This justifying Biblical internal contradictions/immorality goes back to the beginning of Christianity. Marcion of Sinope was the first to try to canonize the Bible. You know, cherry picking the books to be included - a complex puzzle very hard to put together without cutting some pieces to fit. He left out the whole Old Testament and only included 10 Epistles from Paul and the Gospel of Luke. The problem was it was a void that didn't make sense. You needed the Old Testament to "prove" prophecy and give it the right background. They might have been better to say it was not quite inspired but important. Marcion was later consider a heretic when he was only trying to help. Ah...Christianity. If you are not for them...hmmm...You are going to hell. LOL.
Matthew 12:30a - Jesus said: He that is not with me is against meLuke 9:50 - And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us
Strike me as a useful conflict. You can get it to say whatever you want. 41k Christian denominations agree!
The New Testament is a smaller target with fewer authors who could not only confer but steal liberally from each other. The first 3 gospels are simply copies of each other with some additions stories thrown in. Christians are ready to say how wonderful the Bible is because it is so consistent. Well, if I copy off the student next to me don't be surprised my answer is consistent with his.
So ultimately they were forced to include the Old Testament especially since the New Testament authors quoted the Old Testament. Matthew was the worst and he totally lifted out of context. Like the guy said in the video context is important. Under that premise Matthew should be thrown out at least. But Christians are stuck with all its' baggage. Condonation of slavery, women as property, divinely sanctioned genocide and it goes on. They really have to twist and turn to make such things moral. Reading the Bible for what it is (i.e. man made) lead me to throwing it out as a divinely inspired book. It falls far short of that. Read the Bible with the understanding that these where humans just trying to justify their behavior and it makes so much sense. You don't have to twist anything. The whole matter is cleared up. The pieces of the puzzle finally fit together without alteration.
Inspite of all of that, they still left text quoted in the New Testament out of the Old Testament. The example that comes to mind is either Jude or one of the Johannine epistles quotes 1 Enoch.
ReplyDeleteThere are a number of extra-biblical reference in the Old Testament to the book of Jasher (Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18) as an example. So it is a truly lost book even to Christians.
Deletesee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-canonical_books_referenced_in_the_Bible
Here are details on 1 Enoch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Enoch
The history of how the Bible came together is very uninspiring despite what Christians say. When you dig into it you see there were a bunch of Roman Christians (catholic) who looked for books to agree with what they already held, a patriarchal, hierarchal society. But there was still disagreement. It would have been good if they left out Revelations like many wanted to. It would cut down on the wackos who predict the end of the world.
Very true. The Apologists from the late second and third century often include references to or even lists of what they viewed as scripture. They all included texts that later didn't make the cut and left out texts that did. As I recall, no two lists matched. The final step was those in power picking their favorite texts so they could, with their new found imperial power, crush the "heretics", i.e. those who disagreed with them.
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It doesn't disqualify the inerrancy of God's holy writ. The present bible is still very consistent in every ramifications.
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