[Bible] Let's find something more boring than politics to discuss

Don't mean to be rude, but there seems to be some miscommunication, Perhaps you should google what "synoptic" means. And I made a mistake, John, doesn't count as synoptic as it is all just Gnostic plattitudes. So there are 3 synoptic gospels.

 

I did & found this :

"almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books: the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), the Acts of the Apostles, the fourteen epistles of Paul, the seven catholic epistles, and the Book of Revelation... .."

 

*sigh*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels

adjective
adjective: synoptic

1. 1.
   of or forming a general summary or synopsis.
   "a synoptic outline of the contents"
   • taking or involving a comprehensive mental view.
     "a synoptic model of higher education"
2. 2.
   relating to the Synoptic Gospels.

Only three gospels detail the events of or provide a synopsis of Jesus' life. All of those "epistles" are just personal corespondences that Paul wrote to various churches. They are "books" of the Bible but they aren't books anymore than this post is a book.

 

hmm, so we agree it's 27 books ,

you're welcome

 

In English.

 

Likewise have you ever noticed that most Romans speak with an English accent? I find that very curious.

 

Sorry I’m late to the party on this one. Interesting topic. To be honest, I’ve had my disagreements with Bell in different areas but mostly just because he tends to lean hard post-modern. But I think on the most important areas I don’t think we’d disagree too much.

I did my theological education at Dallas Seminary which is known for its strict adherence to literal interpretation and inerrancy. But I think we all (Christians) maybe just parsing words and defining things differently. For example, Bell defines “literal interpretation” as taking text only at face value without accounting for context. When in fact we were taught that one of the first things you do is understand the style and form of the book. Some texts are written as historical chronology. Some prose and poetry. Some as wisdom literature. Accounting for that context is part of literal interpretation. So really in that way I would agree it’s important to understand context. I’d disagree that literal interpretation (in its truest form) doesn’t do that. But there are some who misapply “literalism” and produce errant theology as a result.

I’ll also say that this is why systematic theology is a completely separate discipline than learning about what the Bible says and how to read it. Solid theology in essence relies on full contextualization of the Bible. For example, my own theology on how relationships work, how healthy boundaries work, is all based upon an understanding of how covenants work throughout the Bible. There’s no text that will tell you literally, this is how all boundaries in relationships work. You have to derive it from a global understanding of the entire Bible. Another obvious one is the Holy Trinity. A fundamental doctrine in Christianity. Yet there’s no text that defines the Trinity in literal form. It’s derived in context to produce sound theology.

though I’m trained to see the text in “literal interpretation”, my job as a counselor requires that I constantly contextualize the text so I can bring deeper meaning and understanding for my clients.

on a separate note, as FranchiseBlade and Ottomatton mentioned, I do think some Christians get bent out of shape when you start jacking with their interpretations. I think there’s an uneasiness when the safety of structure that’s ordered and predictable is removed. But I think the mark of maturity is when you can allow your understanding to be deconstructed and then reformed. Growth happens when we are willing to challenge our own assumptions and are courageous enough to consider interpreting things in a new way.

But having said that, I do think for the Christian, that deconstruction must be met back with a true wrestling with the text and searching to reform ones theology with some anchoring in through the Bible.

I met with a friend of mine for lunch yesterday. She’s a pastor as well. Last month her nephew was murdered and while at his wake, she learned that her little brother died of a heart attack. She went to seminary with me and shared how all her theology, what she knew about God or at least thought she knew, was being torn apart. Her theology was being deconstructed, or really destroyed rather. God no longer fit into these nice neat boxes anymore. He was now, unsafe...unpredictable.

I went through the same experience a few years ago when I lost my first son. Typical and nicely packaged answers for who God is and how He operates, what you can glean from a surface reading of the text, that’s no longer sufficient. Everything must be torn down and rebuilt brick by brick. All pre-existing interpretations must be challenged. New understanding seated in greater context must be found. In those situations, a Christian has to search with a sort of desperation in order to read new meaning from the text.

I still read the text literally, but always searching for deeper meaning and context. When the text says, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, I read that text differently today and with different context than I did 4 years ago.

 

One of my best but least favorite teachers growing up was my freshman Theology teacher at St.Michael's Academy. We studied every book line for line with a lot of historical context to go with it.

