The Doctrine Of Hell

[mwc]

I know it is a cliche, but it is true. The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. If you read the OT and think it is about natural people and natural nations, you will come away seeing God as very cruel and vengeful indeed. But, if you can see that the things that God hates in all of us are just the things that hurt us, you can appreciate that it is His love that is seeking to utterly cleanse us to make us better. Another cliche, but He loves the sinner and hates the sin.

Since you brought it up I have to address this.

 

First you're asserting this all to be true. Which means to me you can prove this assertion somehow? In order to speed things along I'll go ahead and skip to the part where we both know you can't. Good enough.

 

So what does this mean to me? Why am I bothering at all? Because I've mentioned it before and here it is again. I mentioned the words pesher/midrash. Are you familiar with those terms at all? Here's an example I've posted elsewhere but I think you might benefit from it:

Pesher Habakkuk

 

1. And God said to Habakkuk to write the things to come

2. upon the last generation but he did not reveal to him the close of the end time.

3. And when he says: so that the one running may read it. (verse 2:2)

4. Peshru[they explain] about the Moreh Tsedek[Teacher of Righteousness] who makes known to

5. all the secrets in the words of his servants the prophets. Because he will yet have vision (part of 2:3)

6. for a season and shorten the end (time) and he will not lie. (2:3)

7. Pesher[explanation] about his lengthening the "end time" and that which remains concerning all

8. that which the prophets spoke because God secretly acts to remove the infection.

9. If he delays, wait for it, it will surely come and not be (part of 2:3)

10. late. (part of 2:3) Pesher[explanation] about the "men of truth"

11. who are practicing the Torah who do not slack their hand from serving

12. the truth but continue to raise up to them the end time because

13. all our hope is that he will bring the establishment according to the Statutes

14. to them as in their secret stock pile. Behold his exalted (soul) is not straight (part of 2:3)

15. (soul in lacuna) ..... Peshru[they explain] that which also they multiply to them

16. .... ... their land in judgement ....

I added a few definitions of words in brackets just after the word/phrase and the bold parts are from the book of Habakkuk. The rest is the "pesher" or "explanation." As you can see the author of this pesher is much like yourself. He (most likely a he) takes a verse and then finds the "hidden meaning" that "god" embedded in it with Habakkuk wrote this all down. Even Habakkuk didn't know these secrets were here. But through the "teacher of righteousness" these things will be revealed when the things in the pesher come to pass (last generation, end times, prophets, etc.).

 

Does any of this sound familiar? It should. It's very close to xianity and it's very close to what you asserted. You've got me if you want it to be identical however. That it's not. I concede that point but then I never really tried to make it. I'm pointing out the parallels in the methods. In the overall approach to trying to discover the hidden secrets in the writings of the prophets that only a "special" someone could locate and explain to other initiates in the group. Compare to speaking in parables so that only the followers of jesus could understand but those who were not followers would be not. Secret messages that only a righteous teacher could give to their followers.

 

So who are these guys? Well, these guys happen to be the Qumran community over at the Dead Sea. They were talking like this well before xianity and a number of groups were running around doing the same. Once again xianity really wasn't offering anything unique but after all these years makes the claim that it did. It simply continued what others were already doing for at least a hundred years or more.

 

Also, there is a tradition in Rabbinical Judaism (I'll try to find the link if I still have it) that goes back quite some time that uses the word "fulfill" to mean "explain." So, taking that into consideration, the concept of "fulfulling" the prophecies, taken with the actual written evidence from other sects of the day, it truly makes a lot more sense that the author of the stories was having jesus "explain" the hidden meaning contained within the ancient prophets words and the Torah Law than he was actually fulfilling the Law in order to remove it. Considering the texts say the Law is eternal and that not one jot or tittle would be changed it seems odd he'd suddenly kiss it good-bye when his stated goal was to get the Jews back on track (ie. following the Law...they must not have understood it so he came to clarify it and distill the 613 into something more manageable but not abolish).

