Remodeling the Bible as a book of truth instead of a book of myths

[BobRyan]

Here is the reference from the writtings of the early Christian theologian Origen I referenced earlier regarding non historical narratives:

"...but where the historical narrative could not be made appropriate to the spiritual coherence of the occurrences, He inserted sometimes certain things which either did not take place or could not take place; sometimes also what might happen, but what did not: and He does this at one time in a few words, which, taken in their “bodily” meaning, seem incapable of containing truth, and at another by the insertion of many. And this we find frequently to be the case in the legislative portions, where there are many things manifestly useful among the “bodily” precepts, but a very great number also in which no principle of utility is at all discernible, and sometimes even things which are judged to be impossibilities. Now all this, as we have remarked, was done by the Holy Spirit in order that, seeing those events which lie on the surface can be neither true nor useful, we may be led to the investigation of that truth which is more deeply concealed, and to the ascertaining of a meaning worthy of God in those Scriptures which we believe to be inspired by Him."

That would be an novel way to dismiss the virigin birth, fall of man, Gospel, resurrection of Christ, ascension of Christ, 7 day creation week, world-wide flood.

But for Christians - another path presents itself.

 

[Colter]

Peter said "They spoke From GOD"

And In Mark 7:6-13 Jesus Himself calls it "The WORD of GOD"

In Hebrews 3 "The Holy Spirit said.." is how the quote of the Bible is prefixed.

Calling something The Word of God doesn't mean it was written by God, it could just as well represent a sacred narrative written in "preacher speak" about the doings of God as speculated about by people of the times in which those events occurred or perhaps long after.

On several occasions Jesus said " haven't you read the scriptures" implying that those of a spiritual mind could discern the spiritual truths of the scripture with the understanding that the older primitive stories were written in an enchanted age of scientific ignorance.

But this seems critically important to you so I defend your right and sincerity to believe what you think is right.

 

[AionPhanes]

That would be an novel way to dismiss the virigin birth, fall of man, Gospel, resurrection of Christ, ascension of Christ, 7 day creation week, world-wide flood.

But for Christians - another path presents itself.

I'm sure a number of paths have presented themselves to Christians on those issues. The self or sect appointed cat herders have never had much luck getting us to agree with one another.

 

[-57]

I can think two possibilities off the top of my head.

1. The myth was thought to express a real spiritual-psychological truth about the human situation that was somehow transferable to a discussion of if a women should teach. That women are easily seduced, etc...**

2. He didn't recognize the fact that it wasn't a literal historical event.

** Might seem strange now a days but I've seen Stoic and other Hellenic philosophers make suggestions on virtous behavior using the actions of Hercules despite their knowledge of its mythic nature for example. They thought the myth expressed something about human nature.

Sure, you can think of two, maybe even three or four....Your problem is aligning them with what the rest of the bible teaches....harmonizing isn't your strong point.

 

[-57]

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the author/s of the Genesis account thought the creation took literal days. I think the overall narrative included much that was probably thought symbolic and would also say those may be the more relevant aspects now. Unless you can still beleive in a literally interpreted ancient pre scientific cosmology. The evidence I've seen makes that a dead option for me.

Next thing you know..we'll be learning Jesus was in the tomb for 3 ages.....not days.

 

[-57]

Calling something The Word of God doesn't mean it was written by God,

Perhaps you're right.....what you need is more. Prophecy that has unfolded.

 

[Colter]

Perhaps you're right.....what you need is more. Prophecy that has unfolded.

Someone can write a book about a prophet, that doesn't mean the author of the book is the prophet. In fact it was the priestly elite authors of scriptures and exaggerated Hebrew history that often mistreated the prophets in their day.

 

[-57]

Someone can write a book about a prophet, that doesn't mean the author of the book is the prophet. In fact it was the priestly elite authors of scriptures and exaggerated Hebrew history that often mistreated the prophets in their day.

I was talking more about OT prophecy that was written down hundreds of years prior to the fulfillment.
That would be a very clear indication the one who penned it was inspired by a being...who I call God...that has the ability to know the future.

