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Oh man, this always cracks me up (The SHEER number of reviews the bible is victim of). Where to begin. I'll just rain check with most of it, there is just too much.

History is history. As it continued on, it was recorded. I don't know about most people, but if I were the president's advisor, and the president was being attacked in his own office, I wouldn't record the incident with structure, literary devices, flow, plot, artistic value, or rhyme scheme in mind. I would simply right it down. This is the same with the various authors of the Bible. They didn't keep those things in mind. They really didn't care about all that jazz (Talking history and new testement here). A lot of the books of the New Testement were letters by a couple of the 12 apostles. If super lit. critics were to review these, (and they have) it would be a blood bath. Reviewing the bible cannot be done realistically, because the authors (And I'm not refering to Psalm, Isaiah, etc.) didn't care to support their work with any of the necessary essentials that can define a piece as a piece de literature.

Ah yes, this, "Some of the poetic statements were really cool, like 'do unto others' or 'through a glass darkly', but I heard that those parts were stolen from Shakespeare, who stole them from Kyd, so I'm not really sure what to believe"

Woah, wait. I'll ask you if the bible was created at the beginning of time, or sometime between Shakespeare's and our time. Thats what the bible claims, unless you can somehow back your view on that. If thats not what you believe, then great. If you are not sure yet, then I leave you with the question of "why is it so hard to believe the bible's accounts of time?"

The entire point of my review is to ask why the Bible is not viewed as just another book, and why the same concepts do not constrain it.

The question of why its sense of history is hard to believe is mostly because it doesn't match up well with other accounts and that biblical scholars believe it was written much later than the events themselves.. There are not many other accounts, so it is hard to make a complete argument. However, there are fewer conflicting accounts with Homer's Iliad than there are with the Bible.

If I must ask why not believe the Bible's account, I also must ask why not to believe the Iliad's. The same argument placed on both could make me believe that Jesus is real or that Ares is real. I could also decide that both of them are probably (if not definitively) inaccurate in many parts of their stories.

The King James Bible was the first major translation to the English language, and was done during Shakespeare's lifetime. There is some conjecture that he worked on the translation, and that this is why it has some beautiful passages. The reference to Kyd is a tongue-in-cheek refutation of the fact that this statement is based purely on a vague possibility. This entire statement then becomes a sarcastic joke that I won't believe the unprovable theories Bible, but that I could easily fall to the unprovable theories of literary scholars. Never hurts to take one's self a bit lightly.

Also, Biblical Scholars, who are, by an large, religious men, do analyze the Bible using literary means. Do you really think that any authors coming out of the written tradition will fail to use the tools of their trade? The Bible is full of metaphors and references to other works and events.

Even if god himself is the author, do you think he would not use the tools of mankind to communicate with us? Do you take all biblical passages literally? Do you refuse to eat figs because Jesus cursed a fig tree? Why have you not insisted upon being stoned to death for disobeying the wishes of your parents?

I can't understand what you mean in the last paragraph there. As you can see, I'm not as smart as you think I am! No, I don't think it would be essencial for him to use Lit. He spoke the word, but he did not write it (You know that!).

The reason more people believe the accounts of the bible is because Jesus has shown himself to those people through growth and understanding. I hate to bring up an argument on this, but what the bible promises, is usually what happens.

1. In Isiah, the messiah is predicted, and it came.


2. Isiah and 3 of the last 5 books of the old testament tell of the story of how Israel will become a nation again. It did.

3. Zechariah 13: 7-9 tells how 2/3 of the Jews will be seperated from the flock, and destroyed, but 1/3 will remain. From what I've heard, 6 Million Jews were extinguished in the holocaust, and 9 Mill Jews had lived in total. This, of course, is only speculation if you want to relate this to the holocaust or not.

4. Enter "The Real Mount Sinai" on google, and read up on how the story of Moses and the Mount are retold through history.

Well, it hardly counts if those later events are tailored to fit. For example, Jesus is given two birthplaces in the Bible, and one of them was made to match an earlier prophecy. The new nation of Israel was also made by a consortium of Christian nations, so that is less a prophecy than an attempt to re-create belief.

Looking at cases of 'cold reading', where a person draws information out of a person and then repeats that information back in a way which indicates psychic ability shows that human beings will create false patterns based upon expectation. Prophecy is the same pointless pattern recognition. If you give enough time, and prediction will eventually find a situation to match it.

People who use book cyphers to find secret messages rely on the fact that, statistically, the random will produce recognizable patterns and coincidences. People do not understand that, in statistics, coincidences are natural. Give enough instances, and there will be a coincidence.

Think of a one-in-a-million event. There are more than a million events which have this level of probability, which means there is a statistical guarantee that a one-in-a-million event will happen every day.

As for stories which are retold throughout history, one might look to the fact that Jesus's story is identical to many other myths which came before it. There are Egyptian and Sanskrit myths (amongst other religions) about a half-god savior born of a virgin on December 25th, living to 33, and being crucified.

One can claim this is prophecy, but one could as easily say that the invention of the wheel was a foretelling of the creation of the car.

Prophecy doesn't always occur. That's why there are and always will be false prophets. In the Old Testament, many were put to death because of their false teachings and predictions. Most of the prophecies in the bible are extremely specific and don't leave much room for a situation to match it.

As for those stories, like you mention, it doesn't matter to us (Not to mention Jesus wasn't born in December, and therefore your example can be assumed a gimic). We have faith. Faith built up in us that cannot be matched. And if by half-god, you mean trinity, then I never bought it because frankly, it isn't correct. It's a false doctrine. I can get into that later, but it would be off topic here.

One can argue a verse's meaning all day, but is it meant to be read literaly, or metaphoricly? Or even spiritually? There is scripture that profess that some verses and prophecy are best interpreted through a spiritual filter...

And the analogy you stated at the end doesn't match any prophectic verse's I know. Care to give any examples?

I've seen faith as strong as a Christian's for the bible in others. I've seen people with an unquestioning faith in celebrities and musicians. Assuming you not only know yourself but know the thoughts and depth of others is silly and meaningless hubris.

Matthew 1:24-2:1 and 2:19-23 support Bethlehem as birthplace (and, indeed, that Mary and Joseph were permanent residents there). Luke 1:26-7 and 2:1-7 suggest Nazareth. The more suspect part of Luke is that the method described here for a census is not historically accurate, and amongst the surviving roman censuses, there is never an indication that people should return to the cities of their ancestry.

The Romans simply did not have the power to enforce such a bothersome trial on their many holdings, especially in the more remote lands.

The suggestion amongst scholars is that the writer of Luke was trying to match the story to Old Testament prophecies to lend the story more credence. The problem was that the stories were written much later, and knowledge of Jesus's birthplace had likely been lost, so they used Micah 5:2 and assumed the birthplace.

A little more research is required before you put a label on the "return of their ancestry". King herad wanted everyone to return, not the roman government. He did this to find out where the messiah would be born. he wanted jesus dead.

Or it was a detail added by the Luke author(s) to connect with earlier works to lend more credence (as was a common method); a detail which fails to appear in other accounts. The census is a point of contention which has not been resolved over past years of biblical study. I will agree that more research is always required in these cases, and not only on my part.

I do not say I stalwartly believe that the authors were lying or misrepresenting, but that as for proof and consensus, I am as justified in believing in the Iliad as I am in the Bible.

Well aren't you a witty one.

There's considerably more significant evidence for the veracity of the Bible than for that of the Iliad, from both historical and scientific standpoints.

However, everyone thought Troy was entirely, 100% myth...until they found it.

Keely, I come now to say I was wrong with my last comment. Someone told me that long ago, and for some reason, it stuck.

As for your justification, go right on ahead. But please don't come knocking on my cibernetic door when christ returns, and I made my stand.

As for Skylar, blessed

The reason you can't justly review the Bible like any other book is that it ISN'T like any other book.

It is the scripture of two major world religions and has deeply influenced individuals and civilizations for centuries. It was not a novel written for mere entertainment or even poetic value. It cannot be justly read divorced of its theological and philosophical and historical contexts. And it's not "a book"; it's a collection of many different genres of writing: history, poetry, drama, parable, theology, epistle, law. You can't reasonably review it the same way you'd review Moby Dick; if you want to look at it from a literary sense, you must evaluate each section by the standards of its own genre.

As for the histories, they are easily as reliable as any other ancient history, indeed more so than most other ancient histories. Yet people today look at ancient writers and expect them to write by the same standards modern historians apply to themselves. They didn't. Even so, the histories of the Bible (Chronicles, Kings, etc.) have been more often corroborated by external evidence than have most other ancient histories.

As for the Gospels, they are different perspectives with different theological emphasises on the same figure and are not intended as "histories" in the sense that we use the word today. Together they give us four views of Christ so that we may consider him in his totality and not from one, provinical standpoint.

Totaly agreed, yet better said

Actually I just heard on sunday how the old testament is the most reliable ancient text of that era. Facinating.

I think I see why it is not standard architectural practice to erect two choir lofts facing one another.

I wish I knew some of the sources for the claims you have both made, because in my dalliance with Biblical scholars, I have not found there is much agreement on those subjects.

Beowulf and the Eddas are the most reliable ancient texts of their respective eras and geographical locations, so let's all worship Thor a bit, shall we? The things one hears on a Sunday.

Clever again. Yet I never implied we should worship God *only* because the Bible texts happen to be reliable for their time. I merely implied it is foolish to lambast the reliability of a text that is fairly reliable and that has been more often corroborated than negated by archeology. You seize on one statement of mine and make a hyperbole out of it.

Don't get me wrong, Keely, I did actually think your review was a somewhat funny parody, even if I don't agree with your assessment/evaluation of the Bible. Speaking of Shakespearean authorship, although he clearly wasn't on the KJV translating committee, there is a (wild) conspiracy theory that he took part in translation of one specific Psalm, because if you count a certain number of words from the beginning, you get shake, and if you count the same number of words from the end, you get spear. A fun theory, but I'm afraid Shakespeare more often cribbed from the Bible (though not the KJV; he'd have used the Geneva) than the other way round.

It is possible to study and appreciate the Bible as literature without necessarily believing it. In doing so, though, you must judge each section according to the standards of its own genre. Genesis are some of the earliest short stories in history, and the book has masterful motifs. The Psalms make great use of parallelism. And so on.

I will bow out of this discussion at this time. Take care.

I, myself, couldn't much go for the 'bible code' hunting and pecking that has produced so many coded messages from coincidence, which is why I reversed my satire by the indication that Shakespeare himself was doubted as author.