 

mwc

[Kratos]

MWC,

 

I am not sure I followed all of what you wrote, but Jesus certainly did reveal the true meaning of much of the OT. The fact that others were trying to find the spiritual meaning behind scripture prior to the time of Jesus does not surprise me.

 

I will give a few common examples. God literally told Moses to have the children of Israel slay a lamb and put its blood over their homes so they would not be judged with Egypt. Egypt is a type of the world and the lamb was a type of Christ. Yet, many Jews and Christians are still trying to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem to start slaying natural lambs and goats again. They only read the literal and miss the spiritual meaning that the literal was given to convey.

 

Jesus is also refered to as our Sabbath rest because in Him we cease to work to be accepted by God. We rest from our works to establish our righteousness and live in rest towards God. Yet, many Christians still want to fight holy wars over whether Saturday or Sunday is the Sabbath. Again, they miss the spiritual trying to fulfil the letter of the literal.

 

The greatest of these errors IMO is seeing good and bad people instead of good and bad things in all of us as I explained above. The vessels chosen for destruction are the carnal traits in all of us that must be destroyed for us to prosper in life and the Kingdom. The Bible clearly says that we individually are the house of God and in every house there are vesssels of honor and vessels of dishonor. Yet, most Christians still want to see the "bad" people destroyed in Hell and the "good" people going to Heaven.

 

As far as other religions predating Christianity and there being similarities, here is a link to a quote from J. Preston Eby that might show how we Christians see this. I am not trying to prove any of this, but just continuing to share our beliefs for mutual understanding.

 

http://www.mychurch.org/blog/89168/WHY-ALL...GIONS-ARE-ALIKE

 

Kratos

[Grandpa Harley]

GH,

 

I define sin as anything done spirit, soul, or body that is contrary to the will of God. However, I do believe that Jesus paid the price for all sin so this is no longer an issue between man and God. Literally, the NT word for sin means to miss the mark as in an archer missing the bulls eye that they are aiming at. Those of us who try to live according to the will of God recognize sin as when we miss that mark and repentence as when we adjust a part of our life to correct that miss. I hope that helps.

 

And the 'will of God' known how?

[Grandpa Harley]

MWC,

 

I am not sure I followed all of what you wrote,... [snipped gibberish]

 

 

Quelle surprise.... Most Christians, when confronted with the context of their insanity (1st Century Judaic, at a time Hebrew was used only by the Ecclesiastical class...) retire into Pagan nonsense that Yeshua, if he'd existed at all, would have back handed the insane Gentile over...

[Kratos]

GH,

 

I define sin as anything done spirit, soul, or body that is contrary to the will of God. However, I do believe that Jesus paid the price for all sin so this is no longer an issue between man and God. Literally, the NT word for sin means to miss the mark as in an archer missing the bulls eye that they are aiming at. Those of us who try to live according to the will of God recognize sin as when we miss that mark and repentence as when we adjust a part of our life to correct that miss. I hope that helps.

 

And the 'will of God' known how?

 

This is a two part answer. Prior to Christ dying and ascending and sending the Holy Spirit, the will of God was known through the Torah or the Old Covenant Law. But, Jesus came to establish a New Covenant with man where His Spirit comes to live in us and His Law is written in our hearts instead of on tables of stone.

 

So for me as one who has heartedly agreed to enter this covenant with God, I trust my conscience. The Spirit and the Word agree, but not in the letter. So, I do not need Torah to know not to steal another's property or try to sleep with another man's wife. My heart would convict me that this is wrong.

 

It is very possible for a man who lives in another culture where stealing is reveared like the Native Americans did with other tribes or where it is culturally acceptable to commit adultary while married to not feel any problems in his conscience and have no access to the Torah so they would not know what is sin in God's eyes. But, a Christian who has the Spirit would know inside whether they had a Bible or not.

 

So, take the example I gave recently of the Sabbath. If I begin to feel condemned or a need to earn my acceptance with God by my own efforts, my heart will convict me for not keeping the Sabbath. But, I get no such conviction if I have to work at my job on a Saturday or if I have to carry something to the car for my wife on a Saturday even though that violates Torah. Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath so I keep it in the Spirit, but not in the letter.

