The bible as we know it is not filled with real stories about god. It is a book filled with fictional stories that really are lies. It is not worth reading and is about as worthless as a Book of Mormon.

Except the Bible is the mythology of real people and helps us discover how they lived and thought. It also contains some history although it is embellished and it contains great literature. Would you discount the Iliad or Odyssey because they are fiction or mostly fiction? I hope not.The BofM is bad 19th century fiction.There is a big difference.

The Book of Mormon is not a mythology of any of America's indigenous peoples. Mormonism highjacks history and attempt to destroy indigenous cultures by replacing them with 19th century fiction.

why don't you tell us some bible history

The latter part of the OT and much of the NT contains real history although exaggerated-not that I expect Dave or other minimalists to accept that.

bona dea Wrote:
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> Except the Bible is the mythology of real people
> and helps us discover how they lived and thought.
> It also contains some history although it is
> embellished and it contains great literature.
> Would you discount the Iliad or Odyssey because
> they are fiction or mostly fiction? I hope not.The
> BofM is bad 19th century fiction.There is a big
> difference.


Bona dea - I love your name and most of the things you write but I must disagree with you. There was no first man named Adam that a god created in a garden of Eden 6,000 years ago. There was no Noah with an ark and all the animals. There was no Moses that lead people out of Egypt and did all the magic. None of that happened. It is all a pack of lies.

As far as reading material sure but so is Star Wars. As for god doing any of it no. As far as history no except maybe the last part of the OT. History for the NT. No there was no Jesus doing miracles. The NT was written in 300 AD. It is made up. There is nothing worthwhile to read in the bible regarding something to believe in that is true.

I do not believe in the bible because the bible says it.

I think we agree on a lot. Adam is myth. So is Noah. There may have been a David and a Solomon. We don't know. There was a Babylonian Captivity. There was a Jesus minus the miracles. I won't say more about that since the subject has been banned ,but that is the view of most scholars. In other words it doesn't have to be all true or all false. There is middle ground.Ancient people believed in the supernatural and tended to think of supernatural explanations for ordinary things.Example:if there was a plague or natural disaster,they saw it as divine punishment or the result of monsters or demons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2014 09:43AM by bona dea.

+1

You said everything BonaDea just said.

I always hear the great literature part about the bible, I don't get it, it is quite painful to read the vast majority of it.

I agree. I tried diving into the Bible after I discovered the truth about the church. It was just as painful as reading the BoM, in style AND content, and it quickly destroyed what faith I had left.

bona dea Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Except the Bible is the mythology of real people
> and helps us discover how they lived and thought.
> It also contains some history although it is
> embellished and it contains great literature.
> Would you discount the Iliad or Odyssey because
> they are fiction or mostly fiction

It's important as literature and culture in the same way Greek mythology is. Problem is, Greek mythology is accepted today as just that--myth. The Bible isn't.

Many Christian religons do not take it literally and those who do have a right so long as they don't impose it on others. People believe in lots of strange things.

Actually the church fathers decided what went into the Bible and what did not.Constantine wanted unity but he wasnt that interested or involved in the making of the Bible. He left it up to the church leaders for the most part.

I actually enjoy teaching Bible stories to my kids...but with the emphasis that they are just stories - the same as I teach them fables and myths. The best way to inoculate your kids from religion is to teach them all religions. Then they will be able to see them for what they really are.

I'm coming out with a Jesus super-hero action figure.

The Bible is important to read since so much of our culture is related to it. It's important as literature.

You'd miss a lot if you didn't read things like the Bible and Shakespeare because you would not know the source of things we say in everyday life (for example). It's part of a basic education.

It's important to know the origins of our culture's mythology and the lessons that shaped things the way they are today.

Sure, the BoM is steaming poo, but it will become part of America's religious folk mythology that people will need to know about to understand the LDS religious movement.

The trick is recognizing literature and stories that become sacred writs for what they are. There will always be people who get drawn into the religions and somehow elevate fiction and myths to a sacred status.

