In the beginning....

[Foxaèr]

For a book that prides itself on the witness of the characters within it to prove its accuracy, there's a lack of witnesses for the beginning and even the first several books of the bible.

I'm certain believers in the Christian myth are fine with accepting that certain supposed authors were divinely inspired enough to write the accounts they did.

The truth is that a divinely inspired claim is just that. I certainly trust it no more than when Gerald Gardner or Joseph Smith or Ron Hubbard made their wild claims; yet, people are willing to accept any sort of claim for the sake of comfort and community.

In the end, the beginnings of what religion claims is nothing more than fanciful imagination.

[ignoramus]

Kit. In the defence of the bible (Khem has showed me a lot of interesting interpretation of passages which has given me a lot more respect for the bible as a snapshot of the thinking of the times. I'm always interested in hearing about historical stuff like that)

I'd like to ask the many intelligent people here who have read the bible thoroughly a couple more questions.

Taking aside the manipulative religious aspect of the book, (this obviously includes all the magic stuff), how would you rate it out of 10 as a book as far as impacting your life goes?
Have any stories or parables changed you for the better or worse? Was it a good fascinating insight into life at the time?

If I was to tear out all the pages which weren't scientifically accurate, which were trying to dictate how I should live my life, and all the magic bits, what would be left for me to enjoy with a cup of tea? I hope at least half, but I could very well be the one who is deluded?


(Kit, forgive me! I'm always derailing shit wherever I go! I can't help it! lol... I just love learning stuff and when a question pops in my head, I think ohh ohh I better ask before I forget...)

[Minimalist]

In the end, the beginnings of what religion claims is nothing more than fanciful imagination.

Sssh..... don't tell them.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, since we're only discussing genesis, exodus, and leviticus...(the first few books) then we have to point out that the stories we have now achieved their form in the post-exilic period (and frankly, the ones we see today wouldn;t be complete until the 3rd and 2nd centuries).  Because those books proceed the others in placement in magic book, we subconsciously assume that they describe events (real or imagined) before the next few books.  They do not.  They are the conceptual and mythical prelude to exile compiled during and -after- exile but run co-currently with it.  A way of explaining the present or recent past, by way of an ancient melodrama. This is entirely common to establishment legends, and cultural myths.

They were finalized after the fact, after the assyrian client state of judah fell to bablyonian forces..and after egypt (fearing babylonian encroachment) invaded to the euphrates and killed the king of judah in the process at the battle of megido.  After anti babylonian insurgents in jerusalem provoked the siege of that city and the execution of it's most important residents (and their tradition along with them) and the subsequent deportation a significant percentage of the populace.  They were replaced by a native judahite governer who...while also being a collaborator of the new regime, attempted to encourage those spread out by the conflict (in babylon, and in egypt) to return home.  He was assassinated and this lead some who had returned or never left to flee to those expat communities in babylon and egypt.

Now.....understanding the historical chronology (which yes, is divorced from the biblical one)..are there witnesses to this as-history?  Absolutely.  This is corroborated not only by bablyonian records....but also by the archaeological record (the babylonians did storm through the territotory and reduce jeruslaem to ash and rubble).  What this tells us is that the myths contextualized a then present conflict.  The "prophetic" books of the ot are religiously inspired political commentary, describing the immanent terminus of this conflict as seen by the two competing ideological factions represented in the ot and in the historical and archaeological record.  

By the end of this power struggle, the kingdom and specifically the city of jerusalem to which exiles returned was thoroughly depopulated, ideologically fractious, and in ruin.  The surrounding countryside, however, had not seen the brunt of the conflict as there was little of strategic or economic interest to egypt or babylon in some hillside goat pens.  It's this influence, the pastoralist influence, that comes to dominate magic book. Even with the return of the exiles, the population of the province was half that of the previous kingdom.  Roundabout 583bc there were 75k people in the kingdom.  By 499 there would only be 30k in the province.

In general, the trouble with biblical narratives is not that they aren't grounded in history, but that they aren't grounded in the timeframe they purport to be. The narrative is confused, compiled during and post exile, and most of the narratives mix a mythologized and legendary (but still descriptively historical) past with then-present moments and more than a little bit of ideological propaganda. This, again, common. The culture was dealing with dissolution and diaspora. Their history was as scattered as their population, they had disagreed beforehand and those divisions were only made stronger squeezed between two ancient superpowers. What little they could have known for certain lay in the ruins of their city - and this...for a people chosen by god himself...demanded an explanation.

---

Here's a fun thought experiment.  Imagine a catastrophe.  Tomorrow morning, the world is in ruin.  As civilization burns all around us, we here on the boards make a plan to converge on a single geographic point.  Less than half of us make it.  

We then set out to write a history of the world, from memory.  What kind of book do you think we'd end up with?

[Angrboda]

The traditional assumption is that God was a witness to these events and that He relayed the information to Moses. It's fine to knock assumptions which can't logically be defended, but when you make complaints for which there is a plausible explanation, you just look silly.

[Minimalist]

Of course they make that assertion with no evidence that any fucking god exists.  But that doesn't even slow religitards down, does it?

[Godscreated]

For a book that prides itself on the witness of the characters within it to prove its accuracy, there's a lack of witnesses for the beginning and even the first several books of the bible.

I'm certain believers in the Christian myth are fine with accepting that certain supposed authors were divinely inspired enough to write the accounts they did.

The truth is that a divinely inspired claim is just that.  I certainly trust it no more than when Gerald Gardner or Joseph Smith or Ron Hubbard made their wild claims; yet, people are willing to accept any sort of claim for the sake of comfort and community.

In the end, the beginnings of what religion claims is nothing more than fanciful imagination.

We know that ancient people passed down stories by word of mouth and it was important that the story remained unchanged, that it stayed true, accurate for the coming generations. So we believe that Adam and Eve passed down the creation story as it was told to them by the One who not only witnessed it but accomplished it, so the story come from the source who is not capable of lying. Yes God did reveal to Moses what was to be written in the book of Genesis. The fact is it doesn't change a thing because you have decided not to believe these things. In the beginning God did and is still doing so to this day, your parents conceived you and God place a soul within that union of egg and sperm and you were and are. You're very life is God's because of the action He took.

GC

[Minimalist]

We know that ancient people passed down stories by word of mouth and it was important that the story remained unchanged,

Ha!

Read this:

Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior

A master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, Ehrman draws on a range of disciplines, including psychology and anthropology, to examine the role of memory in the creation of the Gospels. Explaining how oral tradition evolves based on the latest scientific research, he demonstrates how the act of telling and retelling impacts the story, the storyteller, and the listener—crucial insights that challenge our typical historical understanding of the silent period between when Jesus lived and died and when his stories began to be written down.

Although you never want to hear how wrong you are.  It's a common failing of religitards.  In any event, your bullshit is, at best, garbled and at worst, made up.


You see what happens when you stick your head in that fucking bible, G-C?  The world passes you by.

[Fake Messiah]

was told to them by the One who not only witnessed it but accomplished it, so the story come from the source who is not capable of lying.

GC

Cut the crap GC, God of the OT lies all the time in the Bible. He lied already already In Genesis 2:17 God says, "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." -- And yet Adam didn't die the same day

Then some other examples of this "source who is not capable of lying" actually lying

2 Chronicles 18:22 "The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy propheths,
Jeremiah 20:7 "O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived
2 Thessalonians 2:11 "God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false.

God not only lies but tells people to lie: 1 Samuel 16:2 Samuel says, "How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord." - you see God is not only aiding and abetting a deception, but deliberately telling a man what lie to use. Samuel is actually going out to meet a son of Jesse and anoint him king, not to sacrifice a heifer.


Examples of Jesus lying

Matt. 13:31-32
"The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof."

A mustard seed is not the least of all seeds, when grown, it is not the greatest among herbs, and a mustard seed does not give rise to a tree.

John 7:8-10 Jesus said to some of his followers, "Go to the feast yourselves: I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come. So saying he remained in Galilee. But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but in private."

Jesus said he was not going up, but later he went up secretly.

Luke 23:43 Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." - And yet Jesus was supposed to be dead on that day and not in paradise

Matt. 12:40 "For as Jonas was three days in the whale's belly."

And yet Jonah 1:17 says, "Now the lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah."

Whale is not a fish

[Joods]

For a book that prides itself on the witness of the characters within it to prove its accuracy, there's a lack of witnesses for the beginning and even the first several books of the bible.

I'm certain believers in the Christian myth are fine with accepting that certain supposed authors were divinely inspired enough to write the accounts they did.

The truth is that a divinely inspired claim is just that.  I certainly trust it no more than when Gerald Gardner or Joseph Smith or Ron Hubbard made their wild claims; yet, people are willing to accept any sort of claim for the sake of comfort and community.

In the end, the beginnings of what religion claims is nothing more than fanciful imagination.

We know that ancient people passed down stories by word of mouth and it was important that the story remained unchanged, that it stayed true, accurate for the coming generations. So we believe that Adam and Eve passed down the creation story as it was told to them by the One who not only witnessed it but accomplished it, so the story come from the source who is not capable of lying. Yes God did reveal to Moses what was to be written in the book of Genesis. The fact is it doesn't change a thing because you have decided not to believe these things. In the beginning God did and is still doing so to this day, your parents conceived you and God place a soul within that union of egg and sperm and you were and are. You're very life is God's because of the action He took.

GC

There is so much wrong in this, I don't know where to begin.