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Goodbye Jesus

"they Knew That They Were Naked"


Citsonga

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Haha, good points. Although Adam & Eve supposedly being in "God's image" (while the other creatures were not) would have to be taken into account.

I have no idea what the flies are told in their bible. Maybe they believe they were made in "God's image?" Maybe we're their serpent? After all they were happily avoiding the forbidden fruit but then a big juicy piece comes half-eaten out of the sky. How could they possibly pass that up? They're just ignorant fruit flies after all. Of course they're going to take a big bite out of that.

 

mwc

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Guest marabod

Hi V...! Welcome in! nice to have you here too! It seems the filters here are quite relaxed, so if you somehow get pissed off with me you may need less self-restrictions expressing it :funny:

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I'm curious about others' thoughts on this. After Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit and get the knowledge of good and evil, we are told this:

 

Genesis 3:7

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

 

Now, at this point Adam and Eve were supposedly the only people in existence, and they were basically husband and wife, so why would they have any shame about being naked? Are we supposed to believe that they were really concerned about the animals seeing them? What can we make of this part of the myth?

 

I take it as a symbolic description of us stopping being the animals and becoming humans, the moment of our final separation from the animal world. But this of course contradicts Christian doctrine about the need to take Biblical word literally, as it is the word of God, passed by Holy Spirit to enlightened people who wrote it. If they thought these all could be allegories and fables, then they would've accepted Darwinism from day one, but it took 150+ years of progress for them to agree that the Earth is not 8000 years old, that the sky is not solid and rain water is not stored above it etc. I actually feel pity they are refusing from literate following the Bible now, as then we could suggest that if Adam and Eve were naked and did not know what the clothes are, then the Lord God was supposed to be naked too, as they were created in God's image, so the white robe on the icons is a fake, covering the divine details we are not supposed to see.

 

Good post! Even church fathers such as Irenaeus believed the Genesis account was an allegory of man's ascension to a moral being. To take the story literally is to diminish it.

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Good post! Even church fathers such as Irenaeus believed the Genesis account was an allegory of man's ascension to a moral being. To take the story literally is to diminish it.

 

There sure were smart people before us too! 1800 years ago of Irenaeus was 700 years after Plato and Aristotle. I always thought that Free Will is directly linked to us learning the difference between Good and Evil, and this is what made us to be moral, the ability to understand are we acting to make Good to someone even by making Evil to ourselves, or we are acting out of Evil to someone in order to make Good for ourselves. Animals certainly cannot reason this way (although some in fact can...) so this discovery made possible for us to become altruistic sometimes.

 

I also think that clothes as such were indication and symbol of male and female acting together for OTHER purposes as just having sex. It is known that in primitive tribes the clothes are not worn to cover the genitals, but rather as decorations of day time, neither they are worn as a protection from cold - as it was noticed among now extinct Aboriginals of Tasmania, where the soil temperature at night may go as low as -12 C, but the women and men were equally sleeping naked on the ground with no damage to their health. Going by Genesis one can suggest that the author of creation story thought the complete nakedness was appropriate only for sexual life, not as everyday uniform, and this could be what made them shy.

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Even church fathers such as Irenaeus believed the Genesis account was an allegory of man's ascension to a moral being. To take the story literally is to diminish it.

 

Indeed there have been some who have taken it allegorically. Haven't they been a minority, though?

 

And how do they deal with the lengthy genealogies? It makes absolutely zero sense to me to say that the stories were meant to be taken allegorically, and yet they felt the need to put all those lengthy genealogies in there.

 

And at what point are they supposedly switching from allegory to literal? I mean, which person in the genealogies was the literal son of a figurative father?

 

That notion just seems silly to me. But, hey, how would I know? I wasn't there.... ;)

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Guest marabod
Even church fathers such as Irenaeus believed the Genesis account was an allegory of man's ascension to a moral being. To take the story literally is to diminish it.

 

Indeed there have been some who have taken it allegorically. Haven't they been a minority, though?

 

And how do they deal with the lengthy genealogies? It makes absolutely zero sense to me to say that the stories were meant to be taken allegorically, and yet they felt the need to put all those lengthy genealogies in there.

 

And at what point are they supposedly switching from allegory to literal? I mean, which person in the genealogies was the literal son of a figurative father?