Of course, I mean only to negate my own skepticism there, indicating that skepticism itself should have a natural point beyond which it becomes merely baseless conspiracy. This point has become, for me, that at which understanding ends, and also the boundary of the other end of the scale, being expectation or belief.

Thank you for your thoughts on the subject; though at first I will admit I found them to match the unqualified and predictable results of most such discussions, you have gone on to show yourself worth more respect than that.

I would agree that the bible does have a great deal of poeticism, beauty, philosophy, history, and is of utmost literary importance. This review reflects, at least in part, that biblical study is a life-long endeavor which I am mostly unqualified for, and so my discussions would do better to range amongst the lower-middle echelons than to aspire to more remarkable men.

I also wrote it in hopes of baiting some well-informed few into revealing new sources to enlighten me. One should approach the master only stooped enough that he is edified, and only insolent enough that he feels a need to correct you.

Thanks again.

Well I guess thats it.

I admit my wrongdoing, and in return I am rediculed.

And at the end I am implied to be "unqualified" by my "unqualified and predictable results", labeled as unremarkable, and respectless.

Congrats keely, you have successfully dealt more slams than Mitt Romney.

Signing out, dave

I renege on my promise to bow out. I'm back because you said you were hoping for sources. Here are a few suggestions:

How We Got the Bible by Neil R. Lightfoot (for a clear, concise, historical understanding of how the Bible was written and transmitted and canonized)

Misquoting Truth by Timothy Paul Jones for a defense of the reliability of the Bible despite textual changes made over time. (This is in response to the skeptical Misquoting Jesus, which I have also read.)

What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza. Of relevance here mainly are the chapters on science, which show how the Genesis account has been substantiated by modern scientific discoveries more than any other ancient account of creation. The whole book is largely a response to Dawkins book (and other ahtiests), which I see you've read and enjoyed, so you may want to give this a try for counter-balance; I'm sure you'll hate it, but at least it's well-reasoned and moderate in tone and not the response of some "because God said so" fundamentalist, so I think you can at least respect it while disagreeing with it.

As far as archeology is concerned, most discoveries have tended to support the biblical accounts, though no doubt the Bible employs hyperbole in terms of number, etc. I can't think of a really good archeological source off the top of my head, but there is probably a great deal of info. about that in Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Volume 1: Historical Evidences for the Christian Faith (Evidence That Demands a Verdict)

I've read a variety of scriptures (Book of Mormon, Bahagavd Gita, Tibetan Book of the Dead, Tao Te Ching, the Koran). When I read the Bible, I was of no particular religion, though I grew up in a nominal Christian, non-church-going home. The Bible struck me as true in a way nothing else ever has, but this was a personal experience that I do not expect to translate to others who read it, and, in the end, faith is "hope in things not seen"; faith, by definition, cannot be proven, or it would not be faith鈥攊t would be knowledge. But because there are limits to what human knowledge can apprehend, we must choose either to believe or not to believe in the face of the lack of evidence; for no evidence proves the Bible is patently false, and no evidence proves it is patently true. A choice for or against it, EITHER WAY, is a choice of the will and the heart more than of the rational mind.

I am not of the opinion that there has never been an error in transmission or transcription in the Bible or that all of its minute details are wholly true down to the slightest number of men (very few Christians believe such an extreme thing). Also, the earliest stories in the Bible, mostly those in Genesis, are largely allegorical, and communicate the truth in a way we can grasp it. (Do I really think Noah loaded two of every kind of animal in the world in an arc? No. But archeology suggests there was indeed a great regional flood, and Babylonian mythology suggest that there was a man who built a great boat during it. That there is historical truth behind this story I do not doubt; but the point of the story is not whether Noah really took two of every kind of animal, the point is that there is wickedness in men and new beginnings with God.) I do believe the Bible is reliable in its essentials, that it is more reliable than any other religion's scripture, that it is as reliable if not more reliable than other ancient histories (compare Kings and Chronicles of the Hebrews with the wild Chronicles of the Babylonians and Egyptians, for instance), that its writing and canonization was inspired by God, and that everything absolutely necessary for us to know for our salvation is contained therein.

For a long time, skeptics said Moses could have had no part in wirting the Pentateuch because the Hebrews had no writing in the time of Moses. Then they discovered Hebrew writing from the time of Moses. For a long time, skeptics said David was entirely the stuff of legends, no part historical, and then they found his name carved. Skeptics hoped the Dead Sea Scrolls would reveal great alterations in Bible transmission, and the few Biblical fragments it contained were largely unchanged over time. And so on. I'm skeptical of skepticism. (Is that an oxymoron or a paradox or neither?)

Thank you much. I've got books mounting on my 'to read' pile; it's always hard to get to everything. Study of the bible and a lot of religion has fallen somewhat by the wayside for present, simply because it is so vast and contested.

I do sometimes find Dawkins compelling, but there is also a sense in him that his reason and argumentation takes more for granted than it should. I suppose he feels a need to create a strong bastion from which to argue because he must match and contend with the strength of the other side. I generally prefer a more middle way.

If faith is purely believing something even though there is not reasonable evidence for it, then I'm not sure it is something I could ever do. For me, it would represent a great hubris to simply believe myself correct in the face of so many others who believe themselves to be correct. For me, there has never been anything to differentiate the feelings expressed by Christians, Hinduists, ot any other various belief systems.

