Errors in the Bible

[carosio 186]

Originally Posted by HeadingNorth

It was the Angel Gabriel, one of Gods guardian angels that revealed the Koran to Mohammed and the very same Angel that told Mary she was to have a son named Jesus.

 

The way that divine revelations are supposedly communicated to earthmen always seem to fall into the secretive catagory. They're either in a vision or dream, out of sight at the top of a mountain, always somewhere bereft of witnesses, usually anonymous. Odd, isnt it?

[redrobbo 10]

The way that divine revelations are supposedly communicated to earthmen always seem to fall into the secretive catagory. They're either in a vision or dream, out of sight at the top of a mountain, always somewhere bereft of witnesses, usually anonymous. Odd, isnt it?

 

I'd never realised that. An interesting observation carosio.

[Karis 11]

The way that divine revelations are supposedly communicated to earthmen always seem to fall into the secretive catagory. They're either in a vision or dream, out of sight at the top of a mountain, always somewhere bereft of witnesses, usually anonymous. Odd, isnt it?

 

Just like UFO abductions. It's never the normal, credible, witnesses who experience them, but the crazies...

[apelike 10]

One of the great things about not believing any of that stuff is that you get to sit back, put your feet up, crack open a beer or a bag of popcorn, and chill-out for a bit while the various faiths bicker about which magic book/name/symbol is more important.

 

Whose god is allah?

 

Being a non believer in religion I have to agree. As carosio said its always somewhere bereft of witnesses and usually anonymous. Its something I have always found strange that a God cant communicate with us all directly and has to use some sort of medium to do so. If he's that great then he should pass on any message to us all and not just a select few.

 

No doubt Graham will be on soon giving HIS reasons why.

[metaphoria 10]

Originally Posted by HeadingNorth

Yes he is; the Muslims and the Christians both worship the same god, but have different arguments about how to do so.

 

 

 

It was the Angel Gabriel, one of Gods guardian angels that revealed the Koran to Mohammed and the very same Angel that told Mary she was to have a son named Jesus.

 

The same God and the same Angel.

It is indeed an interesting point, something I mulled over 6 years ago, and lingers.

 

I came to the conclusion, that either one account was right, or neither, because the same one angel (a messenger) could not possibly give different messages about the same God.

 

Interesting indeed. I recommend looking at some of the differences between how Gabriel appears to Mary, what Gabriel said to her in both the bible and Koran, then looking at how Gabriel appeared to Muhammad, and what Gabriel did and said to him, and how it made Muhammad feel afterwards. Then ask yourself, 'is this the same angel?'

 

Then ask yourself (even if you don't believe) if there really were angels from God, would you hope that they made you feel fearful, of comforted?

[EbonyBranch 10]

It is indeed an interesting point, something I mulled over 6 years ago, and lingers.

 

I came to the conclusion, that either one account was right, or neither, because the same one angel (a messenger) could not possibly give different messages about the same God.

 

Interesting indeed. I recommend looking at some of the differences between how Gabriel appears to Mary, what Gabriel said to her in both the bible and Koran, then looking at how Gabriel appeared to Muhammad, and what Gabriel did and said to him, and how it made Muhammad feel afterwards. Then ask yourself, 'is this the same angel?'

 

Then ask yourself (even if you don't believe) if there really were angels from God, would you hope that they made you feel fearful, of comforted?

"if there really were angels....would you hope that they made you...."

 

What does what i'd hope to be true have to do with whatever is true?

 

Anyway, to get back on track: i'm listening to an audiobook of Bart Ehrman's 'Jesus Misquoted', in which he explains how and why the bible we read today has so many errors. I'll try to quote a few excerpts when i get the chance. One of the interestimg facts he reveals is that a medieval scholar, John Milll, analysed 100 different biblical texts and identified 30,000 discrepancies between them.

 

Ehrman makes the point that christianity is a scriptural ideology whose original scriptures are no longer available. What we now think of as christian theology is what has evolved through centuries of scriptual alteration. He also states that most modern biblical scholars accept that the bible has more errors than actual words!

[carosio 186]

It is indeed an interesting point, something I mulled over 6 years ago, and lingers.

 

I came to the conclusion, that either one account was right, or neither, because the same one angel (a messenger) could not possibly give different messages about the same God.

 

Good observations, the kind of scrutiny that I like.

[Circa 10]

Anyway, to get back on track: i'm listening to an audiobook of Bart Ehrman's 'Jesus Misquoted', in which he explains how and why the bible we read today has so many errors. I'll try to quote a few excerpts when i get the chance. One of the interestimg facts he reveals is that a medieval scholar, John Milll, analysed 100 different biblical texts and identified 30,000 discrepancies between them.

 

Ehrman makes the point that christianity is a scriptural ideology whose original scriptures are no longer available. What we now think of as christian theology is what has evolved through centuries of scriptual alteration. He also states that most modern biblical scholars accept that the bible has more errors than actual words!

 

I would be interested to hear one or two specific examples when you have them. I think people too easily pass up on bible for this reason.

[quisquose 10]

It is indeed an interesting point, something I mulled over 6 years ago, and lingers.

 

I came to the conclusion, that either one account was right, or neither, because the same one angel (a messenger) could not possibly give different messages about the same God.

 

Interesting indeed. I recommend looking at some of the differences between how Gabriel appears to Mary, what Gabriel said to her in both the bible and Koran, then looking at how Gabriel appeared to Muhammad, and what Gabriel did and said to him, and how it made Muhammad feel afterwards. Then ask yourself, 'is this the same angel?'

 

Then ask yourself (even if you don't believe) if there really were angels from God, would you hope that they made you feel fearful, of comforted?

