Greatest book ever:

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

By Bart D. Ehrman

Mr. Ehrman is a Biblical Scholar, he was once an Evangelical, and was one of the many Christians who believed that the Bible is the absolute word of God. After realizing though, that all of today's Bibles and ancient manuscripts are merely copies of copies of copies of copies...he realized that no one actually knows the "original words of God." Especially when you take into account the thousands of scribal errors.

It is a great book and I would recommend it to anyone with any interest in the history of the Bible.

Good post by the way and Ill be sure to check out the website more thoroughly when I have the chance.

Rather than try to write a book, let's take a few items from the SAB and demonstrate how those are wrong. Let's take an example: one issue mentioned is how Lot's daughters slept with him. Critics say that's a big problem in the Bible. Here is your answer:

1. Incest was not illegal or forbidden until Moses hundreds of years later.

2. The event centers around the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. At the destruction event, something like a volcanic explosion or nuclear bomb occurred. This is an area of what the Bible notes were "slime pits," which would be like the La Brea tar pits. Hence, petroleum was present. I suppose that a rupture of a natural gas chamber, coupled with an ignition source like fire, could have created something much like a nuclear explosion.
In any case, the daughters may have presupposed that they two and their father were the last people on Earth. Their reasoning was that they were attempting to "preserve the seed of their father."

Now, for any specific examples you would like answered, please reply.

The author of the Skeptic's Annotated Bible has not discovered any new inconsistencies in the Bible. These anomalies have been known for millennia. Every one of them has been answered by scholars, rabbis, priests, evangelists, and others who sought to reconcile the apparent errors. While the explanations may not be always be satisfactory, every question raised in SAB has been answered several times over.

Many of the sexual "sins" committed in the early Bible by supposedly good people were done before God handed down the Law at Mt. Sinai. Until that Law was published, so to speak, those acts would not have been forbidden. Many other apparent contradictions arise from mistranslations.

For example, we're all familiar with the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill". And yet God commands people to kill all the time - stone sinners, kill enemies in war, and so on. Contradiction? Not at all. The commandment isn't thou shalt not *killI*; it's "thou shalt not murder". Big difference. Murder is the unsanctioned killing of someone, killing without authority to do so.

I'm not saying that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. In fact, I believe that it is not the inerrant word of God, and in many places, not even close to the word of God. However, for thousands of years, many very smart, educated people have addressed themselves to these questions, and have devised clever answers that are difficult to refute. SAB adds nothing, except erhaps to gather these various questions into one place.

I believe the Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God. As the previous post states, the supposed errors, etc., have been satisfactorily answered through time by many scholars.

That being said, the Bible is the most reliable ancient text. For example, we rely on historical writings to recollect the stories of the great leaders of all time. However, many of the writings we rely on for our history lessons in school were composed hundreds of years after the events, as in the stories about Alexander the Great. In point of fact, writings about him are unreliable at best. We do not dispute the histories of Alexander, but we revile any historical facts in the Bible. Why? Is it because the Bible is a thorn in the side of those who want to apply scientific fact to everything? This book, while historically accurate, is really about faith.

duplicate.

[edit on 16-8-2009 by JustG]

Awesome, another thread in which the members on ATS go to create more division in the world. Way to go, you would think after all the battles with religion, science, the NWO, Paranormal and other things that we would already know that we are NEVER GOING TO AGREE ON ANYTHING. Damn people, stop making these threads that say Christianity, evolution or anything is debunked, we have heard this crap a thousand times. Most of the mistranslations are from different words, being replaced over the years and the words mean different things now. Come on people, stop falling into this trap of diversion and division, and let people believe what they believe. Can the bible be debunked? Yes, has it? No. Can Science be debunked? Yes, has it? No, and by science I mean evolution.

Stop fighting against each other and learn to live with each other.

Whether you believe in Science or Christianity they both VERY SIMILAR! Don't believe me:

"Science states that we came from one cell and Christianity states that we came from one God, whether we like it or not we are connected."~TheMythLives

And the sooner we can learn the above the better off we will be. However, I doubt no one will listen, because they have an AGENDA...

Peace,
~TheMythLives

I wasn't trying to single out Christianity exclusively. However, the OP is about Christianity. So, let's see, just off the top of my head...

Bush says "God told him to invade Iraq".
The Christians in the New World routinely slaughtering everyone they came across. That's genocide, which seems like quite a big deal.
Christians used nuclear weapons, and many would be happy to do so again.
Christians conducted the pogroms against the Jews.
Christians conducted the Inquisition.
Burned lots of witches.
Fought all the European wars.
Enslaved lots and lots of people. (The Bible says you can. Or is that a mistranslation?)
Ashcroft used to hold morning prayer meetings before embarking on new ways to mess up the world and shred the US constitution.

These days, I'm not at all sure that Jesus was a genuine historical figure, but if he was, I rather think he'd be aghast at most of his followers.

If you put a gun to my head and asked me what religion I adhered to, I'd say I was a Taoist. I was raised a Christian but, you know, it just never made sense to me. When I was around 16 I came across the I Ching and the Tao Te Ching and these short books (particularly the latter) hold more genuine wisdom than the entire Bible.

Taoism also differs from Christianity in that it offers a genuine spiritual path if you wish to tread it. It starts with the physical body and works up from there. There's no preaching. You have practices, exercises and meditations. If you follow the practice, you get results. It's not a rule-driven system: the emphasis is on liberation, not control (which is what most of Christianity is all about).

Now, I've never looked into it, but I've not heard of any wars or religious persecution being launched by Taoists. It's really not their style. If anyone can find any examples I'd be interested, but I somehow doubt it. Taoists tend to be hermits.

Interestingly, Taoism is the only religion (afaik) with a martial arts tradition. I suspect that this is not coincidental.

At any rate, it requires no faith, merely practice. And practice reveals just how much Taoists know about what human beings are on every level all the way down to the physical.

Now Tinfoilman said:

That's why I always like to say I'm a practicing Christian. Because I'm most likely very bad at it to the point in which I need more practice. Too bad others don't realize just how bad at it they are.

When you say you're a practicing Christian, what does that mean? I take it you try to do what Jesus would have done, or obey an arbitrarily chosen list of rules from the Bible.

This is trying to change your personality from the outside in.

When I practice I might do an hour's t'ai chi or some chi gung meditation. This sorts me out and gradually makes me... well, calmer, at least. Healthier. More able to cope with emotional stress. Physically more supple, and mentally too.

It works from the inside out. And maintaining discipline with the practice is at times extremely difficult. But well worth while.

It's not for everyone. I don't proselytise, especially since, several years ago I worked for some time with a guy who was a fundamentalist Christian and it was clear to me, from his story, that even though fundamentalist Christianity is something I find appalling, it was just the right thing for him at that time.