Beyond that, I tend to feel that every explanation is oversimplified, so expressing such an entire confidence even in the smallest things is a misunderstanding. I may see and predict the effects of gravity, but I wouldn't pretend that I know what it is, or that my observations of it are entirely accurate.

It is good to be skeptical of skepticism, because there is a certain point when we can no longer simply doubt, but must act. If I doubted the apparent effects of gravity at every step, it would be silly. There are things which are consistent enough to be trusted in. However, there is a difference between grudging trust and a sense of whole-hearted belief.

I've seen a lot of people entirely sure of things which were falsehoods, and I don't imagine that I am above such errors myself, so I try to stay on guard. I suppose it's easier for me to accept that, in the grandness of things, I can never have a true understanding of anything, so I will try to get the best that I can, still recognizing that it is always a small thing.

Thanks for returning with some little gifts for me. I'll have to get around to them: hopefully sooner than later.

As for you, Dave, you should try not to be so self-absorbed as to assume that all my remarks are referring to you. You are not the only person I discuss religion with.

That being said, people do find you to be confrontational, opinionated, and not fond of supporting your ideas with sources or rational arguments. Some have messaged me about it after noticing our occasional conversations and wondering if you were trying to be argumentative. I tried to assure them that it was not your intention to be so. I'm afraid I haven't followed Romney enough to get your reference, though.

Ah, every now and then I get that way, usually after a long day of school. I act like this mostly on the interent mind you, but in real life I know I wouldn't get away with some of these quote on quote "contraversal" statements. As for the slam/president statement, While ignoring the satire appears mature, I wasn't being rash when I said it. I've taken the large amount of time I have in counting yours (toward me), and his(toward whomever).12 - 4 (x3, (triple) rom had 4 "comparison ads" that sparked contraversy *spell check*)

Sorry for being opinionated

"If faith is purely believing something even though there is not reasonable evidence for it, then I'm not sure it is something I could ever do."

I would argue that there is reasonable evidence for Christianity and especially for theism in genrally, but by reasonable you probably mean MATERIAL (I can see, touch, taste it).

However, you probably accept things on faith without material evidence all the time every day in little ways without even knowing it (in matters not dealing with religion).

Good luck to you plowing through your reading list, and kudos to you for reading works that contradict what you may already think; that's something few people (of any bent) ever do. There are atheists who are just as evangelical and rigid and as impervious to reason as the most fundamentalist of Christians (making even science fit their idealogy鈥攚hat, a big bang! No, that implies the universe had a beginning, a moment of鈥o, we must have another explanation let's come up with some wild parallel universes theory that has no real evidence at the moment鈥�). I'm a firm believer in "Seek and ye shall find." The true Christian is not afraid of truth but is willing to follow the evidence where it leads, hoping and trusting, until he knows otherwise, that it will lead to God.

I don't need strictly material evidence, otherwise there would be grand swathes of philosophy and ethics that would be worthless to discuss. I find that rationally following discussions are also important. It remains to be seen whether these are eventually based upon material evidence or whether there is a fundamental unknown.

Science can certainly be as rigorously and unsupportedly pushed as any other belief, and I would never suggest that there was anything absolute or known in science. This follows from my general observation that all of our reasonable expectations and well-defended theories are still mere oversimplifications. Then again, any scientist at the top of his field will tell you the same thing.

I did mention in my last entry that I specifically suspect myself prone to the same biases of belief as everyone else, but I make an attempt to remain as honest and humble as possible in recognizing that I, too, am limited in this way. Falling to hubris is always far too easy for humans, and once we believe that we intrinsically know better than anyone else, we have fallen into our own trap.

The Big Bang Theory does not actually imply a beginning, though it is often explained that way to simplify it. The actual theory talks about how relativistic time dilation would work on an object of almost infinitely layered mass, and while we may understand that as the beginning of time, that is not really an accurate way of summing it up.

I also find myself trying to follow the evidence where it leads, and to keep myself as honest as possible along the way, despite that I know that I am inescapably flawed. However, I find that having an expectation about the outcome is not a very good way to look at evidence.

One of the cognative biases observed by psychologists is the 'confirmation bias' which means that people are more likely to read new data in ways that confirm rather than oppose their current opinions. As you mentioned, most people do not want to read things which would contradict their opinions. This is usually not because they don't want to be challenged, but because they already believe themselves to be right, and fail to recognize evidence which would disprove them.

I think it's healthy to work under a number of theories, in this case, one would be that god created the universe as explained in the bible, and another that we developed as a scientific example of the anthropic principle. However, expecting one or the other to be true before finding the evidence will not aid your search.

And to Dave: opinions are never the problem, and I have no problem expressing them myself, so it would certainly be impolite and self-centered for me to deny that right to others. However, one should expect that every opinion they have must be backed up by well thought arguments, whether your own or those of greater thinkers.

One cannot simply make many unsupported opinionated statements and expect to do anything but upset people. If you want to be convincing or, more admirably, to enter into a reasonable discourse with no foregone outcome, you must have forethought and an open mind. I understand the desire to blow off a little steam now and again, but if you'd prefer to argue rather than to search for truth, then I couldn't care less about you.

did any of you get an odd message from "young"?

