/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11396942]

Let's talk about the Bible.

Are you a theist or an atheist?

When you read the Bible how do you read it?
How do you interpret it?
What do you take as historical and what do you take as non-historical?
Do you think the non-historical stories were divinely inspired?
What does the word God mean to you?

Any other Bible discussion welcome, as long as it's civil.

[Anonymous No.11396960]

>>11396942
I believe that there is a god.

I do not, however, believe some book that some fuckos wrote over 2000 years ago and that has been censored and modified more times than the average anon's mom has been fucked holds a lot of answers on what he likes, hates or finds funny.

[Anonymous No.11396964]

>>11396942
I'm an Orthodox Christian. I read whatever books or chapters are relevant to the liturgical cycle or my personal study.

All of the parts that are presented as historical are historical. This includes Adam, Noah, the Flood, Abraham, etc. All Scripture was divinely inspired. "God" is the God revealed to us in history, in Scripture, and in the Church. God is the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit.

[Anonymous No.11396972]

>>11396964
Does that mean you believe in a young earth?

[Anonymous No.11396978]

Christian here. I always believed there was a higher power, but I converted when I started to apply the teachings of the Bible to my life and it improved in a matter of weeks. It's the original guidebook to living a fulfilling spiritual life

[Anonymous No.11397008]

damn bruh shitposted another day away

[Anonymous No.11397047]

>>11396972
Yeah, I believe that all of creation is less than 10,000 years old, just as the Holy Fathers did.

[Anonymous No.11397056]

>>11397047
I don't mean this in an insulting way, I'm honestly curious. What is it that makes you believe the Bible and the words of the Church Fathers over modern science? Is it just a matter of faith, or is there something else to it?

[Anonymous No.11397057]

Atheist here, but yes, i've read the bible. And i think it's quite interesting.
I really couldn't care less if any of it happened or not. I like some stories and that's all.

God? Doesnt mean much to me.

[Anonymous No.11397087]

>>11397056
I went from Anglican to atheist-enamored-with-"scepticism" to Orthodoxy, so the question doesn't offend me. For me, the first step was realising that "modern science" doesn't say anything. It's not a person to be believed.

[Anonymous No.11397129]

agnostic here
I used to teach it as a narrative story of fiction to high school kids
My curriculum went like this Genesis->Exodus->Job->New Testament selections, particularly the gospels
I usually interpret it the way I interpret any literature - what arguments does the story make/what insights does it reveal into the human condition? What in the text contradicts itself and what doesn't? and finally, what is the most bananas shit that happens in it.

The very first lesson I teach is the first sentence of Genesis, which essentially tells us that God exists outside of space and time, therefore he lies outside the grasp of human understanding because we can only understand what we see around us, but here's a fucking 1200-page manual on how to understand god despite this.

[Anonymous No.11397138]

>>11396942
i read it as a cross between tribal military propaganda and fanfic, distorted through the fresnel lens of having been translated from greek, to latin, to old english, to modern english, messed with by every special interest group in the past two thousand years and then haphazardly edited to remove as many traces of its jewish tribal polytheism as possible.

tl;dr it's a fucking mess

[Anonymous No.11397154]

>>11397138
You can read the New Testament in the original Greek. You can read the LXX translated into Greek hundreds of years before Christ.

[Anonymous No.11397175]

>>11397129
>which essentially tells us that God exists outside of space and time
The exact opposite message of the Bible. The entire Bible is the story of God's interaction with His Creation. I bet you don't even know why you think it's impossible for the divine to interact directly with humanity.

[Anonymous No.11397182]

>>11397175
i don't take a theological view of it my guy - school rules dictate that I can't, but my students can, and some certainly do see it that way. I've taught that class to evangelicals, atheists, pagans, wiccans, etc.

[Anonymous No.11397191]

>>11397182
I'm not asking you to teach it, I'm saying your lesson is dumb. It's not even a question of theology. It's asked in philosophy. Could a person that transcends space and time also exist within space and time?

[Anonymous No.11397200]

>>11396942
Agonostic, mainly

I read it as a series of allegories, possibly influenced by history. I do not believe that Genesis was literal history but I do think that there is possibly some sort of truth buried deep within layers of symbolism.

