(Part 2) Best christian bible study & reference books according to redditors
We found 5,728 Reddit comments discussing the best christian bible study & reference books. We ranked the 1,907 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Living-Biblically-Literally/dp/0743291484
I lost it at “I am officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.”
Thou shalt read this book!
Yes! I own it. Unfortunately, it is as boring as it sounds. The New Testament without miracles is just Jesus wandering around telling people not to be dicks.
The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth https://www.amazon.com/dp/1604591285/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_QTsSzbXQYPQTB
I really wish I had directly cited things in my answer but wrote it from memory away from my library, but if you are curious about specific things I'd be happy to provide proper citations for them. There is a whole, and not especially googleable, world of talented academics who have spent their lives working through this kind of stuff - and post Classical Greek sex is a hot topic at the moment. I can recommend some books,
Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens - by James Davidson is an awesome, interesting, and accessible - if sometimes almost comically erudite with really beautiful turns of phrase - introduction to Classical Greek sexuality that is well cited and at least makes a solid sporting effort at being academically neutral. From your question you will probably also find its clear descriptions of pre-Christian reasons for why lust and unregulated sexuality were seen as sub-optimal in totally different, and fundamentally pretty fucking alien, ways interesting. If reading about an ancient depiction of Socrates, attending one of the truly alarming number of symposia he was said to be present at, asking prying questions of a prominent hetaerae (literally companion, but in this context describes someone who would accept gifts from friends who would then sometimes then be slept with but not in exchange for those gifts) in Alexandria about exactly what the arrangement, if it could be hesitantly described as such, was interests you than this is your book.
Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World (google preview with essay titles) is a well edited collection of scholarly essays on the topic from a variety of perspectives.
Also Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome for a more Roman centric perspective if thats what you're looking for.
For a thorough discussion of human sexuality from a Christian perspective in a historical context Gagnon's The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics is now a classic that seems to get rediscovered on the internet on a roughly annual basis.
Dan Barker has written a book that deals with your topic.
God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction
Hey. Sorry this is long but maybe it would help.
I've decided I don't care if people spam my mail-box and say I'm a liar (it's the Internet... you guys can't get me! Why have I been so afraid for so long about the response?) but I've been aware of predominant and heavy, but not exclusive, same-sex attractions within myself since I was around 11 or 12.
So in a way I know what it's like. But since I'm attracted to some, albeit very few, people of the opposite sex (women) I won't claim to be in the exact same situation.
I have never had sex and do wonder if I'll ever marry. I'm young though so it's easy to put out of my mind now but I know any future wife I may have I cannot reasonably expect to live with without her knowing what one of my primary struggles is. So she'll have to know. I can see a lot of young women rejecting me over that. I can't blame them. But part of the struggle is is the ever-increasing idea that if you don't follow your sexual passions that you are doomed to an unfulfilled life... which saddens me. The more this idea is accepted the more people have difficulty accepting or respecting my decision when I tell them. And when you're berated with that idea, you want to believe it. You want to cave. But I believe I can, and am, fulfilled in Christ. Not sex.
That doesn't make it easy. I've failed in some ways. Like when a friend of mine, a guy, earlier this semester came onto me and we started making out. I don't want to get graphic or overly-descriptive but let's just say we messed around (though I wouldn't call anything we did "sex" it was "sexual" and, well, Jesus was pretty hard-lined about lust). Every time we hang out, alone, he tries to do the same thing. ("I'm cold. I'm just cuddling" --BULL CRAP. I saw guys pull that on girls in Middle school. Does he think I'm stupid?) It really damaged our friendship and when I told him I couldn't do that anymore, the next day, he gave me a speech about my impending, unending, future happiness for denying "who I am." I have stuck to my decision since despite numerous opportunities and temptations. Fortunately, I DO have Christian friends who support what I believe the bible clearly teaches and are, because of that, understanding and supportive of my efforts. They keep me accountable -- (one friend receives emails of my internet history from a program provided by xxxchurch to make sure I'm not looking at porn, for example).
The point is you don't need to be self-loathing to accept the "traditional" (i.e. what scripture teaches) about the purpose of marriage-- one man, one woman, being reunited (one flesh) -- that is the proper context of sex.
In practice, it IS difficult to accept. So many reinvent what Paul and Jesus taught. Jesus spoke against "pornea" (and of course adultery too) which include all sex outside of marriage.
When people complain about Christianity there are "The Big four" which people take issue with.
1.)The problem of evil.
2.)Sex.
3.)Money.
4.)Christian hypocrisy.
So it's no surprise this issue keeps coming up--even among those who do not experience same-sex attractions.
Scripture is a strange thing-- it simultaneously has the highest view of sex imaginable and says that if you're not married you should do without. Sex is meant to be enjoyed. But at the same time Paul says "It is better for a man to remain single." To look into this mystery I would suggest looking at Tim Keller's sermon "Sexuality and Christian Hope". It's a good resource for everyone, regardless of their situation..
Pertaining more to homosexuality, I've found hope and explanations in several people's stories. Two of whom are alive today. I wish to tell you about them..
Wesley Hill is a gay Christian who believes in what scripture says about sexuality and strives to live accordingly. We all have struggles. We have have our temptations. But he doesn't downplay anything. He doesn't say "Oh well" and ignore it. He thinks critically (currently going after a Ph.D in theology, I think, at Oxford) and talks openly about these topics. Here are a few articles by him which may prove enlightening. He also has a book called "Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality".
Here are a few articles by him:
A--“A Few Like You”: Will the Church be the Church for Homosexual Christians?
B--What Place Is There for Celibacy? Wesley Hill on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality
Christopher Yuan, who lived for many years as an openly-gay man before becoming a Christian, has also provided answers for me. Here is his website.. He has a book which he wrote with his mother entitled "Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son's Journey to God. A Broken Mother's Search for Hope."
Finally, here is a lengthy article about sexual identity and the church:
At the Intersection of Religious and Sexual Identities: A Christian Perspective on Homosexuality
by Mark A. Yarhouse
Starting at part II on that last article really delves into the issues with Christians, who believe in the "traditional" view of sexuality, who nonetheless have same-sex attractions. Because too many churches focus on "change" (not of behavior but of attractions and feelings), there is a huge void in identity. They can't accept gay labels because that implies they intend to engage in homosexual relationships. They don't feel attracted to the opposite sex, so they do not qualify as straight. The author challenges Churches to be a place where people can find their identity in Christ. The goal is not "heterosexuality"-- can God change our attractions? Yes, of course, he's God, but that doesn't mean it's likely....-- just as when we become Christians not all temptations go away (they may intensify!) our sexual passions do not go away. The goal is "Holy sexuality". As Christopher Yuan remarks God says "Be Holy as I am Holy" not "Be heterosexual as I am heterosexual". Holy sexuality involves either sex within marriage (with our First parents, Adam and Eve, as the example-- one man and one woman completing one another) or celibacy.
Now, I'd venture to say most feel intense sexual attractions outside of marriage. That doesn't mean we must act on them. Celibacy is a legitimate option. Maybe one day you will marry a person of the opposite sex who truly understands your situation and whom you love and loves you. I do not know.
But just as the prideful man does not lose his pride overnight, no Christian loses their desire for sex in a sinful manner. The heart is deceitful. What you feel is a legitimate longing-- a longing for intimacy and love-- but the problem with sin is that it seeks to fulfill a legitimate longing in an illegitimate way (with the desires flesh instead of the desire of God).
Jesus said: "Pick up your cross and follow me." What a difficult command. Remember, Paul wrote of the "thorn in his flesh" which the LORD had chosen not to take away. Sanctification is a long, hard, process for the Christian. BUT it is NOT HOPELESS, we have a great, loving, God. He has compassion for us. The Father wants us to be what we were made to be-- not what we feel, solely, but who we were chosen to be: his flock, his people, his children.
To further expand what Paul said I quote him:
> So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
>
>(2 Corinthians 12:7-10 ESV)
I pray these resources may help you and that you may find support among good Christian friends. God shares love through people. And now that I have friends supporting me, I can't imagine going it alone.
Telling my parents and best friends from Church was the biggest help for me. I told them last Summer.
EDIT: clarification and addition of a little bit about my experience.
EDIT 2: For a scholarly look at what scripture says I'd recommend "The Bible and Homosexual Practice" by Robert Gagnon. It answers many of the revisionist interpretations thoroughly.
A shorter article of his explaining his defense of the male-female requirement of marriage is found here.
EDIT 3: Formatting.
Here are two of my favorite Bible quotes:
> And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them. (Jeremiah 19:9)
---
> Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. (1 Samuel 15:3)
(Here's an entire book of similar atrocities compiled by Dan Barker of FFRF, and here's Barker's summary of the ten worst Old Testament verses.)
I can't imagine why anyone would worship such a monster.
Beyond that, no god that mandated worship--as the god of the Bible does repeatedly--could ever be worthy of it. A relationship of worshiper/worshipee is an inherently unhealthy one (on both sides). What kind of petty, insecure, arrogant god would require the beings it created to worship it?
I'd go even farther and say that any "god" that even accepted worship would*n't be worthy of it. A worthwhile god might seek and accept understanding (to the limits of our abilities), mutual respect, affection (if we're getting anthropomorphic), and so on. But worship? Never.
Nice try, OP. This isn't lego anything, its the Brick Bible.
You are correct, your professor is a fundamentalist. Check out The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart D. Ehrman and An Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond E. Brown.
Link to Amazon.
Hmm. I would love for Sam to interview Richard Carrier next to see if he convinces Sam that the historicity of Jesus, like many 'fringe' historians believe, is in doubt.
edit: his book, On the Historicity of Jesus, was peer reviewed and published by a major academic press, and is the first book on the subject to do so. That was in 2014. Carrier and other mythicists believe there is not enough historical evidence to say 'Jesus, the man, probably existed,' and if you read his arguments, they're compelling. Notice, he doesn't say 'Jesus definitely never existed,' just that the other side hasn't met their burden of proof.
His earlier book, Proving History, outlines many of the problems in the field of Jesus studies, namely, that no historical criteria has led any two scholars to the same conclusion about the actual life of Jesus the man. To quote:
>“I won't recount the whole history of historical Jesus research here, as that has been done to death already. Indeed, accounts of the many “quests” for the historical Jesus and their failure are legion, each with their own extensive bibliography. Just to pick one out of a hat, Mark Strauss summarizes, in despair, the many Jesuses different scholars have “discovered” in the evidence recently. Jesus the Jewish Cynic Sage. Jesus the Rabbinical Holy Man (or Devoted Pharisee, or Heretical Essene, or any of a dozen other contradictory things). Jesus the Political Revolutionary or Zealot Activist. Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet. And Jesus the Messianic Pretender (or even, as some still argue, Actual Messiah). And that's not even a complete list. We also have Jesus the Folk Wizard (championed most famously by Morton Smith in Jesus the Magician, and most recently by Robert Conner in Magic in the New Testament). Jesus the Mystic and “Child of Sophia” (championed by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza and John Shelby Spong). Jesus the Nonviolent Social Reformer (championed by Bruce Malina and others).
>Excerpt From: Carrier, Richard C. “Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus.”
(It goes on from there.)
You wanted to be part of the intelligentsia, but throughout your philosophical journey, you always based your convictions only on authority and tradition instead of on evidence and arguments. Don't you realize that this is the epitome of anti – intellectualism?
It is correct that the New Atheists aren't the pinnacle of atheistic thought and didn't contribute many new ideas to the academic debate of atheism vs. theism or religion. But this was never their goal, and it is also unnecessary, since the academic debate is already over for many decades. If you want to know why the arguments for theism are all complete nonsense and not taken seriously anymore, why Christianity is wrong just about everything and why apologists like Craig are dishonest charlatans who make a living out of fooling people, your reading list shouldn't be New Atheists, but rather something like this:
Colin Howson – Objecting to God
George H. Smith – Atheism: The Case Against God
Graham Oppy – Arguing about Gods
Graham Oppy – The Best Argument Against God
Herman Philipse – God in the Age of Science
J. L. Mackie – The Miracle of Theism
J. L. Schellenberg – The Wisdom to Doubt
Jordan Sobel – Logic and Theism
Nicholas Everitt – The Non-Existence of God
Richard Gale – On the Nature and Existence of God
Robin Le Poidevin – Arguing for Atheism
Stewart Elliott Guthrie – Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion
Theodore Drange – Nonbelief & Evil
[Avigor Shinan – From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0827609086)
Bart Ehrman – The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings
Bart Ehrman – Jesus, Interrupted
Bart Ehrman – Misquoting Jesus
Burton L. Mack – Who Wrote the New Testament?
Helmut Koester – Ancient Christian Gospels
John Barton, John Muddiman – The Oxford Bible Commentary
John Dominic Crossan – Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography
Karen Armstrong – A History of God
Mark Smith – The Early History of God
Randel McCraw Helms – Who Wrote the Gospels?
Richard Elliott Friedman – Who Wrote the Bible?
Robert Bellah – Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age
Robert Walter Funk – The Gospel of Jesus
The two best books for getting a basic understanding of the writing and transmission process of the Bible are:
Richard Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? for the Hebrew Scriptures
Burton Mack's Who Wrote the New Testament? for the Christian Scriptures
The problem is, a lot of the books that Christians here are recommending are very different in both style and direction than the kinds of books that you're talking about with Dawkins and Hitchens. Which, to be frank, ought to be expected. Detailed philosophical argumentation just isn't something most Christians are worried about or interested in since, once establishing faith, theology and discipleship are far more interesting intellectual pursuits to believers.
In any case, here are a variety of more serious academic responses to the kinds of books you've been reading:
Reasonable Faith By William Lane Craig
Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga
Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga
Why God Won't Go Away: Is the New Atheism Running on Empty? by Alister Mcgrath
Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith by Francis S Collins
God and Stephen Hawking: Whose Design Is It Anyway? by John C Lennox
Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are Missing the Target by John C Lennox
Edit: And don't forget that you don't have to buy any of these books to read them! For serious. Library card + inter-library loan system via internet is the way to win.
Knuth 3:16.
> hard from an intellectual point of view
I'm sorry, I had to snicker when I read this. There is no other organization that has more intellectual underpinnings than the Catholic Church.
If you are having problems reconciling Scripture (exegetically or hermeneutically), you need to start reading academic books, such as those by Brown, Meier, Gonzalez, and Martos, just to name a few.
Helpful for me was Thomism and modern Thomists such as Feser.
If you want a Conservative Scholarly treatment of the problem of the Canon, I'd suggest reading Canon Revisited by Michael Kruger. He also has a series of lectures on the Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) mobile app called "The Origin and Authority of the New Testament Canon" that are really good (here is the course syllabus: PDF warning. This is a tough subject, but if you really want to dig deep into it Michael Kruger is the go-to scholar for a Conservative Reformed approach to the Canon of scripture.
Other scholars think the ratio is more likely to be 0%. Source: Richard Carrier.
I'd argue that Christianity is also batshit insane, despite how culturally accustomed we may be to that particular type of insanity, but I take your point.
I can't claim to understand Gödel's religious views and as I've said, without any supporting arguments for it, I'm not interested in his religious views. But I think it's worth pointing out that by their own admission very few theists believe what they believe based on evidence and reasoning, instead it's faith which underlies most theists' beliefs. Childhood indoctrination strongly insulates religious beliefs from critical analysis or questioning. Even intelligent, well educated theists can compartmentalise their religious ideas and protect them from the rigorous treatment they'd give to any other ideas they hold.
I suspect that this also applies in Gödel's case, although since (to my knowledge) he never wrote about his religious beliefs, we'll never know. If you're interested, Donald Knuth is an extremely well-known and respected computer scientist who arguably rivals Gödel on matters of logic. He's also a theist who has written about the basis for his religious beliefs and a textual analysis of the bible.
Only $16 too! I should really get one for... eh, maybe not.
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Stories-Bible-Paul-Farrell/dp/1578849225
Well, it was from their view as a "professional hunter" in africa. See, they'd take these rich white guys to places to hunt these dangerous things. Then when the noob makes a bad shot and wounds the animal, it's the Pro hunter's responsibility to track down that wounded animal and finish it. Leopards were known for NOT charging when wounded. They hid and ambushed them. 80 lbs of unnaturally strong leopard jumping on you from 4 feet. Patient, angry, hiding. Stood my hairs up. You should give em a read!
Here I'll link a couple
http://www.amazon.com/Death-Long-Grass-Hunters-Adventures/dp/0312186134
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Short-Stories-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0684843323/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377466847&sr=1-4
Everything by Hemingway is awesome. Capstick was a helluva writer, but there's some saying he wasn't a really good hunter.
I read his book. The Year of Living Biblically, it was decent.
It's not really clear what's going on there. The Jewish Study Bible, which is usually the first thing I consult for questions about Tanakh, says merely this:
>The relationship of the Lord to the men is unclear. Perhaps, as in some Canaanite literature, we are to imagine a deity accompanied by his two attendants.
That seems to make sense of the text. In verse 22, the men move on to Sodom while Abraham remains with the Lord. In 19:1 we're told that two angels arrive at Sodom. So it seems that two of the men are angelic figures, and the third is the Lord. It looks like that's how Jon D. Levenson, who wrote this section of the JSB, reads it. And if there's precedent for this in Canaanite literature, that makes even more sense.
But like Levenson says and as you've observed, it's unclear.
Did choose one - Jesus was a Jew.
Scholars will make it a course of study...Has been done since the Church was first started, as in "The Book of Hebrews"...
> https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Study-Bible-Publication-Translation/dp/0195297512
> The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation: Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi Brettler, Michael Fishbane: 9780195297515: Amazon.com: Books
> The Jewish Study Bible is a one-volume resource tailored especially for the needs of students of the Hebrew Bible. Nearly forty scholars worldwide contributed to the translation and interpretation of the Jewish Study Bible, representing the best of Jewish biblical scholarship available today. A committee of highly-respected biblical scholars and rabbis from the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism movements produced this modern translation.
> No knowledge of Hebrew is required for one to make use of this unique volume. The Jewish Study Bible uses The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation.
