When it comes to the Bible, modern Americans are at a distinct disadvantage. They know both too much and too little.
They know too much because they live in a society in which references to the Bible -- positive and negative -- are frequent, creating a false sense of familiarity. They know too little because they have not read it, or have read only selected portions of it, or have allowed others to read it for them through the filtering lens of later theological doctrines or political opportunism. And that's a pity because the Bible, by which I mean the 24 basic books common to all Bibles (equivalent to the Jewish Tanakh or Hebrew Bible and to the Protestant Old Testament) is deserving of the same careful attention and close reading that we regularly bestow upon other classic texts.
It has been my experience teaching a university course on the Bible, that a close reading of the Bible is often hampered by several misconceptions. I ask my students -- as I ask readers of the book based on the course -- to correct five common misconceptions in order to encounter the Bible as if for the first time.
Correction #1
The Hebrew Bible is not a book. It was not produced by a single author in one time and place. It is a small library of books composed and edited over nearly a millennium by people responding to a wide range of issues and historical circumstances. Because it is not a book (the name "Bible" derives from the plural Greek form ta biblia, meaning "the books") it does not have a uniform style or message.
From narrative texts to legal texts, from cultic instruction to erotic love poetry, this library contains works of diverse genres each of which sounds its own distinctive note in the symphony of reflection that we call the Bible. As is true of any collection of books by different authors in different centuries, the books in this collection contradict one another. Indeed, they sometimes contradict themselves because multiple strands of tradition were woven together in the creation of some of the books. The compiler of Genesis placed, side by side, two creation stories that differ dramatically in vocabulary, literary style and detail (who is created first -- humans or animals?). A few chapters later, two flood stories are interwoven into a single story despite their many contradictions and tensions (does Noah really take the animals on board two by two?). Proverbs extols wisdom, but Ecclesiastes scoffs at its folly and urges existential pleasure. Deuteronomy harps on God's retributive justice, but Job arrives at the bittersweet conclusion that despite the lack of divine justice (in this world or any other), we are not excused from the thankless and perhaps ultimately meaningless task of moral living. That such dissonant voices were preserved in the canon of the Bible, their tensions and contradictions unresolved, says something important about the conception of canon in antiquity. Ancient readers viewed this anthology as a collection of culturally significant writings worthy of preservation without the expectation or requirement that they agree with one another. Just as an attempt to impose harmony and consistency on the short stories collected in the Norton Anthology of English Literature would do great violence to those stories, any attempt to impose harmony and consistency on the diverse books collected in the Bible -- to extract a single message or truth -- does great violence to those books.
Correction #2
The Hebrew Bible is not a book of systematic theology (i.e., an account of the divine) delivering eternally true pronouncements on theological issues, despite the fact that at a much later time, complex systems of theology would be spun from particular interpretations of biblical passages. Its narrative materials provide an account of the odyssey of a people, the ancient Israelites, as they struggled to make sense of their history and their relationship to their deity. Certainly the Bible sometimes addresses moral and existential questions that would become central to the later discipline of theology but then so do Shakespeare and Frost and that doesn't make them theologians. The Bible's treatment of these questions is often indirect and implicit, conducted in the language of story and song, poetry, paradox and metaphor quite distinct from the language and tenets of the post-biblical discipline of theology. To impose the theological doctrines of a later time that not only do not appear in the Bible but are contradicted by it -- creation ex nihilo, the doctrine of original sin, the belief in life after death -- does another kind of violence to the text.
Correction #3
The Hebrew Bible is not a timeless or eternal work that stands outside the normal processes of literary production. Its books emerged from specific times and places. Reading the Bible alongside parallel materials from the many cultures of the Ancient Near East shows the deep indebtedness of the biblical authors to the literary heritage of the Ancient Near East. The ancient Israelites borrowed and adapted literary motifs and conventions from their larger cultural context and an awareness of those motifs and conventions produces richer, more coherent readings of the biblical text than are otherwise possible.
