Bible Study - From a non-religious kiwi

[Positron]

I find it interesting that the human characters of the Bible are morally flawed, especially for the principal Jewish characters. Abraham, for instance, was so devoted to God that he would have gone through with killing his son, Isaac, until an angel intervenes. Something to note is that Isaac does not follow Abraham afterwards and Sarah dies soon after. There is a possibility that Abraham's attempted killing of his son was wrong and that it ruined his family.

Abraham also lied to not one but two kings that Sarah was his sister and not his wife, putting the kings at risk of inadvertently offending God.

Another character would be King David.

The only redeemable value of David is his almost absolute obedience to God. I call him "Yahwah's Lapdog". And to me the OT values a person's relationship with God far more than a person's relationship with other people. When David offended God by conducting a census (despite Joab's protests -- a census is a survey of the number of able bodied men that can be drafted into war; conducting a census means David doesn't put enough trust in God's hand), God gave him a choice of three punishments. David chose the plague that killed 70,000 men, rather than bearing the full force of punishment himself (being chased by his personal enemies for three months). This scenario tells me that, at least in OT times, it is okay to sacrifice your people just to assuage God.

I recently learned about the denial(s) of Peter. I know he cried at the end - does that count as repentance?

You can say so, but the affirmation of his repentance comes later. For his three denials, Peter reaffirms Jesus three times.

 

[Opticana]

*reads thread*
*sighs*
When it comes to the Bible, the only thing worse than reddit fedoras are A&H retards.

Anyway, the gold standard for a conservative/maximalist view on the historicity of the OT is Kitchen's (unsurprisingly named) "On the Reliability of the Old Testament". I think most of his arguments are very persuasive, but there are a few points where he's a bit too dogmatic.

Re: Source Criticism/"who wrote the Bible" - I don't think there's any one (serious) work with a comprehensive treatment of the subject from a conservative position. Joshua Berman's "Inconsistency in the Torah" is probably the closest thing. There are some flaws (it succeeds more in casting doubt on source criticism than actively proving the unity of the Pentateuch, but tbf the author acknowledges this), but it's certainly worth reading. The chapter on the connections between the Song of the Sea and the Kadesh Inscriptions is incredible.

There's a ton of interesting things to say about the Bible, but if I had to pick one of the top of my head it would be this: there are more Egyptian loanwords in the book of Exodus (supposedly post-exilic fantasy/myth/historical fiction etc.) than there are Persian loanwords in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther (indisputably post-exilic books) combined.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

It's quite the opposite. It's a cautionary tale of the consequences of children rebelling against their parents and refusing to wisen up and take responsibility for their shortcomings. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, Cain blamed Abel, Esau blamed Jacob, Joseph was made the scapegoat by everyone he had ever come across, Saul blamed David, David blamed Uriah, Daniel Jonah projected all his frustrations on the entire city of Nineveh, etc. etc.

Fixed that for you.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Abraham also lied to not one but two kings that Sarah was his sister and not his wife, putting the kings at risk of inadvertently offending God.


The only redeemable value of David is his almost absolute obedience to God. I call him "Yahwah's Lapdog". And to me the OT values a person's relationship with God far more than a person's relationship with other people. When David offended God by conducting a census (despite Joab's protests -- a census is a survey of the number of able bodied men that can be drafted into war; conducting a census means David doesn't put enough trust in God's hand), God gave him a choice of three punishments. David chose the plague that killed 70,000 men, rather than bearing the full force of punishment himself (being chased by his personal enemies for three months). This scenario tells me that, at least in OT times, it is okay to sacrifice your people just to assuage God.


You can say so, but the affirmation of his repentance comes later. For his three denials, Peter reaffirms Jesus three times.

The thrust I get from the OT God smiting everyone but the ruler for the rulers missteps is that when you are put in a leadership position, your fuck ups are no longer just about you. They effect everyone under you. Often far more then they will you safe in your palace.

When reading the Old Testament it's important to keep in mind God in this context is not precisely the same thing as in the New Testament. He's the personification of natural force and natural law. A King who parties all day and bangs his senior military officers wives is just asking to get invaded by his neighbors and when they do well, it's the iron age. Lots of raping and killing ensue. Likewise, a king who is gluttonous and slothful won't be prepared for a natural disaster like a drought or flood.

The old Testament stories were getting at a fundamental truth of the human condition. When the leadership fucks up, its the little guy that gets squashed.