> Since its publication, the Jewish Study Bible has become one of the most popular volumes in Oxford's celebrated line of bibles. The quality of scholarship, easy-to-navigate format, and vibrant supplementary features bring the ancient text to life.
>* Informative essays that address a wide variety of topics relating to Judaism's use and interpretation of the Bible through the ages.
Raymond Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament, published in 1997 from the Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library, includes attempts to review and summarize scholarly opinion on authorship (and date and purpose and audience) of all the books in the New Testament Canon. Here are some passages relevant to your question.
From "Did Paul Write II Thessalonians?" (pp. 592-594):
> In 20th-century German scholarship, running from W. Wrede in 1904 to W. Trilling in 1972, arguments presented against Pauline writing gradually made this minority view more and more accepted. English-speaking scholarship (e.g., Aus, Best, Bruce, Jewett, L. T. Johnson, Marshall, and Morris) has tended to defend writing by Paul, but more recently Bailey, Collins, Giblin, Holland, and Hughes have been among the increasing numbers opting for pseudonymity.
Of the scholars defending Pauline authorship, the most relevant might be R. Aus, Augsberg Commentaries, 1984; and R. Jewett, The Thessalonian Corresponandance, 1986. Brown also goes on to list the main arguments for and against Pauline authorship, which is worth reading.
From "Did Paul Write Colossians?" (pp. 610-615):
> At the present moment about 60 percent of critical scholarship holds that Paul did not write the letter.
A footnote here says that R. F. Collins, in Letters that Paul Did Not Write (1988), "surveys the various scholars and the nuances of their views." The footnote also says, "Cannon's detailed study favors Paul as the writer", referring to G. E. Cannon's 1983 publication "The Use of Traditional Materials in Colossians". Though Brown doesn't dwell on which scholars have which opinions, he does survey arguments for and against. I suppose Collins would be a good place to look for more.
From "Ephesians: To Whom and By Whom?" (pp. 626-630):
> Although some scholars continue to accept Paul as the writer of Eph, the thrust of the evidence has pushed 70 to 80 percent of critical scholarship to reject that view, including a significant number who think that Paul wrote Col.
Though Brown does not here list scholars who argue Pauline authorship, a previous footnote states "See in Cross, the debate over the Pauline writings of Eph (for, J. N. Sanders; against, D. E. Nineham." This refers to F. L. Cross's Studies in Ephesians (1956), and presumably earlier scholars he cites. Brown gives an analysis of arguments both for and against pseudonymity, though he doesn't list a single paper published after 1970 that argues Pauline authorship, which is telling.
In "Who Wrote Titus and I Timothy? (pp. 662-668), he gives a wide array of reasons to doubt the authority of the Pastorals, also explaining traditional reasons to suppose Pauline authorship, and concludes:
> About 80 to 90 percent of modern scholars would agree that the Pastorals were written after Paul's lifetime.
He indicates that more information can be found in R. F. Collins's Letters that Paul Did Not Write, which argues pseudonymity. But the only modern scholars Brown mentions who might still hold Pauline authorship of the Pastorals is G. W. Knight, from the New International Commentary on the New Testament, 1992, and L. T. Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament, 1986. When discussing II Timothy, Brown only mentions that some scholars still hold Pauline authorship without naming them specifically, though he indicates that Johnson may be one.
All in all, I'd say Brown somewhat understates the likelihood that a modern scholar will think these letters are pseudonymous. But if you read the percentages as "percent of New Testament scholars still alive in 1997 who hold this opinion, regardless of when their most recent relevant publication was", it may not be far from the mark.
Brown also includes an entire chapter, "25: Pseudonymity and the Deuteropauline Writings" that examines the issues holistically, giving a great deal of insight about the complex issues involved in determining authorship of ancient texts. It's definitely worth reading, if you get a chance.
It doesn't. The arguments that have come about recently that the Bible really means a certain kind of gay sex or is talking about a particular relationship dynamic (i.e. pederasty) are completely foreign to the text. If you want to read up on this, I recommend Robert Gagnon's The Bible and Homosexual Practice, which is pretty much the standard academic monograph on the subject.
I would recommend the work of Michael
Kruger like Canon Revisited or The Question of Canon.
Beyond that, a classic is Warfield's The Authority and Inspiration of the Bible. Maybe even Blomberg's The Historical Reliability of the Gospels.
Correct Link
> I believe that if Jesus was a real person, he taught love and forgiveness...He just wasn't the son of a god
Have you ever read the Jefferson Bible? It is a compilation of the King James Bible, with all supernatural events cut out, only leaving the teachings and morals of Christianity; made by Thomas Jefferson himself.
EDIT: You can buy a copy here
This is sort of one of my pet areas of interest, I've tried to read both the secular side and the Christian side, in the end I think these are the best books on the subject:
Kenneth Kitchen's On the Reliability of the Old Testament - He is one of the world's top Egyptologists and wrote this book to defend the OT.
https://www.amazon.com/Reliability-Old-Testament-K-Kitchen/dp/0802803962
James Hoffmeier's Israel in Egypt and Ancient Israel in Sinai - another one of the world's top Egyptologists.
https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Israel-Sinai-Authenticity-Wilderness/dp/0195155467/ref=mt_hardcover?_encoding=UTF8&me=
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Egypt-Evidence-Authenticity-Tradition/dp/019513088X/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526660677&sr=1-1&keywords=israel+in+egypt
Provan, Long, and Longman's Biblical History of Israel is very good too:
https://www.amazon.com/Biblical-History-Israel-Second-ebook/dp/B01CUKCXFW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526660730&sr=1-1&keywords=a+biblical+history+of+israel%2C+second+edition
Also, James Hoffmeier edited another book that I would recommend to any Catholic interested in biblical studies:
https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Matters-Matter-Faith-Postmodern-ebook/dp/B007IJY9YO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526660787&sr=1-1&keywords=do+historical+matters+matter+to+faith
There are many bad books out there, but these are very good and trustworthy by good scholars.
Many people will argue from a book called The Bible Unearthed that the Scriptures are not reliable, but quite frankly the arguments used in there are not very good. Kenneth Kitchen refutes them pretty in depth in his book.
https://www.amazon.com/Brick-Bible-Complete-Set-Presents/dp/1626361770
​
i'm suing
Most of it came from classes and lectures. I don't have the class book list and sources anymore. I do hope you really, really like reading!
Forged writingss
Misquoting Jesus A well known book.
Introduction to the new testiment
The new testament: a historical intoduction
Revelation and the End of All Things Also a somewhat popular book
You can also do some Wikipedia reading on Gnosticism and other early Christen sects to get an idea of just how many groups their were and how differing their beliefs could be. Also look for things on the Q, M and L source.
Edit
You can likely find a number of online pod-casts (or whatever you call them) and lectures on these things.
I am not a historian so my access to books and memorized sources is very limited, I am a student and have been accused of reading serial boxes at least once when I accidentally quoted the wrong book name, It was too much fun to make the correction as no one had ever said that too me before and I felt special, like I had hit an academic milestone.
Also, Don't feel bad about asking for sources.
Aside from Finklestein's book, there is Robert Price's Holy Fable: The Old Testament Unencumbered by Faith. Robert Price is a former evangelical minister-turned-atheist, but with a deep understanding of the bible. It is maybe a bit too skeptical, but it's still got a lot of good info.
In general:
The Torah / Pentateuch was written by (at least) 4 different sources, and compiled (much?) later. There's the Elohist, the Yahweist, the Deutoronomist, and the Priestly source. This explains why there are 2 different versions of a number of stories - for example, there are 2 creation stories; Noah is simultaneously the "only righteous man" God could find, and also a lazy drunk; there are two full sets of 10 commandments, only 3 of which overlap (so there are actually 17 commandments) etc. Someone (likely the Deutoronomist) compiled the book, and not wanting to risk being wrong, included multiple stories and tried to make them jive with one another.
Generally speaking, Moses is nearly universally agreed to have been a myth, along with Joshua. There is no archeological evidence that ancient Hebrews were ever in Egypt, or ever wandered in the desert for 40 years, although stories of Pharaoh may have come from a time when Egypt ruled the Levant (Moses is an Egyptian name, from the same root as Tutmose or Ramses).
The ancient Hebrews were, most evidence supports now, one of many Canaanite tribes, and happened to be the one that managed to stick around. They were also polytheistic for a very long time into their existence - a number of stories have been altered to whitewash this out. The 12 (13? 11 plus grandsons? sources are all over the place on this one) sons of Judah/Israel heading the 12 tribes of Israel are likely figureheads that were ret-conned into existence as more tribes joined with the Hebrews through conquest. Kind of like "Oh, well, we'll join you, we're probably related somewhere way back anyway!". There is also little to no evidence of an epic conquest of the holy land, a. la. Joshua, and many of the vast cities and huge fortresses referenced in the book of Joshua were, archaeology says, minor hamlets with hundreds or thousands of people at most.
There is very little evidence for the existence of David. There is an inscription on a very old (non-Israelite) stone tablet that may reference the "House of David" from several hundred years after David was supposed to have been around. I'm willing to concede that he may have existed, but he was likely a "chieftain" rather than a king. Almost all scholars agree that there was never a united kingdom of Israel and Judah. Jerusalem, at the time of David (10th century BCE), was a very small village or outpost, and there is also no evidence of a first (or Solomon's) temple. There is, however, ample evidence of a 2nd temple (which was greatly expanded by Herod near the BCE/CE switch).
1,2 Kings was written either during the Babylonian exile, or shortly after it. There are just too many anachronisms (bronze weapons, camels, etc) for it to have been written during the time of its subjects, and its subject matter (continued allegiance to Yahweh will bring you victory, breaking Yahweh's commandments will bring you strife) is clearly aimed at explaining circumstances to an Israelite population that has experienced lots of strife.*
1,2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah (originally all one work) looks to be a redaction and rewrite of 1,2 Kings in large part, but by the priestly source - who is working hard to clean up the image of certain people (David had Uriah killed? Nah, let's skip that. David's sons did bad things? Nix it. etc) at the same time that he's working to ret-con a place of prominence for priests of his tribe.
Anyway, skipping ahead to the New Testament, I would also recommend another extreme skeptic's book: Dr. Richard Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus. Dr. Carrier's position is well outside the mainstream consensus, but there's no denying that A.) He is extremely well versed in his subject area, and B.) the mainstream consensus is very conservative, as it is made up of largely religious institutions and believers who all have a vested interest. So his book is good for contrast, and the truth is likely somewhere in the middle.
For starters, the earliest parts of the New Testament are the letters of Paul. Paul, for sure, wrote 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, and Romans 1-8. The rest are kind of up for grabs, with some possibly by Paul, and some certainly being forgeries and written as late as the 2nd or possibly even 3rd century. Paul's Jesus is very vague (as in, celestial, not earthly, and working through revelation), and Paul nearly goes out of his way to not talk about Jesus' earthly life - even in places where Jesus ostensibly talked about specific topics that would indisputably bolster Paul's arguments.
Next, we have Mark. Mark's gospel was written first, and Mark's Jesus is somewhat timid and understated. Mark also has little understanding of Galilean geography (the vast "Sea of Galilee" that witnesses such horrible storms is, in reality, a pond that you could kayak across in an hour, for example). Then, Matthew wrote his gospel, using Mark as a source, along with possibly the "Q" source, or possibly just adding things that he had heard or liked. Matthew's Jesus is a scholarly rabbi, and he talks of how Christians should keep the Jewish customs along with the new customs of Christ. Matthew also corrects Mark - a lot. Then, we have Luke, who uses Mark and possibly "Q" or possibly Matthew as his source. Luke's Jesus is the Gentile Jesus, who brings new rules and is for everyone, not just Jews. Those are the Synoptic gospels; then we get to John.
Oh, boy. John... is nuts. John's Jesus is large, in charge, and slinging miracles and witticisms in every direction. There's nothing about helping the poor or healing the sick, but there's a huge serving of hating the Jews. John also contains a number of Gnostic themes that have likely been toned down over the years - John's gospel is the one that is most obviously cut up and rearranged and altered. There's a lot of things like "And then Jesus did his first miracle. And then he did many other miracles. And then he did his second miracle", or Jesus teleporting, popping up all over Galilee, one place after another. But anyway, it’s likely that John’s gospel was so popular that it couldn’t be kept out of the New Testament, once the Council of Nicaea got around to picking which books got in, so it had to be altered in order to tone it down a bit.
The contents of Acts are impossible to square with the letters of Paul - Acts tells a story of the early church, huddled together, building outward, ministering to Galilee, growing larger in harmony. But Paul - Paul does not get along with the so-called fathers of the church in Jerusalem. We also know, partly from other sources, that the early church was very fractured, and only now looks harmonious because the winning faction got to poke and rewrite a lot of the history.
The rest of the New Testament was largely written in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and can't have any relevant information to share about the life and times of Jesus, having been written several generations at least after the last person that could have ever met him had died.
Anyway, that's a more-or-less short version of some of the ins-and-outs of some major episodes of the Bible.
* Totally my aside: the concept of religious guilt, IMO, stems from here. In olden times, gods were like mascots - you moved to a new place, you adopt the local gods -
or, you get conquered, it must have been that their god was stronger, so why not jump on the winning bandwagon. The Deutoronomist, the likely source of the idea of the "covenant with god", introduces the idea that believing in a god is a two-way street. Believe enough, and do what he wants, and good things will happen -- but don't believe, or don't do what he wants, and now bad things happen, and it's kinda your fault. The aim was to keep the Hebrews from converting to Babylonian or other Canaanite gods.
Cue thousands of years of catholic guilt, etc.
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemmingway is fifteen dollars on amazon, though you could probably find it for cheaper. It'll likely be a great indicator of whether you want to continue with the project or not. I started there and let me tell you what, there is a reason that man is known as the master of the short story.
Robert Gagnon's The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Text and Hermeneutics (2001) is a strong academic text that argues against your assertion.
This is similar-but-different, but a 50,000 foot view of the storyline particularly with a theological angle on the history of covenants -- "The Christ of the Covenants," by O. Palmer Robertson.
There are some more pages viewable on the Amazon listing.
Edit: Wrong URL, thanks for the correct one SomethingWonderful.
Link for the lazies.
Yes
3:16 by Knuth
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
“Love One Another, As I Have Loved You.”
"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you."
"But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same."
I highly recommend reading up on ancient Mesopotamia. For example, I am reading this right now. I have been an atheist for most of my life, but feeling kinda under siege right now and this is so refreshing.
There are like thousands of years of various texts that sound just like The Bible regarding what the various kings and/or gods of the various cities did. It gets pretty hilarious, but it is all so boilerplate.
IMO picking various points inside the framework and arguing against them is a waste of time. Just put the whole thing where it belongs. Just a cult of one middle eastern god that got out of control. Just like every other middle eastern god. Nothing to see there. Not even the most interesting god.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Brick-Bible-Complete-Set/product-reviews/1626361770/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0
>I could not believe how much this mocks the bible and makes fun of it... Ordered it for my son's birthday guessing it would be a fun way to go through the bible. Nope. This is full of lego "gore" pictures and lots of mean faces. So sad...
---
> "Children's 'bible' shouldn't contain the 'rape of Dinah', men circumcising themselves or people drowning at Noah's Ark"
If you like the bible so much, you should also know who actually wrote it.
I suggest you read this book.
If by 'lacking' you mean 'nonexistent', then yes.
I went to public school but with heavy influence from my folks and church, all of whom seem to be involved in some sort of Fundamentalism competition. I learned exactly as much as I had to in order to pass the test, but I was always convinced it was a lie because scientists are all "out to get" Christianity.
I'm still wrapping my head around just how unhealthy this worldview can be.
I'll echo /u/Cognizant_Psyche - kudos on taking that first step and deciding to get smart on this topic.
I talked to my church pastor, who passed me off to his wife (who has apologetics degrees out the ass). She recommended The Language of God, a tactic which soundly backfired on her. That book was fantastic. It explains evolution from a DNA perspective but then tries to tell me I can still believe in God if I want to. For me, from such a fundamentalist, literalist background, the bible had to be true word-for-word, yet this book flew in the face of the entire Genesis account of creation. If that wasn't real, how could I trust any of the rest?
Once I was 'cleared' to learn about Evolution, I grabbed Dawkins' The God Delusion. I watched the Ham-Nye debate. I grabbed Who Wrote The New Testament, and Misquoting Jesus. That pretty much did it for me.
These are some of the better books I've accumulated in school:
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition is one of my favorite books.
Been to his house in Ketchum and his place in Key West. Would love to stroll his haunts in Cuba and Paris.
And as manly as he was, he was in pain most of the time from injuries and wounds collected from war and travel. Stoic and fierce. A literary and personal idol.
I'll start with theology (broadly construed) first. There's no particular order, but I've separated them into "lighter" and "heavier" categories. I'm happy to talk about why I think each book is a "must read" you want. I'll try to come back later and give some fiction recommendations.
Lighter theology:
Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition by Jamie Smith (top recommendation if you haven't read it).
Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport: Making Connections in Today's World by Richard Mouw.
Knowing God by J.I. Packer.
Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul
Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin by Cornelius Plantinga.
Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality by Wesley Hill.
[Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ] (http://www.amazon.com/Rejoicing-Lament-Wrestling-Incurable-Cancer/dp/1587433583) by J. Todd Billings
Christ, Baptism and the Lord's Supper: Recovering the Sacraments for Evangelical Worship
When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.
Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Bauckham.
The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John Walton
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis Collins.
Literally everything by CS Lewis
Any of Zondervan's Counterpoints series. My current favorite in the series is Five Views On Biblical Inerrancy by Al Mohler, Kevin Vanhoozer, Michael Bird, Peter Enns, and John Franke
Heavier Theology
The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics by Robert A. J. Gagnon
Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church's Debate on Same-Sex Relationships by James Brownson.
Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation by R. Michael Allen and Scott Swain
Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics: An Introduction and Reader by Allen
The abridged version of Reformed Dogmatics by Herman Bavink.