 

So, to conclude as I believe, if a person has not made Jesus Lord and entered the New Covenant, then they only have the Old Covenant Torah to know what is or is not sin. But, when we enter the New Covenant and His Spirit comes to dwell in our heart, we are no longer under the Law (Torah), but we follow the Law written in our hearts by God.

 

Kratos

[mwc]

I am not sure I followed all of what you wrote, but Jesus certainly did reveal the true meaning of much of the OT. The fact that others were trying to find the spiritual meaning behind scripture prior to the time of Jesus does not surprise me.

If I was unclear you can most certainly ask me to clarify. I do have a habit to get caught up in my own thoughts and that's been know to muddy things up a bit.

 

But people weren't trying to "divine" these secret messages prior to the 1st century CE but through it...using these very methods. It wasn't until the war with the Romans that things pretty much came to an end in that region for groups like those at Qumran (for obvious reasons). Who knows what other groups may or may not have done at that point? As I said, the Qumran group is a great example but only to get an idea of what was going on and not to say everyone was doing that thing in that exact same fashion. The parallels are striking however (I want to emphasize I'm not implying a link between that group and any others though).

 

I will give a few common examples. God literally told Moses to have the children of Israel slay a lamb and put its blood over their homes so they would not be judged with Egypt. Egypt is a type of the world and the lamb was a type of Christ. Yet, many Jews and Christians are still trying to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem to start slaying natural lambs and goats again. They only read the literal and miss the spiritual meaning that the literal was given to convey.

Okay. I'm glad you decided to include an example. What is the clue that you have that you should NOT read this strictly as a literal story? What are the clues to you that allow you to state that the symbols are what you state they are?

 

Jesus is also refered to as our Sabbath rest because in Him we cease to work to be accepted by God. We rest from our works to establish our righteousness and live in rest towards God. Yet, many Christians still want to fight holy wars over whether Saturday or Sunday is the Sabbath. Again, they miss the spiritual trying to fulfil the letter of the literal.

Again I have to ask where is it that you are getting these ideas?

 

What if I said to you that the Sabbath was to counter the whole idea of the worship of Marduk way back thousands of years ago and had nothing to do with spirituality at all? The royalty had the day off. The people sort of had the day off too. They had to serve their gods on that day by performing worship which included sacrifices and all the related tasks. It was a way of resting their "minds" more than anything. Considering the Jews made it so you couldn't do any work, except temple work, it seems the tradition continued and when the man was caught picking up sticks it was YHWH himself who ordered his death. That doesn't sound like an interpretation problem to me. If I read a passage that said "YHWH says to do X" then I think if I believe YHWH then I should do X. Don't you? I don't think trying to rethink my "god" is a good idea at that time especially when we're talking the difference between life and death.

 

Spirituality is really something that you're concerned with. Why is it you think the ancients would have been or should have been as well? Aren't you projecting your priorities onto them? It seems, according to you, they thought literally following the word of their "god" was top priority. If their "god" was concerned he shouldn't have hidden messages but rather told them outright that he thought otherwise. He did not. He passively agreed with them via his silence.

 

The greatest of these errors IMO is seeing good and bad people instead of good and bad things in all of us as I explained above. The vessels chosen for destruction are the carnal traits in all of us that must be destroyed for us to prosper in life and the Kingdom. The Bible clearly says that we individually are the house of God and in every house there are vesssels of honor and vessels of dishonor. Yet, most Christians still want to see the "bad" people destroyed in Hell and the "good" people going to Heaven.

True enough. I can't say I disagree with your overall philosophy. I'm just questioning the methods with which you derived it.

 

As far as other religions predating Christianity and there being similarities, here is a link to a quote from J. Preston Eby that might show how we Christians see this. I am not trying to prove any of this, but just continuing to share our beliefs for mutual understanding.

