How is it as a piece of literature?
>>25481179only pretentious faggots read religious texts as literature
>>25481179It has a lot of good moral values. I like to open mine up to a random page and try to relate a chapter to my stage in life. It's very rewarding.
Revelation is kino, Basically the farther you can go with written words.
>>25481179The problem with faithfags is that they only like one book.
>>25481179Depends on the book. I find parts of Ecclesiastes extraordinary beautiful, although I don't think most of it survives translation very well. >>25481255The Bible is not a single book
>>25481179Wonderful. Read Philippians 2 or Ephesians 3 in the King James.
>>25481242>It has a lot of good moral valuesIt has even more evil verses such as pic related
>>25481267I'm not religious, also old testament is very harsh compared to new. You can pick out the good from the bad, anon.
>>25481255And they're also disingenuous and manipulative cunts who are used to have the last word. As their shitty book explains it all and shit >>25481258.
>>25481179Start with the Greeks
>>25481267That's not evil, that was just bronze age reality. Do you think the Iliad is evil too?
>>25481279Why did my post make you seethe? Everything I said is correct.
>>25481351The Iliad isn't meant to be the supposed word of God.
>>25481369Have you never read it? It starts with>Goddess, sing me the anger of Achilles, Peleus’ son
>>25481369No, but the greeks still derived their morality from their second hand stories of the gods and heroes of old, the Iliad being one of the most important of such stories. These stories showed what was morally acceptable and condoned at the time, which wasn't any less barbaric to our modern sense of morality than the worst passages you can find in the abrahamic religions.
>>25481377greek gods weren't arbiters of morality thoughbeit
>>25481267>even more evil verseshow many can you come up with?
>>25481369"The Roman physician Quintus Serenus Sammonicus (d. ca. 210) advised treating fevers with textual amulets, often accompanied by various substances and rituals. One could prevent the return of intermittent fevers such as quartan ague (malaria recurring every seventy-two hours) by placing behind a patient’s head the fourth book of Homer’s *Iliad*, presumably written on a papyrus roll."
>>25481179If we were to remove the three temptations in the desert and ask all the world's philosophers to think of three questions to summarize the human condition, they wouldn't be able to formulate three questions as profound as that brilliant being did.
>>25481179I must confess I read the New Testament as a road trip book
>>25481179Its only value is as a piece of literature –and a pretty mid one at that.
I'll treat this as though it's not a troll thread, so, interesting in a meta sense. There are occasionally two versions of the same narrative bound into the next with very slight differences, which tracks given the original methods of compilation. It also circles back sometimes to give abbreviated versione of earlier histories, such as 2 Chronicles. These are all OT.
>>25481267B-b-b-based???
>>25481568>Its only value is as a piece of literatureObjectively false>and a pretty mid one at that.Subjectively false but also plainly wrong, as whatever pseud slop you pretend do like was undoubtedly inspired by it in some way
>>25481179Sort of like the Greeks but worse.
>>25481519Inviting Jesus to jump is dumb writing since it's not a temptation, it's a dare, or a wager with Satan. He was being offered nothing there.
>>25481267Imagine believing this is a critique of Christianity in the second millennium. No one uses the nefarious Old Testament laws to justify killing babies and women except Israelis and they are rightly international pariahs because holding blindly to such barbarities shows very little good judgement. Nah, no good judgement, I should say. Of course, it puts Christians in an awkward position if they suppose every single word of the Bible, and nothing else, is the “Truth.” Perhaps if Christians could take any modicum of criticism of the foundation of their faith, there would be a lot more harmony between the faith community and broader society but, as it stands, the majority of fundamental Christians refuse to give any ground on textual matters because it’s a Pandora’s box they aren’t prepared to deal with. It takes a far more enormous degree of principle and confidence to live by love alone than to cling to every word of the Bible, and most Christians are not mature enough to do this.
>>25481519I grant that stone/bread as bodily temptation and kingdoms of the world as political temptation are pretty profound, but how is the jumping off the temple in any way deep?
>>25482367greed: the temptation to eatlust: the temptation to ruledelusion: the temptation to fly?
>>25481254>the farther you can go with written words
>>25481389They were, you are just retarded. Zeus was the ruler of the cosmos and his order was law. That's standard divine command, however, some progressive retards like to get into greek myth and pretend that they can salvage it and challange their christian parents because Dionysus looks androgynous sometimes.
>>25481179The Bible is dozens of books written by at least as many people, if not more. It was written over the span of millennia, and encompasses multiple different styles from mythology, parables, didactic stories, poems, records, and yes, narrative stories in the way we'd think of them. As such it's not really fair to call The Bible a singular work of literature. Too more directly answer your question though, Samuel 1& 2 are legitimately dramatic with lots of political intrigue, backstabbing, battles and conquest, all painted on the backdrop of a story about the rise and fall of great men. Lots of genuinely interesting narrative stuff is happening there. Job was another stand out. It's very contemplative, I think it's much better written than many other books with lots of beautiful language. It's also directly trying to confront what is perhaps the biggest criticism of religion, which is "why do bad things happen to good people?" I find it very fascinating that it's the oldest book in the bible, historically speaking. Proverbs was also very good and there are certain proverbs that not only stuck with me, but I quote them to myself all the time and they have honestly helped me to be a better person. Lots of people will praise the Pslams, but personally I found them underwhelming. From there the prophetic books of Isaiah and Jeremiah are are also pretty good in their own right. Lots of interesting imagery and apocalyptic language. I haven't finished the New Testament yet, so I'm going to confine my thoughts to just the old testament.>>25482042>>25482367Jumping off the temple and having God prevent him from dying because of it was Satan temping Jesus to use the power of God to have complete domain over life and death. He was tempting Jesus to use the power of God for his own selfish ends. If anything that was the most profound of the temptations.
>>25483285I'm by no means well read biblically but I have noticed that different translations of the psalms can drastically change their impact. Poetry hardly ever survives translation anyway.
Reminder that Marcion was right
>>25483285>He was tempting Jesus to use the power of God for his own selfish ends. Isn't Jesus supposed to be god in Christianity?
>>25482087What exactly are you talking about? As you yourself said, nobody seriously clings to the barbaric tribal OT passages and pretends they are words to live by. So what part of christian faith do you believe runs contrary to what you call broader society? The only 2 major points of contention in the current day that I can think of are homosexuality and abortion rights. But even here christians have shown that they are by far the most tolerant and mature followers of any of the big faiths in how it handlles disagreements.
>>25483312Jesus = God made man, The Holy Spirt = God as inspiring force, and God = the capital G all encompassing God. Each entity is distinct from itself and even described as essentially having a will of it's own. Each is an aspect of, yet also is the singular Godhead. I may not have described that exactly correctly, but it's what Christianity refers to as The Holy Trinity.
>>25483359Do Christians believe that the god of the old testament is the Christian god?
>>25483374And Christians claim that this isn't polytheism? If Jesus= god then he already has the power of god, can Satan tempt god to sin?
>>25483406Christians would say that it isn't polytheism because each member of The Holy Trinity is just a different aspect of the one God. The classic analogy that's always used is this: Water can exist in the form of steam, ice, or liquid water. That's not describing three different things, it's describing three different states of the same thing. That's how Christians view it. Of course I am not a priest or a theologian, and I'm not going to claim that I fully understand or can even adequately explain one of the great mysteries of Christianity.
>>25483422steam, ice, and liquid water are all equally H2O, if Jesus is as equally god as the Father and the Holy Spirit, my question remains, how can satan tempt god to sin?
>>25481179Because it's words on a piece of paper
>>25481179I went through a Christian phase in 2019 and desu it does feel nice that as far as I know I read the entire Bible every single word in it.
>>25483427Jesus is God made man, complete with all of the potential pitfalls of that like hunger, lust, greed, his own personal wants and desires, etc. This imperfect human nature is specifically what Satan was trying to and fails to tempt. I'm not sure if that answers your question. Again, I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy on 4chan who's read most of the Bible and is trying to understand it myself.