Systematic Theology
Sure thing. The books are NOT from his disciples. They were written decades after his death. This is mainstream scholarship for non-fundamentalist Christians (i.e., what regular seminaries teach people).
You may want to read: http://www.amazon.com/Who-Wrote-New-Testament-Christian/dp/0060655186
Two gospels mention the virgin birth. Two do not.
Jesus appears to four different sets of people and at different times.
Judas dies in two different ways.
So this thoroughly undermines the credibility of the New Testament (and there are dozens and dozens of such examples).
To take just a few:
http://www.thinkatheist.com/notes/101_Contradictions_in_the_Bible/
Plantinga wrote 3 books related to this subject. He wrote "Warrant: The Current Debate" to give an overview of the field of philosophy on what needs to be added to true beliefs to yield knowledge. Then he wrote "Warrant and Proper Function" to give his own take. Finally he wrote "Warranted Christian Belief" which basically applies his epistemology to Christian belief. So the guy has done a ton of work in epistemology and also applying epistemology to Christianity.
Links to Books:
https://www.amazon.com/Warrant-Current-Debate-Alvin-Plantinga/dp/0195078624
https://www.amazon.com/Warrant-Proper-Function-Alvin-Plantinga/dp/0195078640/ref=pd_sim_14_1/164-8766607-7794903?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=H9CQMRJ1GDZG8WF2EHQ8
https://www.amazon.com/Warranted-Christian-Belief-Alvin-Plantinga/dp/0195131932/ref=pd_sim_14_2/164-8766607-7794903?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=H9CQMRJ1GDZG8WF2EHQ8
I don't think so. The first line is translated as
> in the summit “Elohiym [Powers]” fattened the sky and the land
The translation of בְּרֵאשִׁית as "in the summit" is a very uncommon conjecture made to strengthen the parallel between Genesis and the Babylonian Enuma Elish, which opens with "when on high". There are indeed parallels between the two texts, but the translation of that particular word is a non-literal interpretation. Literally, it means something like "at the head".
The translation of בָּרָא as "fattened" is something that I've never seen before. At best it's a fringe theory.
Skimming the rest of the lines, I can see many more of these unusual translations which were likely made to fit into some sort of specific non-standard interpretation. For example, the simple word "טוֹב" (good) is translated as "functional".
I recommend the Jewish Study Bible, which is often used in university courses. It uses the latest JPS translation, which is decent, but more importantly it includes ample commentary by unbiased experts.
These two are probably the most respected in academia. If you want to get just one, I'd go with the NRSV for both Jewish Bible and New Testament.
Just the TANAKH (Old Testament): The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation
TANAKH and New Testament (The Christian Bible): The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version
I think the best you can get is some surveys of the debates. Some texts (esp introductory ones) attempt to present the major debates without taking a side. The closest you can get IMO to a consensus is scholars agreeing about what the questions are, or perhaps a survey of the relevant literature on a given passage. And while even that has plenty of variety and disagreement, you can generally call it a safe consensus.
Although, since the field is so massive, I'm not aware of a single text which would encompass all of biblical scholarship. So, I'll recommend some (IMO) good surveys of the literature and questions:
Old Testament (general introduction, forthcoming) I've seen some embargo copies of this, and even though it says "catholic" in the title, its very nuanced and pays attention to the different scholarly debates, in such a way that it is pretty darn objective.
Pentateuch
Historical Books
Prophets
Psalms & Wisdom Literature
New Testament (general introduction)
Paul
Canonization
History of Biblical Interpretation: Ancient
History of Biblical Interpretation: Ancient-Medieval
History of Biblical Interpretation: 1300-1700 (probably my favorite on this list)
History of Biblical Interpretation: Enlightenment-20th century (with overlap from the previous one)
I would also recommend a good biblical dictionary. They're not just definitions, they're filled with entire scholarly articles on various topics in a given field. My favorite is the IVP Bible Dictionary Series. I use it all the time (individual volumes can be purchased separately).
>As I said, I grew up as Catholic as one can.
You also said you attended seminary for four years. One would think that you have studied the Summa upon immediate entry into your pre-theology.
>I actually studied for a year the Acts of the Apostles.
Then surely, as a former Seminarian, you have a Reverse Interlinear and a Greek Primer to study Scripture as in-depth as possible? Because, as every good seminarian knows, Scripture is written in Koine Greek, and we need to study various facets of language to understand the full meaning of what is recorded.
>Do I try to seek answers? Everyday I do. I visit /r/Christianity to check on discussions often
I would not qualify visiting an online forum as a means of seeking answers.
>I read a lot about the history of the Bible.
Whom have you read?
Surely, as a seminarian, you have read An Introduction to the New Testament by Brown and Reading the Old Testament by Boadt. Both are standard readings in seminary.
>I would never have known that creationism is a Jewish folklore.
Eh...I wouldn't say that "creationism if a Jewish folklore." I would say that Creationism is a non-Catholic interpretation of the Genesis myth (here I do not mean today's understanding of "myth").
You might enjoy this book.
It's probably best not to know what it means.
You know there was that straw book that not particularly bright Christians would use to argue that some of the things in the bible are well intentioned, but just, like, outdated man? Well, some lady felt left out of the stupid party and wrote her own.
Examples include sleeping on the "corner of a roof" because Proverbs. This thing was published. And now she's on CNN to inform us "what the Evangelicals think" and has an alarmingly popular blog and twatter.
Tanhan, seriously?
There was no council that decided it. Hippo simply affirmed what was already in use. Kruger is literally the guy on the canon right now. He has written several books on the subject.
Read the hysterical 1-star parent reviews of "The Brick Bible" on Amazon. If you're not familiar with the book, it illustrates (with Lego), major moments in the bible in full gory detail. Parents are aghast that anyone would let kids be exposed to this filth.
No, not that likely at all: On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
You really can't go that far. There's plenty of debate on that subject. The problem is nearly all Jesus scholars are Christians, who clearly have a vested interested in Jesus actually having existed.
Here's a an example of two articles from reputable sources that disputes historical Jesus's existence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/18/did-historical-jesus-exist-the-traditional-evidence-doesnt-hold-up/?utm_term=.e4d85d9499a1
https://www.livescience.com/13711-jesus-christ-man-physical-evidence-hold.html
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QSO2S5C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Remember, there is not one single mentioning of Jesus that was written during his supposed life. Such a thing just does not exist. 2,000 years of people wanting it to be true have planted many many fakes (Shroud of Turin, for example). But that's not even the real problem with finding out if a particular person existed such a long time ago. Physical evidence decays, gets translated improperly, gets lost or destroyed.
I'm not saying he did, or did not live. I'm saying that your original statement "that virtually all scholars agree existed" is not true. These events happened too long ago to verify 100% that any of it happened at all. Combine that with 2,000 years of mistranslations, faked artifacts and most scholars having preconceived notions, it's just not possible to verify these things.
I understand you will disagree. But consider this: Nearly all active Mormons scholars believe the golden plates really existed. And that only supposedly happened in 1823. Time muddles the true events of everything. 2,000 of time muddles the true events a lot.
Edit: a few words
So my comments above show my linking skills, but I will do my best in advance of the report coming out monday (already advance reviews are mixed to break down this issue...
As regards the Covenant of Works ("COW"), was it, in any sense, "republished" in the mosaic covenant? Republicationists say yes (hence there name). However, if you have read any John Murray, you'll know he objected to the very term COW in favor for a Covenant of Life, between Adam and God. The reason being is that Murray and his spiritual successors in the anti-repub camp see a Grace element in EVERY
single of thecovenant administrations(for more on the various covenants, please see O Palmer Robertson's classic work.) By calling it a covenant of works, they feel, runs the risk of downplaying the grace in the COW. Republicationists do not deny a grace element in the COW, nor any of the subsequent covenants, but you can see the problems from this short paragraph, when one side won't even allow for a COW, when our standards refer to it in those exact terms.I refer to above again to the idea of no smoking gun in this case. In other words, one can claim a repub position, or an anti-repub position, and maintain themselves as orthodox reformed.
And as some are talking about Kline, it could be reduced to that in its simplist form, if you don't want to get into the covenant issues. Are you for Kline (like me?). Then you like repub (he advocated it). Against Kline, you probably argue against it.
Whether Repub is Biblical or not, is of course the question at hand. There's a lot to this. For Kline's more important work, one should work through his lectures on their commute or something, they are worth it, I have gotten through quite a few of these. I have [his book] (https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Prologue-Foundations-Covenantal-Worldview/dp/1597525642) in my own personal archives, but anyway, that is the best I can frame all this. Any of you want to correct or add, please feel free. Love to all the reformed redditors! Read the report on Monday when it comes out, and we'll see how accurate I am haha
I'd say that it may be out of the scope of this particular project.
I can't imagine anyone who would recommend AGAINST learning Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek, but it's a pretty big undertaking (as is learning any new language). You have the added obstacle of being culturally and chronologically separated from original authors, meaning that you still ought to seek input from "experts" concerning the meaning of a particular passage (failure to do so can lead to this.).
While I'm not a mod or originator of this project, my understanding is that it is at least partially aimed at "Bible Novices," who may not have the time/motivation/background to commit to learning two ancient languages.
That all said, it is possible for neophytes to do "spot translations" of certain passages. One of my heroes, Don Knuth embarked on a translation project where he used resources like Strong's Concordance to do his own translations, but he has also commented that the project took several hours a week for a single verse.
Now, when I rule the world (and I will someday), churches everywhere will offer courses in Biblical languages to their congregants, simply because there is a world of benefits and few drawbacks to doing so. However, I don't think it's an appropriate exercise here.
After doing enough research of ancient civilizations and taking one class on all of them, these are the best books in my opinion that give a general overview to start with when researching, depending on the civilization you are researching. Then once you have these and look through them, you can make a good library of least 350 books about the ancient world like I have. I hope this helps and if you want help picking books, just ask. Also these books are written by the authorities in their subjects so they will be good research materials.
Ancient Rome: Christopher Mackay’s Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History
Ancient Greece: Sarah Pomeroy’s Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History
Ancient Mesopotamia: Marc Van De Mieroop’s A History of Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt: Marc Van De Mieroop’s A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 - 323 BC
Ancient Phoenicia: Maria Aubet’s The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade
Ancient Carthage: Dexter Hoyo’s The Carthaginians (Peoples of the Ancient World)
Ancient Hellenistic World: R. Malcom Errington’s A History of the Hellenistic World: 323 - 30 Bc
Ancient Silk Road Area: Xinru Liu’s The Silk Road in World History (The New Oxford World History)
Ancient Persia: Maria Brosius’ The Persians (Peoples of the Ancient World)
Ancient Hittites: O.R. Gurney’s The Hittites
The Canon of Scripture by F.F. Bruce. Can't go wrong with anything by F.F. Bruce imo hahah.
Metzger has a book on the subject that I haven't read yet but what to. He's one of the best scholars of the last 50 years.
Kruger is a prof at RTS so this is one that probably has a reformed bent to it. Haven't read this one yet either, but it is suppose to be good.
A lot of good comments here. I suggest you read a good book on the history of the canon, though. You’re operating with a few misconceptions.
Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books https://www.amazon.com/dp/1433505002/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_b8YnDbAKH12AB
Good books on the development of NT canon:
The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate
Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books
An interesting program refuting common objections to Sola Scriptura: Dr. Michael Kruger on the Dividing Line
Reposting my comment from earlier in the month:
Non-religious academics
Religious academics
At the more apologetic end, there's the recent book by Brant Pitre: The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ.
At the "rejecting the idea of Jesus" end there's:
Neither of which have found wide favor among either religious or non-religious academics (Ehrman and Casey's work being direct rebuttals for many of the arguments).
From a post I made awhile back:
If you want to go for a scholastic/western positive apologetics approach check out: The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology.
If you want to go for a scholastic/western negative apologetics approach check out Alvin Plantinga's God and Other Minds. This is the work that actually re-kindled serious philosophical debate on the existence of God in Anglophone philosophical circles according to Quinten Smith (a notable atheist philosopher btw). From there you could also check out Alvin Plantinga's warrant trilogy in order: Warrant: The Current Debate, Warrant and Proper Function, and Warranted Christian Belief.
Personally I'm skeptical of the scholastic/western approach in general and I favor the Eastern/Mystical approach. I think the scholastic/western approach cannot escape radical skepticism, and I mean this in terms of secular and religious. If one takes seriously the scholastic/western approach in general, whether one is atheist or theist, radical skepticism follows. This video from a radical skeptic that goes by the user name Carneades.org does a good job of demonstrating this: Arguments of the Indirect Skeptic
The Orthodox approach has always been mystical rather than scholastic all the way from the beginnings of Christianity. From Jesus, to the apostles, to the church fathers, to right now we still have the original apostolic faith in the Orthodox Church. Check out this short documentary to learn more: Holy Orthodoxy: The Ancient Church of Acts in the 21st Century.
Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky explains the Eastern/Mystical approach: "To properly understand the Orthodox approach to the Fathers, one must first of all understand the mystical characteristic of Orthodox theology and the tradition of the apophatic approach to an understanding-if "understanding" is indeed the proper word-of what the hidden God in Trinity reveals to us. This needs to be combined with the insight that what is incomprehensible to our reason inspires us to rise above every attempt at philosophical limitation and to reach for an experience beyond the limits of the intellect. The experience of God is a transcendence born from union with the divine-henosis (oneness with God) being the ultimate goal of existence. This makes the requirement of true knowledge (gnosis) the abandoning of all hope of the conventional subject-object approach to discovery. It requires setting aside the dead ends of Scholasticism, nominalism, and the limits set by such Kantian paradigms as noumena/phenomena. One must return to, or better yet, find in one's heart (or nous, the soul's eye) union with the Holy Trinity, which has never been lost in the Orthodox Church."
Source: Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky, (2004). Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism. p. 178. Zondervan, Grand Rapids
Marx said this in some of the opening lines of the Communist Manifesto:
> The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.... Freeman and slave...in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another...
Marx's whole philosophy is that (economic) power disparity is the reason we have constant turmoil. If you get rid of the economic differences, you get rid of the turmoil. It's pure naturalist materialism, and is founded completely outside God, since Marx thought "religion is...the opium of the people."
So, to regard racial divisions as purely class power struggles (Marxism) is to deny the fundamental issues of man's value as an image bearer of God, deeply flawed by sin and sinful desires. Instead of saying "we can fix this mess by creating Heaven on earth", we should teach the gospel.
Edit to add:
Alvin Plantinga quoted Marx, then summarized pretty well this way:
> Marx suggests that religion arises from [a] perverted world consciousness -- perverted from a correct, or right, or natural condition. Religion involves cognitive dysfunction, a disorder or perversion...a lack of mental and emotional health. The believer is therefore in an etymological sense insane. [Warranted Christian Belief, p141]
For a scholarly translation: The JPS Study Bible
For a more "traditional" translation, The Artscroll Tanach
However, I need to note that you won't learn about Judaism or Jewish practice from reading the Tanach. I hear Jewish Literacy by Rabbi Telushkin is a very good starting place.
A lot of what's been listed is devotional stuff, not critical stuff.
For a good critical intro to the New Testament, try Raymond Browns Introduction to the New Testament
Or Bart Ehrman's The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings
Just about anything by Geza Vermes is also very good.
For the Old Testament, I'd recommend James Kugel's How to Read the Bible
or even Asimov's Guide to the Bible.
I think the best thing to do here (especially if you enjoy reading) is to do some study into the good reasons why Christianity is believed to be correct. William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith is one of the best, most cohesive defenses of the reasonability of the Christian faith I've ever read but there are plenty of other good sources too (Richard Swinburne's The Existence of God and The Coherence of Theism, J.P. Moreland and Bill Craig's Philosophical Foundations of a Christian Worldview, Paul Copan and Bill Craig's Come Let Us Reason, Craig Keener's Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, and Alvin Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief just to name a few).
Good study bibles: The New Oxford Annotated Study Bible or The HarperCollins Study Bible.
Another good one for great insights into the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament): Jewish Study Bible
See Father Raymond Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament. You will probably find his perspective and presentation to be both insightful and invaluable.
I would suggest reading some Old Testament and New Testament at the same time. Dive right into Genesis for the OT then Exodus and then Joshua. For NT, any of the gospels will do - Mark is pretty action packed, John is awesome too, then read Acts of the Apostles after it.
If you get bogged down they have this now.
For reference, here is the Hemingway book on top: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Short-Stories-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0684843323
I own it & would recommend it.
https://www.amazon.com/Year-Living-Biblically-Literally-Possible/dp/0743291484
try it for a couple years, you might get a book deal
I've heard great things about this book, might want to give it a look as it may help with your question: On the Reliability of the Old Testament by K.A. Kitchen.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802803962/?coliid=I349U78PJ5CWDI&colid=2KQI2IA4VRDZA&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
>I've googled that and came up with nothing reliable I'd definitely be very interested in your source
I'm always willing to bet my academic and personal integrity as an ANE historian.
>>From a past reply on the problems with the Exodus Narrative
>The Exodus and actual Egyptology.
>In Search of 'Ancient Israel': A Study in Biblical Origins
>Biblical History and Israel S Past: The Changing Study of the Bible and History
>The Oxford History of the Biblical World
>The section in the third link just below where I've had it link too about difficulties placing Egypt within the Exodus narrative is also fun.
I would also recommend to you two of Marc Van De Mieroops works:
A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 - 323 BC, 2nd Edition and A History of Ancient Egypt
Both are fairly accessible college entry level works on ANE and Egyptian history.
If you are interested in warfare, this magazine can very helpful:
http://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/cms/karwansaray/ancient-warfare/about.html
For general history, these books could be of use:
A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 - 323 BC: http://www.amazon.com/History-Ancient-Near-East-3000/dp/1405149116/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380612184&sr=1-1&keywords=ancient+middle+east
The Greeks in Bactria and India: http://www.amazon.com/Greeks-Bactria-Cambridge-Library-Collection/dp/1108009417/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380612297&sr=1-3&keywords=bactria
Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture: http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Near-Eastern-History-Culture/dp/032142297X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380612365&sr=1-3&keywords=Ancient+middle+east+history
Hope this is useful to you.
