late (I presume) Assyriologist A, Leo Oppenheim noted in his book Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization that “…the Old Testament reports with unrivalled excellence and thoroughness” the period of 8th century BCE and forward while illuminating some of “the preceding three or four cednturies…” and that it can be “far more revealing and exact” than Herodotus on Babylonia —see his book.

I was Zooming a biblical archaeology conference this spring and listened to an archaeologist cite the author of the Gospel of Luke as “meticulous and thorough as an observer…” with “accurate as far as we can tell from contemporary…data” descriptions of towns, cities, “and islands” etc. She characterized Luke (or whoever wrote Luke) as “a highly educated man…a deep thinker”…she said this is the sort of person one would expect a physician (like Luke) to be…also the writer of Luke knew medical terminology that others of that era would not have known.

You find what is out there by reading different people and listening to different viewpoints, Rave. As Jonas C. Greenfield said in the above cited book on Ancient Israelite Religion — the ideas of Genesis 15, for example, which have God or gods being witnessed to a treaty (as the text says) is standard ancient near eastern practice.

I read a book by a Jewish writer (of our era) who poured over the Gospel of Mark and noted, in various spots, that the writer of that gospel displayed such minute knowledge of Jewish customs and biblical law that he personally had no doubt that the writer of Mark knew Jewish Law “all the way down”. This does not mean this writer believed Jesus is God…but he believed the composer of Mark wrote his gospel early and was accurate in his description of the customs of observant people of his era. See Daniel Boyarin–various comments in The Jewish Gospels

Another archaeologist --British/Israeli — said the layout of first century Jerusalem as described in the New Testament fits what we know it to be from historical discoveries. See Shimon Gibson The Final Days of Jesus…

Genesis 47 talks about a famine. In our era they have taken ice cores from Mt Kilimanjaro that show evidence of a famine 3600 years ago --same approximate time as the family portrayed as being in Egypt etc…The custom of people going from Canaan to settle in Egypt was well known—and also mentioned in the Biblical text as having occurred.

Also it was Egyptian custom to sell someone into slavery when a passing caravan came by and wanted to buy them, as described in the Genesis account of the sale of Joseph by his brothers —see the book 5000 Years of Slavery…which I may mention later.

Exodus 2 — “many native rulers sent their children to the Egyptian palace to be raised in the presence of the king and his future successors” – per the Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Egypt, by Bill Manley, pub 1996

All that means of course is that the account of Moses having been “a child of the kap” --that is the royal schools — reflects known customs of the era. And he likely, thus, would have been literate. See Hoffmeier and Kitchen —various books

Exodus 5—12 has “many features characterisitc of Egyptian geology, culture, sociology,…” per a book called The Origins of Early Israel : current debate ed by Ahitove and Oren.

Egyptian texts describe brickmaking quotas and there are registers which have been found and translated — and which show that being absent from work in order to go off somewhere and worship your god —these things happened. The biblical text notes these things too. See Exodus. See Kitchen and Hoffmeier…

Jeremiah 39:3…a researcher in the bowels of the British museum found an ancient Babylonian tablet which mentioned Nabu-sharussu-ukin …this was found in 2007. thus verifying the historicity of that verse in the text of Jeremiah…read this in the news…think easily googled

Again, the above shows that the composers of the documents and books and so on that make up the text…have a lot of historical verification — not all, of course. But this is true for much of ancient history…I could tell you more about that!!

OK… I gotta go…maybe later for the second part of your question…

P.S. I proofread this thing and hopefully removed much of my typos…busy day
Have a good one!

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