 

[Kill a Troon for Pikamee]

Love atheistic fedora tipping faggot NERDS coming here to post their worthless pig-brain opinions, Our Lord Jesus Christ lives rent free in your mind 24/7 FAGGOTS

It's crazy how actual science (like real studies and shit, not the peepeepoopoo marxist dialectic sludge pre-packaged for 90-110 IQ range dimwit big bang theory nerds) 100% confirms the Bible, from genetics and archeology to cosmology, literally the only people who still deny God are retarded coomers (or worse) who are too weak and stupid to repent and become normal

Atheists also ALL have submission fetish, imagine thinking you are an "evolved" monkey (the monkey itself "evolved" from rocks and shit after nothing exploded for no reason) and not a magnificent child of God, created in His image... lmao all atheists probably shit themselves while wearing diapers etc. It's literally the same mindset, might as well troon out and chop off your dick while you're at it

Anyway here's some undeniable proof for the divinity of Jesus and the historical fact of Resurrection:

Spoiler

 

[Falling Star]

Although the rest of Reddit is a trashheap, r/AcademicBiblical is amazing. I wrote about it awhile back:

I'm not particularly religious or irreligious, but when I first came across r/AcademicBiblical I ended up binge-reading it for like a week.
It's a small(ish) sub for discussing Biblical scholarship, archaeology, etc. Theology is banned though, and the mods are pretty good about deleting posts made by Christian apologists or edgy atheists that derail the discussion. Commenters are generally respectful and very knowledgeable, sometimes extremely so (just check out this guy for example).

Anyway, here's a sample of some of the content I found really fascinating:

• Origin and evolution of Yahweh: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ]
• 
  
• Tetragrammaton: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]
• 
  
• Yahweh, El, and Baal: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ]
• 
  
• Asherah, Yahweh's Wife: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]
• 
  
• Ancient Isrealite Polytheism/Henotheism: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ]
• 
  
• Were the ancient Patriarchs real or mythical? [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
• 
  
• Ancient Near East (ANE) Influence: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ]
• 
  
• Satan and Hell: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ]

This is getting long, so I'll just recommend that you look up other keywords (Chaoskampf, Storm Theophany, Divine Council, Documentary Hypothesis, the Synoptic Problem, Historical Jesus) on the sub if any of this was interesting to you.
It's a shock reading through AcademicBiblical for awhile and then taking a peek at other religion subs such as r/DebateReligion, r/Christianity, or r/Bible. The difference in the level of discourse and knowledge will give you whiplash.

Fascinating stuff, IMO. Highly recommended!
r/AskBibleScholars is pretty good too, although sadly not as active. Their wiki and FAQs are excellent.

 

[DerKryptid]

Fixed that for you.

Goes to show how retarded I become when I don't get any sleep

 

[RMQualtrough]

Which religions are you interested in knowing about? The Christian Bible specifically?

 

[ReturnedHermit]

Metatron had recently had two pretty good videos of the historical of Jesus
https://youtube.com/watch?v=A41Tm5FDKnshttps://youtube.com/watch?v=b4QcSqOgKhM

I'd add a caveat to metatron that he is pretty biased in how he presents his material. The historical accuracy of an account is exaggerated or minimized based on how he regards the account itself. This is done by a lot of history and religion YouTubers so it's to be expected. On a more opinionated note: he comes off as a Jew that got into satanism and the occult as a hobby reading the new testament with more than a hint of disdain.
I don't believe in providing criticism without alternative, so I'll suggest two channels:
N. T. Wright Online - he always seems to have a good vid on whatever I'm trying to research. He shows up on other channels a lot, too.
YaleUniversity - has some great lectures if you can separate the color commentary from the teaching. These guys are proficient at political correctness to the degree that they can weave the woke around the truth without too much distortion.

To the OP: I like to study this stuff, usually for fun but occasionally to return to something like faith, loosely speaking. My advice is to learn where the history agrees with the scripture, where it doesn't, and sift through a few layers of translation ambiguities. There are some words specifically that do not play well with moving back and forth between Hebrew, Greek, and English. Most of the time when I find tonal inconsistency between what is written and the context it turns out to be one of many cases where the Hebrew was being ambiguous or poetic, and the resulting translation is very literal, usually erring on the side of what's polite. The best advice I can give on the Apocrypha is to look for the agenda the author had in writing it and the agenda the church had in excluding it. There are a few exceptions where a text is left out for straightforward reasons, but for the most part it is about developing Christianity and The Church as a brand. Designing a centralized power structure able to contend with formal governments is not easy and the achievement is respectable if not honest. Take a look at Caesarion and how he relates to Christianity at the time, that's a trip. Another figure I find really interesting is Gamaliel, but you really need to do some groundwork to get it.

Anyways, any religious hot takes or fun theories? I enjoy reading the text and imagining a more high fantasy explanation. Like Jacob fucking the angel from sun-up to sundown rather than wrestling them. I mean, just look at the painting.

 

[Agarathium1066]

No lie this thread has some good posts in it, I didn't expect that given how stupid and edgy Deep Thoughts could be. Reminds me of many stories I read or listened to in my youth, especially those of David. I think I may do some rereading to refresh my memory wholly.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Anyways, any religious hot takes or fun theories?

The angels Ezekiel saw were so weird because he was seeing them in four-dimensional space

 

[Opticana]

The angels Ezekiel saw were so weird because he was seeing them in four-dimensional space

I have a pet peeve with the whole "ackyshually biblically accurate angels" thing. Strictly speaking, the angels (malachim) in the bible look exactly like humans, which is why in most of the episodes where they show up people initially believe them to be just that (Abraham and the three men, Joshua at Jericho, Gideon, Manoah, etc.). It's the spiritual beings in the heavenly court (cherubim, seraphim, hayot) that have the otherworldly appearance.

