What is the main "idea" of the bible?

by KateWild 71 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  rebel8

  "Humans are pattern-seeking primates," said Amy Farrah Fowler.

  It is a collection of literary works, most fictional, written by different authors in different cultures in different years.

  There is no theme or main idea:

  • geneology records [OT]
  • battle records [OT]
  • stories about royalty [OT]
  • sci-fi/fantasy [Revelation]
  • religious[gospels & subsequent books, which conflict with each other]
  • pop-science [Genesis]

  Claiming there's a pattern in these things would be like post-apocalyptic archaeologists studying our culture, putting the following works in a 3-ring binder, and claiming it's a cohesive holy book with a single theme:

  • ancestry - dot - com (Mormon scheme to get you to list your ancestors so they can baptize the dead as Mormons--but I digress)
  • military records
  • tabloids about royalty
  • Star Trek
  • 1 publication each--Pat Robertson, wts, Mormon, David Koresh, and Fred Phelps
  • Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About
• 

  KateWild

  Bumped for MaximusGman.

  Max,

  If you don't agree with me that is okay. But if you try and tell me you are right and I am wrong then you are being dogmatic. I think that there are laws of the land that guide people, the bible is oppressive and sexist. I don't agree with what it says in.......

  1Cor 14.34,35 let the women keep silent in the congregations, for it is not permitted for them to speak.+ Rather, let them be in subjection,+ as the Law also says. 35 If they want to learn something, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the congregation.

  It assumes all women should have husbands, what if a husband is doing something immoral or abusive where does the woman turn than? Nowhere. At least in society there are the authorities that are not sexist.

  Kate xx
• 

  Terry

  Every now and then, leaders need a rallying point for unification.

  One effective method is family ties and tribal identity.

  When leaders seek to motivate war or obedience it is much easier if a non-human power can be invoked.

  Superstitions and fears have produced stories that go way back into history which everybody has at least heard of.

  Assembling these things in a book and insisting the Book is beyond question, absolutely authoritative and true

  results in a wedge separating human ideas (which can be debated) from divine commands (which cannot be debated.)

  "You're not going to defy Almighty God are you?"
• 

  KateWild

  By the way MaximusGman,

  I do believe in God, I just don't believe the bible is from God. Kate xx
• 

  kassad84

  Exile and salvation:

  http://www.thepoorinspirit.com/post/76387903597/hermeneutics-in-the-beginning-there-was-exile-part

  http://www.thepoorinspirit.com/post/81639269160/hermeneutics-jonah-chapter-ii-part-iii
• 

  kassad84

  http://kabane52.tumblr.com/post/80370810273/a-journey-through-romans-9
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Your opening post is essentially where I am at with the Bible. Men wrote the myths of the two different groups and added in the rules from the priests, all in order to control/manipulate the people and make them feel guilty that they don't live up to the impossible standards, then they sacrifice their goods to the priests because of their guilt.

  It would seem the Bible was started to make people of the land have no desire to have Egypt control them, but to form their own destiny under the king. It is very common to write your own history with someone as your common enemy- think of the rebel American colonists who paid less taxes than the British, but wrote how unfair the taxations upon them were, in order to bring the Americans together to defeat the Brits. Pretty much the same with the origins of the Bible, but with a priestly element driving it.

  I am confident that no people EVER lived under the Mosaic Law Code. NOBODY. I can't imagine a king retaining power by enforcing such a code, but the priests were to tell the people that "our ancestors used to obey this law code."

  There are various theories on how the rest of the Bible got to be the official canon. I will say that it was really remarkable that men were able to pull off the formation of the new testament, but that doesn't mean it was inspired.
• 

  MaximusGman

  Hi Kate,

  Thank you for inviting me to your thread.

  Lets take step at a time and not jump into conclusions right away. Lets challenge one another. For a moment we will put Bible aside and will try not to pull any information from it for now. Shell we.

  You said you believe in God. So am I. Apart from the Bible what can we say about God? We can say many things by observing the Universe and us humans. Can we say He is Almighty? I am sure you and most of us in this thread looked at a beautiful night sky. If it is not cloudy, we can see myriads of stars. We know for certain most of them are greatly bigger than our little Earth. Through ages humans discovered multiple galaxies and determined that our Cosmos or Universe is immeasurably huge. Scientists say it still stretches. It helps us greatly to see how Powerful and Mighty God Creator is. He is Omnipotent.

  What do you think?

  Thank you,

  Max
• 

  MaximusGman

  Onthewayout you got interesting thoughts.

  Why do you so confident that no people EVER lived under the Mosaic Law Code?

  thanks,

  Max
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Onthewayout you got interesting thoughts.

  Why do you so confident that no people EVER lived under the Mosaic Law Code?

  Archeaology has amply demonstrated that the events of Genesis and Exodus simply did not happen. There may have been an Abraham, but everything before that is just stories that may or may not be even loosely based on any reality. SO that would include the establishing of the law.
  While all the books of the Torah may have had some beginnings earlier, it appears that they were brought about perhaps in the time of King Josiah and tinkered with until the return from exile in Babylon.

  That means that they referred back to a people that lived under the law. But the establishment of that law (the time of and after Moses) was a fiction, so writing about people under the law was fiction. The Jews never really tried to live up to any law code after the exile.

  I do not refer to a people that tried and failed to live up to the law. The law as a whole did not exist until it was compiled and written after the time it pretends to acurately reflect. Some of the people lived under some of the rules that became "the law" but nobody had all of the law enforced upon them.

  Note this from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Moses
  
  The Book of Kings relates how a "law of Moses" was discovered in the Temple during the reign of king Josiah (r. 641–609 BCE). This book is mostly identified as an early version of the Book of Deuteronomy, perhaps chapters 5-26 and chapter 28 of the extant text. This text contains a number of laws, dated to the 8th century BC kingdom of Judah, a time when a minority Yahwist faction was actively attacking mainstream polytheism, succeeding in establishing official monolatry of the God of Israel under Josiah by the late 7th century BC.

  I won't stand by my statement as if that is the end of the matter. It's too difficult to prove, but I am confident from my readings that nobody ever lived under the law. Various people have lived under chosen parts of it, but nobody ever even came close to living under all of it.