Difference between revisions of "Bible"
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==Times the bible has been proven right in physics or history== | ==Times the bible has been proven right in physics or history== | ||
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+ | ===Dan's Perspective on the Bible=== | ||
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+ | The most popular fantasy novel ever written. The main character Jesus (a zombie who was his own father) was born of a virgin. He came to tell mankind that they should believe in him or he will punish them for eternity in hell ( a dark hot place underground). To prove that he is not just faking he did magic tricks for the people who would listen to his speeches. He told people that the earth was create 8 thousand years ago, over a seven day period. He put two people Adam and Eve on earth. They ate an apple when he told them not to, so he decided they should suffer and die by being kicked out of paradise. All of mankind is their inbred descendants. Later an alcoholic named Moses built a boat because God told him to. God then told him to collect two of the Billions of species on earth in just a few days. Once all the species were collected, God drowned everything, and everyone else because they pissed him off. Then moses and his wife got down to the inbreeding. Within a few more thousand years all the different races of humanity had diverged, and all the plants animals, insects etc. had repopulated the earth. Then some filthy Jews escaped Egypt and wondered around the desert for a while before making Israel. Jesus was born the filthy Jews killed him, he went to hell and laughed at all the people that were sent there came back to life as zombie, and told everyone spooky stories about hell. Then he went to heaven a (happy place up in the sky) the end. | ||
+ | |||
== See also== | == See also== |
Revision as of 23:23, 23 November 2007
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The Bible is a book (or, more accurately, anthology) held by Christians and Jews (and, to a lesser extent, Muslims) to be holy and the revealed word of God. Depending on what sort of faithful you speak to, the Bible is either a collection of parables, metaphors, and moral imperatives, or a literal reading of the history of the world and of all knowledge to be had therein. For other faithful persons, it's a mixture of either of these things. It includes a large number of myths which are interpreted either literally or allegorically largely depending on the reader's level of education.
While the Bible — and other works such as the Qur'an and the Egyptian Book of the Dead — may have some merit as literature, their moral authority is negligible to non-Christians, when unsupported by other ethical theories.
Basic structure
The modern Bible is first divided into two main sections: The Old Testament, and the New Testament. Each of these consists of many indiviual "books", which are then marked into chapters and verses for easy reference.
The "chapter and verse" designations are late developments, not extant in the earliest manuscripts, and though quite convenient for readers sometimes gives a false sense of discreteness, resulting in a frequent divorcing of Bible quotations from their context (see also quote mining for the ugly results). Division into chapters and verses are also often used in Bible-like works such as the Qur'an and the Book of Mormon.
Old Testament
The Old Testament (known in Jewish tradition as the Tanakh), which was all written prior to the time of Jesus Christ, are basically the Jewish holy books, starting with the Pentateuch, or Mosaic books. They tell a story of the creation of the universe, our planet, and life on it; contain many laws both religious and secular in nature; and have many books of prophecy. It exists in several different canons. The universally accepted books are all written in Hebrew; those books considered apocryphal by the most conservative canons are often written in Greek or Aramaic rather than Hebrew, and a few accepted mostly by Eastern and African churches exist only in Coptic or Ge'ez.
The Old Testament can roughly be divided up into three sections, although textual analysis appears to show that editors have moved across sections:
Torah
The Torah (Hebrew) or Pentateuch, literally 'Πεντετεύχως', or 'five rolls' in Greek, contains the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. While many fundamentalists claim that the Bible is the direct word of God (a pretty-much necessary claim, with their wish to return ad fontes), the 'Documentary Hypothesis' of Julius Wellhausen identifies four main separate authors (J or "Yahwist", E or "Elohist", P or "Priestly", D or "Deuteronomical"), who each edited one anothers' work.
Nevi'im (prophets)
- See:Isaiah
The Prophets are the attributed authors of a series of books that claim to foretell the future of the Israelite and Judahite nations. The actual contents of the books vary widely from first-person accounts (Isaiah, Jeremiah) to allegorical tales (Ezekiel, Hosea) to apocalyptic writings (Daniel) to novellas (Jonah), and while it is generally agreed by those of Abrahamic faiths that these record then-future events and judgements meted out by YHWH, exactly which events are widely disagreed upon between Jews and Christians. For the most part, most Christian thought holds that messianic prophecies in the Nevi'im are direct references to Jesus, while Jews hold that they refer to a messiah who has not yet arrived.