>>25483463>This imperfect human nature is specifically what Satan was trying to and fails to temptDid Satan fail because Jesus' Human nature resisted "tempetation", or did Satan fail because Jesus' divine nature asserted power over his Human nature? Could Jesus' divine nature even allow his Human nature to give into "temptation"? If no, then Jesus resisting "temptation" wasn't much an impressive feat, if yes, then Jesus' divine nature isn't very divine.
Ecclesiasties and Proverbs are fun, and some of the stories are foundational, that's about it
>>25481179>How is it as a piece of literature?Here's a sample."Judges 19:21 And he brought him into his house and mixed fodder for the donkeys, and they washed their feet and ate and drank.22 They were making good cheer when, look, the men of the town, worthless men, drew round the house, pounding on the door, and they said to the old man who was master of the house, saying, “Bring out the man that has come to your house that we may know him.”23 And the man who was master of the house went out to them and said, “No, my brothers, no, pray, do no harm. Seeing that this man has come into my house, do not do this scurrilous thing.24 Here are my virgin daughter and his concubine. Let me, pray, bring them out, and rape them and do to them whatever you want. But to this man do not do this scurrilous act.”25 But the men did not want to listen to him, and the man seized his concubine and brought her out to them. And they knew her and abused her all night long till morning, and they let her go at daybreak.26 And the woman came toward morning and fell at the entrance to the house of the man where her master was as the light was coming up.27 And her master arose in the morning and opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way. And, look, the woman, his concubine, was fallen at the entrance of the house, her hands on the threshold.28 And he said to her, “Get up, and let us go.” And there was no answer. And he took her on his donkey, and the man arose and went to his place.29 And he came into his house and took a cleaver and held his concubine and cut her up limb by limb into twelve pieces, and he sent her through all the territory of Israel".
>>25482367because if God had saved him, He would have taken away from humanity the choice to believe without having proof.
>>25483615>He would have taken away from humanity the choice to believe without having proof.Why does that matter?
>>25483617because Jesus overestimated human beings, He wanted man to want to love Him, rather than being forced to do so on the basis of evidence
The gospels (or at least mathew and john, didn't bother to read all the synoptics) are good. The pentateuch kind of sucks though, you're in the middle of a story and it goes into some tangent about sheolabad or building a tabernacle or the exact population of the israelites. Dunno about the rest
>>25483635>because Jesus overestimated human beingsIsn't Jesus supposed to be omniscient?
>>25483665"Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?"
>>25483431based retard
>>25483723Yes, Jesus seemingly calls out to himself and asks why he forsook himself. Is Jesus supposed to be omniscient or not?
Decent read, but doesn't come off as divine. If it was divine it would inspire a stronger reaction in even the non religious than "minor distraction for 10 minutes in a hotel room".
>>25483359>What exactly are you talking about?The deficient theology to which such an assertion as “the Bible is the infallible word of God” leads.
>>25483740He’s supposed to be human to the same degree that he’s god.
>>25483756So you're saying Jesus' Human nature somehow makes him forget the infinite knowledge of his divine nature?
>>25483745>If it was divine it would inspire a stronger reaction in even the non religious than "minor distraction for 10 minutes in a hotel room".Yeah because it's never done that...Why are atheists so disingenuous?
>>25483768Yes, he emptied himself: kenosis. The miracles he did were by the power of god like the miracles of the prophets, not by his divine nature per se. He did not resume his divine nature till he ascended again to heaven.
>>25483773What i meant was that it would inspire a strong reaction in *all* people. Sirry if that wasn't clear, brah.
>>25483768>>25483778"I was an insect who dreamed he was a man – and loved it – but now the dream is over and the insect is awake." Cronenberg, *The Fly* (1986)
>>25481273>You can pick out the good from the bad, anon.Congrats, you are bringing your own morals to use as a test of what to keep and get rid of, defeating the idea that the book is the source of moral lessons.
>>25481351>That's not evil, that was just bronze age reality.Damn, people are just out and out retarded, huh? Reality is often evil you idiot. Just saying "it was normal at the time" doesn't change the character of evil therein.
>>25483521Thanks, I'm definitely gonna read more. My cock has eagerly arisen in anticipation.
>>25481874>Objectively falseOkay, I guess you can burn it for heat and light, so that is one other value it has
>>25482087The main problem is that Christianity is a foreign pathogen. It has infected the Western world and implanted subversive ethics meant to make the population weak and docile and easily manipulated. We should unironically return to the Greeks.
Personally, some prophets, most wisdom books, the gospels and Revelation are the only good parts. I used to keep a pocket Bible because I wanted to read the whole Old Testament, and I mostly regret it. Leviticus and Numbers are competing for the most boring things I've ever read, the BC equivalent of Excel spreadsheets and legal paperwork
>>25483285>If anything that was the most profound of the temptations.When I thought a bit more about it, yeah, he was inviting Jesus to show off which is intriguing. Adds a wrinkle to their personalities.
>>25484058>defeating the idea that the book is the source of moral lessons.And I never claimed the bible itself is the source. Our moral values comes from real life examples; it stems from how we are brought up. In a way you could argue that the bible is the source, because it is through those religious teachings that my moral values were imprinted during my youth, but as an adult and through my interactions I am able to make a judgement call on what values I consider to be good for me.So TL;DR yes and no.
>>25484072You seem easily manipulated.
>>25484058You’re right, I should use Old Testament laws on the rape of virgins and the murder of babies as my yardstick. I grant that I’m bringing my own judgement to bear, but I don’t agree with your conclusion that the book, the good book, fails to give lessons on morality the moment I scrutinise it.
>>25483422>The classic analogy that's always used is this: Water can exist in the form of steam, ice, or liquid water.https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-not-to-share-the-trinity>Another popular but false analogy is the following: the Trinity is like how water can be ice, liquid, and steam. This again commits the heresy of modalism. I'm starting to believe that rejecting trinitarianism would be much less damaging to Christianity than I once thought, because in practice hardly anyone believes it anyway.Though I myself am partial to the following analogy with an the Arian leaning interpretation:>Another analogy—attributed to Sabellius—that lives on today is that of the sun. The Father is the sun, while the Son and Holy Spirit are the light and heat created by the Father. But this analogy also smacks of modalism, because the star is simply present under different forms.>Or it can be seen to express Arianism, which is the heretical view that the Father is superior to the Son and Holy Spirit by being a different and “higher” divine substance than the latter two. In the sun analogy, the light and heat are passive byproducts of the sun and are not true equals in the way that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share equally and completely in the divine nature.
>>25484620>And I never claimed the bible itself is the source>In a way you could argue that the bible is the sourceYou typed these two sentences back to back. Can a person be less self aware?
>>25484072There is no spiritual value to be found in the greek pantheon, those gods were intentionally designed to be flawed and even cruel and evil at times. (A bit similar to the OT god in fact). A good and spiritually healthy religion needs to have a higher ideal to aspire to for its believers and Christ is the perfection of such an ideal.And if you were talking about greek philosophy, their teachings have been fully absorbed by Christianity a long time ago. The greek philosophers lived on in the christian tradition from St. Paul to Aquinas.
>>25484756Not that guy, but how can anyone genuinely believe that the Bible had nothing to do with shaping western morality? The ten Commandments are literally the pillars of what would become western law and justice and a lot of our values of tolerance and forgiveness stem from the Gospels. No other places on earth practice these values to the extent christian nations do, if they even have these values at all.
>>25484766>Christ is the perfection of such an ideal.The old testament god is an evil demon, it's a false god that is far worse than any of the geek pantheon, and Christians claim that Jesus is the same as the god of the old testament.
>>25484766Christianity has bastardized the original Greek thinkers and stands as an unnecessary middleman. Also, Christ isn't even depicted as perfection: he gets angry, loses faith, advises people to cut off their families, advises against planning for the future in favor of living like a wild bird or flower, and he lied to his followers (that the end times would come before they passed away). Not to mention the whole archetype is constructed on the barbaric idea of a scapegoat, that you can cast your sins on an innocent life and then brutally murder that life and pretend you get washed clean by the spilled blood. This is the very antithesis of moral values, the absolute negation of moral responsibility being on the one who acts. Christianity was a mistake.
