Why did the curators of the Bible include such interestingly contradicting texts in the final product? For instance...

Why did the curators of the Bible include such interestingly contradicting texts in the final product? For instance, God is supposed to be an absolute supreme moral being but he's susceptible to human flaws such as jealousy. God is unthinkably merciful but also punishes sin with unimaginable wrath. God also has to make rainbows as a pact to never flood the earth again. He seems so human but I don't think the curators were stupid and just overlooked these discrepancies. Why do you think they included these things?

you're to reflect on God as interpreted through the human lens

That makes sense because God is never seen in the bible as he truly is. God can not be truly seen because he exists in a realm outside of human cognition. God only appears as various earthly things such as a burning bush. Do you have anything more to say user?

well, you're thinking on a topic that I won't pretend to have an answer to. I came to my understanding primarily through reading Melville, who struggled quite a bit with understanding God in this way.

I'd recommend you read through Moby-Dick with this question in mind. Think about the way the various characters understand the concept of 'God', and you'll find it relates directly to interpreting the bible. Also pay particular attention to the three sermons of the book,

Pretty cool I'm getting through Moby-Dick but I'm only at the part where Ishmael is in New Bedford (so the beginning of the book). What are the three sermons of the book?

Hey OP, I just finished up a degree in Bible last spring. I focused on the Hebrew Bible, but touched on the fan fiction (new testament). My university was not married to the historical-critical method.

The Bible contains contradictory ideas for main three reasons.

First, even a literary text written by one author will include tensions and discrepancies. In Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald both criticizes and affirms the American Dream. However, we don't conclude that Fitzgerald utilized two different sources... rather, it's clear he was expressing a tension between two ideas. In the Bible, we have examples such as God's mercy and God's justice. God is neither entirely just not entirely merciful, instead we have a plethora of different stories which create a full and complicated account of God's nature. These contradictions may be intentional in some places or intentional in others.

Second, different sources contributed different details of stories. As most Biblically literate Veeky Forumsizens can tell you, scholars (in general) believe many doublets in the text indicate two sources. For example, Genesis contains two stories about wife/sister confusion. Many scholars will explain that two traditions featuring wife/sister stories existed within Israelite religion at some point. Rather than discard the stories, they were combined or conceived as two separate episodes. We have double concepts, such as two different notions of covenant. Therefore, we have contradictory stories or two names for the same place/episode in many places.

Thirdly, in the canonization of the Bible, competing theologies wanted opposing books included in the Bible. Someone argued to include Ezra/Nehemiah, which has a very isolationist and anti-convert sentiment. Someone else argued to include Ruth, which is pro-conversion, and the titular character Ruth is a Moabite, which the Torah specifically states cannot join the covenant. Due to the process of canonization, competing ideologies got their competing books incorporated into the cannon.

I'll be around for awhile in case anyone has any questions about the Bible, be glad to spread the good ol bible knowledge

>What are the three sermons of the book?

keep reading to find out ;)

Great thread so far. I think I'll stay in tonight for this.

>making a joke about staying in to read a thread
>implying you have anything better to do

Are you a Kabbalist? Where did you study? How did they try to make the competing ideologies work in a comprehensive text that is supposed to leave someone with an understanding of the religion? Were we never supposed to understand God simply?

>Are you a Kabbalist?
No. Though there really is no Judaism without kaballah

>Where did you study?
JTS of A

> How did they try to make the competing ideologies work in a comprehensive text that is supposed to leave someone with an understanding of the religion?
Because ideologies aren't rational and neither is the text that explains them. Everyone who played a hand in canonization, biblical authorship, and redaction all tried to assert what they believed the TRUTH of Israelite religion was. By the Bible's own account, monolatry/monotheism were minority opinions which most people ignored. This led to an amalgamation of different ideas about history, human nature, theology, tragedy... this book is a multifaceted treasure, it's all the things people in a world with scarce writing felt was important enough to pass along. The Bible contains competing ideas because different thinkers competed to have their ideas included.

> Were we never supposed to understand God simply?
No clue. God is the most tragic figure in the Bible. He just wants everyone to to worship him but they don't.

I used to struggle a lot with the fact that God obviously didnt write the Bible. Now rather than ask why we consider the bible divine, I ask why we DON'T consider Shakespeare divine.

Whats the deal with the long ages near the beginning after adam (or noah), people living for 700 years? (I originally quickly intuited it was how long the family name lasted in rule, but then quickly realized that there is writing that simply dismisses that claim)(I also supposed maybe it was counting in months, or seasons?)

And who/what were the Nephilim?

