by BlackSwan of Memphis 37 Replies latest jw friends
For those of you who are Christian and accept the Bible as nothing less then the Word of God, how did you come to that conclusion? How much research did you do into the Bible to get to the point where you sat back and said, this is it? Or was it zero research and more a leap of faith?
Once again, I am sincerely interested and am not looking for any fights or flaming. I hope that this can stay flame free.
ps be warned I am armed with a fire extinguisher (lol)
thx in advance
BSoM
I would be of the Barthian camp. It resonates at most times.
For that reason it needn't be historically / archeologically accurate, because many of the stories contained within are timeless spirituality.
I did the research, and it just misses the point, IMHO.
When I used to believe the bible whole heartedly. It was a leap of faith. Once i investigated the bible, I lost my faith..
JB:
That kinda highlights the point Barth made about people idolising a book. Once the idol crumbles, so does their faith...
Yes I am wanting to hear the replies to this question. I do not believe the Bible is GODs inspired word but words of wisdom.
I read the book, "Who wrote the Bible" by Richard Friedman and realized what i felt all along it's nothing but a book of fiction.
ZD:How do you define fiction?
Personally, if the author had every intention of making up a good yarn, I'd agree with you. However in this case there is no evidence for such, and it's a piece of literature that has always been on the non-fiction shelves.
I don't mean by that that I'm making a case for it all being literal, but to blow it off as "fiction" also misses the entire point of it's being written, IMHO. Friedman certainly doesn't make that point!
LT: Who is Barth? Sounds like a very interesting person!
I do not believe the Bible is GODs inspired word but words of wisdom.
This is a bit how I think of the bible.
Narkissos put me onto him:
The Bible? Well I mean, c'mon, it's the Bible fer chris'sake!
Actually, I don't see much wisdom in the bible. A lot of egocentric, ethnocentric, nationlistic claptrap, and maybe a dash of wisdom thrown into the book of Ecclesiastes just because they missed it when they were cobbling together the horrible compilation worshiped by so many.
Seriously, the Ecclesiast seems to be just about the only bible writer with two brain cells, imo. All the rest were either masturbating to their own silly god fantasies (much like Fred Franz and his ilk have done in modern times), or had some narrow political agenda, and used "god" to achieve those agendas. Were the writers sincere? Maybe, some of them. Wise? Not so much.
