Is the bible the implied word of God? Or the precise word? (activist, environmentalists)

[An Einnseanair]

Background: I am a devout Christian who believes that the Bible is the perfect Word of God as filtered through the minds of far-from-perfect men. The Bible contains Truths and lessons on how to live life, but it is not in and of itself a perfect document because the men who wrote it were not perfect humans.

Originally Posted by Albert_The_Crocodile

Spend some time hanging out on the Religion forum. There are people there regularly insisting that it is the absolute, literal word of god himself. Period.

I have relatives who homeschool. Their children's "science" learning includes the facts that the universe is 4000+/- years old and that dinosaurs walked with man. I believe that when they open their computer browser it defaults to Answers in Genesis.

Originally Posted by Albert_The_Crocodile

To answer the OP... I think it's extremely unlikely to be the word of god, but at the same time, I have to admit that it's impossible to prove one way or the other. Like you, I find it difficult to believe that god was as ignorant of basic science as whomever wrote the bible obviously was, so I consider it almost certain that it was entirely written by the primitive, semi-barbaric humans of the time. I can't imagine that god could have been stupid enough to think people would really believe that nonsense - but the people of that day would have been, because they had no way to know any better.

The Bible proves nothing about God's ignorance toward basic science. It only proves that the humans transcribing God's word were ignorant. Try to imagine a stone- or bronze-age prophet talking to potential followers about quantum physics, microscopic organisms, or the vastness of geologic time. It's actually possible this attempt was made, but we've never heard of it because the prophet would have been killed for being insane.

Now try to imagine a God trying to protect His people by teaching them basic ways to avoid communicable diseases via quarantine (Numbers 5: 1-4), telling them how to clear a house of mold (Leviticus 14:33-48), telling them to avoid eating unclean foods that may transmit disease (pigs, shellfish, etc.). There would be no way to discuss the vastness of time to a people whose ancestral memory is only a few dozen generations, so the world was created in 6 days.

[Mr. In-Between]

Originally Posted by jwkilgore

Background: I am a devout Christian who believes that the Bible is the perfect Word of God as filtered through the minds of far-from-perfect men. The Bible contains Truths and lessons on how to live life, but it is not in and of itself a perfect document because the men who wrote it were not perfect humans.

I have relatives who homeschool. Their children's "science" learning includes the facts that the universe is 4000+/- years old and that dinosaurs walked with man. I believe that when they open their computer browser it defaults to Answers in Genesis.

The Bible proves nothing about God's ignorance toward basic science. It only proves that the humans transcribing God's word were ignorant. Try to imagine a stone- or bronze-age prophet talking to potential followers about quantum physics, microscopic organisms, or the vastness of geologic time. It's actually possible this attempt was made, but we've never heard of it because the prophet would have been killed for being insane.

Now try to imagine a God trying to protect His people by teaching them basic ways to avoid communicable diseases via quarantine (Numbers 5: 1-4), telling them how to clear a house of mold (Leviticus 14:33-48), telling them to avoid eating unclean foods that may transmit disease (pigs, shellfish, etc.). There would be no way to discuss the vastness of time to a people whose ancestral memory is only a few dozen generations, so the world was created in 6 days.

Thank you for that reply. It's a very well-considered and articulated point of view, and I appreciate your sharing it. It's given me a lot to think about.

The first question that springs to mind, though, is this - god (being that he's god, and all that) simply had to know that the human race was on the verge of making incredible, mind-boggling advances in the world of science, and that within a few hundred years, the teachings he was passing on to those primitive people would no longer seem credible to the human race. Why did he not make any apparent allowances for that?

It would have been so simple, if he really wanted people to believe in him. Just a clear and unequivocal command to Moses to make sure that he wrote down the words, "the light of day is caused by two particles too tiny to see, joining together to form another particle." Tell him to write those words down exactly like that, on pain of death, even if he didn't understand them. Anyone reading those words 2000 years later would probably have no choice at all but to accept that they could only have been divine communication, the direct word of god. That single sentence, and that sentence alone, would probably have been enough to settle forever the question of whether there was a god and whether he had, indeed, spoken to the Abrahamic prophets.

Or, alternatively, where is he now? Why did he only speak to humans for about 1500 years, and then vanish forever? Why doesn't he pop in again every few hundred years and say, "oh, yeah, one more thing y'all should know..." Again, that would probably settle the issue once and for all, for everyone on earth.

But no, he chooses not to do that. Why? Why was his message important enough to speak to the prophets on a monthly basis for a few hundred years, but somehow not important enough to reiterate it from time to time in the thousands of years since? I don't get that. Doesn't seem either logical or consistent with what we know about him.

To me, the most likely explanation for the reason the bible sounds as though it as written by primitive people is simply because... it was written solely by primitive people. I may well be wrong, but that seems the far more logical conclusion to me.

[Glenfield]

Here is your challenge, as I see it. You are reading a collection of ancient books, written to ancient peoples, using their idioms, expressions, and worldview as a framework, and in a foreign language that has very different syntax, sentence structure, and verb tenses than your own. So I meant nothing disparaging by your comment that you didn't know what you were reading; often I dont know where to start either. And this is why people can come to different interpretations.