 

[Colter]

I was talking more about OT prophecy that was written down hundreds of years prior to the fulfillment.
That would be a very clear indication the one who penned it was inspired by a being...who I call God...that has the ability to know the future.

I understand your point about those aspects of certain prophecies that came true. The authors were always writing in hind site.

 

[-57]

I understand your point about those aspects of certain prophecies that came true. The authors were always writing in hind site.

Yes...that is pretty easy for one to say...yet impossible to even come close to proving.
Next thing you'll be telling us is that Matt, Mark, Luke and John were sitting in the upper room..lights dimmed, smoking cigars trying to figure out what each was going to say. Isaiah 53 gave them nany troubles....but they eventually figured it out.

 

[joshua 1 9]

One thing I have noticed is that the Theo_Evo sect is scrambling to remodle the bible in order to explain how sin and death were not a result of the fall of one man in the garden.

You do not remodel the Bible as the Bible has been unchanged from the beginning. Only you can change the interpretation of the Bible. If we are being taught by the Holy Spirit then the traditional interpretations don't really amount to much of anything at all anyways.

 

[-57]

You do not remodel the Bible as the Bible has been unchanged from the beginning. Only you can change the interpretation of the Bible. If we are being taught by the Holy Spirit then the traditional interpretations don't really amount to much of anything at all anyways.

Inordr for evo-ism to work you need to "remodel" the verses that say sin and death were the result of ONE man.

 

[joshua 1 9]

Inordr for evo-ism to work you need to "remodel" the verses that say sin and death were the result of ONE man.

If you want to talk about a verse then lets look at the verse.

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--

The focus here clearly is on sin, not on the death that is the result of sin. It was though one man Adam that sin entered into the world (kosmos). Paul uses the word: "sin" at least 15 times in this discussion. So clearly the focus in not on death, the conversation has to do with sin. We know there was death in the world before Adam and Eve 6,000 years ago. We know that the "brute beast were made to be taken and destroyed" (2pet2:12). But Adam and Eve were not made to be destroyed. They have a part of God in them and they were made to live forever.

Gen2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

We see that Adam in the Garden of Eden became a living soul. (nephesh) This is what made him different from the "brute beast". The book of Romans explains how the Judea and the Gentile are both under sin. If you need to "remodel" anything it is our understanding of the Bible and the message the Bible has for us today and for our generation. We see that "There are some things in those [epistles of Paul] that are difficult to understand," 2 Pet 3:6. Peter and the other disciples of Jesus did not have any formal teaching or training as Paul did. So it would appear even they had trouble understanding some of the teaching of Paul because they had not studed the Law of Moses to the extent that Paul did.

 

[BobRyan]

You do not remodel the Bible as the Bible has been unchanged from the beginning. Only you can change the interpretation of the Bible. If we are being taught by the Holy Spirit then the traditional interpretations don't really amount to much of anything at all anyways.

Can the Bible be "reinterpreted to be Hinduism"??

Atheists love the religion of blind faith evolutionism when it comes to their doctrine on "origins" - why should Christians also join them by trying to "Read Hinduism INTO the Bible" or read "atheism into the Bible" or even to read atheism's doctrine on origins into the Bible?

Certainly Moses was not a "darwinist"
Nor did the slaves newly freed from Egypt constitute a large band of believers in "darwinism".

I think we can all agree on that detail.

 

[BobRyan]

Someone can write a book about a prophet, that doesn't mean the author of the book is the prophet. In fact it was the priestly elite authors of scriptures and exaggerated Hebrew history that often mistreated the prophets in their day.

From the atheist and agnostic POV - the Bible is little more than somebody's "exaggeration" - but on a Christian forum board like this one - you cannot "assume" everyone here would have such a low regard for the Word of God.

Therefore you need to approach this subject with a bit more objectivity to made it a two-way discussion.

 

[BobRyan]

A good many myths are written as narrative accounts. t.

That is more the case with Hinduism than Christianity -- hence... "the virgin birth" we have all heard so much about.

