Bible stories... Fiction or the word of a God?

[Urbanredneck]

@Osiris_the_1st

It’s a collection of myths and legends much akin to Greek and Roman mythology, and should have no more impact on our daily lives than that.

I would agree if every story in the Bible was some supergod character like Hercules or Athena or Zeus going around doing daring deeds.

But the rest of the Bible talks about people doing good or serving God. For example Nehemiah, who was a cup bearer and close advisor to the Babylonian King Artexerxes, who nonetheless, wanted to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the city 150 years after its destruction and his peoples exile. Artexexes is inspired to not only allow Nehemiah to do this, but provides money, free passage, and material support. It’s a great story and one you should read.

As for Jesus himself, its amazing to me that in only 3 years of ministry he inspired 12 of his disciples to be missionaries to the world, leading to a movement that really within 100 years or so changed the Roman empire.

[entomos]

@monavis

In John 10 he explains why he calls God his father, using the words of the Psalmist. " I said you are gods and sons of god , So why do you say I blaspheme because I call God my father when your fathers did?"

Below is the actual passage with a bit more context–John 10:22-42 (NIV). Clearly, Jesus claims the Messiah is greater than those being referred to in that Psalms passage. “‘[W]hat about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world?’” His response may have slowed them down a bit, but it did not satisfy them or completely stop them. “Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.”

Then came the Festival of Dedicationb at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.[URL=“John 10:27 My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me.”] My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than allc; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’d? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.
Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. There he stayed, and many people came to him. They said, “Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true.” And in that place many believed in Jesus.

[monavis]

@entomos

Below is the actual passage with a bit more context–John 10:22-42 (NIV). Clearly, Jesus claims the Messiah is greater than those being referred to in that Psalms passage. “‘[W]hat about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world?’” His response may have slowed them down a bit, but it did not satisfy them or completely stop them. “Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.”

There was many who over a period of time claimed to be the Messiah, In 400 B C E there was a man named Simon who was thought to be a Messiah and he should suffer for the people.

It stills boils down to the fact that it is the word of humans and even the word God had different meanings. Reading many old stories through history the word God seemed to mean a thing or person of strength and Power, hence the gods of wind, rain, thunder, the sun etc. Any one can say god inspired them to say or do something but in reality it is their own thinking.

That is one reason the God of Abraham doesn’t act like a good father or some, being who knew all things ahead of time or he would not have created Satan and his angels nor created a human race with faults, then punish him, and Kill Jobs family to make a point with an evil being when he knew in advance that Job would stand by him and would kill job’s family to make such a point!

[Voyager]

@entomos

Voyager, I have to admit that you did manage to get a chuckle out of me with the “whoops. Well, he meant to do that!”

We agree that some interpretations are more far-fetched than others; we just disagree on which are the more far-fetched. For example, those are unfounded, far-fetched accusations regarding the NT twisting or inventing stuff about Jesus. In addition, Paul was a Jew through and through, yet he saw no problem with the paradox of the Messiah being a son of David and the Son of God. It is quite consistent and logical. From his greeting in Romans 1 (NIV)

So, what’s the solution to the inconsistency? Just saying Paul didn’t have a problem doesn’t cut it - fanatics rarely do, Odd he says appointed, though? Did he think that Jesus was born of Joseph but God make him his son - kind of adopted son of God?

[COLOR=black][FONT=Trebuchet MS]The story is logical, consistent and profound. One of the more profound prophecies to me is that of Abraham being told by God to offer his miracle son Isaac as a sacrifice (see Gen 22 passage below). Christians see this as a now clear foreshadowing of God offering his own son as a sacrifice for the sin of mankind. The story even introduces the saying, “On the mountain of the LORD, it will be provided.” And it repeats God’s promise, “Through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed.” The parallels with the crucifixion of Jesus are striking: the father acts willingly; the true son is to be the sacrifice; the son carries the wood; the son goes willingly; the actual offering is to be done by the father. In both cases, God provides the sacrifice and all nations on earth are to be blessed.

