Former Fundamentalist 'Debunks' Bible

The bible is fallable. It has to be, it was written by men.

Obviously there were no newspaper reporters watching Genisis unfold. Speaking of newspaper reporters......... Look at the our media today, does anyone believe what is written or broadcast 100%? Sure some of it is accurate, but alot of it is interpretation and opinion. Same as the bible in my "opinion"

So Bart Ehram thinks that some of the books are forgeries. A forgery implies there is a "real" or "original" document/book. If there is a real book for each forgery, and he doesn't suggest all the books are forgeries, this would imply some truth to it all according to this.

Personally I look at the bible(which I have read several times) as as loosely scribed account of BC history through religeous eyes. Things like the story of Genisis etc. should not be taken literally. I see them as a broad description of in this case, our origins. I don't see Adam as an actual person, but more as a representation of the first men. The creation story in days... an interpretation of someone visualizing a god creating things. I see it as a much more gradual and greater period of time that would have been a very boring read.

Did it ever occur to any of you that maybe Christianity, or any religion isn't the issue? That maybe if you can be divided into camps..regardless of which camp you choose for what reasons--so long as you choose one--that division among the people is the real goal?

"You Christians" and "You Atheists".

"You Jews". "You Liberals".

Have you considered the possibility that you just might be missing the real issue altogether?

Originally posted by xstealth
Most people are like that correct? If I have a girlfriend who is out whoring with other guys, I would get jealous, vain, and upset.

God has his children out worshiping other Gods, setting sin before him, and denying him.

Actually, first he sets them up with the "tree" and tells them to not eat, knowing they will (He could have kept the tree away from them) or just handed them the fruit and say "eat." Instead, he sets up scenarios so he can punish them.

Tells them to kill the people who are already worshipping other gods -- but plays games even with his chosen ones "okay... now, go kill your kid because I want a sacrifice. Okay... now wait. I want that goat instead." He already knew what would happen, knew what was in his chosen leader's heart... he did this just to be nasty.

Or when Moses goes to the Pharaoh and says "let my people go", Pharaoh says "sure!" Then God goes back and hardens Pharaoh's heart (Pharaoh was well disposed to them) and makes him say "no" and he does this again after Pharaoh changes his mind a SECOND time (which God knew he would do) just so he could send plagues and kill Egyptians.

There is a difference between reading the Bible, and reading it with understanding. If you use a Strong's Concordance you can break some words down to the original manuscript and get a whole different meaning, the way it was intended.

The way it's intended is to sit and read the whole book at one sitting. Not one verse at a time. It reads very differently if you do the whole chapter rather than versify it.

That's why preachers versify it. That's why the deconverted usually deconverted after reading the whole thing.

Originally posted by infinite
A key point: Many of the Old Testament parables are, in fact, adaptations or identical to the Sumerian creations tales and myths. Mankind's evolution into monotheism merged the ancient gods into a single deity, and gave him an equal - but negative - counterpart. The devil.

The story of Jesus is similar to the Egyptian tale of Horus too. Christians will not accept this key point. In order to spread the new religion, the founders just merged them in with other religions - reasons why Christian holidays are held on Pagan events.

In time, we will evolve further into a spiritual belief that will involve no god at all. Buddhist or Hindu style belief system will become the norm on this Earth.

I stated something similar in an earlier post and I agree with you whole heartily. Ancient religions were usually based on tangible/intangible principles. During Sumerian time, they of course believed in polytheism, due to necessity. They needed a sun god, they needed a water god, they needed elemental gods, because those elements are what they needed most to survive. They worried about crops, construction, and ways they could improve and/or "satisfy" their gods.

Today, we understand the "mysteries" of the sun. We understand the chemical composition and structure of H20. We can build vast, never ending skyscrapers and we have the knowledge to travel to Mars. Our biggest problem today is a lack of truth; a lack of sustenance. How many people here are farmers? How many people here work in an office (doing mind-numbing, repetitively pointless work)? We no longer needed a polytheistic religion, therefore a monotheistic religion was created to benefit society.

