Christians, so this is your EXCUSE?

Question

We all have to admit that Christianity has been under some serious attacks. Before the criticisms weren't that harsh so the Christians did not have to think of some real good answer to prove themselves. These days they need some good explanation inorder to live another day. What is hip for Christians now? READ IT IN CONTEXT and DON"T TAKE IT LITERALLY. What a load of horseshit! You Christians keep giving us verses and you tell us to read in context? The Bible is not a poem, why should we not read it literally?
The words written in the Bible is not a riddle, it is clearly a novel....I mean story that God wants us to understand accordingly. If it is to be metaphorically read then everyone would have their own perspective and render the whole book invalid immediately. These two excuses never occured in the old days. Why all in a sudden say that we should read out of context and not read in literally? Because you can't win an arguement so you need some EXCUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

Christianity has always been under attack - 2000 years back followers of Jesus were tortured and killed. It still happens in certain countries... at least most Christians are not murdered today!

We always need good explanations for why do we believe in Jesus. Isn't it surprising, even after all the good work most Christians do (hospitals, schools/colleges, orphanages, provide care to the unloved/rejected, etc. in many places) because of their faith in Jesus Christ, we still have to answer and justify why we believe in Jesus and accept the Bible as God's word. Hmmm... why don't you have the guts to ask a similar question regarding Islam in a muslim country?

Yes read the Bible literally. Who is stopping you? Perhaps you may come to a faith in Jesus Christ when you find that whatever you try, you will be unable to even obey the 10 commandments for a short period, and realize how pathetic and small you are, with plenty of sin that only Jesus can redeem you from!

For us, the Bible is the living word of God, it applies to our lives daily as we use it to build upon and live a life in a relationship with God.

Novels are usually defined as a work of fiction. The Bible is NOT a novel; I wonder how clear it is to you?

Why are you so concerned about Christians winning or not winning? Surely we don't go about harming your kind? Or is it God you hate??

Hope the one you reject gives you wisdom to understand His word,
Andrew

Answer 2

RE: If it is to be metaphorically read then everyone would have their own perspective and render the whole book invalid immediately.

Why are you imposing an "either-or" relationship? Are you deliberately picking a contradictory interpretation of the Scripture so you can use that to debunk itself?

The book is not "invalid" just because it has both absolute and relative meanings, both literal and figurative meanings; it makes it even more valid because of this.

The reason for this is that the spiritual process of human learning and development, given our free will and conscience, follows the same patterns on an individual scale as on a collective scale. It has been noted that the same way humans go through 5 step "grief" process, the story of the creation, fall, trials, recovery and reconciliation of human nature collectively follows a similar pattern, with the sacrifice of Christ at the crux as the pivotal shifting point in the vicious cycle of suffering so there can be liberation healing and recovery. So as our individual lives and cycles reflect the universal cycles of all humanity combined, naturally the Bible which speaks to all this will also address both levels at once.

My questions to you, Max:
1. If the Bible is not relevant or applicable to you, then WHY do you insist on using it to try to prove or disprove something? Doesn't that in itself show that it is serving a purpose in seeking truth, which is what trying to understand the Bible and God is all about?
2. What is your own personal belief system and values or principles? Why isn't it enough for you to work on fulfilling that? If you need to reconcile your differences with Christianity, doesn't that imply there is some meaning to be gotten or knowledge to be gained? Isn't that a good purpose for Christianity to serve?
3. Can you apply the same arguments or similar ones to anything in your system? I have discovered that the more people contradict their own system, the more they find themselves in conflict or blaming other systems; whereas the more consistent they are with their own system, the easier they can reconcile with others because they don't have biased flaws they are projecting that get in the way.

What is your system Max?

I bet that if it is true, it can be reconciled with the truths in the Bible. And only if you are contradicting your own values will you have conflicts with values and truths in the Bible as well, as a way of helping you correct both perceptions at the same time. What do you think, Max? Yours truly, Emily

Answer 3

What are you talking about.?
It is not a novel. It is a collection of books written in different literary forms.
I don't think you have a basis in your mind for this rant. You did not give any examples. You are generalizing and not even being logical

Answer 4

The Bible was written for believers not for non-believers. If you don't believe, you don't believe. If you ask a serious question, and are seriously seeking to know God, you will find your answers; if you are seeking only to discredit His word and to belittle those of us who do believe, you will find your answer.

Paradoxical, no?

God bless.

Answer 5

I admit we tend to do that.

Is that your EXCUSE not to be a christian? Cause the other christian do this and that..

You sound like a child, grow up.

Take care.

Answer 6

http://www.lulu.com/content/1084525

Answer 7

And excuses are one thing that they have plenty of.

Answer 8

Well said.

Answer 9

First off you keep say " we " do you have a mouse in your pocket ? Or are you refering to say Muslims ? Speak what you mean dont try to talk in circles cause imma x your ***. Imma answer your question and make you look stupid real quick just cause your hiding in this circle of bullshit when your afraid to even tell who or what you do believe in. I am not a Christian myself and youve managed to offend me.You see my yahoo id name add me to messenger if you think I cant win a argument cause I'm here to tell ya I,ve read the Koran and the Bible and many other religious books looking for the light of truth.But imma stop ranting and answer your questions and rebuttle your bullshit statements.

Which version of the Bible are you referring too ?

The word Bible refers to the canonical collections of sacred writings or books of Judaism and Christianity.
[1] Books included as canon in the Bible vary according to different traditions.

Judaism's Bible, often referred to as the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, includes the books common to both the Christian and Jewish biblical canons.
[2] Its most sacred part, the Torah, is traditionally considered by believers to be God's direct words and is the origin to much of the Jewish religious law.

