simple bible questions

I was composing a response to another thread and ran into questions of my own but did not want to hijack her thread, so I will ask this here.

Plain and simple:
Is the bible the word of god or not?
Is it to be taken literally or not?
Does one have to "think differently" to understand the word of god?
Can a person, without theological education, read and understand the bible?

I thought I knew the answers to these questions but after listening to the opinions of others, I am unsure.

I have seen posts and threads responding to these questions but they were always in relation to something else or so confusing that I could not understand exactly what was being said.

Peace,
BG



[Edited on 4-1-2004 by beergoggles]

all these questions are can be determined by you, and if you believe in the bible or not. as a Christian i do believe it is the word of god, i do take it literally, i suppose one would have to think differently to understand it, i don't see satanist picking up the bible anytime soon. i do find the bible hard to understand though and for me it is difficult to just sit down and read the whole thing as if it were a regular book.
i do believe that man manipulates the bible for his own needs, take a look at the t.v. preachers, i don't go to church either because i believe most of the people in the churches are hypocrites. i don't believe in pushing religion on people either, you can make the choice on your own if you want to believe or not.

Im agnostic myself, but Ive always found it amusing that people are usually selective about what they take literally and figuratively from the bible.
For example, "jesus actually DID walk on water" (impossible?), rather than taking the statement as a poetic reference to his greatness.
But then, the concept of eternal life is not always taken literally, because 'well.......you live forever, but you still die'? And then you live on 'in spirit'......so dont take that part quite as literally. you have to die to get the eternal life part.
To me, that selectiveness of people interpreting something into everyday english that was already interpreted (poorly, some may say) into old english long long ago, is a bit silly. I think it should all be taken as poetic reference, but thats just me.
I think you would have to 'think differently' in order to understand the euphemisms and such that were common in the times that the respective parts of the bible were written. I think then things would begin to make a little more sense.

Originally posted by beergoggles
I was composing a response to another thread and ran into questions of my own but did not want to hijack her thread, so I will ask this here.

Plain and simple:
Is the bible the word of god or not?
Is it to be taken literally or not?
Does one have to "think differently" to understand the word of god?
Can a person, without theological education, read and understand the bible?

I thought I knew the answers to these questions but after listening to the opinions of others, I am unsure.

I have seen posts and threads responding to these questions but they were always in relation to something else or so confusing that I could not understand exactly what was being said.

Peace,
BG



[Edited on 4-1-2004 by beergoggles]

Based on your questions here is my answers

the bible is the story of man either spoken by god "visions said to write it etc." and is the storys of how the writer viewed the world, and when instructed wrote the word of god. (the bible is a collection of books written by many authors not one.)

most people can tell when it is to be taken literal or not but remember at the time the known world was very small compared to the known of know, so when someone talks about the world they can be talking about a few thousand square miles. if you are uncertain if its literal or not ask a priest or someone who studies religion.

god speeks to everyone in his own way for god knows you personally from whence you are concieved. so one does not need to be a conformist, to understand his word nor its meaning, the bible is very spiritual and if you go into thinking its rules that pertain to a few then your views need to be altered.

the bible is not the study of religion rather a guide to ones life on how one should lead or base his life, god does not tell you to judge he leaves that to him. one can read the bible without any knowledge of it and think it is a wonderful story and collection of books about a people who believed in a very powerful being from above or below. but people who also believe in this being use this book as a study of its god and its people who lived during a time of great struggle.

it is hard to say, but there are a few things that must be taken literally if you are a christian. the most important of these is that you accept Jesus as your savior. In fact, if im not mistaken this is all that is asked of you to not go to hell, where as most other faiths are on a "merit" system where actions in your life determine your outcome. The thing with Christianity is that it assumes mans imperfection

the bible was written down by a man actually many different men, many men wrote more than one book of the bible, most of the things in the bible are to control ppl. A person must think very differently to find the meaning, for it has been hidden over the many iterations of bible edits. In the beginning there were 4 versions of the bible that were used by different sects of the cult of yaweh.
Jesus came along and tried to uncorrupt everything, and for that his following was known as a vile superstition. Jesus tried to put love back into people and get them to see how corrupt it was. But after he passed the church changed what he taught to what the church wanted taught and they hid his words and took out most of the true knowledge he was teaching and stuck in all kinds of myths from different religions to try and confuse things.
then after they had figured out how to hide jesus' teaching they unleashed the whole bible new and old testament to the ppl in a form nothing like that which started it and they controlled the ppl and took in their money and made life suck basically haha.

the bible is to be combined with all the other texts to find the knowledge that was cut into pieces at the fall, i entirely disagree with thebutcher you are your own savior and nobody will save u but yourself

You must think differently to understand, "one must fast from the world to see the kingdom of god" so yes someone could just pick up the bible and read it and maybe understand whats is actually being said
i think that training makes u miss the thing thats out there, it's part of the COINTELPRO