Link to the book for the lazy.
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Stories-Bible-Paul-Farrell/dp/1578849225
Not exactly the Berenstein bears, but somewhat close in concept
I find the books written by Bart D. Ehrman to be both informative and interesting. I have read three of them: Forged: Writing in the Name of God - Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are
Misquoting Jesus
Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)
All three of them are solid reads.
Online Bible Links:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
https://www.biblegateway.com/ (over 100 versions and 50 translations of the bible, including audio.)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (with Cross-References) [Kindle Edition] [free]
(edit:formatting to make it easier to read)
This is really quite the question. You'll undoubtedly get some really insightful response from guys way smarter than me!
So let me contribute my widow's mite to the conversation. Grab a couple of books and read them slowly and thoughtfully. I think this deliberate lingering look at the subject that your post shows you've obviously given much thought to, will serve you better than a paragraph or two here in reddit - be they ever so clear!
If I may recommend two for you?
You've got to read the seminal work by O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants
Then follow that up with Michael Horton's book Introducing Covenant Theology for a more modern look at the subject.
Both of these you can buy used at Amazon for right around $5. I think they will be great tools for you as you work through the thoughts you outline above.
Forgive the lack of 'crunchy' in this post by skirting an answer with book recommendations!
Goldsworthy is a great place to start. I recommend According to Plan, which includes "Gospel and Kingdom" mentioned elsewhere but also "Gospel and Wisdom" and "Gospel in Revelation". So you get the covenant theology take on all of Scripture.
For what it's worth, Christ of the Covenants is like $10 on Amazon. I think that's the book I used in my OT class in college. But I think I'd go with Goldsworthy for the extra eight bucks.
Donald Knuth wrote a book about the Bible, as well.
How about this?
Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization
It covers from 4000 BCE to the conquest of Babylon by Cirus in 539 BCE.
Also:
The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures
A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323BC
I have all of them and I can't really recommend them because I haven't started them yet :P (they're still on my reading queue, tho)
EDIT: The last one seems pretty comprehensive. Just looked at its table of contents and remembered why I bought it.
EDIT 2: You could go to /r/AskHistorians and ask the same question.
This is a good introduction for the entire region
http://www.amazon.com/History-Ancient-Near-East-3000/dp/1405149116/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1346292906&sr=8-2&keywords=mesopotamian+history
I love Micheal Kruger's books Canon revisited and The question of Canon. If you really want to dive into the subject D.A. Carson's The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures is an amazing resource.
That's a lot of questions! I'll try to provide some answers, but obviously they will be brief and just starting points. I'll point you to resources/books that will answer your questions more exhaustively when I can, since some of your questions have been answered in many books.
First, I would expand a little bit on your definition of Sola Scriptura. It means that Scripture and Scripture alone is our final authority in the church. (Note: it is not the only authority. We value tradition, experience and reason as well, but they are not the final authority.)
>What is the historic evidence of Sola Scriptura?
Not sure what you mean by historic evidence, but I would take the writings of the early church fathers, where they would appeal to the Scriptures as final authority. It's very hard to answer such a broad question on a medium like this. Now, if you want an early church father explicitly defending this doctrine, then there is none, as far as I know. This is simply because it was not a doctrine that was fought over, hence not a lot of the early church fathers wrote explicitly on this. (This applies to heaps of other doctrines.)
>How do advocates of Sola Scriptura answer the charge of knowing the canon of Scripture while the canon not being listed (explicitly) in Scripture?
See Michael Kruger's book, Canon Revisited.
>Does the Bible say that it is sufficient to be the rule of Christian faith and practice? It seems that the verses: 1 Timothy 3:15, 2 Timothy 3:16–17, 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and many others seem to indicate that not only does Scripture not mention self sufficiency but rather as a practical guide, with Tradition being on equal par as an inspired pair with Scripture.
In these passages, why would you take the word "tradition" as how the Roman Catholic church would define it? I would read "tradition" as Paul's teaching as passed on to them, which is then enscripturated in the Bible. There's nothing in those passages that requires Tradition being on equal par with Scripture. It is only that if you have already assumed the meaning of the word "Tradition" as only how the RC church would define it.
>How do advocates of Sola Scriptura answer Cardinal Newman's argument against Sola Scriptura on the basis that pulling from some of the Pauline Epistles proves to much: "Now, a good part of the New Testament was not written in his boyhood: Some of the Catholic epistles were not written even when Paul wrote this, and none of the books of the New Testament were then placed on the canon of the Scripture books. He refers, then, to the scriptures of the Old Testament, and, if the argument from this passage proved anything, it would prove too much, viz., that the scriptures of the New Testament were not necessary for a rule of faith."
I'm not exactly sure what he means. If you would rephrase it, it would be helpful. But if I'm reading him correct, he seems to say that it's too much to base our doctrine of Sola Scriptura on the writings of Paul. Well, we don't just rely on Paul's writings to defend the doctrine. In fact, I would argue that if properly defended, Sola Scriptura can be defended from the whole Old Testament all the way to the New.
Penal Substitution
>If Christ's death was efficacious for the removal of the punishment of sin of human beings, being fully of God, why wouldn't everyone be saved?
Good question! That's why Calvinist do not believe that Christ death was efficacious for the removal of the punishment of all human beings, but only for the elect. This is the "L" (Limited Atonement) in TULIP, although I prefer the term "Particular/Definite Redemption". To sum that doctrine up - "Sufficient for all, efficient for the elect."
>Why should we think that it is even possible for Christ to take on moral responsibility for our current and past sins?
On the one hand, why is it up to us? We believe Scripture says so, and thus we believe it. On the other hand, you can point to the doctrine of union with Christ - we become one with Christ, or united with Christ when we believe in him. Because of that, he is able to take on moral responsibility for our sins. What is ours are his, and what is his is ours. It's like in a marriage. When you marry someone, everything that he/she has is yours, and everything that is yours is hers/his, and that include things like debt.
Justification by Faith
>What Biblical basis is there that it is only by faith we are justified?
Heaps. Romans 3:21ff, Romans 4 (where Abraham is used as an OT example), Ephesians 2:1-11, Galatians, etc. Now, just in case you don't know, the RC notion of justification is different from the Protestant doctrine of justification. So, before you go any further, I think it's best that you know that first.
>Does the act of believing, or baptism, show a correspondence of works and faith?
Not sure what you mean by this. Please elaborate.
>What is the historic evidence of Sola Fide?
See answer above on historic evidence of Sola Scriptura. It's there in the writings of the early church fathers, but it is not explicit, since it was not something the church fought over. The early church fought over other things (Trinity, Christology), and that's why you see their writings focusing so much on those things. Sola fide was really only seriously fought over during the Reformation, that's why there are numerous writings on this during that time. This doesn't mean that it's not there in the early church, it definitely is. But it is inchoate.
There are a ton. To name just a few:
Dan Barker wrote a book titled God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction that lists entire chapters of god either doing or commanding ludicrous things. Not really a good book for reading, but a great book for reference.
The Jefferson Bible.
Because it's essentially advertising for his book 'Forged'.
Both Timothy verses are considered forgeries by most Biblical scholars.
Briefly this is the argument:
The writing style of the 'Timothy's' has nothing in common with Paul's. After Paul's death there were in circulation the 'Acts of Paul' which are a fantastic set of yarns about a superhero-like Paul and a feisty female companion/sidekick (non-sexual relationship) that keeps getting in trouble because she insists on being chaste. These tall tales were very popular. It is believed that the 'Timothy's' were written in the second century to undercut the popularity of the 'Acts of Paul' and Paul's original and radical idea that men, women, slaves and masters were all 'equal in Christ'.
It is estimated that somewhere between 40 and 60% of Paul's New Testament writings are forgeries.
Thanks, just checking whether there was something new.
Carrier talks about this in his "On the Historicity of Jesus". His claim about Tacitus is that he was probably quoting the Gospels indirectly through Pliny, so Carrier claims it might not be an independent source.
He reviews a bunch more, including Josephus, in his chapter 8 "Extrabiblical Evidence".
If I wanted to fact-check Carrier, I would start by reading both his and Ehrman's blogs when they argue with each other, and both Carrier's and Ehrman's books on the topic.
I don't have a personal opinion on the existence of Jesus either. I asked only because it would be interesting if there were an easy way to poke holes in Carrier's work, since Carrier is so thorough.
I second /u/ancient_dude's suggestion of John Dominic Crossan. He's probably the "safest" author if you want someone who is a fascinating scholar yet still a confessing Christian.
Who Wrote the New Testament? by Burton Mack is a great read, information-dense but easy to get into.
Also good is Cutting Jesus Down to Size by G.A. Wells.
For a book more focused on Acts and its depiction of early Christianity, try The Mystery of Acts: Unraveling Its Story by Richard Pervo.
Every page of these books will present you with ideas and critical scholarship that probably never occurred to you (or most lay readers of the Bible).
No, actually, they did not. Might I recommend "Who Wrote The New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth" by Burton L. Mack?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0060655186
I'd recommend the Jewish Study Bible. If you get something like an Artscroll Tanakh, a lot of the translations are influenced by rabbinic traditions, which probably isn't what you're looking for.
Also if you find something labeled "Jewish Bible", it might be a Messianic translation, and those are completely 100% bogus and should be avoided.
For the New Testament, I recommend Brown
https://www.amazon.ca/Introduction-New-Testament-Raymond-Brown/dp/0300140169
I don't see a theological problem with biological evolution by natural selection, and I highly recommend this book for you Young-Earth-Creationists.
> The bible would make a pretty good comic/manga series
You mean like this? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Manga-Bible-Genesis-Revelation/dp/0385524315
My mom has been upset for years that I dropped out of church after I got married. I'm like, "Dude. It's been 15 years. GET OVER IT!" She's tried everything from trying to guilt me back into church, to buying me a "hip" Bible (it's this one, to buying my son a "baptismal" outfit when he was an infant that would've made him look less religious and more like a tiny Elvis. I've kept it..because it makes me laugh.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Manga-Bible-Genesis-Revelation/dp/0385524315
Here you go! I haven't read much of it, but it's supposed to be alright. https://www.amazon.com/Manga-Bible-Genesis-Revelation/dp/0385524315
My cousin once gave me the book A Year of Living Biblically. That's exactly what it was. I'm guessing the sitcom is inspired by the book.
>> Again, the evidence is scant, but to demand "something compelling" is not realistic.
> Why not?
It was three thousand years ago; there is really not very much from that era that has survived the ravages of time. The Egyptian climate has been very favourable to the preservation of documents, but not everywhere; Kenneth Kitchen believes the Exodus departed from Pi-Ramesses, where the damp soil of the Nile Delta destroyed whatever documents were once there. What literary evidence will tell us is limited not only by literature loss, but by the interests of the class of people who were able to write: "I laid waste the Assyrians" is important to get written down for posterity, but "I was laid waste by the Assyrians" is probably not. Archaeological evidence is likewise uneven, and often ambiguous when we find it. People argue that we don't find any trail of Israelite artifacts between Egypt and Canaan, but we find Egyptian mines in Sinai at Serabit el-Khadim with no trace of how the Egyptians got there or back, so why do we need to find Israelite camp sites before the Exodus narrative can possibly be true?
Absence of evidence is only evidence of absence where there is a reasonable expectation of evidence. Maybe we can hope for yet undiscovered evidence of something that happened so long ago, but I at least don't find anything suspicious in a failure to find it.
Hello there /u/drac07, as a person who has studied the Exodus, such a topic matter is divided among people (even some Christians). Certainly from what you've said that some people seem desperate, I would agree with you on that. Though not all are.
I recommend the scholarly works of James K Hoffmeier and Kenneth A Kitchen who are experts in the field of Egyptology and Biblical Archeology.
Israel in Egypt
On the Reliability of the Old Testament
Hopefully this will help you to understand the historicity of the Exodus, other events and also answering sceptical scholars objections to the Exodus.
Check out something like Burton Mack's Who Wrote the New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth
I'm reading that now, he makes a reasonable argument for the Christ mythology idea, and provides an in depth analysis of the writing of the NT in a historical context.
It's a surprise to exactly no one that there is an official hermeneutics for each expression of christianity, as the entire literary exegetical process has its start in widespread bible study over the past 400ish years. If you go from that notion, however, to buying the line that there is a consistent agenda that can be interpreted among the bible's authors, then you have limited yourself to non-academic, religious sources. Researchers in the fields of anthropology, history, and religious studies agree upon the conflicting political aims of the various authors of both the old and new testament. Some relevant works would be this overview of scholarship on the authors of the old testament and this overview of scholarship on how the gospels were written.
If the Bible is the word of God, it'd have certain properties. I'd expect it to be right about the history and nature of the world. All evidence suggests that it isn't. Biblical understanding of history and nature is right in line with what you'd expect from ancient people.
I would expect God to be able to keep his facts straight. The Bible does not. From what I've read, scholars seem to have a pretty good handle on who wrote the various parts of the Bible based on the agendas revealed by these contradictions.
Finally, if the Bible was the word of God, all his prophecies would come to pass. They have not.
Finally, I'd like to note that there are Biblical scholars that hold this view. They include Robert M. Price, Bart D. Ehrman, Richard Elliot Friedman, and Burton L. Mack. I guess they're all misinformed too. If only they had studied the Bible.
>What if I told you the only group of Christianity that really opposed Evolution is a specific, small subset out of the world-wide population of Christians? It is only really prominent within Conservative Evangelical Christianity (which happens to be, unfortunately, the largest, the most vocal and the most influential religious demographic within the USA, world-wide however is a different story)
I wouldn't call them small considering the influence they wield in government.
>Would you be surprised if I told you that the evidence for Jesus' existence is so overwhelming that no serious Ancient History, Classics, or Christian/New Testament Studies department in any university would deny that he was a real figure?
There are scholars that have put forth the theory he is an amalgam of characters of history and I'm not sure they are wrong. This aside even if a person name Jesus existed in this time frame there is nowhere near the evidence to substantuate the claims of the Bible.
>Would it surprise you if I told you that we know there are contradictions, and that a lot of us don't think they are significant enough to undo our faith?
Nope... I found plenty of Christians willing to cherry pick what they believe, nothing new here.
>We have a lot more complex and nuanced view than simply "everything the Bible says is true" and "the Bible never contradicts itself".
How can you expect us to believe its the word of god if it doesn't demonstrate divine like qualities? For example if the Bible was readable regardless of your language to everyone without translation this would be evidence there is something more here.. Or perhaps if Bibles were impossible to destroy. Two things a divine, all powerful being could do in order to demonstrate there is something special about this book. Instead the Bible appears to be a poorly written book, riddled with contradictions and historical inaccuracies.
>However, scholars generally believe that the NT is basically reliable in giving an account of his life, and along with the external evidence provided, is enough to explain who Jesus was and what he did in his historical context.
Very wrong here. Please go read 'Who wrote the New Testament'
https://www.amazon.com/Who-Wrote-New-Testament-Christian/dp/0060655186
I've not read it myself, but have heard good things about Who Wrote The New Testament
The thought that it's hard to conceptualize a ground for moral facts, whether natural or non-natural, is certainly something that motivates Mackie's argument from queerness. He does object to Hare's non-cognitivism, because he thinks that moral statements are meant to invoke moral properties, and fail to do so. Moral realists are also cognitivists, as are other error theorists like mackie. Most of these people, nevertheless, find it hard to conceptualize a grounding for moral facts. Indeed, this is a main reason naturalism is thought not to be very compelling, that it's much harder to conceive of a natural ground for moral facts than a non-natural one. Sharon Street, and as you pointed out, Ronald Dworkin make this point.
Parfit is not an anti-realist, he is a deflationist. He thinks there are moral facts, they are just non-metaphysical facts (like mathematical facts are).
>It's flagrantly circular to say rationality is determined by whatever a maximally rational being desires. So at most you could say that morality is determined by whatever a maximally rational being desires. But then you've done nothing to answer the big metaethical questions concerning rationality (in this normatively-loaded sense of the term): e.g. are judgments of rationality a matter of practical attitude, or do they make reference to some sort of ontology, and if so, what is the nature of this ontology?
Rationality is not determined by whatever a maximally rational being desires. Morality is determined by whatever a maximally rational being desires. This helps to explain the normative force of morality, because it helps us understand why it's rational to behave morally (if a being endorses your action who is perfectly rational, there seems to be very good reason to do it).
>Certainly not if it merely relocates all the big metaethical questions from one normative domain to another (equally problematic) normative domain.
Although normative properties generally are still weird, they are a lot less weird than moral properties. (It is a lot more difficult to see why something is rational to believe than it is to see why it is moral to do). Nevertheless, no moral theory is obligated to provide an account of all normativity (that's the job of a theory of normativity). If that were the case many arguments for moral realism wouldn't work (like Terrence Cuneo's comparison argument).
>I've read Firth and Brandt and Michael Smith, and I consider myself pretty well-informed about ideal observer theory, but I've never encountered "the algorithm analogy".
That's because I invented it when I responded to your post. It seems like it would be a good thing to use in an undergraduate class to make ideal observer theory compelling, but then again, I'm not a teacher.
>Where exactly do people in the literature compare the epistemic merits of moral intuitions with inferential claims about God's psychology? Are you saying that all inferential claims are ipso facto epistemically superior to all intuitions?
Well for starters there's a trivial argument that DCT offers a more reliable basis for morality than ethical intuitionism, namely that it's compatible with ethical intuitionism. So you could back up your intuitions with other stuff, whereas the person who is solely an ethical intuitionism has got nothing to back up their intuitions with.
Nevertheless, I did probably speak too soon in saying it's a general belief that claims about god's psychology are more defensible than claims stemming from intuition about morality. More accurately, most people seem to believe that in light of the objections to ethical intuitionism from cognitive science, claims about God's psychology are prima facie more reliable than intuitionist claims about morality.
