I need a show of hands: who believes the Bible and to what extent?

by Terry 206 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  designs

  Tammy-

  One the the major problems in the Gospels is the single side of settings. We know very little about what real Jewish life was like if we only base our view of Jewish life on the Gospel's accounts, but even as much as the compilers edited things for a naive Gentile world some glimpses come through and then we need the aid of other Jewish sources to see what holds water. Remember Jesus going with his Mom and Dad to the Temple when he was little, Jewish people traveled in families. Men, women, and kids were there watching him do a 5:00 o'clock melt down whirling his freshly made whip. Think he missed everybody. No.

  Where is the scholar or teacher, the spiritual leader reasoning with people on how things could be done better.
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  Ding

  Villabolo,

  There is no contradiction.

  In your partial quotation from Ezra 1, you omitted verse 4, which says that Cyrus commanded the people to provide silver and gold items as part of a freewill offereing, and verse 6, which says: "6 All their neighbors assisted them with articles of silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with valuable gifts, in addition to all the freewill offerings."

  Verse 7 starts "Moreover," [a word which means "in addition"] and states that Cyrus also had Mithredath deliver to Sheshbazzar the gold and silver items which the Babylonians had taken from the temple when they plundered Jerusalem. Verses 7-10 list these 2499 items which had been plundered from the temple. Those were inventoried separately.

  In ALL -- temple items returned and non-temple items donated -- there were 5400 articles of silver and gold.
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  tec

  Men, women, and kids were there watching him do a 5:00 o'clock melt down whirling his freshly made whip. Think he missed everybody. No.

  I have no doubt that there were men, women, and children in the temple area. But why weren't they afraid of him? Especially if an innocent child had been hurt, or a helpless woman... why did they continue to go to him, and the children call out "Hosanna to the Son of David"? You are inserting opinion and conjecture that has no basis and is in fact in conflict with everything else written about Him, in order to support your own thoughts about Him.

  It would seem to me that if a man were recorded to have healed the sick, who stood for the poor and the downtrodden, who gave and asked for forgiveness of those who wronged Him... one might also give that man the benefit of the doubt based on these things (no matter how small and weak that doubt), when it comes to inserting conjecture meant to vilify him. Or even for judging him when one has no room to do so.

  Tammy
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  beksbks

  I have no doubt that there were men, women, and children in the temple area. But why weren't they afraid of him? Especially if an innocent child had been hurt, or a helpless woman... why did they continue to go to him, and the children call out "Hosanna to the Son of David"?

  Whose to say they weren't afraid? Only the positive accounts were canonized.
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  tec

  But do we judge a man based on conjecture, Beks?
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  beksbks

  I don't worship or judge the man. I just don't see that because the Catholic church chose a handful of writings to base a faith on that there isn't a possibility that there was another viewpoint.
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  Joey Jo-Jo

  I dont believe it, it's not because of it's dark history, its contradictions and errors but because it is not clear, you really need blind faith to believe in the bible.

  Im looking for proof, I'm reading books writing by Bruce M. Metzger to see if I can find something to see if I can find an answer to the different messiah of the OT and other issues.
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  AiAi

  I believe the bible was written by imperfect men. I believe many of the writings pertained to people of that specific time. I believe the bible was transcribed numerous times by many different imperfect men before it was imperfectly translated into our language, by other imperfect men. I believe hearsay is inadmisable in court. I dont believe i will live my life based on hearsay.

  I believe you should have highjacked my thread, I like this one more :p
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  ProdigalSon

  @unshackled

  "The bible-the greatest hoax in the history of mankind"

  !!!

  hands-down, slam-dunk winner, ain't it?
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  garyneal

  The Bible itself could've been written by mad men in caves, or it could be divinely inspired. Either way, it has guided believers for centuries. Well, to coin a phrase from Star Trek Voyager on the episode where Voyager encountered a Klingon vessel 30,000 light years outside the Alpha Quadrent.

  Anyway, I believe there has been some divine inspiration in it but wonder if the writings merely reflect how the writers interpreted this inspiration through the lens of their own understanding of the world around them. A possibility of a 'worldwide' flood actually being confined to the fertile cresent (read whole word to Noah and Moses) region comes to mind. This often leads me to wonder, "What if modern man wrote the Bible? How would it read? What would it have to say about events like Sodom and Gomorrah, the flood account, and the Tower of Babel?"

  Then when I consider the canonization of the Bible itself, I wonder what Christianity would look like today if Martin Luther had succeeded in removing Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelations from the canon we now have today. Then you consider all the different translations and its hard to know exactly what the Bible is really saying which of course leads to all this bickering amongst Christian sects.

  But, I agree with Sylvia in that its overall message is preserved and I agree with Paul's statement in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.