What was your initial reaction?

[Ohioprof]

Or rather, the writer who wrote the 10 commandments several centuries after Moses had died, said that God wrote them with his fingers...

It ain't necessarily so
The things that you're liable
To read in the Bible
It ain't necessarily so

Amen again!

 

[Ohioprof]

God wrote the 10 commandments with His finger, so I'm alittle confused why you would call them mans laws.

On the subject for this thread...... I guess I am just alittle weird because when I read the scriptures one sin didn't stand out more than any of the others. Say like in Romans, there are a list of sins, not just one, and the punishment is the same for all of them. So I find it strange that one would just get stuck on one of them when reading them for the first time.

Can one write with one finger? I guess with God anything is possible, eh? I didn't know God even had a finger! The things you learn in here.

Seriously, God didn't write the 10 commandments or any laws or anything in the Bible either. People wrote all of it. And I think they were just people, not inspired by God. Just people.

I love that Elizabeth Cady Stanton rewrote the Bible to be The Woman's Bible. She was widely denounced for this, of course, but I think it's great that she dared to "revise" the Bible.

 

[savedandhappy1]

Or rather, the writer who wrote the 10 commandments several centuries after Moses had died, said that God wrote them with his fingers...

It ain't necessarily so
The things that you're liable
To read in the Bible
It ain't necessarily so

Exodus 31:18
18And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

I believe they say Moses wrote Exodus in c. 1450-1410 B.C.

I was just wondering if it ain't neccesarily so, how anyone who believes that, believes that they can go by how and what must be done to be saved? Boy, I sure wouldn't want to go through this life without the assurances given to us by God through His Word, and I sure wouldn't want to not know that I had done what He ask for salvation and so much more. Guess that is just me tho.

 

[savedandhappy1]

Can one write with one finger? I guess with God anything is possible, eh? I didn't know God even had a finger! The things you learn in here.

Seriously, God didn't write the 10 commandments or any laws or anything in the Bible either. People wrote all of it. And I think they were just people, not inspired by God. Just people.

I love that Elizabeth Cady Stanton rewrote the Bible to be The Woman's Bible. She was widely denounced for this, of course, but I think it's great that she dared to "revise" the Bible.

So there is just another lie in the Bible when it says in Exodus 31:18 that God wrote them. Boy they should have put disclaimers in the Bible. I mean what was God thinking. You do know the 10 Commandments were written on tablets right?

I quess when the New Heaven and New Earth are made and the Ark is put in the temple, oh nevermind Moses broke them because of the peoples unbelief and disobiedence, while making God what they wanted Him to be, a golden calf. Guess nothing has changed since those days.


I think, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, is walking on shaking ground, since in several places in the Bible we are told not to add or take away from it.

 

[MrPirate]

While it has been years and years and years.

That reaction was that the message of hate does not fit with the message of love Christianity is trying to present.

 

[artybloke]

I was just wondering if it ain't neccesarily so, how anyone who believes that, believes that they can go by how and what must be done to be saved?

Saved from what?

 

[Jet_A_Jockey]

Can one write with one finger? I guess with God anything is possible, eh? I didn't know God even had a finger! The things you learn in here.

Seriously, God didn't write the 10 commandments or any laws or anything in the Bible either. People wrote all of it. And I think they were just people, not inspired by God. Just people.

I love that Elizabeth Cady Stanton rewrote the Bible to be The Woman's Bible. She was widely denounced for this, of course, but I think it's great that she dared to "revise" the Bible.

Seriously, I and nearly all christians I know take the bible seriously. We are not following God if we are just using his book as a 'go-to' guide sometimes and using our own foolish wisdom the rest of the time. And honestly all of the bible bashing inside the CHRISTIAN theology forum is appalling.

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear Jet_a_jockey,
The dictionary definition of Christian is one who believes Jesus is the Son of God according to the OT and NT
So I dont know what Ohioprof is referring to

 

[Jet_A_Jockey]

Dear Jet_a_jockey,
The dictionary definition of Christian is one who believes Jesus is the Son of God according to the OT and NT
So I dont know what Ohioprof is referring to

I understand what point she is making, but I'm trying to understand what its purpose is in the christian theology subforum. Hopefully it will not confuse anyone young in the faith and lead them away from Christ.

 

[artybloke]

And honestly all of the bible bashing inside the CHRISTIAN theology forum is appalling.

Two assumptions are being made here.

1) That people who interpret the Bible differently from you are somehow "bashing the Bible." Mostly, in fact, what they are doing is taking it very seriously, and coming to a different conclusion as to what it means.

We all use our "foolish wisdom" as you call it to interpret the Bible, including yourself.

Neither you nor I have a monopoly on what the Bible means.