The problem of divine hiddenness, for example, implies we know enough about God's character to have a sensible idea of how hidden he would be:
http://philpapers.org/rec/TRIGSA
A lot of religious knowledge also stems from authority, which is typically understood to be more reliable than intuition:
http://philpapers.org/rec/BENBOA-4
On reformed epistemology, knowledge of God is properly basic, which puts it on the level of belief in free will, which seems to be more well-founded than faulty intuitions:
https://www.amazon.com/Warranted-Christian-Belief-Alvin-Plantinga/dp/0195131932
But all in all, when you look at the language religious epistemologists and scholars of religion use, it certainly seems to be a language in which knowledge of God's character is presumed more reliable than an epistemology which looks like it fails. Of course, none of this amounts to an argument that knowledge of God's psychology is more reliable than moral intuition in general, and such would make for a very interesting paper, so thanks for the idea!
Plantinga is an old-school academic philosopher, so the best way to get familiar with his ideas is his published works (Amazon links below):
Plantinga is also on the editorial board of Faith and Philosophy, the journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers, and he's contributed several articles over the years. There are even more published articles written by his students and colleagues about his ideas.
>I believe that Christianity is rationally defensible, that religious experiences are valid, and that belief in God enjoys proper basicality--as Alvin Plantinga has defended
I think Plantinga, Alston and Wolterstorff's reformed epistemology is one of the most convincing defenses of rational belief that has hence been devised.
Warranted Christian Belief is an extraordinarily good read. There is an updated, condensed version also: Knowledge and Christian Belief.
You mean like the Jewish Study Bible?
Note that the reason there is only one of these (and I don't even know if this is what you're looking for), is probably because Jews and Christians take different approaches to learning the bible. I've found (and this is purely personal observation, not a scientific study) that Christians read much more finely taking single passages and sentences and analyzing them in their own right. Jews take a step back and usually consider each passage in it's larger context. Jews also tend to try to look at things through the prism of our sages first to see how things were interpreted by our ancestors, while Christians ask "what does this mean to me, today" and ignore older interpretations.
I read the bible with the aid of a commentary (The New Jerome Biblical Commentary), and a Bible Dictionary (HarperCollins Bible Dictionary). It slowed the pace a bit, but I got a lot out of it. I also had some good intros to the New Testament (An Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond Brown and The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart Ehrman).
Some other interesting study aids:
Good Luck.
For the New Testament read this http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Testament-Anchor-Reference-Library/dp/0300140169
For the Old testament Read this
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Old-Testament-5th-Edition/dp/013092380X/ref=pd_sim_b_78
John Lennox
This book will help you out a lot. Written by a mathematician who also happens to be a professor at Oxford University and a Christian.
Hi prophetofantman. I am one of the few creationists on this sub. I recommend you post your question to /r/Creation as well. If you message the mods I'm sure you'll be given access.
If you are interested in some more general books on this topic, I can recommend the following:
Three Views on Creation and Evolution.
Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and Against Neo-Darwinism.
The Cell's Design - Fazale Rana
---------------
Some good Young Earth Creationist books:
Understanding the Pattern of Life - Todd Wood
Thousands, Not Billions, ed. Don DeYoung
Seraphim Hamilton, a young Eastern Orthodox commentator and YEC, wrote a good blog post here.
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A good book on theistic evolution is "Creation or Evolution: Do we have to choose?" by Denis Alexander
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A good Old Earth Creationist book is John Lennox's
"The Seven Days Which Divide the World".
You might also be interested in this Christianity Today article
"A Tale of Two Scientists"
Perhaps this is not a debate point, but if you're really interested, you should check a book by John Lennox called Seven Days that Divide The World. I think it has some very strong claims that address your claims. There are some lectures of his on Youtube on his book, as well. I'll come back and answer you later today!
Seven Days the Divide the World by John Lennox
Short book (192 small pages), intended to get to the bottom of what truths we should accept from the Genesis creation account and other parts of scripture.
Its purpose seems to be to prevent people from both:
Because it is so short there is not a lot of depth, but I think it is a good start.
I believe there is a third option, laid out much better than I could ever begin to in 7 Days That Divided the World by Dr. John Lennox. Check it out
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0310492173?pc_redir=1408078642&robot_redir=1
I do not know of any Novels although there is a Manga Bible that I bought take a look here - http://www.amazon.com/Manga-Bible-Genesis-Revelation/dp/0385524315
Have you read the Good Word? It got translated into weeb recently.
The Manga Bible: From Genesis to Revelation https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385524315/
Archives for the links in comments:
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For the uninitiated.
I vaguely recall seeing an ad for this thing in some sort of mail catalog, Scholastic or Science Fiction Book Club or one of those, and having a laugh about it. I haven't thought about it in years.
This gets my award as best trick to get kids to read the bible: http://www.amazon.com/The-Manga-Bible-Genesis-Revelation/dp/0385524315
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Manga-Bible-Genesis-Revelation/dp/0385524315
He is the MASTER, I mean it, of the short story. I would say his short stories are much better than his novels. I'm about halfway through his entire short story collection right now ([The Finca Vigia Edition] (http://www.amazon.ca/Complete-Short-Stories-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0684843323)) and I love it so much. With his short, simple, to the point language it's quite obvious he would do his best work in a shorter format, in my opinion. I have only read two of his books, those being "The Sun Also Rises" and "The Old Man and the Sea", both were phenomenal and I feel like his terse prose brought the novel and especially the short story to new heights.
My friend picked up some stuff of mine from his PO Box across the border. Managed to get a pair of Killshots since they don't ship to Canada/can't get in-store shipping here. Also got two books as well.
"An Exorcist Tells His Story" - Fr. Gabriele Amorth
"The Complete Short Stories" - Hemingway
Since I have no idea what kind of books you like I made a short little list of books I generally recommend to people for any reason. All linked to amazon so look for a review or synopsis there.
Let the Great World Spin
The Great War for Civilization
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
Oil!
The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
Theodore Rex
Lincoln:A Novel
Get some absinthe and crack open a copy of Hemingway's short stories.
> You are welcome to that opinion. But you frame Vines, et al as simply re-presenting Boswell, and that is deeply unfair.
Except Vines has no new arguments of his own and they closely mirror Boswell's in trying to reconcile homosexuality with the Bible. For instance, Vines claims scholarly research into the historical background show that biblical authors were not forbidding all same-sex relationships, but only exploitative ones. The argument is that Paul and other biblical writers had no concept of an innate homosexual orientation, that they only knew of exploitative homosexual practices, and therefore they had no concept of mutual, loving, same-sex relationships. This is Boswell and Scroggs 101 who were expertly refuted by Bernadette Brooten and William Loader.
>I've read an essay by Loader exploring this, and he only mentioned the Aristophanes passage – and muted its usefulness, since Plato elsewhere seems not to buy the idea of homosexual orientation.
Yet, Loader still arrives at the conclusion that homosexuality was known at the time from the evidence presented.
>Not as an argument in itself, but as an invitation for you to guide me to other passages of ancient discussion of homosexual orientation.
Great, start here.
http://barbwire.com/2014/04/29/liberal-scholars-homosexuality/
http://www.theologymatters.com/NovDec01.PDF
https://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-Homosexual-Practice-Hermeneutics/dp/0687022797/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398821194&sr=8-1&keywords=robert+gagnon
https://www.amazon.com/Testament-Sexuality-Christianity-Hellenistic-Greco-Roman/dp/0802867243
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/LoaderSameSex.pdf
https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Sex-Attitudes-Literature/dp/0802870953
Here is a list of steps which will solve your problem;
I would suggest you read this post:
http://fatherjohn.blogspot.com/2011/07/bible-church-and-homosexuality.html
And watch the Robert Gagnon video at the end.
I would also recommend this lecture from Robert Gagnon: http://ec.libsyn.com/p/5/b/0/5b0fe32492222ba0/Sep07_10.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d06c98136d0ca5b36fd&c_id=2294080
And especially his book The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics: http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Homosexual-Practice-Texts-Hermeneutics/dp/0687022797
Robert Gagnon The Bible and Homosexuality is a seminary level writing on the subject that covers it.
Keving DeYoung's What the Bible Really Teaches about Homosexuality is a far quicker read and covers the topic. He actually references Gagnon's text quite a bit, so I'd start there if I were you.
There were two people who spent a year trying to live according to the rules laid out in the Bible. One was a man and one was a woman. They each wrote a book. Life became very difficult for them. Just goes to show that Christians ignore most of the Bible.
https://www.amazon.com/Year-Living-Biblically-Literally-Possible/dp/0743291484/
https://www.amazon.com/Year-Biblical-Womanhood-Liberated-Covering/dp/1595553673
Late to the game, but people always need more books...
The World Without Us was great, really interesting read about humanity's effects on the planet, with lots of references to expand on if you wanted to do that.
A Year of Living Biblically was interesting, even if you aren't a Christian or a Jew, if you find religion interesting.
And last but not least, Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickam. This was made into the movie 'October Sky', and it's a memoir, one of the best I've ever read. But all the science of the rockets is in there too, I learned a lot about propellants and DeLavalle nozzles lol.
I was raised Jewish with all the schooling but never believed in a god. TzniusNotMyNameOh writes good questions to ask yourself. This year I refused to even be seated at the seder table (in the past I sat but didn't participate) because the entire Haggadah is just praising a god for killing other people. If you reread the stories of Lot and Dinah, they are also just as disgusting. And ask Orthodox about what they believe was the reason for god not intervening in the Holocaust- because he is too great for us to understand his reasons.
Some other books to check out:
God Is Not Great: How religion poisons everything by Christopher Hitchens
Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman
The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs
Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels
interview with Nathan Englander
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx7irFN2gdI
http://www.theatheistrabbi.com/
http://jewishatheist.blogspot.com/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/
http://i.imgur.com/YWUig.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/7UdCA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rNOET.jpg
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/411550/its-raining-frogs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=6axdZAxyt2g&feature=endscreen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5JtxrR6msg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E67ommy95-o&feature=related
http://vimeo.com/25149893
If you want to live by the bible atleast do it right.
Well, that will depends entirely on the definition of "historically accurate"...
To put it simple, if the definition means
1) you always need outside sources for confirmation, to accept it as "historically accurate".
Then you have a huge problem. Since most historical accounts (ancient, greek, egypt, middle ages, etc..) come from single sources written (or oldest known manuscripts) way after the event. Basically most ancient (and sometimes even not so ancient) history we learned in school was then fantastical bullshit.
2) a text is deemed "historically accurate" as long as no archeological findings & other sources tell a different story.
Then it will depend on a) how much content is disputed
b) which source has more credibility
c) how good is my text overall (1 wrong part, will not disprove 100 verified ones)
d) how good is my archeology
So I treat the OT/NT text as a historical text. That can be critizised/analyzed/studied like any other manuscript.
Personally I belief the supernatural stories about god, Jesus, are true also, but that cannot be verified historically. That's, like in any religion, a matter of belief... But practically a lot of old manuscripts & "writting on stones" (egypt, greek, ...) contain supernatural sayings, and god(s) who interfere. If you would discredit the OT/NT text on that basis, most of ancient history that you learned would have to be discarded as well.
And all that personal stories, like "he said this" & "she answered this", you will be never to prove/disprove anyway. Only the surrounding text (language,names) and factual information (knowledge of time period, locations, etc...)
When it come to the OT/NT text so far, most things that can/could be verified archeologically seem to support the bible as an accurate historical text.
In the NT especially Acts as a mainly historical book stands out...
In the OT, the farther back you get, the fuzzier the answer will be. My problem with most criticism, like Finkelsteins, is that it depends heavily on "evidence not found" coupled with "time dating the site" (="no evidence at the time wehre I date the event").
This approach has 3 problems:
1) exact locations (cities, places, etc.) are often highly disputed. We often don't know the verified exact locations of roman and sometimes even middle age battles in Europe. So it seems a little strange, when some archeologist says for events 1000-2000 years earlier, this is definitively the site (while he most definitively never looked 2 miles to the west...).
2) Dating in Egypt, Israel, heck the whole Middle East ist pretty much a mess of its own for the OT time period. First there are not too many "datable" artefacts, and secondly Finkelstein & Co don't believe in C14 carbon dating. O.K. that's highly simplified and blatantly wrong. The truth is: the "established standard timeline" based on Egyptology practically never corresponded really to C14 dating (a couple of hundred years difference). Since a few years back they think they can solve this technically (and with some hypothetical explanations), but it means that practically any C14 dating that doesn't fit the wanted result gets ignored. Basically a lot (mostly older) archeologists of that time in Egypt & Middle East are ignoring C14 dating results for that purpose. There is a battle between archeologists fought here...and C14 seems to be winning lately...
3) dating OT events is always speculative, there are competing arguments e.g. for the time of the exodus (1450-1200) and some dispute the event it at all.
This means personally for me, that while archeological findings in OT times are fun, interesting and sometimes truly awesome, any claim based on "at that time Israel did not exist, the city was not inhabited, long destroyed, we found no evidence" depends too much on "I accurately dated the site/event".
And the absence of findings does not really disprove the existence of something historically. The question quickly becomes one of trusting the underlying assumptions. So far I haven't found much that contradicts the confutable historical narrative parts of the OT/NT text. Archeological research that depends on "exact" location/time dating offers questions and definitive mistakes in the text. But the time/place dating of this research depends often highly on other factors and interpretations, and is mostly disputed.
===============
Kitchen (On the Reliability of the Old Testament) is "the standard" book about your question.
http://www.amazon.com/Reliability-Old-Testament-K-Kitchen/dp/0802803962/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1
But for some fun (about the disputes on dating) read "Centuries of Darkness". Kitchen does't agree with them (and I lean more to him honestly), but then who agrees really about anything for that time period :-)
http://www.centuries.co.uk/index.htm
See John Walton.
Kitchen's Reliability of the Old Testament also has some comparative studies -- the most significant being his assertion that suzerain treaties in contrast to the Pentateuch fundamentally undermine the Documentary Hypothesis.
If you're looking for primary sources only, I'd recommend Old Testament Parallels
The historical and archaeological evidence for Moses is skant. I have studied the Bible enough to believe it to be very reliable, so I believe that Moses was a real person.
I checked with a historian who works on the related archeology and Pentateuch studies. Here's what he said:
> there are many Christian and Jewish scholars who do not believe Moses is a myth. The debates about the evidence often boil down to a "glass half full" vs. "glass half empty." Pro-Moses scholars point out the evidence that makes his existence plausible, and anti-Moses scholars point out the lack of direct external proof of his existence. I belong to two consortiums of scholars in Pentateuch studies, each composed of about 20-40 scholars, all of whom believe there was a Moses. They are all internationally qualified Ph.D.'s.
Recommended resources:
The video documentary Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus, which is very balanced and well-done: http://patternsofevidence.com/
Secondly, Kenneth Kitchen's book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament:
https://www.amazon.com/Reliability-Old-Testament-K-Kitchen/dp/0802803962
Thirdly, the work of Egyptologist James K. Hoffmeier:
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Egypt-Evidence-Authenticity-Tradition/dp/019513088X
https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Israel-Sinai-Authenticity-Wilderness/dp/0199731691
Kenneth Kitchen's "On the Reliability of the Old Testament" is a decade old but remains excellent.
>If you don't like wikipedia as a source, feel free to click through. Nothing in that article is missing citations.
Okay, how about this one:
>The Delta is an alluvial fan of mud deposited through many millennia by the annual flooding of the Nile; it has no source of stone within it. Mud, mud and wattle, and mud-brick structures were of limited duration and use, and were repeatedly leveled and replaced, and very largely merged once more with the mud of the fields. . . . The mud hovels of brickfield slaves and humble cultivators have long since gone back to their mud origins, never to be seen again. . . . And, as pharaohs never monumentalize defeats on temple walls, no record of the successful exit of a large bunch of foreign slaves (with loss of a full chariot squadron) would ever have been memorialized by any king, in temples in the Delta or anywhere else. On these matters, once and for all, biblicists must shed their naïve attitudes and cease demanding ‘evidence’ that cannot exist." p. 246 (Kenneth Kitchen is one of the most preeminent scholars of ancient Egypt, having authored hundreds of journal articles and books.)
So absence of evidence is ... absence of evidence. How underwhelming and obvious.
>Your argument is just an argument from personal incredulity.
No, it's an argument to the best explanation. This is called abductive reasoning.
>As for the difficulty of getting a whole bunch of people to believe a story that is purported to have been a thousand years earlier? Why not. Who from a thousand years earlier was there to contradict the story?
Everyone:
"Hey everybody, look what I have. This document explains the moral code, legal system, ontology, and history of mankind that G-d gave our ancestors."
"How come we've never heard of it before? What does 'circumcision' mean? On the seventh year we do what with our crops?! Yeah, this makes sense. Let's all start doing this! We agree with this document that portrays us as slaves, idolaters, malcontents, and worse. We especially like the feces-god some of us worshipped in Numbers 25. Nice touch! From this day forward we will all devote our lives to the perpetuation of this book. Thank you, Not-Moses! Let's kill everyone who doesn't go along with this."
I have a better explanation.
Couple of good books on Covenant Theology:
A good book on this topic is Christ of the Covenants by O. Palmer Robertson
Traditional Dispensationalism:
http://www.amazon.com/Dispensationalism-Charles-C-Ryrie/dp/080242189X/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344919159&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=DiSoensationalism
http://www.amazon.com/There-Really-Difference-Comparison-Dispensational/dp/0915540509/ref=pd_sim_b_1
http://www.amazon.com/Things-Come-Study-Biblical-Eschatology/dp/0310308909/ref=pd_sim_b_9
Progressive Dispensationalism:
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Dispensationalism-BridgePoint-Books-Darrell/dp/0801022436/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344919422&sr=1-1&keywords=progressive+dispensationalism
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Central-Issues-Contemporary-Dispensationalism/dp/0825420628/ref=pd_sim_b_3
Covenant (sorry, my seminary was staunchly dispensational so I am less knowledgeable here):
http://www.amazon.com/Christ-Covenants-O-Palmer-Robertson/dp/0875524184/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344919539&sr=1-1&keywords=christ+and+the+covenants
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Dispensationalists-Vern-Sheridan-Poythress/dp/0875523749/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
Hope this helps.