This monotheistic religion was created to put the most benefit to current trends. We no longer needed a fire god, or wind god, but we needed a savior and a single, honorable god. Society needed a savior at that time, and as it has came to show thousands of times throughout history, religion, like everything else, adapted. This adaption, once again, took place to benefit the society.

Do any of you honestly believe Christianity will exist like it does today, a thousand years from now? No, logically the conclusion would be false based on previous history and previous religions. Wouldn't our future brothers and sisters have ascended, at that point, to a galactic-type religion (if we get that far anyways)?

I do believe the Vatican is all ready preparing it's self for this "galactic" upgrade. If memory serves me properly, I believe it to be the case that Gabriel Funes, the Vatican science adviser and chief astronomer, has stated they would accept an extra terrestrial presence.

Religion is always a step ahead of society, therefore one hell of a marketer. It's a concept of control for weak minds.. its an existence.. it's something to wake up to in the morning and something to fall back on at night. An explanation for answers we don't have yet. Take it for what it is, but figure it out with your own mind--not your preachers.

Also, ask yourself this question: How, out of hundreds of religions (not to mention the many different "branches"), could just ONE be right and why is it here and now?

A question for any follower of religious faith:

How, out of hundreds of religions (not to mention the many different "branches"), is YOUR religion right? Give me a factual, truthful answer... and please, enlighten us.

(Sorry if I offended, keep an open mind.)

Gabriel Funes Info

reply to post by Charlotte313


I suggest you go back to page 3 of this post and watch the video The All Seeing I had posted on the Christians United for Israel. Religion is at the root of racism; it creates a reason to be divided, but that's human nature I presume. If it wasn't religion, it would be politics. If it wasn't politics, it'd be something else. Take everything with a grain of salt, be compassionate, be logical.. everything will be fine.

Link for the lazy. Haha.

[edit on 16-5-2009 by InnateNight]

reply to post by The All Seeing I


All, it might be a stretch to call this fellow a fundamentalist...

he was an episcopal ... and ... educated at Princeton...

not the most jerryfalwellish of institutions right?

sounds like typical liberal backpaddling...

OT

reply to post by OldThinker


Perhaps u should here his testimony brfore you immediately call him a liar.

Also have you watchd that video yet?

[edit on 16-5-2009 by Welfhard]

Originally posted by TheAmused
so the bible is a forgery?

so wouldn't this go hand in hand with the quran or what ever it's called?

just cause the book has a different name's..it has all the same character's atheist love to poke fun at these day's.



[edit on 15-5-2009 by TheAmused]

You do not know anything about the qua'ran then. Try studying that sometime. It is not the bible companion piece and it can be traced back much farther and to its original form. I am not saying Islam is any more real, just that their book is far harder to debunk than the bible is. It is really an interesting study if you give it the time. The differences between it and the bible go on for miles!

reply to post by xstealth

There is a difference between reading the Bible, and reading it with understanding. If you use a Strong's Concordance you can break some words down to the original manuscript and get a whole different meaning, the way it was intended.

Yes, Strongs will help a person break down words from the "copies" that make up the Bible.

NOTE: there are no original manuscripts!! All Bibles are written or formulated from copies.


reply to post by freeyourmind1111

the Codex Sinaiticus is a manuscript to be looked, at as it contradicts a lot of what the modern bible we use today bible says. The Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest surviving, fully intact bible we have. It was stolen from the monks and Mt. Sinai by a man named Constantin von Tischendorf in 1859.

The Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus were considered the oldest manuscripts in the opinion of Westcott and Hort. Because these were the oldest that were available to them in their day!

As Ehrman says: "Wild copying practices were found in the East as well as in the West. Westcott and Hort's system has been overhauled by subsequent scholars...Then too, significant manuscript discoveries, especially discoveries of papyri, have been made since their day."

Bart Ehrman is an accomplished scholar with access to all of the oldest copies of the Bible. I find great value in his, and other scholars books.

