Would you still be a Christian if the Bible were shown not to be true?

Answer 1

I am a Christian who does not believe in the Bible at all -- its clearly mythic.

The faith is an aggregate of various pre-Christian pagan beliefs and adopted bits out of concurrent theologies and cosmogonies.

The Bible means nothing to me. Christianity is simply believing in Jesus Christ and loving other people. Believing in the Bible as anything other than a pretty book of myths is just idolatry, with the same drawbacks as any other form of the same.

Regards,

Reynolds Jones
http://www.rebuff.org
[e-mail]

PS To Keekee -- proving the Bible is false is rather easy -- accepting the truth when you see it, that's harder for some.

The fragments we have of early manuscripts of the canonical books differ from one other. There are, by the lowest estimates, about 200,000 differences between the available early fragments. There are no autographs of the Bible -- and the earliest versions written are not something we have. Instead we have thousands of copies of copies of translations of copies. Reasonable scholarly study will show anyone willing to pursue it that the Bible we have is not only NOT anything resembling the original versions of the books that comprise it -- but that we have no idea of what those books might have said. Over a hundred years of Textual Criticism (a theological field where a scholar attempts to recreate what the originals probably said) has failed to yield any better understanding than we had -- and many textual critics are now saying that the search itself is meaningless, that we cannot ever know what the originals said. (See Dr. Bart Erhman; Misquoting Jesus; Harper SanFrancisco; 2006 -- for detailed explanation)

Is the Bible an authentic copy of anything that MIGHT EVEN POSSIBLY be divine? No.

If looking at the inconsistencies is not enough to convince you -- then I suggest looking at the errors in the received text. Sola Scriptura cannot possibly withstand even a casual but serious and honest examination of the texts.

The Bible says that the world has corners (Isaiah 11:12) and that it sets on pillars (I Samuel 2:8). It says that God accepted a human sacrifice -- he may have prevented Isaac's, but he allowed a general to sacrifice his own daughter without even a murmur, the text giving tacit support to the idea that having given his word, the man had to kill his child. (Judges 11:30-39). It clearly maintains that genocide is often commanded by God (Joshua 10:40-42 and I Samuel 15: 2, 3 and 8) and that, after killing all the adults in a race, taking the female children as sex slaves is permissible (Numbers 31: 17-18).

The God revealed by the Bible is not only both a liar who doesn't know the natural laws of his own world, and a monster, as shown above -- but he has no real regard, even for his own people, whom he forces into cannibalism (Leviticus 26: 27-29) when he is mad at them; or his priests, whose faces he wipes with dung (Malachi 2:1-3).

It is not only gays and lesbians that are hated by bible-god. This monstrosity also suggests killing kids who eat or drink too much (Deuteronomy 21: 18-21), and says that if he is angry with parents he will kill their children (Leviticus 26:22) and he blames things upon children whose great-great-great grandfathers committed the things being blamed on the kids (Exodus 20: 5).

Putting it in a word, bible-god is a monstrosity, a horrific demiurge of evil. Something that even he admits ( Isaiah 45:7 ) [Furthermore, the word used in Hebrew for evil, the word ra' is widely conceded to mean a number of different things: It can mean "wickedness," "mischief," "bad," "trouble," "hurt," "sore," "affliction," "ill," "adversity," "harm," "grievous," and "sad." So no matter what particular interpretation is given of this word -- it has profoundly negative implications. The idea that god is sovereign over the affairs of man makes this even worse, because no matter what interpretation it has, it indicates that bible-god deliberately does harm.]; evil about which he sometimes changes his mind (Exodus 32:14). What a font of unchanging morality -- that almighty God can decide to kill an entire people, and then be talked out of it by a human servant... Furthermore, it is obvious, if God can change his mind, then even if the Bible were not full of errors and horrors, you could not trust that God had not changed his mind on any other issue in it.

So, yes, I suppose if one wants to take as truth a book that says that beetles have four legs instead of six (Leviticus 11: 21-23) and that rabbits chew their cud [which they do NOT] (Deuteronomy 14:7) and if you are willing to, having accepted it as truth, overlook the fact that bible-god routinely changed his mind (I can show you other instances if you wish) then yeah, I suppose its words would matter.

I on the other hand, while a Christian (as in Christ follower) am NOT a literalist, and do not think that a book of bronze age myths owing heavily to the Sumerian and Egyptian myths in the Old Testament and to a collection of pagan faiths, particularly Mithraism in the New Testament matters at all.

Christianity is centered around love, faith in Christ, and Eucharist. At best the Bible is sacred because of its place in the life of the early church and should be regarded as holy myth -- stress on the myth.

