I think it's a matter of perspective. For instance, I've never found the various books of the Bible to be confusing.
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If God is not the author of confusion, why is the Bible so confusing?
- Thread starter Mark The Non-Apostle
- Start date
I think it's a matter of perspective. For instance, I've never found the various books of the Bible to be confusing.
Yahyaa Waahid
Member
Peace, Mark The Non-Apostle,
The Holy Qur'an reveals that the Jews altered the Scriptures from Their original state. So, the Bible has Truth in it, but falsehoods have been added to it. The Holy Qur'an says of itself that it guards and verifies the Bible. I'm not Muslim though.
Peace.
Yahyaa Waahid (my name)
God is not the author of confusion. But humans feel confused all the times. This is natural because humans wisdom is usually over-estimated by themselves.
God has all the power to maintain the Scripture in a way His will wishes. Qur'an is a "single account" witnessing can never be legitimate in terms of how a historical truth should be conveyed. In Jews tradition, you need at least 2 witnesses (2 accounts) to testify to make a legitimate claim.
nazz
Doubting Thomas
I think the point may be all the different interpretations that are possible.
Mark The Non-Apostle
New Member
Do you find 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 confusing Christine? I sure do.
"Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church."
nazz
Doubting Thomas
I think that statement is very clear on its own. But what is confusing is that it conflicts with other things Paul said about the role of women in the church. Some scholars believe it's a later interpolation inserted into the text. For instance:
Is 1 Cor 14:34-35 an Interpolation? | Evangelical Textual Criticism
nazz
Doubting Thomas
If so, and God has exercised that power, then God has decided to preserve the Bible in many different conflicting canons and translations.
Yahyaa Waahid
Member
I would agree God is not the author of confusion. God is clarity in mind and spirit. I think its fine to say scripture is written through inspiration. I can say many words of God's truth as well when I am in such a state of conscious clarity. We all can as well if so attuned. It is not something unique to special to certain "chosen ones". But they are never words of dictation, being possessed and speaking words outside ones control. They are words that carry Truth, embedded within the truths of our cultural referents. They are not infallible. Nor should they be worshiped as infallible. The Truth in them, transcends the relative truths of the words themselves.
I think worshiping the Bible is the confusion. And that confusion is not God, but a confusion of man's mind, externalizing God wholly from us. It is the theological model of an external deity dictating to us separate earthly beings that creates the confusion. The words are pointers and should not being taken as static facts. These are not math formulas. They are words that evoke and inspire Truth from within, and when that is known, then there is no confusion at all, but clarity within relative truths.
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The problem is, the way I see it, is that people treat the Bible as a rule book. The Bible is not a rule book. It tells the stories of men and women who followed God. It almost all descendants of Abraham, although there are a few (Like Ruth) who are not. The Bible has poetry, written by some of those who followed God (like King David). It has allegories (like Job). Some of the writing of the Prophets is symbolic. As a Christian of Jewish background, I say this.
It's my view that Jesus' message was to get people to see beyond doing this, which when they do results in as he called it so eloquently, whitewashed sepulchers. Conforming to external rules, pointing to this, and subsequently believe this to be ones justification, stops them from dealing with the "weightier" matters of the law; that of the heart. And yet despite that, they take his words and turn them into a new form of the same thing, external codes that judge you are justified or not.
I'm coming to understand this action as simply the course that things take. People are not ready to look within, to "make clean the inside of the cup", and so they look to conform to something outside of them, to model their actions after them, and subsequently they end up self-justifying through this conformity. But the next step to take, when all this self-righteous religion fails to give what conformity cannot, Peace, is to break down these external forms to open to that internal Law. And that Law, is not a static list of rules at all! It is a living, dynamic, agile, adaptive, and evolving life that issues from the fountains of the eternal deep.
But crossing that threshold from externalized codes, Jesus' words included (despite what he teaches), to that inner knowledge requires an end to all our seeking. It requires nothing short of dying to oneself, and that includes all your beliefs you hold to tell yourself you're on the right path. I guarantee we aren't when we assume our understanding is the same as Truth itself. So most remain with their beliefs and their religions.
Destroy this temple... and what happens?
Koldo
Outstanding Member
This is not completely true, but not completely false either.
The bible can not be reduced to a rule book, but it is certainly a book that contains a lot of rules.
Mark The Non-Apostle
New Member
Very true Koldo! This is the crux of the problem for me. There are rules/commandments/exhortations throughout the entire Bible, many of which contradict one another. How can the Bible be from God when it self-ascribes its authorship from God, who "is not the author of confusion," but is full of confusing instructions?
An interesting thought to add to this is that the OT books are definitely full of rules. But what rules are there that Jesus gave? I see these much more along the lines of "a new commandment I give you, to love one another as I have loved you". There are principles dealing with the interior landscapes which show themselves in actions towards other. They are challenges to the way the external rules imposed upon people were being applied. They were to provoke an internal awareness, to wake you up to the internal landscape as opposed to focusing on the outside rules and regulations.
There is a difference between a rule book and a book that has rules. Plus,the Bible is not just one book, but a volume of books.
I don't think the Bible is confusing. Rather, what is confusing is the false doctrines people claim the Bible teaches, such as immortality of the soul, hellfire, the trinity, and the list goes on. Such religious confusion causes many to wrongly reject the Holy Scriptures.
nazz
Doubting Thomas
People who study the bible just as much as you do would claim you are the one preaching false doctrines. That is the whole problem in a nutshell.