Saying that trees have hands and that the world has corners are allegories, the Bible is full of them.

Like I said before the Bible was written over a long period and by many people. It has also been rewritten and edited at least once per century and not only for theological reasons but political as well. Trying to deny or ignore that is being willfully blind.

Jesus' philosophy is best summed up by the golden rule, no need to nitpick.

Precisely! I'm glad you agree.

Actually, those are metaphors.

Uh-huh. No backing, no evidence, just a blanket statement that can't be defended historically or philologically, and anybody who doesn't agree must be willfully blind. Thanks for the laugh, I needed that.

Wrong again. Jesus' philosophy is best summed up by John 14:6.

An allegory is an extended metaphor.

Every time the Bible was translated it was in a sense rewritten. E.g. when the King James Bible was written the translators replaced "Yahweh" with "The Lord." And that is the very least of it.
Another time all references to reincarnation were edited out of the New Testament, the idea of it only survives indirectly such as when the man born blind asked Jesus, "was I born blind because of the sins of my father or my own sins ?" Remember he was born blind so any sins of his could only have been committed in a former life.
The oldest known Bible, the Sinai Bible in the British Museum has more than ten thousand alterations from today's Bible.

I doubt Jesus ever said that. But it is typical for a power hungry religious organization to add something like this to strengthen its hold on followers minds.

I don't think it makes any difference how many times the Bible was rewritten. Once or one thousand-we still end up with the same problem. In a previous topic I suggested that our sense experiences and historical information was, and still is changing. We can never tell if our sensory information is necessarily true.

No doubt the bible was inspired by God, but this inspiration was written down by by men. In fact it would make no different if God wrote something down himself. In the end we are stuck in the human situation. We can never break free of time and space ( while we are alive) and say. "This is the way the it really is".

From my point of view allegories/metaphors are a good way of getting the spirtitual message across.

Tut

The ones you mention are not extended.


Nobody knows if it was pronounced Yahweh, or Yehowahu, or Johann Sebastian. It was and is common to render it as "the Lord." That's not rewriting, it's good-sense translation. You're grasping at straws, nothing more. And the more modern translations have in hundreds of cases actually restored the meaning of the original. Translation is not the same as rewriting or editing; I think you're making this stuff up.



Oh, this is the funniest thing I've read in ages! Where's your evidence that anything was "edited out"? What surviving documents can you produce that have the pre-editing text? I could just as easily say all references to unicorns were edited out somewhere along the way. I can understand people who have various problems with the Bible, but most of them are based on something real. Again, I think you're just making stuff up.

Do you perhaps mean Codex Sinaiticus, found at St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai by Constantin Tischendorf in the late 1800's? I've read the whole thing. Have you? And of those "more than ten thousand alterations," the vast majority are nothing more than spelling variations. For that matter, I'm not sure how you can talk about an ancient Greek manuscript having alterations from "todays [sic] Bible." What exactly is "today's Bible"? Is it in English? This is so much nonsense. The Old Testament of Sinaiticus is the Septuagint Greek text, the New Testament is one of the best examples of the Alexandrian text-type. It shows corrections over the centuries from at least four hands, omits the last ten verses of Mark, and includes the Epistle of Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas. And it's not the "oldest known Bible." Your information is haphazard, spotty and just plain wrong.

What's your basis for doubting it? I really don't know what "power hungry religious organization" you mean, since we have clear evidence that it was written in the first century, when Christians were a severely persecuted minority who just wanted to live in peace. The power-hungry religious organization of that time was the Roman empire, which was trying to wipe them out. I'd love to know where you're getting this stuff, because it's so far beyond absurd I'm not sure English has a word for it.

Pope John Paul II - Catechesis on Heaven, Hell and Purgatory (link)

JoeT

My point is Dwashur and Wondergirl, all things written in the bible are inspired of GOD and are there for our benefit (2 Timothy 3:16) so, what man has written and recorded in the bible ultimately comes from God's thoughts. These men understood clearly what condition we are in when we die and whether it be from the OT or NT it all harmonizes with this. Even Jesus himself likened the condition of the dead to being asleep. (John 11:11-14) This harmonizes with Eccl 9:5 and backs up the resurrection hope in Matthew 28:19,20.

I'm glad you mentioned Jesus remarks about the maggots Dwashur as he was alluding to Isaiah 66:24 which states “the carcases of the men that have transgressed against [God],”... “their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched.” This of course was referring to how ones not deserving of a proper burial were treated in Jerusalem. (Their bodies were thrown into The Valley of Hinnom which was like a dump, Gehenna in Greek) So Gehenna is a place of eternal destruction, not eternal torment. (Compare Revelation 20:13,14) Jesus then drives the point home in Matthew 10:28 by saying "And do not become fearful of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but rather be in fear of him that can destroy both soul and body in Ge‧hen′na."

Yes our spirit certainly does go back to God where it originally came from but that's not to say we are floating round playing harps up there but rather any chance we have of a resurrection remains with God. The soul itself dies according to Ezekiel 18:20 but our life force (spirit) comes from God and returns to God.

As for your comment of the rich man Lazarus parable Dwashur, I've posted before on that subject under the thread How Is It Then That People See Ghosts and Spirits?

