Comments on: Bible Translation Wrong — God Didn’t Create The Earth Says Academic

By: segaar

segaar — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:35:18 +0000

Alfred rocks!

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:09:41 +0000

#156
Frankly, no one can say with certainty whether the Church deliberately set the date for Christmas. There is insufficient evidence to implicate or exonerate. Most of the customs of the festival definitely derive from non-Catholic sources and what information we do have about his birth, presuming it is accurate would argue against a winter birth but that is not enough to argue a deliberate decision whereby the Church leaders knew his birth to be on a different day but chose December 25th. There is some evidence to suggest that the date was picked to coincide with the Natalis Invicti (solar feast) which would make Mithraism the source of the date but again, there isn’t enough to say for certain.

By: bobbo, libertarianism fails when it becomes dogma

bobbo, libertarianism fails when it becomes dogma — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:26:09 +0000

#160–qb==if you make it back here and care to answer: in your opinion, is the bible/god then really a carry on development of an earlier mythos that had THE VERY SAME GOD contesting with other gods in an already formed universe?

Seems what little comparative religion and history of religion I have dabbled in started after this issue got entangled in the modern/hebrew? bible.

Fascinating if the Holy Trinity and subduing the oceans and what not is FAIRLY SPEAKING revealing of that apotheosis?

By: qb

qb — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:09:56 +0000

It depends on what you mean by the cleansing of the Septuagint (and others books). More than likely, the somewhat current version of the Septuagint was translated by Hellenistic Jews in Alexandria in the 3rd century by dozens of scholars.

After this it flowed to the Christian church through the Jews of the Dispersion. Pre 3rd Century, it’s a fragmented mess which is why scholars (faithful or not) study similar texts and languages from earlier times looking for origins. All these stories were oral history for a long time and were written down at various times in various places.

By: Wretched Gnu

Wretched Gnu — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:40:08 +0000

Keep posting, Alfred, you’ll convince yourself eventually.

By: Alfred1

Alfred1 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:23:40 +0000

And neither do these texts prove your thesis of “pagan ancestry”—you are misinterpreting this data also.

By: Alfred1

Alfred1 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:21:03 +0000

That is, the very texts you cite showing “pagan ancestry of Bible teachings” proves the alleged “cleansing” of such texts, never happened.

By: Alfred1

Alfred1 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:18:09 +0000

#155 I suspected you would continue to misinterpret this…its poetic license…designed to denigrate Baal, and extol YHWH…it does not show dependence, or ancestry at all…

An analogy would be the Catholic church’s appropriation of old pagan feasts, and changing them into Christian holidays…for the purpose of destroying the old pagan belief.

Christmas falls into that category…Christ and the teachings about him do not originate in the Roman beliefs about Saturnalia…making Dec 25 his “birthday” was meant to destroy the old Roman belief in such paganism…replacing it with Christianity.

So NO DEPENDENCE is proved by this poetic license…contrary to your premise.

As for the alleged “cleansing of the Bible,” that did not happen, and the fact it didn’t happen, are the very texts you critics cite…to spin additional blasphemies against God’s Word.

By: Wretched Gnu

Wretched Gnu — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:02:15 +0000

Alfred — Your NET Bible commentary proves the point I made quite nicely. Thanks!

By: Alfred1

Alfred1 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:37:33 +0000

#150 Your wretched thesis is contradicted by you citing “subdue the sea”…where was the “cleaning” as this phrase exists in scripture?

It must be hard lugging around such a big brain large enough to hold so much ignorance.

Poetic license was taken to extol God

Verses [Psalm 77]16–18 depict the Lord coming in the storm to battle his enemies and subdue the sea. There is no record of such a storm in the historical account of the Red Sea crossing. The language the psalmist uses here is stereotypical and originates in Canaanite myth, where the storm god Baal subdues the sea in his quest for kingship. The psalmist has employed the stereotypical imagery to portray the exodus vividly and at the same time affirm that it is not Baal who subdues the sea, but Yahweh.-Footnote, NET Bible.

By: Alfred1

Alfred1 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:20:10 +0000

Lefty philosophy has cursed mankind, and still does, with death, destruction and poverty…Hitler, Stalin, Marx…have killed uncounted millions…

And today, rather than tax cuts and less regulation to create jobs…lefty plans to put more small business under with health care, cap & tax, abound.

And the loons pushing such darkness, abound here, blaspheming God (who is the source of all good)…

How typical…bite the hand that feeds…

Analogous to taxing and regulating the rich out of existence, and then wondering why they don’t hire, as unemployment skyrockets!

By: Thinker

Thinker — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:06:33 +0000

#149 Bobbo,

I know what you mean about the sins of others. Although its doctrinal about the sins of Adam, I really only relate to my own sins, I’m very familiar with them.

By: ECA

ECA — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:19:06 +0000

“on earth as it is in Heaven..”..

Ok yu religious nuts, when are ya going to do it??
MAKE this world as good as heaven?
Iv been trying my best, but I havent seen any of you HELPING. And Im not religious.

By: Wretched Gnu

Wretched Gnu — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:33:59 +0000

Again, I think people who like to trace the literary and cultural origins of the bible would really like *The Evolution of God*.

One of the cool questions it answers is why the bible weirdly says that God, in his creation, has to “subdue” the sea. Why would the creator of the sea have to fight it?

It turns out it’s because the monotheists who would later “clean up” the bible didn’t bother to remove this reference to an earlier polytheistic story. Most Christians don’t know that Yaweh had a history before monotheism took hold, and the “subdue the sea” passage is left over from that. I forget which god it was that was associated with the sea (was it Baal?), but the passage was clearly put in there to affirm Yaweh’s victory over him.

By: bobbo, the evangelical anti-theist

bobbo, the evangelical anti-theist — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:27:32 +0000

#146–Thinker==yes, that all guilt/redemption by Munchhausen is an interesting perversion.

Somehow, “we” are punished/condemned/must suffer for the sins of other people, Adam and Eve, BUT THEN we are saved/forgiven/offered salvation by the action of another other person, Jesus Christ.

Being internal as I am==I accept no responsibility for what others do, be it pro or con. Just gripe No 9478 I have with christian dogma. It doesn’t sound true, doesn’t feel true, and if it is true===I’m against it. Hence, I’m “anti.” I don’t see much “knowledge” in such a swirl of logical/moral inconsistency/wrongheadedness. I advise all others to join me on their “personal” journey to meaning.