Re: Ehrman and Strauss's books
Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2023 7:00 pm
I'm always using some biblical term in Words With Friends 2.
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I'm always using some biblical term in Words With Friends 2.
B.H. wrote: ↑Fri Aug 11, 2023 12:07 am I always thought it strange that Saul would name his son Ishba'al when Saul, though messing up a lot, never in the Bible worshiped any god but God. I think Saul and Ishba'al if they existed were probably pagan kings retroactively portrayed as God worshippers.
Another thing, David is portrayed as just so loving and kind to Saul despite Saul hunting him down and wanting him dead, with Sauls heir (Jonathon) being his best friend and all, turning against own father for David. It makes me suspect David may have killed Saul or defeated him in battle and to heal or cover up national ills it was later blamed on the Phillistines. Actually David was said to live with the Phillistines and maybe they and his forces defeated Saul and this was left out of the Bible to make David and his line look good
Kind of like the "Cherry tree 'I cannot tell a lie' myth" about George Washington??? There is a lot of whitewashing in history to create narratives that are designed to create national pride.B.H. wrote: ↑Fri Aug 11, 2023 12:07 am I always thought it strange that Saul would name his son Ishba'al when Saul, though messing up a lot, never in the Bible worshiped any god but God. I think Saul and Ishba'al if they existed were probably pagan kings retroactively portrayed as God worshippers.
Another thing, David is portrayed as just so loving and kind to Saul despite Saul hunting him down and wanting him dead, with Sauls heir (Jonathon) being his best friend and all, turning against own father for David. It makes me suspect David may have killed Saul or defeated him in battle and to heal or cover up national ills it was later blamed on the Phillistines. Actually David was said to live with the Phillistines and maybe they and his forces defeated Saul and this was left out of the Bible to make David and his line look good
There is no way to really know that B.H.. The philosopher / mathematician Rene Descartes after much consideration concluded that all we can know is "cogito ergo sum". He declared that he had peeled away the layers of the onion of what we consider knowledge discarding everything about which we could be deceived or mistaken, and he arrived at the conclusion that the only thing we can know with certainty is that "I think, there for I am." That is, "that because I have an awareness, I can know I exist". Everything else may or may not be real or true. As for the divine, everyone experiences the divine contingent upon the framework of the situation and culture they exist in. In Asia one is likely to experience the divine in the guise of Buddha or Krishnah; in Europe and the Americas one is more likely to experience the divine in the guise of Jehovah and Jesus. In the middle east the divine comes packaged as Allah. Sadly, humans have spent most of their history destroying each other in the name of their own version of the divine, claiming he, she, it to be the one true god when in reality all the gods are the same divine nature.B.H. wrote: ↑Sat Aug 12, 2023 4:52 pm There are versions of the book of Esther that has chapters in them not in the Bibles we knew growing up. It has God involved in the planning behind the scenes and explains God's role.
It bothers me that the Bible has been edited and changed. You can't prove what is supposed to be there if anything at all was inspired in the first place.
The christians say the other religions of the world were invented by Satan. Other religions and mythologies have an evil bastard in them too. How do we know that Judaism and Christianity is a false religion created by the evil bastard in another religion that happens to be the true religion, or perhaps they are all corrupted.?
That's possible. But I want to address your first sentence. I always thought the idea was not that David was being so loving and kind to Saul -- but rather that David was respecting God as his sovereign. Only God had the right to dethrone the King that God had chosen. I think that is the point the scribe was making, but I could be wrong, of course.B.H. wrote: ↑Fri Aug 11, 2023 12:07 am Another thing, David is portrayed as just so loving and kind to Saul despite Saul hunting him down and wanting him dead, with Sauls heir (Jonathon) being his best friend and all, turning against own father for David. It makes me suspect David may have killed Saul or defeated him in battle and to heal or cover up national ills it was later blamed on the Phillistines. Actually David was said to live with the Phillistines and maybe they and his forces defeated Saul and this was left out of the Bible to make David and his line look good
As I see it, the Bible is a reflection of the ancient Hebrews -- and early Christian church's -- experience of God. When you read the Bible, you are reading their diary of faith, mulled over and interpreted and reinterpreted in the light of their difficult circumstances and further experience of God.