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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 20:18:31 GMT
Viewed: 
1817 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:

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

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.

  
   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.

Do you accept that the examination of contradictions, shortcomings, and textual inconsistencies qualifies as “deepening understanding?” Surely you must recognize that an honest reader can criticize the bible in these terms without mocking the work?

Just because some adherents don’t care for the result of honest critical inquiry, that doesn’t mean that such criticism is malicious.

  
   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.

Well, don’t assume that an atheist will automatically mock the bible. I may not believe that the book was inspired by a deity, but a secure believer should hardly consider a differing viewpoint to be mocking.

   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.

Leviticus is still commonly invoked to condemn homosexuality or excesses of alcohol consumptions. I note with interest once again that condemnations of shellfish consumption are less common, as are entreaties not to touch menstruating women. Hmm...

And the Lord said, Thou Shalt pick and choose which parts of My Word be valid, as dictated by convenience and political efficacy.

Dave!



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: The Brick Testament: A Family Stoned and a City Massacred
 
(...) That is why Jesus summed it up nicely into: "Love God with all of your heart, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." That's all you really need to know and do. But I think you are being a little disingenuous WRT to worshipping (...) (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
 
(...) 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 (...) (20 years ago, 10-Sep-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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