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Have you read the whole Bible?

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Litwitlou

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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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.
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Nope. Some parts just stop me dead -- like the "begats."

Or:
2 Kings 2:23-24 (KJV) Elisha

23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

So now I stick to the Gospels. I admire the philosophy of Jesus Christ. Much of the rest of the Bible is bad. I mean bad in many ways. The Old Testament God is cruel, insecure, prone to temper tantrums, and just bad. It's like a 7-year-old is running the universe.
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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TEKennelly wrote:Mr. Marks, the prophets can be very good reading, but use of a commentary is often helpful.
There are some parts of the prophets, mainly the familiar ones like the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel, the suffering servant in Isaiah, all of Jonah, Amos, or Hosea, that are engaging and speak to me.

A good commentary can help overcome the feeling of irrelevance in the long, boring parts. Without it I might as well be listening to someone recite the Ramayana in Hindi. But there is still no getting around the seemingly endless jeremiads and lamentations, the repeated doomsaying for Edom and Egypt and Elam and Moab that goes on without anything of the eternal emerging.

I have on my wish list the commentary on the prophets by Rabbi Heschel, for whom I have enormous respect. I think it would lift things a bit, but honestly there is only so much that can be done, in my view.
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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So I'm not alone. Maybe we should all read and discuss some sort of condensed version.
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Litwitlou wrote:.
.
Nope. Some parts just stop me dead -- like the "begats."

Or:
2 Kings 2:23-24 (KJV) Elisha

23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

So now I stick to the Gospels. I admire the philosophy of Jesus Christ. Much of the rest of the Bible is bad. I mean bad in many ways. The Old Testament God is cruel, insecure, prone to temper tantrums, and just bad. It's like a 7-year-old is running the universe.
No argument on how bad most of the bible is.

I see more than one Jesus in scriptures. One moral, the other not so much.

Most see only the Rome created Jesus. He is spoken of in this link. It shows rather poor morals coming out of the philosophy of Jesus that you like.

I also have some problem with it, especially his no divorce stance and his substitutionary punishment endorsement. If you would like to chat on what I see as your poor judgement of these moral issues if you agree with Jesus, as well as the issues the link speaks of, I am here for that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUfGRN4HVrQ

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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Chris OConnor wrote:So I'm not alone. Maybe we should all read and discuss some sort of condensed version.
Jefferson did just that. I do not know how many pages he ended up scrapping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwZ1uvvEVig

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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Gnostic Bishop wrote: I see more than one Jesus in scriptures. One moral, the other not so much.

I also have some problem with it, especially his no divorce stance and his substitutionary punishment endorsement.
The stance of Jesus against divorce, whether or not he really took it (Matthew should always be considered suspect on legalism) is usually seen today to have been a rejection of husbands abandoning their dependent wives. Accepting divorce in such an economically imbalanced society could be seen as putting all the pressure on wives to please their husbands (there were no alimony arrangements, at least for peasants without powerful clans behind the wife).

It is a problem for many topics, including divorce, if we take it as a "once for all time" pronouncement. We have to make allowances for cultural differences, and different meanings in different times.

The current scholarly view is that Jesus did not endorse substitutiary punishment. "My body, broken for you" and "my blood, shed for you" or even "for the remission of sins" has many possible interpretations besides the substitutiary version in Hebrews (and even there atonement is not presented as "taking the place of someone deserving to die" as we tend to hear it today). Up until Augustine the most common view of atonement was that it healed the relationship between God and humans by demonstrating divine love and sanctifying a new covenant.

It helps to understand that the Jewish view of atonement, informing the Day of Atonement in the high holy days, was that a sacrifice is a way of sanctifying the encounter of repentance, rather than a payment for a debt owed on account of sin. Sacrifice to seal a pact (or covenant - same thing) was very common in that part of the world going back more than a millennium. The common meal eaten from the sacrificed animal was as important as the death of the animal.
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Harry Marks wrote:
Gnostic Bishop wrote: I see more than one Jesus in scriptures. One moral, the other not so much.

I also have some problem with it, especially his no divorce stance and his substitutionary punishment endorsement.
The stance of Jesus against divorce, whether or not he really took it (Matthew should always be considered suspect on legalism) is usually seen today to have been a rejection of husbands abandoning their dependent wives. Accepting divorce in such an economically imbalanced society could be seen as putting all the pressure on wives to please their husbands (there were no alimony arrangements, at least for peasants without powerful clans behind the wife).

It is a problem for many topics, including divorce, if we take it as a "once for all time" pronouncement. We have to make allowances for cultural differences, and different meanings in different times.