My suggestion is to start with a good primer like Fee and Stuart before you begin. Then read an entire book beginning to end in two or thre different translations. Then go back through the book slowly, using a number of different commentaries that offer different viewpoints. Luther, Henry, Spurgeon, Piper, and NT Wright would be a good selection.

My thought is to not approach this as a how to guide for life. It is not a guide on how to e a good person. It is the story of God's quest to redeem his people throughout history and the provisions he's made for us. Everything fits into this framework of God's redemptive story.

This won't be easy and I do not know why God made it so hard. But maybe he wants us to spend a lot of time on this. I don't know.

I also didn't mean anything negative when I said your mind was closed, nor that it's always permanent. I just know that a non-existent god speaks to no one, but God can speak to you through this book.

Finally, I see you on the Minnesota forum sometimes. If you are in the Twin Cities, I know of a group of like minded skeptics who get together to discuss these sorts of topics. If you are interested, DM me and I will send you details.

Blessings.

One more thing. Here is a link to an article that I thought you might find interesting and perhaps useful as you contemplate these issues

Stand to Reason | The Bible is Not Full of Contradictions or Errors

[An Einnseanair]

Originally Posted by Albert_The_Crocodile

Thank you for that reply. It's a very well-considered and articulated point of view, and I appreciate your sharing it. It's given me a lot to think about.

The first question that springs to mind, though, is this - god (being that he's god, and all that) simply had to know that the human race was on the verge of making incredible, mind-boggling advances in the world of science, and that within a few hundred years, the teachings he was passing on to those primitive people would no longer seem credible to the human race. Why did he not make any apparent allowances for that?
...[snip]...
Or, alternatively, where is he now? Why did he only speak to humans for about 1500 years, and then vanish forever? Why doesn't he pop in again every few hundred years and say, "oh, yeah, one more thing y'all should know..." Again, that would probably settle the issue once and for all, for everyone on earth.

Because it wasn't a "few hundred years", it was several thousand years. If you go with young earth numbers, the time from Genesis to Jesus was even longer than the time from Jesus to now. Where exactly did the "1500 years" number come from?

To the people who do not believe that the Bible was received intact, in English, via direct email from God, the world is much much older. The old Testament, especially the Five Books of Moses (Torah, or Chumash: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), is a compilation of stories, histories, and laws passed down by oral repetition for millennia before they were written down. This is followed by what is probably many more thousands of years during the rest of the Old Testament (Jewish Tanakh). And then comes the 2000+ years since Jesus.

And who says God "vanished forever"? Followers of Islam would definitely disagree with that, since their "fourth and greatest prophet" wasn't born and start listening to God until quite some time after Jesus.

Incidentally, trying to discount three entire world-wide religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) by defeating the arguments of a relatively tiny extremist wing of one of the religions is the classic manifestation of a straw man argument. It is also completely off topic. The purpose of this thread is to debate whether the Bible is the literal Word Of God, (i.e., the universe was created in 6 days about 4,000 years ago; dinosaurs walked with man; a great flood covered the entire planet; etc.) or whether the Bible is the implied Word Of God. The basic fact that it some form of Word Of God is a given. Any argument about whether God even exists belong in the Religion forum.

[Nighteyes]

Actually, I think the most accurate description of the Bible is the "alleged word of God." Because there can be no proof short of a sonorous voice speaking to all of Humankind from the modern-day equivalent of a burning bush, so it will remain for the unconverted.

That's where faith comes in. The believers -- the converts -- those who have faith -- see/understand it as the precise word of God; whether it is the literal word of God, and whether it is literally true, is still a matter of some disagreement among them.

-- Nighteyes (who follows the teachings of Christ as he understands them)

[An Einnseanair]

Originally Posted by Nighteyes

That's where faith comes in. The believers -- the converts -- those who have faith -- see/understand it as the precise word of God; whether it is the literal word of God, and whether it is literally true, is still a matter of some disagreement among them.

Which, as I understand it, is the exact purpose of this thread. To bring forth arguments as to whether the Bible should be taken literally or figuratively. So far the only arguments have been "figuratively", and "there is no God". None for "literally" thus far.

[Transplanted99]

Originally Posted by Nighteyes

Actually, I think the most accurate description of the Bible is the "alleged word of God." Because there can be no proof short of a sonorous voice speaking to all of Humankind from the modern-day equivalent of a burning bush, so it will remain for the unconverted.

That's where faith comes in. The believers -- the converts -- those who have faith -- see/understand it as the precise word of God; whether it is the literal word of God, and whether it is literally true, is still a matter of some disagreement among them.

Probably the most accurate response. It is strictly an article of faith.

Originally Posted by Hombre_Corriendo

The bible is, of course, written by men. Dozens, in fact, over the span of about 1500 years. And all those passages and verses were never even meant to be part of a singular, coherent, piece of work called a bible. They existed for centuries--up until a scant 1600 or so years ago--as merely individual papyrus scrolls.

