Let's Read the Bible Once

[Formaldehyde]

At least it appears in the half of the Bible that doesn't claim to be pacifistic, not judgmental, and loving to all.

 

[Gucumatz]

Kaitzilla, so you are a Catholic but only own a King James Bible ?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Seeing that he apparently hasn't read most of it, does it really matter?

 

[Gucumatz]

Forma - Yes it does if he is going to read it...
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Anyways Kaitzilla, did your parents ever read it to you when you were younger or did you grow up with the King James? It is an interesting curiosity if you did grow up with the Protestant version

 

[JollyRoger]

Has nothing to do with mercy or patience.

Yep, just a few chapters in and we see that.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Forma - Yes it does if he is going to read it...
======


Anyways Kaitzilla, did your parents ever read it to you when you were younger or did you grow up with the King James? It is an interesting curiosity if you did grow up with the Protestant version

Not really. My grandparents were the religious ones. My Baptist one gave me the Bible and my Catholic one asked if I had one yet and I said I did.

All these years I thought I had the Catholic Bible
Thought the Bible was the same everywhere actually.

 

[bestrfcplayer]

Which Bible will you read? Hopefully not a Protestants one if you want the full experience

Catholic Bible FTW lol

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Kudos to the OP for starting this thread. I find an astonishing number of people who talk about the bible haven't actually read it.

I have, start to finish, and that includes some of the more.... difficult to stay awake through... passages involving begatting, and minor stories and happenings which don't get talked about as much as the big major stories (Genesis, Exodus, and the NT stories).

I have done it once. Now I merely use it as reference, to refer to certain passages.

The more you read the Bible, one of two things will happen depending on the way your mind works: You will grow to realize that the folks who believe the Bible is the source of ultimate truth have not read the book, or, you will find more and more sources of divine inspiration. Either outcome is a good thing in my opinion.

If it is the word of God, why wouldn't you absorb more of it? If it is not, then reading it will help you realize that, IMO.

 

[classical_hero]

All these years I thought I had the Catholic Bible
Thought the Bible was the same everywhere actually.

Considering we are translating 3 different languages into English, the method of translation is important and using the right manuscripts is also important. thus it is always important when reading the bible is to have a concordance or reference to the original languages since they will give a deeper meaning to what we are reading. Also there are some things with language that don't always translate well into another language.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Any takers to beat the number of begettings in the bible by posting using CFC members? Thunderfall begat some member etc....

 

[Kaitzilla]

Any takers to beat the number of begettings in the bible by posting using CFC members? Thunderfall begat some member etc....

I was begat because of reading Snaaty's Don Deity thread.
Signed up and lurked for a while after that.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Kudos to the OP for starting this thread. I find an astonishing number of people who talk about the bible haven't actually read it.

I have, start to finish, and that includes some of the more.... difficult to stay awake through... passages involving begatting, and minor stories and happenings which don't get talked about as much as the big major stories (Genesis, Exodus, and the NT stories).

I have done it once. Now I merely use it as reference, to refer to certain passages.

The more you read the Bible, one of two things will happen depending on the way your mind works: You will grow to realize that the folks who believe the Bible is the source of ultimate truth have not read the book, or, you will find more and more sources of divine inspiration. Either outcome is a good thing in my opinion.

If it is the word of God, why wouldn't you absorb more of it? If it is not, then reading it will help you realize that, IMO.

Yup, didn't make it past Exodus myself. Kudos to you for already doing it

 

[peter grimes]

A cubit is the length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. According to Google Calculator (which uses the Biblical cubit), 1 cubit is 0.46m, or 1.5 feet. 300 cubits (the length of the ark) is 137.16m/450 feet, 50 cubits (the width of the ark) is 22.86m/75 feet, 30 cubits (the height of the ark) is 13.72m/45 feet, and 15 cubits (the level of water above the tallest mountains) is 6.86m/22.5 feet.

The largest ancient boat that we currently know of is a fraction of that size - The Funerary Solar Barge of Khufu (of Pyramid fame)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khufu_ship

It measures 43.6 m (143 ft) long and 5.9 m (19.5 ft) wide.

It is of the type known as a "solar barge", a ritual vessel to carry the resurrected king with the sun god Ra across the heavens. However, it bears some signs of having been used in water, and it is possible that the ship was either a funerary "barge" used to carry the king's embalmed body from Memphis to Giza, or even that Khufu himself used it as a "pilgrimage ship" to visit holy places and that it was then buried for him to use in the afterlife.

The tale in Genesis seems, well, greatly exagerrated considering that one of the most powerful and wealthy men in the world didn't have a ship that came close to that scale.

Sweet!

And here's a 450 foot long yacht

https://bangordailynews.com/2012/10...id-geffens-yacht-drops-anchor-off-bar-harbor/

Must have been a tight squeeze in there. And a lot of gopher wood. I'm sure it was a no smoking voyage.

