Guys, I really enjoy reading posts which dissect contents of the bible and analyse , scrutinize and find discrepancies.

Let's take away the sky daddy bits and all the morality and parables, etc.

What is left?
As a historical body of text, has it provided any historical or scientific information which is generally considered "fact" due to the empirical evidence noted in it, which cannot be validated by other writings of the time.

Eg: social migration, spread of ethnicities, topological accuracies, technologies of the period, etc.

This alone should give the bible "some" merit, albeit for all the wrong reasons for those who consider it sacred.

Thoughts?

(June 27, 2014 at 9:30 am)ignoramus Wrote: Guys, I really enjoy reading posts which dissect contents of the bible and analyse , scrutinize and find discrepancies.

Let's take away the sky daddy bits and all the morality and parables, etc.

What is left?
As a historical body of text, has it provided any historical or scientific information which is generally considered "fact" due to the empirical evidence noted in it, which cannot be validated by other writings of the time.

Eg: social migration, spread of ethnicities, topological accuracies, technologies of the period, etc.

This alone should give the bible "some" merit, albeit for all the wrong reasons for those who consider it sacred.

Thoughts?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'merit'. Does having merit simply mean "Not everything in the book is false"?

I'd have to ask the same question of 'merit'.

Do the ancient Greek mythologies have 'merit' because some contain real places and events in their stories?

Do Stephen King's books have 'merit' because sometimes he uses real people and places for his settings?

(June 27, 2014 at 9:30 am)ignoramus Wrote: Guys, I really enjoy reading posts which dissect contents of the bible and analyse , scrutinize and find discrepancies.

Let's take away the sky daddy bits and all the morality and parables, etc.

What is left?
As a historical body of text, has it provided any historical or scientific information which is generally considered "fact" due to the empirical evidence noted in it, which cannot be validated by other writings of the time.

Eg: social migration, spread of ethnicities, topological accuracies, technologies of the period, etc.

This alone should give the bible "some" merit, albeit for all the wrong reasons for those who consider it sacred.

Thoughts?

if we dont take it literal The bible is fine. Only fundamentalist, which is a personality defect not belief, need it "all true" or "all false"

My guess is that most of us in the middle don't care that much what self help book people read. What bothers us is the notion of pushing "your" belief onto someone else by some type of force.

(June 27, 2014 at 10:03 am)archangle Wrote:

(June 27, 2014 at 9:30 am)ignoramus Wrote: Guys, I really enjoy reading posts which dissect contents of the bible and analyse , scrutinize and find discrepancies.

Let's take away the sky daddy bits and all the morality and parables, etc.

What is left?
As a historical body of text, has it provided any historical or scientific information which is generally considered "fact" due to the empirical evidence noted in it, which cannot be validated by other writings of the time.

Eg: social migration, spread of ethnicities, topological accuracies, technologies of the period, etc.

This alone should give the bible "some" merit, albeit for all the wrong reasons for those who consider it sacred.

Thoughts?

if we dont take it literal The bible is fine. Only fundamentalist, which is a personality defect not belief, need it "all true" or "all false"

My guess is that most of us in the middle don't care that much what self help book people read. What bothers us is the notion of pushing "your" belief onto someone else by some type of force.

Well the problem there is that people disagree widely on what parts of the Bible to take literally and which parts are just metaphor. Also, I wouldn't say the Bible is "fine" if we don't take any of it literally, because there are still some pretty immoral statements in there.

It has merit because it promoted the development of the printing press, at least in Europe?

(June 27, 2014 at 10:08 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote:

(June 27, 2014 at 10:03 am)archangle Wrote: if we dont take it literal The bible is fine. Only fundamentalist, which is a personality defect not belief, need it "all true" or "all false"

My guess is that most of us in the middle don't care that much what self help book people read. What bothers us is the notion of pushing "your" belief onto someone else by some type of force.

Well the problem there is that people disagree widely on what parts of the Bible to take literally and which parts are just metaphor. Also, I wouldn't say the Bible is "fine" if we don't take any of it literally, because there are still some pretty immoral statements in there.

hey, a normal response.

I agree with ya. The topic is also "having some mertis". But it is also not "evil". when we take it as a book written so many years ago. For a collection of old books, remember no internet, they did pretty darn good.

As far as immoral. I don't see immoral. I see laws doing the best they could in the times they were formed. And, as humans do, we screwed the pooch. Look at the USA alone. We are as immoral as they were.

(June 27, 2014 at 10:19 am)archangle Wrote:

(June 27, 2014 at 10:08 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote: Well the problem there is that people disagree widely on what parts of the Bible to take literally and which parts are just metaphor. Also, I wouldn't say the Bible is "fine" if we don't take any of it literally, because there are still some pretty immoral statements in there.

hey, a normal response.

I agree with ya. The topic is also "having some mertis". But it is also not "evil". when we take it as a book written so many years ago. For a collection of old books, remember no internet, they did pretty darn good.

As far as immoral. I don't see immoral. I see laws doing the best they could in the times they were formed. And, as humans do, we screwed the pooch. Look at the USA alone. We are as immoral as they were.

Well the reason I asked the OP is because I want to be sure about what we're talking about with 'merits'.

And as to your other points, I'm not sure how you can't see immorality in the Bible. Just because it was 2000 years ago doesn't mean they get a free pass, unless you're advocating for pretty high moral relativism. Additionally, aren't the people in the USA 'doing the best we can in the times we've been formed'?

There's some actual history (abet heavily influenced by both politics and religion) in Kings and Chronicles.

Prior to that you aren't going to learn much except how the Hebrews thought of themselves and perhaps a little about current technology and social habits. But there was so much reworking of this material during the Babylonian captivity, that it's suspect even for that purpose.

The Pauline Epistles (and a few of the other Epistles) provide us with some context concerning the early Christians.