Ecclesiastes 9:5

[FlatAssembler]

If it was a word of God, God wouldn't allow his word to get corrupt.

Are you sure you're allowed to say what God would and wouldn't allow? I thought that was supposed to be up to him. 

I'm wary of people arguing that they know exactly what an omniscient omnipotent being would do. 

If God really had something to say to humanity, why wouldn't it magically appear in everybody's native language? They are people living in small tribes speaking only some small language who haven't even heard the God's word, much less believe it. At the very least, God could somehow make mistranslations not be a problem.

It's interesting to me that your view is exactly like the strict atheists here. They also say that if God wanted to give us a book, he would make it precise and clear and full of useful and unambiguous instructions. The model seems to be an engineering textbook, or maybe instructions for assembling furniture from Ikea. 

I'm not sure if that's really the best kind of book, or if people in biblical times thought it would be a good kind of book. 

Maybe the best type of book is like Plato's Symposium, in which people propose a half dozen answers to a hard question, and then a bunch of drunk people show up, and then it's time to go home. Or maybe it's like an Emily Dickinson poem, which won't give us a clear message no matter how hard we squeeze it. Or maybe it's like one of Blake's book-length poems, in which all the words are spoken by the characters, and Blake's own opinion appears nowhere -- he believed that a book which is clear must also be wrong.

If God sees all time as eternally present, then he knows exactly what interpretation will appear at what moment. Since I'm not omniscient or omnipotent, I can't say that I'd rule out providing a book that's a puzzling fizzing jumble, with which people struggle.

Well, it is difficult to predict what God's message might be, but we can easily tell what it is not. Maybe it wouldn't be a book of useful instructions, but what we would expect it is not to contain blatantly wrong instructions. The Bible says, among things about preventing the spread of infectious diseases, not to touch a woman while she is having her period. That's obviously wrong now, but it would have probably seemed plausible to the people at that time. Similarly, Leviticus 14 says that some skin disease (whatever disease the Hebrew word "tsaraath" referred to) should be treated with bird's blood. That was obviously ineffective, but it would have probably seemed plausible to the people at that time. If the Bible were the God's word, we wouldn't expect it to be filled with what's simply incorrect empirical data.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why not? Maybe god wasn't there when it all began. Maybe gods an idiot. Maybe god likes to prank us.

Both of your plausibility cases were beliefs in ritual impurity - btw - not pathogens or medication. They can't really be wrong about either one.

[arewethereyet]

There is something about this new partnership of Bel and FA that makes me happy, as in LOL happy.

[FlatAssembler]

There is something about this new partnership of Bel and FA that makes me happy, as in LOL happy.

I thought people here, including you, liked @Belacqua. That it was only me who is not being liked by others.

[arewethereyet]

There is something about this new partnership of Bel and FA that makes me happy, as in LOL happy.

I thought people here, including you, liked @Belacqua. That it was only me who is not being liked by others.

It doesn't matter.  What does matter is that you have found someone you can talk to.  

[FlatAssembler]

Why not?  Maybe god wasn't there when it all began.  Maybe gods an idiot.  Maybe god likes to prank us.

Both of your plausibility cases were beliefs in ritual impurity - btw - not pathogens or medication.  They can't really be wrong about either one.

You think that people back then didn't really think that those shamanic recepies were health-giving?

[Bucky Ball]

There are all sorts of incorrect data in the Bible. Genealogies that are wrong, incorrect things about insects, l(bats are birds) linguistics, history etc.,
and in general the principle stated by Paul, that "gods ways are not mans ways", and that he is inscrutable.

In the stories of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac Jacob) we read about camels and caravans of camels, although the stories happened before camels were domesticated in the Levant region
and before the trade-routes of camel caravans opened.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_s...fic_errors

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Romans 11:33-34
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?

"Inspiration" was not claimed by the Hebrew authors, and even as late as Timothy's claim,
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" there was no canon yet, so it's just all pious writing, at that point.

What is remarkable, is that the redactors / editors / assemblers of Genesis, got the point of the Babylonian myth they took the Garden Myth from,, (Marduk Slays the Dragon of Chaos)
and the Babylonian origins myth, (Enuma Elish) as discussed in the famous Jewish philosopher and author's (Martin Buber) book, "Good and Evil" (part II), and confirmed by Paul Tillich, Christian theologian and writer from the last century in "The Courage To Be".

[Belacqua]

Well, it is difficult to predict what God's message might be, but we can easily tell what it is not. Maybe it wouldn't be a book of useful instructions, but what we would expect it is not to contain blatantly wrong instructions. The Bible says, among things about preventing the spread of infectious diseases, not to touch a woman while she is having her period. That's obviously wrong now, but it would have probably seemed plausible to the people at that time. Similarly, Leviticus 14 says that some skin disease (whatever disease the Hebrew word "tsaraath" referred to) should be treated with bird's blood. That was obviously ineffective, but it would have probably seemed plausible to the people at that time. If the Bible were the God's word, we wouldn't expect it to be filled with what's simply incorrect empirical data.

I guess all of this comes down to what we assume God to be like. 

If we picture him as a Sky-Daddy who sits there knowing everything, in the way that a very smart person would know everything, then I agree that he really ought to help us out. 

Of course a lot of modern religious people conceive of God this way, but it doesn't make much sense to me. I don't know what's true (I seem to be the only one on the Internet who doesn't) but I lean toward a more classical view of theology, with help from Hegel and Blake on how things unfold through time. 

So if we prefer that non-Sky-Daddy view of things, then we wouldn't say that the Bible was dictated as True and Unchanging by an all-knowing and strangely unhelpful individual. I do think that the Bible is an extremely important book in history, but this is largely due to all the commentary that has come in response to it. Not to get all Roland Barthes on you, but the Bible, for 21st century people, is the written text plus all the interpretations that have come after. We simply can't read it the way they did centuries ago, and I'm not convinced that we should. (Original intentions are an interesting problem for historians, but not for people wanting to be better spiritually or morally.) 

I take seriously Blake's view, when he says that while the Bible is a founding document for our culture, any great book is an expression of God's word and deserves respect. His idea is that God is and acts through people (an old minority tradition in mystical Christianity) and that the sum of human knowledge (including math and science, as well as Homer and Shakespeare and Proust) is all the word of God. But you're right that it takes time for people to work things out, so there are bound to be sentences in the Bible which we shouldn't take as true, just as there are scientific theories which used to be popular but aren't any more. 

I do believe there are books and movies, etc., that make us stupider, and Blake would not include these among God's word.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why not?  Maybe god wasn't there when it all began.  Maybe gods an idiot.  Maybe god likes to prank us.

Both of your plausibility cases were beliefs in ritual impurity - btw - not pathogens or medication.  They can't really be wrong about either one.

You think that people back then didn't really think that those shamanic recepies were health-giving?

Dualists think that there are two different kinds of health.  You can be perfectly physically healthy, and still ritually or spiritually unwell.  

Take women being unclean.  We all know they're not sick and dying.  Every single woman everywhere.  All of our mothers, our sisters, our friends, and our wives.....and yet. More than that, we know that people thought all sorts of things had medicinal uses but the majority of them were not seen as being able to heal your spirit and wouldn't make an appearance in foundational myths and legends.

[Bucky Ball]

I take seriously Blake's view, when he says that while the Bible is a founding document for our culture, any great book is an expression of God's word and deserves respect. His idea is that God is and acts through people (an old minority tradition in mystical Christianity) and that the sum of human knowledge (including math and science, as well as Homer and Shakespeare and Proust) is all the word of God. But you're right that it takes time for people to work things out, so there are bound to be sentences in the Bible which we shouldn't take as true, just as there are scientific theories which used to be popular but aren't any more. 

The action of the Holy Spirit may be ancient, but it's actually mainline, and was never a minority view and is current dogma in mainline Christian communities.