Sure. In no specific order:
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
None of these are specifically Biblical history, as I'm sure you'll quickly gather. To fully grasp the Old Testament, however, there are a few important areas that one must be strong in (in my humble opinion, that is): Ancient Near East history, and the New Testament, and a general understanding of Judaism and its individual history.
I think there is a vast difference between claiming someone has a view you disagree with and claiming someone is being purposely and nefariously dishonest. I've read and interacted with Kruger's writings, namely (as it is related to this issue) his book Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Book. Kruger does a great job fairly presenting and countering some of the contemporary claims presented by critical scholars regarding canonicity and the first two centuries of the church. For what it's worth, I don't at all get the impression that he is lying. He believes what he is saying.
I like the method presented in Michael Kruger's book Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books. He calls it the self-authenticating method (by listening to some of what you mentioned you might have heard of it). It is essentially this: canonical books must meet four criteria – 1. Providntial Exposer 2. Divine Qualities 3. Corporate Reception and 4. Apostolic Origins.
There is a ton of nuance there, but I think that the method he presents is the best considering the alternatives. This method makes a case for Revelation as canon and perhaps Enoch as scripture (again, a lot of nuance, and in his book he talks about books that were Scripture but are not canon, such as Paul's lost letters).
Overall, the canon must be self auhthenticating, and a lot of methods we use to argue for canonical books rely on authority that rests outside of God and his Word. I highly suggest reading his book. If you want a free .mobi or .epub copy direct message me.
> showing him so frequently before bringing him back fully in season 11 may have hampered the impact of his return.
Not if it was with flashbacks that are pertinent to that season's plot.
>It's implied humans at that time were evil, so they had to start from scratch.
Weird that's exactly the defence bible god used and it amounts to I don't like you SMITE!!!
>God in this show is a neglectful asshole.
Yes but is he outright malicious? Is he Bible god?
>...I'm just going to... not... answer that.
I'm not psychotic I just mean if they keep having us assume things happened the way they did in the bible, Weeelllll......
https://www.amazon.ca/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction/dp/1454918322
This looks like it'll be a fun read: http://www.amazon.com/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction/dp/1454918322/ref=zg_bsnr_12764_6
Try this Illustrated Stories from the Bible.
There's a book for that.
I highly recommend this book which highlights all the crazy shit in the bible
84 cents on Amazon.
But the best deal is the $4.99 paperback. The perfect Christmas gift for all your rabid right wing Christian relatives and co-workers.
> Is the Bible compatible with democracy?
That depends on which parts of the Bible you ignore.
The bible is so inconsistent that every Christian must decide which parts to ignore. Ignore the right parts, and things are just fine. Check out Thomas Jefferson's version. It is very compatible.
Introduce her to the concept of reality starting with subjective perspective.
Introduce her to the Jefferson Bible - http://www.amazon.com/The-Jefferson-Bible-Morals-Nazareth/dp/1604591285
The philosophy of liberty (originally a flash animation but now found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muHg86Mys7I ) is a good starting point (a fundamental) for understanding humanist morality and rules of subjective perception.
Introduction to the concept of falsification is a dangerous but necessary thing - ultimately, falsification and collaboration are important methods by which subjective perception becomes objective observation.
I am sure that other Redditors could contribute to this in a much more creative way, but this is what I think of when this subject comes up.
http://www.amazon.com/Brick-Bible-Complete-Set/dp/1626361770/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397336892&sr=1-1&keywords=lego+bible
This is why I love the Brick Bible. For some reason, having Lego people act out Bible stories really highlights how crazy they are. Bonus: read the 1-star reviews to see religious people agreeing, haha.
The Brick Bible is great. It tells the complete story of the Bible, instead of just the "nice" stories. But it uses legos, so it isn't so horrifying.
https://www.amazon.com/Brick-Bible-Complete-Set-Presents/dp/1626361770/
Also, search on Amazon for World Religions. Teach them all about the different world religions and how someone's religion depends on their parents, and not truth.
This is the book I used. More education is better, especially if you live in the Bible belt.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1554539811/
Who wrote the bible?
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/13/half-of-new-testament-forged-bible-scholar-says/
http://www.amazon.com/Forged-Writing-God--Why-Bibles-Authors/dp/B006QS02F8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330702871&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_c
I have read some of Bart Ehrman's work, and transcripts of a number of interviews, where he states he is agnostic. I don't recall seeing Ehrman provide a definition of what he means by 'agnostic' or 'agnosticism.' Is anyone aware of what Ehrman meaning of 'agnosticism'?
After watching part of the vid; yep, when talking/debating/arguing with someone knowledgeable/subject matter expert, it is not a good idea to go into the talk/discussion/debate unprepared. The Dunning–Kruger effect haunts us all! A better approach would have been to ask Ehrman to explain/present his position concerning a historical Jesus using from Biblical sources, and then from extra-Biblical sources, discuss the issues/debate surrounding the extra-Biblical sources (e.g., late additions to the text, do the citations reference the same "Jesus" as the Gospels?). Finally, discuss the case for the Christian claim of the Divinity of Jesus as The Christ; does the Jewish belief/prophecies require or identify that the Messiah/Mashiach be Divine/God (Yahweh) in man form/literally the Son of God?; do the Gospel narratives support (1) the claim of being the Jewish Messiah/Mashiach? (2) the claim of Divinity? As an atheist, the issue of the historical Jesus is interesting in that it establishes a foundation that the person existed and gives a basis for the morality presented in the narratives related to Jesus, but, more relevant are the claims made that Jesus is Divine, a supernatural Deity, a God in man form, fully human/fully Yahweh.
Since this subreddit address Christian beliefs, while Ehrman does conclude that the evidence very strongly supports a historical Jesus, Ehrman raises questions concerning the Divinity of Jesus, as the Christ.
From Jesus, Interrupted, by Bart Ehrman...
From my understanding of the Gospels, a strong argument can be made that Jesus does present himself as a claimant to be the Jewish Messiah/Mashiach can be made; but showing that Jesus claimed to be, literally, the Son of God, or Divine, is not supported.
In this case, the label "forgeries" applies to narratives which were likely not written by the person to which they are associated/claimed authorship, e.g., (simplistically) people writing in the name of other people and trying to pass their work off as genuinely by some other person. See Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are, by Bart Ehrman (review).
In my experience, not all Christians would agree with this statement; while belief/Religious Faith in The Christ is foundational to the overwhelming majority of Christians, many also hold that the Bible being is the inerrant word of God.
>support everything in the Holy Bible
I'm not sure exactly what you mean. NT scholars do not accept everything in the Holy Bible. Scholars do not even accept the authenticity of I & II Timothy as having been written by Paul.
Check out Forged by NT Scholar Bart Ehrman
>According to the biblical scholar, at least 11 of the 27 New Testament books are forgeries, while only seven of the 13 epistles attributed to Paul were probably written by him.
>"Virtually all scholars agree that seven of the Pauline letters are authentic: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon," says Ehrman.
>Individuals claiming to be Paul wrote 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians and Colossians, he adds.
Other book, including the Gospels, are mis-attributed to Jesus' disciples. (Pseudepigrapha)
Not only are there discrepancies and errors in the Bible, some of the authors have lied about who they are.
Start here.
Erhman is a smart, (brutally) honest, reputable theologian
http://www.amazon.ca/Forged-Writing-God-Why-Bibles-Authors/dp/B006QS02F8
The New Testament was written by several different authors who had different ideas that conflicted with each other. In many cases we can prove some of the authors are specifically lying to try to disprove either one of the other New Testament writers, or lying to try to disprove the Old Testament.
Quick answer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdWCdbJ_Sw4
If you're interested in looking deeper into the topic: http://www.amazon.com/Forged-Writing-God-Why-Bibles-Authors/dp/B006QS02F8
A concern: is it reasonable though to compare what are ultimately highly dissimilar entities? The stock market always retains some fundamental partial real-world value. With the stock market, even in '29 style crash, there is always some universally accepted residual physical value.
With the church there is NEVER a universally accepted physical value in the theology of any kind, only a vaguely individually determined emotional one, sometimes called 'spiritual', but it's emotion all the way. Personally, I would have difficulty relating the two.
One book I'd recommend that might appeal to your approach is Richard Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt.
Carrier uses Baye's Theorem to analyze the probability of Jesus' existence. As one reviewer noted:
"Carrier rigidly applies the logic of Bayes' Theorem to the evidence for the historicity of Jesus -- and finds no reason to conclude he actually existed. While the author's rigorous use of Bayesian method makes this book a tough slog at times, it is difficult to imagine how it might be refuted. . . . Put together, our prior knowledge and the subsequent evidence shows that is far more probable that Jesus was a mythical figure who was later given a historical-sounding life story than it is that he was a historical figure even remotely resembling the figure in the Gospels."
If one comes to a logically, even mathematically, based conclusion that Christ never existed then the question of the church being 'true' is moot.
Yea. Check out On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt by Richard Carrier
Faith On The March by A. H. Macmillan
It's been years since I've read it, but I remember enjoying K.A. Kitchen's On the Reliability of the Old Testament in my undergrad years.
Why is Christianity ridiculous? I suggest you reading
http://biologos.org/common-questions/human-origins/were-adam-and-eve-historical-figures
http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/is-there-a-historical-adam
or Kenneth Kitchens book "On the Reliability of the Old Testament ".
I just checked the wikipedia page about it and I am not sure if that is a good unbiased source.
Further searching showed me this book. Have you read this one? https://www.amazon.com/Reliability-Old-Testament-K-Kitchen/dp/0802803962
Here is a fine short book on covenant theology.
https://www.amazon.com/Far-Curse-Found-Covenant-Redemption/dp/0875525105
This is also great.
https://www.amazon.com/Christ-Covenants-Palmer-Robertson/dp/0875524184
This helped me a lot - https://www.amazon.com/Christ-Covenants-Palmer-Robertson/dp/0875524184
O' Palmer Robertson's Christ of the Covenants is your best bet.
Out of curiosity, why do you want modern?
I've been reading Covenant Theology: From Adam to Christ recently. It might be the best book on CT from a baptistic perspective out there, though its 300+ years old. Alternatively The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology is excellently done, scholarly and modern. It can be a bit tedious, since it was originally written in French as a master's thesis.
From a presbyterian perspective, I read The Christ of the Covenants and found it excellent and winsome. A number of reformed colleges and seminaries use it as a textbook.
You should be able to get any of those from the Christian Book Nook, or I can lend them to you at church on Sunday if you'd rather save some cash.
Maybe he's just a really big Donald Knuth fanboy?
Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:
Amazon Smile Link: http://smile.amazon.com/3-16-Bible-Texts-Illuminated/dp/0895792524
|Country|Link|Charity Links|
|:-----------|:------------|:------------|
|USA|smile.amazon.com|EFF|
|UK|www.amazon.co.uk|Macmillan|
|Spain|www.amazon.es||
|France|www.amazon.fr||
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Most recent addition:
http://www.amazon.com/3-16-Bible-Texts-Illuminated/dp/0895792524/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212948804&sr=8-1
To contrast that with Donald Knuth's 3:16 book, an example of a guy who actually does know that verse pretty well. The odd thing about that book is that Knuth was rather disappointed in the Book of St. John as it proved to be rather boring compared to the rest of the books of the Bible.
Too bad more people who use the Bible don't put as much effort into actually studying the book. Sort of like the clown who posted the original comment on Steam.
Donald Knuth books? I wonder if this counts: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0895792524?pc_redir=1395648537&robot_redir=1
And for bonus points, my dad has played volleyball with him.
Funny, I was looking for the same thing today. I didn't find one that covers the entire period you asked for (I think it's too large a period for just one book) but the one that I ended up considering was A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 - 323 BC. Unfortunately it's a bit too expensive for me so I only saved it to my wish list but looking at the table of content it was exactly what I was looking for. I think this book together with another covering the history of Rome should be enough for a decent coverage of the entire period you're interested in.
I recommend the book The Ancient History of the Near East.
https://www.amazon.com/History-Ancient-Near-East-3000/dp/1405149116
Many cultures have been wiped out or assimilated over the millennia.
As an example of modern assimilation, my family. My father moved here, to the US, following the Iran-Iraq War. He was Muslim (Shia), Persian-speaking, and traditional. Now? He's Christian, English-speaking (entirely, because Persian is rare), and liberal compared to his old, right-winged self. I was raised with English as my primary language, with American culture before Iranian culture, etc.
We are assimilated. My blood may be Iranian, but we are Americans.
Are you referring to
The Ancient Near East by John McLaughlin
or
A History of the Ancient Near East ca 3000 - 323 BC by Marc Van De Mieroop
What to read...
There's so much!
"The Ancient Near East" by Amelié Khurt is a great overall history.
Someone already mentioned History begins at Sumer and Ancient Iraq, they're a bit dated but still quite good. For a simple synchronic overview with nice maps look at Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia by Michael Roaf. Also another good history book A History of the Ancient Near East by Marc Van de Mieroop.
Regarding texts, there's a great book that does the history of Mesoptamia through primary sources The Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation ed. Mark Chavalas.
That should get you started. Those book are all quite current or still very usable, let me know if you need anything else. As for later periods (i.e. post-Achaemenid) that's not my field... I read A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani which was quite good and as far as I understand a well respected overview of later Mesopotamian history.
Hey there brother, I would encourage you to do a little more research into how canon was established.
A few points:
Further light reading:
More reading:
God: The Most Unpleasant Character in all Fiction.
I was literally dry heaving while reading it.
http://www.amazon.com/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction/dp/1454918322
Dawkins said he was trying to be humorous when he said that (aburdist, exaggerating for effect or something like that a la Jonathan Swift's "A Modest proposal") but people thought he was being serious since this is a pretty straighforward and accurate description. In fact, there's so much to talk about they wrote a book.
jmsr
I would start with the classic Some mistakes of Moses, by Robert Ingersoll.
There is a short book called Why There Is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God, by Armin Navabi, that is also a nice read.
One that I recently finished reading and enjoyed very much is The Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism, by Aron Ra. The book is not exactly about atheism; it's Aron's rebuttal to many creationist arguments, but Aron is a widely known atheist activist, and the book is very enjoyable.
I usually listen to The Thinking Atheist podcast, from Seth Andrews (a podcast I highly recommend, by the way). There are some book he suggested in his podcast that I haven't read yet, but which I included in my to-read list:
Because god has absolute knowledge and power and does nothing to help any situation except aggravate it for drama purposes. Sam and Dean don't have power or foreknowledge and are just trying to clean up the world god left behind and they don't know what apocalypse will be caused by their actions. God does and he's literally been toying with them since day 1.
He helped in season5 just to serve the story and again 1 order from god and the archangels would have stopped fighting and Sam and Adam wouldn't have wound up in the cage.
God can help and not totally abandon his creation without interfering free will and by your logic he interfreared with Lucifer and Amara's free will by caging them and he's inconsistent that way.
>They say he can see future outcomes but he did not see Sam shooting him. The same he did not see Sam and Dean releasing Amara.
He saw both of those and did nothing about them because its all a game to him and for the shooting him, he's got some plan with that as well. I'm thinking he knew they would fight him on Jack and he knew this would be the final season so he wanted them to fight him and made himself the final villain on purpose. That's a good story but it still makes him an asshole for toying and manipulating everyone since the beginning.
God helping doesn't violate free will I mean he could even have just helped the individual fights more by leaving more hands of god lying around. Sam and Dean need help to beat anything Angel or higher.
Well yes, if a human had the cure to everything they would also be evil for not using it. I don't hate god but in the FICTIONAL world where he exists but does nothing he is evil. I mean in Supernatural he exists and is responsible for everything including angels and demons and is manipulating everything. So yes I hate the fictional character as a fan of the TV show. I do not blame some being for all the bad in real life or thank anyone other then myself and the rest of humanity responsible for the good. That's religious people that do for god and the devil respectively. Neither one exists but if they did then god would be the worst monster and supernatural is portraying him accurately to how he was in the bible. Where you and I differ is that I understand that this makes him the villain and am not making excuses for him. The character of god is the worst character in all of fiction (https://www.amazon.ca/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction/dp/1454918322)
In our world we are alone and have to fix everything ourselves, but it also means that we weren't evil's or tainted since Eden and that ridiculousness. Unlike supernatural we don't have monsters demons or angels trying to kill us And there's also no worry of fire and brimstone for being anything less then perfect. Nothing created and abandoned us and the good and bad are just nature and that's certainty preferable to the fictional god's master plan. With the Supernatural world in play though god is responsible for everything and has a responsibility to fix it because he's the one who broke it in the first place.
An entire book.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction-Dan-Barker/1454918322
never heard of something like this being compiled before. but, may be u can give this a try:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1454918322/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
This book summarizes horrible stories in OT with some level of indexing. it might help.
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Stories-Bible-Paul-Farrell/dp/1578849225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324890584&sr=8-1
If this were the textbook then it might not be such a bad thing.
Ilustrated Stories from the Bible is a book a recently bought that highlights some of the more "controversial" stories in the bible. It was an enjoyable read.
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1578849225/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8
Highly recommend!
>I'm not sure I agree that there are religions that aren't based in revelation (buddhism maybe?).
Some forms of Hinduism too.
> Deism doesn't sound like a religion to me at all, but rather a philosophy held by some Christians.
No, Deism isn't a religion. It's not Christian either.
Deism is the idea that there is a God who created the Universe and set it in motion according to natural laws. Deists reject all revelation, relying instead on reasoning and observation of nature for their beliefs, so when a Deist says God created the Universe, they do not mean by creationism. In Deism, God's characteristics cannot be known; this is a God who does not intervene in the Universe and does not have a 'personal relationship' with people. Deism is also highly skeptical of so called 'religious mysteries', metaphysics and organized religion. These are the common shared beliefs that Deists hold, but since Deism is so minimalist on the concept of God, there are lots of different beliefs held among Deists. Most, if not all, of that does not fit with Christianity.