 

[BobRyan]

God didn't write the Bible, holy men did. Some more holy than others. I belive what I think is true.

Peter said "They spoke From GOD"

And In Mark 7:6-13 Jesus Himself calls it "The WORD of GOD"

In Hebrews 3 "The Holy Spirit said.." is how the quote of the Bible is prefixed.

Calling something The Word of God doesn't mean it was written by God, it could just as well represent a sacred narrative written in "preacher speak"

We can make up anything we like - but once we read the text - our opinion must then be "informed" by the facts of what is actually in the text.

This is so much so - that as atheists and agnostics such as Professor James Barr points out - no serious professor of Hebrew studies in any world class university takes seriously the idea that the authors did not intend their readers to "Believe them" or to reject their accounts as if they were not accurate or symbolic.

This is due to the "kind of literature that it is" according to the author.

about the doings of God as speculated about by people of the times in which those events occurred

A self-conflicted term.

IT is easy to see that you are speculating about what might be in the Bible or what might be the source of it.

It is much hard to "believe" that those who are eye witnesses "speculate" that they were eye witnesses or "speculate" as to what God chose to show them.

It would be like someone coming along 100 years later and saying that whatever you put on record regarding your own eye witness account of the Space Shuttle - was mere myth, was your own speculation that there even is such a thing as a Space Shuttle.

It is far more likely that those who come along later -- long after the shuttle program has vanished - have a thing a two to "speculate" -- since they are seeing 'nothing'.

Just stating the obvious at that point.

One may argue that his/her prior-bias leads him to speculate that the Bible is not true - but that does not make it so.

On the other hand Daniel predicts more than 2300 years of human history in Dan 2, 7,8,9 including a precise prediction more then 490 years into his future about the coming of Christ and the start of Christ's ministry.

 

[Colter]

Peter said "They spoke From GOD"

And In Mark 7:6-13 Jesus Himself calls it "The WORD of GOD"

In Hebrews 3 "The Holy Spirit said.." is how the quote of the Bible is prefixed.



We can make up anything we like - but once we read the text - our opinion must then be "informed" by the facts of what is actually in the text.

This is so much so - that as atheists and agnostics such as Professor James Barr points out - no serious professor of Hebrew studies in any world class university takes seriously the idea that the authors did not intend their readers to "Believe them" or to reject their accounts as if they were not accurate or symbolic.

This is due to the "kind of literature that it is" according to the author.





A self-conflicted term.

IT is easy to see that you are speculating about what might be in the Bible or what might be the source of it.

It is much hard to "believe" that those who are eye witnesses "speculate" that they were eye witnesses or "speculate" as to what God chose to show them.

It would be like someone coming along 100 years later and saying that whatever you put on record regarding your own eye witness account of the Space Shuttle - was mere myth, was your own speculation that there even is such a thing as a Space Shuttle.

It is far more likely that those who come along later -- long after the shuttle program has vanished - have a thing a two to "speculate" -- since they are seeing 'nothing'.

Just stating the obvious at that point.

One may argue that his/her prior-bias leads him to speculate that the Bible is not true - but that does not make it so.

On the other hand Daniel predicts more than 2300 years of human history in Dan 2, 7,8,9 including a precise prediction more then 490 years into his future about the coming of Christ and the start of Christ's ministry.

I'm not arguing that some of the events of the larger Bible narratives didn't happen, just that those ancient events were written about looooong after they occurred hence the speculation about what the facts around those events were and what they meant. The Hebrew language dates to about 1,000 BC, it's a derivation of the Phoenician alphabet. Moses +/- 1500 BC predates the redactions of the OT books in Babylon by 1,000 years.

I have faith in God with or without the Bible. To me it's as factually inaccurate as one may expect, all things considered. Prophecy is a strange phenomenon. Yes, some was accurate some wasn't. We don't know what the technique of receiving prophecy is, how a prophet sorts his "visons" from other parts of his mind. John the Baptist warned of the "wrath to come" based on influence's from Daniel we assume? But no wrath came, Just a loving Son of God who revealed a heavenly Father that was different than the dim view of the God depicted in parts of the OT.

