The Bible

[FULL METAL JACKET]

I know that many things have been edited out the bible, and that the bible contains a ton of contradictions.

In my History class today we read how some articles and bible passages of Old Testament stories which were directly borrowed from mesopotamian stories. Also that Moses was Egyptian and he talked with a Hebrew accent and that the bible cover up the fact that he had a accent with some story. Basically alot of stuff I didn't know, and many interesting things about the New Testament.

Well that got me interested in finding out about more of the true origins, the real authors, bible criticisms, things like that.

What am asking is can anyone here give me some recommendations on books I can read on the subject? Websites would be great too. Thanks.

[redstar2000]

What you really need to do, if time permits, is to go to the religion section of your local public library and carefully browse the shelves. Buried in all the crap, you will run into a few works by modern Biblical scholars that lay out in detail how the "Bible" was written and what its sources were...as well as how we know that most of it is entirely fictional.

Though somewhat dated now, I would strongly recommend beginning with Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible (in two volumes).

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/223.gif

[Ice]

Originally posted by FULL METAL [email protected] 27 2006, 11:15 PM
I know that many things have been edited out the bible, and that the bible contains a ton of contradictions.
It would be great if any one can provide me with some reliable sources about the bible being edited constantly. I have been looking for this for a long time.

[Postteen]

The old testament is a jewish fairytale and the new...it just contains some clues which have not been mentioned in any other historical book.So even if it didnt contain contradictions at all,how could you believe in it?

[FULL METAL JACKET]

It would be great if any one can provide me with some reliable sources about the bible being edited constantly. I have been looking for this for a long time.

I don't think it's constantly edited but it has been edited. You can start by knowing the books that didn't make it to the bible. The Gospel of Mary Magdeline, Gospel of Phillip, Gospel of Thomas.


The old testament is a jewish fairytale and the new...it just contains some clues which have not been mentioned in any other historical book.So even if it didnt contain contradictions at all,how could you believe in it?

Who said I did?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28 2006, 04:25 AM
What you really need to do, if time permits, is to go to the religion section of your local public library and carefully browse the shelves. Buried in all the crap, you will run into a few works by modern Biblical scholars that lay out in detail how the "Bible" was written and what its sources were...as well as how we know that most of it is entirely fictional.

Though somewhat dated now, I would strongly recommend beginning with Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible (in two volumes).

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/223.gif
Or you could check out the movie The God who wasn't there

You can buy it online here (http://www.thegodmovie.com/) or get it from a peer 2 peer.

[Iepilei]

Some is metaphor for historical pushes of the times. Revelation is one such book. Generally, however, the bible is fiction with a few random blips of reality meshed in somewhere.

[Iroquois Xavier]

The Bible, the largest selling fictional book ever... after Harry Potter. :D

[Lord Testicles]

A lot of the christian storys were influenced by a religion called zoroastrianism, maybe you should start looking for the bible in there.

[Zak]

"Though somewhat dated now, I would strongly recommend beginning with Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible (in two volumes)."


That sounds really cool, I love Isaac Asimov, is there a free version of that? I hate to funnel money into those evil capatilist publishing companies :D

[FULL METAL JACKET]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2006, 03:13 AM
"Though somewhat dated now, I would strongly recommend beginning with Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible (in two volumes)."


That sounds really cool, I love Isaac Asimov, is there a free version of that? I hate to funnel money into those evil capatilist publishing companies :D
^ I got it at my library. If anyone has a download link let me know though.

I was thinking of starting a like leftist library website, free books to download. Basically all the books in my collection. It will be like invite only meaning I send you and invite you send your friend an invite, etc. Sounds good?

[Zak]

Sounds like a really cool idea, i have some things i could contribute as well. Yeah it would be good to keep that sortof on the down-low.

[Free Left]

A lot of the christian storys were influenced by a religion called zoroastrianism, maybe you should start looking for the bible in there.

Zoraster was a prophet who siad everything came in pairs: Light-Dark Good-Evil
God-AntiGod(sorta like Satan) etc.
Although the Bible did borrow a few things from Zorastoranism it wasn't much. They borrowed heavily from other Persian gods as well.
Did you know that the Jews beleived in other Gods as well as "the God".
They only started completely believing in one God a bit before Jesus supposedly came!

[mzalendo]

look a book called "the ancient nilo-hamitic mythology" and u'll discover why the bible is a bunch of lies.

[Oh-Dae-Su]

the bible is a umm a ummm BOOK!! and who develops books? ummm HUMANS! and if you believe that the Apostles were "inspired" by God, than you might as well believe a guy in New Mexico who writes of his encounters with alien lifeforms, because he was "inspired" by aliens to write it.