God, to me, means that divine spark that is apparent in every living creature, great and small, strong and weak, violent and peaceful. God is that glimmer of light and that opportunity for a creature to do what can only be described as ultimately selfless and good for the world. God is also the ugly, vile, monotonous, seething hate that every living thing has the potential of doing. God is both of these things to me, but those are only facets of God, for God can only be described as unknown.

I do not believe in the Bible literally, as in I do not think that Jesus is the only means of salvation or that Heaven and Hell are literal realms that you are thrown into depending on whether or not you've lived an honest life. I do believe however that there is some truth to all of these things that it says. That as a man thinks, so he becomes. That as a man sows, so shall he reap. That the architect of the universe did not build a stairway leading nowhere.

[Anonymous No.11397202]

>>11397191
well fuck you too man.

[Anonymous No.11397215]

>>11397202
Read a single Church Father's commentary on Genesis before you pretend to teach it. Read a single philosopher who says anything about the transcendent. Parroting nu-atheist takes isn't teaching.

[Anonymous No.11397243]

>>11397138
>Distorted through the fresnel lens of having been translated from greek, to latin, to old english, to modern english
This is a common misconception and is completely wrong. We have plenty of greek copies of the New Testament from all over the Roman Empire and we can cross reference them and very reliably determine which portions were errors or later additions, those will be noted in almost every modern bible. The idea that biblical translation was done like a game of telephone is wrong. We have a full copy of the New Testament written in Greek dated to the 5th century. We know what they said.

[Anonymous No.11397262]

Read the NABand it's footnotes

usccb.org/bible/

Take today's Gospel

usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/matthew/8:5

[8:1–9:38] This narrative section of the second book of the gospel is composed of nine miracle stories, most of which are found in Mark, although Matthew does not follow the Marcan order and abbreviates the stories radically. The stories are arranged in three groups of three, each group followed by a section composed principally of sayings of Jesus about discipleship. Mt 9:35 is an almost verbatim repetition of Mt 4:23. Each speaks of Jesus’ teaching, preaching, and healing. The teaching and preaching form the content of Mt 5–7; the healing, that of Mt 8–9. Some scholars speak of a portrayal of Jesus as “Messiah of the Word” in Mt 5–7 and “Messiah of the Deed” in Mt 8–9. That is accurate so far as it goes, but there is also a strong emphasis on discipleship in Mt 8–9; these chapters have not only christological but ecclesiological import.

[Anonymous No.11397264]

>>11396942
>Are you a theist or an atheist?
Theist. I believe in God and his son Jesus Christ.
>When you read the Bible how do you read it?
I started with the NT first 4 books. Then move onto the OT and read it with the idea that everything leads up to Jesus.
>How do you interpret it?
Mostly metaphors heavily based in either historical or spiritual truth.
>What do you take as historical and what do you take as non-historical?
Everything pre-deluge I take as metaphor, Abraham+ I take as orate history written down later in scripture. I believe in the Exodus, but not sure what to make of Moses, though I'm leaning on him being a real figure. Everything since Saul and David I take as history.
>Do you think the non-historical stories were divinely inspired?
Definitely. Every story in the OT has some connection to Christ and his life, which acts as the "end" of the old covenant and the beginning of the new one.
>What does the word God mean to you?
The ultimate truth of everything, the utmost kindness and forgiveness, the described path to eternal salvation, take or refused freely by the receiver of God's word.

[Anonymous No.11397266]

>>11397262

Gospel MT 8:5-17

When Jesus entered Capernaum,
a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying,
"Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully."
He said to him, "I will come and cure him."
The centurion said in reply,
"Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof;
only say the word and my servant will be healed.
For I too am a man subject to authority,
with soldiers subject to me.
And I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes;
and to another, 'Come here,' and he comes;
and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it."
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him,
"Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.
I say to you, many will come from the east and the west,
and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven,
but the children of the Kingdom
will be driven out into the outer darkness,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth."
And Jesus said to the centurion,
"You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you."
And at that very hour his servant was healed.

Jesus entered the house of Peter,
and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.
He touched her hand, the fever left her,
and she rose and waited on him.

When it was evening, they brought him many
who were possessed by demons,
and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick,
to fulfill what had been said by Isaiah the prophet:

He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.

[Anonymous No.11397282]

>>11397266

* [8:5–13] This story comes from Q (see Lk 7:1–10) and is also reflected in Jn 4:46–54. The similarity between the Q story and the Johannine is due to a common oral tradition, not to a common literary source. As in the later story of the daughter of the Canaanite woman (Mt 15:21–28) Jesus here breaks with his usual procedure of ministering only to Israelites and anticipates the mission to the Gentiles.

* [8:5] A centurion: a military officer commanding a hundred men. He was probably in the service of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee; see note on Mt 14:1.

* [8:8–9] Acquainted by his position with the force of a command, the centurion expresses faith in the power of Jesus’ mere word.

* [8:10] In no one in Israel: there is good textual attestation (e.g., Codex Sinaiticus) for a reading identical with that of Lk 7:9, “not even in Israel.” But that seems to be due to a harmonization of Matthew with Luke.

* [8:11–12] Matthew inserts into the story a Q saying (see Lk 13:28–29) about the entrance of Gentiles into the kingdom and the exclusion of those Israelites who, though descended from the patriarchs and members of the chosen nation (the children of the kingdom), refused to believe in Jesus. There will be wailing and grinding of teeth: the first occurrence of a phrase used frequently in this gospel to describe final condemnation (Mt 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30). It is found elsewhere in the New Testament only in Lk 13:28.

* [8:14–15] Cf. Mk 1:29–31. Unlike Mark, Matthew has no implied request by others for the woman’s cure. Jesus acts on his own initiative, and the cured woman rises and waits not on “them” (Mk 1:31) but on him.

* [8:16] By a word: a Matthean addition to Mk 1:34; cf. 8:8.

* [8:17] This fulfillment citation from Is 53:4 follows the MT, not the LXX. The prophet speaks of the Servant of the Lord who suffers vicariously for the sins (“infirmities”) of others; Matthew takes the infirmities as physical afflictions.

[Anonymous No.11397285]

>>11396960
>God exists
>by the way its impossible for him to have ever interacted in human history in any way because I say so

[Anonymous No.11397293]

>>11397264
What do you do with the the New Testament speaks of Adam as a real man?

[Anonymous No.11397294]

>>11397129
What's your interpretation of Mark 9:42 and Matthew 18:6?

[Anonymous No.11397295]

>>11396942
>Are you a theist or an atheist?
Theist
>When you read the Bible how do you read it?
Depends on why I'm reading.
>How do you interpret it?
Literally but within the context it was written.
>What do you take as historical and what do you take as non-historical?
Very little of it is academically historical, but it's still historical in the vein of The Illiad
>Do you think the non-historical stories were divinely inspired?
Sure, same as Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica or Origin of Species
>What does the word God mean to you?
I'll let you know if I ever hear it.

[Anonymous No.11397296]

>>11397293
>>11397264
*the fact that`2

[Anonymous No.11397301]

>>11397295
>Very little of it is academically historical,

Which parts of it do you believe literally but not academichistorically?

[Anonymous No.11397311]

>>11396942
>Are you a theist or an atheist?
Christian. Why the hell would I call myself a "theist"? I believe in God, the Christian God.

>When you read the Bible how do you read it?
With my eyes.

>How do you interpret it?
Depends on the particular book and passage.

>What do you take as historical and what do you take as non-historical?
The parts written as historical and the parts written as non-historical.

>Do you think the non-historical stories were divinely inspired?
Yes. Why wouldn't they be? You think God hates poetry or something?

>What does the word God mean to you?
When capitalized it's the word in English referring to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Trinitarian Christianity. Heretics and heathens sometimes use the same word to conceal their beliefs and sow confusion among normal people.

[Anonymous No.11397327]

>>11397294

usccb.org/bible/mark/9

Mark 9:42

Temptations to Sin.

42
o “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe [in me] to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

o. [9:42–47] Mt 5:29–30; 18:6–9; Lk 17:1–2.


Matthew 18:6

d “Whoever causes one of these little ones* who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

d. [18:6–7] Mk 9:42; Lk 17:1–2.