 

[Compulsory Games]

Anyone reading Religion of the Apostles by Fr. Stephen de Young? Certain parts of the internet are soiling themselves over this book, but I am much, much less excited about it.

 

[Zarael]

Why do you say this?

An example off the top of my head would be the story of Noah in Genesis 7. According to the traditional documentary hypothesis it's a combination of Yahwist and Priestly sources, which is their explanation for certain discrepancies that occur, for example the repeat of how the flood occurred from verses 6-10 then again in 11-12. The problem is when you start looking at this idea closely it doesn't really hold up very well. The Yahwist was supposedly responsible for the first part of the chapter (because he uses the Divine name YHWH) while the priestly source is responsible for the second part. But in the Yahwists account Noah is told to bring seven pairs of clean animals aboard for sacrifices, something that you would expect to be the concern of the Priestly source who DH proponents say is the primary source for all the rituals and sacrifice theology in the Torah. Conversely the Priestly source doesn't mention anything about clean animals but simply mentions a pair of every kind of animal.

The point is that it's an extremely crude methodology to carve up the Pentateuch based on whether you see a writer use YHWH or Elohim or mention Priestly rites and rituals. It rarely ever divides that neatly.

In general the "magic" of secular scholarship disappears when you realize a lot of it is predicated on the Young Hegelians attempt to undermine the Prussian State with biblical criticism. Many of the theories that still float around today come from Liberal Protestants of the early 19th Century who were more interested in advancing political agendas than they were any search for truth.

 

[Opticana]

An example off the top of my head would be the story of Noah in Genesis 7. According to the traditional documentary hypothesis it's a combination of Yahwist and Priestly sources, which is their explanation for certain discrepancies that occur, for example the repeat of how the flood occurred from verses 6-10 then again in 11-12. The problem is when you start looking at this idea closely it doesn't really hold up very well. The Yahwist was supposedly responsible for the first part of the chapter (because he uses the Divine name YHWH) while the priestly source is responsible for the second part. But in the Yahwists account Noah is told to bring seven pairs of clean animals aboard for sacrifices, something that you would expect to be the concern of the Priestly source who DH proponents say is the primary source for all the rituals and sacrifice theology in the Torah. Conversely the Priestly source doesn't mention anything about clean animals but simply mentions a pair of every kind of animal.

The point is that it's an extremely crude methodology to carve up the Pentateuch based on whether you see a writer use YHWH or Elohim or mention Priestly rites and rituals. It rarely ever divides that neatly.

In general the "magic" of secular scholarship disappears when you realize a lot of it is predicated on the Young Hegelians attempt to undermine the Prussian State with biblical criticism. Many of the theories that still float around today come from Liberal Protestants of the early 19th Century who were more interested in advancing political agendas than they were any search for truth.

There's also a bunch of parallels with the Mesopotamian flood story/a very large chiastic structure that only show up in the received text and not in the reconstructions of the two proposed sources. IIRC the reconstructions also suffer from some of the same issues (repetitions and such) that motivate them in the first place.

 

[The Curmudgeon]

I'm also an atheist who enjoys doing independent Bible study. I have no agenda other than wanting to understand a book that's had a major impact on Western civilization.

 

[HumanHive]

I'm also an atheist who enjoys doing independent Bible study. I have no agenda other than wanting to understand a book that's had a major impact on Western civilization.

It’s more than just “an important book”, it’s a snapshot of various points of ancient politics and history - the New Testament in particular.

 

[Some Badger]

When reading the Bible it's important to remember that it was not written down in one go. It's actually a collection of various texts. Mythologies like Exodus, folk tales like the story of Job and Jonah, legal texts like Leviticus and historical chronicles with the suitable embellishments to make the opposing parties irredeemable monsters.

This definitely spills into how a lot of modern Christians perceive the rival nations of the Israelites. I remember having this annotated Bible for preteens when I was kid that had a list of all the kings of the post-Solomonic Kingdoms of Israel and Judah where listed as being either good or bad kings. Most of the rulers of Judah where listed as good or mostly good with a few bad apples, but all the rulers of Israel were written off as bad simply because they worshipped Canaanite gods or desecrated Jewish temples in favor of said gods. It's a very black and white view of history that even a twelve year-old would question. Being an adult is realizing the Jews were no better than their neighbors, all things considered.

This was the book btw

 

[Ishtar]

This definitely spills into how a lot of modern Christians perceive the rival nations of the Israelites.

Question; what do you mean by this? The ammonites, edomites, etc... were historically Israel's enemies. I don't think most christians today attribute more to them then that(beyond prophetic interpretations-such as future incarnations of babylon or edom).

 

[Clockwork_PurBle]

I find it quite interesting that the Bible has a lot of real "strong female characters."