when reading or hearing a bible passge how do you interpret it are you literal or do you take it into comtext?

i personally am a contextualist i look for a greater meaning behind everything in it -most of the bible is not historical or scientifioc truth yet its all true in teaching.for an example the adam and eve stroy i beleive in evolotion but this doesnt mean its fake it sybolizes mans struggle with sin rite? i think soo. a literalist would most commonly beleive that we where made in gods image as adam and eve , but why do we give god human traits whe he ,she,or just god is not human as we beleive?

the people who wrote the bible were not there when jesus was alive so how can they say he was born in a manger honestly? its obviosly made up soo they would have history to jesus ...i am religious but i havnt gone to church in years because like most contexualists i beleive church is not a great importance and its more of letting god act through each of us.

plus most of the stories are parables and do you think that jesus' apostles asked if they were all true..no...they knew that it was made up to teach a lesson. what are your veiws?

Uh-oh is all I have to say about this thread...


I look for a deeper meaning in the Bible passages because I believe that God had it written in riddles and stuff because he wanted you to search deeper for the real meaning, and in that way, come into closer contact with Him in a sense, through your understanding of His word.

And what do you mean how did they know and it was all made up? God TOLD them through visions and prayer. Read Revelations. John wrote that book ON AN ISLAND and everything that he saw was a vision from God of waht is to come. And how did they know he was in a manger? Because of the wise men, shepards, and townsfolk that came from all over to see him.

And of course the parables were made up, FOR A REASON. The disciples DID ask questions because they did not understand. Go look up the definition of "parable". But Jesus also did MIRACLES. That was proof of what He was teaching and who He was.

And read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. THEY WERE THERE WITH JESUS FOR ALL THOSE THINGS except in the beginning which talks about His birth. That information was provided by God and the wise men and everyone who went to see Jesus when he was born.

Originally posted by daring dueler
but why do we give god human traits whe he ,she,or just god is not human as we beleive?

What human traits? List me some. If you're referring to versus in the Bible that say things like.

"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day." -Genesis 3:8

That doesn't necessarily mean that God was physically "walking" in teh garden. It just means that his Spirit was there. I would like to see some examples.

yes i understand that is what was meant but what im saying is that some people belaive he was walking plus,,,,they said he was angry (a human quality or trait) thus we give him the qualities of humans to better understnd god...have you ever seen the movie o' god? it shows him as a man and he explains its so people could understand him.

Ah yes God does get angry in multiple places in the Bible. But you have to realize that he was here (I know its hard for human brains to envision this) but hes been here forever and he always will be. Since humans are His creation, how do we know that anger, or love, or caring, were not given to us by God? They could be part of Him, just transferred into us. Hatred and sin have been given to us over many many generations by the Devil every since Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

So to sum it up... I think that He gave us those traits, they are not "human made" and therefore, we didn't give them ti Him in the Bible.

but how do the people know that he has these traits they dont know god...even if he does act through all of us. i realize he was there and will alwayz be here. but never the less we dont know his traits ,he has compasion sure. but we still give him traits, we cant see him as a being about the planet so we see him as man its about literalism or cantextualism...... they show him as man to be better understood im not saying hes like that but they portray him like that so people could understand thats why i say we give him human traits.

the people who wrote the bible were not there when jesus was alive so how can they say he was born in a manger honestly? its obviosly made up soo they would have history to jesus
All of the Gospels were written within the first century; the Gospel of John (as well as Revelation) and the Gospel of Matthew were actually written by two of Jesus' Apostles; the Gospel of Mark was written by Simon Peter's secretary and the Gospel of Luke (and the Acts of the Apostles) was written by one of the followers of Paul (who wrote 14 of the 21 Epistles).

Added to that, Jesus told John to take care of Mary, his mother--and she obviously would have been there at Jesus' birth. While John's Gospel starts with John the Baptists' preaching and Jesus' baptism at around the age of thirty, Luke--as a disciple of Paul who would have gone with him to the early Councils including the Council of Jerusalem--would have come into contact with John.

i take it you are a literalist.

anyways this isnt like a person link or chain all the who knew who doesnt matter as stroies change from person to person.
there are i think 2 birth stories including john and i think matt....ones in a house and ones in a manger. one has animals that arnt even from the desert thats the one in the manger. how do you explain that?

"Take-no-prisoners"-literalists are a disgrace to modern science.