* [18:6] One of these little ones: the thought passes from the child of Mt 18:2–4 to the disciples, little ones because of their becoming like children. It is difficult to know whether this is a designation of all who are disciples or of those who are insignificant in contrast to others, e.g., the leaders of the community. Since apart from this chapter the designation little ones occurs in Matthew only in Mt 10:42 where it means disciples as such, that is its more likely meaning here. Who believe in me: since discipleship is impossible without at least some degree of faith, this further specification seems superfluous. However, it serves to indicate that the warning against causing a little one to sin is principally directed against whatever would lead such a one to a weakening or loss of faith. The Greek verb skandalizein, here translated causes…to sin, means literally “causes to stumble”; what the stumbling is depends on the context. It is used of falling away from faith in Mt 13:21. According to the better reading of Mk 9:42, in me is a Matthean addition to the Marcan source. It would be better…depths of the sea: cf. Mk 9:42.

[Anonymous No.11397516]

>>11397293
Jesus spoke in parables. Why can't the word of God be that way too?

[Anonymous No.11397517]

>>11397327
I was looking for your own personal interpretation of the passage in light of your misleading children into sin as a false teacher of lies.

[Anonymous No.11397664]

>>11397516
All of the early Christians and Church Fathers and even St Paul himself talked about those as real events and real people.

[Anonymous No.11397668]

>>11397664
Paul says the story of Abraham was allegory though

[Anonymous No.11397692]

Can any well-read christians help? I've never read the bible, but it's the next book I want to read. I am overwhelmed by the discussions around different bible versions and how all the christian sects interpret them. So what do?

The book needs to be:
>written in modern enough english to understand
>perhaps include footnotes or commentary to add context or explanations
>be free of any political distortions or subejctive translations by special-interest groups
>offer a guide for which order to read the texts in, I literally have no idea

Reading level: mein kampf exhausted me about 5 pages at a time

[Anonymous No.11397696]

>>11397692
Orthodox Study Bible.

[Anonymous No.11397701]

>>11397668
Paul isn't saying the events aren't historically real.
Scripture is and was interpreted both literally and spiritually

[Anonymous No.11398544]

>>11397517

I don't have personal interpretations. Just those of the Church. I responded to your question though I was not >11397129 but still replied to your questions asking for interpretation.

[Anonymous No.11398560]

>>11397692
>written in modern enough english to understand
>perhaps include footnotes or commentary to add context or explanations

Read the NAB and it's footnotes

usccb.org/bible/

Maybe read the Catechism?

Catechism of the Catholic Church

ccc.usccb.org/flipbooks/catechism/files/assets/basic-html/page-I.html

[Anonymous No.11398579]

>>11398560
If you want the best of both worlds you can buy the Didache Bible, which is a Bible that has relevant parts of the Catholic catechism quoted next to the particular verses that support them. It's a great way of understanding where the doctrines of the Catholic church come from and how they are supported by scripture.

[Anonymous No.11398580]

>>11397692

>7 "CATHOLIC" BIBLE VERSES THAT PROVE CATHOLICISM

https://youtu.be/IF9wyXW-CxA

<What converted me into Catholicism THE MOST is reading the Bible!! When I became a tiny bit convinced that Catholicism COULD be true I'd be doing my daily Bible readings and SHOCKED by certain verses that were sooooo in-line with the Orthodox and Catholic Churches!

[Anonymous No.11398584]

>>11398579

Thank you so much that looks worthwhile. I posted about the Didache last night

>>>/x/21038849

[Anonymous No.11398699]

>>11398584
Yes it was named after the Didache, which itself is a fascinating read as the first recorded Christian catechism. One of the most common themes in early Christian writings is the "Path of Life/Light" and the "Path of Death/Darkness", which is told in the Didache among other writings. Definitely worth a read if you're interested in how the very earliest Christians viewed how the faith should be practiced

>There are two Ways, one of Life and one of Death, and there is a great difference between the two Ways. The way of life is this:" First, you shalt love the God who made thee, secondly, thy neighbor as thyself; and whatsoever thou wouldst not have done to thyself, do not thou to another." Now, the teaching of these words is this: "Bless those that curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast for those that persecute you. For what credit is it to you if you love those that love you? Do not even the heathen do the same?" But, for your part, "love those that hate you," and you will have no enemy.