I’m quite familiar with the Isaac story. Note that in this story the son does not die. If the resurrection cancels out the sacrifice, it is quite pointless, isn’t it? The actual story is about Abraham being willing to follow and trust God to the ultimate level of sacrificing his only and most loved son. Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac to God - God sacrificed Jesus to - himself? And don’t tell me God had to do it - God doesn’t have to do anything.
Nope - the Christians just latched onto the one sacrifice story and perverted it into support for their problem that the Messiah didn’t make it very long.

There is no ‘whoops’ about it. Christians did not invent it; it was already foretold in Scripture. God really did mean to do that; Jesus really did mean to do that. And to me it is very consistently done indeed; in fact, profoundly so. Also, it is not the sort of thing I would expect from a human standpoint. It is certainly not the sort of thing that appeals to human pride.

I challenge anyone reading the Isaac story with no knowledge of Jesus to predict Jesus from it. And it wasn’t meant to appeal to pride, it was meant to explain away an unpleasant fact. Islam has the advantage that their prophet didn’t die on the first day, but returned to conquer. They have a stronger case.

Jesus was not the only one to claim to be the Messiah during that time. But historically Jesus was not a big concern to the Romans; it was the Jewish leaders that were so bothered. They were able to drag the Romans in, namely Pilate, forcing their hand with the King of the Jews claim. True these Jews were worried that it would not be just Jesus, but perhaps the entire nation that would suffer if they continued to let it go on. However, it was not Jesus’ concept of Messiah that was feeding all of the tension and fear, but rather the concept of Jews around him. Fast forward another forty years and we see the terrible fate of Jews that held on to the worldly Messianic hopes. The Christian Jews were not a part of that.

Messiah’s in general did not do well. Never have. The concept, however, is in the Bible and is quite clear. Justify it as you wish, it is there.

Now we don’t know what happened, of course. There are lots of problems with the story. And we have no evidence at all, except in the Bible, for any of it. As I said, blaming the Jews might have been in retaliation for the disinterest of those closest to the events. A resurrection? Earthquakes? The dead walking the streets? Ho hum. Maybe the actual reason for the lack of interest was because much of it never happened. However the story has caused a lot of misery over the centuries, which is why I think most Christian leaders have rejected it.

Jesus was in the big city more than a week more than once, though it did tend to be a bit dangerous for him there, and not only there. His final Passover week neatly follows the plan that fits the above prophecy. It is easy to see that people being dominated by invaders for centuries would be looking for a military leader. But the picture given in the Bible from the beginning is one of mankind becoming separated from God due to sin. And note that Christians did not invent that either. The continuation of the story as presented in the NT is perfectly consistent with the need to finally resolve that issue. That God would have to solve the problem himself would seem obvious to anyone who has ever tried to live a sinless life, though some might try to pretend there is no such thing as sin, or try to deny their own sins. Again, it is a profoundly consistent story.

We can atone for sin. Only a monster god would make people inherently sinful and then punish them forever for it. I know people think that the Jewish version is cruel and the Christian version kind, but the Christian version is far more the monster. The God I grew up with only obliged those in the Covenant. The God I grew up with didn’t torture people for eternity. If I believed in any god, I have no problem with that one.

[Hector_St_Clare]

@Latro

No, the Bethlehem story is the far-fetched one and unfounded.
A census that requires people to go back to their place of birth? Really?

The story does become logical when you want to attribute to someone from Nazareth, that, actually, he really was from Bethlehem…

Only if you make the mother to be from the house of David.
What you call “profound” is what we call far-fetched.

The definition of the Messiah was quite clear.
Jesus is inconstent with the requirements.
Only by twisting and making up stuff (sorry, by profound insght) can Jesus as the Messiah be made to seem credible.

Joseph was his legal father, and his adoptive father, so I don’t see why it’s incompatible with the ‘house of David’ thing. God was his real father, as a matter of ontology & causation, and Joseph was his father as a legal fiction.

The ‘house of David’ thing seems to be to be the weakest part of the Gospels, since there are two genealogies that contradict each other, and there must be an error somewhere (though I’m open to being corrected). I think what Luke and Matthew were both pointing to, though, was that Jesus had some kind of legal connexion to be a heir of David, even if one or both of them got some genealogical details wrong.

[entomos]

@Latro

No, the Bethlehem story is the far-fetched one and unfounded.
A census that requires people to go back to their place of birth? Really?