The stories are important for understanding our culture and western literature.

What's nice about reading the Bible as myth, legend, and proto-literature is that the stories speak for themselves without a need to apologize for them.

If the stories are deplorable - so be it. They are stories.

If there are moral lessons to learn - ok too. But nothing has to be taken just because the bible says.

+1
like this too...

While I agree with you that the Bible has cultural importance, I also feel a bit ambivalent about that. The Bible is drawn from someone else's culture. Sometimes I wonder why the collected wisdom of a middle-eastern desert people carries quite so much weight with us. Why not give equal weight to the collective wisdom and mythology of our own respective people?

I think this is part of the strength of teaching multiculturalism actually because the question you posed a the end could be asked about other cultures as well.

I love World Mythology because it has so much collective wisdom from all over the globe. But by not taking the stories literally - ethics and morality can be discussed depending on the story.

All cultures have valuable things to share about the human condition. However part of the human condition is being prone to bias as well as trying to create power structures and infusing irrational hatred towards things, ideas, peoples etc.

I love being able to read mythology from around the world and not have to worry about "truth" in the literal sense.

The bible contains a beautiful explanation of charity, which is the core and best of Christianity, and provides a path for peace to individuals and the world.

You mean like the charity Lot showed by offering his daughters up for rape to protect total strangers?

No, I think Paul was being referred to but I think that was rather obvious.

Getting kicked out of Eden, the whole world population killed, rape, incest, etc, etc, etc.

I mean reading the whole of the first half of the bible makes the claim of Charity being obvious as disingenuous at best.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2014 10:57PM by MJ.

My point was to agree with the poster regarding the passage on charity in 1st Corinthians chapter 13. This has nothing to do with much of the violent accounts recounted in other places in the Bible.

The Bible is not a book; it is a collection of books. There are multiple authors writing over a period over well over 1000 years with original forms of the stories stretching that time span and oral renditions stretching it further. Obviously there were multiple authors, sometimes multiple authors within a given book.

Regardless, I don't think an appreciation of Paul's views on charity (and note, I restricted this to charity because it's possible not to agree with a specific author on every topic) are dependent upon a belief or respect for the mythologies that were ancient when he wrote.

The Bible, ALL of the Bible is canonized as a single book and the central scripture of Christianity.

So, according to the great bulk of Christianity, you can not dismiss the canonize scripture called the Bible. It is ALL supposedly god inspired, at the least, the inerrant word of god to many.

Canonizing the bible shoots down your claim.

Canonization does not equal inerrancy as proved by the variety of Christian denominations that consider the Bible canon but not inerrant.

But this is irrelevant to the poster's point that Paul wrote a beautiful exposition on charity.

At this point I concede you and I are not going to be in agreement so I'm happy to agree to disagree.

As a famous BOM author once said, adieu.

Lot offering his daughters up for rape is another example of christian charity from the same source you are quoting, the bible.

Don't like the fact that Paul is part of the Bible, take it up with the Christian sources that canonize it with the rest of the bible.

And if you want to show that some denominations do not do such canonization, show me one Christian denomination that does not have the OT, including the story of lot offering up his daughters for rape, as part of their "Holy" bible

If you want to separate the bible into separate stories, take it to the Christian churches that distribute it as a single book of HOLY scripture. When you get them to break apart their holy book and say half of it no longer represents the word of God, come back and we can talk.

Till then, I'll take their word for what the bible is over yours.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2014 11:11PM by MJ.

No one in the story was a Christian, so your post doesn't make sense.

Particles of Faith Wrote:
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> Canonization does not equal inerrancy as proved by
> the variety of Christian denominations that
> consider the Bible canon but not inerrant.


Really? I've never heard a Christian claim the Bible is in error about anything.

They'll claim the nasty and blatantly absurd bits are 'misunderstood' (by people other than them) or that you need the Holy Spirit to guide you in understanding the misanthropic crap in it. Sometimes they'll say that the exhortations to rape, slavery and murder were only intended for the Jews pre-Jesus...

