Is the Bible Literally True? No, of Course Not!

BidenPresident said:
Exactly. Paul wanted a Christian Church. Nothing about Jesus talks about establishing an institution.
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Apart from all the great exhortations to love one another and to care for the poor and downtrodden etc., I wonder what a Christian church would look like based solely on Jesus' teachings (assuming we know what the actual person taught as opposed to stories handed down for decades before being written down.)

It's so fascinating that Christ sees himself so often as separate from God in the Gospels. He always prays to "the Father" and to my knowledge never makes the claim of homoousiosness with God. But clearly he notes that he is the Way and the Path to the Father so he (per the gospels) clearly sees at least an intercessionary role for himself and a special relationship with God.

Would Jesus have been in agreement with Paul that the Gentiles need not convert to Judaistic practices to be Christians or would Jesus have been more in line with the early Jerusalem Church? Does the Johannine Comma establish the Trinity? Are these things part of Jesus' true concept of his church which he establishes in Matt 16:18?

Religion is easily one of the most fascinating things to watch evolve and all religions do seem to evolve as times change and conditions for the faithful change.

I think of Christianity's best being the teachings of Jesus around peace, love and understanding as well as loving one's enemies etc., and as an atheist I don't have much need for the supernatural bits, but there's a lot of value in the teachings. There's actually a lot of really good stuff in the NT (and some not-so-good stuff) which I think can be useful to people without the need for all the religious infrastructure built up around it. But I also wonder what the founders of this religion actually intended for it to be.
 
Obtenebrator said:
Apart from all the great exhortations to love one another and to care for the poor and downtrodden etc., I wonder what a Christian church would look like based solely on Jesus' teachings (assuming we know what the actual person taught as opposed to stories handed down for decades before being written down.)

It's so fascinating that Christ sees himself so often as separate from God in the Gospels. He always prays to "the Father" and to my knowledge never makes the claim of homoousiosness with God. But clearly he notes that he is the Way and the Path to the Father so he (per the gospels) clearly sees at least an intercessionary role for himself and a special relationship with God.

Would Jesus have been in agreement with Paul that the Gentiles need not convert to Judaistic practices to be Christians or would Jesus have been more in line with the early Jerusalem Church? Does the Johannine Comma establish the Trinity? Are these things part of Jesus' true concept of his church which he establishes in Matt 16:18?

Religion is easily one of the most fascinating things to watch evolve and all religions do seem to evolve as times change and conditions for the faithful change.

I think of Christianity's best being the teachings of Jesus around peace, love and understanding as well as loving one's enemies etc., and as an atheist I don't have much need for the supernatural bits, but there's a lot of value in the teachings. There's actually a lot of really good stuff in the NT (and some not-so-good stuff) which I think can be useful to people without the need for all the religious infrastructure built up around it. But I also wonder what the founders of this religion actually intended for it to be.
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I do not find religion interesting.
 
BidenPresident said:
I do not find religion interesting.
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I do. But I started off as a believer so I've spent an awful lot of time just contemplating and reading up on the faith. Also here in the US a lot of our politics are tinged with religious overtones which we all pretty much have to be mindful of and on the lookout for. We just saw a significant loss of reproductive rights for women in a big chunk of the US that was driven solely by the Religious Right. It's always best to understand the opposition.

Plus it's just plain ol' interesting to me to see how thoughts evolve in large groups of people.
 
Obtenebrator said:
I do. But I started off as a believer so I've spent an awful lot of time just contemplating and reading up on the faith. Also here in the US a lot of our politics are tinged with religious overtones which we all pretty much have to be mindful of and on the lookout for. We just saw a significant loss of reproductive rights for women in a big chunk of the US that was driven solely by the Religious Right. It's always best to understand the opposition.

Plus it's just plain ol' interesting to me to see how thoughts evolve in large groups of people.
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I understand pretty much everything about Christianity. I find it mostly boring.
 
gfm7175 said:
What date? No date has been discussed here.


There is no contradiction. This has already been explained to you.
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Day.

There is a contradiction. Whether you believe Mark was talking about Passover or Sabbath, the days are different than John's.
 
Obtenebrator said:
Apart from all the great exhortations to love one another and to care for the poor and downtrodden etc., I wonder what a Christian church would look like based solely on Jesus' teachings (assuming we know what the actual person taught as opposed to stories handed down for decades before being written down.)

It's so fascinating that Christ sees himself so often as separate from God in the Gospels. He always prays to "the Father" and to my knowledge never makes the claim of homoousiosness with God. But clearly he notes that he is the Way and the Path to the Father so he (per the gospels) clearly sees at least an intercessionary role for himself and a special relationship with God.