Although, i'll tell you one thing , the bible is an important book, because it teaches you about life, its more of a "moral" book, to teach you about ethics.

[Oh-Dae-Su]

look a book called "the ancient nilo-hamitic mythology" and u'll discover why the bible is a bunch of lies.

the Bible is not a bunch of lies, you have to read it, and interpret it as you would interpret a fable, but most people interpret the Bible literally, and thats where you get all these religious fanatic freaks.

"BECAUSE THE BIBLE SAID THAT GOD WILL COME AND JUDGE YOU!" bla bla bla

thats not what i mean, the Bible is full of stories, which are moral teachings, and it is full of quotes.

one of them this one : "Like a gazelle from the hands of the hunter, like a bird from the snare the fowler, FREE YOURSELF!"

yes , believe it or not thats from the Bible, its one of the quotes i have below.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by Oh-Dae-[email protected] 7 2006, 10:53 PM


Although, i'll tell you one thing , the bible is an important book, because it teaches you about life, its more of a "moral" book, to teach you about ethics.
Why would you take moral teachings from a book written a couple thousand years ago when it tells you to stone non-believers to death? Whats the point of even "picking the good shit out". It's not relevant.

[FULL METAL JACKET]

Originally posted by nate+Mar 7 2006, 10:30 PM--> (nate @ Mar 7 2006, 10:30 PM)
Oh-Dae-[email protected] 7 2006, 10:53 PM


Although, i'll tell you one thing , the bible is an important book, because it teaches you about life, its more of a "moral" book, to teach you about ethics.
Why would you take moral teachings from a book written a couple thousand years ago when it tells you to stone non-believers to death? Whats the point of even "picking the good shit out". It's not relevant. [/b]
I completely agree with you nate. Loving your neighbor sounds great, but you can't love your neighbor and discriminate against gays, condone stoning people to death, and condone slavery among other things.

[AdamCecil]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 28 2006, 03:58 PM

Or you could check out the movie The God who wasn't there

You can buy it online here (http://www.thegodmovie.com/) or get it from a peer 2 peer.
That movie only brings to light an opinion of a very small amount of scientists. Most scientists actually think there was an historical figure named Jesus.

[Oh-Dae-Su]

ohh to even doubt jesus existed is retarded, there is no doubt a person named Jesus of Nazareth existed, it is written in Roman texts, and Hebrews as well, if you doubt he existed might as well doubt that Napoleon, Ceasar, Alexander the Great existed..



Why would you take moral teachings from a book written a couple thousand years ago when it tells you to stone non-believers to death? Whats the point of even "picking the good shit out". It's not relevant.

the Bible says to stone non-believers to death?!!! what ;) i highly doubt that, now if you tell me that some wacko preist interpreted a passage from the Bible as such, than yeah sure, how many religious freaks haven't interpreted Bible passages to do all types of wrongdoings.

The Bible is a fable, my friends, if you denounce those who take seriously the Adam and Eve story, than you are surely denouncing yourself as welll by saying "ohh the Bible says to hate non-believers".

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Oh-Dae-Su
ohh to even doubt jesus existed is retarded, there is no doubt a person named Jesus of Nazareth existed, it is written in Roman texts, and Hebrews as well, if you doubt he existed might as well doubt that Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander the Great existed..

The existence of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon is all rather well-documented.

Not so with "Jesus". It is historically plausible that he existed...but there's no actual contemporary evidence to support the idea.

Everything that we have that was written about him was written decades or even centuries after his death.

So, strictly speaking, it's kind of a "toss up" whether there ever actually was "a historical Jesus".

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/223.gif

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

It's only a matter of time before the secular Christians (for which religion is more of a comfort blanket) will start to say how Jesus was a metaphor, or had another meaning and that he didn't exist.

People used to believe Jesus did all kinds of crazy shit, they even thought the world was 6000 years old and loads of other obvious lies. In order to add rationality to this they now say the bible stories are meant to be symbolic.

Where will the 'religious' reformism end? you should totally give up that crap, and stick by your guns. Honestly, at least the fundamentalists know that their wrong but don't care, that takes some real faith.



the Bible says to stone non-believers to death?!!!

Yeah because the Christian god is a nice fella, just skim through the old testament and see.