 

You make good points, and remind me that the main reason for becoming an unbeliever was actually reading the Bible and Qu'ran rather than just have the Bible read to me.

 

I hate generalisations, but I find it hard to believe that many theists have actually read their books from cover to cover. Those that have must lack the intellectual ability to empathise with the characters like one normally does when reading a book. If you use the normal empathatic imagination that you use when reading any other book ... it just doesn't make sense.

 

For example, we keep asking for evidence and yet we are supposed to believe from reading the Bible that the characters in it were provided with evidence by the bucket full. The Egyptians and Israelites were provided with miracle, after miracle, after miracle to "prove" his existence and power. Unbelievable stuff, the sea parting, manna from heaven, a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of smoke by day, etc etc. But as soon as his back's turned the Israelites say "ah, bugger that god we'll make our own god."

 

Really? I mean REALLY? Are we supposed to believe this?

 

Can theists today, who will accept the existence of god based on faith in this book and hearsay, really put themselves in the shoes of the Israelites and admit that given that evidence they too would reject it as well? Of course not. It's laughably unbelievable. It's not that today we're not privy to the same sort of miracles that the characters in the Bible were shown, but there's actually no good reason that they were shown any miracles at all. That is the only possible explanation for how they actually behaved. Everything about these stories points to fairytale and mythology.

 

So the biggest error in the Bible is that the characters don't actually behave as you would expect if the story was real, so it wasn't real.

Edited December 11, 2009 by quisquose

[EbonyBranch 10]

I would be interested to hear one or two specific examples when you have them. I think people too easily pass up on bible for this reason.

 

Well, ones that come to mind are the last 12 verses of Mark, which were added to the text in the second century at the earliest, the story about Jesus and the woman taken in sin (in John, i think) which was also a later addition, the story of Jesus and the leper (earlier texts had Jesus angry witha leper for begging to be healed, later texts were amended to make Jesus more compasionate)....that's just off the top of my head now (sitting on a train, typing on a phone).

 

Look up Bart Ehrman (and Dr Robert Price) for more.

[plekhanov 10]

I already have experience of baptist services, and I've come across a few sermons on line which I've found not to my taste, yet as I think there is a place for the contribution of evangelism, I'm reluctant to discredit the bold and controversial bible-bashers entirely.

I'm not attempting to discredit all evangelicals on the grounds that the Southern Baptists convention was founded to defend slavery. I simply cited that example to show that Christianity is flexibile and perfectly compatible with things you don't like be it slavery or Nazism.

 

"Missing out on the "love thy neighbour" part of christianity takes the rampant and heinous ideology of Nazism about as far from christianity as I can possibly imagine."

 

Well it never was a claim, merely my own opinion, which remains the same.

So you've completely ignored the conversation we had about the SBC and gone back to your starting position after conceding how groundless your position is. How very theistic of you.

 

Lots of Christian groups preach anything but what Id recognise as 'love' for their neighbour be it the he SBC on blacks or the pre 1945 Catholic church on Jews.

 

"Love your neighbour" is flexible in terms of what you mean by "love" and who you regard as your "neighbour" and you know it.

 

Maybe they did. It’s a bit of a ‘why’ for me.

Perhaps for some of the same reasons that the Catholic Church has so abjectly failed to "love" it's Jewish, Protestant, pagan, Cathar... "neighbours" over the centuries?

 

By your tone I suspect you hold individuals responsible for faults of a whole. Although, I’d rather only be responsible for my own faults, as I wouldn’t want anyone else to be responsible for mine because I think I’m in deep **** on judgement day.

This is beyond unfair, I challenge you to provide a single quote suggesting that I believe in collective guilt. I believe in individual responsibility for individual actions, one of my many objections to Christianity is that it is founded upon the notion of inherited guilt.

 

To point out the obvious truth that Nazism and Christianity were all too compatible is in no way to say that all Christians are in any way Nazis.

 

As we know, the Christian church is historically somewhat fragmented, but I think catholics speaking to protestants speaking to atheists who speak to methodists who speak to mormons who speak to protestants who speak to orthodox presbyterian refomists of the seventh day whoevers et.c is all good and should give each other a good brotherly talking to more often.

 

And no I don’t like to be associated with the Nazis, because I wonder if I could have been one if I was born into an 'aryan' family at a certain time, and when I think about that, I consider the Nazi in me.

 

And then I turn my back on it, recognising that I’ve been born into a time of hinsight, and environment which presented me with the facts which allowed me to make my own mind up.

 

And for the record: I think that they were brainwashed at best, followed by the deluded, and then worse.

 

And then I see how fortunate I am, so I feel like I owe thanks to something, and I call him God. And I can't find a better alternative for Jesus.

So does Jesus also get the credit for all those people who were born a few decades earlier and either becade the Nazis or who's lives were affected by Nazis?

 

Anyway I note that you have dodged my main point which was that practically all Christian's ignore/creatively interpret "everything Jesus said about Camels passing through the eyes of needles and how you should sell all you own and give the proceeds to the poor" do you claim that all who do so aren't Christians. If not then it's hardly consistent for you to claim Nazi Christians have ignoring/creatively interpreting "love your neighbour" magically stops them being Christians.

[Circa 10]

Anyway I note that you have dodged my main point which was that practically all Christian's ignore/creatively interpret "everything Jesus said about Camels passing through the eyes of needles and how you should sell all you own and give the proceeds to the poor" do you claim that all who do so aren't Christians. If not then it's hardly consistent for you to claim Nazi Christians have ignoring/creatively interpreting "love your neighbour" magically stops them being Christians.

 

As an aside - I think Jesus didn't quite lay all the details down in black and white. He made a point of telling the rich young ruler that he needed to sell all he had and give it to the poor, but he was happy with Zacchaeus's offer of 50% too.