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An infinitely intelligent being wanted to pass down a book to us and he had enough room for about 31,000 English words. Why so much redundancy (e.g. 4 books about Jesus' life, lots of repeated stories) and so much space taken up with stuff that isn't relevant to us anymore? Not to mention the fact that many Christian doctrines hang on a single verse. You would think that if God wanted to communicate to us a concept like the Trinity or Predestination, he would've dedicated a whole book to making it clear. Also, it would've been nice if he could've included a hint about how to cure cancer or AIDS.
As Nate said, where is it ever claimed that God put together a big ol' book for us? A bunch of humans wrote a bunch of books (some of those books were even written by multiple authors) and many of them (but not all) were accepted into several canons of works that became authoritative for two major religious traditions. It's a collection of works - not one single masterminded "book". Heck, different versions of the "Bible" have different amounts of books.
An infinitely intelligent being wanted to pass down a book to us and he had enough room for about 31,000 English words. Why so much redundancy (e.g. 4 books about Jesus' life, lots of repeated stories) and so much space taken up with stuff that isn't relevant to us anymore? Not to mention the fact that many Christian doctrines hang on a single verse. You would think that if God wanted to communicate to us a concept like the Trinity or Predestination, he would've dedicated a whole book to making it clear. Also, it would've been nice if he could've included a hint about how to cure cancer or AIDS.
The doctrine that there is a separate experience of being filled with the holy spirit, evidenced by a phenomenon called "speaking in tongues", comes very close. Of course you will claim this isn't a Christian doctrine because you don't personally subscribe to it. But it is a doctrine that significant numbers of Christians practice and it is based really on a half-verse. Given that "speaking with other tongues" is mentioned in the tail end of Mark 16 which is widely agreed to be absent from the best manuscripts, we are left basically with Acts 2:4 as a scriptural "basis" for the practice, despite that the verse doesn't actually say that tongues are evidence for the filling of the spirit, or what exactly tongues are, or whether it is normative for all time or something relevant to what was going on in Jerusalem a couple thousand years ago.
The concept of the "unpardonable sin" is based on one verse, I believe. It is of course never stated WHAT that sin is, so it serves as a template for whatever sin someone is particularly apoplectic concerning. It has been used for everything from unbelief to overt blasphemy (itself a highly subjective concept) to masturbation.
Many denominations teach an "age of accountability" when childhood innocence ends and a person becomes responsible for their sins before god. THAT teaching is based on exactly no Bible verses AT ALL. It is simply a derived teaching based on other derived teachings. Technically, if you subscribe to eternal damnation, original sin and the need to satisfy the holiness of god and his bloodthirst for justice, newborn infants who die on the way out of the birth canal head straight to hell.
I'm sure there are other doctrines based on one or even zero verses. Of course what's generally regarded as core Christian orthodoxy by a variety of denominations generally has more apparent scriptural support than that precisely because more is said about it and it requires more work to distance yourself from it.
But there is another class of doctrine that is somewhere in between; it's mentioned in more than one verse but all the verses that mention it are extremely vague to build detailed positions on top of, particularly when you examine them closely. For example, the concept of hell is nowhere near as clearly taught in scripture as it might superficially appear. The KJV stacks the deck in favor of a literal hell, but careful reading in the original language coupled with an historical understanding of terms like "gehenna" and the subtraction of the influence of extra-Bibilical works like Dante's Inferno mean that universal reconciliationists can make a convincing scriptural argument for their position.
What relatively little the Bible has to say about homosexuality is another example. There's enough wiggle room that different Christian denominations do everything from decry it as the most vile of sins, to it being simply an alternate way of being that perturbs god not at all.
So ... while it might be taking some license or a semantic shortcut to say that "many" Christian doctrines literally "hang on one verse" ... it is a valid overall point that "many" Christian doctrines are far more subjective and/or debatable than the keepers of Christian orthodoxy care to generally admit or leave the impression of -- even when limiting the admission of "evidence" to scripture alone.
