And it’s proportional to the size of the Bible. The guy who carries around a great big old tombstone sized copy is a much more likely target than the guy who simply has a small pocket version he keeps in his coat.
(Theodore Roosevelt was saved from a gunshot when the bullet hit his – lengthy! – speech script. If he’d been a more economical speaker, he’d have been dead! Loquaciousness has some strange benefits.)
In my collection of Bibles, I have one that has a little metal cover on the front and back, with a metal spine and little hinges. Cute as cute can be, and it might stop a bullet. Maybe I should carry it with me at all times…and not let anyone know!
This is a broad topic but I will take a stab at it too. I appreciate the Bible, not for any religious revelations but mainly because it is a collection of books that have survived mostly intact for literally thousands of years. There are few other examples of that and none as comprehensive. When the Dead Scrolls were found in a cave, most people assumed that they would show large amounts of editing between when they were transcribed and today. No they didn’t for the most part. The parts of the Old Testament that can be referenced back are mostly word for word translations of the same books that you can find in copies of the same books that you can find in any bookstore today. That is remarkable and I appreciate the continuity.
The thing I like least about the Bible is the extremely poor editing and contradictions. Some examples are the two conflicting creation stories in Genesis alone almost back to back (it is one short book for God’s sake; pick one and stick to it) as well as the conflicting stories in the Gospels of the New Testament. I also do not like the side effects that the addition of chapter and verse numbers introduced. Those don’t exist in the original versions of the books but they are a mainstay of every Christian church that I have ever attended. Instead of being simple bookmarks, they are used to truncate and edit stories in ways that were never intended by the authors sometimes in horrifying ways.
Most Christians know the story of Job as defined by such artificial bookmarks. Now go back and read the same story without them. It doesn’t stop in the same place and the message is completely different. There are lots of examples of that type of thing. I have read the Bible cover to cover (although not in one pass) and it is a really bad literary work overall. That doesn’t even include all the books that were discarded when it was finally assembled by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Being really old doesn’t excuse terrible editing in my view.
The thing that impressed me most is that, if all Christians were rendered amnesic today, there is absolutely no way to reassemble modern day Christianity based on the source material in the Bible itself other than the bare basic philosophy. Almost all of the rituals, holidays and even supposed history either do not exist at all or do not play a prominent part in it. It was almost all made up much, much later or example, try to figure out what Jesus really did based on the Gospels. The stories are short, scant and contradictory. The Gospels weren’t even written at all until many decades after his death. The important parts only include about the last 3 years of his life.
It sounds nice when you leave out the first half of the story. God wouldn’t have needed to redeem us if he hadn’t condemned us in the first place. If I don’t believe I ever sinned against God then I don’t believe I need God’s forgiveness.
It has a lot of weird/controversial content which Christians try to not focus on… http://www.thebricktestament.com/home.html
I’m not a Christian anymore but I go to church sometimes and like to discuss the controversial bits every now and then.
I doubt that a God had anything to do with the Bible, if a supreme being did it would not have so much contradictions. The God of the Bible is not at all like some people think he is, because if reading and thinking about they way he is portrayed it would be an insult.
As i read the Bible it showed me that the God of the Bible was not just, loving , or all powerful, and a human father would be put in jail if he treated his children as the all knowing powerful being some say that he is.
Because the belief in the Bible is really the work and words of other humans who is just claimed to be inspired by a supreme being.
In reality if Jesus is quoted right, he told the woman who wanted his help for her child, that his coming was just for the lost sheep of Israel. Of course he healed her child( according to the Bible) ,but didn’t seem to come to save everybody as some claim.
I used to have a table with a missing piece of scrollwork on one of the legs. The bible took-up that space quite well. I could have used the phone book, but I sometimes have to look-up phone numbers. The Bible has a “numbers” section but I found it undecipherable. Much like the rest of that tome. Seriously, the Bible can be condensed into fortune cookie size; Do as you would have done to you. Well, unless you’re a masochist. Ok, that’s not poetic. But it works well enough most of the time.
You’ll often get the same from Charles Swindoll or Charles Stanley. And while Bob Russell retired, his Church is still broadcasting much the same message. However, all of them are basically conservative Protestant Christians, so take that as you will.
The actual Bible - without the fanfic the Christians consider its second half - is my country’s national epic. It is to Israel what Homer is to Greece and Shakespeare is to England. We don’t even have to believe anything of it is true to see its importance.
No matter what or who we choose to believe, it is still the work and word of another Human, That is proof, We take humans word, no one can prove there is a God so it can’t be proven that it is anything but the word or teacihings of a Human that believed God inspired that person or even their self!
“Fanfic”? Maybe I could regard the records of your parents’ marriage the same way…
I did not ask for the blather or links present in the last few postings on this thread. As far as I am concerned, people who post such things are themselves woefully ignorant. If you can’t give me a direct answer you shouldn’t bother trying.
