Tossing the Bible

[Someday]

So one day we wake up, and all of the Bibles on Earth, and all of our ability to rewrite it have disappeared. Are you imagining this?
So a few years later you are hanging out in a coffee shop and some guy walks up to some teens and you overhear him talking about this Jesus guy. You hear him tell them how Jesus raised an army and fought along side of the romans in destroying the Temple at Jerusalem, kicking the Jews out who were selling sacrificial animals and changing money or some other thing you don't believe. So these kids are clearly buying it. You hear them repeating the quotes from Jesus this guy taught them. One of them goes something like: "Surrender all things unto Caesar and send all things of God unto him likewise." or " Beat your plows into swords for the glory of God".
We approach these misled teens with a picture of a different Jesus, and we talk about love they neighbor as yourself, and love your enemies, etc etc.

My question to those who seem to conclude the Bible as meaningless stuff, how does one show these kids that this guy is making stuff up off the top of his head? Why should they believe you? How do you counter the Charismatic figure? How do you prevent perverted cults that can teach any Jesus message they like? We already have some measure of that now, can you imagine how much more of that is possible without some written, agreed upon collection of knowledge about God?

Have you ever played that game where one person whispers a phrase into the ear of another and then they whisper it into the ear of another and then another, etc.? We all know what happens to that whispered message when it reaches the end of the chain. Almost always it is perverted into something having nothing to do with the original phrase.
There was a time, before our society was literate, where oral tradition was passed from generation to generation nearly unchanged. That changed with the advent of books and literate society. Our memories for the spoken word is nothing like it used to be.

Would you still throw the Bible out?

You may say I'm being silly, or that that wouldn't happen, but the fact of the matter is, look around you, it already happens. Christian cults already exist that distort the message of Jesus in ways that are very harmful towards themselves and others. Some more mainstream Christians distort it in some ways when it pleases them, and we have the Bible to counter it. I wonder how to counter it in ways they would find meaningful without referring to the Bible?

This is exactly why the New Testament was put together to begin with. Not to be inspired holy writings to be worshiped in the place of God, but to counter the many perversions of what many orthodox Christians considered false instructions by groups that adopted Jesus, such as the Gnostics did.

Blessings

[Mycernius]

Originally Posted by Someday

Have you ever played that game where one person whispers a phrase into the ear of another and then they whisper it into the ear of another and then another, etc.? We all know what happens to that whispered message when it reaches the end of the chain. Almost always it is perverted into something having nothing to do with the original phrase.
There was a time, before our society was literate, where oral tradition was passed from generation to generation nearly unchanged. That changed with the advent of books and literate society. Our memories for the spoken word is nothing like it used to be.

Would you still throw the Bible out?

If you where a Muslim would you still throw the Qu'ran out, that was, after all, based on oral tradition? Even so with a oral tradition stories still change. Look at the various myths from Sumer, Greece and Egypt. The basic outline is there, but changed to suit the differing tribes and cultures as it spread. I'd say the best example of a ancient myth becoming something different within a seperate culture is the story of Noah. Originating in Persian myth the details vary from Sumerian, Babylonian and Abassinyian and change quite radically by the time it gets over to Judea.

You may say I'm being silly, or that that wouldn't happen, but the fact of the matter is, look around you, it already happens. Christian cults already exist that distort the message of Jesus in ways that are very harmful towards themselves and others. Some more mainstream Christians distort it in some ways when it pleases them, and we have the Bible to counter it. I wonder how to counter it in ways they would find meaningful without referring to the Bible?

But various differing denominations have changed the Bible to suit themselves, who is to say what the originally should say. As I don't know which denomination you follow I couldn't say whether you think your version is the coreect one.

This is exactly why the New Testament was put together to begin with. Not to be inspired holy writings to be worshiped in the place of God, but to counter the many perversions of what many orthodox Christians considered false instructions by groups that adopted Jesus, such as the Gnostics did.

Blessings

The original bible passages were selected by committee by St. Augustine and his mob. The Gnostic texts very nearly found their way into the Bible except they lost out by voting, not that they were incorrect. Some denominations still use the rejected texts. I take it you are protestant in your belief, so you have rejected passages and books that Catholics accept. So is the Catholic Bible the real bible or they one created after the reformation?

[Someday]

But various differing denominations have changed the Bible to suit themselves, who is to say what the originally should say.