[Oh-Dae-Su]

i guess Pontius Pilate didn't exist, he was part of the metaphor as well? lmao
like i said, it is known that a man named Jesus existed, that he preached his teachings, now if you want to believe that he was the song of god like he said and that he rose from the dead, thats another story, but even the most skeptical know that this man did exist. Just like we know Mohammed existed, if you want to believe that he actually talked to angels, than you might as well believe the guy who comes out in TV saying he had an alien encounter; because you believe that the guy is talking bullshit that doesn't mean he himslef doesn't exist!

i believe that a man , maybe his name was sdkljflsdjfljsaldfj i dont fucking know, but i know that the man we call Jesus did exist, but i obviously don't believe any of his teachings, he was just a human like me like you.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

OK then, prove Jesus existed.

[Goatse]

Prove Hitler existed.

[Ol' Dirty]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2006, 10:24 PM
Prove Hitler existed.
Exactly. If we do not have remnants of the body of a dead person, that does not mean that they never existed, it merely means that we don't have the body; even then, we still have historical and material evidence of the persons' life, along with the aftershocks of their life (in this case Cristianity).

[Oh-Dae-Su]

hahaha funny how he didn't come back and awnser. Anyways, Hitler wasn't a good example because we have pictures and videos of him, but Napoleon or Christopher Columbus would be perfect examples. Lets see how do we know these two characters existed, well first of all they did extraordinary world changing events, they are recorded in texts, and there are portraits of them, same goes to Jesus of Nazareth. The thing is that since christians elevate Jesus to a more than human status, certain idiots still believe that he wasn't human or something lol. I bet if you ask these guys if Mohammed or Sidharta Gautma (Buddha) existed they will probably say yes, and thats because in their respective religions they are just known as normal extraordinary human beings, not supernatural like Jesus is viewed in the Christian world.

Anyways, maybe Napoleon and Columbus weren't great examples, how can they prove Confucious or Plato, or Ceasar existed?

yeah until you can make a constructive keep silent.

[Free Left]

Yeah, there is actually some evidence that Jesus didn't claim he was the son of God or do all the miracles i.e walk on water and it was only added in later to make people follow Christianity because people don't want to follow a religion based around a prophet they want a sort of supernatural person with Godly powers.

[FULL METAL JACKET]

Originally posted by Free [email protected] 12 2006, 03:01 PM
Yeah, there is actually some evidence that Jesus didn't claim he was the son of God or do all the miracles i.e walk on water and it was only added in later to make people follow Christianity because people don't want to follow a religion based around a prophet they want a sort of supernatural person with Godly powers.
Interesting. Know any books or sites on that?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by Oh-Dae-[email protected] 10 2006, 04:44 PM
Anyways, maybe Napoleon and Columbus weren't great examples, how can they prove Confucious or Plato, or Ceasar existed?

yeah until you can make a constructive keep silent.
Bull fucking shit. I never asked for proof of Plato's, Ceasar's, or Columbus' existance, I asked for proof of Jesus' existance. Stop with the red herrings.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

There's a ton of evidence that Jesus didn't exist.

Where Jesus never walked (http://www.atheists.org/christianity/ozjesus.html)

Did Jesus exist? (http://www.atheists.org/christianity/didjesusexist.html)

The Bible and Jesus myths (http://www.atheists.org/christianity/myth.html)

Did Jesus Christ Really Live? (http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/marshall_gauvin/did_jesus_really_live.html)

From How Jesus got a life (http://www.atheists.org/christianity/jesuslife.html)



I. "Jesus Christ" never existed as an historical figure.

It is a curious fact that the oldest components of the so-called New Testament, the letters believed to have been written by one Saul/Paul, know almost nothing of any Jesus biography. Neither Bethlehem nor Nazareth are mentioned in these charter documents of the Christian religion. Only in the much later Book of Acts is it claimed that Saul (Paul) had an interview with "Jesus of Nazareth." The later the document, the greater the detail of the Jesus story presented.

There is no convincing evidence to make one suppose that any of the surviving "gospels" were written by eyewitnesses. Indeed, study of the gospels shows quite conclusively that they were not. For example, the authors of the gospels of Matthew and Luke incorporate nearly the entire Greek text of the gospel of Mark, adding sayings taken from yet another document (the so-called "Q-Document"), and generally make the miracles recounted by Mark even more miraculous. Had Matthew and Luke been eyewitnesses, they would have written their own accounts, without recourse to plagiarism.

Mark's gospel, the oldest of the official set of four, contains errors of geography and custom that would not have been made by an eyewitness. John's gospel, the latest of the set, is both too late and too ethereal to be taken as a biographical account at all - eyewitness or otherwise. There is nothing about the gospels to make one take them seriously from a biographic point of view: there is no good reason to think them other than ancient examples of the art of fiction.