 

That notion just seems silly to me. But, hey, how would I know? I wasn't there.... ;)

 

I think the ancients were not keeping chronologies and the time for them was different than for us. There are other cases known of the genealogies to be used to link or proof some event - for example to derive Jesus from David, there is a long genealogy in Matthew linking David to Joseph, so Jesus was appearing as a successor of David in some sense (but in fact as soon as he was not son of Joseph physically, his origins in the Jewish tradition were supposed to be counted by Mary's side, so only Romans could see an adopted son to be a legal son :) ). Also similar phenomena can be met in Roman history - Aeneus was supposed to land in Italy in 11th century BC, right after Trojan War; while Rome remembers itself hardly from 7th century BC, so there is at least 400 years "hole" which is only partially covered by the rule of Ascanius (Jule), son of Aeneus and Lavinia and Latin Silvius, grand-son of Aeneus and Lavinia allegedly born in the woods (hence name) - so the Romans "created" a dynasty of King sof Alba Longa all named Silvius, ending it with Numitor and Amuleus, father and uncle of Romulus and Remus. Some times this was not done to deceive someone, but just to keep the story uninterrupted by sudden lack of data.

 

Visually insane statements on the long age of the Patriarchs were casually explained by Plutarch, who thought that the very ancient people were using Lunar Month as what later started to know as a "year", counted through the seasons (which are not really well-noticeable in such countries as Egypt, specially in pre-agricultural period). He was insisting that the very first Egyptians had a year only of about 30 days, and then with the accumulation of the knowledge and astronolical information there became 3 months in a year (90 days) and then 6 months (180 days). Depending on when the event or person happened, 800 years of life can be 800/12= 67 years (say for Adam) which was a great old age at average life expectancy of some 30 years or less. This biblical dating by the patriarchs lives is the same as to measure air with table spoons.

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Hi V...! Welcome in! nice to have you here too! It seems the filters here are quite relaxed, so if you somehow get pissed off with me you may need less self-restrictions expressing it :funny:

 

Me get pissed off...? :rolleyes::lol: Thanks for the heads-up though, lol.

 

Now, should I be concerned since the filters here are quite relaxed...? :P

 

Thank you for the welcome, and same to you, Marabod. :)

 

Some of us came aboard because of you, and due to a not so laxed filter system. *wink wink* :lol:

 

:poke: Silver linings...? ;) Hope so. There's much more free thought allowed here, for sure.

 

Yeah, I'm into emoticons today...lol. There's many to choose from. omg...! hehe :D Btw...some good posts from you.

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Hi V...! Welcome in! nice to have you here too! It seems the filters here are quite relaxed, so if you somehow get pissed off with me you may need less self-restrictions expressing it :funny:

 

Me get pissed off...? :rolleyes::lol: Thanks for the heads-up though, lol.

 

Now, should I be concerned since the filters here are quite relaxed...? :P

 

Thank you for the welcome, and same to you, Marabod. :)

 

Some of us came aboard because of you, and due to a not so laxed filter system. *wink wink* :lol:

 

:poke: Silver linings...? ;) Hope so. There's much more free thought allowed here, for sure.

 

Yeah, I'm into emoticons today...lol. There's many to choose from. omg...! hehe :D Btw...some good posts from you.

I agree its not stressful at all..I don't have to triple check my post a hundred times .. :grin:

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Indeed there have been some who have taken it allegorically. Haven't they been a minority, though?

 

And how do they deal with the lengthy genealogies? It makes absolutely zero sense to me to say that the stories were meant to be taken allegorically, and yet they felt the need to put all those lengthy genealogies in there.

 

 

That notion just seems silly to me. But, hey, how would I know? I wasn't there.... ;)

A majority of Christians used to believe that the story of the curse of Ham was about racism but that doesn't mean it actually was intended to mean that. If Genesis was intended to be read literally, why did the Isrealites have two completely different creation accounts? Wouldn't they have just copied chapter two's account to be identical to chapter 1 if they were intending it to be seen as factual?
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Indeed there have been some who have taken it allegorically. Haven't they been a minority, though?

 

And how do they deal with the lengthy genealogies? It makes absolutely zero sense to me to say that the stories were meant to be taken allegorically, and yet they felt the need to put all those lengthy genealogies in there.