[Anonymous No.11398798]

>>11397243
Yeah it is wrong that the translation is very lossy, but we do not necessarily know what anybody said.

The synoptic gospels are quite possibly a couple times removed from any original work on the sayings of Christ, which itself may have been transcribed from oral tradition many decades after his death and possibly in Aramaic.

[Anonymous No.11398911]

>>11397285
You are missing the point so hard that its almost comical

[Anonymous No.11399341]

>>11397047
how can someone unironically believe this?

[Anonymous No.11399730]

>>11397215
>Church Father's

any recommendations for Church Fathers commentaries on Scripture ?

[Anonymous No.11399907]

loosely on topic : can anybody tell me where to get a good bible pdf from?

[Anonymous No.11399979]

>>11399730

This YouTuber talks a lot about the Church Fathers

COMING HOME! My Conversion Story Into Catholicism (From an Ex-Protestant)

https://youtu.be/pRndjtob4lU

The FULL story with all the details of why I’m converting to become Catholic! This was a process of years and years that involved a lot of positive interactions with Catholics and TONS of reading of the Church Fathers and learning what the Early Church was actually like.

[Anonymous No.11399993]

>>11396978
Do you go to church or participate in any Christian community?

[Anonymous No.11400141]

>>11397668
verse?

[Anonymous No.11400543]

>>11399979
>>11398580
Why are you posting clickbait?

[Anonymous No.11401620]

>>11398544
My words weren't meant for you. Sorry.

[Anonymous No.11401622]

>>11397087
Just because it doesn’t make causal claims doesn’t mean its observations are wrong. Carbon dating is very solid evidence for age.

[Anonymous No.11402197]

>>11401622
>+- a few million years

[Anonymous No.11402241]

>>11401622
So? All science is, is measuring physical regularities. It doesn't give deep truth or anything all it does is let you know why balls come down when they're thrown up. Think about this, if you simulated a universe with the same properties as ours the creatures within it would experiment and think their universe is "natural" because everything follows the same physical laws ours does. Nothing would seem amiss to them, even though their reality would be 100% artificial and created, a construct made in our reality. Now consider if you create another universe and tweak some constants here and there so it develops in a different way. The life that evolves in that universe would come to the exact same conclusion and think their universe is entirely natural because they would experiment and find the mathematical regularities that define their universe and think "Oh we can explain everything with science!".

Two universes, wildly different that come to the same conclusion we did that our universe is "natural" and that they can explain everything by measuring their "physical" reality, both of them dead wrong. It means nothing. You can explore the regularities, measure the constants as much as you want but it will never tell you anything about the fundamental nature of reality, all it will tell you is what properties the creator assigned to it.

[Anonymous No.11403456]

>>11402241
yeah but... it can tell you how old the Earth is.

[Anonymous No.11403557]

>>11402241
But you can generate equations and algorithms from those measurements. And you can apply those to most observable processes, and the application gives you accurate predictions and precise results - surely then those equations are more believable than an old book?

Especially since plenty of the Bible is borrowing stories from pagan religions and Buddhist teachings. It's hardly the most original of books or religions.

[Anonymous No.11403978]

>>11396942
>Are you a theist or an atheist?
Atheist.
>When you read the Bible how do you read it?
The only two ways i ever did it were either in order or randomly picking a page.
>How do you interpret it?
Imho it's a mix of supertition, historical 'facts' as they were understood back then and rules to keep a certain degree of order among the followers.
>What do you take as historical and what do you take as non-historical?
Lots of parts can be confirmed by historians, many locations existed and so did the rulers and governments.
>Do you think the non-historical stories were divinely inspired?
Nope.
>What does the word God mean to you?
It's an almost universal coping mechanism, some times people just can't handle so many questions without answers. I'm not even saying God has to be the answer, but there seems to be a sense of comfort in knowing that the mystery behind the question has a name.