Haven't had time to do more than skim this very interesting chain of comments (though apparently I had time for an enormous post here-- got a little carried away), but I have to object (as a specialist in the field) to the comparison of Beowulf and the Eddas to the Bible-- as I believe has been pointed out, the Bible is made up of an enormous variety of genres, perspectives, etc, whatever either side might want to claim about the overall consistency, and these genres range (among others) from what we might now call fiction (maybe narrative is a better way to put it-- I don't think historical truth value is the point in many of the stories in the Bible, though of course it is apparently important in others), to myth (whether or not one subscribes to a historical creation according to the Genesis account, it communicates some specific things about the nature of the Hebrew God by way of contrast to the Babylonian account-- or so I'm told), to historical chronicles, to apocalyptic fiction (which I'm told has a lot less to do with the future and more to do with the political/social present of the writer, if we take the genre as a whole and not just a Biblical phenomenon)-- also (to the best of my knowledge) every bit of the bible was written by those embedded in the religion it spoke for.
Beowulf, on the other hand, is a single work (though if we take Manuscript context into account it gets a bit more complicated-- but it's pretty clearly a unified work in its own right so I won't worry about that) and apparently a late mutation of the heroic elegy born of the preservation ("use" would be better) of older, oral, heroic legend in a manuscript culture. And while it has a very interesting historical consciousness (cf Roberta Frank's article in the Nicholas Howe edition of Donaldson's translation), it is not meant as history the way we think of it-- it is a self-conscious exploration of the pagan past of England by a Christian (probably one of the clergy) centuries after the conversion to Christianity (and even if the story itself is older, as many still believe, it is totally untenable, in light of advances in oral theory, to assume we can take any portion of the text as perfectly preserved as a fixed text in the sense we are used to). Similar comments go for the eddas (which are more directly my specialty)-- written down by Christians at least two centuries after the conversion. Poetic Edda has some poems which are generally believed to go back to the pagan period, but the fact they are being written down by Christians (in a manuscript culture, where there is not the same appreciation for a fixed text that we have in our print culture) demonstrates that they are in some way meaningful to the Christian "present" of medieval Iceland, whether as fiction or some exotic portrayal of their own past. As for Prose Edda, many think Snorri just made up many of his explanations of the myths and kennings. It's true that we might possibly take the skaldic stanzas preserved in the text as our most reliable textual witnesses to the actual pagan period, but first off, the interpretation of most of these is highly problematic, and second off, they do not describe pagan religion, but are rather artifacts of that religion-- constructing a religion from them is like constructing one from fragments of pottery (okay, maybe not the best analogy). It might get you somewhere, but not far. The distance between Snorri and his pagan ancestors is not really all that much greater than the distance between us and those same ancestors.
My point being that the relationship of Beowulf and the Eddas to their subject is different than that of the Biblical genres (though these genres largely precede their biblical examples, I imagine) and can't really be compared. Okay, maybe that's a bit unfair-- it's true that we have to take the problem of oral and manuscript transmission into account for the Bible as well, and my late professor wrote a book on oral variation in the Bible-- but as he was not a philologist in ancient middle eastern lit, I can't really recommend it wholeheartedly. And certainly the Bible is open to criticism regarding coherence, unity, etc, but it certainly provides a far more systematic and relevant (for all of the periods in which it was written) development of a single religion than Beowulf and the Eddas (which aren't even religious texts at all, with both context and content taken into account).
After arguing against the comparison between the Bible and B. and the Eddas, I ought to say that I do suspect that the largely naive understanding of the Bible that most evangelicals have would benefit from some schooling in any ancient literature-- just learning to deal with the problems of genre, oral vs manuscript vs literary culture, etc, would raise the level of evangelical discourse significantly (in terms of quality, I mean) and would hopefully dampen some of their militant absolutism, or their peculiarly "christian" version of logical positivism, though that might not be the best way to put it. Not to blast evangelicals too much (certainly it's too general a term for an extremely varied population)-- I grew up in an evangelical church and am still involved there, but after teaching reading and composition at a UC for 4+ years, I've gotten tired of students handing in sermons instead of critical analyses, or even taking up their portion of a presentation to argue that some goddess name Nuwah in an ancient Chinese myth is really Noah from the Biblical account of the flood.
Sorry, this has turned into a somewhat pointless rant, but the Spring semester hasn't begun yet and I've got a lot of scholarly pressure built up-- and I tend to seize any chance to talk about Beowulf or the Eddas that I can. I hope I haven't sounded too full of myself-- it's more enthusiasm for the chance to say something.
As far as resources, my current favorite in the field of biblical philology/literary criticsm (some might say those two are opposed, but I tend to see them as intimately connected) from a Christian perspective is NT Wright. The one book I've read by him is written for Christians (The Challenge of Jesus-- primarily deals with revising/deepening our understanding of Jesus and his words/deeds as portrayed in the Gospels by investigating their connection to first century Judaism) but he is supposedly a heavy hitter in the field and I hope to get into some of his more academic work. I'm afraid I don't have much more to add-- I've heard similar claims about the reliability of the Bible (referencing some of the other comments in this chain), but again, each bit needs to be taken on it's own, and I'm sure the real picture is a bit more complex than what we hear from the pulpit.
Ok, sorry for taking up so much room. I'll try to exercise restrain next time.

Dave: I deleted the comment from 'Young', as it was a personal attack against you and your opinions which did nothing to further our discussion.

I do agree that the Eddas or Beowulf are not direct comparisons to the Bible. They are both mythologized histories, however, and through the purpose of their translators, give multiple and opposing views which we may try to read through. While I would agree that nothing came through the later Christian translators unchanged, we can see where earlier traditions have made their mark in the texts.