Prophets such as Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha have no currently-extant writings attributed to them, and their stories are largely covered in the Ketuvim.
Ketuvim (writings)
The Writings are those books in the Old Testament which are not part of either the Torah or the Prophesies. They are the most diverse group of texts in the Tanakh, including chronicles such as the Books of Judges and Kings, collections of wisdom and aphorisms such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, poetic writings such as the Song of Solomon and the Psalms, or apocalyptic literature such as the Book of Daniel (which, however, in Christian canons is filed with the Nevi'im).
In some Christian canons, the Ketuvim are further divided into historical books (Joshua, Judges, Kings, Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah) and wisdom books (Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon). The books of Esther and Job, much like the book of Jonah, generally take the form of novellas, and Job in particular is considered historical fiction (based on an old Middle Eastern legend) by all but the most literalist Bible experts.
Apocrypha
A subject of many canonical debates over the years, the Apocrypha, broadly, are books in the Old Testament that were not written in Hebrew and are not universally considered inspired Scripture (most are in fact in Greek or Aramaic, though they may have come from Hebrew originals). Significant books known in the West (i.e. those considered canonical by the Roman Catholic Church [1]) include additions to Esther and Daniel, as well as the Wisdom of Sirach, the Wisdom of Solomon, the books of Baruch, Tobit, and Judith, and the books of Maccabees (the post-exile history of Judaism leading into the Hellenistic period, including the story of Hanukkah); others still (1 and 2 Esdras, additions to the Maccabees and Psalms, the Book of Jubilees, and a couple of others, some only handed down in Coptic or Ge'ez) are part of the canon of many Eastern churches, including the Eastern Orthodox communion and the east African churches such as the Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox churches.
Though not part of most Protestant canons, the King James Bible included the Catholic apocrypha in its original editions as supplemental material, not considered canon by the Church of England; in addition, the New Revised Standard Version is available in editions which include both Catholic and Orthodox (but not African) apocrypha, being one of the few Bible translations to do so. Bible editions with the Orthodox and east African canons are sometimes difficult to find in English, though Bibles with the Catholic canon are readily available.
While not strictly meeting the mainline definition of Apocrypha, the Book of Mormon represents a significant extension to canon as used by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and its many splinter movements.
New Testament
The New Testament starts with the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke (collectively referred to as synoptic gospels) and John, which tell the story of Jesus' time on earth, his crucifixion and return to life, his alleged miracles, and his philosophy and teachings. It then contains many letters to the nascent churches, mostly written by Saul of Tarsus after his conversion and taking the name of Paul. These are collectively known as the "epistles". The New Testament wraps up with the book of Revelations, a story thought by some to be about the end of the world, or at least the Roman Empire.
The New Testament is written almost exclusively in koine, the form of Attic Greek that was the lingua franca of most of the Mediterranean basin under the early Roman Empire.
The Gospels
The Gospels are essentially biographies of Jesus. While none of the four agree in every detail, there are enough similarities between the first three (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to identify them as having come from a common tradition; as a result, they are known as the synoptic gospels. Essentially, Mark is thought to have been the first written, with Matthew and Luke both drawing in different ways on both Mark and a hypothetical sayings collection called Q (from the German quelle, meaning "source"). As a general rule, Matthew is generally understood to be the most Jewish of the three, while Luke is thought of as a gospel for Gentiles.
The gospel of John is somewhat more problematic, as it presents a much more spiritual view of Jesus and his ministry, as well as several threads of intrigue in the highest levels of the Jewish religious authorities. John is thought to have been written later, sometime in the early 2nd century, in a community with Gnostic leanings.
The author of the gospel of Luke is also likely responsible for a second collection called the Acts of the Apostles, a history of the early church, first under the original Apostles, then under the guidance of Paul of Tarsus. There are many other gospels, many wildly divergent from the four accepted in the Bible; of the many found, the one considered by Biblical scholars to be most authentic is the gospel of Thomas, a very early sayings collection similar to the hypothetical Q gospel but with a decidedly Gnostic slant.
The Epistles
The Epistles are a series of letters, about half of them written by Paul of Tarsus, that are believed to be the earliest available evidence of the doctrine and structure of the original Christian Church. Most of them take the form of doctrinal and church management advice to a specific congregation or even person, and often cover much material not mentioned in the gospels (in fact, many skeptics of Christianity draw a sharp distinction between Jesus' teaching and Paul's, seeing Jesus as more accomodating and Paul as more moralistic).
