The Scriptures Are Subjective

[Reader]

Let's look at this, then from your devil's advocate view.

It would appear that we shouldn't bother with anything at all in the Bible because all we know is that someone wrote it and we cannot know if anything is true.

Then, taking this, shouldn't one toss out any belief in Jesus because ultimately that is at least partly founded in what you read in the Bible? He was just a nice man that loved people. Oh- but wait- we really don't know if he did because we can't know if that part is true. Maybe he was really a mean person, throwing people out of the temple. Oh - but wait - we really don't know if that happened either.

How can one be fond of a book that you can't trust to mean a thing that it states?

[Dichotomy Girl]

Originally Posted by Reader

Let's look at this, then from your devil's advocate view.

It would appear that we shouldn't bother with anything at all in the Bible because all we know is that someone wrote it and we cannot know if anything is true.

Then, taking this, shouldn't one toss out any belief in Jesus because ultimately that is at least partly founded in what you read in the Bible? He was just a nice man that loved people. Oh- but wait- we really don't know if he did because we can't know if that part is true. Maybe he was really a mean person, throwing people out of the temple. Oh - but wait - we really don't know if that happened either.

How can one be fond of a book that you can't trust to mean a thing that it states?

I said that we can't KNOW, but that we can BELIEVE. That's what faith is. The very idea of faith is to believe in something that can't be proven. I believe in Jesus, I believe that he lives inside of me, and that he loves me. But I can't PROVE that to my Atheist husband.

I am fond of the Bible, because it taught me about Jesus. I don't KNOW that everything in the Bible is true. But I BELIEVE that many of the things are true, because the Bible led me to relationship with Jesus, through the indwelling Spirit. That's all faith, I can't prove that to anyone, but it's very very real to me.

Let me ask you this. (I'm borrowing this from a book I read years ago, I think maybe Rob Bell?). What's more important, that the Garden of Eden happened or that it happens? Whether it is literal or metaphor, it speaks to us, it teaches us, it gives us spiritual insight.

The truth is, I don't think I could worship a God who literally commanded the Israelites to commit genocide, or was OK with slavery, or didn't have a problem with women being raped or treated like Chattel.

[Reader]

I am fond of the Bible, because it taught me about Jesus. I don't KNOW that everything in the Bible is true.

This is what I am attempting to say----you say the Bible taught you about Jesus and at the same time say you don't know that it is true. Then how do you know that the portions you have chosen to believe are really true? You may be basing your belief in Jesus on one of the untruths found there.

[NotforSale]

Originally Posted by Dante

Everybody has an interpretation to scripture, and everyone can argue why their interpretation is the correct one. Therefore, the scriptures are subjective and not absolute.

Careful; you're simplifying, something that contradicts Religion and is the actual truth.

[NotforSale]

Originally Posted by Luke

Dichotomy Girl if someone is trying to decide whether or not a book is to be taken absolutely or subjectively I would imagine that the best way to come to the proper conclusion would be to go to author in this case God. As the bible is God's word why would it be illogical to see what the Bible has to say about itself and how it is to be understood? No one is saying proving the legitimacy of the Bible by the Bible that would be like trying using circular dating a (a faulty practice used by evolutionist). It would seem illogical to allow anyone but the author a book decide whether He meant what He said or not.

G-d is not the Author of the Bible; men (humans) are.

[Luke]

Originally Posted by NotforSale

G-d is not the Author of the Bible; men (humans) are.

I disagree according to scripture the those men were moved by God as to what they were to write much like a person writing as another say speaks.

[Dichotomy Girl]

Originally Posted by Reader

This is what I am attempting to say----you say the Bible taught you about Jesus and at the same time say you don't know that it is true. Then how do you know that the portions you have chosen to believe are really true? You may be basing your belief in Jesus on one of the untruths found there.

Hmmm...let me try this....

The bible was a stepping stone. It pointed me towards Jesus, it gave me a thirst for something more. The Spirit drew me, and then filled me. The Bible doesn't need to be inerrant to do that. At its very least it's a historical document. (I do believe it to be inspired and sacred, if not infallible).

Do you believe that the Spirit of God cannot draw a person, and fill a person, if the Bible is not absolute (or if they don't believe the Bible to be Absolute)?

You are right, I might be completely 100% wrong in all my beliefs about Life, Jesus and the Bible. I know that, and I accept that, and therefore I try to keep mind open. (I mean, it completely freaks me out that the Pharisees, the most religious of the day, not only missed Jesus, but thought the was doing the work of satan!)

But I do my best to follow the leading of the Spirit. I try to keep it simple. When I'm not sure if something is right or wrong, and I'm not getting a strong spiritual signal, I try to stick to the greatest Two Commandments.

Look, I get that what I'm saying is to you a horrifying and most likely heretical way to live. But it's where I am.

ETA: This is where I miss the old faces around here. Those who can see past my unorthodox and scandalous ways, because they know me, and know what I've been through and where I've come from.

[Reader]

I am certainly not horrified by your thoughts. What I have attempted to do is to have you see that when one picks and chooses what is true and what is not, how do you really know if the places you chose to believe really happened? Let's take one thing you said:

Do you believe that the Spirit of God cannot draw a person, and fill a person, if the Bible is not absolute (or if they don't believe the Bible to be Absolute)?

Where is it that one gets that the Spirit of God draws a person or fills a person? Is it not from the Bible? If one believes only some things in it really happened or are true, then how can you know that the Spirit drawing is true?

I am not putting you down. This is not personal. What I cannot understand is how one can decide this part is true and this is not. What is your standard for doing so- in other words, what do you use to determine this?

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by NotforSale

G-d is not the Author of the Bible; men (humans) are.

God is the author. Men are the writers

[Dichotomy Girl]

Originally Posted by Reader

I am certainly not horrified by your thoughts. What I have attempted to do is to have you see that when one picks and chooses what is true and what is not, how do you really know if the places you chose to believe really happened? Let's take one thing you said:



Where is it that one gets that the Spirit of God draws a person or fills a person? Is it not from the Bible? If one believes only some things in it really happened or are true, then how can you know that the Spirit drawing is true?

I am not putting you down. This is not personal. What I cannot understand is how one can decide this part is true and this is not. What is your standard for doing so- in other words, what do you use to determine this?

Ok, lets take the Bible out of it for a minute. Mary Sue is not a Christian, and knows very little about Christianity. A friend invites her to Acme Christian Church. There a man preaches about Jesus, and Mary Sue thinks "wow, Jesus, if you are real, I would love to have a relationship with you".

A few days later, Mary Sue is praying at home alone in her bedroom, and all of a sudden something amazing she happens that she can't explain, as she is baptized in the Spirit.

A few days after that she comes out of the Grocery store and there is a pamphlet stuck under her windshield wipers. She see's that it's about Jesus, so she reads it, and it talks about how important it is to be Baptized, she feels in her heart that she would like to do this, and so calls the number of Gotham City Apostolic Church listed on the tract. She attends and is baptized in Jesus Name.

Now, I ask you this, would you call any of the 3 things used to draw her in, (A Pastor's Sermon, Personal Prayer, and religious literature) absolute truth and inerrant? Or would you say that God used the available people/items to make his will known?

A Sermon is not necessarily filled with Absolute Truth, it's certainly not inerrant or infallible. However, It CAN be inspired, and filled with sacred wisdom. And God most certainly can use ANYTHING to speak to and reach us.

What did people do in Jesus' time when the NT didn't exist? What about in the dark ages when only the Priests had access? When it wasn't even printed in the common language, or when most people couldn't read?

The Bible is a useful tool, but it's not God.