And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

i take it you are a literalist.
I'm a literalist about some things and not about others. When I'm reading the Gospels, I take it mostly as the historical account of eye-witnesses; but Genesis, especially, I see as a parable.

anyways this isnt like a person link or chain all the who knew who doesnt matter as stroies change from person to person.
there are i think 2 birth stories including john and i think matt....ones in a house and ones in a manger. one has animals that arnt even from the desert thats the one in the manger. how do you explain that?
Matthew skips over the actual birth of Jesus and tells the story of the Magi, who arrived afterward. There's no contradiction, just some elapsed time. And the Gospel that tells about the birth is Luke's.

And I don't know what you're referring to about animals that aren't even in the desert.

oh-boy... I could see this one coming...

Well first of all I am an atheist. But I have/do read the bible to debate as well as look at the ethical and moral concepts of different faiths centered around the bible. I am a contextualist in a sense... but only to certain extents... in other cases I flat out think its a bunch of --------. Regardless of your faith I still believe that the bible does have SOME good messages... but you can find those same messages in almost every religion in the world even if it is not centered around the bible...

yeah everything is true but only in a sence....most is not historically but as a lesseon it all is.

Originally posted by daring dueler
when reading or hearing a bible passge how do you interpret it are you literal or do you take it into comtext?

As most of you will have guessed by now, I don't give squat about what's in the Bible...

But I am actually reading it, and now that my big, ugly History project is done, I can perhaps get on with it...

You have to put everything into context. If, for example Jesus 'bin' Nazerath says that "Your will be done." Then you need to look into the context to find out that he's actually telling his followers to practice Culture Imperialism.

As for all the 'truth' in the book... I don't see any. It has been obsolote for almost 20 centuaries (remember that NT was written by a guy who hadn't seen the actual events, who had a clear interest in perverting the story, and was a generation younger than the actual events: He fulfills all of the criteria for a bad source).

i'm a literalist....the number of times i've opened a carton of juice in a supermarket and got done for it....well, it does say "open here"

You have to put everything into context. If, for example Jesus 'bin' Nazerath says that "Your will be done." Then you need to look into the context to find out that he's actually telling his followers to practice Culture Imperialism.
First of all, wouldn't it be Jesus bar Joseph to the eyes of the world; and secondly, wha?

As for all the 'truth' in the book... I don't see any. It has been obsolote for almost 20 centuaries (remember that NT was written by a guy who hadn't seen the actual events, who had a clear interest in perverting the story, and was a generation younger than the actual events: He fulfills all of the criteria for a bad source).
The New Testament was not all written by one person. If you're talking about Paul, as I said before, he is only responsible for 14 of the 21 New Testament books, a sizable chunk but far from the whole thing. Nine of the books (including two of the Gospels) were written by men who knew Jesus and followed him for three years; the Gospel of Mark is believed to be the dictated report of Peter, chief of the Apostles, and Luke came at his Gospel from a scholar's bent, and reports that he only wrote his Gospel "after investigating everything accurately anew." All of the Gospels were written within what could have been Jesus' lifetime were it not cut short by execution. All of the writers of the Gospels (the four books that tell the history of Jesus, his preaching, death and resurrection) were eye-witnesses or interviewers of eye-witnesses.

As for Paul himself, well, he got beheaded for his work.

Originally posted by Jedi_Monk
If you're talking about Paul, as I said before, he is only responsible for 14 of the 21 New Testament books, a sizable chunk but far from the whole thing.

He got his hands on the whole thing. Beyond making stuff up himself, that he had never observed, he likely edited the rest, so it could fit better with his idea of it all.

He [Paul] got his hands on the whole thing. Beyond making stuff up himself, that he had never observed, he likely edited the rest, so it could fit better with his idea of it all.
St. Paul died between the years 65 and 67; the Gospel of Mark was written circa A.D. 70, and John's Gospel and Revelation were both written after the year 90 with Paul dead over 20 years. Added to that, the difinitive canon of the New Testament was not compiled until the Council of Carthage in A.D. 397, so how would he know what to edit? And these Gospels began as letters written by Apostles and their disciples and sent to congregations that were not convenient for them to visit in person (and there were many more of them than just the four, including the apocrychal Gospels of Peter and Thomas); it would've taken quite a feat for Paul to gather them all and then edit them (especially since, as aforementioned, he was dead before some were written :rolleyes: ).

Originally posted by Jedi_Monk
St. Paul died between the years 65 and 67; the Gospel of Mark was written circa A.D. 70, and John's Gospel and Revelation were both written after the year 90 with Paul dead over 20 years.

...Which makes them just as much bad sources as Paul.

Seriously though, you don't trust a document that's been through so many editions, translations and biased interpretations as this, do you?

Whoever Jesus was, he was a great man. But to claim divine inheritance today would equal getting you locked up in a safer place.

Originally posted by C'jais
He got his hands on the whole thing. Beyond making stuff up himself, that he had never observed, he likely edited the rest, so it could fit better with his idea of it all.