The Qumran sect was Jewish. Much like you point out the differences in xianity today (or even right at it's start) the Jews were not a single coherent group. They were looking down the barrel of a sectarian civil war if the Romans wouldn't have gotten fed up with them when they did. It killed off all but the Pharisees (for the most part) and they morphed into the Rabbinic Jews we have today. Of course the other survivors you might know as xians but it took a lot longer for them to gel as a group since they had to not only splinter but form a whole set of doctrine as well.

 

I didn't look at your link but I will first chance I get (probably tomorrow night).

 

mwc

[crazy-tiger]

CT,

 

I am sorry that what I said made you mad at me or made your blood boil. I did not describe my life to say I could not have done it myself, but just to say that there is no reason to pity me. I have been to many third world nations and very few Americans have a right to be pitied.

Anyone who is in a situation where they are unable to free themselves is someone that deserves pity...

 

As for whether you could have done it yourself... you've said yourself that it was GOD that gave you the power to overcome.

I am in no way diminished believing that it is God in me that gives me the power to overcome in life.

 

 

Anyway...

The problem many Christians and non-Christians have with the OT is that they do not understand that it must be spiritually discerned.

All I can say is, are you sure you're reading it right?

[Jun]

...........there is no reason to pity me.

 

Oh yes there is. I pity you your inability to be free. Your inablility to question and your inability to see reason.

 

I pity you that you must follow the teachings of an iron-age fictional book, rather than find your own path and live it fully.

 

Oh, and I pity that you can't praise SATAN, the LORD of ALL!

[pneuma]

You see, I’m finding myself struck by this at the moment. As much as I may respect that the Universalist may see all humankind as loved and saved by God, I’m hearing what seems to be still another attempt to “make the Bible fitâ€. Fit what? That’s my point. Have you ever considered how some modern theologians approach this, by instead of saying the Bible is the Word of God, they might say the Bible contains the Word of God?

 

Hi Antlerman, hope you don’t mind me jumping in here with some thoughts.

 

Although I believe the bible is inspired I do not believe it is the WORD of God.

There is only one WORD of God and that is Jesus Christ.

Scripture tells us that if everything Jesus said was written down the whole world would not be able to contain what He said (paraphrased) so if this is true how can the bible be the WORD?

The bible also says the WORD became flesh, it does not say the WORD became a book.

The bible also says that all scripture is inspired and profitable for learning.

So what I see is that scripture although being inspired by God is not the WORD of God but see it more in lines like the letter of the law, which law is our schoolmaster that leads us to Christ or leads us to the WORD. It is a good learning tool but is not the WORD Himself.

 

Hope this makes enough sense that you can follow my reasoning.

[Jun]

There is only one WORD of God and that is Jesus Christ.

 

Hey, don't forget the LORD SATAN! Hail SATAN!

[Grandpa Harley]

...........there is no reason to pity me.

 

Oh yes there is. I pity you your inability to be free. Your inablility to question and your inability to see reason.

 

I pity you that you must follow the teachings of an iron-age fictional book, rather than find your own path and live it fully.

 

Oh, and I pity that you can't praise SATAN, the LORD of ALL!

 

I've always felt more affinity for Lucifer/Prometheus that Satan...

[Grandpa Harley]

You see, I’m finding myself struck by this at the moment. As much as I may respect that the Universalist may see all humankind as loved and saved by God, I’m hearing what seems to be still another attempt to “make the Bible fitâ€. Fit what? That’s my point. Have you ever considered how some modern theologians approach this, by instead of saying the Bible is the Word of God, they might say the Bible contains the Word of God?

 

Hi Antlerman, hope you don’t mind me jumping in here with some thoughts.

 

Although I believe the bible is inspired I do not believe it is the WORD of God.

There is only one WORD of God and that is Jesus Christ.

Scripture tells us that if everything Jesus said was written down the whole world would not be able to contain what He said (paraphrased) so if this is true how can the bible be the WORD?

The bible also says the WORD became flesh, it does not say the WORD became a book.

The bible also says that all scripture is inspired and profitable for learning.