Correction #4
The narratives of the Hebrew Bible are not pious parables about saints, nor are they G-rated tales easily understood by children. Biblical narratives are psychologically real stories about very human beings whose behavior can be scandalous, violent, rebellious, outrageous, lewd and vicious. At the same time, like real people, biblical characters can change and act with justice and compassion. Nevertheless, many readers are shocked and disgusted to discover that Jacob is a deceiver, Joseph is an arrogant, spoiled brat and Judah sleeps with his daughter-in-law when she is disguised as a prostitute!
The unfounded expectation that biblical characters are perfectly pious models for our own conduct causes many readers to work to vindicate biblical characters, just because they are biblical characters. But if we attribute to these characters the reputation for piety manufactured by later religious traditions, if we whitewash their flaws, then we miss the moral complexities and the deep psychological insights that have made these (often R-rated) stories of timeless interest. Biblical narratives place serious demands on their readers. The stories rarely moralize. They explore moral issues and situations by placing biblical characters in moral dilemmas -- but they usually leave the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.
Correction #5
The character "Yahweh" in the Hebrew Bible should not be confused with the god of western theological speculation (generally referred to as "God"). The attributes assigned to "God" by post-biblical theologians -- such as omniscience and immutability -- are simply not attributes possessed by the character Yahweh as drawn in biblical narratives. Indeed, on several occasions Yahweh is explicitly described as changing his mind, because when it comes to human beings his learning curve is steep. Humans have free will; they act in ways that surprise him and he must change tack and respond. One of the greatest challenges for modern readers of the Hebrew Bible is to allow the text to mean what it says, when what is says flies in the face of doctrines that emerged centuries later from philosophical debates about the abstract category "God."
Setting aside these misconceptions enables readers to encounter and struggle with the biblical text in all its rich complexity -- its grandeur and its banality, its sophistication and its self-contradiction, its pathos and its humor -- and to arrive at a more profound appreciation of its multi-faceted and multi-vocal messiness.
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So the creator of man doesn't understand the behavior of his creation. Interesting.
1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
2Ti 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
2Ti 3:17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
If all scripture is from God, why are there obvious forgeries in the books of the current Biblical canon? Why have debates raged for centuries about what should and should not be included? Why are important points of theology based on passages added centuries after the death of Christ?
This is the problem that I've had with Christianity for a long time and why I am no longer practicing...
The "Old Testament" is not taught by Christians the way Jews teach it - with rabbinical commentary and debate along with true study of, and learning of Hebrew, but it was THEIR religious text first.
In Baptist Sunday school the only parts of the Old Testament they talked about were the more well known stories from Genesis and all had to be believed literally + the addition of original sin (Adam and Eve) which Jews don't believe.
(from a Jewish website - ) The concept of Original Sin states simply that because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they brought Death into the world. In this view, every human being dies because the origin of the human race was tainted with sin: Adam and Eve committed a sin, all humans bear guilt of that sin, and are therefore punished with death. However, the Bible describes something entirely different. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden because if they remained, they could eat the fruit of the Tree of Life, which would make them immortal. If Adam and Eve had to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life to become immortal, then they were created mortal. They did not bring Death into the world, and we do not die
"The character "Yahweh" in the Hebrew Bible should not be confused with the god of western theological speculation (generally referred to as "God")."..I have to remember this one.
Atheists and people who believe differently than you do fill non-sectarian charities in the USA and around the world. The difference is, they also welcome Christians.
Because I can go days on end without ever talking about the Bible, even though I have 7 copies of the Bible, 5 copies of the Qu'ran, and a few of the Gitas, etc., within 36 inches of where I presently sit.
Perhaps your generalization is no more accurate than any of the religious texts I referenced.
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Until the end of wickedness, in which God will simply destroy all that is wicked, Atheist and Believers are going to believe different things. For instance, I could use pejorative words about Atheists as well. Statements such as "Athiests are misanthropic, hateful, profane, impure, disrespectful, crude, immoral, contemptuous, iconoclastic, Satan worshipers. I could go on, but you get the point. Then we could "sling that mud" back and forth and we both just get dirtier, or maybe that is your goal?
"(T)he dilemma of the non believer is to understand if they want to sanctify their faith..." The way you used faith has a direct religious connotation.
As an atheist, I have no "faith."