Here is where confusion regarding God comes in:

Once a person finds that their religion no longer works, the majority seem to throw God out with the bath water! No, it is religion that does not work.

He is having a "crisis" of faith because as most religious do, he placed all his hope in man and man's teachings. This is a great disappointment! Imagine! Most everything he was taught from the time he was young he is finding to be wrong. I can relate!!!

When I gave up religion and no longer called myself Christian, it created great conflict for awhile. I had the choice as so many show on this thread of giving up on God because I found tremendous hypocrisy and lies within religion - to become atheist.

But because I found my beliefs to be very questionable that did not disavow God. I had to redefine him, for I had, and have, personable experience with him.

So learning this, does that make God wrong? Or did He set it all up to fail to see who would buy into the Lie? Think, the majority fall into the Lie and even support and promote it.

Mankind likes to follow the masses. They often go from one box, into another.

reply to post by MatrixProphet

Once a person finds that their religion no longer works, the majority seem to throw God out with the bath water! No, it is religion that does not work.

In point of fact, he is agnostic.

Originally posted by Welfhard
reply to post by OldThinker

 

Perhaps u should here his testimony brfore you immediately call him a liar.

Also have you watchd that video yet?

[edit on 16-5-2009 by Welfhard]

Hi Welhard!!!

Hope all is well...

Hey I'm kinda like you now....I've been studying heavy for a certification exam in my line of work....I take it tomorrow...


Yes, I watched the video....thank you for sharing it with me...very interesting...


Regarding my earlier post...OT's not judging the man's character (i.e. liar?) but I can make a hypothesis regarding his beliefs, due to his environment...OT knows quite a bit about Princeton my friend...oh well, thanks for responding...

C-ya....gotta study ok?

OT out...

[edit on 16-5-2009 by OldThinker]

reply to post by OldThinker


Hi OT!

Yes, he was raised Episcopal but became born again in high school. He started attending meetings of a Campus Life Youth for Christ club.

He then went on to; Moody Bible Institute. It was here that he discovered that there weren't any original writings of the NT. Yet, they and all the professors had to sign a document saying that they believed that the Bible was the inerrant word of God and contains no mistakes (even though they knew it did).

This would later bother his conscience.

He got his degree at Moody. He wanted to become an evangelical "voice" in secular circles, so he could teach in secular settings.

Then he went to an evangelical college: Wheaton College. This is the alma mater of Billy Graham.

He went on to study Greek and Hebrew. This lead him to want to read the oldest manuscripts of the NT. The more he learned and discovered, the more doubts he gained.

He got his degree from Wheaton College and then moved on to Princeton. He was guided by a strong evangelical Christian professor: Dr. Gerald Hawthorne to further his education and quench his thirst for the truth by going to Princeton.

Most evangelicals don't go this far in secular education and he wanted more. So he decided to "challenge" his beliefs and things he was taught, because he could no longer just accept what he had been fed all his life.

This has led to his crisis of faith as I mentioned earlier. So did he stop his learning, or is he willing to move beyond his stance, now? That is the question and choice.

[edit on 16-5-2009 by MatrixProphet]

reply to post by Welfhard

In point of fact, he is agnostic.

Exactly, which shows his confusion. It is a luke warm state to be in.

Just because religion doesn't work, doesn't mean much.

reply to post by InnateNight


If you can give me one example in which God is honourable, I'll give you a thumbs up. Yahweh is not a nice deity.

Either way, I think the Abrahamic religions are quite easy to explain, when you compare their character with the historical events occurring in the area at the time.

Judaism most likely first originated with an exiled Egyptian priest and his cadre of loyal monotheistic followers, exiled after the death of Akhenaten the Heretic Pharaoh, the originator of monotheism. They travel to Canaan, convert small numbers of the locals, and eventually create a counter-culture that overtakes the dominant Canaanite culture, much in the same way Christianity overtook the Roman Empire.

