bacht

Would you say the moral lessons in Greco-Roman myths were better? How about the Egyptians, or the Celts?

Judge the Bible by its contempories, not by modern standards. I'm really tired of pseudo-skeptics crapping all over the scriptures without ever looking at what other cultures of the time were doing.

mountainman

The New Testament is a cut and paste job savagely undertaken on the literary milieu of the Graeco-Roman empire without any regard for attribution of original authorship. The entire populace of the Graeco-Roman empire at one stage in the epoch BCE "lived and breathed and took their being" from the father of the Graeco-Roman conceptions of divinity Zeus. When Zeus got old he was replaced by Apollo, his Son. And when Apollo got old he was replaced by his Son -- the Graeco-Roman Healing God Asclepius, who inherited the healing powers and medical knowledge of this lineage. The archaeological and "literary tradition" footprint of Asclepius is abundantly obvious to everyone who looks at the evidence for the epoch between 300 BCE to about 400 CE.

So YES. There is much "wisdom kernels" in the texts of the books of the New testament, both in the canonical books and in the "Gnostic Gospels and Acts" and at Nag Hammadi (however these books fit into the complete picture). But it might be a very sensible approach to understand that these "wisdom kernels" were "lifted". Stolen, plaguerised, ripped off - find an appropriate term. These "wisdom kernels" were not conceived or authored by "Christians". They were accumulated and conscripted by "Christian scribes" into a fabrication and a collage that has distorted their Graeco-Roman, Persian, and even Indian and Buddhist sources.

In the very same and explicit few years that the Bible was lavishly published by Constantine between 324 and 330 CE we find a massive boundary event in the archaeology of the Graeco-Roman empire. The temples and shrines to Asclepius and Apollo etc are savagely destroyed by Constantine's Christian Minions" and the very first "Christian Church structures" were erected over the foundations of the old architecture. We have no "Christian Churches" discovered which are older than the 4th century. We have not one iota of evidence for any "archaeological footprint" of this "Nation of Cut-and-Paste Christians" aside from the conjecture that Yale found not a "Christian Church", and not a "Christian Church-House", but rather a third rate structure -- a "Christian House-Church" out on the Persian Roman border town on the prairies of Dura-Europos. (ie: no evidence)

Isn't it about time to seriously ask the obvious question?
When was the new testament copy paste task historically undertaken?

Minimalist

Except as Ehrman has pointed out, the story was added to the gospels at some later date.

I suppose we could worship the scribe who wrote it?

jackrabbit

Sure. Perfectly good paper that can be recycled and used for something worthwhile.

spamandham

I was thinking of the same story, but I'm not so sure it was originally about being forgiving, as it was a slam at the absurdity of the Jewish law. The law was so absurd that no-one could follow it no matter how devout, turning everyone into the equivalent of a whore.

But I'm sure if we search hard enough, we could find something unambiguously good in those pages.

Toto

I like Matt 6:5-6

mountainman

If we consider the verb "pray" to include "meditate" (prayer and meditation being the nouns) then this sort of advice could have easily been taken from the Buddhist literature. The image of a meditating Buddha was by no means alien to Graeco-Roman civilisation, so the archeologists tell us. Providing advice concerning the optimum benefits of meditative practice was not lost on the Buddhists or the Graeco-Roman equivalents. See "ascetic practices" in antiquity. The notion that the Copy Pasted Jesus has any form of "priority date" in such matters is absurd.

Zenaphobe

I wouldn't think about worshiping anyone because of it, it just happened to satisfy the OP's request for something "good".

I think the Bible is like any other human composition, a mixed bag. I don't feel compelled to say I find nothing at all good in it.

wonko

Freedom is a relatively new value, I would think. So the Bible might not be the best source for inspiration on the modern version. For the ancients (and some moderns) freedom comes only from God, a kind of spiritual freedom rather than rights of freedom.

Justice, certainly. The idea of recompense riddles some of the OT stories, especially since the OT is so concerned with property. If you are an advocate of capital punishment, then certainly a death for a death would fit well.

It's a little unfortunate that Christianity's take on justice has become associated with apocalyptic ideas. As a result, simple tales like Zaccheus, or even Joseph of the OT (as mentioned already) get lost in, "Just you wait, your come-uppance is just around the corner."

Ideas of mercy come up quite frequently, especially towards the repentant person (the whole construction of the practice around confession and so on). The parable of the Prodigal son is good -- a simple enough guide for how the father should behave as much as how the son should behave. And the story of the adulteress is kind of a nice blend of law and justice and mercy (again, as discussed already).

Concerning compassion, the parable of the Good Samaritan is a clear illustration of how to behave to a stranger in need, enemy or no.

Not all the parables reflect our modern sense of values, but enough of them have been imprinted upon the culture so as to reach the status of cliches, in a way.

Another thing about (a good number of) the parables is that the main characters aren't even Christian. And they are stories more than they are histories. You don't have to be Christian or Jewish or specifically anything to get them. They are guides for behaviour, not necessarily belief.

avi

Ok. Can you explain why you prefer which version, below:

my emphasis

emphasis in the original.

avi