[QuarianRex]

Interesting thread.

When looking at the bible there are many factors that must be taken into account. It is not just a matter of "I believe it, it's all true" vs. "it's unproven, it's all crap".

You have to look at who wrote it and who (mis)interpreted it. One of the reasons that there has been so much confusion has been due to the differences between jewish and hellenistic cultures. Jewish culture (and especially the language) is very emotionally based, non-rational. This leads to the use of a lot of metaphor and such to get across the proper tone and meaning of what is being said.

This contrasts greatly with the hellenistic view (held by the the greeks, rome, and especially the apostle Paul) which was extremely rational and litteral, very similar to the modern viewpoint of the westernized world. When rome adopted christianity they aquired a vast body of scripture that was steeped in metaphor, but was mistakenly accepted as literal.

This was further complicated by the confusion of translating the hebrew texts to greek and latin. Much was altereddue to this. For example, in hebrew 'messiah' means 'king in waiting' or 'he who would be king'. It had no connotations of divinity (and was why Jesus was from the line of David, it was the royal lineage). Unfortunately, in greek the word messiah translates into 'christos' (a.k.a. Christ) which has connotations of godhood (like hercules and other demigods).

Also, during the years of the early roman church, when the bible was being compiled into a single book there was much... editing... being done. Letters have been found from monks at the time (700-900 AD I can't quite remember the dates) discussing the necessity of destroying scriptural 'truths' since they were being used by satan and so were now 'false'. In other words, they were destroying/discrediting all scripture that did not fit with the official view of christianity.

Remember that modern christianity is a result of a committee decision. When emperor constantine decided to adopt the christian religion he brought all the various christian sects and cults together to figure out what they actually believed. Whether christ was a man, a god, a bit of both, of something else. It was at this time that the whole god-the-father/god-the-son/trinity thing got hammered out. And this was under the direction of constantine, a man who was the high priest of the sol invictus sun cult until his deathbed where he allowed himself to be baptized in case these crazy christians were onto something.

Oh, and the idea that God is a constant and unchanging omnipotent being cannot be supported. Take a look through the old testament, or just look at the Dr.Laura letter on the Canadian joke thread, and you'll see how large a change it was to 'love thy neighbor' and 'turn the other cheek'. That shows an evolution of God from guardian angel of abraham to storm/wargod of Israel to benefactor of jews and gentiles alike.

I could go on for days but this is a long post as it is. The point is that there is a lot more going on here than I think either of you realize.

Fyron:

I can appreciate your passion (zeal?) but try to argue within the paradigm. A paragraph of you telling a man he is wrong six different ways does not advance your argument at all, and does not disprove his argument either. Probe the inconsistencies within the bible itself to make your point as opposed to unilaterally declaring the whole thing to be bunk.

[ February 27, 2003, 21:28: Message edited by: QuarianRex ]