Secondly, that the Bible is some kind of instruction manual for Christian living, direct from the mouth of God. It isn't; it is a book of at times profound wisdom and poetry, it's full of stories of people who are seeking, in their own foolish and human ways, to find and to travel the road with and to God. It's like a lamp: it contains light, but it isn't the light itself, which can be found anywhere if you look for it.

I think you need the mind of a poet, not the mind of a legislator, to understand the Bible. It's not a book of rules.

 

[Jet_A_Jockey]

But without the book to give you discernment how do you know which light leads down the narrow path and which one leads you to fall into the pit?

 

[Jet_A_Jockey]

Two assumptions are being made here.

1) That people who interpret the Bible differently from you are somehow "bashing the Bible." Mostly, in fact, what they are doing is taking it very seriously, and coming to a different conclusion as to what it means.

We all use our "foolish wisdom" as you call it to interpret the Bible, including yourself.

Neither you nor I have a monopoly on what the Bible means.

Secondly, that the Bible is some kind of instruction manual for Christian living, direct from the mouth of God. It isn't; it is a book of at times profound wisdom and poetry, it's full of stories of people who are seeking, in their own foolish and human ways, to find and to travel the road with and to God. It's like a lamp: it contains light, but it isn't the light itself, which can be found anywhere if you look for it.

I think you need the mind of a poet, not the mind of a legislator, to understand the Bible. It's not a book of rules.

And secondly I'm not accusing anyone who doesn't interpret the Bible like I do to be "bashing it". Someone who is "bashing it" is claiming it to be not inspired by God. The reason why this is considered bashing to me, is because the bible says it is the inspired word of God.

And foolish wisdom is achieved by someone who thinks they are wise enough to rely solely on their own faculties to determine God's will.

 

[Mountainbiken4JC]

Can one write with one finger? I guess with God anything is possible, eh? I didn't know God even had a finger! The things you learn in here.

Seriously, God didn't write the 10 commandments or any laws or anything in the Bible either. People wrote all of it. And I think they were just people, not inspired by God. Just people.

I love that Elizabeth Cady Stanton rewrote the Bible to be The Woman's Bible. She was widely denounced for this, of course, but I think it's great that she dared to "revise" the Bible.

Why do you even bother then? How do you know that the parts you believe are real? The bible doesn't come with removable pages! You don't get to pick and choose which parts you WANT to believe. And on THAT note, let's assume that the way scripture was translated to english is CORRECT. What then? Well, Christ has directed us to love. Period. He sat with the sinners and was despised for it. I would suggest we deal with homosexuals like we deal with gossip, or adultery or covetess or...oh wait. We don't deal with any of that either. Hmm. Well, seems to me that we all need to stop pointing out the sin in each other and work on what is in ourselves. As for homosexuals, a have an uncle who is a very gay man. He has justified to himself that it is the way he has chosen to live his life and that no one will tell him differently. I am bias toward that attitude since it has meant that to him I am no longer his niece, as I am a christian. I have never even implied that I don't love him for his choice that has been longerstanding then my faith. But because of some other christians, I am not welcome. Thanks. I think, honestly, it is a sin. So is lying. So is cheating, so is stealing so is adultery so is taking the Lord's name in vain, so is...you get the point. I don't see a line of people with signs picketing the old ladies who spend all day gossiping. It needs to be treated as a sin, not a political stance. Love the sinner hate the sin. I'll always love my uncle, but I hate the sin that he imagines separates us.

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear artybloke,

Neither you nor I have a monopoly on what the Bible means.

But we all have a monopoly on what it says, we can open it up and see. If you wish it to mean opposite to what it says, thats up to you.

 

[artybloke]

But we all have a monopoly on what it says, we can open it up and see.

NO we don't. The Bible is 2000 years old. What it says to you is not neccessarily what it said to the people it was originally written for, nor is it necessarily what it says to me, or to members of other churches, or not. There is no such thing as an uninterpreted Bible.

But without the book to give you discernment how do you know which light leads down the narrow path and which one leads you to fall into the pit?

The Bible can help give that discernment. So can science, philosophy, poetry, music, art, the lives of the saints, and the brain that God gave you to use. So can the Bhagavad Gita, the Tibetan Book of the Dead or any other scripture. God is not confined to a 2000 year old book of ancient writings. God hasn't stopped speaking, and we haven't stopped hearing only partially.

 

[artybloke]

But without the book to give you discernment how do you know which light leads down the narrow path and which one leads you to fall into the pit?

Sorry - but it does seem to me that this fear of "falling into the pit" is not what Christ meant when he said that love casts out fear.

We all have our nice little comfort zones - and an awful lot of people treat the Bible, or their interpretations of it, as a kind of comfort blanket, a protection against the uncertainty of life. But Christ asks us to step out in faith to love our neighbour as ourselves - to take the risk that we might be wrong.

