The Old Testament.

[BabyPiglet]

So in my civilizations class we were discussing Isreal, and debated something quite interesting.

Stories in the bible (particularly the isrealites being made slaves in Egypt) doesn't add up with archeaological findings. How do you firm believers in the bible explain it. Seriously, I'm just curious. Because the students in my class got all jumbled when they tried to defend it, & most you seem more articulate. Yeah, and those people are in college.

Also, the stories of Abraham/Moses/Soloman/etcetc happened hundreds of years before the first written version of the bible in the 10th century BC. So obviously the stories had been passed down orally, which gets elborated and added on to. Yes? No? Can you firm believers admit that?

My teacher also mentioned how many inconsistencies there are. Names are changed, things told differently, etc. He also said and I quote 'The bible has one of everything in it, that's why people love it so much. The can point to some obscure line and have a defense for whatever they're debating.' Yes? No? I believe HouseMD (sorry, don't know your name) said that she's proud of this fact on another thread.

I swear I am not pot stirring, I'm just curious in nature. Explaintomeplease.

 

[saratogadreamin09]

In my school the priest usese the saying "Everything in the bible is true, but it all didn' happen"

 

[BabyPiglet]

In my school the priest usese the saying "Everything in the bible is true, but it all didn' happen"

That was vague. Care to explain further?

 

[imabrat]

I think of the Bible as one big game of Telephone. It takes forever to find out the truth, and that won't happen until we die and meet God. Until then, we are just passing the stories he gave us along. Like, you know how "Sally ate 24 clam shells" can become "Sally's fate is 34 sham falls"? Like that.

Different phrases mean different things in different languages - idioms.
In America, if you say "it's raining cats and dogs", it means it's raining heavily.
In France, if you say "it's raining cats and dogs", it means it is literally raining cats and dogs.

Something in one language translates to another thing in a different language, and thus the Bible becomes tainted with all these ideas that are all "true".

 

[saratogadreamin09]

That was vague. Care to explain further?

The bible's message of God is real and the lessons it teaches are real BUT every event may not have happened.

 

[PigletGurl]

We don't need proof. We just believe. That's it.

 

[HSMndLKfan92]

This is just my belief, and I'm not trying to answer this for anyone else, especially because, even though I was raised as a Christian, I don't agree with most of it.

I've always thought of the Bible as a moral storybook. Everything in there is meant to teach us something to better ourselves. I don't believe much of it was real.

But, that's me.

 

[saratogadreamin09]

We don't need proof. We just believe. That's it.

Perfect way of putting it. In my cofirmation class last week one kid was saying hoe its impossible that Mary was a virgin, and our teacher just kept saying you have to belive.

 

[BabyPiglet]

The thing is though, a lot of the world believes the hebrew bible is real. It is used to re-count the history of Isreal. Without it, we don't have much evidence of Isreal's history.

 

[DramaQueen]

This is just my belief, and I'm not trying to answer this for anyone else, especially because, even though I was raised as a Christian, I don't agree with most of it.

I've always thought of the Bible as a moral storybook. Everything in there is meant to teach us something to better ourselves. I don't believe much of it was real.

But, that's me.

Ya ITA with that.

I won't get into my viewpoints on the Bible, because I'd definitely feel like I'd just be stirring the pot....but I think it's a moral storybook.
There are complete impossibilities in it, but I understand that it's used as a tool to teach people what is right & good & acceptable in society. Though i may not agree with all it has to say--that's my view of the Bible.

And I too, like you Jenny, am confounded as to how archaeological evidence is not proof enough.

 

[Sparx]

Ya ITA with that.

I won't get into my viewpoints on the Bible, because I'd definitely feel like I'd just be stirring the pot....but I think it's a moral storybook.
There are complete impossibilities in it, but I understand that it's used as a tool to teach people what is right & good & acceptable in society. Though i may not agree with all it has to say--that's my view of the Bible.

And I too, like you Jenny, am confounded as to how archaeological evidence is not proof enough.

some people think the earth is only a few thousand years old, no matter how much carbon dating proves them to be wrong. sometimes, people are going to believe what they want to believe and no amount of proof will change their mind.

 

[DramaQueen]

some people think the earth is only a few thousand years old, no matter how much carbon dating proves them to be wrong. sometimes, people are going to believe what they want to believe and no amount of proof will change their mind.

i know, my grandfather is one of those people and it BOGGLES MY MIND.
hello...DINOSAURS. FOSSILS. ARCHAEOLOGY.
i don't get it, and i never will....just like my grandfather will never get how i don't feel the same i guess.

OT, but there was an interesting performance in my theatre class today about political views & abortion, and the msg i got out of it was that we're all set in our views and will never see the other side of the coin.
much like this topic i guess (and the stem cell topic on the other thread)

 

[BabyPiglet]

The bible has been passed down between many, many generations, translated into a ton of languages, changed many times, yet people still think it's basically god's direct word?

God didn't write the bible. People wrote the bible. It's a collection of stories about how god taught them to do better, directed them, etc.

 

[chisnpeke]

I don't think everything in the Bible is true. I do believe that God created the world, I believe that Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary, and especially that Jesus rose from the dead. That is something I will never waiver on. There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus rose.

I guess I've never really used the Bible as something that I base my faith on. I just believe the basic Christian beliefs. The Bible is too contradictory on some things that it's just hard for me to use it to back up all of my faith. I also don't feel I need the Bible to tell me how to be a good person because I can do that on my own.

I mostly have faith because I have had things happen to me that can't otherwise be explained. I've had prayers answered. There have been times where I have questioned God's existence but I always have known that He exists. When I go to church, I can just feel the presence of God there. I can't explain it but I can feel it.