I try my best to post here in order to help people understand the bible and if possible draw closer to God, not to argue or debate over and over. Yes I've learned a great deal in studying Jesus' and his Father's words and put all my trust in them. Isn't it nice that we can have a place like this to freely share with others what we've learned?

No argument there, but again, context is everything. You like to pull certain passages out of context and make them say what you want them to, regardless of their immediate context or the wider context of the Bible.

"It all harmonizes with this." Wrong, wrong, wrong. Paul said that to be absent from the body is to be present with the lord, commanded that someone be handed over to Satan for destruction of the flesh so the spirit can be saved, Revelation shows the souls of martyrs clearly conscious beneath the altar in heaven, the list goes on and on and on.

Wow. If ever there was a better example of what's been called "knight-jump exegesis" I don't know what it is.

Okay, now you're just deflecting. Nobody said anything about floating or harps or any of that nonsense, and you know it. Stick to what we actually say or just acknowledge that you don't have a biblical answer.

This is an utterly meaningless statement. There's really not much to say to it because it's internally contradictory.

Was it as lame as this stuff?

No, your posts here push a particular sectarian view that most people familiar with Christianity can recognize in an instant. Don't try to disguise it with polite language, because we all know what you're doing. The Bible contradicts your view. So if you truly do believe it, then you have a decision to make.

I agree with John Paul11(perhaps for different reasons) when he explains heaven,hell and purgatory in terms of, 'state of being' rather than 'a real place'. If we say heaven and hell are actual places then we must being talking about 'place' in terms of four dimensions. The problem then becomes, 'where is it located?' John Paul11 seems to be acknowledging the problems we have when we try and represent our experiences in terms of language.

I think that Greo-Roman Idealism played an important role during this time.
By this I mean that new knowledge was meaningless unless it fitted into an Idealist understanding. More correctly, the only way it could be understood at the time.

Heaven and hell would have been regarded as being part of the natural world. So the concept of a place would make perfect sense.

Jesus would have known all of this but he had no choice but to couch the idea in a way that was understandable for the time... Well, it makes sense to me.

Tut

I hope you're not limiting God to four dimensions. Scientists postulate that there are at least ten dimensions, possibly more. If God could figure out how to create the universe and all that's in it, I'm guessing He could figure out how to create heaven and where to put it.

Hi Wondergirl,

Once again an impressive post by you.

If what you are saying is correct then I guess God can travel as many dimensions as he likes. Interesting idea.

Using the idea you have put forward- my point was this. It would make no sense for Jesus to have said to his followers...

Heaven is a place that exists in a tiny curled up dimension less than a Plank length 1.616252(81)x10-35 meters. We find heaven and hell as we move along each of the ten dimensions. One could imagine the looks he would have received.

I guess my point was that he needed to explain heaven and hell in understandable terms. And the best understanding of the time was that heaven and hell is a real place. As opposed to the idea of explaining heaven and hell in terms of a place that is not really a place because dimensions are meaningless when we get down to such tiny lengths.

Regards

Tut

Why would you think other dimensions are tiny? A certain psychic claims that the dead are walking around about three feet off the ground in a dimension we can't see or interact with. (So watch out when you're walking so you don't get someone's foot in your mouth or get kicked in the stomach.)

I always liked that Twilight Zone adventure when the kid crawls under his bed and finds a "door" or opening into another dimension.

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.

Go to your local library and check out books on string theory and wormholes.

Hi wondergirl,


Perhaps you need to keep in mind that you are the one who introduced the idea of extra dimensions.

As to why these dimensions need to be tiny? Planck force predicts the required tension in a string. Theories about time, length and mass on a tiny scale follow from this prediction.

As to your reference to the 'Twilight Zone' I' m not sure what you are getting.


Regards

Tut

You and Pope John Paul II mentioned four dimensions, but God certainly isn't limited to what our finite minds are. Like the lad in TZ, there may be a door to another dimension (or a wormhole) under your bed (you just don't know it's there). I personally like the JW's belief that most of the faithful will end up spending eternity on a perfect Earth. Since God went to all the trouble to make such a beautiful world, why waste it by destroying it with fire or ice?

Hi again Wondergirl,

Yes, I agree that God is not limited by four dimensions. The ones who are limited by four dimensions are ourselves. On this basis any understanding of God is restricted to a four dimensional explanation. Can we come up with an explanation not involving four dimensions?

Regards

Tut

Since a four-dimensional world is the only reference point our finite minds can comprehend, probably not.

[QUOTE=Wondergirl;2453308]Excellent point WGirl! There are many scriptures that back this belief up, Isaiah 45:18; Eccl 1:4; Psalm 37:29 to name a few, so why doubt God's purpose for this beautiful home of ours?

If a landowner rents his brand new home to thugs who then trash it and turn it into a hovel, what will he do? Burn the building down? No he will evict the tenants and find more responsible ones to care for it properly. The same with God and the earth. Doesn't this show God to be truly loving as it brings out in 1 John 4:8? So how could a God so loving and merciful punish a mere human for all eternity? That idea is in complete contrast with the words in Psalm 104:9 "He will not for all time keep finding fault, Neither will he to time indefinite keep resentful."

Dwashbur, I'm busy brushing the dust off my feet. :p

[QUOTE=Moparbyfar;2451839]Edit: Oops this should be John 5:28, 29. :o

What will God do with the evicted tenants?