The interpretation I have heard is that God starts out as an imperialist asshole, and attempts to become more and more personal with man as the story goes on.

well if you,,,believe the garden of eden story, God.../god(?) started out wanting to create entities content with their ignorance, who were satisfied by the simple a e s t h e t i c pleasures of the world and body. So perhaps so, because god forsaw/forknew what man, the human history of world would turn into if it sought to infinitely escape its ignorance, including god then having to be angry and try to punish and stop fighting and injustice and debauchery (which we know it can be said, might it be easier for entities to be brutal and debaucherous when ignorant, as well as other discrepancies, such as how could man know that eating from the tree of knowledge of good evil was evil if he had no conception of evil, though this is nit picking and likely can be justified by, man knew some of good and bad, but the tree represents an immense knowledge beyond what man knew), of god having to intervene etc.

Then it can also be said, if God was all knowing, wouldnt God have known what would happen. Then it can be said, where is it said and how is it known that God is all knowing.

So then, man eats from the tree, starts advancing, milenia pass, and god says, meh, whatever, maybe they can bear the burden of godly knowledge and power. I mean, this was just suppose to be like the menu page trial course, but I guess I can be proud of my children (and well really myself, for allowing this possibility into the design) and let them try to create heaven on earth.

Or, yeah, I made earth like minecraft, and lets see what you players can do. youre welcome faggots. Though its not like I really care or need your worship or anything, I mean sometimes I am a bit jealous of some of the things you guys come up with, dont know if I could have thought of some of that myself, but its not like my feelings would be hurt if every single one of you didnt worship me often... seriously, I swear... no really.

fuck you kike

You read into things wayyyy too literally. You shouldn't see that and ask "what ACTUALLY happened that made them say they lived this many years." You should think "what does this mean to us, and what has it meant to our culture?" (It has to do with the transition from prehistory to history, and what that does).

>My university was not married to the historical-critical method.

Are you the user I was replying to that studied the text in university?

>what does this mean to us, and what has it meant to our culture?" (It has to do with the transition from prehistory to history, and what that does).

So why did they say they lived that long? What does it mean? transition from prehistory to history, can you clarify, what the meaning of this is?

His jealousy IS moral. He is jealous for your affection and you should be flattered.
If God was merciful 100% of the time his mercy would cease to have meaning.

Yes, he makes covenants that physically manifest in the human world because they are covenants with humans. We are half the pact at all times.

Which religion do you think the Veeky Forumsizen will adopt after the christian fad?

Historical-critical method isn't perfect... Oh look Samuel contains 2353 different viewpoints, must reflect 2353 different historical actors. As if no one in the ancient world had an imagination and could conceive of a king not wholly good or bad. The historical-critical method helps us investigate the Bible, but it has serious issues and limitations.

I am that user. I do not know the meaning of the long lives of men in Genesis.

The best approach to the Bible is rather than commit to one approach forever (i.e. the historical-critical method), use the bible to understand the bible. In the bible, men of great virtue live long lives. After the Garden, men decay from their prior state and live shorter lives. This seems to show a worsening of human life, a trend of men becoming more average overall and less heroic or special. Their inflated lifespans seem to show they're mythical, timeless... men of some kind of prior era.

Critically, you can compare this to many creation myths which usually have long life spans for primordial people. However I advise against reading Genesis overwhelmingly into the corpus of creation myths

>but also punishes sin with unimaginable wrath
It is unimaginable actually. Can anyone here claim to successfully imagine being tortured for all eternity. Not one billion years, not 100000000000000000000 milleniums. Those wouldn't even be drops in the bucket. They wouldn't be drops at all in fact, as they have relation to measurable time which eternity does not. In any case, even an eternal heavenly existence would be an unimaginable hell. Always struck me as odd that an all loving god would do this to even the most vile of human beings. Utter chaos.

the religion of thinking

this would be like going to school for astrology or alchemy

What's the best book of the bible and why is it the book of job?

What's the deal with deuteronomy, the last bit of exodus, Leviticus and Numbers being the fucking worst books of the bible?

Why is the book of proverbs so sorely overlooked in popular culture when book of psalms is so overrated yet so popular? The book of psalms has like a variety of 2 themes in its 150~ psalms, whereas proverbs is so much more varied and cleverly written than psalms.

Why does the book of kings sometimes include the books of samuel and sometimes not?

I don't think that reading of the age thing is 100%, there are a few instances where characters live beyond 100 years after Genesis, in non-decreasing amounts, but I think you're on the right track.

What is the line between the apocrypha and the canon?

What does the order of the Hebrew bible and the order of the christian bible reflect of both religions?

What's the deal with Ruth being included in the bible versus some apocrypha or other more substantial books versus the 3-4 pages of Ruth?

I just finished the Wisdom books but I'm hesitant to begin the Major prophets and Minor prophets books (Isaiah, jeremiah, lamentations, hosea, joel amos, etc.), any advice going forward or encouragement?

Also, why is there so much overlap between Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy? Why not compile them into one book? There's almost no narrative in any of them and much of what is stated doctrinally in one is restated in another.

The same for book of Chronicles, why bother with the 4 books of kings if you can just read the same thing in two books of chronicles???

theravada buddhism

Screencap this

I think the idea is that it's like an infinite good. I know that's what you just said, but think about it.
Would it be an infinite good if you ever got tired of it? No, it'd just be a "relative to how long you can take it" good.
People in heaven never get tired of heaven, otherwise it simply wouldn't be heaven.
Does infinity get tired of being infinity?
It can't, it's infinity.

Isn't the long lives simply to do with discrepancies in the way different cultures recorded numbers, resulting in some being recorded inaccurately?

t. Not a scholar

Nice b8!

yo, bump

get that faggot op back here answering some god damn questions

senpai hai

Lmao

I mean now I work for a big 3 consulting firm, so I guess I should check out astrology and alchemy.

Job is the best book of the Bible because it includes the last time God speaks in the Bible on the final page

>What's the deal with deuteronomy, the last bit of exodus, Leviticus and Numbers being the fucking worst books of the bible?
They're not! Leviticus definitely contains a lot of dry priestly info, but check out some secondary literature on what we learn about Israelite culture from Leviticus. Numbers is really important for understanding the relationship between God and the Israelites, especially in regard to sin. These sections contain a lot of reference material like measurements and instructions, but they also have a lot of good narrative.

>Why is the book of proverbs so sorely overlooked in popular culture when book of psalms is so overrated yet so popular? The book of psalms has like a variety of 2 themes in its 150~ psalms, whereas proverbs is so much more varied and cleverly written than psalms.
I have no idea why less people read/cite Proverbs, but I can tell you that a lot of people cite Psalms because its really, really good. The poetry, wordplay, messages... Psalms is a really good book.

And don't mistake Psalms for being only about two things... psalms focuses on worship, individual petition, God's agency, trust, national identity, thanksgiving... Don't sell Psalms short. Read it by yourself then pick up an annotated literary reading, preferably one not a Christian one (because obviously the anonymous writers of the Bible were not writing with allusions to Jesus).

>Why does the book of kings sometimes include the books of samuel and sometimes not?
I don't know what you're talking about. The Book of Kings is really one book, I Kings and II Kings are historical ways of splitting up the books because they were too long to fit in one scroll and make reference really annoying. Same thing with Samuel... the division is arbitrary.

However, many people believe that the first two chapters or so of I Kings belong at the end of II Samuel, because they argue that the source that Samuel's author drew upon ends in I Kings, not at the end of II Samuel. Read it and decide for yourself!

You may be thinking that people include Samuel as a "book of kings" because it contains the David story.

> I don't think that reading of the age thing is 100%
Yeah I have no idea. That was off the top of my head.

>What is the line between the apocrypha and the canon?
It's all pretty random, but my personal best guess (for the HB, I don't study NT), is that the books of the Masoretic Text are those that were provided to Cyrus by Ezra as a record of their legal texts. Apocrypha is simply those works from that time period which did not make the cut.

>What does the order of the Hebrew bible and the order of the christian bible reflect of both religions?
I think that the order of the Hebrew Bible reflects the three sources of wisdom in the Israelite conception of knowledge... the Torah of the Priests (Torah), the word of the Prophet (Prophets), and the written words (Writings). When the prophets mention these sources of knowledge, they usually list them in this order. I haven't read any good analysis of the exact ordering or why exactly some books are in Writings instead of Prophets or whatever,

>What's the deal with Ruth being included in the bible versus some apocrypha or other more substantial books versus the 3-4 pages of Ruth?
I think those that influenced Ezra (maybe rich guys with sexy foreign wives, or people who had read cough I Kings 11....) didn't want to get rid of all their foreign wives so they influenced him to include a well known book about a foreigner, to preserve the legitimacy of that viewpoint in Israelite religion. Ruth was probably written during the Second Temple period (linguistic and contextual evidence), and its advocates probably chose it because the Bible specifically prohibits Moabite women from joining the people, yet this shows a Moabite woman of such upstanding character that God grants her David as an offspring.

(3/3)
>I just finished the Wisdom books but I'm hesitant to begin the Major prophets and Minor prophets books (Isaiah, jeremiah, lamentations, hosea, joel amos, etc.), any advice going forward or encouragement?
Hell yes! Prophets is the largest part of the Bible!!!! It's so darn good and no one reads it.