The authorship of many of the epistles is disputed; in particular, a good number of letters attributed to Paul are known to have been written by other authors in an attempt (an accepted rhetorical technique at the time) to expand Paul's body of work, while others are attributed to other apostles (John, James, Peter, Jude). One particular work, the Letter to the Hebrews, stands out as being completely anonymous; despite occasional attributions to Paul, Hebrews' author has a drastically different literary style from known Pauline writings and is generally agreed to be unknowable given current manuscript evidence.
The book of Revelation
A significant ongoing theological dispute revolves around the definition of the end of the "world" described in this book; Catholics and some mainline Protestants maintain that the book was about the fall of the Roman Empire, while most conservative Protestants believe it refers to the end of the world as a whole. The canonicity of Revelation has been questioned by many for centuries, with many theologians considering it doctrinally unsound or complete gibberish; however, no current Christian denomination fails to include it in its accepted canon.
Due to the now-almost-two-millennia delay in the return of Jesus for the final judgement, the Book of Revelation has become a dominant part of much evangelical/fundamentalist theology.
See Authorship of the New Testament.
The Issue of "Canon"
There are many books that one way or another could be considered to be part of "The Bible", however, various denominations (sects, to unbelievers) pick and choose which ones they consider to be canonical, in other words, to be part of what they call the Bible. At the extreme, some only consider the New Testament (and their chosen books for it) to be canonical.
Translations
- For more information, see Commentary thing about Bible versions.
The original works that form the Bible were all written in ancient Hebrew or Greek, and have been translated many times into and between many languages. Early translations have proven quite significant in history; the Tanakh was translated during the Hellenistic period into Greek, leading to the Septuagint, the form of the Hebrew Bible that would have been familiar to the Jewish diaspora of the Roman era. This Greek Tanakh was the one that was quoted by the New Testament authors, leading to some interesting doctrinal glitches (e.g. the transformation, in the book of Isaiah, of the Hebrew עלמה (almah, "young woman") to the Greek παρθενη (parthenē, "virgin") in a verse thought by Christians to refer to Mary, the mother of Jesus). There is some confusion among Bible translators whether to use the Greek or Hebrew renderings of such passages. The Septuagint is still the fundamental form of the Old Testament used in the Orthodox churches.
The second significant translation was St. Jerome's Vulgate, the base for the Catholic canon and the most significant translation of the Bible into Latin. The Vulgate contains both the Old and New Testaments. While its canon (in somewhat modified form) is still used by the Catholic Church, and its influence still remains in Protestant Bibles, modern translations are generally based on more up-to-date critical editions of the Hebrew and Greek texts.
The most famous of these in English is the King James Version, which was commissioned by King James I of England in 1604, and was finally published in 1611. It is considered by many to be one of the most significant works ever written in the English language, not just for content but for beauty and style, and many fundamentalist Christians accept the KJV and only the KJV (sometimes even to the exclusion of the original Greek and Hebrew texts) as the inspired word of God in English. The KJV is not universally accepted as a reliable translation, though, being a) largely a mass correction of earlier English translations and b) based on later manuscripts thought to be at greater risk of corruption by mistranscription.
Other popular translations include:
- The New International Version (used widely by many Protestant denominations)
- The New American Bible (the standard translation of the American Catholic church)
- The New American Standard Bible (considered to be the most literal English translation available)
- The New Revised Standard Version (used by numerous denominations in English-speaking countries, including some Jewish and Canadian Catholic congregations; created by people who thought the NASB too liberal in its theology)
- The New English Translation (the "NET Bible") (A freely available, wholly-online translation)
- The Reina-Valera translation into Spanish (the most widely available Protestant translation for Spanish speakers).
- The Jerusalem Bible, a series of Catholic translations into western European languages (the flagship language being French).
- The Douay-Rheims Bible, a Catholic translation of the Latin Vulgate (not the original Greek and Hebrew documents) into early modern English; used primarily by traditionalist Catholics
As can be seen, the issue of Bible translation is often just as fraught with knee-jerk sectarianism as Christianity itself.