Ah and the likely proof for this is... oh wait... we don't have any to say he edited it. Many of Paul's books were letters to the churches. Tell me where he could have edited to fit his purposes.

This is irrelevant since JediMonk already corrected me. The fact remains, though - Paul wrote 2/3 of the Bible. The rest was written by people even more distanced from it than him. - C'jais

...Which makes them just as much bad sources as Paul.
As aforementioned, John was the Apostle John, who was with Jesus from his baptism in the River Jordan, roughly three years (a first-degree of separation). And Mark was Peter's disciple (a second degree of separation). Josephus wrote his history Antiquities of the Jews after all of the New Testament was finished--how many degrees of separation did he have to the events he related? And he was no more a secular source than the Apostles, being a Jewish person writing a history of the Jews.

Seriously though, you don't trust a document that's been through so many editions, translations and biased interpretations as this, do you?
How many documents do we have from the ancient world that are original? Much of what we think we know comes from these editions that have been copied and translated many times over the centuries and millennia, and with the original documents lost forever.

This is irrelevant since JediMonk already corrected me. The fact remains, though - Paul wrote 2/3 of the Bible. The rest was written by people even more distanced from it than him. - C'jais
2/3 of the New Testament, not the Bible. The Old Testament is based on the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Jewish Scripture.

Whoever Jesus was, he was a great man. But to claim divine inheritance today would equal getting you locked up in a safer place.
Or get you Crucified back then, which is exactly what happened to him :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Jedi_Monk
Or get you Crucified back then, which is exactly what happened to him :rolleyes:

Yup. But these days, you'd get locked up, before you had any chance to gather even a few gullible souls.

Personally, given the choice of following either Christ or Dalai Lama, I'd follow the Lama instead - his views are up to date, he speaks about relating to real world problems instead of promising us heaven if we live life according to He and he doesn't freak out on authorities as JC did.

Originally posted by C'jais
his views are up to date

Who's to say the Bible can't translate like that?

Originally posted by Reborn Outcast
Who's to say the Bible can't translate like that?

Ahhh!

But then, dear Reborn, you are interpreting it in context.

*GASP*

/solemn silence ensues.

Parts of the Bible are ment to be taken literally like the ten comandments.

but others are meant to be taken metaphorically like being born again.

I'm sure this was probably already mentioned but I just read a bit of the first post and wrote this, I can't be bothered to read the whole thing.

Originally posted by Mandolorian54
Parts of the Bible are ment to be taken literally like the ten comandments.

but others are meant to be taken metaphorically like being born again.


And who are you to judge which parts must be taken literally, and which must be taken metaphorically?

Who decides this?

Y'know, for all but the most fundamental American literalists, it is widely that the Genesis is to be taken as one, big metaphor.

how literaly should the 10 comandments be taken-i think the best way to fallow religous rules is by simply fallowing the ones we find in context such as to do the rite thing and stuff and not to commit sins by commision or omision the 10 comandments arnt important.

Originally posted by C'jais
And who are you to judge which parts must be taken literally, and which must be taken metaphorically?

Who decides this?

Y'know, for all but the most fundamental American literalists, it is widely that the Genesis is to be taken as one, big metaphor.

Go read my post in the "Sex vs. Bible" thread. It talks about this in one big paragraph.

i like your poste its good...also does anybody here beleive in "evil" i can think of few evil things because if you thinmk about terrorists while being well idiots who want death they are doing for a reason thinking they can make the world better ...as in the garden od eaden the fruit is ofcourse sin and it shows our temptation but the snake is evil wut could evil be? im curious.

Originally posted by daring dueler
as in the garden od eaden the fruit is ofcourse sin and it shows our temptation but the snake is evil wut could evil be? im curious.

I don't quite understand your question. Could you rephrase it again? :D

yeah sorry- the garden of eaden rite thats where adam and eve ate the forbidin fruit on the tree god said dont eat off of. he said you can eat off any tree but this one , which shows he gives us freedom of choice to fallow him or not we have free will he says its just better to fallow him but we still have free will. on the tree is the forbiddin fruit or sin which we are tempted bye and if we go that way itll be worse and yet we have free will and can. but the snake that is there sybolizes evil, my question is how many evil acts can there bei cant think of many people who were actaully evil. rapists and child molestors are mean and evil yes but im talkin down rite evil. take hitler he was "evil" yet he thought he was helping the world by genicide and killing off the brown haired browned ayed and jews. but othetr than chil rape , hanicped being done wrong to which are bad but not neciseraly evil, wut is evil?-i hope this is better , im kinda a bad typer when i am debating lol

also like original sin , there is no original sin just that we have the free will to commit sin its just like the law ..you dont have to follow the law but if you do things turn out much better for you.
so sin just leads to worse things. a long time ago at the babolonian council it was said that if a child was not baptised it had original sin and couldnt go to heaven. but they did say we would go to another place inbetween hell and heaven its weird.
so its like this in literal sence you could be goin to connfesion for sins and get killed on the way in literal tense you would go to hell but thats not goin to happen and you wont go to hell if are truly sorry and realize wrongs rite?

