How literally do you actually take the bible?

The Council of Nicea distorted large parts of the Bible. So today, some of it is divinely inspired, some of it human, and some of it has a real negative vibe and impact.

So you have teachings of love and compassion (Jesus) mixed in with stuff such as a wrathful, angry God (parts of the Old Testament)...a bunch of books that dont really fit together.

[edit on 11-9-2009 by Skyfloating]

reply to post by DarknessFollows


Darkness, i take the bible as literally as I take NASA and the Official 9/11 story. They all have literal truths, eg. there is a moon, the WTC did collapse, and Jerusalem did exist. They just have a lot of BS explanations, fraud etc.

Your story sounds exactly the same as my escape from sin-prison. I am thankful in a way for my orthodox-christian brainwashed childhood though; I have a strong working knowledge of Christianity, and am now sort of immune to it. A bit like overcoming a strong infection. It also gave me immunity to the other related strains of the virus like ((insert judgmental religion here))

An orthodox Christians reply will be that some parts of the bible are literal, others need interpretation. "Which parts?" you ask
"Well," replies the christian, "using common sense, and wisdom, and praying to God about it"
"So the parts that fit in with our belief system/ what we want, we label as true, and parts that make no sense or are contradictory we interpret?"
"No," says the christian, "God reveals himself to us through his word. Through prayer and pertition, and blahblabhlabhl"

I interpret the Bible "normally" as opposed to literally. What I mean by this is that, I take the Bible at it's face value unless the language used is figurative, metaphorical, etc. Just as we do in our day to day lives. When someone comes in from outside and says, "Boy! It's raining cats and dogs," we don't understand that to mean that animals are falling from the sky.

Earlier, it was stated that the Bible has been edited a lot by people to suit their needs. I just wanted to say that that is not true. All the original manuscripts and texts of the Bible that we have are very consistent with one another. The overwhelming majority of the differences result in spelling errors.

It was also asked earlier why the Old Testament is part of the Christian Bible. The answer is rather simple. Christianity grew out of Judaism. It would only make sense then for the adherents to adopt those 39 books. Beyond that, the Old Testament puts a lot of stuff in the New Testament into perspective, such as Jesus and why he came. Without the Old Testament, it would be really had to understand Revelation as well, because John took a lot of his imagery from the prophets Daniel and Zechariah.

doublepost

[edit on 11/9/2009 by Inkrinhuminge]

I take it as literal as I can.

Some of the obstacles to completely understanding it are that is was written thousands of years ago so perspective and culture is vastly different, multiple authors with different writing styles and viewpoints, it has been translated through multiple languages, sometimes the authors were trying to describe things they had never seen before, etc. Also there are a lot of places where I am unsure if the Bible is being literal or using comparison's.

As for me personally, I do not take the Bible literally at all. After all, like pretty much 99.99% of things in this life, one cannot prove something is real or true to anybody else unless they have experienced and confirmed it themselves. The Bible is an objective, material object that may be interpreted a thousand different ways in hundreds of different languages.

The meaning and truth you draw from this object is subjective; the answers you seek will come from within...

Edit: I removed the first part of my response because it now seems unnecessary and boring.

[edit on 11/9/2009 by Dark Ghost]

Well God does admit to being a Jealous God. Look at him as a loving spouse. He can be the most kind and loving person until you cheat. Then there is anger and hurt and tempers fly. At least he doesn't deny he has that issue.

i think this comes really close to explaining the entire thing and it's amazingly, both literal and figurative
(note: it isn't christian or religious. it's just telling what we know so far about "reality" trademark, copyright)

reply to post by Skyfloating

The Council of Nicea distorted large parts of the Bible.

How so? All the Nicean Council did was discuss the canonicity of certain books—2 & 3 John, Jude, 2 Peter, Hebrews, Hermas, and Barnabas. The rest of what we call the New Testament, 22 books (Matthew-Philemon, James, and Revelation), was already accepted as canonical throughout the Church at this time. Of course, the Old Testament was accepted as well.

The Council couldn't have "distorted" what was discussed because, everything that was discussed was known by Christendom at large, but thought of more highly in some parts than others. So, if something was changed, or distorted, there most certainly would've been foul called. In other words, 2 Peter couldn't have gone into the Council with seven chapters and come back with only three. Third John couldn't have started at it's current length and ended up being as long as Romans.

Well God does admit to being a Jealous God. Look at him as a loving spouse. He can be the most kind and loving person until you cheat. Then there is anger and hurt and tempers fly. At least he doesn't deny he has that issue.