However, there are 'Christian Deists' who normally subscribe to all the above with the addition that we should take a lot of our morals from Christ and his teachings. Most Christian Deists would reject the miracles of Christ, and the idea that Jesus Christ was God "in the flesh" since that doesn't square with the Deist view that God does not intervene, or that people can have a personal relationship with God or know God or know his characteristics. Christian Deists focus on Christ's humanity rather than Divinity. See the Jefferson Bible.
If you want to learn more about it, I suggest also reading Thomas Paine The Age of Reason, or taking a look at Deism.com as an introduction to Deism, because Deism is very widely misunderstood.
Edit: there is also /r/Deism
The Jefferson Bible
I have this. Got both the Old and New Testaments at Amazon for $16.44. Also includes a double-sided poster.
Pretty much a Comic Book Bible
Edit: There's a Greek mythology one now, nice.
I prefer the Brick Bible, myself.
an alternative
I'm inclined to agree despite that all I initially said was "you have no leg to stand on" but on the other hand, there's an equal amount of upvoting for the comment I replied to, which is inaccurate. It being reddit, I think people are just likely to upvote religious "neutrality" (and anti-theism) and downvote what they perceive as "pro-religion."
In the end, Lego is a company looking for consumers. There are more than enough examples of how Lego has no problem taking Christian money, and if other religions were as easy to market to I'm sure you'd find that throughout, also.
I'm actually surprised that there hasn't been a legitimate Lego nativity, at least that my super abbreviated Google search has pulled up. The Fisher Price Little People Nativity is a huge product every holiday season, and it would seem that with the different stages of Lego product they could probably hit the same families two or three times if they played their cards right (a Duplo set, a Juniors set, a Creator set, and maybe even a Collector's Series or whatever that super detailed, mega-sized edition is). Not all at once, of course, but over time.
Santa is a symbol of the Christmas spirit or Christmas marketing or whatever you want to call it, but is indelibly tied to the holiday itself with its religious roots. The Advent Calendars aren't called even something benign like "Christmas Countdowns" or "Winter Calendars" like the "Winter Village" and that says that the marketing people were in no way scared off by the religious connotation of the word "Advent."
Lastly, for all of those who want to pretend that Lego is this great Switzerland of religious neutrality, I put out there the Brick Bible which is explicitly "not endorsed or created by LEGO" but in this day and age I'd be shocked if a company couldn't put the kibosh on such a thing if they wanted to. But, why? It's marketing. It creates purchases, and enthusiasts, and it doesn't incite anyone to violence like other world religions might if their holy book was recreated in the same fun-loving spirit.
I want one!
Edit: here is the set on amazon. Ordered :)
Edit 2: looks like there are a ton in a childrens series, Bible stories in lego for kids.
Edit 3: fairy tales too!
Bart Ehrman has a number of good books on this subject. I just finished Misquoting Jesus and am in the middle of Forged. Ehrman has a nice writing style that is easy to read.
> The method doesn’t and can’t prove Paul wrote any of them.
i think you've missed the argument. someone wrote them, and literary criticism points to an ex-pharisee living around ~50 CE, an outsider to the early christian church who converted and began running gentile churches away from jerusalem. that person calls himself "paul", so we call him "paul" as well, because it's as good a name as any. even if he wasn't paul, he may as well be because all of the facts we can ascertain from critical readings of his texts basically match the description of the apostle paul. the author of these works is paul, by definition.
> Robert Price does and goes through them line by line showing how they suffer from a lot of the same problems as the forgeries do.
robert price isn't exactly a peer reviewed scholar here. he's a former theologian who went on a mythicist bent. he has some qualification, but it's not like he's submitting papers on why the pauline epistles are forgeries to biblical criticism journals.
> One example is Romans where “Paul” is writing to Rome, having not been there yet, and presuming anachronistically that there’s already an established church there.
corinthians is also sent to corinth, and indicates that there was already a church there. we know that christianity spread before paul. he was persecuting christians in damascus, 134 miles from jerusalem, more or less just prior to his conversion, which he places around the time others witnessed the resurrection. in fact, this itself might be a good argument in favor of mythicism. how is christianity spreading, when the historical jesus was one guy with a minor ministry in jerusalem?
> There were obviously different Christian sects floating around with different views
yes, and one of the reasons we think the early pauline letters are legitimate is because they are a different sect from the mainstream christians of the day. paul is an outsider, who disagrees with peter/cephas and james on some pretty important topics. the later works seek to harmonize their disputes into an orthodoxy, whereas the early texts show this dispute more clearly.
> but if Paul’s letters were before the gospels it wouldn’t make them “early” or force them into the first century necessarily. The gospels themselves were probably written in the second century themselves.
negative, the gospel of mark is written about 70 CE by all accounts. it is unquestionably first century; the other gospels less so. FWIW, i take a later date for luke than standard convention, because i think it's dependent on antiquities, ~93 CE. john may well be early second century. there's a problem with dating them much later, though. we know the contents of marcion's canon, ~130-140 CE. he had a modified version of luke as his gospel (there is debate over whether it reflects a revision of luke, or an earlier state), and the pauline epistles except the ones scholars universally agree are pseudepigraphical, and none of the pseudepigraphical catholic epistles. in any case, we know that mark was earlier than luke, because luke is based on mark and Q, and other minor sources.
> All the dating is based on taking elements of these letters and gospels at face value and that’s the problem.
it really is not. scholars do not think that paul is totally honest, particularly about his statements regarding the source of his gospel as revelation. rather, there are certain facts that paul has to make apologetics for, notably his late arrival to the church (not called by jesus during his lifetime), his prior persecution of christians, his low standing in the church, etc. we think these aspects are probably correct because why would you invent damning criticism for yourself? indeed, we think he is probably lying to some degree to downplay those things, claiming personal revelation rather than being taught by other christians. claiming he was called by the resurrected jesus, because he wasn't called by the living one. to say that scholars are "just taking these letters and gospels at face value" is to be hilariously ignorant of what scholarship is and does. like, it's the same argument that creationists make about biologists.
> Bible studies is a field dominated by Christians. Yeah there’s a handful of atheists/agnostics consisting of the Christians that went into the field and lost their faith.
there certainly are lots of christians, sure. but there's more than a handful of atheist/agnostic biblical scholars, not to mention jewish, muslim, hindu biblical scholars. people frequently are motivated to get into because of faith, but that doesn't mean it's a devotional field. it's not theology or apologetics. it's critical scholarship, literary and linguistic studies, and historical studies. same as any other academic field.
> In Galatians Paul says he met Peter and identifies him as an apostle.
three years after his revelation/conversion, and after preaching the gospel for three years in damascus. the whole point of that passage is that he didn't learn the gospel from human beings -- a claim which is obviously a lie. from there (see galatians 2) he claims it was 14 years before he actually met the twelve.
> You seem uninformed yet so valiantly want to rush out and defend Christianity and Ehrman’s unfounded claims for some reason.
oh yeah, i'm just another atheist biased by my christian faith.
> Paul doesn’t mention Pilate, or John the Baptist, or Herod or any other dating mechanism for the life of Jesus.
yes, that's correct. likely because paul doesn't really know these things.
> So how do they think Paul wrote in the 50s?
aside for relatively subtle/subject literary critical reasons involving stylistics, they, for instance, have exactly zero knowledge of the fall of the temple, outlawing of judaism, and the events of 66-70 CE. those would have been great arguments against the judaizers of the early church, but since they weren't around after 70 CE, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to argue against them.
> It’s by assuming the gospel narratives are true and putting Jesus into the typical window of time under Pilate and having Jesus die around 30ad. That’s not based on Paul now is it?
no, it's not. though it is compatible what paul says. we can extrapolate a timeline from his epistles. it's 17 years after his conversion before he claims he met the twelve, and the epistles are written after that event. corinthians seems to imply that his revelation happened shortly following the execution of jesus. so around 20 years prior to the epistles puts us around the mid 30s CE.
now, from non-christian sources, we have jesus's execution placed during the reign of tiberius (14-37 CE) under pontius pilate (26-36 CE). so it's a decent ballpark.
> Ehrman isn’t. He just takes the Christian fundamentalist view of Paul at face value and arrogantly dismisses anyone else that doesn’t. Robert Price on the other hand offers true critical scholarship and goes through these “7 undisputed Paul letters” line by line offering critical analysis.
uh, ehrman absolutely is a critical scholar. he literally wrote a booked "forged" on why the like half the epistles are forgeries and not just pseudepigraphical. like, claiming that the author of a book on why most of the new testament is a forgery is "just taking paul at face value" is patently ridiculous.
A friend actually bought me the book, and I did end up reading it. I ended up giving him Forged by Bart Ehrman, as I thought the arguments were fairly strong and had more of an academic feel compared to some of his more popular works, but my friend never bothered to read it. I have also given away The Historical Figure of Jesus by EP Sanders, who is a respectable and honest NT scholar. I've even seen the book on some bookshelves belonging to Christians, even though Sanders argues how some stories in the NT aren't historical and even at times contradictory.
When reading IDHEFTBAA, I ended up taking notes with points I disagreed with or found problematic and noted the page number. I personally found the book weak. It tries to cover so many topics ranging from philosophy, morality, evolution, and history all crammed into 400 pages, and the authors don't specialize in any of those topics. The authors say that evidence is provided "every step of the way", yet make a lot assertions. For example, they claim that 11 out of the 12 disciples died for their beliefs, yet don't cite a single source. Also, semantics are also played throughout the book and over simplifies or misrepresents issues. I actually did find the book somewhat enjoyable to read though.
It maybe he didn't exist at all
On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QSO2S5C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_jUYxCb233PSW3
Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00772ZH8Y/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_oVYxCb3MF1Z9J
https://youtu.be/mwUZOZN-9dc
Well technically those records from the mid 100s are saying that christians exist, and they did. The epistles of Paul were written in the 50s, the gospel of Mark written in the 70s, Matthew and Luke written in the 80s or 90s, and John, the revelation of another John, the revelation of Peter, and the ascension of Isaiah and many other Christian stories written in the 100s to the 300s before the ecumenical councils were started in 325 when they decided to narrow down Jesus eventually settling on the trinity by the fourth ecumenical council pushing out Gnosticism like the gospel of Thomas, Marcion, and Origen as well as Aryanism, Nestorianism and other "heresies" leading to the church of the East, Coptics and other early schisms. After the next four councils they came to the idea about iconoclasm where the Eastern Orthodoxy was against the use of iconography and the Catholics stuck with icons such as the crucifix, statues of Mary, and other icons. This was all by the time of the 600s.
Soon after this time the orthodox christians, Coptics, Islam and other sects went their own ways. In Islam Jesus is the chosen human messiah but not the son of God nor was he crucified before his ascension. In some Eastern religions Jesus is sometimes seen as another transcendent beings like the Buddha and Buddha is sometimes seen as a reincarnation of Vishnu in some forms of Hinduism.
Zoroastrianism heavily influenced monotheism and the traits of the supreme god found in most abrahamic religions. It added the concept of heaven and hell. It added armageddon. Many forms of Christianity didn't start out believing in an afterlife but the Catholic concept of heaven, hell, and purgatory was under question by Martin Luther especially the concepts of the church selling something that allows them to skip purgatory and changing the message of the bible from the originally intended meaning. As a result most protestant religions don't have a complicated hierarchy with bishops, archbishops, popes, and such but they'll have a pastor and perhaps deacons and that's about it. The eastern orthodoxy has a few of their ecumenical decisions but the Catholics kept it going up until they went from 7 to 21 with 15 or 16 being related to the protestants being excommunicated and doomed to hell. In the first Vatican council (ecumenical council decision #20) the church rejects rationalism, materialism, and atheism and anything that could cause problems with the church doctrines. More recently (since the 1960s) they have gradually adjusted to science and with the removal of hell and the acceptance of evolution and the ongoing pedophilia the church is falling apart and might again break into multiple denominations.
The protestants went on another path and in the 1900s the rise of fundamental literalism led to a resurgence of young earth creationism and flat earthers while just a few decades earlier the seventh day Adventists, Mormons, Jehovah witnesses and Baha'i came out of the various religions holding fast to creationism and the existence of Jesus.
While these beliefs account for the majority of held religious beliefs (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Baha'i, Zoroastrianism) only the abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam, and Baha'i rely on Jesus being historical. Scholars who hold these beliefs will claim they have evidence that Jesus matches their religious idea such as an empty tomb pointing to a resurrection. The scholars who try to establish historicity on either side will fall back to some random Jewish rabbi, perhaps Jesus ben Annanias or Yeshua ben Yosef who was a preacher mulch life the more established John the Baptist and like John was killed and remained dead while his followers shared their memory of him by word of mouth so that he gradually gets more and more absurd and magical by the time the gospels were written. Others will point out that Jesus was a spiritual being probably hundreds of years before the first century when Paul, Peter, Timothy, and others spoke of their visions (related to gnostic Christianity) and it was another couple decades before a Greek speaker unfamiliar with Judaism and the geography of the region wrote the gospel of Mark. Other stories were also in circulation in the following decades such as the Q document so the authors of Matthew and Luke took the various gospels at the time like Mark, Q, and possibly a couple others and combined them with the contradictory birth narratives I pointed out previously. The kept the same crucifixion but added a resurrection which was later added to mark and gave Judas different reasons for betraying Jesus. Then in the next five decades wildly different concepts of Jesus arose such as an attempt to state he was just an ordinary person that was possessed by the son of God. The gospel of John, using gospels like the gospel of Thomas and a sayings gospel was written so that he became more of a superman character. He left off the birth narrative starting with the popular baptism cult of John the Baptist and this time he wasn't turned in by Judas at all but instead told Judas and his army that he is the one they seek. After this there were various acts of the apostles and revelations about Armageddon and various apocrypha that the early church leaders decided to leave out so that they could say Jesus was born to a virgin, died by crucifixion, and had a bodily resurrection from the dead. They left behind just enough contradictions that they decided upon the trinity so that he could be an eternal being equal to the father and spirit and after the death of the son the holy spirit is released to the apostles to spread to the early church.
Basically by the 300s there was a dominant sect holding to a divine human Jesus and that was the sect that set up the early church considering everything else to be a heresy including Islam when it rose up out of Zoroastrianism and Nestorian Christianity. Throughout the middle ages they produced a lot of hoaxes like cups, foreskins, pieces of petrified wood, and a shroud. As time went on it was just assumed that Jesus was a historical figure and it was the consensus about 100 years ago. Since then the consensus has come under scrutiny so that Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier are at the head of each side of the debate and neither of them hold fast to the gospels being reliable depictions of Jesus nor are the documents that came 100 years later saying that christians exist. There are many people holding many different religions. It doesn't automatically make their beliefs true. Josephus was tampered with by Eusebius and the rest don't really make any claims about a Jesus being real but only relaying what the christians had said about their beliefs such as a messiah who was crucified by Pontius Pilate 100 years ago. By this time everyone who could corroborate his existence had died and while he would have been still alive Philo of Alexandria wouldn't be wondering where he was and Justin Martyr wouldn't be saying that he predated the demigods that were being worshipped by at least 1500 years before Jesus was supposed to have lived.
Here are some books from both sides of the debate:
Richard Carrier: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QSO2S5C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Jesus was probably a spiritual mythical being first and a man later)
Bart Erhman: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0053K28TS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Jesus was probably an ordinary man but we can figure out more about the historical Jesus)
Robert Price: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J0OPUZM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Debunking the religious apologetics put forth by Lee Strobel)
Lee Strobel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01863JLK2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Defending the divine human Jesus of Christianity)
I'll let you decide.
And then there's Richard Carrier who argues the opposite.
http://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt-ebook/dp/B00QSO2S5C/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421015615&sr=1-1&keywords=richard+carrier
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QSO2S5C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Idea of how the Christian Movement began
For details about which parts of the Bible are from which era, you'll need to do some research. Because bible sources before the King James are so thin on the ground (very few of them around) each part is an area of expertise. I would look for the parts relating to prophecies in the OT that are linked to such events in the the NT.
>Every now and then, we notice that a scribe messed something up or edited something.
And what happens when you don't have enough historical evidence to compare different manuscripts? We have evidence changes occured, and you ask me to believe changes did not occur when the historical evidence becomes to light to track it. Sorry, but that is nonsense.
>Additionally, even before the earliest extant full texts, we have the numerous quotations by the early church fathers, dating back to within the 1st century.
And they show ample differences.
>Adding to this is the sheer difficulty of applying significant changes to these texts, even in their earlier years.
To the extent it is widely accepted two of the gospels were most likely fabricated as derivative works of Mark, and we have a plethora of manuscript variants, and tons of apocrypha, I would suggest we have ample evidence that early christianity was in a strong state of flux. That is the oppositve of what you are trying to claim.
>what historical evidence do you have that the texts were changed prior to our extant copies?
This book is nicely sourced
Who Wrote the New Testament and The New Testament a Historical Introduction are both good places to start. The latter is by Bart Ehrman, who Bikewer mentioned.
>How is the knowledge of what a person is intrinsic? Also, how do you know that you, yourself, are a person, from an epistemic standpoint?
It's just the general definition for what you are. You know that experience and you know how it manifests externally. That is how you can define what a person is.
>How would you assert that you are the specific creature that was made in God's image?
Because the Bible doesn't say creature, it says man, a specific creature.
>Not trying to poke at things, but wouldn't an even simpler explanation be that they are "soulless" (can't think of a decent word at the moment), but still appear to have a mind? Similar to AI.
Not at all. How is it simpler that they would be different? That you are the only person with a "soul" despite everyone being created by God? Wouldn't that just be special pleading?
Remember the simplest explanation is not "the simplest to implement", it's not about whats simplest to make happen when you already know intrinsically consciousness can happen. Rather the simplest explanation is the one that makes the fewest assumptions.
Assuming everyone who looks and acts like you has a mind, which you know you have, is one assumption.
Assuming everyone who looks and acts like you, does not in fact has a mind is one assumption. This also assumes you're now the only one with a mind. So that's two. Then you assume that for other's its a facsimile or AI. That's three. etc.