>>25484775Read the Greeks. There is more shaping of Western morality in a few lines from Aristotle than the whole of Christianity. Also, the ten commandments are retarded. The only ones worth anything are to be found in literally every society to ever form, and the rest are just "be subservient to god", that is, to the priests. Do you think Western civilization amounted to a bunch of barbarians scarping around in the mud until Christianity came along? It was a usurping ideology which then claimed authorship of the very thing it co-opted and corrupted.
>>25484775>The ten Commandments are literally the pillars of what would become western law and justiceThere's a fun video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz3EEqtcJME
>>25484756Saying "In a way you could argue" is me playing devils advocate. I am not saying that I personally get behind this statement, but I believe that some people do and that they do have a valid point. You can see things from other peoples perspective without necessarily agreeing with them.
>>25484790As I said above, the greek philosophers and especially Aristotle have been fully embraced by the christian tradition already, there is no competition between them whatsoever.
>>25484807I am being categorical. You cannot claim it is the source while also making the personal decision of what parts are worthy of keeping and which need to be ignored. YOU become the source in that case, or rather, you are tapping into some other source external to the book by which you judge what aspects of the book to keep or not. You can't rescue this line of thinking, it is rationally bankrupt.
>>25484814But then you're just getting into the semantics of the word source. If my moral code was defined by my upbringing and that upbringing was in turn defined by the bible, wouldn't that make the bible the primary source in this context, whereas my upbringing would be considered a secondary source?
>>25484784>Not to mention the whole archetype is constructed on the barbaric idea of a scapegoat, that you can cast your sins on an innocent life and then brutally murder that life and pretend you get washed clean by the spilled blood.Are you actually this stupid? Christ's sacrifice is what did away with the tradition of making sacrifices to god because his was the ultimate sacrifice that makes all other sacrifices redundant. He wasn't a scapegoat, people didn't choose him as a sacrifice for their sins, he died for our sins of his own volition.What you are describing, the ritual sacrifice to appease the gods and wash away your sins or to achieve selfish goals is exactly what the heathen religions were doing. Have you actually ever read anything by the greeks other than their philosophers? How can you claim christianity is barbaric and glorify the greeks and at the same time describe one of the most barbaric things about ancient greece and ascribe it to christianity?I guess in a way this completely irrational thought process must make sense to you considering you are most likely a left leaning individual and your kind is also known for blaming the people that ended slavery for slavery. So naturally you'd blame the religion that ended ritual sacrifice for ritual sacrifice.
>>25484813There is no competition because Christianity is at best superfluous (which you seem to admit), but in reality is inferior. Aquinas's ideal situation would be a theocratic state which executed people who consistently disagreed with the church (not that you've ever so much as glanced at his Summa Theologica). Compare that to the example of, say, Socrates and you'll see how much of a corrupting influence Christianity had on the moral direction of the West.
>>25484819If your upbringing was actually sourced by the Bible, you would have no grounds to reject anything in the Bible. Your upbringing was, thus, not sourced by the Bible, but by a different moral standard that supersedes the Bible. Do you struggle with basic logic?
>>25484821>how much of a corrupting influence Christianity had on the moral direction of the West.Really? Do tell, which western christian nations are executing people for disagreeing with the church?
>>25484820Bro is like "my cult of human sacrifice is less barbaric than the people who just killed animals". Christianity calls for every person to endorse a human sacrifice, to partake in the fruits of the murder of an innocent man, even going so far as to cannibalize his flesh and blood. Again, the idea that, through the death of an innocent man, you can be vicariously absolved of your guilt is an abhorrent doctrine and you have to run as far away as you can from actually trying to defend it. Sad.
>>25484823I guess I'm just trying to follow your logic here. Just to break things down to the bare minimum. If someone takes a single moral value from the bible, lets say 'you shall not murder', wouldn't that moral value by your own definition be sourced from the bible? So if I derived that value from my parents, who in turn derived it from the bible, wouldn't the original source still be the bible?
>>25484827Thankfully secularism triumphed over Christianity as the basis for Western governments. We can only hope that soon Christianity will be entirely resigned to the dustbin of history.
>>25484823Everyone who grew up in the west was sourced by the Bible. You seem to think if 100% of the Bible is not morally relevant to this day, then that means the 50, 60 or 70% that are relevant don't exist either which is just stupid. Morality is changing and evolving and you can even see that in the Bible itself. The New Testament overwrites the at times questionable morality of the OT.
>>25484829>Bro is like "my cult of human sacrifice is less barbaric than the people who just killed animals">the people who just killed animals"Okay, so the person telling me to read the greeks did in fact not read the greeks. Got it.
>>25484833No. "You shall not murder" is a basic principle of game theory that related to living in a society with other people. In other words, if you omit it as a basic rule, your society collapses. It far predates the Bible as a foundational rule of getting groups of humans together for mutual benefit. The Code of Hammurabi predates the ten commandments by hundreds of years and clearly condemned murder. Same goes for ancient Egypt. Thus, even if you want to cite an original source, the Bible sourced it from older traditions itself and thus it becomes a middleman.
>>25484835Secularism triumphed because christian morality made it happen in the first place. There was no war between christians and seculars, secular governments evolved out of christian values. >We can only hope that soon Christianity will be entirely resigned to the dustbin of history.Well, we are seeing it happen, but it is replaced by Islam, not by enlightened atheists such as yourself. I wonder how Islamic nations treat apostates these days... Well, I'm sure you thought this through and have nothing to fear.
>>25484843But I am not arguing for the bible being the primary source of all moral values. What I am arguing for is the Bible being a repository from where one can derive moral values.My parents weren't particularly learned so for them the main repository for moral values was the bible, so that was their main written source. Of course you also have the societal idea of morality but that is not what I've been arguing for or against.
>>25484837Wrong. The Bible is not the source of morality, because even the morality it contains was poached from other traditions, as I outlined in another post. The Bible is a mishmash of largely nonsense, and in so far as anything is redeemable from it is pure chance for having so many things thrown against the wall. You have to come along afterwards and draw bullseyes around things to try and make the Bible a worthwhile document. The important thing to note is that the reasoning for why you should accept a thing as moral is all wrong in the Bible. It asserts you should obey commandments from God, when in reality, you already admit to considering the commandments and judging them for yourself rather than just blind obedience. This means you reject the fundamental mode of morality that is presented by the Bible. Sorry, your whole case falls apart on even the most cursory examination.
>>25484853>What I am arguing for is the Bible being a repository from where one can derive moral values.But it's not a repository because you already admit that you have to sort out the good from the bad, which destroys the foundational ethic of the Bible. As I mentioned to the other anon, this means you reject the fundamental mode of morality being advanced by the Bible, obedience to God, in favor of judging his commandments for yourself and choosing which ones make sense to you or not. You can't use the tools of secularism which directly oppose theology and then claim you get your morals from theology. You've already made your choice when you pick and choose, and you've made that choice because theology is patently absurd and secular moral reasoning is manifestly superior.
>>25484843Almost all cultures have some form of "you shall not murder" rule, but they all have a different "...unless" in small print. The christian "..unless" is in fact unique to christianity. For instance a lot of pre-christian cultures including the Israelites of the OT believed that blood vengeance was a fully justified exception. Or Apostacy. Or even something as nowadays mundane as adultery. Christianity is fairly unique in condemning exceptions like these thanks to Christ's teachings.
>>25484857>But it's not a repositoryAnon you're just arguing semantics at this point. Fine you win, you are 100% right.
OT bronze age>people living at yoda lifespans>god is literally speaking to schizos giving them black magic powers>moses doing jedi force push is fine>pharoah and moses turning sticks into snakes playing yugioh is fine, world is dragon quest irlNT a thousand years later probably whatever>humans are no longer living to yoda lifespans please understand>god decided to stop speaking to schizos>some guy does heal magic necromancy manifestation magic levitation>THIS GUY IS A LITERAL WITCH DOCTOR ROOOOOMAAAANS CRUCIFY HIMwhat happened between bronze age and ancient italians that caused this?