Regards,

Reynolds Jones
Schenectady, NY
http://www.rebuff.org
[e-mail]

Answer 2

First let me try to explain it to you this way. The Bible was wrote in two languages in the beginning. Hebrew the Old Testiment and Greek the new Testiment. It has lost a lot of it's original meaning through the english translations because there are not really any way to translate some of the words from Hebrew to english or Greek to English. All the rest of the scripts and other documents that are being found now I am a little skeptical because Revelation tells us not to add or take from this book. Now I don' t know if that means the whole bible or just the book of Revalation. The bible can not really be shown not to be true. You can read a scripture and get a total different meaning then what I would get if I read the same scripture. God did not mean for us to be robots we each are unique in our own way. God says we are a peculiar people. Christians have been around since before the time of Christ so my apology to you if I offended you in any way but seriously I do not believe the bible can be shown not to be true and even if hyperthetically speaking yes I would be a christian. I was saved before I even understood the meaning of the bible or what was in it. Thank you for allowing me to answer your question and I am not trying to provoke you in any manner to make you angry. or offend you in any way. Yes. I would have still become a Christian because a book would be a book but the heart and mind are set on God when we are Christians. He calls us and not neccessarily through just the word of God known as the Bible. Hope this helped. I understand it can be very confusing at times. Keep searching your heart and mind and praying ask all the questions you need to because one day you find the right one that just may lead you to Christ if you aren't already there. God bless you.

Answer 3

First and foremost, the bible is the word of man. It is, by it's own declaration, inspired by god, but unless you believe that your lord pushed the writing utensil around, it was written by human beings. Therein lies the rub, you see, because the various faiths have created a logic circle. To believe in god, you must have faith that what we want you to know is truth, and was handed down to us by the lord himself. Sooooo, to be a true christian, you must have faith, and that faith must tell you to believe what we tell you is the word of god. Everyone uses the same technique. The Seventh Day Adventists, the Jehovah's witnesses, the Mormons, the Catholics, the Lutherans, the Methodists, the Baptists, etc...etc...etc....soooooooo...if you doubt the word (the bible), then you cannot be true christian......soooooo...by normal definition....when the bible is proven to be mythological......christian belief will morph into something else...because of self doubt....."Oh my god, we couldn't possibly have evolved to be the dominant species on the planet."..there must have been some magic in that old top hat they found.....ooops, sorry....I digress.

Answer 4

The bible is obviously not true (historically or factually accurate) based on the fact there are literally tens of thousands of different interpretations, most of which are contradictory.

Obviously, people do not rely on the bible to be true as a basis for their faith. Their faith requires them to overlook anything that interferes with that faith, including the inaccuracies of the bible.

Keekee (below) demonstrates my point far better than my explanation.

Answer 5

Well, the doctrine I follow comes from a number of sources other that the Bible, so I guess if it were just the Bible that was taken out of the picture, I wouldn't really change.

Answer 6

Once I found the Bible had been changed, I converted to Islam.

So the answer is obviously no.... I would convert to the ideology that I thought was right.

You shouldn't be a Christian just because everyone else does it.

Answer 7

Of course I would. The Bible doesn't hold the only truth and never claims to. Only people like those that believe in Islam are the nonthinking robots who follow imams that constantly change their book.

Answer 8

This question contradicts itself, because the Bible cannot be shown to be untrue! It is the inspired Word of God, and God does not lie!

Answer 9

Muhammad, the Bab, Baha'u'llah confirm that the words of Christ are the creative words of God, they are sacred, they are true and they are eternally powerful.
If there were no words of Christ, there were and there will be no Christians. Perhaps you should reread the Bible by yourself, think more deeply about God and pray God to illuminate your mind.
Please think the unthinkable and rethink the thinkable.

Answer 10

No, however St. Paul wrote that we aren't to pass judgement on the ones external the Church, and that he used to be given pardon for his sins when you consider that of his lack of expertise. That's approximately as near because it will get. Sorry if I cannot cite my verses, however it is in there. You'll simply need to take my phrase for it. Edit: We are commanded to like and pray for our enemies (no longer that I keep in mind atheists my enemies, however for the sake of this reply, it really works), and within the Divine Liturgy, there may be an antiphon for our enemies. Yes, we're commanded to like our acquaintances (each person on the earth, essentially), regardless of how we are handled, and regardless of if we consider them or no longer, however I cannot believe of something distinct such as you requested for. One of the Psalms say, ''The idiot has mentioned in his center 'there is not any God,' '' however the phrase ''atheist'' under no circumstances looks within the Bible, and the verse you stated- ''Love thy neighbor''- is discovered within the Torah (in Exodus, to be specified), as good as within the Synoptic Gospels, some distance from the Book of Psalms.

Answer 11

well hold on....youve got your questions mixed up. no one believes in god because of the bible. they beleive because of what the bible promises them. heaven.

now i think a better question would be if people would still believe if there was no promise of heaven.

people would be more than willing to drop the bible as long as the part of heaven remained. heaven is the reaosn why people beleive, not the bible.