My main point was simply to counter one prevalent argument in this thread, being that since the Bible has many historical elements, that this should lend it a general credibility. Indeed, the deeper one falls into the debate over the various meanings and rewritings of the Bible, the more one finds it impossible to extricate specific intent or meaning.

For me, this represents a sense that the text cannot be trusted anymore than any other text. Though the importance placed upon it has provided a lot of scrutiny, it has also enfolded the myths of the text into deep traditions of excusing and streamlining the inherent conflicts.

I would not necessarily use the texts I mentioned in a literary or historical analysis of the Bible (beyond some small parallels). I was only trying here to question a common belief about the Bible: firstly being that it is a historical account, and secondly mistaking the historicity of some parts as verifying sections from different eras and by different authors.

Thank you for your thoughtful and well-supported additions.

How do you delete?

Its great that you bring up Genesis as an allegorical story, because being in the background that you dwell, I have noticed the same thing but in many different sections with no particular pattern.

With comments on your books, there should be a little tab in the lower right of each comment which says 'delete|flag abuse' on comments others have made and 'edit|flag abuse' on comments you yourself have made. I don't think you could delete any comments (except your own) in my book reviews; only in your own.

Ok, thanks

Keely dear, you said that you were interested in historian's accounts. These would only pertain to NT however. You know me, can't remember specifics to save my life, so I am afraid I am coming in rather late in the discourse. I had to wait for a reply from an old schoolmate of mine.

Have a wee look at Tacitus, a Roman Historian, and Josephus, a Jewish Historian. I am told that they were contemporaries and the most notable of the time period.

To my book recommendation I should also add G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man. As you have some interest in philosophy and appreciate that it can be supported by logical reasoning, you may be slightly open to his argument about Christianity as a system that, unlike previous mythologies and religions, combines religion AND philosophy. And, even if you are utterly unpersuaded by any of his arguments, you will probably at least find him occasionally amusing.

A note on contemporary historians in response to the above: Josephus mentions Jesus, but largely in passing. There are other passages about Jesus in Josephus, but the historicity of them is questionable--they appear to have been altered by Christians scribes (we owe the preservation of literature of all kinds, and perhaps modern literacy itself, to Christianity after all). There aren't a lot of non-Christian contemporary sources for Jesus, but there are certainly more NEAR contemporary sources attesting to his life than near contemporary sources attesting to, say, the existence of Alexander the Great, whom no one doubts lived.

Paul's letters are the nearest sources (50 AD) and the Gospels are the second nearest sources (late 1st century AD), but, of course, they are not history in the modern sense; they are persuasive writing. The difficulty of discounting out of hand the accounts of the Gospels and epistles, however, is that the man was not dead more than 20-50 years when they were written; some of his contemporaries still lived and could have been turned to for verification, which makes lying difficult. Of what other great ancient figure do we have so many documents written within 20-50 years of his death? Almost none.

I said I wasn't coming back, didn't I? I really just popped in for the book recommendation and overstayed.

Wow, after reading the book of Ruth, I came here to post about how your review was hilariously on point...but after reading these comments I'm scared.

Fear is a common response to reading prolonged internet discussions; so are disbelief, scorn, amusement, and pity. I find they often like to rush in all at once.

Thanks for thinking of me, though. If every person who reads the bible and finds it a bit silly and ridiculous thinks of me, I will truly have accomplished something.

You have accomplished amusing me for 20 minutes. That's something, no?

I liked your review. I grew up in a non-religious household and didn't give the Bible a second thought until a college comparative religious thought class assigned a few pages. Funny stuff, the Bible. It's a shame so many people are brainwashed to believe everything the Bible says before they are old enough to develop skepticism. I am all for people believing in a higher power. I do. There is really no other explanation for the vast rugged beauty of Convict Lake, or Phang Nga Bay (except possibly science and this little thing called erosion), but why, why, does this higher power have to be embodied in a book that claims to be "right" in exactly the same way other books claim to be "right?" Can't we all just admit that we don't know who's right and try to get along?

That's a rhetorical question. No answer needed.

I'd rather be brainwashed into believing the truth of this world, no matter how rediculed, dejected, and forsaken, than the most convincing falsehood in existence.

It's too bad no human being could ever hope to know which is which.

You're right. It takes Faith to fill the gaps, and belief without faith is meaningless.

That's like saying "a flight to Denver, without the plane, is meaningless". Faith is the process by which belief happens, so there is no belief without faith.

Belief is the process of treating something as fundamentally true without being able to create a rational explanation for it. Faith is the point at which you jump from the explanation to the point which you can't explain, but still treat as true.

In the end, each person chooses which gaps they want to leap, and no one can know whether or not they have chosen the right ones; or if there even are right ones.

What struck me about your original statement was whether you would choose a dejected falsehood or a convincing truth, because human beings can never know which is false, so the real difference between what you have represented is whether the concept seems convincing or ridiculed.

I know a lot of people tend to create a culture of victimization around themselves, because when one feels threatened, it strengthens leaps of faith and positions of belief. It's always curious in America to hear Christian groups (for example) talk about how they are being attacked and repressed and having their morals degraded when they are still an overwhelming majority.

Of course, there are a lot of times that it does feel like the religion is under attack, because it was the source of social power and tradition, and traditions always change. People come to tie in religion with the concepts and ideals they are used to, and so when those are challenged, connect it with their religion.