 

 

That notion just seems silly to me. But, hey, how would I know? I wasn't there.... ;)

A majority of Christians used to believe that the story of the curse of Ham was about racism but that doesn't mean it actually was intended to mean that. If Genesis was intended to be read literally, why did the Isrealites have two completely different creation accounts? Wouldn't they have just copied chapter two's account to be identical to chapter 1 if they were intending it to be seen as factual?

you would be stunned at how many take genesis literal and do not know that it contains two creation stories..that were borrowed from the sumerians...

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Indeed there have been some who have taken it allegorically. Haven't they been a minority, though?

 

And how do they deal with the lengthy genealogies? It makes absolutely zero sense to me to say that the stories were meant to be taken allegorically, and yet they felt the need to put all those lengthy genealogies in there.

 

 

That notion just seems silly to me. But, hey, how would I know? I wasn't there.... ;)

A majority of Christians used to believe that the story of the curse of Ham was about racism but that doesn't mean it actually was intended to mean that. If Genesis was intended to be read literally, why did the Isrealites have two completely different creation accounts? Wouldn't they have just copied chapter two's account to be identical to chapter 1 if they were intending it to be seen as factual?

 

It is quite interesting that you decided to delete a very important paragraph in my post (without even making any indication in the quote that something was edited out). Here is what I said:

 

Indeed there have been some who have taken it allegorically. Haven't they been a minority, though?

 

And how do they deal with the lengthy genealogies? It makes absolutely zero sense to me to say that the stories were meant to be taken allegorically, and yet they felt the need to put all those lengthy genealogies in there.

 

And at what point are they supposedly switching from allegory to literal? I mean, which person in the genealogies was the literal son of a figurative father?

 

That notion just seems silly to me. But, hey, how would I know? I wasn't there.... ;)

 

That, my friend, is why I called it silly.

 

As far as there being different accounts, you do have a point, though that point represents what the editors did in cobbling the different accounts together. But even regarding the editors, if they did not intend for the details of the cobbled-together stories to be taken literally, then why did they bother with the genealogies?

 

I don't know, we could probably never know with absolute certainty what the original people involved meant, but I still have to ask again:

 

And at what point are they supposedly switching from allegory to literal? I mean, which person in the genealogies was the literal son of a figurative father?

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Neon Genesis, another thing to take into consideration regarding the creation account(s) is that Exodus 20 draws a direct parallel between the 6 creation days and the 6-day work week followed by a rest on the Sabbath. Whoever wrote that appears to have taken the 6 days of creation literally, and Exodus 20 was also canonized as Scripture.

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And at what point are they supposedly switching from allegory to literal? I mean, which person in the genealogies was the literal son of a figurative father?

I have no idea what you guys are now talking about but pharaohs could be considered to be literal sons of figurative fathers (depending on your view). Tracing a lineage would have gone through non-existent "people" ("gods") at some point.

 

Suetonius writes this on Julius Caesar:

During his quaestorship he pronounced funeral orations from the rostra, according to custom, in praise of his aunt (5) Julia, and his wife Cornelia. In the panegyric on his aunt, he gives the following account of her own and his father's genealogy, on both sides: "My aunt Julia derived her descent, by the mother, from a race of kings, and by her father, from the Immortal Gods. For the Marcii Reges [18], her mother's family, deduce their pedigree from Ancus Marcius, and the Julii, her father's, from Venus; of which stock we are a branch. We therefore unite in our descent the sacred majesty of kings, the chiefest among men, and the divine majesty of Gods, to whom kings themselves are subject."

Obviously, he somehow laid claim to Venus.

 

I just re-read part of your post. What I posted already doesn't really apply so much but it's there so I'll leave it. ;)

 

Those lists could come from ancient Sumerian kings lists:

After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridu.

In Eridu, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28,800 years.

Alalgar ruled for 36,000 years.

Two kings; they ruled for 64800 years.

 

Then Eridu fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira.

In Bad-tibira, Enmen-lu-ana ruled for 43,200 years.

Enmen-gal-ana ruled for 28,800 years.

The divine Dumuzi, the shepherd, ruled for 36,000 years.

Three kings; they ruled for 108,000 years.

[...]

Go read the link. As the dates come forward in time the lengths also become more realistic and the names on the lists also become less intertwined with their ancient myths. I used to have a link that showed the origin of the king and around 2300-2100 BCE you should find Abram from the bible (I believe this is him: "Ibranum ruled for 1 year."). One of the other family member names is in there too (just before or just after except it has the name of another god instead of "el" in it...I want to say this: "Išme-Dagan, son of Iddin-Dagan, ruled for 20 years. (1954-1935)..."Ishmael"...he got the boot too and had to set up house elsewhere). Does that mean these are the exact same people or they did those things from the bible? No. It could just mean they were usurped from this list. "Borrowed." Or maybe they really did wonder over to Canaan. Ruling for one year is not the best king ever after all. He could have got the boot and decided to write a "hero" story when he left. It's impossible to say. Since the bible never mentions him being a king it would best fall under myth.