So what I see is that scripture although being inspired by God is not the WORD of God but see it more in lines like the letter of the law, which law is our schoolmaster that leads us to Christ or leads us to the WORD. It is a good learning tool but is not the WORD Himself.

 

Hope this makes enough sense that you can follow my reasoning.

 

But where does the authority of scripture come from?

[Antlerman]

You see, I’m finding myself struck by this at the moment. As much as I may respect that the Universalist may see all humankind as loved and saved by God, I’m hearing what seems to be still another attempt to “make the Bible fit”. Fit what? That’s my point. Have you ever considered how some modern theologians approach this, by instead of saying the Bible is the Word of God, they might say the Bible contains the Word of God?

 

Hi Antlerman, hope you don’t mind me jumping in here with some thoughts.

 

Although I believe the bible is inspired I do not believe it is the WORD of God.

There is only one WORD of God and that is Jesus Christ.

Scripture tells us that if everything Jesus said was written down the whole world would not be able to contain what He said (paraphrased) so if this is true how can the bible be the WORD?

The bible also says the WORD became flesh, it does not say the WORD became a book.

The bible also says that all scripture is inspired and profitable for learning.

So what I see is that scripture although being inspired by God is not the WORD of God but see it more in lines like the letter of the law, which law is our schoolmaster that leads us to Christ or leads us to the WORD. It is a good learning tool but is not the WORD Himself.

 

Hope this makes enough sense that you can follow my reasoning.

I understand your thoughts here, but the Word of God applied to Jesus is really better understood as the Logos of God, which is a considerably more complex concept than simply "Word", as in living spoken or written language. The author of Gospel John adopted the Greek philosophical language from Philo of Alexandria, and used the word "Logos" to describe that Neo-Platonic concept of a meditating principle between the unknowable God and man which makes the un-knowable, knowable.

 

Logos is really best understood as "Revealer" or "Manifestor", though the word translates as reason or word. As the Logos through creation revealed the unknowable God, He continued that role of his eternal nature as the Logos, or "Revealer" of God, in becoming flesh and 'dwelling among us'. "He came into the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not." This is John's Logos concept.

 

But when people pick up a Bible and view it as infallible, it literally can be understood to be the revealed word of God. Correct? When people say the Bible is the word of God, I don't think they mean it in the sense of the Divine Logos of John's Gospel. They mean it is literally the words of God himself. If viewed that way, then people go off defending it as perfect, when to any modern researcher it is quickly shown to be a human work with contradictions, cultural references, anachronisms, historical errors, etc, etc. When people hold to that belief and defend it, they literally believe in the Bible as book written by God himself.

 

So my question is can you still have faith without believing in the Bible as a book literally written by God Himself through human hands? If you find outright errors, plagiarism from other religions, or outdated cultural ideas attributed to God, would your faith stand or fall? I think the answer to that, would answer my question on how one views the Bible and what drives their faith.

 

Your thoughts?

[sojourner]

ah now I better understand your questions in the previous post by this comment Antlerman

 

So my question is can you still have faith without believing in the Bible as a book literally written by God Himself through human hands? If you find outright errors, plagiarism from other religions, or outdated cultural ideas attributed to God, would your faith stand or fall? I think the answer to that, would answer my question on how one views the Bible and what drives their faith.

 

Your thoughts?

 

Guess what i did this morning? I ordered two books I felt led to read from Amazon. So I will be able to get back to you on this for sure with actual experiance soon.

 

 

"Who Wrote the Bible?"

Richard E. Friedman

 

"The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (Biblical Resource Series)"

Mark S. Smith;

 

So perhaps some things will be challanged by these books for me and then I can give you my experiance and the results.

 

sojourner

[Mythra]

Good for you, girl! I don't know those books specifically - but I love to see people stretching a little and wanting to investigate and learn.

 

Ruts are for sissies.

[Grandpa Harley]

I know Friedman... he's not bad...

 

I'm impressed.