The issue of translation accuracy, often seen as something of a tempest in a teapot by non-believers, is taken very seriously in some quarters, from squabbles over inclusive language in some of the modern translations, to issues of nomenclature (some particularly literalist sects prefer to see the names of the characters in the original Hebrew and Greek rather than their more popular Anglicized forms), to outright accusations of apostasy due to differences in source texts (KJV-onlyers often blame a Satanic conspiracy for certain places where the names of God and Jesus do not appear in non-KJV translations, for example). Except in cases of blatant textual corruption, [2] however, most Bible readers simply consider choice of translation to be somewhat unimportant, and largely a matter of the churches' and individual readers' choices.
Supremacy of the Bible in Christian thought
While it is acceptable to question God or His motives, questioning the Bible is frowned upon. [3] The Protestant dogma of sola scriptura holds that everything necessary for Salvation is contained in the Bible; the Bible is venerated, not only for its history and the major themes of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, but in its own right as "The Word of God". The Bible itself has become an idol for some in modern Christianity, especially those who espouse a specific translation (the most notorious being the Anglophone King James Version only movement); such people expand the concept of sola scriptura to the idea of all-sufficiency, whereby everything worth knowing is to be found in the Bible and anything that contradicts it is heresy. Such Biblical inerrancy is the hallmark of Christian fundamentalism.
Legal issues
A problem that has come to light in the Information Age for many users of the Bible, ministers and skeptics alike, has been that of copyright. While the original texts of the Bible are in the public domain, most translations are under copyright, and not always under terribly permissive licensing. In practice, this has resulted in the use of the King James Bible and other older translations almost exclusively for free distribution of the Bible, a somewhat problematic matter given that many prefer to read more modern language.
While most versions of the Bible are readily available in online form from their publishers, such translations cannot be readily reproduced en masse; as a result, some groups have begun translations with the express intent of making them available for freer use, the most important in English being the New English Translation (i.e. the NET Bible, copyrighted under a liberal reuse license) and the World English Bible (public domain). [4]
Times the bible has been proven right in physics or history
Dan's Perspective on the Bible
The most popular fantasy novel ever written. The main character Jesus (a zombie who was his own father) was born of a virgin. He came to tell mankind that they should believe in him or he will punish them for eternity in hell ( a dark hot place underground). To prove that he is not just faking he did magic tricks for the people who would listen to his speeches. He told people that the earth was create 8 thousand years ago, over a seven day period. He put two people Adam and Eve on earth. They ate an apple when he told them not to, so he decided they should suffer and die by being kicked out of paradise. All of mankind is their inbred descendants. Later an alcoholic named Moses built a boat because God told him to. God then told him to collect two of the Billions of species on earth in just a few days. Once all the species were collected, God drowned everything, and everyone else because they pissed him off. Then moses and his wife got down to the inbreeding. Within a few more thousand years all the different races of humanity had diverged, and all the plants animals, insects etc. had repopulated the earth. Then some filthy Jews escaped Egypt and wondered around the desert for a while before making Israel. Jesus was born the filthy Jews killed him, he went to hell and laughed at all the people that were sent there came back to life as zombie, and told everyone spooky stories about hell. Then he went to heaven a (happy place up in the sky) the end.
See also
- Actions which demand the death penalty in the Old Testament
- Biblical Sexism
- Ecclesiastes
- Examples of God personally killing people
- Exegesis
- Failed biblical prophecies
- First Great Awakening
- Global flood chronology
- Goliath
- Insects during the global flood
- Judeo-Christian
- Numeric biblical contradictions
- Reparative Therapy of Fundamentalism
- Slavery in the Bible
- Bible version userboxen
- RationalWiki's Guide to the Bible
External Links
- A time line of biblical events
- An excellent "multi-version" Bible passage lookup site.
- The Bible in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and the King James Version.
Footnotes
- ↑ The exact term used is deuterocanonical, roughly meaning "secondary canon"; despite an apparently equivocal name, the RCC does consider them fully inspired scripture.
- ↑ The Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Translation, due to major doctrinal deviations (particularly in John 1, where "was God" becomes "was a god"), is often cited as an example of twisting Scripture to match doctrine.
- ↑ Except in that bastion of free thought and skepticism, Conservapedia, where they've discovered that some parts of the Bible are, in fact Liberal Forgeries.
- ↑ Neither one, however, includes the complete Apocrypha, making them unsuitable for use in Catholic study. Both translations expect to make them available eventually.