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

[Hoghead1]

It is also a matter of speculation as to what saying that all Scripture is inspired by God really means? It does not necessarily have to mean inerrant. Also, it is a matter of speculation as to what texts are being included here under the term "scripture." It is also a matter of speculation how and if God inspired all Scripture. Many laity look at Scripture through the lens provided by the teachings of their church, which they make take to be unquestionable. Many come to Scripture with the notion that Scripture is inerrant firmly drilled into them. Things happened exactly the way the Bible says they happened. There is no doubt about it. Nothing else is to be considered. Sorry, wrong way to go about biblical studies. You should come with an open mind, view Scripture through a healthy skepticism about church tradition. Maybe it is in inerrant, maybe not. Let's see. Many lay assumptions about Scripture have been debunked based on careful literary and historical study, such as the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.
Also, yes, Bob, there is in fact a letter from Patterson stating just that. It has been shown here several times on this forum, by the way. In addition, the minute I read what you posted, I knew exactly what he is talking about. That's why I explained it to you they way I did earlier. You are simply misconstruing it because you have no background in science.

 

[Colter]

Yes that is true.

The reason that Paul was not wrong is ... 2Tim 3:16

"all scripture is given by inspiration from God"....

which is why we find so many Christians on this board.



you are reading your speculation into the text.



God could have destroyed Satan at any time - but man was given the earth. -- See Genesis 1 and 2. It was his responsibility to live here, raise families and "own" the place.

When the author of 2Tim 3:16 expressed their opinion about the Jews scripture, Timothy wasn't scripture at that time. It wasn't until the church converted Paul's ordinary correspondence with others into scripture, making Paul's words equal to Jesus, that those various letters became the so called "word of God". It's the holy men who make and remake the scripture with all of it's flaws.

Your excuse making for leaving Satan but drowning everyone else is no explanation at all.

 

[Colter]

Indeed - it is an obviously flawed form of story telling.




The same way Othaniel Marh's fraudulent horse "series" was "in the archaeological record" - the series that "never happened in nature" and yet is "still on display at the Smithsonian".

hint: " statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record."


Collin Patterson - Paleontologist British Museum of Natural history

===========================================
April 10, 1979 Letter from Colin Patterson to Sunderland


“ I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them.

You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader?


I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it.


Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record.

You say thatI should at least show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived. I will lay it on the line- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.[The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. So, much as I should like to oblige you by jumping to the defence of gradualism, and fleshing out the transitions between the major types of animals and plants, I find myself a bit short of the intellectual justification necessary for the job “

[Ref: Patterson, personal communication. Documented in Darwin’s Enigma, Luther Sunderland, Master Books, El Cajon, CA, 1988, pp. 88-90.]





indeed - so we need not settle for "blind faith evolutionism - instead"

,

You are quoting from the text of blind faith evolutionism -- have you considered the Bible "instead"??



This is an evolutionist statement that I am almost inclined to agree with.

Didn't think that was going to happen today.



A fallacy in logic - that results in the prediction that we today should be seeing "sudden mutations" -- saltations of the form required by the "just so stories" in blind faith evolutionism.



you can fine atheists here and there - that say that... but in general Christians reject just wild speculation.

Evolution, which contains the purposive potential of the creator, has largely run it's coarse after hundreds of millions of years. That's why we don't see the mutations that produced the different species. The redactors and authors of Genesis didn't claim to be writing the "word of God", that came latter as holy men needed the scripture to be authoritative in order to maintain control. It worked. But after the dawn of the enlightenment, when more and more citizens became literate, people quietly began to question the assertions of the creators of scripture. It wasn't until the late 1800's that higher criticism became more accepted in academia without the Christian church torturing, imprisoning and murdering those who dare question the golden calf of the Bible.

Evolution doesn't require faith, we can see the evidence of it in it's remains and in what it produced. However I would agree with you that uncaused Atheistic evolution would require a kind of faith.

 

[Colter]

It is also a matter of speculation as to what saying that all Scripture is inspired by God really means? It does not necessarily have to mean inerrant. Also, it is a matter of speculation as to what texts are being included here under the term "scripture." It is also a matter of speculation how and if God inspired all Scripture. Many laity look at Scripture through the lens provided by the teachings of their church, which they make take to be unquestionable. Many come to Scripture with the notion that Scripture is inerrant firmly drilled into them. Things happened exactly the way the Bible says they happened. There is no doubt about it. Nothing else is to be considered. Sorry, wrong way to go about biblical studies. You should come with an open mind, view Scripture through a healthy skepticism about church tradition. Maybe it is in inerrant, maybe not. Let's see. Many lay assumptions about Scripture have been debunked based on careful literary and historical study, such as the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.
Also, yes, Bob, there is in fact a letter from Patterson stating just that. It has been shown here several times on this forum, by the way. In addition, the minute I read what you posted, I knew exactly what he is talking about. That's why I explained it to you they way I did earlier. You are simply misconstruing it because you have no background in science.

