/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20116994]

any good secular books about Christianity that arent all "religion bad"? this one is recommended a lot, but its kinda shitty. I'm barely past the first part and this motherfucker thinks all the psalms were written by David and that the Torah was written after Isaiah and Jeremiah. I can hardly imagine the other bullshit hes written that I'm not gonna know any better to catch

[Anonymous No.20117063]

bump

[Anonymous No.20117071]

>>20116994
>the Torah was written after Isaiah
It was though unless you buy the "Moses wrote Genesis" jew larp

[Anonymous No.20117077]

>Readers will be aware that the islands embracing England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales have commonly been known as the British Isles. This title no longer pleases all their inhabitants, particularly those in the Republic of Ireland (a matter to which this descendant of Scottish Protestants is sensitive), and a more neutral as well as more accurate description is ‘the Atlantic Isles’, which is used at various places throughout this book.

[Anonymous No.20117814]

>>20116994
Pic rel has received a lot of praise from various Christians despite the author being more of an agnostic/atheist bent.

[Anonymous No.20117820]

The positive secular view on Christianity is based on the (correct) assessment that most Christians don't believe the nonsense in their bible and use the whole thing as an excuse for other kinds of moral systems.

[Anonymous No.20117826]

>>20116994
Apparently /ourboy/ Peter Heather is coming out with a book about the rise of christianity soon.

>Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion
700 fucking pages!

[Anonymous No.20117835]

>>20117826
peak reddit post

[Anonymous No.20117849]

>>20117077
he also refer to Muhammad as "The Prophet" multiple times despite a good chunk of his readership being made up of unironic christians and practically no muslims.

[Anonymous No.20119496]

>>20116994
>Buying anything written after the 16th century
Yikes

[Anonymous No.20119504]

>>20117826
only Redditors like him

[Anonymous No.20119524]

>>20117077
God I hate modern historians so fvcking mvch

[Anonymous No.20119535]

>>20117814
I was about to recommend this

[Anonymous No.20119655]

>>20119496
>>20117820
ok so recommend something then

[Anonymous No.20119669]

>>20119655
The Bible
Eusebius

[Anonymous No.20119674]

>>20119669
>secular

[Anonymous No.20119772]

>>20116994
There is no reason to believe the Torah wasn't written after Isaiah and Jeremiah other than "Jews say so."

[Anonymous No.20119785]

>>20119772
the majority of ancient history is "[x] said so"

[Anonymous No.20119801]

>>20119772
It's now generally agreed upon by historians that what could accurately be called Judaism started around 500 or 400 BC, and their "history" before then in the OT is basically a bunch of extreme exaggerations and bastardizations of events in the region that happened to their Yahwist predecessors or other groups altogether. The strength of the evidence is so much that if this was not tied to religion, it would be presented as accepted fact.

[Anonymous No.20119804]

>>20119785
No one really takes most of it at face value either, and the older the sources the less reliable they are.

[Anonymous No.20119812]

>>20119804
>the older the sources the less reliable they are
untrue. sources closer to the events in question are considered more reliable
and you have no choice but to take them at face value, if there are no dissenting opinions. disregarding the because of supernatural claims is a byproduct of your worldview, not the historical method.

[Anonymous No.20119820]

>>20119804
The funny part is lots of proclaimed creationists don't really believe this stuff, they're semi-open about the fact that they believe in something resembling evolution and conventional geology but defend creationism on the belief that rejecting it as a possibility would be bad for society. This was my impression of William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes Monkey Trial.

[Anonymous No.20119827]

>>20119812
We shouldn't entirely dispose of sources just for including them but whenever supernatural claims are involved, you have to apply a heavy amount of critical thinking.

[Anonymous No.20119834]

>>20119812
> you have no choice but to take them at face value
Not true, and there is a difference between disregarding a claim entirely and being skeptical about it. Most historians are skeptical even about well documented events.

[Anonymous No.20119838]

>>20119812
>and you have no choice but to take them at face value
This is where you're wrong. Historians almost never take things at "face value", least of all ancient pieces with supernatural events.

[Anonymous No.20119853]

>everything in the Bible happened.

[Anonymous No.20119998]

>>20119853
Who are you quoting?

[Anonymous No.20120021]

>>20116994
I finished this a month ago. Macculloch really does not like Catholicism.

[Anonymous No.20121307]

>>20116994
Anything by David Bentley Hart.

[Anonymous No.20121332]

>>20116994
Unfortunately religious studies as a field is doing great work with every religion except Christianity.

Religious Studies with respect to Christianity is literally 99% Jews and anti-Christian polemics. Not even joking

[Anonymous No.20121394]

>>20116994
Read Roland Bainton.

[Anonymous No.20121425]

>>20116994
>thinks all the psalms were written by David
Why? David is named as the author of only 75.

[Anonymous No.20121470]

>>20121425
idfk, ask him

[Anonymous No.20121514]

>>20121394
not secular

[Anonymous No.20121527]

>>20121514
you are right, its actually good unlike op's book

[Anonymous No.20121838]

>>20120021
From someone who knows nothing it seems to me, based on a cursory glance and supported by nothing but my own observations, Catholicism is basically synonymous with laziness. Knowing how to take it easy is one thing, but it seems the European Catholics at least have taken it so far that it isn’t even funny how lazy they are

[Anonymous No.20121856]

>>20121838
its funny because catholics say the same about protestants, particularly the sola fide varieties. I do think it rings more true for catholics though. all you need to do is show up for sacraments and you're saved, and even if you arent then you still have a chance for purgatory. they make the need for a true relationship with God tertiary in exchange for mystical traditions and worldly ethics. the very things Jesus criticized the pharisees for

[Anonymous No.20121861]

>>20117814
Nice to see spiderman into theology

[Anonymous No.20121873]

>>20119998
Me

[Anonymous No.20122066]

>>20121861
I was surprised to see that the boy share the exact same name when I first saw this.

[Anonymous No.20122070]

>>20122066
>fcking autocorrect
*they both

[Anonymous No.20122075]

>>20117820
>Source: My ass