 

mwc

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Guest marabod
For the Marcii Reges [18], her mother's family, deduce their pedigree from Ancus Marcius, and the Julii, her father's, from Venus; of which stock we are a branch. We therefore unite in our descent the sacred majesty of kings, the chiefest among men, and the divine majesty of Gods, to whom kings themselves are subject."Obviously, he somehow laid claim to Venus.

 

The clan of Julii was descending Aeneus through his son Ascanio, whose other name was Jul. Ancient sources (Homer!) state that Aeneus was son of Venus, whose cult was popular in Troy. So it is not "somehow claiming" but a common understanding of the issue by the ancient - as Julii's claim was never challenged in Roman history.

 

Story with Macii Reges (Marcii-Kings) is well explained by Suetonius (I believe) or by Plutarch, memory lacks! King Ancus Marcius had nothing to do with Ancii Regii, because these were originating from "sacred Kings", the Priests of Jupiter of 4th century BC, while Marcius did not have any direct male siblings who could preserve his name 9I think he was succeeded by an Etrurian Servius Tullius)

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Thanks for explanation. Does your ego feel less bruised now?

 

Or should I make an obvious blunder so we can have the "gotcha" moment and end this?

 

You do realize that Julius Caesars real name was Ted, right? As Ted derives from Cedric. Oh my, I do hope I have this all correct. I would hopelessly embarrassed if I have this wrong in the slightest.

 

mwc

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Thanks for explanation. Does your ego feel less bruised now?

 

Or should I make an obvious blunder so we can have the "gotcha" moment and end this?

 

You do realize that Julius Caesars real name was Ted, right? As Ted derives from Cedric. Oh my, I do hope I have this all correct. I would hopelessly embarrassed if I have this wrong in the slightest.

 

mwc

Cannot understand a thing from your response except that you may be angry with me.

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They then understood "naked" as not being "covered/protected" by God....3 cents worth.

Well, then, God protected their genitals?

 

ASV Genesis 2:25

25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

 

ASV Genesis 3:7

7. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

 

 

"And they took rubber, and made condoms, but Adam noticed that the rubber felt good and made a larger apron to cover the torso and this made his dick hard. And he was ashamed, but Eve loved it."

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Cannot understand a thing from your response except that you may be angry with me.

Okay. I'm used to dealing with liars.

 

mwc

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Guest marabod

Cannot understand a thing from your response except that you may be angry with me.

Okay. I'm used to dealing with liars.

 

mwc

 

Could you be more specific please? To whose lies do you refer and why exactly?

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That, my friend, is why I called it silly.

 

As far as there being different accounts, you do have a point, though that point represents what the editors did in cobbling the different accounts together. But even regarding the editors, if they did not intend for the details of the cobbled-together stories to be taken literally, then why did they bother with the genealogies?

 

I don't know, we could probably never know with absolute certainty what the original people involved meant, but I still have to ask again:

 

And at what point are they supposedly switching from allegory to literal? I mean, which person in the genealogies was the literal son of a figurative father?

If the genealogies are proof that the bible was intended to be read literally, why did Matthew and Luke have two entirely different genealogies that contradict each other when they could have just copied each other since Luke was copying from Matthew? Why do the scriptures go out of their way to completely change the plot points of stories, like the drastically different accounts of King Saul's death which are entirely different from each other? I don't know what points they were intended to be read literally but don't Catholics believe the story of Adam and Eve was metaphorical and everything past that is literal or semi-literal? Also, Bart D Ehrman argues in his book Jesus Interrupted that the title "son of God" Jesus used was not intended to mean Jesus was literally God's son but it's a title used by a chosen leader of Israel. Saul, for example, was also called a son of God in the OT but nobody thinks he was literally God's son.