Good point! It is true that scripture, the writings of preachers, was inspired by the doings of God. But that in no way means scripture is perfect. "The Scriptures always have, and always will, reflect the intellectual, moral, and spiritual status of those who create them." UB

Frankly, the educated priest class has long known about the imperfection of the scripture but they are moral cowards and feared to disclose such uncomfortable facts to the people.

 

[-57]

Good point! It is true that scripture, the writings of preachers, was inspired by the doings of God. But that in no way means scripture is perfect. "The Scriptures always have, and always will, reflect the intellectual, moral, and spiritual status of those who create them." UB

Frankly, the educated priest class has long known about the imperfection of the scripture but they are moral cowards and feared to disclose such uncomfortable facts to the people.

You posted...."But that in no way means scripture is perfect."

...so, when the bible said...or John wrote...."Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me".

There may be another way considering John may have errored?

 

[Hoghead1]

Well, -57, if you really want an honest answer to your question about John, here goes. It is a popular myth that there was an eerily church. in point of fact, what existed were a number of feuding sects. There may have been up to 40 different gospels circulating around. Who knows? A major battle took place between two powerful early sects: the orthodox and the gnostic Christians. The orthodox are like Christianity today, had our gospels. Now, it is also a popular myth that we have no other gospels. Baloney. In the 40's, we discovered around 42 or so gnostic Christian gospels. The gnostics viewed the orthodox, the burgeoning organized church as a conspiracy of the Devil to isolate us from our direct experiences of God. The orthodox, of course, denounced the gnostics as heretics. The gnostics, however, were equally powerful and almost got one of their leaders elected pope. Boy, would Chrisitanity have been different ever after, had they succeeded! The gnostic gospels are in many ways the complete reverse of ours. Accoridngly, Christ was never crucified, but some dummy in his place. There was absolutely no need for Christ to be crucified. The world was created by the Hebrew God of the OT, who was taken to be a very inferior God and did a lousy job of crating. He needs he ego stroked and hands down all sorts of laws which Moses, said to be a laughingstock, fell for. Salvation is obtained by breaking all these laws. Christ is not Jewish, was not born. Christ is not God, but a lesser god in a kind of totem pole of gods up to the one true God at the very top. Christ is a being of pure light, a shape changer, who can appear in any for he wants. So yes, he did appear as q Hebrews, but that is not his real nature. He also appeared at his own crucifixion, but in another form, so the authorities didn't even know he was there, laughing at the whole thing. We all preexisted in the Kingdom of Light, got hoodwinked by the inferior Hebrew God, and presto, we became incarnated in creation. The source of all our suffering is being present in the material world of time and change. Salvation requires we renounce this world. If we don't, we get reincarnated and have to go through all this pain and suffering again. Gnosticism got put down by the sword, but did arise again, in the 13 century, got out down by the sword, but has cropped up later, even today. Yes, there are still some around and even online. So, from the perspective of gnostic Christianity, yes, John was completely wrong, as are all the orthodox gospels.

 

[-57]

Well, -57, if you really want an honest answer to your question about John, here goes. It is a popular myth that there was an eerily church. in point of fact, what existed were a number of feuding sects. There may have been up to 40 different gospels circulating around. Who knows? A major battle took place between two powerful early sects: the orthodox and the gnostic Christians. The orthodox are like Christianity today, had our gospels. Now, it is also a popular myth that we have no other gospels. Baloney. In the 40's, we discovered around 42 or so gnostic Christian gospels. The gnostics viewed the orthodox, the burgeoning organized church as a conspiracy of the Devil to isolate us from our direct experiences of God. The orthodox, of course, denounced the gnostics as heretics. The gnostics, however, were equally powerful and almost got one of their leaders elected pope. Boy, would Chrisitanity have been different ever after, had they succeeded! The gnostic gospels are in many ways the complete reverse of ours. Accoridngly, Christ was never crucified, but some dummy in his place. There was absolutely no need for Christ to be crucified. The world was created by the Hebrew God of the OT, who was taken to be a very inferior God and did a lousy job of crating. He needs he ego stroked and hands down all sorts of laws which Moses, said to be a laughingstock, fell for. Salvation is obtained by breaking all these laws. Christ is not Jewish, was not born. Christ is not God, but a lesser god in a kind of totem pole of gods up to the one true God at the very top. Christ is a being of pure light, a shape changer, who can appear in any for he wants. So yes, he did appear as q Hebrews, but that is not his real nature. He also appeared at his own crucifixion, but in another form, so the authorities didn't even know he was there, laughing at the whole thing. We all preexisted in the Kingdom of Light, got hoodwinked by the inferior Hebrew God, and presto, we became incarnated in creation. The source of all our suffering is being present in the material world of time and change. Salvation requires we renounce this world. If we don't, we get reincarnated and have to go through all this pain and suffering again. Gnosticism got put down by the sword, but did arise again, in the 13 century, got out down by the sword, but has cropped up later, even today. Yes, there are still some around and even online. So, from the perspective of gnostic Christianity, yes, John was completely wrong, as are all the orthodox gospels.

