theartsydodger:

goodreasonnews:

Thought you’d enjoy[=

~~thanks to Autumn for this, btw. She’s a superstar.~~

Super cool an interesting. 

Unfortunately, this article is a little bit, well, flawed. Let’s run through it quickly, shall we?

“…if you really want an honest interpretation of the Book of Mormon or the Quran, you should start with an academic analysis. The same is true with the Hebrew and Christian Bibles – the more devout the Christian, the less they actually know about what the book really says.”

Much of the academic analysis being done on the Bible is done by theologians, many of whom are religious. I study theology, and my tutors are very critical about biblical texts - and one of them’s a chaplain. But rather than go on about this, let’s see what I can say briefly on each point. I’ll be throwing out the odd reference here and there, and may I recommend www.biblegateway.com. I’ll be using the New International Version (NIV). I should also clarify that I’m English and so we don’t have the same kind of Christian culture over here - less fundamentalism, basically.

1. Despite Mel Gibson’s movie, there is almost no Crucifixion account.

However, there are accounts. Matthew 27:11 - 56 is one such account. Just because it’s not in lots of gory detail doesn’t mean it’s not there at all.

2. There is no Resurrection of Jesus in the Bible.

Well, this is just wrong. There is a description, actually. Well, maybe not the kind the writer was looking for - no “Jesus sat up in his grave” stuff, but let’s look at Matthew 28: 5 - 10. Granted, if you’re going into this cynically you will doubt the existence of an angel, but that’s not what this is about. This is about whether or not there is an account of the Resurrection, and I would say that this pretty much counts. An angel tells the women why the tomb is empty - “He has risen from the dead”, and then they meet him outside the tomb. What if this, if not a narrative of the resurrection? Try John 20 for another account too.

3. Jesus is Against Marriage (with anyone).

I’m not really sure where they’re getting this title from, but as for the points discussed in the section, they’re making one vital error as someone trying to assess it academically - they are taking the quotes out of context, not just from the text, but from the time period. Let’s go with Matthew 15:4-7. Out of context, this seems to suggest Jesus agrees with beating children, right? In context, Jesus is pointing out the hypocrisy of the pharisees, saying they follow one law but not another. If we then take this story in context of the gospels, and turn to John 8, we see the famous story of Jesus preventing a woman being stoned, showing how he doesn’t agree with inflicting punishments. Of course, this goes back to my point of taking quotes out of context - we have to remember that each Gospel writer did have a different agenda, and Matthew seemed to push the Old Testament laws far more than John. We then see arguments for ‘violence’ being quoted. Again, when looked at in context of the works as a whole, we should see phrases such as Matthew 10.35 as metaphorical - being ‘set against’ your family doesn’t necessarily mean being violent to them, but being adament in your own views. Compare this to Matthew 21.5, where we see Jesus ride in on a donkey, showing an entrance in peace, rather than on some steed. The point is - if we take things out of context, we forget the whole picture, and even studying just one chapter is taking it ‘out of context’.

4. Thou Shall Not Kill, is NOT a Commandment.

Firstly, the whole ‘not a commandment because it wasn’t written on the tablets’ thing? Not how it works. A commandment could’ve been said in a speech. But, still. Yes, there might be two lots of ten commandments - either way, ‘thou shalt not kill’ was said, and thus stands. Exodus 34 is about the covenant, and just because we have picked out the first set of rules doesn’t make them any less ‘true’ as rules that were given in the Bible, though some common viewpoints (the tablets) may not be factually accurate. As for Deuteronomy 5, it does say the shalt not kill thing, and even if this doesn’t refer completely accurately to Exodus 34, does it have to? The point is, there are a lot of rules, and the ones repeated lots (i.e. these ones) are the important ones.

5. The Bible is full of Raunchy Sex.

Go read the Song of Solomon. No, really, do, it’s fantastic. Look - here’s a link: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Song+of+Solomon+1&version=NIV

Yeah, I’m not sure of the point of this argument.

6. There is no “Rapture” in the Bible.

I won’t spend long on this, because I’m English, and in all my life as a Christian - in various churches, church schools, and now in my degree, I’ve never really seen the Rapture treated in the way (some) Americans treat it. We don’t consider it to be in the Bible in detail, so this isn’t shocking to me that it isn’t. I’m aware there’s a reference to something that was named the rapture - 1 Thessalonians 4.17 - but yeah, that’s it.

7. Satan is not a Bad Guy. He works for God, and Jesus wants his job!

The first part, yes. The last part, no, you’re being deliberately awkward. I’m not really going to discuss this because it’s not factually incorrect as such, it’s just a weird point that doesn’t seem to prove anything.

8. In the Bible there is no Heaven and Hell as it is commonly understood today.

Fair enough.

9. There is no “End of the World” in the Bible.

Depends on how you’re reading ‘End of the world’. Whilst the article discusses how it really means ‘end of an age’, a lot of Christians would agree with that too. It’s all a matter of how you express your point - God bringing the ‘end of the world as we know it’ doesn’t have to literally be the world blowing up or something. I think this point is trying to make far too much of an issue out of some mere linguistic difference.

10. There are no “original texts” of the Bible.

Why is this shocking? Would we really expect to have 2000-year old documents intact? And yes, whilst I understand the point is regarding the differences amongst the texts, there aren’t any specific examples given to discuss. I’ll admit though, maybe this is a case of me being English and not knowing people who truly believe we have one perfect Bible that wasn’t argued and fought over, but rather, knowing people who know this.

And a few final points:

“When we hear Christians speak with all their false-certainties, trying to force political changes on to all of our lives, we need to point out just how far away from their own religion they have gone.”

And we need to ensure that we point out how people like this author don’t know the Bible any better than the people they’re trying to insult.

I realise this is short, and doesn’t point out everything I’d like it to, but do ask me more questions. I can’t claim to know everything but I can say I’ll give it a shot, and I’ll like to show that not all Christians are evangelical fundamentalists (though I doubt many of your actually think that).