Oh, and I "have faith" that I have read the Bible as often as you. After all, the Bible I carried (including every single day of high school) became so worn, the cover fell off. I couldn't replace it, no matter how I wanted, because all my notes, underlining, and highlighting could never be transferred into a new Bible. Therefore, I cut the remnants off the spine and in their place I glued a sheet of leather, and that leather now bears the stains of the oils in my hand where I continued to carry it for years later...
Unlike you, I had a crisis of "faith" and started asking "what do I believe" and "why do I believe it." Those two questions were the completion of my departure from Christianity.
... And I didn't know you were a woman until you mentioned it. I don't see how that affects anything in the news ...
first, why would a NON-believer want to sanctify something they rather obviously don't have?
second, is it the dilemma or the sanctified faith that comes from believing the report?
third, what is this report, who gave it and why was it given carefully?
Many will choose to believe this, based entirely on the fact that it distorts the word and renders the Bible and even authorship as invalid .
This is generated to feed into the already existing non believers.
Therefore, a challenge (to all the Bible contents under FIRE) could not be met on just this post this demands a book of proof.
The many twisted thoughts, unknown and uninsightful schemes preys on the unwary and thus those unfamiliar with it's contents/ The systematic scheme picked and chooses from various Bible writers from differ periods of time and say they were in conflict because of the style of writings.
Quiet assuredly the whole Bible theme is in agreement throughout it's entirety and that is, the Bible DIRECTS to the Christ from the very beginning after the transgression in the garden of Eden and the very first prophesy.
God's Purpose and Plan was for mankind to live on the Earth.
That plan has not changed.
A Book from God
http://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-teach/the-bible-a-book-from-god/
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101990061
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/lv/r1/lp-e/0/19122
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2009808#s=10:0-14:189
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2009808#p5
No, we are not obligated to that law .Ok? Pick what archaic parts you want out of the old law given to Moses several thousand years ago and point a finger to the Creator rather than the creation.
You have the right.
Say in your heart there is no God and call everyone a fool that does believe the way you do.
What, though, determines whether a person is wise or foolish? Proverbs 14:2 states: “The one walking in his uprightness is fearing Jehovah, but the one crooked in his ways is despising Him.” The upright one fears the true God, and “the fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom.” (Psalm 111:10)
A truly wise person knows that it is his obligation to “fear the true God and keep his commandments.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13) On the other hand, the foolish one follows a course that is not in harmony with God’s standards of uprightness. His ways are crooked. Such a person despises God, saying in his heart: “There is no Jehovah.”—Psalm 14:1.
WHEN the storm of Har–Magedon breaks loose and brings an end to Satan’s wicked system of things, “the house of wicked people will be annihilated.” What about “the tent of the upright ones”? Why, in the new world of God’s making, it “will flourish.”—Proverbs 14:11.
And it's such a shame that the "Christian" church says the Jehovah's Witnesses are not Christian, but that's not my fight. I'm quite aware of enough JW doctrine to know that the early church fathers dismissed your heresy in the first three centuries of church history. Your beliefs are very similar to the teachings of Arias of Alexandria (d. about 336 CE), for which he was pronounced a heretic during his lifetime by the First Council of Nicaea, 325 CE.
You really should look into scholarly work on the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) and the problems contained within.
YES. Like the TRINITY DOCTRINE borrowed from the Pagan Babylonia teachings.
Including Imortality of the human Soul
Hells Fire Doctrine and many other holiday traditions and celebrations The list is endless.
http://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/trinity/
HEBREW SCRIPTURES
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2001283
Bible Book Number
Isaiah
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101990084
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101990132
Studies on the Inspired Scriptures and Their Background
The Hebrew Text of the Holy Scriptures
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101990136
Studies on the Inspired Scriptures and Their Background
Study Number 9—Archaeology and the Inspired Record
Is God a Trinity?
The Bible’s answer
The Church Fathers—
Advocates of Bible Truth?
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200001955
They Keep On Walking in the Truth
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2002525
Identifying The Book Of Truth
http://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/submission/identifying-the-book-of-truth/
Fast Facts—Worldwide
http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/
as does the "Christian" Bible...
and with so MANY internal contradictions floating about it amazes me that anyone could read these books and come away BELIEVING in much of anything.