So, Hoghead1 is gnostic?

 

[Hoghead1]

No, I'm not gnostic. I reject all such dualistic metaphysical systems. I reject this whole idea of a the spirit-mater dualism.

 

[Radrook]

Atheists once tagged the Hittites, Jericho, Pontius Pilate and Belshazzar as biblical embellishments until they were proven wrong via archeologically discoveries. Then they sought other targets only to be proven wrong again. I guess it's a psychological atheistic need.

 

[Hoghead1]

Oh, baloney, Radrook. Where on earth did you come up with that nonsense? Specific sources, please. And while we are on the subject of skepticism, the skeptics doubted Homer's Troy. Hence, many are fond of saying boy, were they wrong. Look at what Schliemann found. Well, baloney. Any archaeologist will tell you that. For one thing, Schliemann recklessly dug through twenty cities. Which was Troy? For another, there was not one shred of evidence ever found that what Homer said was true. There is no shred of evidence that any of these cities are Troy in the first place. Who says he gazed upon the face of Agamemnon? He did. OK, but who says we should believe some reckless untrained relics thief? Moral to the story: Carefully check out what the skeptics really did say and why.

 

[Hoghead1]

P.S. Radrook. Sorry, I forgot about Jericho. Again, please read the material, so that you are accurate on what exactly the"skeptics" are saying. Archaeology agrees there was a city of Jericho. No doubt about that. Kenyon spent years working there. However, her conclusion is that it fell long before Joshua came along.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Others may mock them as "virgin birthists" or "world wide floodist" or "resurrection-ists" or "creation-ists" etc -- simply because they refuse to relegate the Word of God to that pile of literature called "myth".

Absolutely true. I get mocked because I'm a so-called "Young Earth Creationist" when all I do is believe the Bible the way it is written. So for me, Genesis is literal history, there was a worldwide flood, there was a virgin birth and Jesus, the creator of all things, did literally die on the cross and physically rose from the dead. To me, the Bible clearly contains many supernatural events that God was actively controlling, such as the creation from nothing, the beginning of the human race from a literal Adam and Eve, the preservation of Noah, his family and all the animals aboad the ark during the worldwide flood, Jesus walking on water, the dividing of the Red Sea, Jesus's ability to appear/disappear after his resurrection and yet still have a physical body...

Luk 24:30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.
Luk 24:31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.

Luk 24:35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
Luk 24:36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."
Luk 24:37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.
Luk 24:38 He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?
Luk 24:39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."

 

[BobRyan]

P.S. Radrook. Sorry, I forgot about Jericho. Again, please read the material, so that you are accurate on what exactly the"skeptics" are saying. Archaeology agrees there was a city of Jericho. No doubt about that. Kenyon spent years working there. However, her conclusion is that it fell long before Joshua came along.

I think the one area where Hoghead1 may have built up some credibility here is on the subject of "What do Bible skeptics claim" -- credit where credit is due.

 

[BobRyan]

Atheists once tagged the Hittites, Jericho, Pontius Pilate and Belshazzar as biblical embellishments until they were proven wrong via archeologically discoveries. Then they sought other targets only to be proven wrong again. I guess it's a psychological atheistic need.

Thanks for sharing that.

 

[Razare]

This is so glaringly obvious that a great many atheists upon reading the Bible and finding it to be factual - turn from atheism to Christianity on the "Bible is TRUE after all" model rather than "Well what do you know - the Bible really IS myth" model.

Amen! I used to be an atheist. Then I started to believe the Bible. Jesus was right that I shouldn't be a hypocrite. I found myself agreeing with Jesus.

You end up agreeing with him enough, you end up believing!

Thanks for your post!

 

[BobRyan]

Many Christians accept the Bible as a book of truth - it contains truth - about things in this life, about history, and about things to come both in this world and in heaven.

Others may mock them as "virgin birthists" or "world wide floodist" or "resurrection-ists" or "creation-ists" etc.

But this does not change the fact that the Bible is true - and declares actual truth for this life and the life to come.

This is so glaringly obvious that a great many atheists upon reading the Bible and finding it to be factual - turn from atheism to Christianity on the "Bible is TRUE after all" model rather than "Well what do you know - the Bible really IS myth" model.

Dawkins, Provine, P.Z.Meyers and many other atheists admit that they used to be Christians until they discovered the Bible to be myth and THEN they became atheist/agnostic.

For many this is simply stating the obvious.

How about you?

Amen! I used to be an atheist. Then I started to believe the Bible. Jesus was right that I shouldn't be a hypocrite. I found myself agreeing with Jesus.

You end up agreeing with him enough, you end up believing!

Thanks for your post!

Great post. Great testimony.

Thanks for posting that!

(Hope you don't mind if I share your post on one or two other threads)