>I agree with that, but the problem is what humanity is. How do you know you are the creature that God was referring to?
As above, the Bible does not use "creature" it uses "man", as in "mankind".
>So then what is the point of believing them over not?
They're necessary for understanding the external world.
Before we were grounding all belief. To do that we grounded fundamental beliefs in ourselves, which makes sense as we are the ones that hold belief.
Now we've jumped to a scope beyond ourselves. These are the beliefs that are foundational to understanding the external world, but not necessarily foundational to ourselves or all belief in general.
>Are there any books in particular or online summaries that would relate to this certain aspect of PBBs?
I read Plantinga's book "Warranted Christian Belief" awhile back and I believe that starts to dig at those topics. This goes into some depth but it is written in more accessible language.
A more formal treatment by him would be his paper "On proper basicality" but it's an academic philosophy paper so it might be hard to digest. There's also "Is belief in god properly basic?", another paper of his but I can't find a link that isn't behind a paywall.
You can check out this list of some of his work. He addresses many of the questions you've been asking. Reformed epistemology is as good a place as any to jump into this.
William Lane Craig also talks about it occasionally, but I don't think he's written something specifically in regards to it.
New username here. It's been a while since was in the literature on these issues, but I got my degree in Phil & Religion under a guy whose adviser was Plantinga and I heard Plantinga give a conference presentation on what became his Warrented Christian Belief. The school I went to was a heart of Pressup Apologetics, since Gordon Clark, who in addition to Van Til, was a founder of the movement, although Val Til was taught more. So I did papers on Van Til and his successor John Frame, but did read some books by Clark on other subjects.
>Upvote for a thoughtful and detailed answer. I suppose I still can't come to see past what I perceive is circularity.
The best critique I know of Plantinga's "proper basicality" is by Tyler Wonder and you can hear him talk about it in pretty good detail over at Common Sense Atheism. He did his PhD on this so he's worth paying attention to, even if I can't say that his argument goes through.
>I can't accept Plantinga's response to the Great Pumpkin objection, because he never offers criteria for proper basicality (other than the vague idea that it occurs only in the "right circumstances").
Well, as far I understand, providing a strict criteria would reintroduce the very problems that make Classical Foundationalism self-defeating by ruling itself out. That's why grounding beliefs by way of Virtue Epistemology helps retain the foundationalist structure. And VE doesn't permit just any belief, but it must grant that our cognitive faculties are generally reliable, which is also self-defeating if denied. And I think cognitive science can support this, yet Plantinga's reasoning goes back to Thomas Reid's "Common Sense Realism" (which was in response to Hume).
>If I am understanding him correctly, Plantinga essentially says that a properly basic belief requires some grounds for belief, but to me, this sounds awfully similar to a demand for evidence.
It's not evidential because, "properly basic" beliefs are known directly without appeal to inferences (memory-based beliefs, for example, are direct, not built on anything but memory). They just aren't indubitable.
>Sure, perhaps a properly basic belief needn't be an a priori belief (esp. in weak foundationalism), but Plantinga, to my knowledge, has not provided any means of distinguishing between one thing or another.
This is where Virtue Epistemology and a Reidian-based rendering of cognitive faculties comes in.
It might be best to just jump into the literature itself. Like both articles on VE stated, there are different camps, though they're not always mutually exclusive. And Wiki mentioned Alvin Plantinga. He's quasi-VE, but written very directly on the subject you're interested in. He has a paper called "Justification and Theism" that predates his trilogy on warrant, the last one titled Warranted Christian Belief. In fact, I have an abridged chapter of that book; Plantinga presented it as a paper at a conference years ago. I also have, from that same conference, a paper "Proper Epistemic Function and the Intellectual Virtues" by Jay Wood and Robert C. Roberts, who are referenced in the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on VE. There's also a paper on Proper Function in science. I don't mind scanning these papers and emailing or uploading them.
I also think that you would benefit from subjecting Foundationalism (which includes both Empiricism and Rationalism) to much more critical scrutiny, and for reasons unrelated to "supernatural" questions. The foundations are illusory. Richard Rorty, who was thoroughly atheist himself, had some of the harshest criticisms of Foundationalism.
Also , if you're interested in a more well rounded perspective on my point of view from someone more educated than myself, I'd check out : this
The professor for this class on the Old Testament (lecture videos here) suggests the Jewish Study Bible.
Yale offers a course for the New Testament as well (videos here), and the professor suggests The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha as a good study bible.
Hmmm, I don't personally know of any good intro to Jewish philosophy books, but I'm sure they exist. Maybe other redditors can give us some good suggestions? I wouldn't recommend that Talmud though. It basically assumes prior knowledge of Tanakh (the Jewish bible), and is the size of a full set of encyclopedias. I do really like The Jewish Study Bible however. It's basically an English translation of the bible and lots of commentary. It might be a decent intro to Judaism, but it might be a little too involved to read without background or someone to talk to about it.
For the Tanakh/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, "The Jewish Study Bible" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Jewish-Study-Bible-Publication/dp/0195297512) has pretty fantastic analytical commentary. While I can't attest to the quality of the translation itself, the extensive discussion of the midrash and modern historical analyses may give you the sort of nuanced details that you're looking for.
The Jewish Study Bible if you want a more scholarly analysis.
There's a book that I believe does a decent job of tackling this subject. In it, the author addresses the order of creation, the meaning of 'days', as well as many other topics.
He's also written another book that tackles the silly notion that science and faith cannot coexist.
I know this is not really conducive to debate, but I thought it pertinent to bring these books to everyone's attention.
Evolution could have been a tool that God used, but the belief that God created the universe is a core belief of Christianity.
If the 6 day interpretation of Genesis is giving you a hard time look up some Old Earth creationist theories.
This book might help:
http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Days-That-Divide-World/dp/0310492173/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405985900&sr=1-1&keywords=7+days+that+divide+the+world
John Lennox' book, Seven Days that Divide the World, is a great resource for thinking this through. The tl;dr is Genesis doesn't aim to tell us how, it aims to tell us why.
John Lennox wrote a book about a theory similar to this called Seven Days That Divide the World.
Here's one of his (pretty darn long) lectures on it, and I find him to be a delightful (and I don't use "delightful" lightly) speaker.
I hate to give a summary, because it's pretty nuanced, but the big points are that the Bible doesn't necessarily say anything about the age of the earth and that he has no trouble with the estimated 12-13 billion year age of the universe. I absolutely loved it when I first heard it, and it kind of sent me off on a journey to start assaulting my faith with ridiculously difficult questions so I can be absolutely sure of it.
These type of "objections" have been raised a dime a dozen and frankly its getting boring dealing with them. However, I'm in a good mood so lets go. Before I start, I'm a doctor so when I read "the oldest of those dying the painful death of having their teeth rot out of their skull" I just had to ask, what the heck is that????
Ok moving on. Dealing with Genesis, we have to deal with the Hermeneutics of the book itself. It can be said that the book is written in a poetry style and was meant not to educate people about the way the universe formed, but rather to demonstrate that Yahweh was above all that they had worshipped as Gods (sun, moon, stars). If you are into reading, John Lennox's Seven Days that Divide the world could help shed some light on how Christians view Genesis. Not every Christian is Ken Ham in the same way that not every atheist is Josef Stalin.
Before I move on to the next part of your rant, I would like to ask. You mentioned "Heaven, completely capable of intervening, watches this with total indifference." Why does this bother you?
https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Days-That-Divide-World/dp/0310492173/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Switch-Your-Brain-Happiness-Thinking/dp/1480536245
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Improbable-Planet-Earth-Became-Humanitys/dp/0801016894
I don't have time right now to give more then this. But those books will detail how your statement is not true. Obviously I can't go through the entire bible and give examples for ever single thing. But all those 3 books are very topical to Nofap or creation :)
https://www.amazon.com/Manga-Bible-Genesis-Revelation/dp/0385524315
You meant: http://www.amazon.com/Manga-Bible-Genesis-Revelation/dp/0385524315
I'd prefer a copy of Everybody Poops..
The Manga Bible
Mark Millar's Chosen
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Manga-Bible-Genesis-Revelation/dp/0385524315
This one I think
Definitely read his short stories. I've got this compilation, and I love it.
His short stories are the best place to start. There's a bunch of collections, some better than others, but the Finca Vigia Edition is definitive collection: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Short-Stories-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0684843323/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334338570&sr=1-1
It contains the best of his early stuff, plus a few stories that came after his first collection and a few unpublished in his lifetime.
I can really recommend two collections;
Furthermore, if you want to add a little style to your bookshelf, buy one of these. they are basically all great reads!
We have pretty similar tastes.
I'd start by suggesting a few more of Orwell's - Down and Out, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Homage to Catalonia.
Hemingway - There is another thread about him today, but I say go with the short stories to start. This collection is superb.
I got into Russian lit right around the time I finished all the books you mentioned. Crime and Punishment or some of Dostoevsky's many short stories could be a gateway into a whole new literature for you.
Some contemporary authors that are excellent - Margaret Atwood (start with The Handmaid's Tale), Salman Rushdie (writes incredibly vibrant and creative prose), Don Lee (I loved both books I've read from this newish author), Joyce Carol Oates (prolific and profound), Alan Lightman, Umberto Eco, Junot Diaz.
Great non-fiction - Read the rest of Jared Diamond's stuff, it's all great. The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Tuchmann, a classic of how bad decisions led to downfalls in civilization. A Sideways Look at Time, a mildly rambly polemic on the politics of time in modern culture. The Closing of the Western Mind, a survey on how Christianity came to dominate the west. Power Faith and Fantasy about America's history of mucking about in the middle east. A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, who write beautifully about the natural world, and is also a solid poetess (if you're into that). And I'm sure someone is going to mention Bryson. He's good too.
You realize that we're now changing the subject? The question of whether or not same-sex relationships is sinful is different than the question "Can I disagree with what a person does but love him/her nonetheless?"
I have no real interest in engaging in a debate about the morality of same-sex behavior. If you're interested in a thoughtful articulation of my position I'd direct you to The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics by Robert Gagnon. Here's what he says in answer to your fourth "test":
>The univocal stance against homesexual conduct, both in ancient Israel and the Judaism of Jesus' day, makes it highly unlikely that Jesus' silence on the issue ought to be construed as acceptance of such conduct. Jesus was not shy about expressing his disapproval of the conventions of his day. Silence on the subject could only have been understood by his disciples as acceptance of the basic position embraced by all Jews.
Autogenerated.
I am an author who helped put together the biggest family tree in history, spent a year obeying the Bible literally, and read all 33,000 pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. AMA!
Hi reddit. I’m AJ.
I’m an author, journalist, human guinea pig and also your cousin.
I’ve written four New York Times bestsellers -- The Year of Living Biblically, where I tried to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year, The Know-It-All, when I read all thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Drop Dead Healthy, where I tried to become the healthiest man in the world and My Life as an Experiment where I went undercover as a woman, lived by George Washington’s moral code, impersonated a movie star, and more. A TV series based on The Year of Living Biblically will debut on CBS in the winter.
More recently, I spent three years trying to build the biggest family tree in history. The quest took me around the world.. I drank beer with a US president, found myself singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and unearthed genetic links to Hollywood actresses and real-life scoundrels. In the end, I threw a global family reunion with about 10,000 people at 40 events around the world!
The experience inspired my new book, It’s All Relative. It’s about my family. And yours. Because it’s the same family. The book is about the extraordinary changes happening in family research and DNA, and how they have an impact on politics, race relations, health and happiness.
I’m very excited to be here today and talk to all my relatives. AMA about genealogy, writing, living Biblically, or whatever else reddit has in mind.
PROOF: https://twitter.com/ajjacobs/status/929020353766215680
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The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
by the Dalai Lama because it is a very sincere book and I can almost visualize what he is saying.
He wrote a book. http://www.amazon.com/Year-Living-Biblically-Literally-Possible/dp/0743291484/ref=la_B000APL8HO_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394131723&sr=1-1
Your google is broken.
I just started to comment and the post was removed. Highly recommend https://www.amazon.com/Year-Living-Biblically-Literally-Possible/dp/0743291484
This was the most fun book I've ever read about trying to do the impossible in a modern age. Really, you will laugh as you uncover gems of philosophy in how to become a better person.
Haven't read it yet, but this guy tried.
A guy tried to strictly follow the bible for 1 year: http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Living-Biblically-Literally/dp/0743291484
> Historians look to other forms of evidence than written sources to support or deny historical assertions, and in the case of the Bible, these other forms of evidence don't always match up with the Biblical account.
One can look at K. A. Kitchens On the Reliability of the OT or Walter Kaiser's The OT Documents - Are They Reliable and Relevant? or Craig Bloomberg's The Historical Reliabilitiy of the Gospels or F.F, Bruce's The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? or Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony
>...the Bible itself is sufficient proof of the claims made within it.
No one I know makes that claim, except for atheists who think that is the position of Christians. See the above works for details.
That being said if Stephen Ambrose quotes Max Hastings or John Toland and it would taken as a valid reference. So one biblical author can cite another.
>But I think to say Christianity has absolutely no possibility of being >possible is a really cocky thing to say.
I can't speak for every atheist, but I can speak for myself and people like Sam Harris when I say that we're not closed off to the idea of there being a god, it's just that there is no substantial evidence for such an entity. There's tons of claims that god exists, but so far they've all been dead ends. And all those teachings that are in the gospels are actually a greek philosophy that existed a few hundred years before Jesus. Burton Mack touches on that in Who Wrote the New Testament? I think there probably was a historical Jesus, I just doubt the supernatural claims.
"When censored for keeping bad company, Antisthenes replied, "Well, physicians attend their patients without catching the fever." which parallels Jesus eating with tax collectors and prostitutes.
There are other parallels as well, like living a life free from wealth, rejecting worldly possessions, rejecting fame (like when Jesus told people to not show their good works in Matthew 6:1-4). This shouldn't be too much of a surprise that greek philosophy was inserted considering that the new testament was written in greek.
My understanding is that, theologically, there are two major groups of Jews today: Reform and Orthodox. The Orthodox are the fundamentalists who generally take the Jewish Bible as literally true. Reform Jews are much more numerous and much more liberal, and would not see the early chapters of Genesis as literally true.
I picked up a copy of The Jewish Study Bible a few years ago, when I started watching the Yale Online courses on the Old Testament (because that was the translation recommended by the professor). And the commentary in this version will tell you that these stories in Genesis are not literally true.
Only closed minded Christians (and quite frankly blind followers who can't think for themselves) believe this. I would strongly sugguest that some of you guys read Seven Days That Divide the World.
Lennox talks about how back in the day, science was saying that the earth revolved around the sun, but the church was saying that the earth was the center of the universe due too several Biblical passages. But nowadays everyone believe what the scientists were saying.
Now this leads to the gapping issue. Where science has these gaps, and Christians use God to fill these gaps, and Lennox goes indepth about this issue in his book. It's a very cool read.
TLDR: Christians can't blatantly deny facts from science.
Edit: Thank you Mr. PoisonPotato
I assume he shows up here at some point.
ETA: Everything with the Jesus Christ tag on Mangaupdates
Give it a read! I gift a copy to all devout Christian family members: https://www.amazon.com/Jefferson-Bible-Morals-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/1604591285/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485115764&sr=8-1&keywords=jefferson+bible
Christian deism doesn't recognize Jesus as the son of a god, nor as a man speaking the word or intent of a god. It's more about sharing the same values and culture as Christians. A god created the universe, but the god didn't share teachings with humans or interact with humans.
Thomas Jefferson is a good example. For his own reading, he meticulously edited the New Testament, cutting and pasting a new version that focused on the teachings of Jesus, with all of Jesus' miracles removed and most supernatural elements removed. In the end, you just have a book about a philosopher. It's known as the Jefferson Bible. You can buy one on Amazon.
I tend to view deists of that period as almost atheists, even though they would have opposed that notion. Many answers/theories/explanations they'd want about the origin of life and the universe simply didn't exist, and it was a foreign idea to think of these things naturally occurring, so they believed in a god as a necessity for understanding the most basic questions regarding life.
The Jefferson Bible is an interesting read indeed.
> You are making a huge assumption that the Bible is god's guide.
I am answering from within the parameters you gave me. You asked originally about JW's interpretation of Christianity. I think I am granted such assumption in the light of this fact.
> What about all those people who fervently believe the Koran or Old Testament (only) or the Upanishads or the Veda or any other holy book to be god's guide to man?
God will judge them, not me. My task is to spread His good news to them. If He deem them worthy of salvation, then they are worthy of salvation.
> Do you not pause and question what makes your holy book so special, what makes your holy book the true word of god? If other people believe in other holy books with as much you zeal as you do in yours, how can you tell your not falling into the same false belief as they are? How do you know you are following the true word of god and not some impostor?
I suggest Plantinga's book Warranted Christian Belief or C.S.Lewis' Mere Christianity.
My argument for it is fairly simple. The God worshipped by the Christians is the same God that was already being worshipped when Ur was the most important city in the world. The other gods came and went, but He remained.
> If you are truly following the word of god (bible) and Hindus aren't (in general), shouldn't you feel god more?
No, why should I?
> Shouldn't god give you some indication you are on the right path as oppose to how you would feel if you were Hindu?
O, but He does! Truth will set you free, and that is your signal.
> That is like giving your children a test and then rewarding everyone who answered the questions equally regardless if they got it right, and then punishing those who got it wrong (punishment depending on your belief on heaven/hell can simply be having it somehow worse off in the afterlife then another person).
The destiny of mankind is to stay on Earth. No one will be 'worse off' than anyone else.
> How are any of your children supposed to know what the right answers (any 'lifestyle/faith' that gets you the best possible afterlife) are if you give everyone equal encouragement throughout the learning process and test?
There is no best possible afterlife. There is a simple hope of eternal life here on Earth.
> If Hindus can/will obtain the same level of afterlife as members of your faith, then again I ask, why are you spreading your faith?
Why do you tell your friends when something good happens to you?