Yes, there really are some. Sure, most them need to be taken out of context (like ignore the bits that come before and after). Here’s a personal favourite:

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Boru 

36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Luke 10:36-37

In response to the question of 'who is my neighbor' when it came to 'loving your neighbor as yourself'.

I've heard that certain types of paper used in the printing of Bibles is a good fallback if out of rolling papers. I guess that's a good thing.

2 Samuel 12:11

Quote:11 Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house, and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in broad daylight.

David had 8 wives. Imagine he had 700, like his son Solomon. Lets all be thankful for that.

I can't be bothered to look up the verses but throughout the gospels, Jesus is credited with saying some woke hippy shit about loving your neighbors, treating foreigners well, and treating the least amongst us with dignity and grace. Pity that so many Christians fail to honor them.

(August 15, 2025 at 1:23 pm)Jackalope Wrote: I can't be bothered to look up the verses but throughout the gospels, Jesus is credited with saying some woke hippy shit about loving your neighbors, treating foreigners well, and treating the least amongst us with dignity and grace.  Pity that so many Christians fail to honor them.

In defense of Christian, they’re too busy defending the Bible to actually read the Bible.

Boru

(August 15, 2025 at 2:23 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(August 15, 2025 at 1:23 pm)Jackalope Wrote: I can't be bothered to look up the verses but throughout the gospels, Jesus is credited with saying some woke hippy shit about loving your neighbors, treating foreigners well, and treating the least amongst us with dignity and grace.  Pity that so many Christians fail to honor them.

In defense of Christian, they’re too busy defending the Bible to actually read the Bible.

Boru

The ones I'm talking about are also too busy with their worship of Mammon and Baal.

It's a demonstration of that saying about the good parts being unoriginal.

The nt narratives served poor communities and communicated things like justice and mercy and gods nature in ways that a poor hellenistic mind would understand. They drew on the ot, too, ofc. There in the ot we see a similar thing and basically all my favorite parts of the ot come in the form of revisions to common legal codes in the ane as recorded in deutoronomy and exodus. Where, generally speaking, the theft or destruction of property would cost you your life or your qol through mutilation. The culture that much of the deutoronomic authors lived under, or recently lived under. So when they get about to changing it they do so not from the point of view of a king or chief or lord - but from the pov of the target of those previous policies. Inverting the relationship between life and property. They kept the idea of capital punishment for murder, but corporeal justice gave way to civil justice across the board in that these Bad Things were now handled largely by fines. Sometimes it would be word for word with ur-nammu with just that inversion separating them. Sometimes they just kept what was in place word for word, probably the best example - what do you do if your ox gores another ox? The two ox owners split the living and the dead ox. That's from eshunna.

(August 15, 2025 at 7:21 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Yes, there really are some. Sure, most them need to be taken out of context (like ignore the bits that come before and after). Here’s a personal favourite:

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Boru 

I'm assuming by good, you're referring to morally good.

But for me, the good parts in the Bible are those that make for interesting reading and inspires you to want to dig deep into those.

Job and Ecclesiastes are two good examples, they go against the traditional thinking back then that suffering occurs because of sin (by saying stuff like the wicked gets to prosper for life in spite of their sins) and you see what seem to be some insertions by the editorial scribes to counterbalance what would have otherwise been considered heretical thinking at the time.

But yeah, from a moral perspective, both the OT and NT have some good parts. Proverbs has quite a number of sayings that encourage compassion for the poor and needy, and how both the great and the lowly both share the same humanity.

(August 15, 2025 at 12:42 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: I've heard that certain types of paper used in the printing of Bibles is a good fallback if out of rolling papers.  I guess that's a good thing.

When I left school we were given Gideon's, not the whole thing but Psalms and something else.
Quite a lot of my school mates used them as "cigarette" papers.