The doctrine that there is a separate experience of being filled with the holy spirit, evidenced by a phenomenon called "speaking in tongues", comes very close. Of course you will claim this isn't a Christian doctrine because you don't personally subscribe to it. But it is a doctrine that significant numbers of Christians practice and it is based really on a half-verse. Given that "speaking with other tongues" is mentioned in the tail end of Mark 16 which is widely agreed to be absent from the best manuscripts, we are left basically with Acts 2:4 as a scriptural "basis" for the practice, despite that the verse doesn't actually say that tongues are evidence for the filling of the spirit, or what exactly tongues are, or whether it is normative for all time or something relevant to what was going on in Jerusalem a couple thousand years ago.
You're right. I don't subscribe to it. It's not a Christian doctrine, as not all Christians believe in it. It is not an essential doctrine, and is up for debate.
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The concept of the "unpardonable sin" is based on one verse, I believe. It is of course never stated WHAT that sin is, so it serves as a template for whatever sin someone is particularly apoplectic concerning. It has been used for everything from unbelief to overt blasphemy (itself a highly subjective concept) to masturbation.
The rest of Scripture is clear that if we believe in Christ we are saved. We can debate what that one sin is, but it's a non-issue to anyone that has faith in Christ.
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Many denominations teach an "age of accountability" when childhood innocence ends and a person becomes responsible for their sins before god. THAT teaching is based on exactly no Bible verses AT ALL. It is simply a derived teaching based on other derived teachings. Technically, if you subscribe to eternal damnation, original sin and the need to satisfy the holiness of god and his bloodthirst for justice, newborn infants who die on the way out of the birth canal head straight to hell.
Again...not an essential doctrine. It's not something I teach, to be honest.
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I'm sure there are other doctrines based on one or even zero verses. Of course what's generally regarded as core Christian orthodoxy by a variety of denominations generally has more apparent scriptural support than that precisely because more is said about it and it requires more work to distance yourself from it.
But they are not "Christian doctrines" as much as they are teachings of men in certain groups.
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But there is another class of doctrine that is somewhere in between; it's mentioned in more than one verse but all the verses that mention it are extremely vague to build detailed positions on top of, particularly when you examine them closely. For example, the concept of hell is nowhere near as clearly taught in scripture as it might superficially appear. The KJV stacks the deck in favor of a literal hell, but careful reading in the original language coupled with an historical understanding of terms like "gehenna" and the subtraction of the influence of extra-Bibilical works like Dante's Inferno mean that universal reconciliationists can make a convincing scriptural argument for their position.
It's definitely clear enough. Yes--there are plenty of verses to support it, and it is not a "1 verse doctrine".
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What relatively little the Bible has to say about homosexuality is another example. There's enough wiggle room that different Christian denominations do everything from decry it as the most vile of sins, to it being simply an alternate way of being that perturbs god not at all.
The entirety of Scripture speaks to the idea of male/female marriage. There is never any endorsement or command for same-sex marriage or homosexuality as a good thing, yet there are NUMEROUS passages in the OT as well as the NT that outright condemn it. To suggest that there is any kind of real wiggle room is really kind of dishonest.
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So ... while it might be taking some license or a semantic shortcut to say that "many" Christian doctrines literally "hang on one verse" ... it is a valid overall point that "many" Christian doctrines are far more subjective and/or debatable than the keepers of Christian orthodoxy care to generally admit or leave the impression of -- even when limiting the admission of "evidence" to scripture alone.
Yes, there are some that are debatable. There are numerous others that people simply don't like, so they find a way to justify it in their minds and not believe it.
An infinitely intelligent being wanted to pass down a book to us and he had enough room for about 31,000 English words. Why so much redundancy (e.g. 4 books about Jesus' life, lots of repeated stories) and so much space taken up with stuff that isn't relevant to us anymore? Not to mention the fact that many Christian doctrines hang on a single verse. You would think that if God wanted to communicate to us a concept like the Trinity or Predestination, he would've dedicated a whole book to making it clear. Also, it would've been nice if he could've included a hint about how to cure cancer or AIDS.
This is what happens whenever what was meant to be an individual revelatory experience is mistaken for a divine command for the masses. And then these diverse messages, each of which was meant for a single person or small group, were edited and cobbled together by a whole horde of diversely fallible humans, resulting in an incomprehensible and contradictory mishmash of good and bad intentions combined with intelligent and idiotic suppositions and opinions.
If there were a God He certainly could have, which to me is pretty telling.
I'm sure you or others would find plenty of reasons to discount it, no matter what was given to us.
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