>500 years after jesusso uh yeah god spoke to me, his name is "allah". Yeah and uh this text is the new reality file update call it "islam". No you can't eat pork please understand. Yes instead of praying on a wood bench you pray on a rug. If you blow yourself up you get laid in heaven. Some guy has to yell on a loudspeaker 5 times a day.>1300 years laterYeah I had this vision, you see uh, jesus was in the new world. Teleporting all over the planet, magic underwear. NT expansion pack. Jesus said it was ok to run a polygamous harem ok.>200 years laterNo jesus was not god in the flesh, the NT is not reality guide official handbook material, only first 5 books in OT, and only the hebrew copy. Yes hashem will come back 2 more weeks. The ethnostate was promised to us 3000 years ago.Why does the troll in the ether do this?
>>25483615>because if God had saved him, He would have taken away from humanity the choice to believe without having proof.Lots of people did see proof of Jesus's divinity though. How is him casting out demons, miraculously curing the sick, multiplying a small amount of food to feed an impossibly large crowd and bringing the dead back to life so different to those who witnessed it?
I find the book of Ecclesiastes (Qohelet) a very good read, you can read it in a single sitting and it's very insightful.Jut my opinion, I'm not formally educated in literature or theology.
>>25484820>Christ's sacrifice is what did away with the tradition of making sacrifices to god because his was the ultimate sacrifice that makes all other sacrifices redundant.this is just not true. early christians were still cutting off their foreskins as a sacrifice to god, and the only reason they stopped forcing it is because saul realised goyim wouldn't convert to his religion because of this forced sacrifice.>>25484827there are no current christian nations (and no, the usa isn't a christian nation), but when there were, they were all killing non-christians all the time.
>>25481179The Mark gospel (without the fake ending) is a genuinely well written story that I would recommend as literature even to atheists. Matthew and Luke are pretty transparent rewrites of Mark for ideological purposes. They aren't that fun to read.John has some interesting philosophical ideas, but his prose isn't the greatest. The letters are just for people with too much time. The Book of Revelation are insane ramblings of someone on drugs I suppose. There is some novelty in that. It's a bit concerning that Christians take it as gospel.The old testament has pretty cool stories that are usually hard to read though. There's a reason why there are so many movie adaptions. A lot of it is just ancient rulers justifying their questionable decisions by saying God told them to do it. And I don't think anyone enjoys genealogy lists.The Psalms are great.The old Testament makes a lot more sense when you look up the historical landscape at the time and the other gods and pantheons in the region.
>>25485541(quoting myself)currently reading it after posting about it triggered me to do so. It's a very nice story
>>25484859Except the biggest name in Christian theology, Thomas Aquinas, who absolutely did want the state to execute apostates who were too vocal. But yeah, Christianity is totally unique, keep telling yourself that.
>>25484860Do you actually understand the point though? If you say "my moral source is the Bible" and then say "But I also pick and choose which parts of the Bible I take as the source", you are categorically asserting there is some OTHER standard by which the parts of the Bible are measured against in order to toss some bits and keep others. The true source supersedes the Bible and only accepts the parts that agree with that other standard. Again, if you can't comprehend this, I can't help you.
>>25481255For me? The Talmud. We're just innocent men.
>>25481179Do I need to read this to properly understand European literature / philosophy? Which version should I read if so?
>>25481179This is the coolest Fantesy novel of all times!
>>25486754>Do I need to read this to properly understand European literature / philosophy?Yeah kinda. You should start with the New Testament though. The NIV is probably the easiest to just read, if you want to understand what the text actually says. It has pretty good annotations too and doesn't unnecessarily translate Greek nouns that should not be translated like Hades. It also points out quotes from the Old Testament more consistently than other popular versions. It strikes a good balance between readability and accuracy in my opinion.The KJV is generally considered to be the most poetic version. But it's also easy to misunderstand what verses actually say, because of the old timey English. It's also out of date in regards to biblical study.The ESV is a very literal and accurate translation. It's good for serious biblical study, but it won't be very fun to read casually. There are some study bibles that use this translation with really great annotations like the one from Crossway Bibles.
>>25486766Clearly there is some historical part in it.
>>25486769The ESV was made entirely by evangelicals, however. For a contrary opinion on it, Eastern Orthodox philosopher David Bentley Hart has said:"In the end even the most conscientious translations tend, at certain crucial junctures, to use language determined as much by theological and dogmatic tradition as by the “plain” meaning of the words on the page. And in some extreme cases doctrinal or theological or moral ideologies drive translators to distort the text to a discreditable degree. Certain popular translations, like The New International Version and The English Standard Version, are notorious examples of this. These may represent the honest zeal of devout translators to communicate what they imagine to be the “correct” theology of scripture, but the preposterous liberties taken to accomplish this end often verge on a kind of pious fraudulence."
>>25486803I think there is an ESV-CE (Catholic Edition). But yeah you are not wrong in principle. I think the editors of the ESV tried to be as accurate as possible, but inherent biases are a thing.In the end the most accurate way to study the texts would be to learn Koine Greek and study the original manuscripts instead of relying on other people's translations. If you want to be a serious scholar of the texts, then that would be the way to go.
Having read this thread, it seems I'll be the best qualified to answer the question, since I've read the Bible several times and studied all of it to various levels of depth. If you treat the Bible with the respect it deserves, it is indeed a very rewarding and deep piece of literature. Yes, even the boring parts. The way to miss its value is to break it into pieces and read it as a collection of stories. Even the majority of scholars do this. Or another way is to read it as some encoded book of abstract theology. Both these approaches are distractions. Each separate passage and book of the Bible, though of course each has meaning on its own or it wouldn't have meaning at all, is included in the Bible because it is a part of the story, the message of the Bible as a whole. There is a time dimension to the world of the Bible. It begins in creation and aims toward a certain destiny. It takes place in the tension of the present. On the one hand, God is omnipotent and has staked his word on his intent to bless and to bring about justice and righteousness on earth. On the other, there are the seemingly insurmountable obstacles to this goal. As you read the Bible, you learn about the nature of these obstacles and God's solutions to them. The Old Testament raises the questions and gestures toward the answers. The New Testament reinforces both and presents Jesus as the unifying answer. If you can keep the big picture in view, you will be able to understand the pieces.
>>25486112Thomas Aquinas does not supercede Jesus Christ in Christian theology, and Jesus Christ did in fact not want to kill apostates. Which is why Christians, unlike many other religions, do not kill apostates, because they follow the teachings of Christ, not the teachings of Thomas Aquinas.
>>25486821>If you treat the Bible with the respect it deservesThe Bible doesn't deserve respect.
>>25485658I find it very interesting that people like you don't seem to see the connection between the christian era of enlightenment and the rise of secular (yet culturally christian) nations. Are you really unable to make the connection that one gave birth to the other and that the latter could never have existed without the former?Destroying or eroding that christian cultural core will likely only lead to 1 of 2 outcomes in the long term. The rise of a more aggressive and uncompromising religion taking its place that will completely get rid of secular governments and lead to theocratic authoritarnianism. Or the secular government itself will be forced to become more authoritarian in order to protect itself from being replaced by a new theocracy or other ideological threats. These 2 forms of government are literally the standard all over the non-western world. You can maybe name a couple of exceptions, some prosperous, westernized and very homogenous asian country here and there, but by and large, the exceptions prove the rule.
>>25486825Did Jesus Christ want to murder the Amalekite children?
>>25486859A secular government that banned all the Abrahamic cults, and also banned all genital mutilation, would be ideal. I do not believe in freedom of religion, the Abrahamic cults and genital mutilation should never have existed, a benevolent dictatorship is better than a corrupt democracy.