The story does become logical when you want to attribute to someone from Nazareth, that, actually, he really was from Bethlehem…

Only if you make the mother to be from the house of David.
What you call “profound” is what we call far-fetched.

The definition of the Messiah was quite clear.
Jesus is inconstent with the requirements.
Only by twisting and making up stuff (sorry, by profound insght) can Jesus as the Messiah be made to seem credible.

Yes, I understand that we see it from two very different perspectives. Thus, our views on reasonable, profound, far-fetched–and vice versa–will naturally be at odds. This was my observation from the outset.

Historical details are scant in general. The tendency for some seems to be to distrust the Bible on historical details, if there is no very clear corroborating evidence outside. But as archaeological evidence grows, an unfortunately but necessarily slow process, the tendency is to vindicate the Bible. Sometimes it is neutral, but it never disproves the Bible. One of the more well-known instances is that of the Hittites. For a very long time, only the Bible mentioned them. Skeptics were therefore skeptical they ever existed. This is no longer the case. Here is a brief reference to this: http://www.bible-archeology.com/2014/01/hittite-kingdom-no-myth-here.html. When it comes to historical details, Luke was once considered highly inaccurate by skeptics. That was dispelled by the skeptic William Ramsay, who was actually in a position to investigate. Here is a brief reference to that: When did the Luke 2 census occur? - ChristianAnswers.Net. (Seems rather reminiscent of the vestigial organs issue.)

Again, we do not agree that the concept of the Messiah is whatever the obvious one is that you claim. I do agree that someone might think they know before the Messiah arrives/arrived on the scene. But putting together all of the prophecies might not be such an easy task. The religio-political leaders of the time had it all wrong per Jesus and, soon after the resurrection, his followers. The resurrection of course is the final proof.

[Czarcasm]

@Hector_St_Clare

Joseph was his legal father, and his adoptive father, so I don’t see why it’s incompatible with the ‘house of David’ thing. God was his real father, as a matter of ontology & causation, and Joseph was his father as a legal fiction.

The ‘house of David’ thing seems to be to be the weakest part of the Gospels, since there are two genealogies that contradict each other, and there must be an error somewhere (though I’m open to being corrected). I think what Luke and Matthew were both pointing to, though, was that Jesus had some kind of legal connexion to be a heir of David, even if one or both of them got some genealogical details wrong.

Biblical linage just does not work that way. If Jesus is not the actual son of Joseph, and if Joseph is not a direct descendent of David, the Jesus does not fulfill the prophesy, period.

[Voyager]

@entomos

Historical details are scant in general. The tendency for some seems to be to distrust the Bible on historical details, if there is no very clear corroborating evidence outside. But as archaeological evidence grows, an unfortunately but necessarily slow process, the tendency is to vindicate the Bible. Sometimes it is neutral, but it never disproves the Bible.

ahem the Flood ahem
Exodus. The date of the buildings Solomon was supposed to have built. The great Davidic empire that no one else noticed. (And I know there is evidence of the existence of a king named David.)

The existence of kingdoms which everyone at the time would know about is not evidence of the truth of the odd stuff, no more than the existence of Kansas is evidence for the truth of the Wizard of Oz.

[entomos]

@Latro

Where does the bible present itself as such?

To me it just seems like a collection of local writings accumulating from 600 B.C ,
with an addendum from a new splitter movement.

Before giving my response, let me share one rabbi’s nutshell history of the Jews: “They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat!”

I do agree the Bible is a collection of writings, but a very special one with a unifying theme. However, it is not quite the history of the Jews, but rather of God and man. Maybe you could call it a myth, but in this case, the myth is true and it’s a love story. God does have a competitor in the story, namely sin. And sin has an advocate, the Devil. Our entire space-time continuum of matter and energy is the stage for God to demonstrate his love for us in a way no perfect world could. Now you can whine all you want that it should never have been this way, many do. Actually, I suspect we all do at certain points along the way. But it was never meant to be the end and our lifetimes here are quite short, especially in comparison to eternity. The point is to embrace love, something evidently not so readily done, given all we read and see in the news and in history, and, if we are honest, in our own selves. For God to willingly suffer the extreme humiliation of Jesus for people who are as stubbornly rebellious as we have been and in that act take care of all the ultimate consequences of our rebellion… Well, that kind of love to me is just amazing and irresistible. And yet God does not force even that conclusion on anyone. Hell, if you think you’ve got something better and would rather be left alone to your own devices, that is your choice. Just don’t imagine you will be left to perpetrate it on others.