The Christian Bible is often called the Holy Bible, Scriptures, or Word of God. It divides the books of the Bible into two parts; the Old Testament primarily sourced from the Tanakh (with some variations), and the New Testament containing books originally written primarily in Greek.
[3] Some versions of the Christian Bible have a separate Apocrypha section for the books not considered canonical by the publisher. Additional versions exist, such as the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canons which contain books not found in the Tanakh, but that are found in the Greek Septuagint, the oldest of several ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek.

In scholarly writing, ancient translations are frequently referred to as "versions," with the term "translation" being reserved for medieval or modern translations
The original texts of the Tanakh were in Hebrew, although some portions were in Aramaic. In addition to the authoritative Masoretic Text, Jews still refer to the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and the Targum Onkelos, an Aramaic version of the Bible. There are several different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew, mostly differing by spelling, and the traditional Jewish version is based on the version known as Aleppo Codex. Even in this version by itself, there are words which are traditionally read differently than written (sometimes one word is written and another is read), because the oral tradition is considered more fundamental than the written one, and presumably mistakes had been made in copying the text over the generations

The primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint or (LXX). In addition they translated the Hebrew Bible into several other languages. Translations were made into Syriac, Coptic, Ge'ez and Latin, among other languages. The Latin translations were historically the most important for the Church in the West, while the Greek-speaking East continued to use the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament and had no need to translate the New Testament
The earliest Latin translation was the Old Latin text, or Vetus Latina, which, from internal evidence, seems to have been made by several authors over a period of time. It was based on the Septuagint, and thus included books not in the Hebrew Bible.

Pope Damasus I assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Council of Rome in 382 AD. He commissioned Saint Jerome to produce a reliable and consistent text by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin. This translation became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and was declared by the Church to be the only authentic and official Bible.

Bible translations for many languages have been made through the various influences of Catholicism, Orthodox, Protestant, etc especially since the Protestant Reformation. The Bible has seen a notably large number of English language translations.The work of Bible translation continues, including by Christian organisations such as Wycliffe Bible Translators (wycliffe.net), New Tribes Missions (ntm.org) and the Bible Societies (biblesociety.org). Of the world's 6,900 languages, 2,400 have some or all of the Bible, 1,600 (spoken by more than a billion people) have translation underway, and some 2,500 (spoken by 270 million people) are judged as needing translation to begin.
The use of chapters and verses was not introduced until the Middle Ages and later. The system used in English was developed by Stephanus (Robert Estienne of Paris)
Early manuscripts of the letters of Paul and other New Testament writings show no punctuation whatsoever.
[1] The punctuation was added later by other editors, according to their own understanding of the text. (Punctuation can shape and change the meaning of a passage.)
[2]As Hebrew and Greek, the original languages of the Bible, have idioms and concepts not easily translated, there is an on going critical tension about whether it is better to give a word for word translation or to give a translation that gives a parallel idiom in the target language. For instance, in the English language Catholic translation, the New American Bible, as well as the Protestant translations of the Christian Bible, translations like the King James Version, the New Revised Standard Version and the New American Standard Bible are seen as literal translations (or "word for word"),
[3]Whereas translations like the New International Version and New Living Version attempt to give relevant parallel idioms. The Living Bible and The Message are two paraphrases of the Bible that try to convey the original meaning in contemporary language. The further away one gets from word to word translation, the text becomes more readable while relying more on the theological, linguistic or cultural understanding of the translator, which one would not normally expect a lay reader to require.

Traditionally, English masculine pronouns have been used interchangeably to refer to the male gender and to all people. For instance, "All men are mortal" is not intended to imply that males are mortal but females are immortal. English language readers and hearers have had to interpret masculine pronouns (and such words as "man" and "mankind") based on context. Further, both Hebrew and Greek, like some of the Latin-origin languages, use the male gender of nouns and pronouns to refer to groups that contain both sexes. This creates some difficulty in determining whether a noun or pronoun should be translated using terms that refer to men only, or generically to men and women inclusively. Context sometimes, but not always, helps determine whether to decode them in a gender-insensitive or gender-specific way.
Until recently, virtually all English translations of the Bible have used masculine nouns and pronouns both specifically (to refer to males) and generically (when the reference is not necessarily gender-specific). Recent examples of translations which incorporate gender-inclusive language include the New Revised Standard Version, the Revised English Bible, and Today's New International Version.

The current division of the Bible into chapters and the verse numbers within the chapters has no basis in any ancient textual tradition. Rather, they are medieval Christian inventions. They were later adopted by many Jews as well, as technical references within the Hebrew text. Such technical references became crucial to medieval rabbis in the historical context of forced debates with Christian clergy (who used the chapter and verse numbers), especially in late medieval Spain.[19] Chapter divisions were first used by Jews in a 1330 manuscript and for a printed edition in 1516. However, for the past generation, most Jewish editions of the complete Hebrew Bible have made a systematic effort to relegate chapter and verse numbers to the margins of the text
The division of the Bible into chapters and verses has often elicited severe criticism from traditionalists and modern scholars alike. Critics charge that the text is often divided into chapters in an incoherent way, or at inappropriate rhetorical points, and that it encourages citing passages out of context, in effect turning the Bible into a kind of textual quarry for clerical citations. Nevertheless, the chapter divisions and verse numbers have become indispensable as technical references for Bible study.

Now maybe you understand why they say read in context. The Bible has been written more times and in more languages then anyone can began to understand and things have been misconstrued and left out and added to. If you care to argue further please feel free to email me cause I for one can and will give you answers.

Answer 10

It is invalid! *sm*