I would really like to believe this book. I have started reading it.
Is there a unbiased historical analysis of this book?
>>461927
Check out Revolution in Judea by Hyam Maccoby.
>>461970
Thanks.
Well, the peoblem is that the book itself has been altered several times throughout history.
>>462185
This.
The Quran is far more rational in its descriptions than the Bible. The Bible was once the same, but has been twisted by conniving men.
>>461927
Man created many books in his history full of tales. Whether those tales were true, and to what extent have been the subject of massive debate.
I was a Christian for my whole life until a couple years ago. Now I am agnostic.
I simply became tired of trying to believe in something absolutely without anything to validate it to me in reality. Proof.
Go to Christian meetings where they believe in a kind creator with unlimited power and consciousness, and you will find them always attempting to lure him out of the air. Nothing ever happens. People respond to people, but no miracles occur, and no evidence is expected, only to believe that the miracles are really happening.
>>462269
OP here
Have you ever read the bible?
I have read most of it throughout my childhood but I never understood it because I was a child. I became agnostic at 17 because it's just hard to have faith in it. I'm 20 now and want to revisit it so I'm reading the bible and I wanted to follow along the historical side.
>>462287
Ahh yes. I am a fedora because I don't believe I can prove or disprove the existence of god without evidence.
If that being ever spoke to me like his prophets claim he would, after all the years of struggling to hear him, I would never look back.
But I never heard his voice. All I ever heard was my own mind speaking what I wanted to hear based on the book. I never had any reason to believe that the voice in my head was not also my own.
Peer pressure is a powerful thing.
I don't hate God, I really am just tired. So tired.
Stop playing games and come out, if you're there.
>>462309
My mother is an unflinching Christian gnostic.
We studied the book very often.
It tells a long history of the sons of Abraham, from the creation of the planet and universe by Yahweh, to the beginning of the imperfection of man and his nature, to the final end of the antediluvian world, to the rebirth of mankind from eight genetically excellent progenitors(Noah and his sons+wives), their subsequent spread across the world again in their tribes, and then to focus finally on the history of the Jews and their wait for the messiah, until the end of the old testament.
The new testament is the beginning of Christianity, the followers of Christ as the Messiah. The Jews thought he would only come once then become god-king, but after Jesus had returned to where he came from, the Christians now too are waiting for a second return. Then follow all the philosophical specifics and teachings of the epistles and the prophecies of Revelation, foretelling his return and how we should act while we wait.
>>462326
>Replying to people with no argument
Top kek
>>462326
Used to be the same way as you senpai, then I realized the usefulness of an organized church with people who dedicate their life exclusively to understanding the Bible, rather than interpreting it yourself and expecting answers to every inconvenience you pray over.
A lot more peace of mind if you see it more as an abstraction involving a creator who is pretty goddamn busy with an entire universe to manage.
>>461927
Your own. Researching that stuff is really easy with the Internet.
I've read the New American Bible (Revised) and the footnotes are god-tier (lol).
I've also read the "Bible de Jérusalem", in French, if you're into that sort of things. It's pretty good, although no footnotes.
>>462185
>>462211
The book itself hasn't, except for adding useless "amen" shit. The only "big" change is the addition of the "let the one who is sinless throw the first stone" story, and even then it doesn't exactly change Jesus' message.
The individual books the Bible was compiled from, were edited over time, although we have a relatively clear idea of which parts belong to which author, and there is nothing to sustain the Quran's claim that wicked people edited the Bible and that's where all the stuff in the Bible that contradicts the Quran comes from.
>>462416
You're right. That was dull of me. I've been away from this site for a while.
>>462435
I feel like I've wasted enough Sundays with abstractions. I don't like dealing with "what if" anymore. I simply wish to attempt to see things as they are, truth, according to my ability to perceive it.
I have not perceived god yet. Maybe I will, but I have not, and I will not keep waiting expectantly. I will live my life according to my own principles. My humanity.
