Homosexuality and the Bible

[dark9986]

here is my whole thing with the bible. Any jew (that actually paid attention in hebrew school) will tell you that the torah a.k.a the old testament was passed down for centuries by word of mouth. further more all of the English translation is just that translation. Those two facts alone scew anything in the current incarnation just a tad. Not to mention the countless times it has been rewritten blah blah blah blah.

People can tell me that when someone is writing the bible in any form that the voice of god is within him and that he or she for that matter can't write the wrong thing but i mean really. Play a game of telephone then multiply that over 1000 of years. As god gave us free will I highly doubt that not once did someone decide to change something and that if they did god forbid it.

When it comes right down to it I feel everyone is entitled to their opinion but I wish they would leave it as that thiers and not shove it in our face. Any religious person, regardless of religion, that takes it to the in your face level needs to take a break.

wow that turned into a ramble and doubt it actually helped lol


edit: also fun trick for those who have dark sences of humor like me. Every now and then I get a bit to sick of people telling me that I killed jesus (it was me u caught me ) anyway usually I mess just a tad with those people. I basically ask well if I killed jesus I am going to hell right? usually u get a yes I then go on to say and jesus was a jew right? unless they are so far gone they are in need of mental help they usually say yes as well (since it is historically true) I then go well is jesus was a jew and jews don't believe in hell where did it come from?

I then chuckle a tad as I leave them going uh uh uh uh uh uh

edit2: i hope that first edit doesn't push anyone's buttons i personally do believe in some form of a hell type place but that is irrelevant. I like messing with any of those people that take religion to far however in no way would i attack someone's beliefs who don't cross that line. hmm i don't think i explained that well lol

 

[Kulindahr]

So maybe I'm just being trollish, but what if I accuse THEM of acting the part of the devil by their citing of the Bible? How would a proselytizing Christian deal with this sort of accusation?

A lot would depend on how you did it. If you got them talking about what Jesus said about love, as the introduction, and then to what He said about the Pharisees and making everyone follow rules, and then to the vision Peter had... you might get away without being punched in the face.

The thing is that the weight of evidence and the thrust and theme of scripture is against them. The whole thing is a movement from rules-based relationship with God to one without rules but requiring love. The question for them is how do laws against people loving each other in the same way the Constitution provides and that others are already enjoying, demonstrate God's love? There's not a whole lot of difference between that and beating people over the head with a twenty-five pound Bible and yelling, "Love Jesus! Love Jesus!"

There's nothing anywhere in what Jesus said that even suggests we should be trying to transform society into a modern version of the Kingdom of Israel, but that's what they're trying to do. The whole book of Galatians is a thundering sermon against that; "For freedom Christ has set you free!" is almost a battle cry of the New Testament, and the point about having begun with the Gospel and going back to Law is a thunderstroke against them.

And that's where it becomes evident that your ploy is actually true: they are the Pharisees, demanding righteousness of the Law and forgetting at all about mercy and love. This song sums them up well:


Alas, alas for you,
Lawyers and pharisees
Hypocrites that you be
Searching for souls and fools to forsake them
You travel the land you scour the sea
After you've got your converts you make them
Twice as fit for hell!
As you are yourselves!

Alas, alas, for you
Lawyers and pharisees
Hypocrites that you are
Sure that the kingdom of Heaven awaits you
You will not venture half so far
Other men that might enter the gates you
Keep from passing through!
Drag them down with you!
You snakes, you viper's brood
You cannot escape being Devil's food!
I send you prophets, and I send you preachers
Sages in rages and ages of teachers
Nothing can mar your mood

Alas, alas for you
Lawyers and pharisees
Hypocrites to a man
Sons of the dogs who murdered the prophets
Finishing off what your fathers began
You don't have time to scorn or to scoff
It's getting very late!
Vengeance doesn't wait!
You snakes, you viper's brood
You cannot escape being Devil's food!
I send you prophets, and I send you preachers
Sages in rages and ages of teachers
Nothing can mar your mood

Blind guides, blind fools
The blood you've spilt
On you will fall!
This nation, this generation
Shall bear the guilt of it all!