The need for a strong nation, capable of repelling the imperialistic nations east (Assur, Babylon) and west (Egypt, the Hittites) required their single god be powerful and warlike, who eagerly encouraged his followers to go to war, and there is plenty of divine warmongering in the OT.

Unfortunately, the Jews weren't really very good warriors, and got conquered by the Babylonians initially, then the Persians under Cyrus, the Greeks under Alexander and the Seleucids, and finally the Romans.

Literally centuries of imperial rule then bred an apologetic mentality - how on Earth did our most-powerful Yahweh, the only god, get his ass handed to him by Marduk, Ahura Mazda, Zeus and Jupiter respectively? Either he isn't so darned powerful, or he's putting us through some kind of horrible test for being the faithful monotheists that we are.

This gave rise to Christianity, a slave's religion. Yes, this life is rubbish, yes, you have to work hard each day for your Roman masters with no hope of getting out from under imperial rule, but it is okay, as you will be heavily rewarded in the next life because of it. God's simply testing you. Obviously manifested in the macabre iconography, Christianity is the religion of the weak and downtrodden, and not the Sons of Mars. Why else would the Christians persecuted by the Romans not simply renounce their faith on pain of death, even if it were simply a lie to get out of the punishment?

Islam is another very clear development in response to the political environment. A disenfranchised man doesn't agree with the rampant paganism and fractured nature of the Arabian penninsular, and seeks to unify his people; the best way to do this is to instill a new religion within them. If there is nothing common binding them (save being Arabs, which doesn't appear to have been enough of a binding force), then you must give them something common to bring them together.

This has the fortunate side-effect of meaning that everyone not of your religion is 'the enemy'. It is the age-old concept of 'the other'; you need outside threats to create inner unity, and what better way than branding everyone who is not part of your club as an infidel, and thus worthy of conquest?

Suddenly the world is against the Muslims because the Muslims so clearly put themselves against the world. This created a fervour unmatched in the bloated and exhausted Byzantine Roman and Sassanid Persian empires, and as had happened an untold times throughout history, from the Sumerians succumbing to the Gutians to the Western Roman Empire falling to the Germans, the barbarians overran the civilized empire and destroyed it.

The militaristic nature of Islam is clear and apparent, not just in it's inflammatory doctrine of action towards infidels, but in its very ordinances - no alcohol (your troops will always be fresh to fight the next morning), no pork (dicey in hot environments as it goes off often), the alarming regularity of religious worship (to keep the fervour fresh and alive and the purpose clear) and the "dhimmi" status of the conquered. Whole imperial provisions are laid out in the Quran as that is entirely the point.


So yeah, it is all a crock, but at least it's a crock for a reason, unlike the Bush presidency.

Originally posted by The Last Man on Earth
reply to post by InnateNight

 

If you can give me one example in which God is honourable, I'll give you a thumbs up. Yahweh is not a nice deity.

His followers have done great things...

Women. In ancient cultures, a wife was the property of her husband. Aristotle said that a woman was somewhere between a free man and a slave. According to the book Reasons for God by Tim Keller (page 249), "It was extremely common in the Greco-Roman world to throw out new female infants to die from exposure, because of the low status of women in society. The church forbade its members to do so. Greco-Roman society saw no value in an unmarried woman, and therefore it was illegal for a widow to go more than two years without remarrying. But Christianity was the first religion to not force widows to marry. They were supported financially and honored within the community so that they were not under great pressure to remarry if they didn't want to. Pagan widows lost all control of their husband's estate when they remarried but the church allowed widows to maintain their husband's estate. Finally, Christians did not believe in cohabitiation. If a Christian man wanted to live with a woman he had to marry her, and this gave women far greater security. Also, the pagan double standard of allowing married men to have extramarital sex and mistresses was forbidden. In all these ways Christian women enjoyed far greater security and equality than did women in the surrounding culture. See Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity." In India, widows were voluntarily or involuntarily burned on their husbands' funeral pyres. Christian missionaries were a major influence in stopping these century-old practices and ideas.

more here: www.faithfacts.org...