True. Actually, the first version of the collection of "canons" that trace to today's Bible were "assembled" (my word) from a larger body of texts / scrolls in existence up to that time - just shy of 400AD. It was culled from several texts (that have existed even centuries before then). However, it seems that a final version was not agreed upon until the 1500s.
Bible - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by Hombre_Corriendo

There are hundreds of different accounts of Jesus' life, for example, but the Early (catholic) church deemed only four fit for inclusion in their canon.

Also true. The Bible has not been static, and neither is it a single agreed upon text across all Christianity. For example, "...the Protestant Old Testament of today has a 39-book canon—the number of books (though not the content) varies from the Jewish Tanakh only because of a different method of division—while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books (51 books with some books combined into 46 books) as the canonical Old Testament. The Eastern Orthodox Churches recognise 3 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151 in addition to the Catholic canon. Some include 2 Esdras. The Anglican Church also recognises a longer canon."
Bible - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (same as above link)

I was surprised to find that there are some books that were just not included, even by some of the writers who have some of their texts included, which seems to challenge the notion articulated in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Peter - as just one example of many books: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Los..._Books_of_Eden

Perhaps a better question than the one posed..."Is the Bible infallible, and incapable of error?" rather than getting wrapped around the axle on if it is the actual word (which we know to have been translated across several languages).

[censusdata]

I was raised in a very conservative version of Christianity that takes the Bible literally word for word. They even refer to themselves as "strict constructionist" and view other protestant groups as liberal for allowing instrumental music, women preachers, etc. I've read every part of the Bible and most of the Bible many times.

I do not believe it is the word of God because there are lots of contradictions, both word to word and theological.

Theological

God is all knowing, all powerful, can see the future

Problem: Man has foiled and caused God's plan to CHANGE 2 times. We are on Plan C. Plan A was foiled when Eve ate the fruit. Plan B was the Old Testament which didn't work either. So we're on Plan C, which is Jesus and the New Testament. What if heaven fails to be paradise? God intended Adam and Eve to live in paradise in the Garden of Eden. The Old Testament repeatedly promises that God will restore Israel and crush their enemies

Jesus was misrepresented or a nut

Jesus repeatedly slams the Old Testament way of doing things but repeatedly claims that he was part of the God head and had authority at the creation. So He would have condoned the stoning of adulterers in the OT but refused to allow a stoning in the NT. Etc. The Sermon on the Mount says the OT is basically bull... so why would He have helped create the Old Law?

I believe Jesus was a charismatic teacher who condemned religious hypocrisy and said to instead focus on helping the poor and sick. His followers embellished who he was posthumously and created the Christian religion

[Memphis1979]

Most Christians that I know believe that the bible was written by man, but inspired by God.

My personal opinion on this is that if it was written by man, inspired by God or not, it is inherently flawed as Man is.

The modern Bible was formed at the behest of Roman emperors. The priests decided to leave some books in, and others out, and in what order they needed to be. Much dispute was had about Revelations.

Is the bible literal? Jonah was not swallowed by a fish. Yes, the original text says fish. The people of the time knew damn well what a Whale and a fish were, and they knew the difference. We changed that in modern times to a whale, so it more alligned with pinochio.

Even Jesus said conflicting statements. When asked about the laws of Moses he stated "you know my fathers laws" but when you ask modern Christians why don't follow the ancient laws, they'll say thats because Jesus created a new covenant that disolved his "fathers" old laws.

The bible is not literal. It was a collection of ancient stories by people who didn't understand natural events as caused by a world rotating around a sun, but by a world controlled by God.

Is God out there? That answer is up to you. I see and feel God everyday. Do I think I hear it? Maybe, there is a voice inside me guiding me down what might be considered a right path. But I don't expect everyone else to believe that, and I'm certainly not telling people how they should live their lives.

[Floorist]

Originally Posted by Wendell Phillips

The King James Version of the Bible was a revision of William Tyndale’s translation of the Greek and Hebrew texts (i.e., the Geneva Bible and Bishops’ Bible) by committees of scholars ( the "good pens") appointed by Francis Bacon, and revised by him while serving as Solicitor General to the royal court. The first printing in 1611 is adorned with Bacon’s Rosecrucian ciphers.

Bacon was the greatest intellect of his time, and his writings were very influential. Besides his contribution to the revision of the English Bible stands his works on science, philosophy, history, law and literature; and it should not be surprising that there is considerable scholarship that would attribute the works of Shakespeare to his hand. The language of these works is a form of literary expression that Francis Bacon invented and perfected in his Essays that were written (and revised) contemporaneous in time, and which express his ideas in his unmistakable writing style throughout. Indeed, one can say with confidence that the King James Version of the Bible is a masterpiece of English literature because Francis Bacon made it so.

And Emperor Constantine's priests compiled the books together for him. They also threw out many accepted religious books that did not fit in their book. And remember, they were under penalty of death to get the book finished for the Emperor's timetable.