[Anonymous No.11404147]

>>11396942
>are you a theist or an atheist
Atheist-agnostic here.
>when you read the Bible how do you read it?
Depends on the section I'm reading. I read it as myth most of the time, but also as poetry and philosophy.
>how do you interpret it
Again, it depends. The Pentateuch I interpret as mythic ritual, or rituals with stories behind them to justify why the Jews and Christians engage in their particular rituals, while I look at books like Job and the Psalms of David as poetry that could be either sacred or secular depending on the context.
>what do you take as historical and what do you take as non-historical
I don't take much of the Bible as "historical," mainly because I am not as learned on the matter as, say, archaeologists who have gone to Rome, to Jerusalem, and to the Sinai Desert to investigate whether or not the events in the Bible happened as they are described.
>do you think the non-historical stories were divinely inspired
When we speak of the Bible as "divinely inspired," I don't think of it in the sense of a literal Deity giving a person inspiration in a vision. Rather, I think of it as a euphemism or makeshift definition for the complex emotions that you or I experience when we listen to, say, Mahler's Adagietto or when we read a poem by Wilfred Owen or A.E. Housman. Something so supremely pleasing or strange that it seems out-of-this-world.
>what does the word God mean to you?
The word "God" doesn't have much meaning to me. I think that ideas of God and religion are a bit outdated. The way I see it, religion in general was a stepping-stone for civilizations to coalesce and progress forward. Religion provided a common ground for people, like a social contract. However, with the advent of philosophy and then empirical science, humanity gained the ability to divorce morality and progress from religion. And I would say that this is by and large a benefit. I wonder sometimes what would happen if we were suddenly without religion. I'd say we would lose some things, but not very much, as we don't need religion to cooperate together.

[Anonymous No.11404631]

>>11403456
This

[javascript:quote('4942612');(...) No.11404653]

>>11403978

[Anonymous No.11404675]

>Are you a theist or an atheist?

Theist.

>When you read the Bible how do you read it?

Not sure exactly what this is asking.

>How do you interpret it?

As myth that has significance to an understanding of the self.

>What do you take as historical and what do you take as non-historical?

I believe the Bible is quasi-historical but not authoritatively historical. I don't have a firm opinion of what's "true" history or not but I think that many of the historical events described roughly happened, but that they are presented in Scripture in a mythical and embellished way. Some things may not have happened at all, who can know?

>Do you think the non-historical stories were divinely inspired?

Yeah, I think the whole thing was.

>What does the word God mean to you?

An invitation to the access of higher truth, a riddle, the utterances of wise sages, an obscure text with hidden meaning on top of hidden meaning.

[Anonymous No.11404694]

>>11402241

You're right in a sense, but this doesn't get you out of denying those same mathematical regularities that you are currently trying to trivialize.

[Anonymous No.11404697]

>>11403557
>Buddhist teachings

what lol

[Anonymous No.11404701]

>>11403557
>pagan religions and Buddhist teachings. It's hardly the most original of books or religions.
That is so factually incorrect. Unless you mean the form of "paganism" that Judaism evolved from, which of course Christianity is going to be influenced by that. Buddhist teachings had nothing to do with it. No serious Biblical scholar claims that, only retards on their blog.

[Anonymous No.11404713]

>>11396978
As an agnostic i think this is genuinely what the bible was intended for. To provide people with a moral framework and an examples/anecdotes by which to live their lives.

[Anonymous No.11404728]

>>11404713
Depends on which book of the Bible you're talking about, as the intent of the law books in the Hebrew Bible, for instance, is quite obvious. It would be more complicated to discuss the intentions of the authors of the Gospels, I think.

[Anonymous No.11404769]

>>11404713
I mean, if by "prove people with a moral framework" you mean "persuade people to the author's point of view or reinforce their shared point of view" then I think you're right in most cases. But it's not like people would be lacking a moral framework before the read the Book of Isaiah or whatever.

[Anonymous No.11404835]

The other thread on bibles is almost dead.
With regard to dynamic vs literal translation though, the way I see it is the job of translations should be to translate while interpretation should be the function of exegesis.

[Anonymous No.11404852]

>>11397293
Berdyaev's understanding of the Eden story might help you. He believed (like many early Eastern fathers did) that it the story told in Eden occurred in some form *with* God, and that in rejecting God, humans fell down into creation and were given perishable human bodies. This view of Eden is not represented much in Western Christianity, but it has a strong history in Orthodoxy.