The current scholarly view is that Jesus did not endorse substitutiary punishment. "My body, broken for you" and "my blood, shed for you" or even "for the remission of sins" has many possible interpretations besides the substitutiary version in Hebrews (and even there atonement is not presented as "taking the place of someone deserving to die" as we tend to hear it today). Up until Augustine the most common view of atonement was that it healed the relationship between God and humans by demonstrating divine love and sanctifying a new covenant.

It helps to understand that the Jewish view of atonement, informing the Day of Atonement in the high holy days, was that a sacrifice is a way of sanctifying the encounter of repentance, rather than a payment for a debt owed on account of sin. Sacrifice to seal a pact (or covenant - same thing) was very common in that part of the world going back more than a millennium. The common meal eaten from the sacrificed animal was as important as the death of the animal.
It is hard to speak of what Jesus taught if you reject what scriptures say he taught before even entering the discussion.

Let's go with straight logic and common sense then. Not a bad idea.

It is immoral to prevent anyone who wants a divorce from having it as that would prevente people, male and female, from seeking a loving partner to live life with. This would be regardless of what one is seeking a divorce for, from abuse to just the realization that they are living in a loveless relationship.

To deny someone love, for any reason, be it religious or cultural is immoral.

As to substitutionary atonement, regardless of what we might think the Jews thought, we have to recognize that Yahweh/Jesus initiated that policy even before the world was created and is an immoral policy. We have to assume that the Jews who wrote the O.T. were supporting that injustice or they would not have put it in the O.T.

Having another innocent person suffer for the wrongs you have done, --- so that you might escape responsibility for having done them, --- is immoral. To abdicate personal responsibility is immoral.

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DL
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Gnostic Bishop wrote:
Harry Marks wrote: The current scholarly view is that Jesus did not endorse substitutiary punishment. "My body, broken for you" and "my blood, shed for you" or even "for the remission of sins" has many possible interpretations besides the substitutiary version in Hebrews (and even there atonement is not presented as "taking the place of someone deserving to die" as we tend to hear it today). Up until Augustine the most common view of atonement was that it healed the relationship between God and humans by demonstrating divine love and sanctifying a new covenant.

It helps to understand that the Jewish view of atonement, informing the Day of Atonement in the high holy days, was that a sacrifice is a way of sanctifying the encounter of repentance, rather than a payment for a debt owed on account of sin. Sacrifice to seal a pact (or covenant - same thing) was very common in that part of the world going back more than a millennium. The common meal eaten from the sacrificed animal was as important as the death of the animal.
It is hard to speak of what Jesus taught if you reject what scriptures say he taught before even entering the discussion.
Well, whether or not it makes things "difficult" the evidence says we have texts which are not straight journalistic history, if only based on the internal differences. They are efforts to present a religion through a story of a life, and we can guess which sayings actually reflect Jesus' words, but we cannot be sure.

You may be familiar with non-canonical gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. If we go with those Gnostic texts as having the same authority as the canonical Gospels, the result is a rather different picture of Jesus. Likewise you may know that John 8 features a story not present in the most ancient texts, namely the woman caught in adultery ("He who is without sin may cast the first stone.") Unfortunately there is no reason to think it is an authentic saying. We just have to guess the best we can.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: It is immoral to prevent anyone who wants a divorce from having it as that would prevente people, male and female, from seeking a loving partner to live life with. This would be regardless of what one is seeking a divorce for, from abuse to just the realization that they are living in a loveless relationship.
Well, I might tend to agree in a country with a social safety net and pretty good wages for women. And even in the context of Jesus' day, I suspect it would have made more sense to say a man had to continue supporting his wife even if he didn't want to live with her. (Of course, given the times, when women were expected to please their husbands as a matter of his rights, that might have seemed wildly impractical).

But I also think it might be a good idea to consider the relative frequencies of people thinking they have found a new love when all they have really found is the novelty of a new relationship. Christianity tends to emphasize the rewards to making things work with the old relationship, and nowadays we try to offer coaching in the skills needed to keep love alive. But if divorce is what is called for, and sometimes it is, then it ought to be an option.
Gnostic Bishop wrote:As to substitutionary atonement, regardless of what we might think the Jews thought, we have to recognize that Yahweh/Jesus initiated that policy even before the world was created and is an immoral policy.
Umm, why do we need to recognize something which has not been established? Sure, some people have believed it, but Christianity includes an enormous breadth of different beliefs.

What I was saying is that the early Christians probably did not believe in a substitutiary penalty. That is a later theory read into the texts, and probably not the best interpretation of the texts. The closest any of them come is the book of Hebrews with its "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." Now try how that sounds through our understanding of ancient practice, in which the "shedding of blood" was to consecrate a pact, rather than to pay a penalty for a crime.
Gnostic Bishop wrote:We have to assume that the Jews who wrote the O.T. were supporting that injustice or they would not have put it in the O.T.