Considering the ark was a huge box instead of a yacht, I'd imagine there's more space than that thing. Also, nobody really knows what gopher wood is, but it's likely to have been pitched (ie. covered in tar so that it doesn't rot). There's a theory that the flood only covered the Middle-East, which was the world to Noah and his family, so he only had to take animals that were found there - I'd imagine that getting an elephant on an ark of those dimensions would be fairly hard!

But that contradicts clearly what the Bible says the level of the water was above the highest mountain and my a long margin. It cannot be simply local since the waters will run away and not cover the highest mountain. Also God gave them a symbol of the rainbow that he will never send such a flood again. Considering that flooding is a rather commonplace thing, then either God was lying, or the flood was a global event. A local flood is not something you can get out of a simple reading of the passage. Also the timing of the flood is one year, which no flooding event we have seen last that long.

...or a 3rd option: The myth is an imperfect account of something that may or may not have happened. A simple reading doesn't suffice for so many other passages, why assume that it should here?

You seem to have a habit of accusing your god of lying in threads like these

 

[Gucumatz]

My God, he is literally a literalist ?

 

[Antilogic]

I think I'll pass on this offer--I read it awhile back and thought it was significantly less entertaining than Herodotus.

 

[Grendeldef]

The tale in Genesis seems, well, greatly exagerrated considering that one of the most powerful and wealthy men in the world didn't have a ship that came close to that scale.

Yeah, and even with unlimited wealth the wood part would still be an obstacle - there just isn't a way to make a wooden ship that size which would survive on the seas. People have tried since with the aid of much advanced metallurgy & failed miserably.
I had to check as I wasn't sure but in the Finnish '92 version the wood used has been translated to cypress while in the '33 version it was pine and out of curiosity I checked the Swedish 1874 version as well and not surprisingly it was pine. I've no idea whether the Swedish Bible used in Finland is the same as the one used in Sweden but this is printed in Stockholm so I assume it's translated in Sweden.

Anyway, the ark itself seems rather pointless; why not just create the animals again without the need of a massive construction project. On the other hand it could just be an egoistic puppet master micromanaging.

 

[classical_hero]

At least it appears in the half of the Bible that doesn't claim to be pacifistic, not judgmental, and loving to all.

Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

Things we can learn for the OT is that God will punish evil and he will protect the righteous.

The largest ancient boat that we currently know of is a fraction of that size - The Funerary Solar Barge of Khufu (of Pyramid fame)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khufu_ship



The tale in Genesis seems, well, greatly exagerrated considering that one of the most powerful and wealthy men in the world didn't have a ship that came close to that scale.

Matthew 19:26 But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

...or a 3rd option: The myth is an imperfect account of something that may or may not have happened. A simple reading doesn't suffice for so many other passages, why assume that it should here?

You seem to have a habit of accusing your god of lying in threads like these

Why would Jesus refer to a myth as if it were history? Jesus compares his second coming to the events of the flood, like how it would come as if no one knew like in the days of Noah, in spite of plenty of warning they had. Matthew 24:37-39

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

Things we can learn for the OT is that God will punish evil and he will protect the righteous.

And he will punish the righteous and massacre the innocent in order to satisfy a wager with Satan.

Job pretty much destroys the idea that God is just. Unless you think every action, no matter how horrifying, is therefore good because God did it, which is intellectually absurd and cowardly, the OT is a pretty damning piece of literature against this particular mythological figure.

I can't really get too worked up over it, Zeus was a pretty lame guy at times as well, doesn't bother me. But if you're going to worship this God, remember, he killed Job's entire family and then replaced them with different people, not because they, or Job, were evil... but because he wanted to demonstrate how single-minded Job was for woshipping him.

Basically, this God would make you suffer plagues, death, and wipe out your family, and compensate someone who cared about you by blessing them with a new wife and child. Not bringing you back to life, just replacing you with different people.

You can file that under the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, but it's still a pretty dick move to give a child a puppy, then kill it in front of the child, and then offer to give the kid another puppy. If we did that, we'd be sick, sick evil bastards. If God does this sort of thing, you continue worshiping him, because it's against your religion to say God's behavior is wrong.

Well, it is. And it takes an extreme amount of cognitive dissonance to get around that.

Matthew 19:26 But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

You could respond to any logical contradiction involving God with this sentence. It basically means "I don't have to argue about anything, this god figure can do anything, even stuff that makes no sense." It's not so much a defense of the religion but a dodge.

 

[W|M]

Things we can learn for the OT is that God will punish evil and he will protect the righteous.

He isn't really as judgmental as you make Him out to be:

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

(while that does have a condition for eternal forgiveness, it doesn't necessarily involve believing in YHWH)

But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Yup, didn't make it past Exodus myself. Kudos to you for already doing it

So you already quit?