But they'll never say the Bible contains mistakes.

It's only disingenuous if I profess a belief in the Bible as a canonized Christian book. I don't, and I'm not Christian, and I CAN appreciate certain passages (like the parts of the Pauline letters referenced) without believing that any of it came from God or that we should stone adulterers or whatever. The point was that "the Bible" is actually a compilation of documents and writings that weren't put together into a single book until the 4th century CE, so if anything, treating them as a single book is the disingenuous approach--as well as disregarding or discounting the various writings (often more interesting) that were left out.

There they are talking about all the stories being lies independently.

Take Paul independently away from the Bible, and you have something completely different. Society does not view Paul as independent of the Christian Bible or Christianity.

Your arguments are equivalent to singling out the fact that Nazis ran soup kitchens and saying that is a great example of Nazi charity. You would be saying, yeah, as long as you ignore all the bad, its good.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2014 11:20PM by MJ.

I know someone who has 3 boys. Adam, Noah, and Moses. They're small kids now, but I can't help but wonder how Moses will cope with his name in the future.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2014 09:53PM by madalice.

The Bible is extremely problematic as it tended to borrow from
older traditions and stories(yes even the Old Testament).

I am slowly making my way through the below website. Therefore, listing it here is not a glowing endorsement but a suggestion. Note that the site does include a bibliography (always nice) and at the bottom of the page a "further resources" link.

http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/aa0_ot.htm

Many of the stories and characters in the Old Testament are based on much older characters from other cultures. If there is a "grain" of truth, it's more like a single electron....fading into an even smaller unit...and possibly to nothing.

Although, looking into all of this doesn't mean that the Bible isn't a piece of work to be studied etc. Anything that has clearly had a hand in shaping history (even if the book is nothing more than myth)is still of historical value.

p.s. I hope this makes sense as I'm typing this on my phone. :-)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2014 10:04PM by sassypants.

According to biblical archeologists, Abraham is just a legend. There is no evidence that he existed. There is no documentation in Egypt and in Genesis he is interacting with the Philistines. The problem is that they came around 1200 BC, and Abraham was supposed to be around 2000 BC...

From Wikipedia:

The two works largely responsible were Thomas L. Thompson's The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (1974), and John Van Seters' Abraham in History and Tradition (1975). Thompson's argument, based on archaeology and ancient texts, was that no compelling evidence pointed to the patriarchs living in the 2nd millennium and that the biblical texts reflected first millennium conditions and concerns; Van Seters, basing himself on an examination of the patriarchal stories, agreed with Thompson that their names, social milieu and messages strongly suggested that they were Iron Age creations.[5] By the beginning of the 21st century, and despite sporadic attempts by more conservative scholars such as Kenneth Kitchen to save the patriarchal narratives as history, archaeologists had "given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac or Jacob credible 'historical figures'".[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham

The Bible is a web of lies, contradictions, petty rules, outright horrors and a very few rare nice things. It was written by numerous people in isolation from each other over almost a full millennium, and ultimately tied together by the Romans as a very successful means of oppression and control.

Saying that any of the characters in it are based on real people is rather like saying the Minotaur is based on a real cow...

Or, more accurately -- BULL.

I will agree with those who point out the relative values of fiction vs. myth as far at the BoM vs. Bible.

The Bible contains what I'll call 'real myths' in the sense that some are embellishments of actual events after many retellings, and others are fictions cut from whole cloth, but which are repeated because they serve a purpose to the overall culture.

In either case, you can learn a lot about a culture from its mythology. Not in the sense that "I learned that Zeus was real and we should do what he says" but in the sense that "The Greek culture was such that they evolved a Zeus mythology."

In fact, if you think of it that way, the Book of Mormon itself serves as a way to better understand the culture of the time it was written, the only difference is pretty much nobody believes in Zeus anymore.