 

Neon Genesis, another thing to take into consideration regarding the creation account(s) is that Exodus 20 draws a direct parallel between the 6 creation days and the 6-day work week followed by a rest on the Sabbath. Whoever wrote that appears to have taken the 6 days of creation literally, and Exodus 20 was also canonized as Scripture.
But the bible also says that a day is a thousand years to God and a thousand year is a day. Also, just because someone quotes a story to make a point doesn't mean you literally believe it was true or else everyone in this thread would be Christians simply from quoting bible stories to make our points.
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If the genealogies are proof that the bible was intended to be read literally, why did Matthew and Luke have two entirely different genealogies that contradict each other when they could have just copied each other since Luke was copying from Matthew?

 

I think there are several explanations for the different genealogies, including:

 

1. One didn't copy because he had done his own research and thought the other genealogy had errors - and each genealogy was written for a different audience too.

2. The genealogy may have been written before or after the gospel and added later.

 

One of the I believe has Jesus as the seventh son of a seventh son (IIRC) or 14 generations from adam to David and 14 generations from David to Jesus. The other was more detailed, but I think had errors like including someone whose progeny were forbidden to reign because of some fuckup of the guy on the list.

 

Genealogies lend credence to claims of monarchy or "specialness." Same with Virgin Birth or whatever the particular audiences would beleive was important (not the same for all audiences).

 

I think much of this was intended to be literal, and that includes some miracle stuff and stories from and ancient past. I don't see much distinction between them in the OT. If Adam was mythical and generic (not a real person), then the genealogies would not have included them as a contributor of DNA (father type thing).

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If the genealogies are proof that the bible was intended to be read literally, why did Matthew and Luke have two entirely different genealogies that contradict each other when they could have just copied each other since Luke was copying from Matthew?

 

How do you know Luke was copying from Matthew? I got the impression that the consensus was that they both copied from mark, which makes sense given that they both seem to agree with him and not with each other.

 

Why do the scriptures go out of their way to completely change the plot points of stories, like the drastically different accounts of King Saul's death which are entirely different from each other?

 

Good point.

 

I don't know what points they were intended to be read literally but don't Catholics believe the story of Adam and Eve was metaphorical and everything past that is literal or semi-literal? Also, Bart D Ehrman argues in his book Jesus Interrupted that the title "son of God" Jesus used was not intended to mean Jesus was literally God's son but it's a title used by a chosen leader of Israel. Saul, for example, was also called a son of God in the OT but nobody thinks he was literally God's son.

 

Yes but John has him calling himself the I am who was in the beginning, and seeing as how both sets of gospels are in the canon they've got to harmonize them.

 

But the bible also says that a day is a thousand years to God and a thousand year is a day. Also, just because someone quotes a story to make a point doesn't mean you literally believe it was true or else everyone in this thread would be Christians simply from quoting bible stories to make our points.

 

It also says this about 1000 years later, in the part written by a completely different religious group.

 

Personally I think the problem here is that we're trying to guess at the intentions of authors who wrote over 2000 years ago. Authors who's culture and way of thinking are in all likelihood completely alien to our own. Add to that the fact that we know pretty much nothing about them, we don't even know whether they even believed this stuff themselves or were just trying to make a quick buck, we don't know whether they might have been insane, and we don't know whether they were just regular people who were just trying to get across what they'd heard. My thinking is that trying to work out what the original authors intentions were at this point is impossible. Even if you did come up with an answer it would be impossible to know whether you were right.

 

It's very easy to understand why fundamentalists take it literally however. They're worshiping a God who is revealed to them solely through this Book. Bona fide, verifiable, personal interaction with this God is non-existent. They have to deal with other religion's which all believe they have the true God and their own holy books to back them up. You've got to ask yourself the question if the miracles and acts of God written down in the bible are just figurative and not literal, why the hell should I believe that this God even exists. Oh and there's also that little thing about if you don't believe you'll burn in hell forever. You don't want to accidentally not believe something which is mandatory, you'll be kick yourself for that for a long time.

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Yes but John has him calling himself the I am who was in the beginning, and seeing as how both sets of gospels are in the canon they've got to harmonize them.

But then Jesus also says humans will be called gods, so is this to be taken as Jesus literally saying humans are gods? John does see Jesus as the divine Logos but it's never clear on what this divinity means and it only says Jesus is equal with God but not that he is God or physically related to him. Also, in the synoptic gospels, there are verses where Jesus not only says he's human but denies he's God like Mark 10:18
Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.

