For the fake postmodern profit. LOL

Here’s how I might start a bible from the perspective of a scientifically literate God believer. Delete “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” and replace it with “In the beginning of time, about 13.7 billion years ago, God created our universe with a big bang.”
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is that change necessary?.....does it really alter the message?......
 
Damocles said:
No, not really.
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It certainly is if you don't want the Bible to laughably contradict reality. Or you can ignore history and pretend that it was always understood using your modern and liberal interpretations. Reputable theological analysis show that the cosmology of the creation story (either) is a joke.
 
Hasa Diga Eebowai said:
PMP should host another Council of Niacea so he and the other cultist can rewrite the bible.

http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/...e-a-second-chance-by-making-a-new-bible/31539

Why do I prefer our United States Constitution to the Bible? Lots of reasons, but I’ll focus on one. The Constitution allows for do-overs. Its authors understood the document to be imperfect and made provisions for future generations to amend it.


Alas, there is no such biblical escape clause. What you see from way back then is what you get.


Neither the Constitution nor the Bible included freedom of religion, equal rights for women, prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or the abolition of slavery — but today, through amendments, the Constitution does. We also have a democratic form of government that allows for progressive laws that our 18th-century founders might not have considered or desired.


So what about those who believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God, yet can’t reconcile some portions with a loving deity? It’s difficult to justify passages about killing witches, slaying all women and little children in a city, the blood of Jesus being on all Jews and their children, killing homosexuals, and many more. Even biblical literalists now try to interpret some of these passages in more enlightened ways.


Not only is slavery nowhere condemned in the Bible, but some have used Noah’s curse of Canaan to justify it. (“Cursed be Canaan [presumed black]! The lowest of slaves will he be to his [presumed white] brothers.”) Since nobody today condones slavery (and groups like the Southern Baptist Convention have even apologized for promoting slavery), interpretations abound. For instance, Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis says Noah’s curse had to do with a rebellious son, not skin color.


Apparently, it’s easier for some Christians to be on the moral rather than on the scientific side of history. Albert Mohler, who Time called the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U. S., believes that the incredible Adam and Eve story goes to the heart of Christianity — because the whole point of the crucifixion and the resurrection was to undo Adam’s original sin, and that without a historical Adam, the work of Christ makes no sense.


Are you a church leader? Reach more newcomers on FaithStreet.
Treating the Bible as a history or science book makes many Christians as uncomfortable as accepting all the biblical pronouncements about women, Jews, gays, slaves, and smiting. The Bible describes a young and flat earth with four corners resting on pillars at the center of our universe. Every piece of “science” in the Bible is wrong.


I’m inspired by Thomas Jefferson and the Dalai Lama to suggest a new approach to biblical problems. Thomas Jefferson amended the Christian Bible by writing a version that left out miracle stories and included only what made sense to him. Jefferson referred to what remained as “diamonds in a dunghill.” The Dalai Lama said, “If science proves facts that conflict with Buddhist understanding, Buddhism must change accordingly.”


There are secular “bibles” for atheists, and that’s fine. Atheists and humanists accept that they are part of a natural world, the result of unguided evolutionary change, and that ethical values are derived from human needs and interests and are tested and refined by experience. No supernaturalism is needed. I’ve written a piece on biblical fables, where atheists can still find moral lessons in the traditional Bible as they do in Aesop’s fables.


But I’m proposing something different here — an amended bible devoid of passages that many God believers ignore, are embarrassed by, or interpret as the opposite of what the words say. This would not be a bible where poet William Blake could say, “Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white.”


Who should write this new bible? Perhaps a committee of God believers who view the traditional Bible as inspired, but not inerrant, along with scientists and ethicists as advisors. After discussion, they could vote on what to include and exclude.


Is this heresy? No, it’s tradition! Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century brought church leaders together at the Council of Nicaea, and they voted the “word of God” into existence. And so it could be with my proposed second-chance bible for progressive religious believers, who have informally been treating the Bible as if it were a Constitution and amending it with their thoughts and behavior. I’m just suggesting that such amendments be written on paper, not tablets.


Here’s how I might start a bible from the perspective of a scientifically literate God believer. Delete “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” and replace it with “In the beginning of time, about 13.7 billion years ago, God created our universe with a big bang.”


I don’t believe the “God” part, but at least this bible can begin more accurately and move on to God’s “creating” the earth some 9 billion years after the big bang. The traditional Bible fits comfortably with the views of those who wrote it in a pre-scientific and misogynistic era. Scientists and humanists have since filled in many God of the gaps and moral gaps of biblical authors some 2000 to 3000 years ago.