>>25486860No he did not. The OT is full of old and ancient legends of israelite warlords and their early tribal lighting god that would later be merged with the omnipotent god of the abrahamic religions. Christians who view the OT as the unquestionable word of god are 1, A tiny minority these days and 2, historically and philologically illiterate. The entire Bible is a compilation of stories and legends and the god of the OT is a direct representation of a tribalist bronze age society whose main concern was survival and war.I don't judge the brutality of the OT any differently than I'd judge the brutality of the ancient Greeks and what they did to the Troyans. You aren't going to get me with some stupid gotcha, you will have to engage with my actual argument if you want to prove me wrong.
>>25486859>>25486868Philosophically Christianity is more Greek than Jewish.The whole concept of the Christian God is lifted from stoicism and platonism.Pointing to the Old Testament in order to discredit Christianity is a little silly, since Christians ignore most of it anyway. Yes, I know Jesus said the OT is all valid, but Christians didn't care for thousands of years when they built their religion.
>>25486870>Christians who view the OT as the unquestionable word of god are 1, A tiny minority these days and 2, historically and philologically illiterate.
>>25486825Jesus taught to sell all your belongings and give the money to the poor. Jesus taught to take no thought for the morrow, to disregard the building of barns in favor of living like a free bird or a wild flower. Christians absolutely do NOT follow the teachings of Christ at all.
>>25486880Christians as a collective literally give more to charity than any other group in the world. Also you are taking it out of context. If Christ asked a man 2000 years ago to sell their home and follow him, that didn't mean he wanted everyone on earth to live like a hobo hippie.
>>25486884Read Mark 10:17-31>Christians as a collective literally give more to charity than any other group in the worldIt's not about collecting good deeds, it's about the state of your soul.
>>25481179pretty cool. Epistle to Colossians and Hebrews are both really cool to read
>>25486884>Also you are taking it out of context.lol, the line everyone uses when they just don't want to follow Christ's teaching.
>>25487687This. Self-proclaimed Christians pick and choose which verses to follow or reinterpret them to justify doing things that obviously oppose the teachings
>>25482042Because Jesus knows the pain that is to come and knows he can commit suicide and avoid that and go straight to paradise. Instead he stays to eventually be tortured and die for our sins. So it's not dumb. You are
>>25486884The quote can’t be any more generic. Prots do not have a good answer to these sayings, another win for Catholicism. If you want to give everything away for Christ’s sake, the Catholic Church’s holy orders will actually help you do that. Prots just can’t compete.
>>25486825>No one can supersede Jesus Christ>>25486884>Except of course me when I decide what requires context and what are real teachingskek
No one with any actual brains ever took it seriously as anything but a book of jewish fables. Unfortunately, that only describes 0.1% of humanity. 99.9% of you are mindless apes.
>>25481179because its factual history alongside conan about BC era>sourceI am correct you need to believe
>>25488444>Posts a smart guy saying some of it is brilliantFail
I am reading the KJV and I’ve read up to 1 Samuel. Where is the godly prose that I’ve heard so much about? There’re nuggets of it in the Pentateuch and Judges but nothing mind-blowing. Also Joshua is a damn bore.
>>25488714Have you tried Ezekiel 23:20?
>>25488628>ignores the smart guy saying most of it is dunghillsNGMI (to heaven)
>>25488859I haven’t unfortunately. I intend to read the books mostly in order, at least for the narrative books. On that note, when should I begin the wisdom books? I heard that these are where most of the literary value is concentrated, and from whatever snippets of them that I’ve gleaned (Ecclesiastes mostly) I’m inclined to agree
>>25488953>On that note, when should I begin the wisdom books?There is no good reason to delay, my son: get wisdom; get understanding!
>>25486859I came to a similar conclusion a while ago. If you consider birth rates alongside the heritability of religion and political alignment, what you're saying is evidently true. We're already seeing the beginning of it with the fact that (a) the growth of atheism has plateaued and (b) countries like the US are seeing the return of very conservative Christian nationalist politics after a period of dormancy. All the smug mockery from people who resent Christianity for whatever reason will mean very little when those people, or the groups to whom they belong, utterly fail to propagate themselves genetically.
>>25489188>>25489188 #>heritability of religionThere is no such thing as "heritability of religion", genetics have no influence on religious beliefs. Religions are not heritable. Religious beliefs are not heritable.Imagine bragging that your cult almost always only propagates itself by the indoctrination of children.
>>25481179It's trash jew shit written with the sole purpose of subverting Europeans.
>>25489343The hebrews and modern jews arent the same group, the old hebrews were white too because it was before the arab expansion in the middle ages
>>25489343Thanks rabbi Aiden Steele
>>25489350>if you don't worship jews you're actually a jewMind broken>>25489347>the old hebrews who rejected jesus, raped babies, venerated deceipt, obsessed over amputing foreskins and viewed themselves as a divinely chosen people are totally different to the modern jews who reject jesus, rape babies, venerate deceipt, obsess over amputating foreskins and view themselves as a divinely chosen peopleMind broken
>>25485228>so uh yeah god spoke to me, his name is "allah"To be fair, Christians were the one that started this. If God can pull a rug pull on us and suddenly declare that he's literally three dudes in one when there's no indication of that at all in the Hebrew Bible, what is stopping him from doing it again?
>>25488714some of the early church fathers like jerome actually really struggled with the idea that the bible was kind of a boring read, they had a crises over the fact that they were enjoying pagan texts more
>>25489343Please do explain
>>25489188>countries like the US are seeing the return of very conservative Christian nationalist politicsL O L
>>25483092Anon's English is about on par with John's Greek.
>>25489343It’s heartwarming to see the propaganda work on someone.
>>25481267>b-but muh slave morality?!? Unironically giga based.
>>25481267>wars by the way are .. le brutalmyap thanks for reminding me anon very informative noted
>>25482367It is the temptation of religious fanaticism.
>>25486117Nta but the moral barometer is Christ. If your contention is that the Bible has conflicting moral ideals that one as a Christian has to parse out through it depends on what you mean. For one thing, it’s pretty well established in Orthodox Christianity that Christ brought the new covenant, so any gripe you have with the OT is null and void. If you just say that it still conflicts because the OT is part of the same bible the NT is then you really are getting into semantics. You’re not really arbitrarily determining what is moral or not but rather what Christ laid out.
>>25489343Can you explain A to Z how jews at the time got together and built a thousand year long game plan to subvert the entire West? I’m not being sarcastic and am genuinely curious to see how this works as an antisemite.
>>25484072It is *good* that people are more empathetic in the West and this is thanks to Christianity. The lack of empathy in antiquity was the reason, why the "pathogen" Christianity grew in popularity. Ask yourself, do you want to live in Roman antiquity, where you'd be enslaved, if you are poor? Where'd you be sadistically executed in the circus, if found guilty of a crime? Christianity is cast away too flippantly. People are not aware of the consequences of it.
>>25486880>pluck out your eye if it tempts you to sinThat is what he said in the Sermon of the Mount. Remember? Is it meant literally? Perhaps it is. Some did believe it. However, it might have been meant hyperbolically, too. Howsoever it is meant, it is ambiguous. That is evident. And I believe it is ambiguous on purpose.
>>25490424Okay, so you plan on selling all your possessions and giving the money to the poor right? Jesus says to do that if you want to be perfect, and the only way you refuse to do that is that you use some other metric to say "yeah, Jesus taught to do that, but he didn't mean me, I can serve two masters and cling to my material possessions while still claiming to follow Jesus." That is to say, you don't use Christ as your barometer, because there are things he taught that you reject because you don't want to follow them. You've chosen a different standard to live by. We're right back to you being the arbiter and judge of what to accept of his that aligns with the standard you've selected and which parts of his teaching you reject, but that categorically means Christ isn't your moral source, you have something that supersedes him that you test his teachings against and reject them if they fail that test.
>>25490436Greeks highly prized treating strangers kindly and their code of how to treat guests was paramount. Literally anything good in Christianity was just stolen from the Greeks, so we might as well skip the Christian bastardization and go right to the real source.
>>25484072Christianity has been in Europe longer than Europeans have been in the Americas.