 

 

 

It's very easy to understand why fundamentalists take it literally however. They're worshiping a God who is revealed to them solely through this Book. Bona fide, verifiable, personal interaction with this God is non-existent. They have to deal with other religion's which all believe they have the true God and their own holy books to back them up. You've got to ask yourself the question if the miracles and acts of God written down in the bible are just figurative and not literal, why the hell should I believe that this God even exists. Oh and there's also that little thing about if you don't believe you'll burn in hell forever. You don't want to accidentally not believe something which is mandatory, you'll be kick yourself for that for a long time.

Hence why I'm an atheist, but even fundamentalists will accept certain parts of the bible were meant to be read symbolically rather than literally. No Christian, whether fundamentalist or liberal would argue that the parable of the prodigal son is meant to be read literally or that it only has value as a story if it's literally true. For some reason, fundamentalists can't apply the same logic to Genesis yet they will to other parts of the bible and it drives me insane. I saw this documentary on the History Channel a little while back called A History Of Hell or something like that. Anyway, it was about the history of hell in religions and they argued that the early church actually placed little emphasis on hell and hell didn't become more of a central part in Christianity until after St. Augustine came along and started preaching fire and brimstone as a way to get people to support political agendas through fear.

 

 

 

How do you know Luke was copying from Matthew? I got the impression that the consensus was that they both copied from mark, which makes sense given that they both seem to agree with him and not with each other.

That's what I meant but I screwed up. Anyway, my point is that they're all copying from different sources and are rewriting stories to suit their theological beliefs. It just seems strange to me if the gospel authors sincerely believed they were writing divinely inspired facts not to be altered yet they constantly altered it to suit their whims. As Shyone points out though, we're living in a different culture, so who knows if they had a different understanding of inspiration than we do today. Didn't everyone in that culture believe they had a daemon that was inspiring their soul and guiding them or something?
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Yes but John has him calling himself the I am who was in the beginning, and seeing as how both sets of gospels are in the canon they've got to harmonize them.

But then Jesus also says humans will be called gods, so is this to be taken as Jesus literally saying humans are gods? John does see Jesus as the divine Logos but it's never clear on what this divinity means and it only says Jesus is equal with God but not that he is God or physically related to him. Also, in the synoptic gospels, there are verses where Jesus not only says he's human but denies he's God like Mark 10:18
Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.

 

Yet again you have John 1:1 "In the beginning there was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God". Then you also have John 8:58 '"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"'. Here Jesus is seen stating that he existed long before Abraham, and I have been led to believe that the use of I am was emphasized in the Greek and is a reference to YWHW being the "I am", and that the use of I am was recognized as such back then. Even without that you've got things like alpha and the omega throughout the bible. Again it all really comes down to how your going to harmonize all these different verses, you harmonize it on the side of man, they harmonize on the side of God.

 

Second of all I believe that the early orthodox church did belief in a kind of deification, that is that, at least in some manner man can become God. St Athanasius I believe is quoted as saying "God became man to make man god". Furthermore I seem to remember perusing a book which was looking into the early church fathers opinion on the subject. So yes humans are God's, after all were made in his image.

 

Hence why I'm an atheist, but even fundamentalists will accept certain parts of the bible were meant to be read symbolically rather than literally. No Christian, whether fundamentalist or liberal would argue that the parable of the prodigal son is meant to be read literally or that it only has value as a story if it's literally true. For some reason, fundamentalists can't apply the same logic to Genesis yet they will to other parts of the bible and it drives me insane. I saw this documentary on the History Channel a little while back called A History Of Hell or something like that. Anyway, it was about the history of hell in religions and they argued that the early church actually placed little emphasis on hell and hell didn't become more of a central part in Christianity until after St. Augustine came along and started preaching fire and brimstone as a way to get people to support political agendas through fear.

 

Yes but you've got to take into account that the parable of the prodigal son is presented in such a way that you know it is symbolic. The genesis account is not presented as such, at least not obviously as such.

 

As to why fundamentalists refuse to apply the same logic to the Genesis account. It should be obvious to you why they don't want to relinquish it. It's what clearly sets out there God created man, thus making us his property, and gives the account of original sin, which is the lynch pin for why Jesus is needed. We're created in God's image via a process of natural selection really doesn't work as well, as he formed us out of the dust. Nor is it clear how the garden of eden fits in. Then furthermore if you make genesis figurative, where do you stop, do you make eternal life figurative, eternal perdition. Without that the religion starts to lose a lot of it's attracting and keeping power.

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