Christians deny the history of how Christianity came to be

[VerbosityCat]

1 hour ago, Lerk said:

 

Fundamentalist Christians don't think it matters. They believe that the Catholic Church is apostate, but that their god managed to use that apostate church to help the "truth" survive until the 21st century. They know the Catholics assembled the Bible and that there was controversy over which books should be included (Wesley and the book of James, in particular), but their presupposition is that Jehovah could have made sure what we have today is exactly the way he wanted it, therefore he would have. How it got to the state it's in is irrelevant in their minds.

 

Liberal Christians, or their theologians anyway, have no such illusion. But a lot of them have other illusions!

 

In Deuteronomy 32, the "Song of Moses," the original language makes it clear that the author believed that the nation of Israel was "the LORD's" portion. The other nations were led by other gods. These were given by "the Most High" god to his sons. (Meaning that "the LORD" aka Yahweh is a son of the Most High.) Biblical scholars know this. There's a well-regarded treatise on this subject by Michael S. Heiser (here) where the author goes to great pains to explain that the Septuagint language is correct, and the Masoretic was changed and should not have been, when it talks about the "sons of god." He admits that the language used is exactly like that of other nations at the time, yet he insists that the writer intended for the LORD to be equated with the Most High in this passage. He knows all of this stuff, yet he insists that the Bible is different than the other religions of the time.

 

I looked him up (on Wikipedia here) and, not a big surprise, even though he has advanced degrees from the University of Wisconsin -- Madison, which I would assume is a good school, his undergrad is from Bob Jones, a fundy Bible college. So he managed to get his PhD and hear the truth about the Bible, yet he takes this real sticking point (this passage is the number one reason I could never be a Christian believer again), and he spins it to the fundy view. The cognitive dissonance must be screaming in his brain!

 

 

Oh yeah. now I seem to have a dim memory of the whole "it doesn't matter how it got this way god used it to get the truth out..." etc. I remember it most vividly like you say with how the bible was put together, but I'm sure they would use that argument for violence also. As well as the "not real christians" argument. The rest of your post I hadn't heard before. That's fascinating. I have felt for a long time that monotheism was the fatal mistake of religion. Hard polytheism allows for everyone's gods and beliefs to coexist, understanding that each people has their own unique gods and way of looking at the world that only applies to them and the higher overarching god/reality is unknowable/a mystery. Hard polytheism also allows a comfortable home for atheists to NOT subscribe to anything or follow any gods. It was just a much healthier way to navigate these waters.