I have to agree 100% in regards to all the rewrites. I consider myself Christian.. HOWEVER.. I also believe their are many many paths one can take to ultimately transition to "heaven" when our human bodies pass.
There's never been rewrites of the bible, only translation from language to language. Now churches and denominations have looked to the "lost books" of the bible as rewrites and such and additions, but the Christ inspired bible warned about this very thing, and warns the church of this. Those 13 books and the many other things that have tried to be taken away and added were never Christ inspired.
By “lost books” are you referring to non-canonical NT apocrypha? If so, can you give examples of which churches/denominations, and which non-canonical works you’re referring to?
The 13 books are these.
Forgive me if I find ZERO comfort that "often times" slaves earned some of the same rights as their owners. The mere thought that owning another human being is somehow good is disgusting at best.
I don't think it was ever said that it was good, the bible only says to treat slaves very well. Slaves in those times were not completely the same as we see today like I said., in the bible I forget who, but a man gave himself as a slave to somebody in order to gain favor and marry his daughter (may have been contract, not 100% sure) if I'm correct. I don't like it nor is slavery right. But the bible only mentions treating slaves well.
Ahhhhhhh. You mean the OT then.
I watched a seminar on these non Christ inspired books, it's fascinating because about every year it was explained that they find books that they think will change the scripture or are supposed to be in the scripture in archaeological digs, but you have to take what is said in the bible and realize these are additions that aren't Christ inspired, and at times counteract what the Christ inspired bible says. May add to history or be good reads. But anything that takes away or adds to the Christ inspired bible, is not gospel.
Just to clarify....the books that are in the Roman Catholic Bible just before Matthew and right after Malachi, are called the apocrypha. They were never accepted in the Jewish canon of scripture. Even saint Jerome who translated the Bible for the Catholic Church made a footnote on those books that they were in essence, good for wholesome literary entertainment, not for doctrinal application.
My granny never really talked about those a lot, her roman catholic church basically told the church members they were not smart enough to understand the writing of the bible. The Catholic church in my opinion has strayed a good bit from the gospel, but then again some Catholic churchs are more Baptist like; than Roman Catholic. My grandmother changed when her then future husbands father talked to her about Christ and discussed it, at the dinner table when she came over, I'm very thankful cause my great grandpa was a very caring person and he was the only one that would really talk to her. Others wouldn't mainly because she was Italian immigrant and Roman Catholic which was polar opposite too the old Baptist families during that time. In many ways my great grandpa broke through boundaries and provided help for her. Because her Italian family disowned her and said God was sending her to hell because she was changing religions to Baptist and very heavily disowned her for messing with white baptists. Birmingham was called little Italy back in the day so yall have to realize there was a decent Italian American population.
That's a good post. We need to be careful to examine historical context when comparing current and past situations. Slavery is a particularly difficult subject because it invokes such an immediate emotional reaction.
Okay gotcha. So I think you’re referring to new discoveries of codicies or manuscripts. The controversy with these is regarding translations of existing books in the NT. (like Acts) These debates are often heated, and 99% of the time involve the KJV. Can even find an example earlier in this thread.
Yes, agreed on that. To clarify further, I believe apocrypha can refer to any work that's not accepted as canon in religion. I've even seen it applied as a term outside of religion.
That's what irks me a lot, people twist a verse or leave out a verse in the bible to get meaning of something that leaves context and previous verses out. You have to read the whole paragraph or story, that's like reading a news article, can't just read the 1st paragraph to understand the whole thing. It's all or nothing.
Good post. Also guys, "slavery" in the old testament Isrealite culture was not like slavery that we think about; it was basically indentured servitude to work off debt. There was no ownership of persons, they would work off debt, and be free of servanthood even if it was still owed after 7 years. This is quick but Frank Turek does a good job of touching on this here
This is well said, a true Christian knows he is far from perfect and does not look down on others who commit sins because he knows the except for God's grace, there go I. I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior but my Christian walk will never be perfect and I have accepted that. It doesn't mean that I go do whatever I want to do, like the drinking, clubbing, swearing (I still have problems with that sometimes) and woman chasing I used to be a part of but I feel that whenever I stumble in my Christian walk, I ask God his forgiveness and knowing that what Jesus did at Cavalry covers my sins, I go on pressing towards the high calling of God.