We covered what few details we could gather about each author or sometimes multiple authors of one of the books in the Bible. What time in history the books were written in. Things like what type of education and economic/social background the author of the book of Genesis had. What geographical location the author likely resided in. The location found of the original scriptures. What language they were written in. The potential mis-translations because there may not be precisely Greek or Aramaic word for word translation into English or whatever your native tongue is. Also the fact that some translations may take away the poetry of some original texts and muddle them with clumsy word choice in translation back to English.

We covered text that perhaps was intended more to relay the social/political climate of the time of the author and less so could be interpreted as the divine word of God. We could covered the change in writing styles that could indicate the original author may have died or given up on the writing project and someone else took that person's place instead and finished the book.

Here's what always bugs me about the Bible. We know so little about the real author's of the books that compose the Bible. We can't vet them that these were good all around people that embodied the very words we hold them in such high esteem for writing. We treat values that may have made complete sense to follow in 30 B.C. if you happen to be a citizen whose day to day life consisted of living in Jordan, and then apply those same values in a global sense when it simply doesn't work for all.

I really don't treat the Bible as though it's a literal work of God. I think if those people were truly inspired by the divine, they would have saved millions if not billions of lives by simply pointing out that there are these invisible things to our own eyes called microbes, some of which are harmful bacteria or viruses and that it's very important to wash your hands. Where is the line in Deuteronomy that points out germ theory? Where is the line from Jesus that abhors slavery and advocates for a social system where there is true equality for all? I truly think if God really gave a **** about us, there wouldn't be a need for multiple religions throughout human history. There'd only be one and we collectively as a species would all be in agreement over that one religion being right.

I think if we lived in a truly theistic world, God would be easy to find. Like there would be no hidden mystery about it. We would all be in agreement. I think if God truly loved us, he'd have told us about germ theory, and that slavery is bad and from the moment humanity surfaced on this earth. I think we'd all know the rules to abide by that pleases God and there would be no disagreement on that for splitting up into a different sect of Christianity or a different sect of Islam. I don't think there would be multiple religions in existence throughout history ff there was one God. This one God would tell us what the right way to worship is and again what the rules are to live well and please Him. I don't think there would be any mystery to it all. I don't think there would have been wars fighting over which way to worship is the correct one, because supposedly this infinitely capable, loving and merciful God is not capable, loving or merciful enough to save us from ourselves when we trip up over who exactly is right in how life is supposed to be lived well and how best to please God.

I think it better to treat each book, in the Bible and other literary works, even your science education books, as though you're getting a window in an author's eyes of their interpretation of the world. What they felt was important to bring up. What the social/political climate must have been like to inspire such words that so many people still hold in such esteem to this day. I said earlier that my Theology teacher was one of my best but least favorite teachers. He was my least favorite because he really put into question my faith in what I was reading. He was the best though because I credit him for making me a critical thinker and to really try to read things through the eyes of the author and what thoughts must have been going through the author's head for them write what they did.

 

...this is well-said about the story of Abraham and him being asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac...

...had a bit of a different take on some of the inferences surrounding this myself, but essentially the same point is being made. And I'd totally not considered that in much of the rest of the known world at the time, sacrifice of some kind was taking place. Good stuff.

...I've always had a more personal affinity for the story of the three young Hebrew men who were facing execution by the king of Babylon, for refusing to bow down before a graven golden image and worship it ...

...they were all willing to sacrifice their lives before they submitted themselves to what they believed and knew to be a lie. They tell the king that the question is not whether they are willing to bow before the king's image, but whether God is present and willing to save.

...the story of Job and his trial makes the same claim about "God's will" and his "ability" ("Though he slay me, yet will I trust him" Job 13:15).

"God" isn't under any obligation to "save" you for your own sake or at your own request or demand. It is simplistic and dismissive, to me, to simply say some things that we cannot know (or more accurately, do not take the time to learn and/or understand) are simply "beyond" us and are "God's" will...

...(nobody would have discovered electricity and we'd all still be going to bed when the sun went down, if that was the case)...

...but it is prescient in the assertion that the principle of what you believe and know is more important than your own personal stake and survival...

 

I don't know about the old but the New Testament is written in many places with weird syntax clearly showing that it was written by people who spoke Koine as their second language. Especially i.e the Apocalypse you can tell that the person didn't speak Greek as a native.

Furthermore many words have 3-4 different meanings so depending on which one the translator has chosen the meaning can be night and day.