>>461927
I'd recommend "The Bible Unearthed" for the Old Testament and "Misquoting Jesus" for the New one.
>>462445
>well just ignore how the first manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark ended with the empty tomb
>>462649
This, read books by the experts in the field. People who dedicated their whole careers to it
>>462676
Again, that's before the Bible was compiled. Pretty much every book in the Bible has been added upon by other people than the original author.
>>461927
Well, this would be good if you didn't want to believe I suppose, but it's good to know all sides:
How Christianity was Invented
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNtF1-Y-JJM
>>462640
But Jesus was a jew.
>>462722
>the original author
Here's how I know you're full of shit. The Bible has never been credited to a single author, for the most part we don't even know who wrote the books that make it up.
>>462754
No, He opposed Kilery and flipped over the tables of their true priests, the Temple moneychangers.
>>462757
Nigga can u read
I'm talking about the author of each individual book.
And for the most part we have a solid idea.
>>462820
Not that guy, but what to do you mean "solid" idea? E.g. that we know who e.g. Mark was?
>>462828
For the Old Testament (excluding the Pentateuch), we have a solid idea of what kind of person it was who wrote the books, and for the Prophets there are no reasons to not think the actual prophets wrote the overall skeleton of the texts. Playing vidya so can't go in depth
>>462836
Hold on, so you mean that e.g. the Book of Joshua was written by actual Joshua?
>>462868
I have a French Bible with lots of interesting info but I can't check right now because I'm vidyaing
Hopefully the thread survives before I'm done
So Anons, which is the best Bible translation and why is it D-R?
Also why is Luther such a shit?
>>462868
Wait, are you rusing me, m8? Joshua is one of the historical books, not the prophetical ones.
OK, all things considered I spoke without thinking. The only books with probable historical values are the prophets in the OT and the epistles in the NT (although two of Paul's probably aren't actually his).
>>462985
Joshua is quite literally the first of the Prophetic books you daft cunt. The historical ones start with Chronicles.
>>462996
Isn't it Pentateuch -> Joshua -> Judges -> Samuel -> Kings -> Chronicles? I mean, aren't those (excluding the Pentateuch) the historical books?
My memory fucking sucks.
>>463009
No, it goes
Pentateuch-> prophets-> "writings".
Prophets is everything from Joshua through Malachai. Then you have Chronicles, and the other "historical" stuff, ending with Ezra/Nechemiah in most Bibles.
>>461927
>I would really like to believe this book.
>Is there a unbiased historical analysis
Pick one
>>463051
The OT is the Hebrew Bible, with the Deuterocanomical additions. They keep the same general organizational structure.
>>461927
Read Raymond E. Browns An Introduction to the New Testament or Bart D. Ehrmans The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Brown is a liberal Catholic, while Ehrman is an agnostic. Both books are great.
>>463051
on second thought fuck it, there's a wikipedia page for it already and I'm lazy
>>463080
I might add "Le Christ philosophe" by Frederic Lenoir. A philosophical and historical take on Jesus Christ, written by a non-Christian (I think he's an agnostic or atheist). A good read if you can read French.
>>462269
It sounds like you have an evangelical background in Christianity. I think a huge reason why so many people fall out of Christianity is that they grow up being taught that God is supposed to be your imaginary buddy who follows and listens to every little thing you do and will make a miracle happen just to prove your point
Why would a god conceived to be so great bother to follow your every motion? Why would it need to considering it probably would know everything you are going to do before you do it anyways?
That being said even if you don't have an evangelical background what parts of the bible were used to make you think the way the do or was it just the group of people who raised you?
>>463234
A god which is so distant as to be unobservable is the same as no god at all as we're concerned.
My mother certainly was evangelical, my father has always been agnostic afaik. My mother was the one who taught me and my siblings though. My father worked while mom stayed home, and even now I haven't spoke much at all with him about religious/philosphical things.
I was always taught to take the bible directly and literally except when it specified otherwise. It says that if you have the faith of a mustard seed(Any at all), that you should be able to move mountains, if God wills it. It says that his priesthood can raise the dead, and all of his children are a priesthood.