Alas, alas alas for you!
Blind fools!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srEAWWiH_oc

 

[Kulindahr]

here is my whole thing with the bible. Any jew (that actually paid attention in hebrew school) will tell you that the torah a.k.a the old testament was passed down for centuries by word of mouth. further more all of the English translation is just that translation. Those two facts alone scew anything in the current incarnation just a tad. Not to mention the countless times it has been rewritten blah blah blah blah.

People can tell me that when someone is writing the bible in any form that the voice of god is within him and that he or she for that matter can't write the wrong thing but i mean really. Play a game of telephone then multiply that over 1000 of years. As god gave us free will I highly doubt that not once did someone decide to change something and that if they did god forbid it.

"Rewritten"? It was translated into Greek (LXX), and chunks of the Masoretic have been corrupted into jibberish, but it's never been "rewritten".

As for English, yeah -- when our Hebrew prof came to the dorm to lead evening devotion, and said "Get your Bibles", he meant the Hebrew, the whole Hebrew, and nothing but the Hebrew. And when he read the Old Testament reading from the pulpit, he read it in Hebrew -- he said if he was going to read the Bible, that's what he would read, and not any translation.

The "telephone" analogy doesn't work, either, and most fundie/evangelicals know it -- it's right from the Hebrew to the English in actual translations, so your "telephone" line has all of two people in it, except the middle one is a team working very hard to get it right. I've seen fundies laugh in someone's face over the analogy, and rightly so.

edit: also fun trick for those who have dark sences of humor like me. Every now and then I get a bit to sick of people telling me that I killed jesus (it was me u caught me ) anyway usually I mess just a tad with those people. I basically ask well if I killed jesus I am going to hell right? usually u get a yes I then go on to say and jesus was a jew right? unless they are so far gone they are in need of mental help they usually say yes as well (since it is historically true) I then go well is jesus was a jew and jews don't believe in hell where did it come from?

I then chuckle a tad as I leave them going uh uh uh uh uh uh

Oh, that's fun.

I heard someone saying that to a Jewish Christian on campus, a guy I liked a good deal, and jumped in with this:

Wait a minute -- whose sins did He die for?
Um, everyone's.
So who killed him? Everyone, right?
[puzzled stare]

In fact there's an old hymn that makes the point that every sin was a blow that drove the nails, every sinner was there taking a swing (I love it; not too many old hymns lay it on the line like that).

 

[poolerboy]

"Rewritten"? It was translated into Greek (LXX), and chunks of the Masoretic have been corrupted into jibberish, but it's never been "rewritten".

I'm not sure he meant rewritten as a whole, but certainly parts of scripture have been altered in this manner. I know the following are N.T. examples but it makes the point. In textual criticism, a main criterion is "lectio difficilior potior" or "the more difficult reading is the stronger." A good example of this is in Mark 1:40 where a leper comes to Jesus and asks if he's willing he's able to cleanse him. In most manuscripts it says that Jesus felt compassion for the man, reached out his hand and said, "I am willing" and cleansed him. But in several ancient manuscripts you have Jesus getting angry, sticking out his hand and saying, "I am willing and cleansing him. So in line with the criterion, the text that is the more likely one to be original is the most difficult reading -- the former. Later scribes perhaps felt unease at Jesus becoming angry here and altered the text.

Less disputed examples would be the last twelve verses of Mark and the woman taking in adultery (where we get the famous "cast the first stone" remark). In many Bibles these come in double brackets letting the reader know these portions weren't originally in the text given that they aren't in our earliest and best manuscripts.

 

[dark9986]

let me clarify a bit the telephone analogy was about the whole passed down by word of mouth thing. which it was for at least a a few centuries.

the rewritten thing I did not mean as a whole but to my knowledge (which I don't mind being corrected) within the multitude of christian denominations there is at least one more "version" of the bible. Which tbh i may be wrong but would think that means there was at least a minor change. The rewritten thing also refered to it just literally being copied from one text to another. However I believe in the original post I refered to that as something else as well to avoid to much confusion.

Idk if I did but it sounded like you were taking the defensive a bit I hope it didn't sound like I was attacking the bible or anything because that certainly wasn't my intention. I was just pointing out some of my doubts with the document.

Last point back there idk how many people have tried to translate things Hebrew to english but it isn't always the most direct translation and that is modern Hebrew the older u get the hard it seems to be. That was the only point with translation I was making.