Questioning the Bible...?

Question

I consider myself to be a fairly sound Christian. I have my doubts, just like everybody else. But from those doubts come questions that I have worked out what I think are good answers to, and therefore have developed my faith. So I do not need to be told that I need to go pray or need to be saved, or something along those lines. Statements such as that are counterproductive to any valid point and will be immediately discounted.

I am wondering what everybody else thinks of the Bible. I know that many take the word as law, but I just cannot bring myself to. The Bible was written by man, no matter how divinely inspired, it was still written by a human. Thus, since humans are flawed, therefore cannot we reason that so is the Bible?

That you for your (constructive) comments.

Answer 1

You read my mind, bro. However if it is a flawed book it is not going to keep people cowering before it like it does now. The Bible is practical and all around a nice read with some good lessons and wisdom in it. But it has passed through too many power-hungry and primitive hands for it to be taken so literally. I think if there is a God he's probably sitting up there stomping his Birkenstocks yelling, "I NEVER SAID THAT! WHO PUT THAT IN THERE?"

Answer 2

You are progessing well. Keep reading the bible and questioning it, and researching what 'inspired' these 'prophets' to write such nonsense.

With all due respect, christianity was plagurised from many other ancient religions that came before it. I myself continued to question the bible and done much research on the origins of the bible and found that jesus does not exist, never did exist and never will exist.

Jesus is just a representation of the sun (not son of god, no, that is just nonsense)

Religion is a lot like the odds in the lottery... yes, you could win but the odds are stacked against you... You may think you are following the "right" religion, where as in reality, the truth is that all the "gods" you have ever heard of were invented by man kind.

Someone once said that "the height of all ingorance is claiming to know the mind or will of god"

Religion is a total joke and should be condemded back to the stone age from where it came from..

Keep reading that bible with an analytical and open mind, and then i expect you will have shunned these childish myths and become a free thinker and an atheist. "Holy Bible" HA! who says it is holy?? ... oh yes MAN KIND said so. what a crock !

Peace

Jon M above says "But the bible isn't the 1st word God spoke and it isn't the last"
PLEASE TELL ME WHY people think these ancient books are the "word" of god. I really have to question peoples mind set when they think that some supernatural god faxed his instruction book to us.... OUT OF THEIR MIND... even the poster of this question confirmed that he knows MAN wrote this self proclaimed 'holy' book ! Cristians are good for a laugh though ! :-) LOL

Man kind is the author, producer and distributor of all holy books and gods.

Answer 3

The problem is that if you consider the Bible as flawed, you con not really accept anything it says without wondering if that is flawed. Granted, you can say "Yes, god would want that" but any other believer can disagree and say "No God would never say that." You both could claim divine inspiration and that the other was not a "true christian".

Then there is god to consider, if he was to have a book as an all powerful god, he certainly could keep it from having flaws.

From my viewpoint, the Bible has many flaws, contradictions and just plain weird stuff (angels having children, incest, long live spans, donkeys out running angels etc). Not only that, but none of the miraculous events recorded in the Bible have any evidence to show that they happened. This to me says that it is not a trustworty source of information about God.

Answer 4

I agree that the Bible was written by humans - that is plural human beings, some very primitive ones thousands of years ago in another time and place and culture that was nowhere near as advanced as today's time - they were fallible human beings. So, I don't agree with those who call it the first word and last word of God, I know it's incorrect to say the translations and various versions held perfect over all that time, and I don't think all the peoples writings in there were even totally holy - some of them weren't holy at all. I don't agree that everything in the Bible is the law of God, I think that is a great, great error to commit and it should be self evident that even some of it wasn't even the law of mankind but law of certain kings who weren't so holy either. Even, so, God forgives honest and ignorant souls who sincerely try to do his will by believing that about the Bible, until and unless they take the next step to revering it so much they actually worship it instead of the living Loving Heavenly Father who asked that all followers remain teachable the way children are teachable - so that they don't fall to the false practice of concretizing things they find in purported holy books.

Answer 5

Our beliefs are based upon our understanding of the world around us. This is true for the people that wrote the bible or any other ancient scripture. We understand more and more about our world each day, each generation, and each century. Just because someone a long time ago wrote that the world was created in six days doesn't mean that's fact or that they were an idiot---that's just how they understood the world at that time. I don't fault Moses for not knowing about DNA sequencing or cell phones, but I'm not silly enough to say that it doesn't exist simply because Moses didn't know what it was. Back when man thought that the Earth was the center of the universe, people in ancient religions wrote many stories like Angels in chariots coming down out of the skies and picking up people like Elijah--it made sense to them based on how they thought the universe was set up. Just because we know that these things aren't possible based on how the universe is made doesn't make them liars, but equally now that we know more about the universe we can't hold our hands over our eyes and say it's not possible simply because these ancient societies didn't write about them. There's always something more to learn.

