Question for Christians on this board! (page 2)

czarofmischief

No.

It's a metaphor at best. A useful collection of fables, morality plays, and lessons in good behavior. At least, to me.

CZAR

The Bible did not fall from the sky from God. It was handed down by word of mouth for centuries (especially the Old Testament) before it was put down in writing. It's not like God was dictating and the scribe was writing simultaneously. So, it is the word of men, writing about God. It is a book; it is not God and should not be worshipped. It points to God and we can learn from it. But I don't take every word literally. Nor do I believe that God is confined to and speaks only through a Book. He speaks through creation and through people also, as well as his Son, Jesus, who is really the Word of God. After all, God existed before the Bible was ever written and would continue to exist were every copy of the Bible destroyed today.

Bubbamar

THere is no way I can believe that God is the god depicted in the OT. That would mean that God is mean, harsh, punitive, judgemental, unloving. Some of the stories are far too preposterous to be believeable by a "thinking person." Also, if I, a mere sinful human, am able to feel compassion for Lots wife - who was leaving her home, friends, belongings - a looked back in a moment of reflection, longing or whatever. I mean she was having God-given feelings of grief, sadness, etc. Yet god turned her into a pillar of salt for that. If I can empathize and have compassion, why can't God. Jesus would not have turned her to a pillar of salt - but god would. That's not love, not consistent - not anything I want to place my faith in.

Now the NT - I'm still trying to figure out if Jesus was real or a myth. But I do value what he taught and how he lived. If its only a myth - then I think its a God-inspired myth.

jgnat

What Kenneson said! I think there is a real danger in deifying the bible. I still reference it daily, because it's principles and guidelines form the warp and woof of western thought.

ko38

Hmm...to answer from my heart i would say absolutely yes.but i realise that my belief is based mostly on faith that god tells me it is so,or the writers of the book say it.either way it seams in mho to be true. science has verified many events in the bible such as the flood,large land animals now extinct due to their purpose being served to stamp down the earths soil.historians back up the fact of world powers, the destuction of cities foretold in the bible as well as the jewish historians who verify that jesus was on earth(they just didnt recognise him as savoir)i am no historian or scientist but i have read the writings of some.as far as the OT goes i have also wondered about the severity in wich GOD dealt with some people.however i attribute his dealing with them in this way due to thier not being spiritually blind, not knowing what to do or who to follow.they had the benefit of dealing with GOD directly.his commands were given directly to them.many miracles were performed by GOD.the people all had a chance to see firsthand what disobedience would bring.in our day it is difficult to find our way,but looking back does give us a model in wich we can follow.so for those that believe i feel we should look at the bible with a sense of joy because of the message of hope and the very validation that our existance has a purpose.

stillajwexelder

I belive the bible is agood book but not totally the authentic word of God - too many things not quite right - why ceratin gsopels missing, why was moses the meekest man on earth - etc. But it is agood book

kwintestal

I still have many unanswered questions about the bible. I guess untill those questions are answered, I really can't answer that question.

My concerns about the bible is mostly in compostion, especially of the NT. How many other books could there have been, but 200 yrs after christ, someone decides which books are and which aren't part of the bible cannon.

If that person had a biased view of what to add and what to leave out, what are we left with? Just that person's view.

Kwin

mouthy

Nor do I believe that God is confined to and speaks only through a Book. He speaks through creation and through people also, as well as his Son, Jesus, who is really the Word of God. After all, God existed before the Bible was

I say this is my way of thinking also!!. I do believe that much in scripture can lead us to morally lead a better & safe life( Not that I always obeyed it) But I too believe Men can put their impressions on their thoughts For Instance I PERSONALLY think Paul had a problem with Women. Peter was a bit of a "know it all" ( like me)

But when I read Proverbs- James! & a few others. I am amazed at how much I can learn each & every time....

my two cents.

AuntieJane

Kenneson has my answer here~The Bible is the Word of God, but so are many other things. Never would I

consider the NWT of the Bible the Word of God, however, It is the twisted writing of men who thought they

had the power to change the Word of God.

Leolaia

This is ultimately a question of faith. It is impossible to prove that it isn't the word of God. It clearly was written in its individual books by men at specific points in time, each with different viewpoints and perspectives, and it also clearly was a human endeavor to decide which books should go into the canon and different canons reflect different decisions on this matter, so these clear historical facts must be admitted as true, yet it is not possible to demonstrate that God did not have a hand in their writing and compilation. Yet it also impossible to prove that the Book of Mormon or the Watchtower isn't the word of God either. It is also impossible to prove that the Bible or the Book of Mormon wasn't inspired by the angel Gabriel (or the god Thor) instead. It all comes down to one's own subjective beliefs and opinions, or rather one's faith, about God, his purpose, and his role in the history of humanity.

Yet it possible to say some things for certain. While the Bible does in certain places assert that it contains the word of God, it nowhere claims that the 66-book canon that is neatly assembled in our present Protestant Bible is the word of God. It nowhere defines exactly what scripture is and what counts as scripture and what doesn't. These ideas come from outside the Bible itself and reflect later debates on defining scripture and canon (and these two concepts are not the same; the Christians who defined the Bible canon recognized a wider range of literature as "scripture" or "inspired" than what was "authoritative"). So the idea that the present 66-book Bible is to be equated with God's word is unbiblical, just like the Trinity and other Catholic and Protestant doctrines which were developed later than the Bible itself. What is much older is the idea that some body of scripture was divinely inspired. But different writers (even Bible writers!) had different ideas of what that body should be and regarded many other books not found in our present Bible as equally inspired. So it was left to later church fathers to sort it all out.

My own personal opinion is that the Bible represents a selection of the finest literature that ancient Israel, Judah, and early Christianity had to offer. It includes their laws, their history, their poetry, their songs, their proverbs and wisdom, their short stories. It should be respected for what it is and not be denigrated by modern standards and sensibilities. As for the notion of divine inspiration, I would say that the Bible contains almost a millenium of man's experience of the divine (however one wants to define it) and people's attempts to understand God, and I believe that it was mostly written by people who have had personal experiences with the divine. Having Christian prejudices, I regard the Gospels and the synoptic sayings of Jesus in particular as precious jewels that have lasting power and should be listened to and, indeed, followed, as I feel they contain some of the most sublime expressions of morality and ethics I most cherish. Of course, I do not regard them as unique in their power and importance (e.g. some rather similar Eastern expressions), and certainly not unique in their religiosity and interaction with the divine (again, however one defines it), and thus I have much more broad conception of scripture than most people. A final opinion relates to the context of biblical literature. The Bible was not handed down from heaven pre-packaged in a single leather-bound volume. It is a compilation, a library (biblia is Greek for "library") of separate works that reflect their own places and times, the intellectual and religious ideas of their different writers, and the very specific situations in which these works were written. What we have done is separated these writings from their original literary and historical context and bound them together in a volume with very clear borders. That's not what it was like when these books were originally written. I believe that to properly understand many obscure concepts and wordings in scripture, one must restore the biblical writings to their original context -- or rather, as much of their broader context that can be restored. The process of biblical interpretation should not approach the Bible as a single unified work with unitary themes and concepts as this would ignore the individual ideas of its respective writers and anachronistically interpret them on the basis of a compilation that did not exist at the time, while ignoring each work's own literary setting.

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