Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Doug Shaver · 02-20-2012, 08:00 AM

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Originally Posted by sotto voce

It seems impossible to prove that the Bible is fantasy.

You seem to be assuming some equivalence between proof and whatever it would take to change your mind.

Doug Shaver · 02-20-2012, 08:02 AM

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Originally Posted by sotto voce

Did Aesop (or whoever) intend that this be believed?

Can you prove he didn't?

Steve Weiss · 02-20-2012, 09:04 AM

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Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

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Originally Posted by Steve Weiss

What is a novel? One may refer to Wikipedia where a novel is defined as a "long narrative in literary prose." The same article discusses the works of Homer (8th or 9th century BC.) as being a forerunner of the modern novel.

In the case of the NT, one can observe a plot, characterization, setting, the building of suspense, a climax and a denouement. This structure differs from a history in that in a novel the characters are fictional or a mixture of fictional and historical. In other words, in a novel there is a story that has a beginning, a middle and an end. History, by contrast, has events but not plots, and authentic history only deals with real characters not fictional ones. In ancient history the problem is that one often does not know what is historical and factual and what is imaginery. It seems that believers get so caught up in these ancient stories that they forget that they are just stories, not facts. It then become necessary for someone who is objective to point out that the Emperor has no clothes.

You seem to have mistaken me for someone who has said the Bible is a novel. My point is that the Bible is not classifiable as any single genre because it's not a single book, that is, it's not a single work by a single author, but a repository of sacred literature compiled over centuries.

The bible isn't a book, which may surprise the Library of Congress, so what is it? An anthology? A book may only have one author? Is the Koran a book? No single person wrote it either. How about the "Book of Mormon." Should its title be changed? If so, to what?

Steve Weiss · 02-20-2012, 09:08 AM

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Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

It seems impossible to prove that the Bible is fantasy.

You seem to be assuming some equivalence between proof and whatever it would take to change your mind.

Perhaps we need a definition of fantasy since we can't even agree that the bible is a book. Does walking on water, virgin birth, resurrection, etc. seem plausible to you folks so that it should be debated? ET phone home.

Sheshbazzar · 02-20-2012, 09:16 AM

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Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

But by carefully encoding and weaving these principals throughout an interesting and colorful set of easily recalled creation myths and heroic ancestor tales in a treasured cultural Holy Book, one whose amazing tales could be taught to and would remembered even by children and the illiterate, the concealed information would then be assured of enduring into perpetuity.

It's possible. But it's not certain. Some would say that the above is a far-fetched hypothesis. Whatever the truth of that, pending their disproof, belief in actual events in the Bible has validity.

Perhaps not certain to you. But then you have not spent thirty five years of your life, in careful study, in the Hebrew language of every single verse related to the usage of ('just and perfect') measurements.
You do not even know the original terms, much less how they were employed or woven into the Hebrew texts.
You have not spent the thousands of hours in comparing verse with verse, and in performing the hundreds of thousands of exacting mathematical calculations that have been part and parcel of my life every day for three and one half decades.
I know what I know, and when, where, and how I came by each piece of my information.
That others yet remain blind to, and ignorant of these things, only indicates that they don't believe the Bible anywhere near as much as they profess to.
Most Jews and Christians have made a damn idol out their Book, something to sit on a shelf, or tote around for a public display.
My Bible's are all read through, cover to cover, again and again and again in the honest pursuit of knowledge.
I have with my own hand, made my measuring reeds, and have measured the measures. And I can damn well tell you that my 'finger','hand', 'cubit', and 'reed' is not the length of someone's finger, hand, arm, or a multiple thereof, but STANDARDIZED units of perfect measure.
(-Unless you are able to perceive it as being the 'finger', 'hand' and 'arm' of יהוה צבאות being stretched forth upon this age.)

I absolutely believe in the Bible, I have simply learned through decades of intensive textual study, not to get hung up on overly literal interpretations of its superficial contents.
People get so involved in disputing the seeming flaws in the tales that they cannot see the forest because of whatever little tree trunk it is that is presently in front of them.
You've got a Bible, or can get one. All you need to do now is to finally get your lazy and unbelieving ass to work
-figuring- out all of that which you have previously skipped over.

ששבצר העברי

Diogenes the Cynic · 02-20-2012, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Did Aesop (or whoever) intend that this be believed?

Do you know that the author of the Balaam story did?

