PSA: The Bible: clearing up some misconceptions

Jun 09, 2008 17:16

  • The Bible is, depending on the canon, between sixty-six and ninety-one books, not one big book. There's some stuff that carries over from book to book and some that doesn't. It's like the Upanishads. If you confuse the Isa Upanishad for the Shvetashvatara Upanishad you're seriously missing the point.
  • The Bible was written by many different people in different times and places at different stages of their lives. If you think God can't, I don't know, say different things to different people, you've vastly underestimated Him.
  • Writing is not a free action. These people put a lot of time and effort into this.
  • The earliest parts of the Bible date back about three thousand years and the canon was settled in the fourth century. The men (and women?) who wrote this thing did not anticipate readily-available contraception, loving gay relationships, preemptive wars over weapons of mass they've-got-to-be-here-somewhere, suicide bombing, or the Fonz. Remember, God's main problem with gay gang rape, ritual gay temple sex, or gay rape of war prisoners is probably not the 'gay' part.
  • Jesus made a lot of the Old Testament Dis Continuity (indeed, in some interpretations, this was actually His primary function). Probably including the parts about throwing people off cliffs.
  • Biblical stoning was getting you drunk and throwing you off a very tall cliff. It was also really, really hard to get a conviction because you had to have an overall majority of seventy-odd judges and the verdict couldn't be unanimous because that might be a sign of corruption or brainwashing.
  • Theocracy ruled by God-appointed Judges works in an Iron-Age desert culture with a population of about a hundred thousand. Theocracy ruled by God-appointed Judges does not work in a post-Silicon-Age global culture with a population of seven thousand million.
  • The Book of Genesis, for the first dozen or so chapters anyway, is what's called 'condensed backstory.' Condensed backstory.
  • If a message is for all people in all times, it's probably not a good idea to impose the same cultural and social norms on every culture that hears it. Just because somebody is a Christian doesn't mean they have to follow a white suburban heteronormative lifestyle with a fuel-efficient SUV and two rambunctious little scamps (although some of us may want to). In fact, Jesus specifically warned against this way of looking at religion.
  • God is too wise to get on people's sides politically. Some governments work for some countries, different governments work for different countries. Remember Paul to the Romans.
  • Hell is not a sentence without parole. It's just that if you're the sort of person who ends up there you're probably going to resist the parole for as long as possible.
  • The Book of Revelation was added to the canon very late in the going and even many Christian scholars admit that there were a lot of strange mushrooms on Patmos.
  • If God hates gay people, why did He allow so much potential for Ruth/Naomi femmeslash?
  • If God hated anybody, they would not exist. And yes, this includes 'Satan.'
  • Finally, the Bible does not specifically bar women, gays, or married people from the priesthood. Nor does it specifically encourage their ordination.

books is good, religion

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