>>461927
>unbiased
>historical
pick one
>>461927
>unbiased historical
Nope. History is all about bias.
>historical
Nope.
>>462610
This whole "Fedora" thing was a really ingenious bit of meme propaganda to quell serious negative assessment of religion. Sadly, people actually do get browbeaten by it.
>>462760
How could the Savior not be born of the House of David?
>>462185
Same can be said for the dictionary
>>461927
check out ecclesiastes in there. it's a lot different than mainstream doctrine
Gen. 6:3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
Did God change his mind or was the bible wrong?
the bible is just a compilation of approved testaments by the roman empire. their criteria for the "word of god" was just to please the masses and fit history into their narrative.
i don't know why do we even bother with this book more than we do about homer, for instance.
also god doesn't exist.
As a person from Japan where Christianity is so rare, it's always a mystery why westerners are fussing over whether god exists.
Japan is a polytheistic country and most of the people are Buddhist. And there is no god in Buddhism. But our life is not so miserable without god. Then we don't worry about whether Buddha exists, either. Buddha might or might not exist. Anyway he was a human and no way a god.
>>468309
as a westerner, we view japan as one of the most depressing places on earth
shall I cite sources to back my claim?
>>461927
Here is my theory about the New Testament: There were many sects around at that time and Jesus was just one of many crazy guys. The dead sea scrolls tell a great deal about hallucinogenic drug use and that stuff.
We know from Buddhism and Hinduism that people can get these special states of mind where they feel connected with everything.
You can get this through meditation or drug use. Jesus felt one with the universe but could only interpret it in the context of Judaism which was available to him.
He said stuff like "me and the father are one" or "we are all sons of god".
Then it all got misinterpreted and distorted later. Kind of crazy but not as crazy as to think that all this "supernatural" stuff really happened.
>>461927
>Is there a unbiased historical analysis of this book?
No, come on man, every single analysis ever made is biased. You should know this.
>>468309
Because Jesus was the big man of Christianity but also claimed to be the incarnation of God on Earth.
Judaism itself relies on the existence of a single God, and awaits the messiah who will come to rule over Israel and spread out the Kingdom of God. Jesus appeared, with philosophical teachings that radically changed the religious and moral landscape of the time (and that still effects us today), and claimed to be the messiah as well as the Son of God, and that the "Kingdom of God" is not Israel but a spiritual kingdom, of which his followers will be a part of. His entirely non-violent activities and his death upon the cross were what would soon create Christianity.
Understanding religions that rely on the existence of God can be difficult for someone who was raised as an atheist. If you're curious about anything, I suggest just reading the holy text of whatever religion you're curious about.
Christians don't view the Old Testament literally, most stories in it are taken figuratively.
That said, many of the stories in the Old Testament could be true. Something people seem to have forgotten is that the Old Testament was originally a history book. But, it is a history book from the Bronze Age and was passed down orally for many generations. It's like the Iliad. Modern scholars are more or less in consensus that Troy and the Trojan War existed. But, were Achilles, Hector, etc real people? Or do they simply stand in for the many heroes and themes on both sides of the war?
That is what the Old Testament is. I can't tell you if a man named Moses led the Jews out of Egypt. But I can tell you that the Jews probably used to be enslaved there, and were eventually able to leave. I can't tell you if David killed Goliath, but I can tell you that the Israelites most likely fought many wars with their enemies. What better way to convey your message that you are God's Chosen People to the masses then to give a story showing how faith in God can conquer great enemies?
>>461927
I didn't read it yet, but there's Isaac Asimov's Guide to Bible. He's an atheist, but the reviews say he try to be neutral and respectful. It must be at least interesting to read.
>>469107
I have that book. It's pretty scholarly, all he tries to do is give some historical context to the stories, he doesn't try to undermine the theology despite what some people claim. If you're a literalist you might get booty bothered by it; no reason why a Catholic or Orthodox wouldn't enjoy it though.
