pierneef

It seems to me that the question of whether the Bible contains immoral and brutal sentiments is only a problem for those who regard the Bible as something which it isnt.

Some people accept the Bible as the sacred word of God, and dont care about or are unaware of how the Bible was assembled over centuries from tracts written by people who had never met one another and who had very different concepts of God and of the faith. The history of how the Old Testament was assembled is somewhat opaque; but it is very clear what processes went on in the assembly of the New Testament. It was a candidly poltical process which involved many disputes, conflict, dirty tricks, alliances, all the kind of things one would expect in combative and competitive committees trying to agree on a common text. Books with strong claims to authenticity, like The Gospel of St Thomas, were dropped in favor of books with far shakier foundations, like Gospel According to St John. Then in addition to this selection process, the texts were edited, redacted, and interpolated quite shamelessly, to bring them into line with the ideological views of those who prevailed. So it is only possible to consider the Bible as the sacred word of God, if one either choses to remain ignorant of its history, or believe that somehow the process I described was the product of the "guiding hand of God", which is a conclusion of faith alone and cannot be debated.

I see the Bible as an earthy mix of texts that reflect the political and religious views of a widely diverse range of authors that may have claimed to be divinely inspired, but who may also have had a whole range of other personal motivations and agendas. They were no more pure than those today who claim divine inspiration, and there is no reason I can think of why they should have been.

So, coming full circle, if one believes that the Bible is the sacred word of God, and that God would not have filled the Bible with advocated immoralities, then it is logical to question whether the Bible is, indeed the sacred word of God. Where else can one go ?

renegadebabe

Actually, that has a lot to do with what...whoever...was saying. God has a drastic character makeover between the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Why is it that Jesus' statements about loving your brother are any more reliable than God's statements in the Old Testament that say hangyour child if he disobeys you or stone a woman who fornicates? Quite frankly, either God has a classic case of Multiple Personality Disorder, or he is just too wishy-washy to trust him with my eternal security. The kind of violence in the Bible--if you've read what passages we are speaking of--they are not promoting the message of non-violence. They are often not "news reports" but actual commandments of God. Also, it is often said, "God said..." God said, "Kill your neighbor." I suppose you could say these statements are erroneous--and were often just people of the Bible justifying their actions, but then how could you trust any of the bible? Pick and choose?

My moral disgust for the Bible was the seed for my atheism. When I started reading the Old Testament I thought, "I'm not sure if I want to be associated with a God who EVER condoned this kind of a sick behavior." I kept having these moral dilemmas with being a Christian--so I stopped believing in it.

pierneef

Why should a book written by humans claiming to understand God (which they might or might not have) persuade you that there is no God ? Are there not passages in the Bible you find inspiring, even if you dont believe tey are "the words of God" ? Can you not create your own God ? Can you not find in Jesus' sayings something that moves you ? I recommend you read the Gospel of Thomas, which is probably as reliable a source as the synoptic gospels and far more authentic than John. Its advantage is that it consiste almost entirely of Jesus sayings, without narrative or commentary. Its a source for your own personal inspiration.

Fortunately it is now available on the internet at:

http://reluctant-messenger.com/gospe..._of_Leiden.htm

I strongly recommend it, not as a vehicle for re-converting you, but simply as a fresh look at the ideas of Jesus outside of the Bible.

Jobar

AFAIK there is only one place in the Bible where God laughs- gloatingly, at the horrid fate of those who angered him. Nowhere in the book does he laugh happily. And though he supposedly smiles sometimes, most often it's because of some person, city or race getting shafted.

While it's true that the NT presents a kinder, gentler version of God, that kindness is almost exclusively vested in the persona of the Son- with the Father still a remote, unsmiling, at-best emotionless patriarch.

Happiness, which Socrates considered the ultimate good for human beings, is little in evidence in the Bible, except for that which comes from grovelling before the Lord.

long winded fool

This is explained by the Old and New Covenants. Before the Son, humans were under an old covenant, i.e. an old set of rules. The sacrifice of the son ushers in a New Covenant. Changed laws do not necessarily indicate a problem with God. I used to get yelled at if I didn't conspicuously look both ways before crossing the street. Now I don't. My parents are not suffering from multiple personalities, and they are not the ones who have changed, even though they do things differently than they used to. I have. They trust me more now than they did when I was less wise, so they have different rules now than they used to. And I didn't always understand the rules, and I didn't like being punished, but that was my fault, not theirs. Changing rules are merely an indication that change is occuring in the relationship between the rule maker and the rule followers, not necessarily that change must be occuring in the rule maker. When the followers learn, the rules must often change.

Stephen_BostonMA

I think that the contradictions are more significant than a simple change in the rules. Jesus/God is recorded as being one who would turn the other cheek, to promote peace and forgiveness. Yet the Old Testament shows God killing the first-borns of all Egyptians. Any leader who did that today would likely and rightly be charged with crimes against humanity

A more appropriate analogy is an insanely jealous man going to a restaurant with his family and punching out someone for supposedly looking at his wife, and then telling his son to control his anger and jealousy.

Hyndis

<mod hat>

Looks like we've strayed into BC&H territory, rather than principles of morals and ethics and such.

So, off we go.

</mod hat>

Notsri

This is a rather unfounded comment. "Dropped" seemingly suggests it was once esteemed in the Church, and there's not a bit of evidence to support that. No patristic writer ever mentions a Gospel of Thomas until the 3rd century, when Hippolytus and Origen refer to it; and both indicate it was spurious. Furthermore it's debatable whether or not they were even referring to the Gospel of Thomas we know today: Hippolytus quotes it, and it's a passage not found in our Gospel. If they were referring to a different one, then our Thomas Gospel went unknown in the early Church, so far as we can tell today. On the other hand, it's clear from patristic literature that the four-Gospel collection was accepted in the church by the latter half of the 2nd century.

gregor2

How can people think the NT tri-god is a kinder, gentler deity? The worst that the OT god could do was send a she-bear to maul you to death for making a bad pun. The punishment was ended by death.

But the NT God will punish you for eternity. Not only that, he'll send a strong delusion so that you believe a lie and will not be saved.

Don't sell him/them short.

pierneef

OK "dropped" was the wrong word, although you dont know for a fact that it is wrong. I wasnt referring to the historical process of selection, but rather the worth of the Gospel itself. You dont know that it went unknown. There is simply no surviving evidence that it was known. So your language is equally unfounded if we are attempting to be precise.

The Gospel is regarded as highly significant by a number of scholars of note, including Crossan, who agrees with Grenfell and Hunt:


So here we have significant scholars saying that the Gospel was of independent origin and composed very early. That makes it quite unique, and therefore a very significant document. It may, by some quirk, have been unavailable to those who put the Gospels together; but it could just as easily have been available.

So the gist of the point I was making seems very valid to me, even if neither of us can prove what happened at the time. But I am happy to drop "dropped"