Toto

The new, New TestamentAtheists are not impressed by this argument.

Saramago

"The Rise and Fall of the Bible" has some interesting chapter titles early on in the book:
Magic 8 Ball Bible
The Greatest Story Ever Sold
Sodom and Gomorrah Equals Love
If That's What It Means, Why Doesn't It Say So?

(Looks like later on the book devolves into his form of modern apologetics, with chapters such as: Letting Suffering Speak, and Faith in Ambiguity)

Vivisector

So, God presumably loves us, gave us the Bible to provide a path to salvation, but wants that Bible to be confusing.

I'm gonna need some time with this one.

stephan huller

But in all fairness - and I always try to be fair - the fact that the New Testament doesn't harmonize that well with the Old Testament TODAY - doesn't mean that it didn't make sense or that their wasn't concord in the second century. It's like marriage. Spouses often look at one each other with the thought 'what the fuck was I thinking?' That however doesn't mean that there wasn't love at one time or that marriage didn't seem like the most rational of propositions AT ONE TIME. Like the old Expose song says 'Seasons change, people change, feelings change.' In this case - documents change, arguments change, rationalizations change.

I am sure I am the first person to cite the 80's Latina supergroup Expose at this forum.

The facts are that the arguments that Irenaeus and company were making at the end of the second century were not the same as those being made by the Marcionites in the middle of the second century. Were the Marcionite rationalizations more sensible? I think so because they were similar to messianic formulations developed by various Jewish groups over time (the Sabbatian Jews as an example but there are others). In other words, the argument that God just decided to change his mind and extend his blessings to the Gentiles because he was mad at the Jews may be senseless but you can't write off the rationality of Christianity based on this alone. You have to dig deeper if you are really interested in the truth.

stephan huller

Another Expose hit you may have forgotten - 'Come Go With Me' - a thinly veiled sexual reference common in the 80s. Although it appears a song of the same title was recorded by a doo wop group in the 50's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Go_with_Me - and later recorded by the Beach Boys. This genre of music never seemed that sexually provocative to me. Perhaps the Expose song was just as innocent.

Apparently I can't post the lyrics because of a copyright issue. But here is the original video - Of course it is very tame by today's standards. There other songs confirm this - the example of Point of No Return - I think it is safe to say that it the lyrics are sexually provocative.

manwithdream

Toto,

It would help if you explained what you or other people think is confusing about the Bible. I don't think the New Testament is part of the Bible, so maybe I don't see what is so confusing.

Kenneth Greifer
http://www.messianicmistakes.com/

Toto

The authors of the books mentioned in the OP seem to think that the Bible is confusing.

By "Bible" most people refer to the Christian Bible, which includes the New Testament, with its 4 contradictory gospels, its incoherent preaching by Paul, and the ravings of Revelation.

PhilosopherJay

Hi manwithdream,

I think it is only confusing if you're reading the Bible as a history of actual events. If you read it as literature, where a multitude of writers are trying to produce certain emotional effects, and make moral, cosmological, theological and political points, it is reasonably clear and not confusing.

Take "Little Red Riding Hood," for example. It begins with a woman asking her daughter to take a basket of goodies to her grandmother who lives in the woods and not to speak to strangers. There is nothing in the least bit unrealistic about this. However we shortly reach a point in the text where everything we think we know about reality is challenged:

If we wish to take the text as a realistic recording of history, we must be confused by this, because we know from experience and our general knowledge that wolves cannot speak. There is no problem if we quickly adjust our expectations and realize that the story-teller is putting a fantastic and supernatural element into the story for our amusement.

The same thing happens when we're reading the Bible when some disciples go to a mountain with Jesus

So far there is nothing here that would make us suspicious that we aren't reading a history of real events, but then

If we continue to take the text as factual history, we are confused because in ordinary life, people's faces do not shine like the sun and their clothes do not become white as light. Nor do people who have been dead for hundreds of years suddenly appear.

If we adjust our understanding and realize that the writer is just interjecting fantastic supernatural elements because it is fun to do so, and it makes some cosmological and theological points, we are not confused.

If we believe we live in a world where men on mountains have faces shining like the sun and clothes turning white and long dead people suddenly talking to them, then we are confused about the nature of the world, in the same way we are confused if we believe wolves talk to little girls carrying baskets of goodies in the forest.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay