• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

The Old Testament - Sell It To Me!

Rival

Diex Aie
Staff member
Premium Member
What do Christians believe that means? How is Christ the Word?
Christ is the Logos, God's Wisdom, God acting in the world, CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: The Logos

What do you believe that means?
It's not up to me!

How do you think that Muslims view the Bible?
They tend to care little for it.

Why do Muslims view the Qur'an as the word of God?
Directly revealed by God in his own words.
 

Rival

Diex Aie
Staff member
Premium Member
As believed by the Roman Chrusch
What is your problem with Christianity?

The Logos is believed by all Christians.

What source would you prefer I have used?

Oh a secular one or something?

It is up to you to believe in one of the many conflicting choices of religions and belief systems.
Yeah, I chose Christianity.

Which believes in the Logos.

As believed by those that share your beliefs..
No. As believed by Muslims.

Am I a Muslim?


Leave me alone.
 
Last edited:

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
What is your problem with Christianity?
Christianity has along violent tribal history with wars and violence against other tribes, with persecution, and pogroms against Jews and non-believers. It has a history of conflicts with science, because the writers of the NT considered the Pentateuch literal history. See post #60
The Logos is believed by all Christians.

What source would you prefer I have used?

Oh a secular one or something?
See post #600
Yeah, I chose Christianity.

Which believes in the Logos.
Most likely the inherited religion of your family and peers.
Leave me alone.
You are here and posting on this forum if you want to be left alone go away.
 

Rival

Diex Aie
Staff member
Premium Member
Most likely the inherited religion of your family and peers.
Oh no, culture! How dare people participate in local traditions.

Really?

This comment alone shows how little you know about me and my participation on this forum.

I spent 5 years as a Noahide, untold years as a Pagan, and some time seeking.

You have been here for years, you ought be aware of this, to some degree.
 
Last edited:

exchemist

Veteran Member
It is not a preoccupation, I'm barely interested in the Bible generally. I started this thread because of something another member posted that piqued my interest. The OP is indeed explicit in referencing violence, rather than religious messages, that's essentially what the topic of the thread is. I'm not hostile to religion per se, I hope that is a statement of the obvious - I describe myself as a Buddhist and am also interested in Hinduism and Paganism amongst others. Please take my OP at face value therefore.


Indeed, but we have violence today of course as it is seemingly part of our nature. Equally 3000 years ago people could have lived peaceably. Antiquity does not have to equate to violence clearly.

This is exactly the intended purpose of the thread. Is it taken literally and if so why? Is it taken non-literally and if so why? What are we to make of a god that seems to have such propensities?
The issue of biblical literalism has been gone over many times on this forum, but I suppose it may have passed you by.

The OT has from earliest days been recognised as a literary work, incorporating legend, allegory, poetry and history. Famously, Origen, back in 200AD, pooh-poohed the notion of the Garden of Eden being a literal place. According to MacCulloch's "History of Christianity", Origen and his peers in Alexandria, both Christian and Jewish, knew their Homer and read the early parts of the OT in that spirit, recognising the role of the use of a range of literary devices to convey a deeper meaning. Interpretations varied over the centuries but the church was content to accept a degree of mystery and uncertainty about some of it.

Up to the Reformation the church took its spiritual guidance from not one but two sources. One was scripture. The other was the (supposedly) divinely inspired insights of the bishops of the church, who claimed spiritual authority linked all the way back to the Apostles via a chain of ordination known as Apostolic Succession. The bishops and doctors of the church spent time interpreting scripture to wring out of it a host of meanings and symbols and this led to a body of derived doctrine, given authority by the bishops, based on scripture but going well beyond the face value of the words.

It was the advent of the Protestant Reformation, with its rejection of the established theological and clerical structures and a "basic to basics" approach known as sola scriptura which threw out the second of these sources of guidance and put all its eggs in the basket of scripture. What happened next was in some ways paradoxical. The triumphs of science in the Enlightenment led to a new intellectual demand for certainty, and the conviction that certainty could be achieved, in religion just as much as in science. This led to biblical text being re-examined with a view to gving the same confidence in the truths of religion as were being acheived in the world of science. Hence we got things like the adoption of Bishop Ussher's rather ridiculous Chronology and other manifestations of taking everything in the bible as if it were a manual of science, to be taken all at face value, Joshua making the sun stand still, night and day existing before the creation of the sun, and all.

So the idea of biblical literalism is a relatively recent one in the history of the church, is not shared by the more traditional forms of Christianity and is fairly clearly untenable when analysed, as Origen himself understood back in Alexandria in 200AD.
 

Rival

Diex Aie
Staff member
Premium Member
The issue of biblical literalism has been gone over many times on this forum, but I suppose it may have passed you by.