Steve Weiss · 02-20-2012, 09:19 AM

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Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

A simple and entertaining story can contain and be much more than it appears upon a superficial reading.
Humpty Dumpty has entertained generations of children, many of whom have grown up without ever realizing that its essence, its very reason for existence was cleverly concealed political satire.
Does the fact that the idea of talking egg is impossible and utterly ridiculous mean that our understanding of the tale should be limited to consigning its content to being nothing more than a silly nursery rhyme? If so, it is our loss.
Gulliver's Travels? Through The Looking Glass? Uncle Tom's Cabin? Tom Sawer? Each of these beloved old tales are cultural treasures that are much more than they appear to be on any superficial reading.
However with these we are still close enough in time and in shared cultural experience to be able to, (if we use our brain, and ability to investigate) pick up on and appreciate their deeper and more important thoughts and social significance.

The Bible is not one book, but a series of books that were built around certain themes and constants. Each of these books were produced for different purposes under differing social, cultural, and political conditions.
Most of which, except upon knowledge gained by a superficial reading, we would have no knowledge or appreciation of at all.

Because we are now so far removed in time, and from that cultural experience, it can be very difficult for us to appreciate these Biblical stories in the deeper senses that their original authors intended, but which would have been immediately apparent within their original setting.

Anyone who has followed many of my posts within this forum will be aware that I have been attempting to convey that the Book of Genesis and many other portions of Biblical texts served a mnemonic function, that is that many outwardly seemingly primitive stories were mainly constructed so as to contain and retain certain invariable mathematical and geometrical concepts and relationships between pure numbers.
Working principals could quite easily be forgotten or lost in cultural disruptions caused by wars, the wholesale massacre of elders who held this knowledge, or by prolonged periods of dislocation, or slavery.
But by carefully encoding and weaving these principals throughout an interesting and colorful set of easily recalled creation myths and heroic ancestor tales in a treasured cultural Holy Book, one whose amazing tales could be taught to and would remembered even by children and the illiterate, the concealed information would then be assured of enduring into perpetuity.

In conclusion, to the question of whether the Bible is a Novel, I must say the Bible is a series of Novels, poems, and songs created by different authors at different times and in differing circumstances, but all sharing in a common vision and goal.
It contains Novels and much, much more, of which much has long since been forgotten but is now at long last beginning to be brought to the light again, to the triumph of the human spirit, and to the enrichment of all mankind.

ששבצר העברי
Sheshbazzar The Hebrew

You have achieved new heights of revisionism in attributing to the writings (notice that I didn't say book) in the bible more than is actually stated there. How you could find inspiration and reinforcement from the bloodthirsty stories throughout this work astounds me. I can only describe these Iron Age stories as perverse, ignorant and dispicable. Do you also honor and praise the NT nd the Koran? Please be specific in identifying what you consider the redeeming value of the bible. It is the last place that I'd look for establishing moral standards.

Diogenes the Cynic · 02-20-2012, 09:25 AM

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Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

It is not yet 1700 years from Nicaea.

So is there a chance that the whimsical RCC, a merely playful, amateur frippery, after all, will soon be outlawed? Will its weird, freakish theistic beliefs have passed into desuetude, before 2025? Would this be vindication of the thesis that the Bible is a novel?

Or is there perhaps an intelligent, systematic and potent version of biblical deity whose roots need to be excavated before that can be said?

Talk about a false dichotomy. The answer to both questions is no.

sotto voce · 02-20-2012, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

But by carefully encoding and weaving these principals throughout an interesting and colorful set of easily recalled creation myths and heroic ancestor tales in a treasured cultural Holy Book, one whose amazing tales could be taught to and would remembered even by children and the illiterate, the concealed information would then be assured of enduring into perpetuity.

It's possible. But it's not certain. Some would say that the above is a far-fetched hypothesis. Whatever the truth of that, pending their disproof, belief in actual events in the Bible has validity.

Perhaps not certain to you. But then you have not spent thirty five years of your life, in careful study, in the Hebrew language of every single verse related to the usage of ('just and perfect') measurements.

What's more, I've never met anyone who has.

Neither have I met anyone with proof that any apparent chronicled actuality in the Bible cannot have occurred, nor read any such proof. That may change, but it now seems a very unlikely event in this thread.

sotto voce · 02-20-2012, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Did Aesop (or whoever) intend that this be believed?

Do you know that the author of the Balaam story did?

See the thread.

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