[Antlerman]

ah now I better understand your questions in the previous post by this comment Antlerman

Oh, no wonder you seemed you seemed taken back a little. Yes that's what I was driving at. I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I've been told I ask questions in a round-bout way a lot. It's hard for me to see that, but I've been told it too many times now. Sorry.

 

Yes, if you understand the human origins of the Bible, does it lose spiritual value for you?

[Kratos]

MWC, GH, and AM,

 

Forgive me the time saving of answering your posts together. You all seem to be asking similar questions in different ways. The seem to all come down to my understanding of the Bible and how we receive spiritual understanding from it and from God.

 

I cannot help that my answer will be somewhat subjective as I can only answer from my life and how I live. I do believe that one of the major differences between true Christianity and other religions is the whole "personal relationship" thing and the understanding that we are the Temple of God and our God dwells in us. Most religions have temples with inner sanctum where an idol or some other artifact that represents their god is placed and reveared. (see my link in my last post on this subject). Judaism had a similar Temple in the wildernes with Moses and in Jerusalem. There was the Holy of Holies where the ark of the Covenant was placed and where God was seen to dwell.

 

However, these things in Judaism as well as in other religions were types given by God to point different peoples and cultures to God's true purpose of coming to dwell in Temples of flesh and no longer in temples of stone. You will probably reject this, but it is what I believe and base my ability to interpret the Bible and the will of God upon.

 

God moved upon holy men of old to write the scriptures, but the Bible is a closed Book unless it is spiritually discerned. It would be like a person seeing an omen in the sky and going to the oracle of Delphi to get the interpretation. Except in this case, all who have received the indwelling Holy Spirit become that oracle of God for themselves and they receive the interpretation of what they read for themselves directly from God.

 

I believe that this is real Christianity and the way that Jesus operated. When He said "You have read in the scriptures ........ But I say unto you ................" He was interpreting the Wprd through the Spirit within Him.

 

Most people (even atheists) do not want or trust each person with the understanding of God for themselves. Most want a set in stone set of Laws and a priesthood to tell them what they mean. The very freedom that many of you espouse to find your own way without another man telling you what is God is the way of God. Even most Christians reject what I am talking about and speak down their noses at is as "Christian mysticism". Yet, here is what the Bible says:

 

Heb 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.

Heb 8:8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:

Heb 8:9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

Heb 8:11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

Heb 8:12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

Heb 8:13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

 

1Jn 2:27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

 

So, this seems like chaos to those who see Christianity as a religion that needs a clearly defined statement of faith and a clergy to tell us what God is saying. But, the Bible that we all claim to follow in Christianity says that He writes His laws in our hearts in the New Covenant and we should not tell our neighbor what He is saying, but the anointing that abides in us (His Spirit) will lead us to His will for our lives as individuals. It is scary to many who prefer a hierarchy religion, but it is very liberating to those who are willing to walk this way.

 

Kratos

[Legion]

Kratos I once believed as you do. But now I believe differently.

 

What are we Kratos? What are we first before all other things? I submit that we are organisms. And if we wish to understand people then we must also understand organisms.

 

I say that because I get the sense that you’ve lost sight of that somewhere along the line. It may seem off topic, I just have this nagging feeling that you parse the world into a completely different set of percepts than I do. Your filter is different than mine.

[pneuma]

I understand your thoughts here, but the Word of God applied to Jesus is really better understood as the Logos of God, which is a considerably more complex concept than simply "Word", as in living spoken or written language. The author of Gospel John adopted the Greek philosophical language from Philo of Alexandria, and used the word "Logos" to describe that Neo-Platonic concept of a meditating principle between the unknowable God and man which makes the un-knowable, knowable.

 

Logos is really best understood as "Revealer" or "Manifestor", though the word translates as reason or word. As the Logos through creation revealed the unknowable God, He continued that role of his eternal nature as the Logos, or "Revealer" of God, in becoming flesh and 'dwelling among us'. "He came into the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not." This is John's Logos concept

.

 

Hi Antlerman awhile back I was speaking with a teacher of the Greek language on the net and I think he would agree with your statements above. I also have no problem with that understanding of LOGOS.