And many of them have even more meanings based on ancient greek philosolphy
i.e " Ο Λόγος". In the english translation they just translate it as the Word and call it a day.
But that word has like 3 more deeper meanings. If you just say it just means the word that's the translation level of a 10 year old child completely epidermic.


To top it off there are even some new words that they made up never seen before.

Just a small example in the Lord's prayer in english you say it as " give us our daily bread".
However επιούσιον doesn't mean dailly at all.
I can't explain very well the meaning because it is a made up new word but it sure has nothing to do with daily. It means the bread of substance.
The english translation is completely unrelated to the authentic text but it probably was chosen so for convenience.

So what I'm saying is that I have observed many mistranslations. So to take these inaccuracies literally then the original can be severely distorted.

No it doesn't. Biblia just means books.

 

Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles etc wrote in ancient. At that point every region if not village had their own extreme accent and version of Greek to the point that I wonder how they could understand each other.

Because a few centuries later Alexander the Great made a huge empire that had millions of foreigners (Jews included) they decided to standardize the language and simplify it and the Bible was written by foreigners in this simple standard version. Koine = Common.
The modern Greek derives from that that's why any Greek speaker now who hasn't had any lessons can still get about 70% without issue even though 2000 years have passed.

However I am a Orthodox Christian.
Whereas Catholicism is all about rules and regulations , Orthodox christianity puts more emphasis in mysticism. Any believer is encouraged to understand the meaning of Christ on their own with some little guidance only and absolutely not take the text literally.
So we don't have bible studies.
We just listen the bible in the church listen to some sermons and that's it.
These are just some observations I made when I was in fact asked by americans lol.

I only recently learned the history and the blood and the chaos that Lutheranism brought in Europe because we Orthodox had completely separate history than that.
For centuries the Catholic church refused to translate the Bible so the people could only read some incrompehensible text without being allowed to making any interpretations on their own. They wanted to retain the monopoly of "the word of God" and the power.

But when Luther translated it then anyone one day started interpretating it on their own and there were many cases of extremes with whole cities exercising polygamy, prophets of doom walking the streets slaughtering everyone who disagreed with their interpretations, nuns running away from monasteries.
It was sudden freedom from extreme suppression but it was also the pandora's box because it caused rivers of blood and brought out the worst of human nature.

https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-48-prophets-of-doom/
If you are interested.
Especially the city of Munster in Germany. I had trouble believing that humans can be so extreme and so brutal. If I had read that in a book I would take it as too far fetched however it is real history.

The right we have to be able to read, study and intepret the Bible on our own was won with blood and tears of our ancestors.
Isn't it a shame to just give it up and blindly follow what others say?

 

That's would be awesome
I have read/watched Bart Ehrman books, YouTubes, I think it's fascinating that he or others were able to read some of the original manuscript regardless of his personal conclusion.

Arabic speakers are able to (60-70%) read/understand most of the anceint Aramic, often ,word by word, grammar are basically identical,verbs seems different, the accents alignment with Arab speakers from Syria and Iraq pretty much have not change much

 

I like Rob Bell and he is absolutely correct that we need to take historical context into account.

Also we need to understand HOW people wrote back then. For instance, when looking at the long list of Kings, the Bible mentions some that are not mentioned anywhere in historical texts, and skips others that ARE mentioned in historical texts. The reason for this is that during that time, scholars often skipped kings and kingdoms that they felt didn't have any significant impact. They were literally left out of history. The same thing happened in accounts of offspring. While this is something we cannot fathom today, it was common practice back then. It is the very reason why although there are no mentions of Balak in history, but he is mentioned in the Bible. It was assumed that he didn't exist until ancient tablets referencing him surfaced in the mid 1990's.

It is interesting to me that ideas like "Revelations as premonitions of our future" were not even a thought until a couple hundred years ago. The early church saw Revelations as a description of the persecution of Christians and the attacks on Jerusalem around 70AD, thus the events of Revelations had already passed. The idea that the Apocalypse is OUR future is relatively new in the history of the church.

It's like reading "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Is it a great story about a boy and his slave friend escaping their life by traveling down the Mississippi River and getting into all kinds of adventures. OR is it an important social commentary about Slavery in the U.S.?
Honestly, it depends on how you read it.

 

Where did you read that?
I have read that the protoChristians believed in the Revelations literally, living day by day waiting for the end and the apocalypse to come tomorrow and were in fact made fun of and condemned by the pagans as too destructive to society because they lived like today was the last day of their lives.