Would Jesus have been in agreement with Paul that the Gentiles need not convert to Judaistic practices to be Christians or would Jesus have been more in line with the early Jerusalem Church? Does the Johannine Comma establish the Trinity? Are these things part of Jesus' true concept of his church which he establishes in Matt 16:18?

Religion is easily one of the most fascinating things to watch evolve and all religions do seem to evolve as times change and conditions for the faithful change.

I think of Christianity's best being the teachings of Jesus around peace, love and understanding as well as loving one's enemies etc., and as an atheist I don't have much need for the supernatural bits, but there's a lot of value in the teachings. There's actually a lot of really good stuff in the NT (and some not-so-good stuff) which I think can be useful to people without the need for all the religious infrastructure built up around it. But I also wonder what the founders of this religion actually intended for it to be.
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At one time, I considered myself as an atheist. Not so much anymore. However, I do completely reject the concept of the Christian god, and I guess that means the Muslim god as well. A singular, supreme being, sitting at the apex, answering (or not) prayers, performing miracles, etc. A reward and punishment god that must be faithfully accepted as a prerequisite for eternal life in some sort of paradise.

The concept of Spinosa’s god makes much more sense. Or that as discussed in the Tao.
 
domer76 said:
No, no grand conspiracies. Other than perhaps the Council of Nicaea a few centuries later.

What the literalists either don’t know, don’t wish to know or choose to ignore is that the NT is nothing more than hand-me-down stories, written by authors who added their own personal touch to oral tradition. John, for instance, for whatever reason, needed to make a claim for the divinity of Jesus. Putting words in his mouth that were not found even once in the synoptic gospels that preceded it. One would think that if Jesus went around claiming he was God, Mark, Matthew or Luke would have noticed it. They didn’t.

Jesus could have been one of any number of apocalyptic prophets of the time. Apparently, one could not swing a stick without hitting one.
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Biblical literalism is both lazy and in some sense just bad theology.

I do think there was something particularly appealing or compelling about Jesus, about his life, or about his message that went beyond what the other Jewish apocalyptic prophets were preaching in 1st century Palestine.

At first glance, there's no reason a lasting and growing oral and written tradition about one Jewish apocalyptic prophet would spread across the Mediterranean world over any of the other contemporaneous prophets in Judea and Galilee.
 
domer76 said:
At one time, I considered myself as an atheist. Not so much anymore. However, I do completely reject the concept of the Christian god, and I guess that means the Muslim god as well. A singular, supreme being, sitting at the apex, answering (or not) prayers, performing miracles, etc. A reward and punishment god that must be faithfully accepted as a prerequisite for eternal life in some sort of paradise.

The concept of Spinosa’s god makes much more sense. Or that as discussed in the Tao.
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I've consistently written that while the god of Abraham seems pretty far fetched in a strictly literal sense, I think it's perfectly reasonable to believe that there is a purposeful organizing principle underlying the rational order of the universe.
 
Cypress said:
I've consistently written that while the god of Abraham seems pretty far fetched in a strictly literal sense, I think it's perfectly reasonable to believe that there is a purposeful organizing principle underlying the rational order of the universe.
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That would align pretty nicely with Spinosa’s concept.

It is profoundly evident to me, however, that any god of the universe is neutral. Uncaring about our near-insignificant existence on this Pale Blue Dot.
 
domer76 said:
That would align pretty nicely with Spinosa’s concept.

It is profoundly evident to me, however, that any god of the universe is neutral. Uncaring about our near-insignificant existence on this Pale Blue Dot.
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Caring is a human emotion, and if any higher organizing principle underlies perceptual physical reality, I doubt Homo Sapiens have the math, physics, or language to fully comprehend and describe it. I think homo sapiens are a long, long way from omniscience.

I kind of like the Chinese description of the Tao as something which cannot be described, and if you even tried your words would completely lose it's essence and miss the point.
 
Cypress said:
Caring is a human emotion, and if any higher organizing principle underlies perceptual physical reality, I doubt Homo Sapiens have the math, physics, or language to fully comprehend and describe it. I think homo sapiens are a long, long way from omniscience.

I kind of like the Chinese description of the Tao as something which cannot be described, and if you even tried your words would completely lose it's essence and miss the point.
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Funny you should mention the Tao, because I was going to, but didn’t because I hesitated at trying to describe the one that cannot be described.
 
Cypress said:
Caring is a human emotion, and if any higher organizing principle underlies perceptual physical reality, I doubt Homo Sapiens have the math, physics, or language to fully comprehend and describe it. I think homo sapiens are a long, long way from omniscience.