>>25489296Some of your statements aren't quite right, but I will admit I misspoke in regards to religion, as my intended meaning was that most religious people have religious children and the rate of disaffiliation has slowed/leveled off.https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off/Given that >80% of children raised in Christian families remain Christian and that Christians are one of the only groups of people with a birth rate above replacement, their future outlook is very good.https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/religion-fertility-and-child-rearing/The same can't be said for atheists:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism>According to global Win-Gallup International studies, 13% of respondents were "convinced atheists" in 2012,[20] 11% were "convinced atheists" in 2015,[21] and in 2017, 9% were "convinced atheists".[22] Some global studies have indicated that global atheism may be in decline due to irreligious countries having the lowest birth rates in the world and religious countries having higher birth rates in general.[23][24][1]Atheism is simply not a very good long term strategy from a biological point of view.Now consider that there is such a thing as political heritability:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genopolitics>In that year, the American Political Science Review published a reanalysis of political questions on Martin's social attitude survey of twins in that the suggested liberal and conservative ideology is heritable.[5] >A more recent analysis of multiple twin studies finds that political views are approximately 40 percent heritable.[12]Now consider that Christianity is frequently associated with conservatism and that the more conservative denominations have more children, pic related.So all this griping and mockery of Christianity is really the death bellows of a faction of losers who cannot propagate themselves and can only attempt to drag down others with them. Liberalism, leftism, and atheism are self-eradicating. All Christians have to do is maintain their course
>>25491404Cope
>>25489505stop worshipping the demon whispers and find a way to destroy its entire fake light world. Escaping this "gods" matrix.
I always get filtered by Exodus. Just endless descriptions of the Tabernacle.
>>25481179GO(O)D.
>>25484072>Taking which part of the world you live in from European mapmakers, signing yourself off to the left side, and calling yourself Western while you, and the rest, could've been in the middle of it all, as you perceive it, and agree on that factYou should've taken a hint from the Russians and the Chinese, and any mapmaking culture. Or just look in an atlas.
>>25481519Close enough. Welcome back Dostoyevsky.
>>25491342They also valued war and tribalism which are quite opposed to the teachings of ChristIn other words, Christianity superseded the half savage Pagans because humanity was ready to move on morally
>>25491819I never made it through genesis
>>25491342Hospitality was huge in the ancient world and this isn't unique to the Greeks. It was also true of the ancient Hebrews. In fact the primary reason essentially given for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was their excessive sin, but this manifested in a direct example from the Bible as their complete lack of hospitality. Rather than be kind to someone who wandered into their town a crowd gathered outside the house they were in and demanded access to the newcomers so that they could gang rape them (yes, really). The one person who showed the guests hospitality was spared God's wrath. This happens again in more or less the same format in Judges.
>>25491988>>25491819Unironically start with the new testament and then work your way backwards.
>>25491974Right, and Jesus would never say something like " 34Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to turn‘a man against his father,a daughter against her mother,a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.36A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’i37Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; 38and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."Yep, no tribalism here at all! Definitely not verbatim choosing war over peace. Thanks Jesus!
>>25491974>>25492378Christians are such lolcows. Christian: "Jesus came to bring peace to the world!" What Jesus actually said: "Do not think I have come to bring peace". Unbearably comical.
>>25492258>Unironically start with the new testament and then work your way backwards.terrible terrible idea for many reasons, mainly because you're almost guaranteed to misinterpret the entire message
>>25481387The Iliad is not didactic. You're projecting a much later view of literature onto the past.
>>25492378>>25492392>not understanding how this is literally the most radically anti-tribal message ever deliveredYikes
>>25491342Did you read my post? How can read slavery and circus games and your takeaway is "yea, but hospitality, mhm". Are you stupid?
>>25492430He's right. You're wrong. Yes, the Iliad was not intended to be didactic, correct. But the point that he's making is that it was transmitting the values of the Greeks from generation to the next, even if it was not meant to be taught in a school. And it is representing the morals of the Greeks at the time.
>>25492443>If your own family doesn't agree to join the tribe, take up the sword against them and view them as your enemy>This is anti-tribal somehow????
>>25492548Majority Christian societies maintained slavery for around 1,500 years you absolute troglodyte. What is your point here?
>>25493311Not sure you are properly exegeting thatMatthew 10:34[34]Do not think that I have come to send peace upon the earth: I have not come to send peace, but a sword.
>>25493360Sword is a metaphor for penis
>>25493360In that same passage he literally said a man's enemies will be the members of his own household, that he would set a man against his father. Are swords not meant to be used against one's enemies? Are you perhaps desperately trying to cope?
>>25493367Could be a metaphor for division, it doesn't make sense to interpret it as Jesus telling people to go out swordin peopleRemember that we should never interpret a passage individually but compare to the whole to find the most likely meaning2 Peter 1:20[20]knowing this first, that the scope of no prophecy of scripture is had from its own particular interpretation,For instance Matthew 26:52[52]Then saith Jesus to him, Return thy sword to its place; for all who take the sword shall perish by the sword.Doubt Jesus wanted us to go and chop up our familyI'm not a Theologian though
>>25493375>Are you perhaps desperately trying to cope?See my post here >>25493377If you're serious you may find it worthy of consideration
>"Why did I turn your wife into salt, you ask?">"Because she looked back at Sodom's smouldering ruin, that's why!"
>>25493611Any married man envies the guy in the story, while incels rage.
>>25493375It's like how in Luke's gospel, Simeon says to Mary, "a sword shall pierce your heart," and she was literally run through by a sword later in the book. We're not stupid. We know what a sword is. These books are crazy violent and Christians just paper over it to cover up their plans to violently subjugate non-crazy people to their religion.
>>25493315They would not have abolished it, you idiot. Level 0 atheist.
>>25493611>I do not believe in it>but I treat is as if it were true
>>25493311Is your reading comprehension really that bad or are you baiting?
>>25481389>goalpost moving>is wrong againLmao
>>25492430The iliad was epic poetry transmitted orally until Homer wrote it down. It absolutely had a strong religious significance among Myceneans and other Greeks. You are completely uneducated on the subject.
>>25484072Christianity is European you doltGod the Father = Dyeus Pht2rGod the Son = Sol Invictus (Seh2ul) also the Eye of the Sky in many old cultures, Celtic among them
>>25493377>>25493380Pure unadulterated cope. It's such thin cope you can't even muster up an alternative interpretation to this passage: "I do not come to bring peace but a sword" and "I have come to turn a man against his father ... A man's enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me."There also another passage in Luke where he tells his followers to go and sell their cloaks for swords.That is division. That is the most extreme division it is possible to sow. He is literally saying he has come to break apart families and orders his followers to value HIM and his message above their own immediate family members. You have fallen under the sway of a two thousand year old cult. Wake up.
>>25494207Why does it cling to YHWH, an ancient desert deity from the middle east? Why does it insist on holding on to the Jewish scriptures? You're just wrong, it's a vessel for a foreign malignant mind virus.
>>25494207>God the Father = Dyeus Pht2rWas really fucking unimportant"The Greek Zeus is king of the gods and the supreme power in the world, his influence extending everywhere and into most spheres of life. There is little reason, however, to think that the Indo-European Dyeus had any such importance. He was the Sky or Day conceived as a divine entity. He was the father of the gods (see below), but not their ruler. In the world of the Rigveda Dyaus has no prominence. Not one of the 1028 hymns in the corpus is addressed to him alone, though six are addressed to him and Earth as a pair. He has no mythical deeds to his credit. He can do what the sky does: he roars and thunders (RV 5.58.6; 10.44.8, 45.4, 67.5); the rain is his seed (1.100.3; 5.17.3). But he is not even the major storm-god. That is Indra."West M.L. - Indo-European Poetry and Myth (2007)
>>25494073Abolition happened because slave owners realized they could make more profit having a surplus labor force that they could hire temporarily and then lay off when not needed, thus representing zero capital investment. The abolition had nothing to do with morality and there was a huge push, based on Christian scripture, to keep slavery.