I would suggest you start by reading the historical books (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings), which will expose you to preclassical prophets. Preclassical prophets tend to be freelance consultants, work for kings, predict the outcome of battles, or solve mundane mysteries. Preclassical prophets generally do not focus on ethical issues, other than monotheism.

After that, read the Book of Amos. Amos is on the cusp of classical prophecy, the kind of prophecy of Jeremiah and Isaiah, the poetic flowery stuff that comments on the ethical behavior of the people. He has some features of preclassical prophecy, and some features of classical prophecy.

After that, I'd hit up the big dogs Jeremiah then Isaiah, then read the rest of the prophets as you find them interesting or compelling. I like Jeremiah more, personally.

Check out Geller, Heschel, Spiegel, Muffs for some good secondary literature on the prophets.

>(because obviously the anonymous writers of the Bible were not writing with allusions to Jesus).
What's obvious about it?

That the authors of the majority of the hebrew bible's text were dead before he was alive...

Unless youre into reading things into the text and translating it improperly in order to fit your agenda.

>consulting firm,
consulting for what?

I don't think you've thought this through, which is a bit surprising, considering you clearly have some knowledge of the Bible.

I'm not at great liberty to discuss because we work for the government, but I basically do management consulting and help the government streamline projects or deals in order to make government more cost effective.

I don't know if God is real or not, but if he is he certainly doesn't want me to believe stupid bullshit like this

All this stuff makes it absolutely baffling to me that people can be biblical literalists. My brother-in-law's family take every word as 100% truth, which flies in the face of how the Bible was created in the first place and shows a laughable amount of ignorance about it.

my uncle has a theory that the devil runs Christianity

Worse than biblical literalism is bad interpretation. Reading messages into the Bible, trying to assert ones ideology into it... Catholicism and Rabbinic Judaism try to wrap the text around some absurd interpretation when the text plainly means something else. It's laughable.

What's more likely, one God created people, or people created many gods?
The bible is flawed because it's man-made. Because the Bronze Age inhabitants of Palestine were semi-literate, superstitious and stupid.

>in order to make government more cost effective.

So if you did a good enough job would you have to fire yourself? How about shave off a few bucks from your salary?

>I don't know if God is real or not, but if he is he certainly doesn't want me to believe stupid bullshit like this

tsk tsk, adding insult to the injured messiah

No because consulting is a necessary part of the market. For the pocket change the US govt spends on consulting, they save billions of dollars from their suggestions.

And even if you help one client enough that they feel they don't need consulting anymore, there are always others clients who need industry expertise.

Der Kozvismvs.

The bible is supposed to be the literal word of God, not an F Scott Fitzgerald novel. How many people were burned at the stake for even attempting to translate it into the vulgate?
You're clearly just cherry-picking a reading of the bible that suits your opinions and modern sensibilities.

T. Luke Timothy johnson

The claim that God wrote the Bible stands up to very little scholarly scrutiny. In my opinion, the linguistic and historical evidence against Mosaic authorship blows any other explanation away. I'm not dogmatic about this belief... if you want to believe that God wrote the Bible then go ahead.

>The claim that God wrote the Bible
Whoever made this claim, other than people claiming to argue against it, like you? No, really. I have never, ever heard anyone claim "God literally wrote the Bible himself", and I know a lot of religious people of various denominations. It's pants-on-head-retarded and has absolutely nothing to do with the Bible being "the literal word of God" - are you genuinely unable to comprehend this or am I missing something?
No, but, really. Who the fuck, ever, in the history of the world, has made the claim that God wrote the Bible? And I mean an intelligent person, not someone standing on the street with "end is nigh" written on a piece of cardboard.

see>Whoever made this claim, other than people claiming to argue against it, like you?
Plenty of Jewish people I know believe God dictated the Torah to Moses.... this is a pretty common belief in Orthodox and Conservative circles

Why you so mad bro?

this book will make the year numbers make sense within the context of Mesopotamia in general. It's for the same reason Gilgamesh's awe weighed 180 pounds and Baal steps in units of 10000 acres.
Think of it in relation to how Pharaohs were taller than surrounding people. Registry perspective can be used in many different reasons.

>No mention of Zepheniah, the most metal book in the entire goddamn Bible

come on lads

I'm not mad, just disappointed.

>I don't know if God is real or not, but if he is he certainly doesn't want me to believe stupid bullshit like this
Stupid bullshit like what? Prophecy gets along perfectly with the existence of God.

Please, write a lengthier of the ideas within this, I'm v interested : )


Sell me on it senpai!

Registry Perspective was unfortunatley the wrong word. I meant hierarchical perspective (see pic-related) where the more important or powerful beings are perceived as physically bigger. This idea is extremely common in egyptian art. Now keep this in mind when reading this excerpt from Kirta:

Sun, the God's Torch, burns,
the heavens shimmer
because of the power of Death, El's Darling.
A thousands fields, ten thousand acres at each step

that description of walking is used only for the gods and used for every god when they are describing the, traveling. That's not meant to be taken literally, but to remind the reader (or more likely, listener) the power of the gods mentioned in the text. A very similar thing is done in the Epic of Gilgamesh to emphasize G and E's near god-hood. There is no other reason to mention the weight of the of his axe, especially not as some unbelievably number like 180 pounds.

The hebrew's tradition comes directly from the Canaanites who almost never used numbers literally, but rather to drive home a point. They used units of 7 because the Canaanites used units of 7 and they artificially lengthened the life of there earlier cast to emphasize their importance for their people and their traditions.

>they artificially lengthened the life of there earlier cast to emphasize their importance for their people and their traditions.

roger, I think you're on the money

>... provided to Cyrus by Ezra as a record of their legal texts.
So, politically, does the Masoretic Text present an ideology amenable to the Persian conception of world order, in which, like other peoples in the Empire, the Hebrews could keep their laws and kings and God as long as they acknowledged a suzerain King of Kings? I know it is at least gracious in its portrayal of the Persians compared to the Assyrians and Babylonians.

Is it correct that the first lines of Genesis 1 begin identically to the opening lines of the Babylonian creation myth, and is the diversion to "and the Spirit of God ws over the waters" from a description of Enlil subduing Tiamat deliberate, to emphasize the omnipotence of God?

You already said you're no slave to critical theory, but what do you think of Torah authorship and the documentary hypothesis?

>Enlil
*Marduk, excuse me

Why do you assume a god can't walk ten thousand acres with each step, or that a two-third-god can't use an axe of 180 pounds?
Why do you assume that the people who wrote those things thought gods or the men of old were exactly like normal humans?
I just don't see why you think these are non-literal.

Because he's the kind of person who tries to rationalize everything in a supernatural setting.

you are making a big leap from "do not take the every god taking exactly 10000-acre steps literally" to "the people who wrote those things thought gods or the men of old were exactly like normal humans"

again its not that that the numbers are 'unrealistic' its that they are gratuitous and in the Ugaritic (Canaanite) text they are also systematic. They is no real reason to mention that Enkidu carried 300 pounds of shit on his back, Except, to emphasize his nature bigness or whatever. Also there is a very particular formula used in the acres/field line that is used all over the Ugaritic texts.
>Word(x) (number)
>Synonym(x) (larger number)
for example:

Take a lamb in your hand,
a sacrificial lamb in your right hand,
a young animal in both your hands
-kirta

or taking numbers out of the issue and just looking at parallelism used as emphasis and a mode of escalation

Leave my house, weepers
leave my place, mourners
leave my court, you who gash your skin

its a very systematic effect that they use everywhere in there writing. Gilgamesh is much less systematic with it admittedly.

nope, but i am interested in why someone would write something so particular

the second example is from Aqhat

Never mind self-contradiction. God apparently couldn't even take on Superman.

Check out Judges 1:19.
>And the LORD was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron.

>The bible is supposed to be the literal word of God

What? All main Jewish and Christian denominations consider the bible man-made. Only the quran is supposed to be from God and even it is not the "word" or God since it's supposedly uncreated.

What's the best way to study the bible?
I found reading it boring as fuck, at least genesis and exodus were lame as fuck, I think I'm missing the historical and theological knowledge to understand it.

Is the youtube harvard course about the bible a good introduction?

>even it is not the "word" or God since it's supposedly uncreated.
I don't know about Islam, but "uncreated", or, rather, "begotten, not created" is tied with the concept of God's word - which, of course, has nothing to do with the written word or the Bible.

It was much easier to sell retarded bullshit when questioning the general consensus got you killed.

I still don't get why you can't take it literally in every case though.

lel

doesn't it just mean that Judah couldn't drive out the inhabitants? Or do you believe that when it says the Lord was with Judah it means he was literally there walking beside him, maybe with an arm around him?

I'm pretty sure God's supposed to be able to accomplish anything at any time, regardless of if he's there ""physically"", user-baka.

There is nothing that implies that he tried

>The LORD was with him

Doesn't make God their personal attack dog

I want to start reading the Bible,should i start with the old or new testament?

Both.