I kind of like the Chinese description of the Tao as something which cannot be described, and if you even tried your words would completely lose it's essence and miss the point.
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I read your post again and thought I’d add another comment.

Caring is just not a human emotion. We may have certain characteristics that separate us, but that is not one of them.
 
domer76 said:
I read your post again and thought I’d add another comment.

Caring is just not a human emotion. We may have certain characteristics that separate us, but that is not one of them.
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Caring universally about the whole human species, in the way the God of Abraham supposedly does, seems to certainly be an extrapolation of Christian or human morality.

Darwinian biological principles means that lions, squirrels, chimpanzees care about the welfare of their offspring, their siblings, possibly the welfare of their lion pride or chimp troop. But the concept of universal abstracts definitely tends to be a human invention.
 
Cypress said:
Caring is a human emotion, and if any higher organizing principle underlies perceptual physical reality, I doubt Homo Sapiens have the math, physics, or language to fully comprehend and describe it. I think homo sapiens are a long, long way from omniscience.

I kind of like the Chinese description of the Tao as something which cannot be described, and if you even tried your words would completely lose it's essence and miss the point.
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domer76 said:
Funny you should mention the Tao, because I was going to, but didn’t because I hesitated at trying to describe the one that cannot be described.
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That's pretty much how the Tao Te Ching 'describes' the Tao :)
 
ZenMode said:
Explain how you have Mark and John detailing Jesus crucifixion on the same day.
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RQAA. They both make mention of "the day of preparation", which means the day before a sabbath day. That's the simple version of it. They are both referencing the same day.

Otherwise, diving deeper gets into the concept of "special sabbaths" (a sabbath other than the weekly sabbath). Said deeper dive also gets into how time was reckoned back then. (e.g. a day "ended/began" at sunset). You also need to study the OT books (specifically the ones in which the law was given) in order to learn specifically how Passover (and the Feast of Unleavened Bread) was conducted.

So, the crucifixion timeline (all four gospels are in agreement) seems to have happened like this:

NISAN 14: Sunset --> Disciples ask Jesus where to prepare the Passover. (beginning of evening) --> Jesus eats the Last Supper with the Apostles (beginning hours of evening) --> Jesus arrested in Gethsemane (during the night) --> Jesus illegally tried in sham trials (all throughout the night) --> Jesus crucified at 9am --> Jesus dies at 3pm ("coincidentally" right when the other Passover lambs were being slaughtered... Chance? Design? Whose design?) --> Jesus quickly taken down from the cross and buried in the tomb before the high sabbath began.

NISAN 15: Sunset (beginning of high sabbath) --> Passover meal eaten (beginning hours of evening --> Pilate was asked for guards to watch Jesus' tomb -->

NISAN 16: Sunset --> next Sunset (weekly sabbath)

NISAN 17: Sunset --> Jesus rose from the dead --> Women go to his grave at sunrise to see Jesus missing from the tomb -->
 
gfm7175 said:
RQAA. They both make mention of "the day of preparation", which means the day before a sabbath day. That's the simple version of it. They are both referencing the same day.

Otherwise, diving deeper gets into the concept of "special sabbaths" (a sabbath other than the weekly sabbath). Said deeper dive also gets into how time was reckoned back then. (e.g. a day "ended/began" at sunset). You also need to study the OT books (specifically the ones in which the law was given) in order to learn specifically how Passover (and the Feast of Unleavened Bread) was conducted.

So, the crucifixion timeline (all four gospels are in agreement) seems to have happened like this:

NISAN 14: Sunset --> Disciples ask Jesus where to prepare the Passover. (beginning of evening) --> Jesus eats the Last Supper with the Apostles (beginning hours of evening) --> Jesus arrested in Gethsemane (during the night) --> Jesus illegally tried in sham trials (all throughout the night) --> Jesus crucified at 9am --> Jesus dies at 3pm ("coincidentally" right when the other Passover lambs were being slaughtered... Chance? Design? Whose design?) --> Jesus quickly taken down from the cross and buried in the tomb before the high sabbath began.

NISAN 15: Sunset (beginning of high sabbath) --> Passover meal eaten (beginning hours of evening --> Pilate was asked for guards to watch Jesus' tomb -->

NISAN 16: Sunset --> next Sunset (weekly sabbath)

NISAN 17: Sunset --> Jesus rose from the dead --> Women go to his grave at sunrise to see Jesus missing from the tomb -->
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I know how days work for Jews and why they work that way and yes, if you ignore the details of what each account says, and just look at it very generally/broadly, you can make it seem like they agree.
 
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