josebach wrote:The Bible is the Bible. Part of the Bible is the old testament. You can't cherry pick the parts that make sense and disregard the fantastical stuff because as soon as you do that, it makes the Bible fallible. Of course if the Bible is fallible, it can't possibly be the word of God, right? That's the thing that made me most struggle with my faith for years. If I can't trust all of the Bible, how could I trust any of it?
Actually, I know the answer. Faith, right? Well, tried that for a decade or so and have now moved on. Researching the origins of the Bible from a secular perspective put the nail in that coffin. I much prefer facing the world admitting that I don't know the answers instead of claiming that I do. I feel so much better about myself. Of course different strokes...
I, for one, wouldn't discount the "fantastical" stuff. There's really nothing that I've seen in the Bible that I feel like I can't trust. I would also say it is God's word. Literally his spoken word? No. But his inspired word? Absolutely. And we just recently went over all of the origins of the Bible and the manuscript, historical, and archaeological evidence and I didn't find anything to doubt. But you're right about one thing, different strokes...
Didn't Time Magazine or someone release a picture a couple years ago of what they figured Jesus really looked like? I'll see if I can find that, I remember it being pretty interesting.
josebach wrote:The Bible is the Bible. Part of the Bible is the old testament. You can't cherry pick the parts that make sense and disregard the fantastical stuff because as soon as you do that, it makes the Bible fallible. Of course if the Bible is fallible, it can't possibly be the word of God, right? That's the thing that made me most struggle with my faith for years. If I can't trust all of the Bible, how could I trust any of it?
Actually, I know the answer. Faith, right? Well, tried that for a decade or so and have now moved on. Researching the origins of the Bible from a secular perspective put the nail in that coffin. I much prefer facing the world admitting that I don't know the answers instead of claiming that I do. I feel so much better about myself. Of course different strokes...
I, for one, wouldn't discount the "fantastical" stuff. There's really nothing that I've seen in the Bible that I feel like I can't trust. I would also say it is God's word. Literally his spoken word? No. But his inspired word? Absolutely. And we just recently went over all of the origins of the Bible and the manuscript, historical, and archaeological evidence and I didn't find anything to doubt. But you're right about one thing, different strokes...
Considering the ark dimensions described in the Bible aren't even big enough to hold two of every beetle in the world, much less every animal, I would consider the whole Noah's ark story to be pretty fantastical. Now, I realize a lot of Christians don't take a lot of the Bible literally, which is why there are so many varying opinions as to how it should be interpreted. That's another thing I never really got... if a book can be interpreted so many different ways, how can it possibly be infallible?
Well, like I said... to each his own... I don't want to go any deeper because I don't want to offend anyone. People need to find their own answers and their own truth.
StlSluggers wrote:I'll only reiterate what I said earlier and leave it at that:
Even if the entire Old Testament is made up, which isn't the case, it still doesn't change the fact that Jesus lived and died in the way described in the New Testament.
How do you feel about the Book of Mormon that Mormons consider the third book of the Bible?
While it is interesting and I wouldn't necessarily doubt it, who's to say that he wasn't fair skinned? I don't think any of us could really know what his DNA was like. It's not like he's half Joseph and half Mary.
Big Pimpin wrote:While it is interesting and I wouldn't necessarily doubt it, who's to say that he wasn't fair skinned? I don't think any of us could really know what his DNA was like. It's not like he's half Joseph and half Mary.
Definitely. If someone believes that Jesus was the son of God born to a virgin mother, I don't see why it would be that much more of a stretch to believe that God made him look different that other people in that geographic region...but that's not really here nor there. I just get a kick out of the fact that many people would get nervous sitting next to Jesus on an airplane.
josebach wrote:Considering the ark dimensions described in the Bible aren't even big enough to hold two of every beetle in the world, much less every animal, I would consider the whole Noah's ark story to be pretty fantastical. Now, I realize a lot of Christians don't take a lot of the Bible literally, which is why there are so many varying opinions as to how it should be interpreted. That's another thing I never really got... if a book can be interpreted so many different ways, how can it possibly be infallible?
Well, like I said... to each his own... I don't want to go any deeper because I don't want to offend anyone. People need to find their own answers and their own truth.
Hmmm, if I was going to grab two of every animal, I'm going small. I'm talking eggs/infants. I could probably fit two eggs of every insect in a closet.
josebach wrote:Considering the ark dimensions described in the Bible aren't even big enough to hold two of every beetle in the world, much less every animal, I would consider the whole Noah's ark story to be pretty fantastical. Now, I realize a lot of Christians don't take a lot of the Bible literally, which is why there are so many varying opinions as to how it should be interpreted. That's another thing I never really got... if a book can be interpreted so many different ways, how can it possibly be infallible?
Well, like I said... to each his own... I don't want to go any deeper because I don't want to offend anyone. People need to find their own answers and their own truth.
Hmmm, if I was going to grab two of every animal, I'm going small. I'm talking eggs/infants. I could probably fit two eggs of every insect in a closet.
What do you do with a baby Blue Whale? Those things are pretty freaking big!
I suppose they could just swim beside the ark though...heck maybe they even carried some of the critters that didn't fit.
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by Big Pimpin » Wed Apr 16, 2008 4:19 pm 