It's curious that both pacificm and militarism can be supported by religious ideals, and that would indicate that we don't get our morals from religion, but choose what makes sense to us from what has been presented to us.

Some place this same belief in science, but that is always a mistake. The entire point of the scientific process is that you don't know what's really going on, but you find models that predict a small part of it. Talk to any high-level scientist, and they will tell you that the most advanced theories we have are still flawed, and still an oversimplified view.

We don't yet know what gravity is, and yet gravity effects anything with mass. This means that gravity has an effect on all events that deal with mass (which is pretty much all of them). That means that any attempt to understand and predict in these occasions is missing one element. That is just one example of something many in science.

The entire point of science is to be as close as you can, but it's true that some scientists think that close is good enough, and make a leap of faith into actually believing the incomplete explanation.

The fact that science is based upon a process of discovering new ideas and disproving old ones means that it is a progressive system. Science will always move towards change, and new discoveries can change the way we understand every aspect of the universe.

Religion is a power of social tradition, which means that it tends to work against change. People will often connect their own beliefs and experiences to religion, and many without even reading and regarding the texts and tenets of their tradition.

So, the fact that a force of change and a force of tradition will be at odds with one another shouldn't really surprise us. There are also some other conflicts. Science, as mentioned, says that we can never make a leap of faith. However, there have been rational Christian theologists who approached their beliefs with a rational process and questioned it in the same way scientists question things. There have also been scientists, as I said before, who come to follow a belief-based tradition of science.

I have never found a way to invest in faith and belief without also investing in hubris. Those who have humility have to work as hard as any scientist to try to justify and come to terms with belief. Descartes, Aquinas, Pascal, and Newton all worked very hard to try to justify and understand their beliefs, and all contributed in amazing ways to human thought. However, they have all been shown to be mistaken about some of their theories in science and faith.

I would never critique someone who is working towards belief, but those who think they have it already must think they have greater minds than the best of our history.

Through experience talking with me, keely, I expect you of all people on 欧宝娱乐 to understand that I have no intention of appearing greater than you, or anyone. Here, once again, you try to force faith by looking to science, hubris, struggles, and the dictionary definition. Do not try to understand faith until you've actually experienced it Keely (and I say experienced, not tried), because faith returns not just vision, but inspiration as well. Whenever I tell of my faith in public, i'm laughed at and not taken seriously, my condition seeming too good for someone my age (an age known for stretching and twisting information). Obviously faith in my eyes is different than yours, hence we are on different levels. I fail to see how arguing faith here can be anything benificial, much less promotional (if there's anything left to be said)...

Dave, at first I found your and Keely's discussion combative and had no interest in it particularly. I detest the Christian vs. Athiest / Agnostic arguemnt as it is pointless. Anyone looking for proof that God exists is not one that is going to find him. And, anyone who defends his faith with argument, or comes off as one who has the whole "Truth" (which no man this side of the next life will ever have), is deluded. But, I have to say to you that your last comment was well said, very well said indeed!

Keely, I still admire your brilliant, pagan self!

Well, Dave, it wasn't I who went ought and sought to discuss this. I have only been ressponding to what you have presented to me. When you mention the concepts of 'truth' and 'falsehood' you are already placing judgments on the nature of faith and skepticism. I am merely trying to expand upon and question the assumptions you present.

One thing that I often find difficult about discussing theology is that most of the faithful are more than willing to contend and contradict you with rational arguments and ideas, but that the moment they have nothing to say, instead of agreeing that you've made a point and they need to think about it before responding, they say that faith cannot be explained or explicated.

If you had begun with that assertion, that would be one thing, but pulling it out only when you have nothing else to say becomes quite worthless. I understand that there is a point of difference between us which cannot be crossed with words or ideas.

The point of faith is that it crosses from what is obvious and explicable and what must be purely believed in. I do not expect that line to be crossed, but I hope you understand is that the reason I talk with you is because I have a need to explore my own sense of faith and belief.

I have met and spoken with many people with very strong faith in many things, and have never been able to descern any difference in the strength or purity of that faith, independant of what they believe in. A person may feel as strongly in God as they do in an ecomonic theory, a philosophy, or even a single ideal ('true love' comes to mind).

Indeed, a lot of people have felt very strongly about things which have turned out to be untrue. Doctors used to believe that making someone bleed more would help with an injury. Chiropractic medicine was originally based on the principle that all diseases are based upon minute misalignments of the spine (they didn't know about germs then). A lot of so-called 'New Age Pagans' believe in the 'magical power' of Tarot Cards, despite the fact that they were invented by Christians in the fourteenth century.

People have believed in the healing effects of Snake oil potions, or of magnets (even ones that have been demagnetized). I have never been able to discern how anyone could be sure of anything when the human mind is so fraught with bias and complexity.

I am always searching for what people think it is that separates them from everyone else who has ever believed and been wrong. Usually, when I ask, they say that it is that they know in their heart what is true. Unfortunately, that's the same reason the misinformed have used. So I'll keep looking.

Thank you all for helping me in trying to explore these ideas. I hope most of you enjoy these discussions as much as I do (well, most of the time).

How did I pull faith out of nowhere again? I had much to say, but not much reason to say it.