Christ went to the cross for our sake - are we so scared of taking a risk in faith that we hang back, under the safety of our own normative reading of the Bible? Since when did the Bible cease to be so revolutionary and just became this instrument of repression?

 

[Ohioprof]

So there is just another lie in the Bible when it says in Exodus 31:18 that God wrote them. Boy they should have put disclaimers in the Bible. I mean what was God thinking. You do know the 10 Commandments were written on tablets right?

I quess when the New Heaven and New Earth are made and the Ark is put in the temple, oh nevermind Moses broke them because of the peoples unbelief and disobiedence, while making God what they wanted Him to be, a golden calf. Guess nothing has changed since those days.


I think, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, is walking on shaking ground, since in several places in the Bible we are told not to add or take away from it.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton died over 100 years ago, and so she is not walking on any ground.

Just because the Bible says it is the word of God does not mean that this is really true. Anyone can write a book and claim anything.

 

[Ohioprof]

Dear artybloke,
[/B] But we all have a monopoly on what it says, we can open it up and see. If you wish it to mean opposite to what it says, thats up to you.[/FONT]

All reading involves interpretation. The Bible means different things to different people. That is true even when people read the same verses.

 

[Ohioprof]

Why do you even bother then? How do you know that the parts you believe are real? The bible doesn't come with removable pages! You don't get to pick and choose which parts you WANT to believe. And on THAT note, let's assume that the way scripture was translated to english is CORRECT. What then? Well, Christ has directed us to love. Period. He sat with the sinners and was despised for it. I would suggest we deal with homosexuals like we deal with gossip, or adultery or covetess or...oh wait. We don't deal with any of that either. Hmm. Well, seems to me that we all need to stop pointing out the sin in each other and work on what is in ourselves. As for homosexuals, a have an uncle who is a very gay man. He has justified to himself that it is the way he has chosen to live his life and that no one will tell him differently. I am bias toward that attitude since it has meant that to him I am no longer his niece, as I am a christian. I have never even implied that I don't love him for his choice that has been longerstanding then my faith. But because of some other christians, I am not welcome. Thanks. I think, honestly, it is a sin. So is lying. So is cheating, so is stealing so is adultery so is taking the Lord's name in vain, so is...you get the point. I don't see a line of people with signs picketing the old ladies who spend all day gossiping. It needs to be treated as a sin, not a political stance. Love the sinner hate the sin. I'll always love my uncle, but I hate the sin that he imagines separates us.

I agree with you that we as Christians should not spend our time pointing fingers at others and judging them. We should work on ourselves, and let God judge other people.

I do not pick and choose from the Bible when it comes to directing my life, because I do not regard the Bible as the word of God. I regard none of it as authoritative in directing my life.

I do view the Bible as a valuable primary historical document, but like any historical document, it has to be considered critically and carefully and weighed against other evidence. Some of the Bible is clearly factually inaccurate and contradictory, but some parts of the Bible are probably pretty accurate descriptions of historical events. The challenge for Bible scholars is to sift through the stories for what really happened. Thus we have the search for the historical Jesus. Since I try to follow the teachings of Jesus, the Bible is important as one source of evidence for what Jesus may have said. But as I said, I do not regard the Bible as the word of God.

On the topic of your uncle, I find this very interesting. I have been distant from my cousins for years, partly because we live rather far apart, but also because I have long been fearful that they as conservative Christians would judge me and condemn me for being gay. I was so worried about this for a long time, that I never asked them about it. More recently I have been reconnecting with my cousins, so my daughter would get to know her family. This has been a great experience for everyone.

Anyhow, perhaps you could break the ice with your uncle by reaching out to him and telling him that you love and accept him. He may simply be assuming that you would reject him, and you might want to talk with him and explain that you don't. He might appreciate this a great deal, and I think it's always good to keep up family connections when you can.

It sounds like the two of you just haven't talked about this. You are sad that you think he rejects you, and he is sad that he thinks you reject him. In truth, you may both want to be closer to each other. Maybe it's worth starting that conversation with him to find out. (Hint....you would probably do best to avoid saying that his being gay is a choice. It probably is not, and such a statement is liable to alienate him.)

 

[savedandhappy1]

Elizabeth Cady Stanton died over 100 years ago, and so she is not walking on any ground.

Just because the Bible says it is the word of God does not mean that this is really true. Anyone can write a book and claim anything.

Ok, so she was walking on shaking ground over 100 years ago.

So you get your belief of God, Jesus, Salvation, Heaven, Hell, etc. from what? How do we know how to be saved? How do we know what is meant by righteousness? How do we know anything about God, His Son and how to live then?