How literally do you actually take the bible?

Let me begin with explaining where this question comes from. I was raised in a fundamental christian family, where the bible was the absolute word of god. Even at a young age, I had a lot of questions that couldn't really be answered. I started questioning a lot of things I took for granted as a small child. I tried to live as a devoted christian, but there was always the nagging in the back of my head that something was not quite right. In my early adulthood, I gave up christianity and became involved in the occult, where I still am today, happy and healthy.
I have been reading several topics here and some of the christian views on worldly things that are all but too familiar to me. One question I had for a long time came back to me and I felt myself wondering about how christians here think about this.

My question is this: how literally do you take the bible?

As I said, I was brought up with the idea that the bible is the actual, literal will of god, and that every word in it is the truth. As a child I already wondered why my gay uncle that shared an apartment with his boyfriend, wasn't stoned to death, then. Apparently I was being a little bit too literal on that one!
So, how literally do you take the bible?

reply to post by DarknessFollows


I look at the bible as a historical textbook, full of important information about our past.

Im an atheist, so i don't accept its proposed meaning. But i do believe it could hold the answers to many of our most important questions. Just not the answers that are blatantly given.

Its an important book, no doubt. I just wish people would stop living by it in this day and age.

Good question

About the same as Aesops Fables.

Hence the fable part lol.

Has some good points, but noone should go around stoning, children men and women and gays, (not that gays aren't people).

I think some good can be taken out of anything.

The good book, is particularly a bad book!

I can see why you would consider the bible to be a historical document in the sense that it gives us information on life in ancient times, but this:

Im an atheist, so i don't accept its proposed meaning. But i do believe it could hold the answers to many of our most important questions.

How does an atheist find answers to most important questions in a religous book? And what kind of questions do you mean, for example?

Like page 54 of the Daily Telegraph!! the meat between the sandwich. Insoluble and hard to digest unless your an already conscripted believer.

[edit on 11/9/2009 by scubagravy]

reply to post by Republican08

Ofcourse people should not be stoned, or killed because they have different beliefs, but the bible clearly states that people ought to be stoned/killed/punished for several reasons. It says so quite literally. I would like to know how christians who take the bible literally, handle these kinds of demands. Hence my question, how literally do you take the bible?

reply to post by DarknessFollows


My point is that i dont see the bible as a religious book, so any answers i get from it are not from God, or from a religious viewpoint.

What i mean by answers is what Zecharia Sitchin and Jordan Maxwell amongst others speak of. A different meaning, a different history, a different creation.

Not that i believe it, but its certainly interesting. These theories are the only reason i own a bible and have read it.

Originally posted by DarknessFollows
reply to post by Republican08

 

Ofcourse people should not be stoned, or killed because they have different beliefs, but the bible clearly states that people ought to be stoned/killed/punished for several reasons. It says so quite literally. I would like to know how christians who take the bible literally, handle these kinds of demands. Hence my question, how literally do you take the bible?

Honestly they askew it, pick and choose, and choose wisely due to 'secular' reasoning.

To get people to do good things is reasoning.

To get people to do bad things, now that takes religion!

reply to post by DarknessFollows


new testament doesn't say we should stone homosexuals. being christian means following christ's teachings. i ain't sure why they included the torah and prophets in with the new testament, other than for the point where jesus and the apostles quote from it occassionally, the prophecies of one seem to support the prophecies of the other, but other than that, the teachings are almost entirely different.

I think the bible is a story book written by a very wise person.

It makes a lot of sense...God would be the main hero, and all the others just a part of the story.

Also, when you are referring to being stoned, you mean like...high?

If so, then you are taking it wayyyy too seriously..

NOTE: English ain't my main language so I might just not understand what you mean by stoned....

[edit on 11-9-2009 by Deep Thoughts]

reply to post by DarknessFollows


I too was raised in a fundamentalist family but sooner or later the logical inconsistencies added up and I abandoned the Bible as the "Word of God" and started looking at it more as just one of many religious texts asserting itself as absolute truth.

I realized that a true God wouldn't have written just one book or chosen just one group of people or one religion, that's the sort of flawed thinking man does not an allknowing God. A God so big He created the Universe would either be obvious and in the open (as in always being down here with us in a physical obvious form) or God would be so vast and unknown a concept that He would be undefinable through human language and perception as it exists today.

The Bible is based on our notions and perceptions of God, it is myth blended with historical fact and makes for a great story but at the end of the day it is just that - a story, to be analyzed and interpreted by the reader. Too often Christians just accept what their pastor or parents tell them without actually looking for deeper meaning they just accept the interpretation of a pastor or particular denomination of Christianity. The Bible was changed over the ages and used to control, so a lot of what's in there was used to support the Crusades, inquisitions, etc.

So I don't recommend taking it literally...

To paraphrase Bill Hicks the message of the Bible if taken literally becomes:

"Eternal suffering awaits those who reject God's infinite love"

My understanding of the text of the Bible is profound. So much so that I can say with 100% certainty that the book contains subject matter that while true and worthy of the moniker "Word of God" has the ability to lead the reader straight to Hell.

Don't eat the fruit from the Tree that's in the midst of the Garden.

reply to post by undo

reply to post by undo

I disagree with you here. Doesn't jesus himself say: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
Doesn't that count for all the laws?

I agree with you that the old and the new testament seems to be worlds apart. To me, it has always been as if two different gods were involved. For me, one of many reasons to reject christianity. However, most christians will agree that the bible (being the old and new testament) is the absolute word of god. So, they cannot be separated. Thus, the laws should still apply, according to jesus himself.

The Bible is a collection of writings by over 40 people in a few thousand years. As a Christian, I believe in the acuracy and validity of this book. It has to be taken into context though. A lot of the things that people abhor such as stoning were practices for the people of Israel. I look at the Bible as more than a book of history and prophecies. Even Aesop's Fables had a moral to the story.

reply to post by Deep Thoughts

Your definition of 'stoned' is a much more humane approach to those minorities that need correction, according to the good book!

reply to post by darkelf

I guess that means you are not taking the bible literally.

reply to post by DarknessFollows


first you have to define "all the laws" and you have to make sure the words in english were in the original text. for example, it mentions in the noah text that all the animals were brought into the ark but word "all" isn't in the original hebrew text. it was assumed by the translators. not sure how far back in translations but i think it was also in the greek and latin versions.

also, i tend to avoid paul's writings in the new testament, primarily because they aren't from jesus but from paul. and although paul may have been deemed a living prophet, i prefer jesus' approach to that of paul's. so you will have trouble making a point with me cause you're approaching it from the perspective that all christians must be a certain way and as we have learned, "all" is perhaps a bit too broad of a brush.

reply to post by Titen-Sxull

Great post, and very true! I completely agree with this.

"Eternal suffering awaits those who reject God's infinite love"

This is what I have learned as a small child. I have always wondered how much free will there was in this. "Sure, you have a free will. You can either choose to worship me, of spend eternity in misery." Not much of a choice, eh?

reply to post by DarknessFollows


It's not two different God's, but two potential realities which can emerge from the same God. Religious books in general, but Abrahamic books in particular, are written based on their experience with one or both of these potentialities.

Religions, along with their holy texts, modify God's character, thus giving the impression that there exists more than one. But their is only one.

Consider my Avatar...that man in the West was known as Charlemagne...in Central Asia/Middle East, he was Tamerlane. His behavior and how he is remembered is just a matter of what book he followed. The Bible in one case and the Koran in the other.

But they are the same person.

reply to post by DarknessFollows


Let me ask you a question...

Who did you question about the bible?