[Anonymous No.11404870]

>>11404728

Really? I think it's completely the reverse.

[Anonymous No.11404886]

>>11404870
What I mean is you can't reduce the gospels to "whoever wrote it is just trying to give people some moral guidelines and shit" when there are, for instance, clear attempts to establish Jesus as the true fulfillment of prophecies about the Messiah and convince varying audiences of his divinity.

[Anonymous No.11405055]

>>11396942
>Are you a theist or an atheist?
I was raised in a Wesleyan church and a Baptist school, I lost my faith in the Christianity I grew up with when I was in high school. I kind of lost the emotional connections I had with my family and decided I wanted to discover truth on my own. I have identified as agnostic/atheist for a long time, but as I study religion, philosophy, and theology, I come across a lot of definition wobble and haven't found a label for myself I'm completely comfortable with.

>When you read the Bible how do you read it?
I try to remember how it felt to believe these things were literally true, and I compare that to how I feel now, which is more that any religious text, whether or not it's inspired by a higher truth, is a product of a specific culture that I don't have direct experience with, and how my context informs my reading of it. I'll also pay special attention to any synchronicities that pop up, but I do that with just about any piece of art.

>How do you interpret it?
As generously as possible

>What do you take as historical and what do you take as non-historical?
I like to imagine names and lineages would be mostly accurate (to a point), but specific details get lost or warped over time. I don't believe Genesis is literally true. The laws in the Old Testament were probably practiced, but specific events, battles, natural disasters, miracles I think are easier to get fudged when people are trying to pass these stories on to the next generation before they're written down. And considering a political authority canonized the Bible it's hard to say what was included because it was true and what was included because it was convenient. I don't think the Bible loses much significance one way or the other.

>What does the word God mean to you?
God is a name people have given to the highest possible being, something that is able to affect all creation/change, because it is responsible for creation, and something that is beyond change. The Unmoved Mover. I think the highest possible being is the abstract relationship between all things that have ever and will ever exist. I think morality is a human invention, and a highest being would be beyond morality. I think anything that resembles humanity is a part of creation, and not the creator.

>Do you think the non-historical stories were divinely inspired?
If divine inspiration is a revelation from God, a revelation about the interconnected and temporary nature of creation and how there must be something constant by which that change can be measured, then yes. I also think divine inspiration has to be incredibly common, just difficult to translate since we don't really have a reliable way of knowing if someone from a different background has been able to find the same truths in different signs.

[Anonymous No.11405118]

>>11396942
I don't believe in a god but I don't dispute the fact that one could exist.
I tried going cover to cover in my family bible but I ended up skimming a lot of it because a) the text was small enough to give me a headache, b) that bible's over a century old so it was written weird, and c) that shit's long homie.
I don't really think anything happened in reality like it was told in the bible, but some dudes probably ate lunch together, some little guy probably knocked out some big asshole, and the jews were probably always conniving.
A god is something that transcends law and reality as we know it. I'm pretty sure I've never experienced something of that description.

Does anyone else have a bible older than 1887?

[Anonymous No.11405320]

>>11405118
Classical translations are the best, better than following the promotion of commercialized translations.

[Anonymous No.11405345]

>>11403557
>surely then those equations are more believable than an old book?
Maybe but then the issue is you're creating a false dichotomy where it's "Science vs the Bible". Why not both? Learn the physical clockwork of the universe via science, learn the higher truths of the divine through the Bible.

>>11403456
How old the Earth is has no relevance to Christianity. So it's nice to know I guess but it ultimately doesn't mean anything when you're considering the nature of God.

[Anonymous No.11405346]

I'm agnostic. The Bible as a book is fucking awesome, crazy shit happening near constantly with the excellent Revelations

[Anonymous No.11405389]

>>11405118
You could read the Message. It's probably the most liberal "translation" out there. It was made to convey the basic ideas with modern english.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5&version=MSG

[Anonymous No.11405476]

>>11405118
I have a few volumes of a New Testament set with facing French and Vulgate text. It's from the 1870s, I think.