From the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?

A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, [a] and to enjoy him for ever. **

[Voyager]

@entomos

From the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?

A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, [a] and to enjoy him for ever. **[/FONT]

Need little guy, isn’t he?
And might I remind you that the torment of Jesus, even if true, were nothing when compared to the torments his followers imposed on millions of others.
Or as one thread back in alt.atheism had it “Jesus gave up a long weekend for your sins.”

[Hector_St_Clare]

@Czarcasm

Biblical linage just does not work that way. If Jesus is not the actual son of Joseph, and if Joseph is not a direct descendent of David, the Jesus does not fulfill the prophesy, period.

What God intended by the prophecy, and how the contemporary Jews interpreted it, are two different things.

[Czarcasm]

@Hector_St_Clare

What God intended by the prophecy, and how the contemporary Jews interpreted it, are two different things.

It’s just not that simple, and the reasons just aren’t that easily dismissed. Why Jews Don’t Believe In Jesus.

[Latro]

@Hector_St_Clare

What God intended by the prophecy, and how the contemporary Jews interpreted it, are two different things.

You mean the bible is like an onion?

[simster]

@Hector_St_Clare

What God intended by the prophecy, and how the contemporary Jews interpreted it, are two different things.

Who is qualified to decide what “God intended by the prophecy”?

[Czarcasm]

@simster

Who is qualified to decide what “God intended by the prophecy”?

Apparently everyone on Earth but the Chosen People He gave the prophesies to in the first place. :smack:

[simster]

@Czarcasm

Apparently everyone on Earth but the Chosen People He gave the prophesies to in the first place. :smack:

Partially correct - the real answer is

Whomever agrees with my interpretation

[Der_Trihs]

@Latro

You mean the bible is like an onion?

It’s certainly made a lot of people cry over the centuries, so sure.

[entomos]

@Voyager

ahem the Flood ahem
Exodus. The date of the buildings Solomon was supposed to have built. The great Davidic empire that no one else noticed. (And I know there is evidence of the existence of a king named David.)

The existence of kingdoms which everyone at the time would know about is not evidence of the truth of the odd stuff, no more than the existence of Kansas is evidence for the truth of the Wizard of Oz.

For some reason, it seems this is confusing the point made. My observation is that archaeological evidence does not disprove the Bible at historical points, that it is either neutral or supports it. I do concede that certain interpretations may end up being disproved, but that is inevitable when there are competing interpretations. There have been skeptical reservations raised because the Bible mentions something not evidenced elsewhere. But such reservations continue to be shown to be unfounded, as the tendency is to eventually show that the Bible was right all along. The Bible is unique. It continues to defy the odds and scatter such skepticism. At some point, it is unreasonable to maintain that sort of skepticism. Whoops! Well, what about … Whoops! Well, what about…

[entomos]

@Czarcasm

It’s just not that simple, and the reasons just aren’t that easily dismissed. Why Jews Don’t Believe In Jesus.

Perhaps it is more complex, but the summary was to the point. God gets to say what the prophecies mean, not the ones who hear it first, nor even the ones inspired to write. Thanks for the link. But the self-contradictory explanation is only why some Jews don’t believe in Jesus. There are more than a few Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah, e.g., Jews for Jesus, and of course the earliest Christians were Jews. Then there are those Jews who believe all sorts of other things, things completely incompatible with the Torah and the Prophets.

[entomos]

@Voyager

Need little guy, isn’t he?
And might I remind you that the torment of Jesus, even if true, were nothing when compared to the torments his followers imposed on millions of others.
Or as one thread back in alt.atheism had it “Jesus gave up a long weekend for your sins.”

I’m certainly not going to defend whatever sins have been committed by anyone claiming to be doing it for Jesus or for God, but I’m also not going to concede that whatever sins you are referring to were all committed by followers of Jesus. In any case, it is a sinful world and we all need saving, no exceptions. Yeah, I laughed at the joke, but as far as what Jesus suffered for us, I don’t think we really know the extent of it. I suspect it was a longer weekend than anyone can imagine.