>>25494179Are you going to explain yourself or remain as vague as possible because you don't have a leg to stand on?
>>25494220>simping for boomer geezers that eagerly can you turn down the volume of those sucking noises
>>25494231>kvetching commencesAnd the Sun was also unimportant? What about the pneuma/anima? You're really out of your depth moishe
>>25494223>Jewish scriptures?The LXX and NT were both written in Koine Greek :-)You're welcome
>>25494232>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism_in_the_United_States#The_Constitution_and_ending_slavery>The religious component of American abolitionism was great. Flip yourself, you level 0 atheist. >but muh material dialectics People do not only do things for money or the immediate conditions of their lives.
>>25494232Slavers only appealed to the bible, because the movement for the abolishment of slavery was grounded on it. Not because the book is demanding it. You've never read it, clearly.
>>25494269Slavers appealed to the Bible because at basically every level it endorses slavery. Even the Exodus, the great freeing of the slaves ends with... those freed slaves being told by God that they can now take slaves for themselves from the surrounding peoples. Jesus verbatim commands slaves to obey their masters as they would obey God.
>>25481179A lot of the new testament is poison. Avoid all of Paul's letters and Revelation. Acts is entertaining. Mark is pretty weak. Matthew and Luke are great. John is the greatest piece of writing in human history.As for the Old Testament, Genesis is great mythology. Job is incredible when you cut out the add on intro and outro and stick to the original text. Ecclesiastes is very profound. Exodus is interesting. Many (not all) of the Psalms are beautiful. Daniel and Jonah are great narratives. 1st and 2nd Samuel are cool stories. All the stuff to do with Elijah in 1st Kings is good. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel have some cool passages. I like Lamentations as wellEverything else is forgettable.Now if you want to talk apocryphal books then there's loads of fantastic stuff there as well. Highlights being>Book of Enoch>Protoevangelium of James>Infancy Gospel of Thomas>Gospel of Nicodemus>Gospel of Mary Magdalene>Gospel of ThomasAll worth checking out, especially the last two
>>25494304>Avoid all of Paul's lettersSwedenborgian detected.
>>25494309I don't even know who that is
>>25494237It should be obvious Jesus was speaking metaphorically as he clearly didn't have a literal sword that he then used to kill people. His sword is his intent to seperate humanity from their tribal bonds and material attachments, including those of the family. If you prioritize the values of your own family, which often operates as a miniature cult, over those of God as elucidated by the teachings of Jesus, you will be unfit for the kingdom of heaven.
>>25494301No, they did not. You're only ignorant on who Christ was and what he has represented. Try to argue for slavery from the teachings of the Sermon of the Mount. You know THE comprehensive guide to Christian morality in Matthew 5 to 7. Very likely what Christ had historically taught and lived by? You know THAT? Instead of mentions of slavery in the OT in the context of stories, the historicity of which you yourself are going to question in another thread. Or advice from the authors of the letters that was rooted in the pragmatism to navigate a world of evil. Why are so many atheists so disingenuous.
>>25494220bot post
>>25494304>Avoid all of Paul's lettersPaul is somewhat better reading if you remove the definitely forged letters (which I would count as 1&2 Timothy, Titus, and 2 Thessalonians), the definite interpolations (keeping in mind that there could be more than what are agreed upon, especially if Marcion was less dishonest than he was accused of being), if you use a translation that isn't heavily influenced by the muck of protestant interpretation, and perhaps if you read the letters in the chonological or marcionite order instead of in the orthodox order. See https://southerncrossreview.org/117/hart-paul.html
>>25494304Why do normies without fail select Job and John as their favorites?
>>25494454John because they've been brainwashed by trinitarian doctrine and tradition to be obsessed with misinterpreting John 1:1 and such
>>25494454Job is concerned with the problem of suffering, and, although it's mostly treated as secondary in Abrahamic religions, it's significant enough to people that there's an entire religion that begins and ends with on that topic alone — Buddhism.And compared to the other gospels, John has an especially impressive opening, ending, and several great one liners like "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" and the shortest verse ever, "Jesus wept." So if your familiarity with it is mainly secondhand or superficial, that easily makes it outshine the others, even though it does have its issues like Jesus being weirdly repetitive in places, Jesus coming across as a grandiose schizo with no social skills in places (though arguably that's intended, if he's trying to provoke people into killing him) and the story being widely thought by scholars to be out of order, like the pages got shuffled or something.
>>25494304>Mark is pretty weak>Matthew and Luke are great. >John is the greatest piece of writing in human historyGot it completely backwards.Shitting on the original.Praising the fanfics and glazing the cause of all of Christianity's theological problems
>>25494320So, again, if your family disagrees with your new cult, you should cut them off. That is tribalism, anon, to an extreme degree. It's your cult (tribe) against the non-members.
>>25494324You sure are desperate to ignore Jesus verbatim commanding slaves to obey their masters. What could Jesus possibly have meant by that? Oh, I know, that slavery is bad! Talk about disingenuous.
>>25481179A collection of jewish stories that have had the White in chains for 2k years.
>>25494852If your family disagrees with your Christian principles, you continue to follow those principles anyways. Instead of prioritizing the internal rules of your family. It's pretty straightforward. If you see that as evil that's fine, but I think you have to continue presenting disingenuous copes and intentional misinterpretations to maintain that view.
>>25494853drop the verse
>>25481179It’s the Silmarillion if it was writen by Brando Sando
>>25494894Luke 17:7-10. Jesus literally tells servants to shut up, obey, and not even to expect thanks. This sentiment is echoed by Paul in Ephesians 6:5 when he says "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." It is a core teaching of Christianity that slaves should obey subserviently and not get uppity. You deserve to be a slave, you should do your duty, you should shut up and be grateful. Overtly slave morality on full display since this is cast as virtuous, rather than the quintessentially human cry for liberty and freedom being a foundational principle. A huge subversion of Scriptural Christianity has to take place in order to abolish slavery, which is a good thing since Christian Scripture is abhorrently immoral.
>>25494874You really want to soft pedal this, don't you? It's not just "continuing to follow those principles", Jesus commands you to view your family as ENEMIES if they reject Christ. HE IS BRINGING A SWORD. This wishy-washy hippy nonsense about live and let live is a modern papering over of what Jesus actually taught. Jesus was an extreme radical. Notice every reply you make has to contradict and downplay the direct word of Jesus in order to assert your own moral thinking over and above Jesus? That's a hint that the morality of Jesus and Christianity is an outdated and immoral doctrine.
>>25494862Catholics instantiated it as a direct dogma. The largest denomination of Christians overtly assert that he was a Jew. The coping and seething over this is, dare I say, of Biblical proportions.
>>25495560>Jesus commands you to view your family as ENEMIES if they reject Christ.Nope, that's literally not in the verse and is the direct opposite of his teachings. You're making stuff up to support your dogma.>HE IS BRINGING A SWORDYeah I liked the part in the Gospel where he unsheathed his sword and began to violently defend himself Pagan style.Here's what he says right before the quote you latch onto as a desperate gotcha attempt just because it has the word sword in it:Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 22 You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23 When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.I'm sure you'll find a way to twist the words of this straightforward verse as well, though I'm hopeful that you'll have the dignity to not do so.
>>25493377I regret having spent my energy making this post, it's wasted on the morons
>>25495555Luke 17:7-10 is not an endorsement of slavery, at all. "Slaves" in the form of servants are always going to exist. Are you aware of the concept of "employment" or, God forbid, "charity"? Moreover, it is referencing the service of yourself to somebody else. It is not a call to *subjugate* and have somebody else serve you. These are meaningfully distinct.Ephesians might not even be authentically from Paul, to begin with. And, again, this is clearly pragmatism to navigate a world, in which slavery exists. It is not a command to maintain it. I am genuinely curious. What do you morally demand from the author? That he not mention slavery, at all? That he absurdly act, as if slavery did not exist? To have him act, as if he had the power to abolish it? Doom the slaves to punishment and death in a revolt? The author was from a time, when slavery was ubiquitous and had always existed. He was being diplomatic between them. Let's be charitable. And, by the way, the slavers are commanded to be obedient to their duties, respect the humanity of the slaves and not threaten them in Ephesians 6:9. >appeal to Friedrich Nietzsche>appeal to moralityWhat do you want to argue, level 0 atheist? Whatever argument you're trying to go for it is tedious and trite, because you've read neither the bible nor Nietzsche. Why are you even on /lit/, if you do not read?