 

[-57]

If you want to talk about a verse then lets look at the verse.

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--

The focus here clearly is on sin, not on the death that is the result of sin. It was though one man Adam that sin entered into the world (kosmos). Paul uses the word: "sin" at least 15 times in this discussion. So clearly the focus in not on death, the conversation has to do with sin. We know there was death in the world before Adam and Eve 6,000 years ago. We know that the "brute beast were made to be taken and destroyed" (2pet2:12). But Adam and Eve were not made to be destroyed. They have a part of God in them and they were made to live forever.

Gen2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

We see that Adam in the Garden of Eden became a living soul. (nephesh) This is what made him different from the "brute beast". The book of Romans explains how the Judea and the Gentile are both under sin. If you need to "remodel" anything it is our understanding of the Bible and the message the Bible has for us today and for our generation. We see that "There are some things in those [epistles of Paul] that are difficult to understand," 2 Pet 3:6. Peter and the other disciples of Jesus did not have any formal teaching or training as Paul did. So it would appear even they had trouble understanding some of the teaching of Paul because they had not studed the Law of Moses to the extent that Paul did.

I'm not sure it has to do with the law as much as you put it. Also, keep in mind Peter was with Jesus for over 3 years...getting formal training.

Secondly Romans 5:15 mentions death...as well as verse 17.
Part of your remolding has to do with sin and how sin spread because of one man....evolutionism can't make that claim.

 

[BobRyan]

I'm not arguing that some of the events of the larger Bible narratives didn't happen, just that those ancient events were written about looooong after they occurred

Or 1000's years before the occurred as in the case of Daniel's prediction that covered 2300 years of future history - and beyond.

The Bible is not matter of someone having a "long memory" as you and I may both agree. Rather the actual text says it is about God who is infinite in power and understanding - telling someone something "with accuracy". Thus in 2Peter 1:19-21 "Holy men of old moved by the Holy Spirit - spoke from God". Which is why even in the NT when quoting the OT the writers can say "The Holy Spirit says" -- (Heb 3:7)

You have offered speculation that the writers were merely guessing as the "counter" to what the Bible claims about itself. You are of course welcomed to your own speculation in that regard.

The Hebrew language dates to about 1,000 BC, it's a derivation of the Phoenician alphabet. Moses +/- 1500 BC predates the redactions of the OT books in Babylon by 1,000 years.

Nobody on planet earth has ever claimed to have found the oldest Hebrew document ever written so we do not yet know how old the Hebrew language is - .... without a lot more speculation. (Unless we speculate that with a single document the entire language popped into existence - with that one person).

We don't know what the technique of receiving prophecy is, how a prophet sorts his "visons" from other parts of his mind.

In the Bible the penalty for being a false prophet is - death. And one sign of it - is to claim that God said something that and then to have that statement be proved to be false doctrine - when tested "sola scriptura". This is a "very different" model than speculating that "well it is really just people making stuff up as best they can and making mistakes at times".

John the Baptist warned of the "wrath to come" based on influence's from Daniel we assume?

John was not a contemporary with Daniel. So John was "influenced by" God - and the Bible of his day which included the book of Daniel.

But no wrath came,

John said "behold the LAMB of God - the TAKES AWAY the sin of the world" -- John predicted Christ as the Passover Lamb that would take way sin. In John's culture - lambs only took sin away -- one way. He would have known of no other.

Matt 5
17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven

Hebrews 8:6-10 says it was Christ who gave the OT - Ten Commandments on Sinai.

in 1 Cor 10:4 - Paul says it was Christ who was God that followed Israel in the desert.

John did predict that Christ would bring about judgment - as did Christ in Luke 12 -- but Jesus knew that before that must come the cross.

Luke 12
49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! 51 Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; 52 for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Peter confirms this coming destruction by fire.
2 Peter 3

5 For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, 6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. 7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
A New Heaven and Earth
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.
11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.


Paul also
2 Thess 1
6 For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, 8 dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, 10 when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed—for our testimony to you was believed