If the historicity of Jesus cannot be supported by the New Testament writings, what about extrabiblical sources? Did any Greek or Roman or Jewish historians observe his career and write about it? Not one.

Although Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and other ancient authors are often cited as evidence for an historical Jesus, it is clear that their accounts (even if they could be proven authentic) are derivative, not original. Josephus, the oldest of these historians, was born at least five years after the date of the alleged crucifixion! There are no eyewitnesses. Moreover, the ancient non-Christian accounts of Jesus all were written at a time when Christianity already was a thriving delirium, and our pagan authors can be taken only as being witnesses of the state to which Christian traditions had evolved in their times, not as witnesses of an historical Jesus of Nazareth.

There is no credible evidence indicating Jesus ever lived. This fact is, of course, inadequate to prove he did not live. Even so, although it is logically impossible to prove a universal negative, it is possible to show that there is no need to hypothesize any historical Jesus. The Christ biography can be accounted for on purely literary, astrological, and comparative mythological grounds. The logical principle known as Occam's Razor tells us that basic assumptions should not be multiplied beyond necessity. For practical purposes, showing that an historical Jesus is an unnecessary assumption is just as good as proving that he never existed.

[Intelligitimate]

There is a lot of shitty commentary in here about whether or not Jesus existed.

For one, I suggest any serious Marxist who is interested in the idea that Jesus never existed look at Engels' Bruno Bauer and Early Christianity (http://eserver.org/Marx/1882-early.christianity.txt). Is Engels retarded, Oh-Dae-Su? How about Karl Kautsky, considered the heir of Marxism for a long time, is he a retard? After all, he presents the view that Jesus is mythical in his Foundations of Christianity (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1908/christ/index.htm).


if you doubt he existed might as well doubt that Napoleon, Ceasar, Alexander the Great existed.

This statement only exposes your own ignorance regarding these historical figures. For instance, we actually have books written by Ceasar, and the sources regarding Alexander are much, much more reliable than clearly fictional shit you find in the Gospel of Mark, which the other Gospels copied and expanded upon.

[Oh-Dae-Su]

firstly im not a Marxist, Intelligitimate, secondly, why would Engel be retarded? what does that have to do with anything? do you think the preacher in some church is retarded just because he believes something you dont? thats a pretty short sighted norrow minded view of the world my friend.

Also, stop giving me this reference of theories made by humans just like you and me. It's all irrelevant if you think about it, its their word against the word of those who say Jesus existed. The fact is nobody was there who is alive right now to tell us, but many use deductive reasoning and come up with various awnsers. My deductive reasoning tells me Jesus has to have existed, for the creation of a Christian Cult. Also if Jesus didn't exist than why do the Roman and Hebrew scripts and text of the time tell of a man who was executed in Judea for saying he was the "Messiah". Maybe he was not called Jesus, but the person we know as Jesus sure has to have existed.

Yet again i ask you guys, do you believe Confucius, Siddhartha Gautama , Mohammed, existed? like i said, Jesus was elevated in the Christian faith as a more than human creature, as the SON OF GOD!! so i would understand why he is less believable to have existed.

[Intelligitimate]

firstly im not a Marxist, Intelligitimate

It figures.


secondly, why would Engel be retarded? what does that have to do with anything? do you think the preacher in some church is retarded just because he believes something you dont? thats a pretty short sighted norrow minded view of the world my friend.

You're the one who said it was retarded to believe Jesus is a myth.


Also, stop giving me this reference of theories made by humans just like you and me. It's all irrelevant if you think about it, its their word against the word of those who say Jesus existed.

Pure nihilist bullshit. It's not about "words," but evidence and argument.


My deductive reasoning tells me Jesus has to have existed, for the creation of a Christian Cult. Also if Jesus didn't exist than why do the Roman and Hebrew scripts and text of the time tell of a man who was executed in Judea for saying he was the "Messiah".

I doubt you even know what you're referring to. The closest thing we have are a couple of passages in Josephus which are likely interpolations in the text. The rest are all from the 2nd century, and merely reactions to Christian claims.


Yet again i ask you guys, do you believe Confucius, Siddhartha Gautama , Mohammed, existed?

Not particularly, no. There are reputable scholars who question the existence of all these figures.

[Oh-Dae-Su]

Not particularly, no. There are reputable scholars who question the existence of all these figures

well than why are we even debating? lmao, i guess if you don't have a picture or a video of the guy, the existance of everyone is a matter of skepticism!!! :lol: