Should a recent discovery change the way you read the Bible?

There are known to be several books that were part of the earliest(way before the King James version) Bible that are now left out. And some of the Bible were changed (The Epistles of Paul) that were written to reflect not what Jesus taught, but what man did not really like. Paul was a known misogynist, and directly contradicted what Jesus did with the women that believed and followed him. The Roman Catholic Church built upon that, and duly described women to be "vessels of sin". Women in the earliest Christian faith were the equivalent of priests and preachers, but were forced out due to jealousy and greed. I am actually surprised that Mary Magdalene and the Book of Ester were included in the Bible.

Some have speculated that the Gospel of John was actually told by Mary, Jesus's wife. (The Gospels were an oral tradition for hundreds of years before they were written down.)

After all, "the women" were the ones who found the stone rolled back from the tomb which is pretty much the whole point of the Christ Story. Do you think maybe their part in the whole thing has been diminished over the centuries? Do you think that had something to do with only men being literate for most of that time, so every generation of translators has been male?

Islam (like Mormonism) is probably much more faithful to the original because the illiterate Prophets of both dictated their Gospels to a scribe. Christianity suffered several hundred years of "rusty telephone" before anybody started writing stuff down. Then it went from Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English.

I recently expressed my skepticism of the "validity" of most of "the Bible" to someone I know to be pretty open-minded, and was surprised that they took offense. I explained that I didn't denigrate the "themes" of the Bible, just that there were many versions and mistranslations, as well as some selective editing in creating what is now the "official" version. (Un)surprisingly, they were not aware of the Council of Nicea, of the history of various translations. I mean, really, you do realize that Jesus did not speak English (or Latin or Greek), right, and the "King James Bible" was only created 1600 years after the events?

Like all fiction-it can be adapted and interpreted to fit whatever the desired end.

Jebus, on the other hand, did speak English and also rode around on a dinosaur.

He also had a 10 gallon hat and a six shooter for when those dinos got unruly.

Nothing is liable to change the way I read the Bible.

LOL. Me either, my friend.

The stuff of bad fiction.

The only thing that would get me to even open a Bible is if I was told there were a bunch of $100 bills stashed in it!

Christians would have you believe that there is eternal life stashed in it.
I'd rather have the $100 bills.

I find that there are many good things in the Bible. I do not consider it a literal book. I look upon it as more of a guide. I try to follow the teachings of Christ. While some may call the Bible "fiction", that is their opinion and they are welcome to it. But the teachings of Jesus makes sense to me. And i have no trouble living my faith and incorporating science and logic in it. So I read the Bible with a questioning eye and mind. Does it make sense? Does it hurt people or the earth? Can I live with what Jesus taught?

Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn’t add up.


Washington Post

Well, Ezekiel, I just don't consider or believe that Jesus was or is fictional.

I know. That is what you believe-which is fine. But the historical evidence is not very strong. That is the point: based on faith you can of course believe what makes you happy but that is a personal belief - history is a different story.

There are a number of things that I believe, some of which are in the Bible. I happen to believe in the historicity of Jesus (i.e., that he did exist), even if I do not accept some of the clearly mythical stories that are ascribed to him (many of which predated his life). There are many good notions to be gleaned from the text, as well as endless opportunities for abuse.

I have, for a very long time, enjoyed researching the record, as well as trying to find archaeological analogs to mythic stories. (I'm starting a new thread on one of them.) There are a number of very enjoyable shows on Discovery, National Geographic, and the History Channel (among others) that explore the reality versus the myth of everything from the Great Flood to Ronald Reagan. I also enjoy engaging in theological discussions with many of my friends who have seminary training - most of whom view those with literalistic views of the Bible with chagrin.

So, these new discoveries are fascinating to me, even if they do not change my view of the Bible or of religion generally.

For a long time, people did not believe that there were microbes, either.

But we have proven their existence

I don't see the need for "believing" the Bible. The good teachings are pretty much universal and, for myself, do not need to be backed up by any sort of myth. Whatever may be, or not be, historically true in the Bible has no relevance to the value of the teachings. The teachings themselves are hit and miss and need personal, rational verification as to their usefulness.

The Bible falls into the same category as Beowulf or the Odyssey, worthy of examination to learn something of ancient thought, but of little value as some sort of prophecy or words of God.

The issue is that many people take the bible as an historic document- which it is not. They base the existence of people and things on a faith-based record - sort of like basing your historical knowledge on a self-help book.
How much is true would be irrelevant if it were not being used as a source of gospel and assumed to be true. But millions of people believe it to be true.

George Carlin nailed it:

Just his opinion.

I think the Bible is probably the most unread book most people own.

You're probably right... But yet so many hold it as gospel

And when some read it, they conveniently forget or outright ignore the parts that don't agree with their agenda.

One thing I had forgotten to say here earlier. If new information arises, I want to try and keep an open mind 1)when I read and study the new information, and 2)keep an open mind when I compare it to the Bible. 3) Question both parts to see if it passes my smell test.

Aye lassie, and therein lies the rub. If you have millions of people reading a document that has so many vagaries, you allow that to happen.

Take a look at this:
Sounds pretty straightforward, right?
Yet, there are still people who don't understand (or want to reinterpret) this simple sentence.

As with the Bible, many of the same group that cherry-pick the Bible often do the same with the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Or use their cherry-picking parameters to criticize court decisions that they do not like. Like the recent SCOTUS Decisions on the ACA and Same-sex marriage.

We like to talk about the new testament in these contexts but the Torah also has a great history of being rewritten and retranslated over time. One of the great finds in the dead sea scrolls were a number of scrolls detailing the evolution of the book of isaiah.I see some inspiration in the bible but I view it as the work of man and therefore always with great skepticism.I am always saddened by the wholesale acceptance of it as the "word of god."

There are some lessons to be learned from the Old Testament. Some of which are things not to do-like selling your daughters into marriage or doing cruel things to others.

Lol

I was being serious, but then I re-read my post and saw the humor in it. Thanks, 2wins, for making see it in a different way!

I am not a Christian myself, but I don't think most Americans are either. For example, most "Christians" firmly believe that our departed loved ones are in heaven looking down on us. That is pretty much their whole reason for being Christian: When you die, you go to heaven if you were good on Earth.

But the Bible says only Prophets and Saints join God and Jesus in heaven when they die. The rest of us get a dirt nap until Judgement Day. Then we rise from the dead and get sorted out into up or down-bound travelers. So no, your loved ones are NOT in heaven, unless you believe in Hallmark Christianity-lite (TM).

The odds of getting into heaven are pretty bad, too. Only 144,000 people out of the many billions of people on Earth since Christ came are granted "grace" from birth. They WILL go the heaven, and you probably won't no matter how good you were. At those odds you are more likely to win the lottery.

Ahhh! Winning the lottery would be like heaven!

I agree that we Christians will be waiting for Judgement Day. But as to the 144,000? Well I'll let God/Jesus/Holy Spirit decide.

As being also a person of science, Scoutgal, what is your basis for belief in the Christian concepts of heaven and the Trinity and such?

In my view, judgement day is every day. Although I am not consistent about it (or anything else in my life) I try to at least occasionally review my behavior and see if I am behaving as I profess. "Live your own beliefs" is my mantra. I won't be waiting for anyone else to render judgment.

I believe that God created science-and God gave us brains and the ability to think and reason. Jesus promises a paradise/Heaven and we know(at least we Christians believe we know) that some have already gone there. So it would follow(by using deductive reasoning) that we are in a waiting mode until Jesus' second coming. It is a matter of faith. Kind of like believing in scientific theories like E=mc2.

If one goes by Jesus' parable of the bridesmaids and oil, what you do is exactly what Jesus was trying to teach. None of us(not even Jesus) knows when the time of reckoning will come, so we must try and always be prepared. So I also review and try to change what I fall short of. Some days, I find I need to change quite a bit.

Here's my take on it, which is anything but definitive. First, some context:

I read the Don Juan series by Carlos Casteneda a pretty long time ago. The one phrase that struck me most soundly was that to progress through life in a state of not knowing we had to believe without believing. We will believe things, many or even most of which will be found to be incomplete, if not downright wrong. The key is in carrying the quiet thought that whatever one might believe today is subject to change as a result of new information - or more importantly, new understanding.

With that context, I believe that our waking lives are analogous to our dream lives. While being awake seems more real than the dreams we have while sleeping, there are still signs that the state of being awake is just as illusory as the dream state.

Memory is one indicator - we have very few memories that are vividly clear, most are poor recordings of memories, or are blanks. We often learn that favorite memories are dramatically wrong.

Communication is another indicator - the longer I live the more instances of learning that myself, and another with whom I thought I had a deep connection with, were on different planets. Weird...

Under my definition of believing - that it is conditional and always suspect - I believe that we have the possibility of gaining a superior consciousness, and maybe there are even higher levels of consciousness beyond that.

In this state of consciousness, i.e. waking sleep, I believe that we know next to nothing about life, God, or our origins and purpose. I also believe that the only useful strategy for living a good life is to be watchful for, and open to, new understanding.

Sorry Scout, not even in the same league. What you believe you believe because you choose to believe it without proof. It is a matter of choice.
E=mc^2 is scientific fact. It is proven. You don't have a choice of whether or not to believe it, the only option is to ignore/deny it. Which is the same as denying climate change or the holocaust. We know (don't believe) they exist(ed).
Relativity is not optional. Religion is.

I agree.
I also don't think the questions about our origins, purpose and life are that deep.
I think our biggest mistake to think that our consciousness and our big brains serve any other purpose than survival. We have thrived as a species only because they have given us an advantage over the other forms of animal life on the planet.
I don't BELIEVE there is any real mystery to it all.

Your opinion.

There is some scientific evidence that at one time there was a being who transcended the big bang: It comes down to quantum physics. If there was no one to observe the universe, then it would exist in a quantum flux state. Every particle would have both negative and positive spin, etc. Only if there was an observer, would the probabilities collapse to be in one state or another.

We can actually see this behavior now with some relatively simple experiments. They show that particles can be in this quantum flux state until we observe them. Which suggest that the omnipresent being from the big bang is either absent or not looking. Maybe it still exists but is bored with the universe. Or maybe now that we are self-aware beings (qualified to "observe") we are deputized to do all the observing around here.

No dear, relativity is fact not opinion.
I didn't choose it. It IS. It exists and has been proven.

That's a good one.!

Badges! We don't need no stinkin' badges!