um... yes of course theres evil the devil helo!



how literaly should the 10 comandments be taken-i think the best way to fallow religous rules is by simply fallowing the ones we find in context such as to do the rite thing and stuff and not to commit sins by commision or omision the 10 comandments arnt important.

so you think of them as the 10 suggestions then right?

I think the 10 commandment's are to be taken quite litterally. there is evry evidence of this in the bible.

most things that are literal are quite obviouse, like the ten commandments.

to determin what is literal or metaphorical is kinda the point of a pastor and scolars and stuff like that, like the point of a scientist.

a scientist to tell us how our world functions and to studdy diseases and publish there discoveries in books. It is up to us what we choose to believe. Science and religion fuctuion exaclty the same in that aspect.

Cjas you keep on saying "who are you to say this and that" I'm only saying what I believe. duh.

is that so hard to understand? I think you should have gotten that by now.

I don't mean to be offensive in this, that's the problem with typing, you can't type somthing in ways you say stuff, like if I had in fact said the above it would have been in a casual way and you would not have been insulted right? well whatever...

Originally posted by Mandolorian54
a scientist to tell us how our world functions and to studdy diseases and publish there discoveries in books. It is up to us what we choose to believe.

No. If there is evidence for TV's working, then it is fact. You don't "believe" it works. It works.

If there is evidence of antibiotics working, then it is fact. You don't "believe" they cure you of diseases and bacteria. They do work.

This is the fundamental difference between science and religion. You accept evidence as fact and reality in science. You don't in religion.

Cjas you keep on saying "who are you to say this and that" I'm only saying what I believe. duh.

So by admitting that you merely believe you're right, then you have forsaken any attempt of proving yourself right. Which means you also imply that how you interpret the Bible is ONLY your personal, subjective opinion, and that it can never be anything more than that.

im not saying you shouldnt fallow the 10 comandments ,but i thing there are more importants aspects to religion than rules.

Originally posted by daring dueler
im not saying you shouldnt fallow the 10 comandments ,but i thing there are more importants aspects to religion than rules.

Without the 10 Commandments there would be Christianity. And I know that C'jais or someone will talk about the Crusades but, those were messed up Christians that did that.

i just dont think you will go to hell if you dont fallow the 10 commandments. there important and there would be christianity without them. they say what good thins to do are because you will have a better life if you do. but i think love, compassion, and not comiting sins of comision or omision are just as important. a religion cant be based on rules or they would only be faith in rules not a people.

Let me illustrate the stupidity of litteralism for a moment, for everyone's amusement (this is just my little indulgance):

The ten commandments say, litterally (or as litterally as any translation can, which I'll adress below): "kill!". But in context they say: "You shall not kill!"

The above example illustrates that litteralists will always be forced to draw some subjective line somewhere, to seperate the 'litteral' from the 'contextual', whereas the contextualist has no such problem, as he only has to judge between the relevant and the irrelevant, which can be done by the set standards of historical research.

Litteralism is infact nothing but out-of-context quotes. In any other business this would be counted fraud at best.

Also there is the problem of translations: Try, for example to translate this post to German. Already here trouble begin to arise. Now try a whole other language family like Russian or Chinese... Get my point?

first off i didnt say there wasnt evil im just trying to find out how you define evil! jesus people read what i write! and temple dud you are write im all context! whooooo.

Originally posted by daring dueler
first off i didnt say there wasnt evil im just trying to find out how you define evil!

We don't define evil. You do.

We define tragic accidents and genocides, while you define evil and works of Satan.

The concept of evil is reassuring and comfortable at first, but it turns sprawly, hollow and useless upon closer look.

Originally posted by C'jais
We don't define evil. You do.

We define tragic accidents and genocides, while you define evil and works of Satan.

The concept of evil is reassuring and comfortable at first, but it turns sprawly, hollow and useless upon closer look.

C'jais there are evil... look up evil in the dictionary and you'll find that it's not all about Satan.... unless I misunderstood your post. :D

i dont see evil as satan geez im not like that its a simple question. it can be defined. genocide i beleive is wrong but is it evil since they beleive they are making the world better to live in, its a question!-i agree with outcast