Any second-chance bible would be far from perfect. Future generations would look back and laugh about some of our current misconceptions and prejudices, which would inspire them to write a more perfect third bible. And so on. Maybe a day will eventually come when people will accept a godless bible, just as they accept our godless Constitution.
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When the Christians realize that the Bible is a book of HUMAN laws. Not some super natural being. They will understand that Humans err. That is why Jesus Himself updated some of those laws.


Matthew 5:38-39

New American Standard Bible (NASB)


38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

Last time I checked? I don't see women getting stoned to death for Adultery.lol
 
Damocles said:
Let's take a look at different laws that are different and pretend they are the same! Look... I don't care if people think Jesus was God or not as I don't believe that either were God. But Nammu's code? What has that to do with the price of wine in Tuscany?
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Only an idiot cant put two and two together. Are you an idiot? Or pretending to be?
 
Hasa Diga Eebowai said:
It certainly is if you don't want the Bible to laughably contradict reality. Or you can ignore history and pretend that it was always understood using your modern and liberal interpretations. Reputable theological analysis show that the cosmology of the creation story (either) is a joke.
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Again, not really... "God created the Heavens and the Earth" is a rather vague timeline. Pretending that rewriting it with specificity means that it was suddenly "wrong" before is just pretense. It's not like I go out of my way to "prove" that it is "real". I personally think that such non-specific sentences are really not specific.

It could have been 13.7 billion years before the magical man of mystery showed up at the already created earth to "breath life" into Adam (did Adam have a belly button?). It just doesn't address it.
 
Damocles said:
Again, not really... "God created the Heavens and the Earth" is a rather vague timeline. Pretending that rewriting it with specificity means that it was suddenly "wrong" before is just pretense. It's not like I go out of my way to "prove" that it is "real". I personally think that such non-specific sentences are really not specific.

It could have been 13.7 billion years before the magical man of mystery showed up at the already created earth to "breath life" into Adam (did Adam have a belly button?). It just doesn't address it.
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It's not vague. The Bible makes specific claims about the earth being flat and floating, the center of the universe, covered by a solid dome, within which celestial bodies were fixed, that separated the earth from a cosmic ocean and with an underworld below.

The only reason to take such artistic license with it and to go to such lengths in explaining away the obvious errors would be a belief in the Bible as inerrant rather than what it obviously is, i.e., primitive mythology.
 
Hasa Diga Eebowai said:
Yes. You pretend that the Bible does not portray a specific and ridiculous cosmology, because you are a fraud and a liar.
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well, granted I don't believe that life spontaneously crawled out of a puddle of mud, I don't believe human beings and sphagnum moss have a common ancestor, and I don't believe gravity caused dust to form into suns and planets which then created gravity.....but other than that, I don't know why you have to call my cosmology ridiculous....../grins....
 
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Hasa Diga Eebowai said:
It's not vague. The Bible makes specific claims about the earth being flat and floating, the center of the universe, covered by a solid dome, within which celestial bodies were fixed, that separated the earth from a cosmic ocean and with an underworld below.

The only reason to take such artistic license with it and to go to such lengths in explaining away the obvious errors would be a belief in the Bible as inerrant rather than what it obviously is, i.e., primitive mythology.
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not really.....the Bible is a collection of a variety of different writing styles.....narrative, letters, poetry, court records, apocrypha....it would be foolish to read poetry as if it were court records, to read court records as if they were letters, letters as if they were narrative.....the error isn't in the fact it contains poetry, the error is treating the poetry as if it were narrative.....
 
PostmodernProphet said:
not really.....the Bible is a collection of a variety of different writing styles.....narrative, letters, poetry, court records, apocrypha....it would be foolish to read poetry as if it were court records, to read court records as if they were letters, letters as if they were narrative.....the error isn't in the fact it contains poetry, the error is treating the poetry as if it were narrative.....
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Right, so in other words, you cherry pick the Bible and believe you are the only one entitled to do so.

But, the principles of your fledgling cult are still convoluted. If the creation story is "poetry" then why treat it as if it must be accounted for by natural sciences? Why is it not just "poetry?" And why not update it so that it does not make so many clear and repeated contradictions of the facts.
 
Hasa Diga Eebowai said:
Right, so in other words, you cherry pick the Bible and believe you are the only one entitled to do so.

But, the principles of your fledgling cult are still convoluted. If the creation story is "poetry" then why treat it as if it must be accounted for by natural sciences? Why is it not just "poetry?" And why not update it so that it does not make so many clear and repeated contradictions of the facts.
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actually, I thought I was advocating applying intelligent exegesis in studying scripture.....something everyone is not only entitled to do, but expected to do.....

not sure what you mean by "accounted for by the natural sciences" but I wonder why you're concerned about it......you don't seem to care that claims like abiogenesis and humans evolving from single celled organisms aren't accounted for by the natural sciences.....

and obviously those portions which ARE poetry ought to be examined as "just" poetry.....do you "update" Sandburg because his writing is just poetry?......
 
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