Having another innocent person suffer for the wrongs you have done, --- so that you might escape responsibility for having done them, --- is immoral. To abdicate personal responsibility is immoral.
As far as I know, there is no text in the OT that even seems to say sacrifice is in place of a penalty. Perhaps I am missing something.
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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Harry Marks wrote:
Gnostic Bishop wrote:
Harry Marks wrote: The current scholarly view is that Jesus did not endorse substitutiary punishment. "My body, broken for you" and "my blood, shed for you" or even "for the remission of sins" has many possible interpretations besides the substitutiary version in Hebrews (and even there atonement is not presented as "taking the place of someone deserving to die" as we tend to hear it today). Up until Augustine the most common view of atonement was that it healed the relationship between God and humans by demonstrating divine love and sanctifying a new covenant.

It helps to understand that the Jewish view of atonement, informing the Day of Atonement in the high holy days, was that a sacrifice is a way of sanctifying the encounter of repentance, rather than a payment for a debt owed on account of sin. Sacrifice to seal a pact (or covenant - same thing) was very common in that part of the world going back more than a millennium. The common meal eaten from the sacrificed animal was as important as the death of the animal.
It is hard to speak of what Jesus taught if you reject what scriptures say he taught before even entering the discussion.
Well, whether or not it makes things "difficult" the evidence says we have texts which are not straight journalistic history, if only based on the internal differences. They are efforts to present a religion through a story of a life, and we can guess which sayings actually reflect Jesus' words, but we cannot be sure.

You may be familiar with non-canonical gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. If we go with those Gnostic texts as having the same authority as the canonical Gospels, the result is a rather different picture of Jesus. Likewise you may know that John 8 features a story not present in the most ancient texts, namely the woman caught in adultery ("He who is without sin may cast the first stone.") Unfortunately there is no reason to think it is an authentic saying. We just have to guess the best we can.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: It is immoral to prevent anyone who wants a divorce from having it as that would prevente people, male and female, from seeking a loving partner to live life with. This would be regardless of what one is seeking a divorce for, from abuse to just the realization that they are living in a loveless relationship.
Well, I might tend to agree in a country with a social safety net and pretty good wages for women. And even in the context of Jesus' day, I suspect it would have made more sense to say a man had to continue supporting his wife even if he didn't want to live with her. (Of course, given the times, when women were expected to please their husbands as a matter of his rights, that might have seemed wildly impractical).

But I also think it might be a good idea to consider the relative frequencies of people thinking they have found a new love when all they have really found is the novelty of a new relationship. Christianity tends to emphasize the rewards to making things work with the old relationship, and nowadays we try to offer coaching in the skills needed to keep love alive. But if divorce is what is called for, and sometimes it is, then it ought to be an option.
Gnostic Bishop wrote:As to substitutionary atonement, regardless of what we might think the Jews thought, we have to recognize that Yahweh/Jesus initiated that policy even before the world was created and is an immoral policy.
Umm, why do we need to recognize something which has not been established? Sure, some people have believed it, but Christianity includes an enormous breadth of different beliefs.

What I was saying is that the early Christians probably did not believe in a substitutiary penalty. That is a later theory read into the texts, and probably not the best interpretation of the texts. The closest any of them come is the book of Hebrews with its "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." Now try how that sounds through our understanding of ancient practice, in which the "shedding of blood" was to consecrate a pact, rather than to pay a penalty for a crime.
Gnostic Bishop wrote:We have to assume that the Jews who wrote the O.T. were supporting that injustice or they would not have put it in the O.T.

Having another innocent person suffer for the wrongs you have done, --- so that you might escape responsibility for having done them, --- is immoral. To abdicate personal responsibility is immoral.
As far as I know, there is no text in the OT that even seems to say sacrifice is in place of a penalty. Perhaps I am missing something.
I know of none either. Even if there were, it would likely not be for a person to be sacrificed but an animal to be consumes at the party given to celebrate the Jews forgiving each other.

They used two lambs in their sacrifice. One to release and carry the sins away and the other to eat.

1Peter 1:20 0 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

That quote is the only one I know of that hints at human/Jesus being chosen as sacrifice.

It is also God saying that he is subject to asking for and accepting a bribe to change his usual desire to punish the guilty and accept the punishment of the innocent.

I wonder how many would vote for such a vile criminal judge.

Regards
DL
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Re: Have you read the whole Bible?

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How would an abbreviated bible work as a BookTalk.org discussion? Also, I have to wonder where we'd put such a discussion forum. Non-Fiction, Fiction or in our "Special Forums" section?
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