Answer 6

The Bible is a wonderful classic piece of literature--used & abused more than any art work known...though, I would like to see all of it's parts & authors, as they were originally written, one day emerge from the Vatican vaults...We only have view of less than 40% of this piece, much of which has been horrendously adulterated...The Gnostic Texts are much more accurately compiled.

Like any artform, the Bible provides a person the opportunity to think...to take what rings their soul chimes, and simply leave the rest. The parts were not written to ignite religious power, however it was compiled & edited for such...very effectively done, you'd have to admit.

Always nice to meet a thinker & a seeker...Good Journey to you!!!

Answer 7

We can - and many do, but I think the reasonsing is false.
What you're proposing is the neo-orthodox view of insipration, the idea that what is recorded is simply infallibles mand attempts at explaining an utterly trascendant - untouchable - God.
Problem with this is that the Bible claims to be more than a witness to Gods word - but rather IS Gods word (2 Tim 3:16-17 for instance). It claims that as God revelaed Himself, people inspired by the Holy Spirit recorded His message (1 Peter 1:20-21). They could do this because God accomodated Himself to their limited understanding. The whole neo-orthodox views fails to provide a really adequate explanantion for all the biblical evidence.
Thats not to say He simply chose human scribes, who wrote only what was dictated. Its pretty clear that there are times when the writers expressed thier own personalities as they wrote (Galatians 1:6 - Phillipians 1:3 for example).
There's also the idea of "limited inspiration" - God inspired the thoughts but not necessarily the words they chose - and so there's room for some error in the historical narritives while the doctrinal portions remain safeguarded.
Problem with this is that the Bible places a lot of emphasis on historical detail - for example, Jesus's words in Matthew 12:41 imply the Book of Jonah was not simply a parable but rather than a real prophet named Jonah preached to the Ninevites. To this point, archeology has resolved many of the supposed inaccuracies. so it seems best to affirm the trustworthiness of the entirity of Scripture and wait for further evidence to clear what confusion remains.
The view of inspiration that makes the most sense to me is that the Holy Spirit interacted with the human authors to produce the Bible. Gods inspiration extends to all of Scripture - He guided the writers no less when they recorded historical details than when they discussed doctrinal matters.
God allowed the writers the freedom to express HIS truths in their words, while guiding the process in such a way that the finished product faithfully reflected His message.
This idea - known as the Plenary (full) Verbal theory of inspiration seems to deal best with the biblical evidence. It allows for the human element in Scripture but affirms that God is the Bibles ultimate Author.
Wow - wound up writing a book (sigh) - no more caffine for me!

Answer 8

That is why it is so important to read and study the Bible along with prayer for understanding and discernment. I believe the Bible literally when it says don't kill other people...but just because it says I can drink poison and handle snakes doesn't mean that it is a good idea...I hate snakes anyway. Compared to other ancient texts, the Bible is much more accurately preserved in its original form...supported by thousands and thousands of partial and complete manuscripts. Many more than any other book from antiquity. So if copy or translation errors are your concern, you should be more concerned with every piece of historical knowledge we have older than maybe 200 years.

I feel that when God works through a human, it works exactly as he planned. So to me divinely inspired means that God gave them the exact words to write, whether they knew he was working through them or not.

Answer 9

it really is about how God made a "superb" creation that changed into corrupted through sin bringing demise and the fall of humanity from a own relationship with their author. Then at the same time as God had shown those who they could no longer be reconciled to Him by way of their own efforts He despatched the Lord Jesus to position down His sinless existence on a flow to make a fashion for sinful humanity to be reconciled to God. After the Lord went again as a lot as Heaven He despatched the Holy Spirit to earth to stay interior those who known their lost condition and their favor for a Savior basically so that they could start up to be switched over on the interior and keep on with Jesus again to God. on the end of the Bible God creates a sparkling Heaven and earth and all of those who've ceased their revolt hostile to their author and recognized Jesus as their Lord and Savior will be with God and there'll be no extra demise or discomfort or sorrow because it changed into on the starting up.

Answer 10

The bible is NOT flawed. Holy men of God wrote the bible with the direction and guidance of God's Holy Spirit. With God's guidance and direction to those holy men, the bible cannot be flawed in no way, shape or form. The bible is God's written word and, because the prophets, apostles, etc. were inspired by the Holy Spirit, there is no way that God could make mistakes with writing His word! If it was flawed, then God Himself wouldn't be perfect, sinless and unchangeable. If humans themselves wrote the bible WITHOUT God's guidance and direction, then it wouldn't be called God's word, but a false doctrine or just another book written by man, and thus, would be flawed.