The OT has from earliest days been recognised as a literary work, incorporating legend, allegory, poetry and history. Famously, Origen, back in 200AD, pooh-poohed the notion of the Garden of Eden being a literal place. According to MacCulloch's "History of Christianity", Origen and his peers in Alexandria, both Christian and Jewish, knew their Homer and read the early parts of the OT in that spirit, recognising the role of the use of a range of literary devices to convey a deeper meaning. Interpretations varied over the centuries but the church was content to accept a degree of mystery and uncertainty about some of it.

Up to the Reformation the church took its spiritual guidance from not one but two sources. One was scripture. The other was the (supposedly) divinely inspired insights of the bishops of the church, who claimed spiritual authority linked all the way back to the Apostles via a chain of ordination known as Apostolic Succession. The bishops and doctors of the church spent time interpreting scripture to wring out of it a host of meanings and symbols and this led to a body of derived doctrine, given authority by the bishops, based on scripture but going well beyond the face value of the words.

It was the advent of the Protestant Reformation, with its rejection of the established theological and clerical structures and a "basic to basics" approach known as sola scriptura which threw out the second of these sources of guidance and put all its eggs in the basket of scripture. What happened next was in some ways paradoxical. The triumphs of science in the Enlightenment led to a new intellectual demand for certainty, and the conviction that certainty could be achieved, in religion just as much as in science. This led to biblical text being re-examined with a view to gving the same confidence in the truths of religion as were being acheived in the world of science. Hence we got things like the adoption of Bishop Ussher's rather ridiculous Chronology and other manifestations of taking everything in the bible as if it were a manual of science, to be taken all at face value, Joshua making the sun stand still, night and day existing before the creation of the sun, and all.

So the idea of biblical literalism is a relatively recent one in the history of the church, is not shared by the more traditional forms of Christianity and is fairly clearly untenable when analysed, as Origen himself understood back in Alexandria in 200AD.
John Barton's History of the Bible is really good too.

Every theology book I've read has said this, so I'm honestly shocked literalism is still a thing, as a Protestant/Enlightenment legacy.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
John Barton's History of the Bible is really good too.

Every theology book I've read has said this, so I'm honestly shocked literalism is still a thing.
Phew, I was afraid you would tell me I had got this all wrong, being a mere amateur in such matters compared with yourself! :)
 

Debater Slayer

Vipassana
Staff member
Premium Member
John Barton's History of the Bible is really good too.

Every theology book I've read has said this, so I'm honestly shocked literalism is still a thing, as a Protestant/Enlightenment legacy.

Books are outdated. Look up "Atheist DEMOLISHES Christianity!!1!" on YouTube for a more scholarly and thorough resource on the history of the Bible.
 

Rival

Diex Aie
Staff member
Premium Member
Phew, I was afraid you would tell me I had got this all wrong, being a mere amateur in such matters compared with yourself! :)
Nah, I'm about to be baptised as I told you and I'm having serious reservations, because even though I love the AC, I have nothing in common with the more radical Protestant aspects. I'm talking to Vou about this. I'm learning loads from books, as I can tell you have.
 

SalixIncendium

अहं ब्रह्मास्मि
Staff member
Premium Member

Rival

Diex Aie
Staff member
Premium Member
As believed by the Roman Chrusch
All Christians believe in the Logos, it's not a matter of contention.

It is up to you to believe in one of the many conflicting choices of religions and belief systems.
The question was my thoughts on the Logos, not on 'religions and belief systems'. I have no opinion on the Logos because it is not contested within Christianity. All orthodox Christians believe in the Logos. We all believe it's Christ, as understood from John 1.

As believed by those that share your beliefs..
No, again you misinterpreted.

Christians do not believe the Bible was dictated by God.

Muslims believe the Quran was dictated by God.

This isn't the same.

Please stop misrepresenting me because you dislike Abrahamic religions and fail to understand them.
 

Rival

Diex Aie
Staff member
Premium Member
A concept invented by the Greek pagan Heraclitus and only found in the Johannine writings. Christianity likes to co-opt things.
Please take this crap somewhere else. Only people who dislike and have an axe to grind make these kinds of comments. They're not useful.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Nah, I'm about to be baptised as I told you and I'm having serious reservations, because even though I love the AC, I have nothing in common with the more radical Protestant aspects. I'm talking to Vou about this. I'm learning loads from books, as I can tell you have.
Most of what I have picked up comes from my parents: a committed Anglican mother and a Catholic convert father whose own father was a Methodist minister and prof of church history at Glasgow. But I did read MacCulloch (thinking occasionally of my grandfather) and learned a great deal from it. Which is why I bought you a copy.:)
 

Rival

Diex Aie
Staff member
Premium Member
Most of what I have picked up comes from my parents: a committed Anglican mother and a Catholic convert father whose own father was a Methodist minister and prof of church history at Glasgow. But I did read MacCulloch (thinking occasionally of my grandfather) and learned a great deal from it. :)
You know more than the average person. There are a lot of good books out there and I hope to read them all. Lol.
 
Top