>>25494220It's a metaphor. Some people will choose to follow Christ and some won't. That will sow inherent division between families, friends, associates, co-workers, etc. It's not Jesus declaring war on those who don't believe, it's him stating the obvious fact that not everyone is going to like you for choosing Christ. If you read the Gospel and take these quotes in context, that's obvious.Also lmao, you included a quote form the Marquies De Sade? Is that supposed to be a joke? Yes, what a great figure to use as your spiritual and moral compass lol.
>>25481387>These stories showed what was morally acceptable and condoned at the timeQuite the opposite.
>>25494301Slavery in the OT was very different from slavery as we would conceive of it today. While there would have been some people enslaved in conquest and warfare, the majority of "slaves" were closer to what we'd consider indentured servants. In ancient Hebrew culture if someone went broke, couldn't afford to tend to their land, etc, they could essentially offer themselves up as slaves to someone wealthy who would feed and house them in exchange for the person's labor. This typically had an end date of approximately 7 years. When your allotted time as a slave ended you could choose to either stay with your master if you liked working for him, or accept freedom. They had an entire economic system set up to accommodate this that rotated in 7 year cycles and something like every 50 years all debts (and slaves) were supposed to be wiped clean and the system starts over. It's worth noting that in (I believe) the book of Jeremiah, one of the reasons that the prophet gives for God bringing vengeance on Jerusalem in the form of the Babylonian conquest is that the Hebrews no longer honored this system and would just enslave their poor neighbors in perpetuity, so obviously the Bible itself condemned that. Again, they still would of had people they enslaved in conquest which would be more in line with slaves as you think of them, but that was true of every culture in antiquity and is not a unique cruelty.
>>25496066why are you posting all this stuff that's available via google search? if someone wanted to know it, they'd look it up for themselves
>>25496089The anon I responded to said >Slavers appealed to the Bible because at basically every level it endorses slavery.I'm posting it to show that 1) The Bible does not endorse slavery "on every level" that's simply false. 2) In so far as the Bible does "endorse slavery" it's not referring to slavery as most modern people conceive of it, and certainly not in the way that the 1700-1800s Western world practiced it, which that anon was trying to imply was the case.
>>25496371It literally says you can beat your slave to within an inch of his life as long as the slave doesn't immediately die. Pretty sure that's slavery in the exact kind of brutal way we think of historically. Exodus 21:20-21 "20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property."Do you think of "indentured servants" are subject to beatings with a rod on a regular basis if the master chooses?
>>25496371>>25497399Let me just be CRYSTAL CLEAR, it says you can INCAPACITATE your female slave WITH A ROD and you won't be punished as long as she can walk again after 2 days rest. You are trying to rehabilitate something GROTESQUELY immoral and you look like a fool for the attempt.
>>25497400>he thinks he should follow that ruleare you insane?
>>25497406>In so far as the Bible does "endorse slavery" it's not referring to slavery as most modern people conceive of it, and certainly not in the way that the 1700-1800s Western world practiced itI'm proving this statement categorically wrong.
>>25481179It is arguably the most important book (or collection of books, writings, etc) in the entire Western canon. Pretty much any decent piece of literature was written by men or women who had a passing knowledge of several of its books, to an intimate and profound relationship to several of its books. I'd wager it's pretty much essentially reading, along with the Greeks, if you really want to "get" literature
>>25497869That's only because the Greco Roman cannon was utterly obliterated by the christfascists with the destruction of the old gods in Rome. Just think out of the entire history of the Roman republic and empire, the only novel we have left is The Golden Ass. Imagine if all Western literature since 1500 was burned and all that survived was Spiderman comic books. That's how disingenuous judeochristians are when they say abrahamism created the west; it destroyed the old world and built itself with the debris.The bible has a much inflated stature in western literature because of wanton destruction and ignorant arrogance.
>>25498303I don't think you have anything worth saying on this topic, schizo
>>25481179The Ecclesiastes chapter was holy based.The scene where Jesus whips the Temple merchants was kino.The Beatitudes and some of the Sermon on the Mount are worth making chillstep mixes out of. Some Psalms as well.Genesis is a hilarious set of allegories for how even if there are only a few people in the world, they'll still want to kill each other, even their own blood. And also how in the face of impending doom most people would not choose to save themselves.Revelation is great in terms of artistic depictions of heaven with words alone.The rest is either mitzvah stuff that gets retconned by Jesus, nevi'im historical stuff, ketuvim aphorisms that mean nothing, gospel/acts details that don't matter, or epistles that talk about grace on and on.
>>25486870Jesus believed every event of the Old Testament>God’s recent Creation (Mark 10:6–9)>Adam and Eve (Matthew 19:4–5)>Cain’s murder of Abel (Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:51)>Noah’s Ark (Luke 17:26)>God’s judgment on the world by a global Flood (Matthew 24:37–39)>Abraham (John 8:56–58)>Lot (Luke 17:28)>Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire (Luke 17:29)>Lot’s wife turned to salt (Luke 17:32)>Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—not only historical people but still living in Jesus’ day (Matthew 22:32; see John 4:12)>God spoke to Moses in a burning bush (Mark 12:26)>God fed Israel with manna in the wilderness (John 6:32)>Moses’ authorship of Genesis (Luke 24:27; John 5:46–47)>Moses’ brass serpent healed Hebrew believers of snake bites (John 3:14)>David’s great deeds (Matthew 12:3; Mark 2:25; Luke 6:3)>David’s authorship of psalms (Matthew 22:42–45; Mark 12:35–37; Luke 20:42–44)>King Solomon’s glorious rule (Matthew 12:42)>Elijah’s and Elisha’s unique miracles (Luke 4:25–27)>God delivered Jonah from a great fish (Matthew 12:39–40)>Isaiah’s authorship of the prophetic book bearing his name (Matthew 13:14 citing Isaiah 6:9–10 and John 12:38 citing Isaiah 53:1)>Daniel’s authorship of the prophetic book bearing his name (Matthew 24:15)
The Bible is the divine and living Word of God.It is the foundation of western civilization and politics. Those who read the Bible and live religious lives will prosper.Good marriages and families are the foundation of society, and the Bible is the source of those moral teachings. Atheists, hedonists and pagans don't form strong families and so they don't reproduce well. Many testify that when they read the Bible on a daily basis they just feel better, and feel like their life is finally getting on track. Most feel "better", then a trickle of love, then great outpourings of love and joy and goodness just from reading it - which unfolds slowly over years to the devout. Many of Europes greatest men were reading the Bible and praying it every day. The Bible is written in multiple layers, so a first reading you will not understand it, but on your 10th+ reading so many insights will be popping out as you see how it is all linked together. A very simple one is if you apply the concept of "measure for measure" justice to the story characters, and see how intricately it is woven into stories - sometimes people get a one-liner of the just punishment they got. Each time you read it new levels of beauty and wisdom will unfold. OP's going to change from seeing it as "just some literature" to a fountain of golden wisdom, the key to heaven, God's gift to the world, and that everything he used to value was just trash in comparison.
>>25499321Yeah, we get the pitch schlomo.
>>25499321Western civilization was already well established before Jesus was born and the Hebrew Bible had basically zero relevance.
>>25497400no use arguing with women, leftists, the mentally defective, career criminals etc.everything is "slavery" for them unless they have infinite money and slaves (and even then they'd complain about not being poor and free)view them as a botched biological experiment
>>25499321>living Word of GodExplain why you capitalized "word" in that sentence. It's wrong.
>>25481179>Nehemiah>0 hitsWew lass.
>>25499552based wall enthusiast