I'm afraid I cannot assist you here Keely; I explained faith as best I could. If you're honestly trying to understand faith and belief (and strangely relying on me to that end), then try enveloping yourself in it. When so, you'll soon find that faith from this angle is different from the rest. Material vs Spiritual is the common difference between your examples, and my one example.

Good Luck

"I have never been able to discern how anyone could be sure of anything when the human mind is so fraught with bias and complexity"

-Keely

You should quote that

I think people dislike me enough without exasperating it by quoting myself.

I'd also never again be able to use the word 'hubris' without flushing in shame; one of my favorites, too.

I once had to write a paper on hubris during my Sophmore year in Highschool.

Keely, no matter how many people dislike you, you're still the only person with the balls enough to challenge every great work of literature while still being honest all along the way. Give yourself some slack, ha ha.

Why? I'm so saddened by the death of the human language. Why say "fuck that fucking fucker" when you could say "oh how I loath that imbicile, that deploable execrable man." I'm saddened that one must stoop to cursing and references to popular culture to express oneself. Use your adjectives, please, and go review some books so you can do something other then spread hate in this world.

Well, I unequivically agree on the basis of his pointlessness. Ad hominem attacks can be amusing at their height, but by pulling out such tired tropes as he has, there is nothing redeeming, clever, or even insulting left.

However, I must suggest that the concept of the 'death of language' is a bit of a silly ideal. Firstly, 'fuck' is a very old and very useful word, and amongst the few masters of profanity, can create something wholly original and idiomatic.

It is easy for us to look at the insults written by the great authors and think that the art of the insult (or language in general) is somehow lost, but the idea that the average person expressed themselves as well as Shakespeare wrote them is a bit silly. We might as well expect the average person's dialogue today to resemble something from a Tarantino script.

One might bring up the case of more vocal cultures, or cultures who spend more time and energy on conversation, and in such cases, the insults will be stronger, as will dialogue in general, but Chaucer himself could have heard "fuck that fucking fucker" from his window as he wrote.

One could also point to the list of modern authors and their use of language to show that grammar, syntax, and complexity are on the wane, but then again, the great ones are rarely recognized in their own time, and populism has rarely found them out.

It would certainly be nice and entertaining if those who derided and insulted me did so with verve, flair, and wit, but I'm not going to wait around for it.

Keely, in you I now have a deeper respect. Observing how you delete "young"'s comment about me, but keep Will's was a honorable display of selflessness. I like that.

Saying that the work "fuck" today is a very useful, and insightful word is an overstatement of epic proportions. Agreed?

Just because your average idiot can use the word poorly does not make it a poor word. 'Fuck' has a long and storied history, and the fact that it remains so powerful in our culture after thousands of years in common use is a testament to its uniqueness.

I shall have to try to find some of the linguistic analyses of the history of 'fuck' that I have read for the edification of all my dear friends.

Controlling language, as pointed out in 1984, is simply a way to try to control thought. In linguistics, the connection between language and thought is typified by Worff's Hypothesis, which states that the human mind is limited in thinking by the words available to it.

For example, many cultures define the separation between colors very differently, for example, some cultures do not distinguish between red and brown, while others would have three different colors which we would all call 'blue'. What is interesting is that because of this, they will be physically better or worse at judging the difference between hues.

It is interesting to ask why so many people argue or get angry over certain words like 'fuck', independant of their meaning. We all know it means 'sex', but that is certainly not the way it is used most of the time. What we must ask ourselves is why should people object to certain sounds and not others. One could say 'Sheesh' or 'God Damn It' and mean exactly the same thing, but one would upset people and the other wouldn't.

Controlling how people speak is one way of exerting power and authority over them, and I'm sure many of us feel embarassed when we're corrected about a point of speech. Why should this embarass us unless there is some power dynamic being exerted over us?

When people say they want to 'preserve' or 'clean up' language, what they tend to mean is that they want to promote their form of language and lifestyle on others. We all speak the way our peers do. We speak the way we are taught to by our family. Many people have a few different ways of speaking, depending who they are with.

Speech has long been used as a way to separate one's self from others, and 'vulgar' speech is just one example of looking down on someone else. It's no coincidence that our swear words and vulgar speech come from Old English and our 'high class', 'educated' speech comes from French, because when the French Normans conquered England, they used their speech to define themselves as better than the people they ruled and we have kept that tradition alive.

And like those ancient French kings, we also use speech to separate classes and races and to know what sort of people we are 'supposed to' be friends with. Of course, this is always the strongest with the middle classes. If you look at literary history, the low-class and high-class were always rude and vulgar. The low class because that was 'their language' and because they were expected to be ignorant and crass.

The high class would be vulgar because they could afford to do whatever they wanted--they had the money--and found vulgarity to be funny and shocking. It is the middle class--who had only a little power and who dealt with the poor all day--who tended to be uptight about language. This was because they wanted to take what little power they could and set themselves apart from the 'worthless poor'.

Since they didn't have the political power to separate themselves, like the wealthy did, they had to use the social power of verbal classism to set themselves above others. We can see the same setup in any high school, where the kids on top don't have to bother teasing or bullying, because they already have the money and popularity. The worst bullies are always those right above the 'nerds and dorks', because they have to fight for their position in the pecking order.

*edit: originally this was a response to a commentator asking why I filed The Bible under the 'Fantasy' shelf. Many of the following responses were also to the same commentator, who has since deleted all of his comments.*

Because it doesn't have enough cowboys to be a Western.