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Subject: 
Re: The Brick Testament: A Family Stoned and a City Massacred
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Fri, 10 Sep 2004 19:47:26 GMT
Viewed: 
1834 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dan Boger wrote:
   In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
   Personally, I feel that if one really wants to understand the Bible (OT for starters), they need to study Judaism, Ancient History, Literary Criticism, and Hebrew. Then the OT will start making sense. Seeing it depicted in LEGO from some random English translation is hardly an impartial primer to it.

It’s not a primer, but it does tell the stories in plain langugage. And as far as I can tell, it’s just as accurate as the Hebrew version (so the random english translation bit from your argument can be dropped).

I think the OT is just as foreign to a modern Jew who reads Hebrew as it is to a Western American. To really understand it, one must have a knowledge of ancient Judaism and all of its culture and practices. Many of those traditions have been preserved in some denominations of Judaism, but mostly they have either been dropped, changed, or forgotten.

Just because the OT is written in plain English doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be plainly understood IMO.

  
   The BT isn’t serious, and if it’s not serious, then it is a joke. Of course it’s a joke-- it’s the Bible depicted in LEGO, for crying out loud. It’s got 1x1 red tiles of blood flowing everywhere and glow-in-the-dark Holy Ghosts floating around! It perverts the Bible and LEGO IMO, and that is why I think people (non-Christians mostly) find the BT so fascinating. It is something new and twisted.

So any criticism of the bible is a joke?

No, I said historical, literary, etc criticisms are good and help clarify the Bible. Criticism not intended for deepening understanding is either malicious or mockery or both.

   I don’t think it perverts the bible at all - it just tells the stories told within. I think people find it interesting because it makes many of the stories easier to comprehend.

Comprehend? Or easier to read/access, because they are too lazy or wouldn’t bother to actually open the Bible to find the stories themselves. It’s like a comic book version of the Bible, but with the cartoonist being an atheist.

  
   But to people who embrace the OT as a part of their religion, it isn’t a joking matter. They base their lives around it, and don’t usually appreciate it when people mock them for it. It isn’t very respectful or civil behavior towards them.

Aren’t people who embrace the OT also people who study it?

In the vast majority of cases, I’d say “no”. Most (speaking about Christians here) pay a staff (teaching minster, preaching minister) to do that stuff and present it to them in the form of sermons.

   Wouldn’t they have to come to terms with all of it, in order to be able to keep their belief? Or is it better if some parts are kept hidden, to reduce any possible doubt?

Not necessarily kept hidden, but just not emphasized. Frankly, for Christians, the action mostly occurs in the Gospels of the NT. The OT is considered important, but more as a history of the relationship of God and People of God, the Israelites. There isn’t much in Leviticus to which a Christian (or any Westerner) can relate. Though Leviticus and Song of Solomon are a part of the Christian Bible, they certainly don’t carry the importance of a Gospel, or even a Pauline epistle. This is not any set policy, just my observations to which I bet many Christians would agree.

JOHN



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: The Brick Testament: A Family Stoned and a City Massacred
 
(...) Any God who would be so deliberately vague (which is to say deceptive (which is to say evil)) as to prevent easy comprehension of the correct meaning of his One Word on Earth is unworthy of my worship. (...) Do you accept that the examination (...) (20 years ago, 10-Sep-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: The Brick Testament: A Family Stoned and a City Massacred
 
(...) It's not a primer, but it does tell the stories in plain langugage. And as far as I can tell, it's just as accurate as the Hebrew version (so the random english translation bit from your argument can be dropped). (...) So any criticism of the (...) (20 years ago, 10-Sep-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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