I guess we don't fall far from the tree

It's all a lie.

People have been taught to believe that their emotional feelings for their religion (their "faith") is true and is a fact, therefore, the object of their feelings is also a fact. This is because they are forced to accept something as existing with no concrete evidence.

Ironically, few of these people would lend the same credence to even greater proof that it is a farce. Most would not conduct any other facet of their life in such a manner.

In turn, this means that the Bible must be either spiritually or literally true. There is no room for it to be merely true for them, it is the truth for everyone. This means that they must shape the world to fit this truth because to admit that it could be wrong would shatter their core beliefs.

In other words, if the Bible isn't fact, then their feelings are untrue and they are wrong. We can't go there because they have invested way too much.

The reason the Catholic Church was so involved in education is because it could control what was taught and indoctrinate young minds into a world full of magical thinking. They have done a tremendous job as most people accept their version of history as correct without even the most rudimentary research into the subject.

Most Bible-believing Christians have no clue about the history of their religion, much less the world. Because their view is so limited, they are unable to come to conclusions about the improbability and impossibility of the events outlined in the Bible. Why is this? Because education has not focused on critical thinking and few people are naturally inclined towards it.

You want to see some real problems with the history as it is taught? Read this link:

History: Fact or Fiction

There are something like six other volumes he's written on the topic, and the evidence is overwhelming. You don't have to accept the author's view of the correct chronology of the world, only that there are significant problems and copying issues in our current accepted view of history.

Not only is the Bible completed fabricated, bastardized and forged, but most of ancient history.

I seriously doubt most true believers would spend one hour verifying any of the author's claims. That's because it would shake the very foundation of their entire worldview.

The Torah and the Bible have been corrupted by man without a doubt. Babylonian rabbis and the council of Nicaea prove this to be true.


This is why God chose Mohammad as a messenger to spread His word orally for it not to be tampered with. The Qu'Ran is a beautiful book, and nothing can compare, God actually dares anyone to produce a sura similar to one in the Qur'an. The Qu'Ran is basically divine music, iambic pentameter of God , if you will...

God protected this book, and led the believers to defend it with war as it was the only way at the time. This obviously worked as the Qur'an is in its ORIGINAL form, no forgeries whatsoever

I've been reading the Qur'an lately, and Ive been unable to find anything wrong with it, rather, it has been answering many questions that I've had regarding this very, very strange world.

Originally posted by brightlight

I've been reading the Qur'an lately, and Ive been unable to find anything wrong with it

????? I found some issues, enjoy your research... here... much there... www.answering-islam.org...

Textual Variants of the Qur'an
Most Muslims claim that the text of the Qur'an is identical to that received by Muhammad. This is a convenient thing to believe, but is it the truth? There is overwhelming evidence that it is not:


1. Evidence of Change Before 'Uthman
Why did 'Uthman feel the need to destroy other copies of the Qur'an, unless they contained variants? Why did Ibn Ma'sud refuse to hand over his copy for destruction? How do we know that 'Uthman's copy was better than any of the others?


Jam' Al-Qur'an Chapter 1 - The Initial Collection of the Qur'an Text
Jam' Al-Qur'an Chapter 2 - The Uthmanic Recension of the Qur'an
Jam' Al-Qur'an Chapter 3 - The Codices of ibn Mas`ud and Ubayy ibn Ka`b
from the Hadiths part 2 - the first collection of the Qur'an
from the Hadiths part 3 - Differences before the 'Uthmanic collection
from the Hadiths part 4 - the 'Uthmanic collection
Relation of Shi'a Theology to the Qur'an
A variant from Ubayy's Codex (as documented by Yusuf Ali)
A Contradiction Regarding Muhammad's Fatherhood
Distortion in the Qur'an

A Contribution of Uthman to the Qur'an
Uthman's standardising of the Qur'an
'Uthman and the Recension of the Koran