"The Word" or just words???

[padgemi]

OK - how many times have we heard the bible is the inspired "word of god"?

 

From I Corinthians:

 

8 "Now to the unmarried[a] and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. 11 But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy."

 

 

Am I crazy or did Paul just say in verse 12 that what he is about to say is NOT the word of the lord???  CAN WE NOT CONCLUDE FROM THE AUTHOR'S MOUTH HE IS OFFERING HIS OWN OPINION???  Did the holy spirit take a coffee break?? So when does god start talkin' again?  

 

I'm confused.  Someone please 'splain it to me.

[mwc]

     Yep, I saw this many moons ago.  At least this "Paul" was kind enough to let you know that he was giving his opinion unlike most everyone else who wrote anything else or even quoted or preached this shit ever.  I mean it would have been nice if he could have recognized his split personality "the lord" was also himself but you can only ask for so much.  Odds are the guy writing it wasn't even literally Paul like he claims so you have a pseudonym of "the lord" and for "Paul" and everything he says is simply his opinion with "the lord" having more authority (except in some circles where Paul is more authoritative than jesus in the gospels and the OT by a mile).

 

     But no matter how you slice it I do like that if this is all totally real that god left Paul hanging and Paul had to flesh the rest of the concept out himself.  Like in the middle of the letter the Holy Spirit just said "Well, I'm out of ideas.  You finish it."  And Paul was "Okay, that last bit was god but the rest is just me since the HS split to take a shit."

 

          mwc

 

[possibility]

Paul is referring in 10 to scripture, not to any conversation he personally had with 'the Lord'. He's paraphrasing here.

 

In 12, and in most of his writing, Paul is interpreting how scripture and the legend (not gospel) of Jesus' life, death and resurrection relates to the lives of his readers at the time. He's answering questions, settling disputes, clarifying instructions and explaining the rules and regulations of the various communities who look to him for advice. He brought them this new way of life, then left some deputy in charge who supposedly kept Paul abreast of the issues and debates that came up in the community and read out these letters as a higher authority to settle them.

 

There's no way of knowing if any of the letters were actually written by Paul or by someone invoking his name as authority, and only access to the original text would determine how much the letters were edited or how much 'interpretive license' was taken from one translation to the next.

 

But I don't think Paul ever claimed to be writing the actual or even inspired 'word of God', anyway. That's a claim attributed to scripture by Judaism, and then by Christians to the bible as a whole since it was compiled in the 4th century. Inspiration is such a loose term - to say a book is 'inspired by true events' is to say: don't assume any of this actually happened the way it's described here - I just read some news article and then my imagination filled in the rest!

 

Words and language are human constructs - 'God', if such a concept exists at all, would never be bound by a word or a book, let alone a religion. These are all flawed human attempts to define the word 'God' and then harness the power it alludes to for their own ends.

 

Sensing some truth in the words is nowhere near the same as the words being true.

[Geezer]

It is only fundamentalists that believe the Bible is the innerant, fully inspired, words of God & that is only because they have been so deeply indoctrinated their critical & analyical skills have been neutralized. No one knows who wrote any of the books of the Bible, but all of them were written by humans. 

 

Outside fundamentalism  the Bible is recognized as a collection of theological myths. The stories & characters in those stories are all fictional. And since historians have thus far never found a historical Jesus that would indicate Jesus was a myrhical character too.None of it is real,  none of it is true.

 

If you want to know the truth about the Bible you must read and study historians not apologist,. It's an apologist job to interpret scripture, it's a historians job to authenticate it as true & accurate and they have found it is neither. The Bible is not literally true or historically accurate & that fact has been known for hundreds of years, but until the Internet was created people did not have access to the finding of historical religious scholars, but now the masses do.

 

May I suggest you read Bart Ehrman, Robert M Price,  David Fitzgerald, and also Karen Armstromg's book, A History of God, for starters. 

[★ Citsonga ★]

5 hours ago, Geezer said:

It is only fundamentalists that believe the Bible is the innerant, fully inspired, words of God & that is only because they have been so deeply indoctrinated their critical & analyical skills have been neutralized. No one knows who wrote any of the books of the Bible, but all of them were written by humans. 

 

Outside fundamentalism  the Bible is recognized as a collection of theological myths. The stories & characters in those stories are all fictional. And since historians have thus far never found a historical Jesus that would indicate Jesus was a myrhical character too.None of it is real,  none of it is true.

 

That's not quite accurate. There are plenty of evangelical Christians who believe in the literal inerrancy of the Bible but aren't actually fundamentalists. There are also Christians who view the early stories of the Bible as allegorical and the rest as literal truth. There are probably also other views.

 

[Geezer]

19 minutes ago, Citsonga said:

 

That's not quite accurate. There are plenty of evangelical Christians who believe in the literal inerrancy of the Bible but aren't actually fundamentalists. There are also Christians who view the early stories of the Bible as allegorical and the rest as literal truth. There are probably also other views.

 

 

Anyone who interprets the Bible, or any part of it, literally and or believes it is in part or totally historically accurate & inerrant meets my definition of a fundamentalists. As you note, and I'm sure you are correct, that many people and groups define the word fundamentalist differently. I personally consider evangelicals to be fundamentalists. 

[★ Citsonga ★]

44 minutes ago, Geezer said:

 

Anyone who interprets the Bible, or any part of it, literally and or believes it is in part or totally historically accurate & inerrant meets my definition of a fundamentalists. As you note, and I'm sure you are correct, that many people and groups define the word fundamentalist differently. I personally consider evangelicals to be fundamentalists. 

 

So those who don't believe Genesis is literally true are still fundamentalists to you if they believe the Gospels to be literally true? I've never known of anyone to call that sort of Christianity "fundamentalist."

 

Even so, that still is something different than your previously stated two options. It's not simply either literally true or mythology. There are in-between views that hold some of it as allegorical and some of it as literally true. I'm not suggesting that that's a sound position, but it does exist.

 

[Geezer]

2 hours ago, Citsonga said:

 

So those who don't believe Genesis is literally true are still fundamentalists to you if they believe the Gospels to be literally true? I've never known of anyone to call that sort of Christianity "fundamentalist."

 

Even so, that still is something different than your previously stated two options. It's not simply either literally true or mythology. There are in-between views that hold some of it as allegorical and some of it as literally true. I'm not suggesting that that's a sound position, but it does exist.

 

 

The term fundamentalists generally applies to believers who interpret scripture literally and also generally believe the Bible is inerrant & directly inspired by God. I acknowledge there are many ways to interpret the term fundamentalists. My wife is a Methodists & they are generally considered to be liberal. I attend services with her & I can assure you her senior Sunday School class believes the Bible is literally true & historically accurate. The ministers, on the other hand, seem to view the Bible as a mixed bag. As you noted they interpret some parts literally and other parts symbolically. 

 

I suppose it would be more accurate to classify fundamentalists as Hardcore, Moderate, & Liberal. In that case I'd classify the Church of Christ as hardcore & Methodists as moderate. Some Episcopals would probably qualify as liberal.  

 

It it seems to me in order to be a believer a.person would have to believe at least some of the bible is literally true & historically accurate. Why else would you be a believer?