Textual critics
I don't believe I follow any denomination.
The cannon was actually the product of Athanasius of Alexandria, who laid out the cannon in a letter to other bishops nearly thirty years before the Synod of Hippo based on the Codex Vaticanus from AD 340. Pope Damasus I's Council of Rome approved the same cannon as Athanasius 10 years before the Synod of Hippo. The Latin Vulgate was issued a year later, complete with all of the books that would be approved by the councils that followed. I don't think the councils that followed tried to add gnostic gospels, but they did talk of taking some out, like the Gospel of John because it seemed a bit too gnostic for some of the bishops there. In the end, the councils simply approved what was already laid out by Athanasius years before. It was almost a forgone conclusion before they even had these councils.

I read the Apocrypha books a good bit too.

I've read most of the Gnostic Gospels as well. I think they are what they are. Gnostic. I'm not Gnostic, and I don't see anything inspirational in that kind of literature.

I know Noah may have borrowed a good deal from Utnapishtim’s flood. I don't think it is so much evolving oral tradition as it is applying a certain myth to a different theology. They are similar but have completely different meaning.
There is also a possibility that the Noah myth is older, written for people who had just come out of Egypt, but there is no physical evidence of that, so it's a pointless possibility. So I will go with the scholarly view that believes it is the younger of the two myths.

So tell me. how does a Christian counter fellow Christians who preach a Jesus of hatefulness without some sort of Bible that we all agree on somewhat? Where do we show the followers of a crazed charismatic why he is so crazy. I'm talking about Christian to Christian? People are sometimes gullible and will follow a charismatic leader into all sorts of things.

Blessings

[JM]

Originally Posted by Someday

So one day we wake up, and all of the Bibles on Earth, and all of our ability to rewrite it have disappeared. Are you imagining this?
So a few years later you are hanging out in a coffee shop and some guy walks up to some teens and you overhear him talking about this Jesus guy. You hear him tell them how Jesus raised an army and fought along side of the romans in destroying the Temple at Jerusalem, kicking the Jews out who were selling sacrificial animals and changing money or some other thing you don't believe. So these kids are clearly buying it. You hear them repeating the quotes from Jesus this guy taught them. One of them goes something like: "Surrender all things unto Caesar and send all things of God unto him likewise." or " Beat your plows into swords for the glory of God".
We approach these misled teens with a picture of a different Jesus, and we talk about love they neighbor as yourself, and love your enemies, etc etc.

My question to those who seem to conclude the Bible as meaningless stuff, how does one show these kids that this guy is making stuff up off the top of his head? Why should they believe you? How do you counter the Charismatic figure? How do you prevent perverted cults that can teach any Jesus message they like? We already have some measure of that now, can you imagine how much more of that is possible without some written, agreed upon collection of knowledge about God?

Have you ever played that game where one person whispers a phrase into the ear of another and then they whisper it into the ear of another and then another, etc.? We all know what happens to that whispered message when it reaches the end of the chain. Almost always it is perverted into something having nothing to do with the original phrase.
There was a time, before our society was literate, where oral tradition was passed from generation to generation nearly unchanged. That changed with the advent of books and literate society. Our memories for the spoken word is nothing like it used to be.

Would you still throw the Bible out?

You may say I'm being silly, or that that wouldn't happen, but the fact of the matter is, look around you, it already happens. Christian cults already exist that distort the message of Jesus in ways that are very harmful towards themselves and others. Some more mainstream Christians distort it in some ways when it pleases them, and we have the Bible to counter it. I wonder how to counter it in ways they would find meaningful without referring to the Bible?

This is exactly why the New Testament was put together to begin with. Not to be inspired holy writings to be worshiped in the place of God, but to counter the many perversions of what many orthodox Christians considered false instructions by groups that adopted Jesus, such as the Gnostics did.

Blessings

Hold on a moment, before you start reaching a conclusion as to " Why the Bible Came about " declaring it was to prevent people teaching stuff that was different.

Take a moment and really think again about this, as there are numerous reasons as to why it came about and not all Scholars agree upon it

Before I write a huge friggin reply to this. consider this

" IF it was so important that what Jesus said, if it was so important that it mattered to God that there was One Book which could be used to refer to and could not twist "

Why is it

1. Historically, we have NO information or documents that were created by Jesus Himself
2. Historically, we have NO information that Jesus even asked or commanded people write down what he was saying and doing

Their is part of your answer

[Someday]

Take a moment and really think again about this, as there are numerous reasons as to why it came about and not all Scholars agree upon it

Yeah, I should have known better than to use the words "exactly why the New Testament was put together to begin with." It would have been better to have said this is "one of the reasons....."

" IF it was so important that what Jesus said, if it was so important that it mattered to God that there was One Book which could be used to refer to and could not twist "

I'm not implying or saying this at all. I'm examining the human motivations in my post above, not God's. That's a topic for another conversation.

Blessings