Faith is believing in something you can't see. Believing in something that doesn't have evidence. With faith you don't need evidence because you just know.

 

[BabyPiglet]

I don't think everything in the Bible is true. I do believe that God created the world, I believe that Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary, and especially that Jesus rose from the dead. That is something I will never waiver on. There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus rose.

I guess I've never really used the Bible as something that I base my faith on. I just believe the basic Christian beliefs. The Bible is too contradictory on some things that it's just hard for me to use it to back up all of my faith. I also don't feel I need the Bible to tell me how to be a good person because I can do that on my own.

I mostly have faith because I have had things happen to me that can't otherwise be explained. I've had prayers answered. There have been times where I have questioned God's existence but I always have known that He exists. When I go to church, I can just feel the presence of God there. I can't explain it but I can feel it.

Faith is believing in something you can't see. Believing in something that doesn't have evidence. With faith you don't need evidence because you just know.

Thank you! Finally, someone has explained faith in a way that I can understand.

 

[bananda]

Thank you! Finally, someone has explained faith in a way that I can understand.

Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is being sure of what we hope and certain of what we do not see."


i believe that the bible is true. i think some things have been lost in translation because it's pretty hard to translate the original greek/hebrew exactly. the bible actually says that it is inspired by God:
2 Timothy 3:16 "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness"
i believe that this means that God spoke to people and told them what to write. in this way, i believe that the bible is all God's word.

 

[cindys_castle2011]

People are going to believe what they want.
I believe in God, and I've read the bible. . . do I believe it?
Uhmm, I believe certain things.

If like you said, the things in it were sent through people orally,
then some things have to had been misinterpreted.
It's like the game 'telephone'.

I guess for me my faith is in God,
my Christianity is from what my grandfather (my preacher)
as always preached about at church.
He doesn't preach from the bible, he has his own beliefs,
though most are from the bible.

I guess I just grew up learning that God is real, you'll go to heaven,
I believe in angels, and I believe in hell.
I do not believe if you sin you'll go to hell,
I don't really know exactly what I think about Hell,
I don't think of it as a place, but more of a sense of sin in the sinners mind.
if that makes since..
I believe that if you sin, you can ask for forgiveness and God will forgive you.

Maybe I'm a complete moron for thinking like this but I guess I'm okay with that.

Faith isn't what we're taught or made to believe,
it is what we believe, not necessarily what we know from seeing.

 

[tinkerbell12]

Really how do we know what we have now is proof, though? The Bible was probably considered proof for people a while back, too. (For some people, it still is proof.) I'm just saying we could be totally wrong. There really isn't anything proven, per say.
I could pick up Romeo and Juliet and go by it.
People go by what they want to and others follow.
Some people choose to be a leader, which causes different religions.

I don't really have much of a belief system right now because I'm confused and my theology classes don't help at all. They make me think more about Catholicism and it just doesn't seem to work out for me.
I always thought of it as, like people have said, a big moral story book. This is right, this is wrong. Help people, believe, etc. How people should act in their daily lives. I don't believe all those stories are true. That's just me.

My theology teacher says that they have variations because you don't have the same viewpoint as your friend did when so and so got beat up today during free period. People tell the story differently. By the time these people wrote the accounts down, their memory might have gone a little screwy, or they could have forgotten and made something up. These people weren't perfect.

 

[Sherwin]

Because the students in my class got all jumbled when they tried to defend it, & most you seem more articulate. Yeah, and those people are in college.

I swear I am not pot stirring, I'm just curious in nature. Explaintomeplease.

Sorry, but using that smiley to succeed that statement does imply "pot stirring".

I'm a little miffed that your professor actually took advantage of the class subject and used it to propagate his own views, but that's what you get these days when you have people willing to sacrifice the quality of education for their own egos.

Your point that the first dated manuscripts came after the times of Moses, Abraham, and Solomon are subjective ones. The Greek Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls from the Qumran settlement are all translations that for the most part match up significantly well with the original Masoretic texts. There's no proof that the accounts have been solely orally related. The existence of New Testament manuscripts are even more geographically ubiquitous; that pretty much eradicates any possibility of collusion (which needless to say, there would be little incentive and tremendous expenses to do so) Moses' date of birth was estimated to be around the 2nd century BC, so I'm not sure what you mean by "happened hundreds of years before". There's plenty of carbon dating evidence that supports the existence of King Solomon's kingdom and the Biblical timeline that aligns Solomon's death with Shoshenq 1's conquest of Israel.

Clearly, the Bible cannot explain everything, and the fact that its testament spans beyond classical antiquity indicates that there's bound to have been variables to incur apparent inconsistencies. That being said, I do not believe in reasoning faith nor do I believe the Bible can be explained in objective terms. As far as literal inconsistencies go, you have to treat the text contextually as there were around 40 authors who wrote literature ranging from poetic psalms to objective anecdotal recounts.

I do not treat the Bible as a reference text or a historical text. I affirm my Christian faith in its teachings of sin and atonement, which makes more sense than the worldview that we came to be by chance. Again, it is "faith", which cannot be reasoned but it is instigated largely by the doctrines of the Bible, as opposed to its historical accuracies..

 

[saratogadreamin09]

The bible has been passed down between many, many generations, translated into a ton of languages, changed many times, yet people still think it's basically god's direct word?

God didn't write the bible. People wrote the bible. It's a collection of stories about how god taught them to do better, directed them, etc.

The bible is the inspired word of God. God didn't write it himself but he inspired those who did write it.