I feel like women chasing and sex in general is the big problem of my current generation. There's so many avenues to be a part of it, and the language other guys use a lot of the time. Still don't understand the pressures of women staying virgins but guys not being virgins as early as possible. I got so tired of the constant lustful images and things put in my face from Instagram, tik tok all that junk I just eventually deleted them. Like the saying in the bible if your eye causes you to sin gouge it out. I'm not literally gouging my eye out, which the bible I'm pretty sure isn't using literally but figuratively. It means to get rid of what causes you to sin and move on and live life. I had a hard time with women chasing before I started dating my now wife, and had to really gouge out some things to stop the lustful cycle. Social media was a big part because so many half naked women are thrown at your screen without warning. And just the thought of it will trigger deviations which the devil is so well at manipulating and using.
Sex outside of marriage has always been a great temptation for many generations of people and it has only gotten worse with the technology we have in existence today. It is really an obstacle for today's young people as you stated to get around in the Christian walk of faith. What used to be confined to the adult book stores and the seedy strip clubs is so easily accessible for anyone with a cell phone or computer and so much of the entertainment today is sensual in nature.
And where did you read this? Opinion?
I don't getcha.
Who said if I claim to believe something I must believe all of it?
Nice post, Good advice @ Reminder.
Rain Cold. The Bible is the Bible. Who gives any of us the authority to decide which parts we believe and which parts we don't? Believing it or not believing it makes sense. Randomly choosing parts of it to believe and discarding the rest because we don't like it doesn't make sense. I mean, technically you can do it, but that doesn't mean it makes sense.
Who decides what parts to believe and not to believe. I mean if parts are not worth believing what makes any of it worth believing and if parts are worth believing why isn't all of it believable? I happen to believe all of it, even the parts I might not like because it reminds me of my sinful nature. Thankfully His grace is sufficient for even a wretched sinner like me.
Books are classified as fiction or non-fiction. If you don't believe it in its' entirety, then to you it is a fiction book. It's very clear and simple. You either believe the Bible or you don't. Which is it?
Fiction
Both, god breathed life into the scripture. All of the bible is inspired by god and used for the purpose of teaching and learning. Wether it be about Jesus's power to save you from your sins, or just what is right and wrong like the 10 commandments.
I don't think God really whispered in the ears of the writers, a lot of things probably came about by revelations, inspirations, dreams etc. But also they're was a firm idea even back then. Again I dont remember who, but it was clearly written not to add or remove these books by someone in the bible, so they had a idea of the core cannon of the bible and what was not supposed to be added or removed. But you also saying the old testament is convoluted and such takes away to the credit of what Jesus read and went off of when he was alive, often quoting the the bible to the devil himself as scripture. If my savior used the old testament like it is. I sure will too.
Yeah it goes back to what I was saying the other day. The Bible is the word of God as revealed to us through man to man. Do we believe it or not? Of course man is going to bring his particular style into the writing and write things in perspective according to his background and experience. You need look no further than the 4 Gospels to understand that. But it goes back to fidelity to Scripture. Is it the inspired word of God or isn't it? If you want to treat some of it as God's word and some of it as just musings of random people, then on what basis do you decide that? Who has the authority to make those decisions and to proclaim this or that as truth and the other to be, well, just interesting prose? I can't see any reasonable approach that could inform me that the writers of the New Testament had inspiration from God and that their writings can be considered truth, while writers of the Old Testament were simply journeymen who could write and their writings would have to be picked through to find nuggets of truth..
Curious to wether there's a divide on the inspiration of the old testament compared to the new testament. Because the writers were not filled with the holy spirit in the old testament but where or started to in the new testament. Either way God spoke to people in both times. God often used dreams as dreams where very frequent ways of communication for people back then. Even to this day my pastor tells us stories when he goes to Israel in the middle east that a lot of people ,Muslims included come to know of Jesus through dreams. Which is crazy to think of. But if you don't have the bible to be able to read God will find away. Most people know there is a higher being and seek out this higher being but get led astray with many many false gods that are unfruitful.
Yeah that's a good question. It's difficult to answer, but at the same time, it's not too difficult to imagine that the creator of the universe could figure out a way to have his word written just the way he wanted. That's where I land. I think there are many things we don't know the answers to and never will while we're here on Earth.
No no I agree with what you say. I meant for the believers of that theory I wonder if that's where the idea comes from. Totally believe what your saying. Lol sometimes my wording is not perfectly understandable ?. It's more so a diss to God's ;divine intervention. Saying that the old testament is not accurate and so on