 

But when people pick up a Bible and view it as infallible, it literally can be understood to be the revealed word of God. Correct?

 

While here’s the problem as I see it AM. We have so many different translations of what was actually written that I don’t believe it is infallible anymore. And as one who does not understand Hebrew or Greek I am at the mercy of the translators of the bible. And it is for this reason I do not just read one bible but many different translations, plus use concordances and lexicon to search out for myself what was really said.

But then again here I am still at the mercy of those that put the concordances and lexicon together.

I do however believe that the scriptures in their original language is infallible, but today we have much searching out of the matter to get at the infallible word of God.

 

 

When people say the Bible is the word of God, I don't think they mean it in the sense of the Divine Logos of John's Gospel.

 

You would be surprised then AM for I have come across many who believe just that and at one time I to believed it.

 

They mean it is literally the words of God himself. If viewed that way, then people go off defending it as perfect, when to any modern researcher it is quickly shown to be a human work with contradictions, cultural references, anachronisms, historical errors, etc, etc. When people hold to that belief and defend it, they literally believe in the Bible as book written by God himself.

 

Again here is the problem with that line of thinking, if the bible as we know it today is the infallible word of God which bible translation is it?

Every translation I have read along with concordances and lexicons I see man adding their own understanding of what was really said and because of this I see many errors in the bible. That said I also believe within the bible we have scripture that is true and infallible and we need (at least I do) to search for the truth written therein.

I know my views here would be heresy to mainstream Christianity but I am not saying the scriptures are fallible I am saying that the translation of those scriptures is.

 

Case in point.

 

Both the words hell and eternal are not found anywhere in the scriptures, yet we see them abundantly used in almost every translation of the scriptures, and to me it looks very much like handling the word of God deceitfully, in order to control mans thoughts and action through fear and torment.

 

 

 

So my question is can you still have faith without believing in the Bible as a book literally written by God Himself through human hands? If you find outright errors, plagiarism from other religions, or outdated cultural ideas attributed to God, would your faith stand or fall? I think the answer to that, would answer my question on how one views the Bible and what drives their faith.

 

Your thoughts?

 

I believe we can have faith without believing in the bible.

If it is true Moses wrote the first 5 books of the bible then is goes without saying many a men believed in God and had faith in Him though they had no recorded words from Him.

My faith in God does not stand on the bible but I do use the bible to support my faith.

[Grandpa Harley]

"I also have no problem with that understanding of LOGOS."

 

Which is something that cannot be said of 1st Century Jews... and then you just pile the ignorant Gibberish on with a shovel...

[pneuma]

"I also have no problem with that understanding of LOGOS."

 

Which is something that cannot be said of 1st Century Jews... and then you just pile the ignorant Gibberish on with a shovel...

 

Hi GH this may be true and might explain why they stumbled when the Logos came to them.

[lemon]

 

 

So my question is can you still have faith without believing in the Bible as a book literally written by God Himself through human hands? If you find outright errors, plagiarism from other religions, or outdated cultural ideas attributed to God, would your faith stand or fall? I think the answer to that, would answer my question on how one views the Bible and what drives their faith.

 

Your thoughts?--Antlerman

 

Funny you should mention this. I have a close friend who revealed to me that she doesn't trust the bible as it is full of contradictions but insists on remaining a christian. I was quite shocked when she revealed this to me. It made me wonder just how many christians don't trust the bible (and won't admit it).

[Grandpa Harley]

"I also have no problem with that understanding of LOGOS."

 

Which is something that cannot be said of 1st Century Jews... and then you just pile the ignorant Gibberish on with a shovel...

 

Hi GH this may be true and might explain why they stumbled when the Logos came to them.

 

Are you smoking crack, or just a moron? JESUS COULDN'T HAVE COMMUNICATED THE IDEA... IT'S NOT SUPPORTABLE IN THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE... Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and their little donkey... God preserve me from idiots...

[pneuma]

God preserve me from idiots...

 

Is that a prayer?