But it would be the same god that teaches us to turn the other cheek?

reply to post by Inkrinhuminge

Reading this is as if I'm reading my own story. And you're right, it is kind of overcoming a virus and becoming resistant.

reply to post by DarknessFollows


that's perhaps removing a turtle from the stack, one that you don't need to remove as it is part of the bigger picture. for example, at one time it was said the bible couldn't possibly be real because it talked about things like
people flying, women becoming pregnant without sexual congress, angels moving about in the sky and space, wheeled vehicles ringed with eyes, firey chariots carrying prophets into space, and so on. today, we can do every one of those things.

this is the one that gets me. let's say scientists remove one of a pair of quantumly-entangled particles from your body and put the other one on the other side of the universe. if they change the one still in your body, it will INSTANTLY effect the one on the other side of the universe. no time delay at all.

Firstly, you have to try and understand that the bible is not only a book with words that make a story of history, but rather the possibility of it being a supernatural life within the words, a living word with incredible mysteries hidden within it. You cannot find, nor understand these deep hidden mysteries by reading the bible as a book.

The living Word that speaks to you, is very different to words in a book that you try to prove as being true. It can only truly be understood through your spiritual eyes.

What XXXN3O said is true, ask Jesus, if He is real, to show you, because no man can explain the "truth" to you because the real truth can only be understood by YOU in the Spirit, through Jesus.

The whole bible is like a treasure map to me, back to His garden before the fall of man.

And yes, the commandments are very important to God, but you don't have to do them anymore, in fact you cant do them.

His law is written on your heart when you become His. So you keep His commandments, not from trying, but by the Spirit within you, because you love Him. It just happens through His love. Its hard to explain, but I tried, lol.

Sorry if you do not understand, its the best I could do.

Peace!

reply to post by octotom


I should have said "The Nicene Council distorted the teachings of Jesus".

The council was led by a Roman Emperor with the purpose of defining what is and what is not Biblical, what is and is not Christian. It seems that anything that did not fit the views of those present, was not included.

reply to post by DarknessFollows


He also tells us to be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves. The is discernment to be had. That's the ideal of course, be we also live in a violent society, but in many cases that is the best way to handle a situation.
Like I said before untill 7 months ago I was in your shoes, its a total forget everything I ever learned about Christianity and relearn type process.

reply to post by Skyfloating

I should have said "The Nicene Council distorted the teachings of Jesus".

Well, that's not really possible. The only teachings of Jesus that would've been around back then would be those that are included in the New Testament Gospels. All the Gnostic Gospels hadn't been written yet, with the exception of Thomas—which, was rejected by the early church very early on because it didn't match up with what they knew Jesus said.

The council was led by a Roman Emperor with the purpose of defining what is and what is not Biblical, what is and is not Christian.

From my understanding, Constantine only called the Council, he didn't actually lead it, but I could be wrong. In any event, the Council didn't meet to define what is/isn't Christian. They met with the sole purpose of discussing the afore mentioned epistles. That's it.

Also, Christianity had already been around for almost 200 years when Nicea was held. Christianity had also spread to many different parts of the known world and to many different culture groups. So, even if the Council had met to say "what was Christian" it would've been hard for anything decided to actually stick. Do you think the church in Syria or Persia would've taken well to someone coming and telling them to act in a Roman way? They certainly wouldn't have!

We can see from Church history, too, that in that part of the world, Christianity, after the early years, wasn't really a unified thing. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church were always at odds. So, even if they met to set the standard for Christian practices, they failed miserably.

reply to post by octotom


Allow me to simplify our dialogue to its essential question:

Do you think that it is not possible that the Bible or Jesus teachings were altered, manipulated, removed, added in any way?

(My am assuming your answer is that it is not possible. My answer is that it is possible and even likely, because the teachings (especially Old and New Testament) contradict each other, dont seem to fit together. Saying this happened in the year 325 in Nicea is speculation on my part)

Originally posted by undo
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.

The answer is,Jesus and His apostles were jewish.The jewish faith is the
base of the christian faith.
Prophecy, in the old testament,was about the Messiah's first coming.Jesus
fulfilled all prophecy about the Messiah.Believers in Yeshua await His return.Yeshua is hebrew for Jesus.

I look at the Bible as a collection of Myths and Fables that were passed from generation to generation and finally copied down in one area of collection.

To be able to actually quote someone's exact comments 500 years after the fact is Fiction.

Imagin now trying to quote someone from 1509 (500 years ago). Impossible to do.

We also have the Translation Problem. Over the years the Bible has gone through a lot of different Translations and the meaning WILL change with each and every translation.

It is beyond me WHY some people look at this Fictional Book as something to base your life around!

It is my belief that the bible is inspired, yes, but not to be taken literally. We are not those people who lived back in those times, thus we have no true appreciation for the context and viewpoints of those writing it.

In life, it is often times more important to pay heed to the message and not the messenger. I think that the bible follows suit with that. There are plenty of great themes and messages present throughout the whole book(s).

I think that the bible is also a lot more metaphorical in nature than people oftentimes think.