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The True Meaning of the Bible

RIS

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What then, is the meaning of the Bible? What is it really all about? It can be summed up very simply as this: the vindication of Jehovah God's name through the ransom sacrifice of Christ Jesus.

The tree of the knowledge of good and bad represented, to Adam and Eve, Jehovah God's sovereignty. That is, his right, as our creator, to decide for us what was good and what was bad until we, like children, matured to the point where we could do that for ourselves within the parameters of that sovereignty. Knowledge is facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. The knowledge in this case is experience. Good and bad had been defined by Jehovah and at that point it was very simple. Fill the earth and subdue it, that was good. Don't touch or eat the fruit of the tree, that was bad. The knowledge Adam and Eve had acquired was the decision to decide for themselves what was good and what was bad. That's why they suddenly considered nudity to be bad. (Genesis 2:25; 3:6-11)

The footnote to Genesis 2:17 in the 1966 Jerusalem Bible explains it really well: "This knowledge is a privilege which God reserves to himself and which man, by sinning, is to lay hands on, Genesis 3:5, 22. Hence it does not mean omniscience, which fallen man does not possess; nor is it moral discrimination, for unfallen man already had it and God could not refuse it to a rational being. It is the power of deciding for himself what is good and what is evil and of acting accordingly, a claim to complete moral independence by which man refuses to recognise his status as a created being. The first sin was an attack on God's sovereignty, a sin of pride."

God created Michael first. Then Michael, as Jehovah's master worker, created everything through Jehovah's Holy Spirit or active force. (Proverbs 8:22-31; Colossians 1:15-17; John 8:23; 17:5) The word Holy means sacred, or belonging to God. Spirit means an invisible active force, like wind, breath, mental inclination. Something that we can't see but that produces results that we can see. So, the holy spirit is God's active force, invisible to us. The first thing that Michael, through Jehovah's holy spirit, created, was the spiritual heavens. This was followed by the spirit beings, often called angels. (Job 38:4-7) Then the physical heavens, or universe, including Earth, the stars, sun and moon and finally everything on Earth eventually concluding with Adam and Eve.

The angels existed for a very long time before man was created, and they had time to mature, like children, so that they knew what was good and bad from their creator. (Genesis 1:26; 3:22) It is important that you understand that being created perfect is much like being born a baby. Parents see their newborn children as perfect, but think about it. They can't walk, talk, feed themselves, go to the bathroom properly - they are bald, toothless, chubby, defenseless little creatures. Perfect in the sense that they have great potential and innocence.

By the time man was created the angels had likely already reached their potential.

On the seventh day, when the creation was complete, God "rested." Not that God was tired or that he stopped working, it means he set aside a period of time in which we were allowed to mature, as the angels had done. When we would have accomplished this, we could, as the Bible says, enter into God's Day of rest. In other words, the seventh "day" or more accurately, period of creation, continues to this day. So, the knowledge of what is good and what is bad is the eventual possession of that maturity. The ability to decide for ourselves what was good and what was bad, predicated upon an acknowledgement of our own accord, of our creator, Jehovah's rightful sovereignty. (Psalm 95:11; Isaiah 40:28; John 5:17; Romans 8:22; Hebrews 4:1-5)

Once Adam rejected that concept by deciding for himself what was good and bad on his own before he had matured enough to best do that, Jehovah had to shorten his life from living forever to eventually dying. Apparently because if he and his offspring, mankind, were allowed to live forever under those conditions, they would never reach that maturity and they would bring about an endless series of chaos and destruction.

So, in effect, Satan charged Jehovah with the crime of withholding some knowledge from mankind. He knew this wasn't true, but he wanted to try and seize control of the power that Jehovah's sovereignty represented even if it meant destroying all that it represented and everything else in the process. Even destroying himself. Like a jealous child breaking a toy so no one else can have it.

But to Jehovah justice is very important. You can't just wave away a crime due to the damage that has been incurred. So, he allowed the charges against him to be tried, as in a court of law. He allowed Satan's theory to be tested in a manner of speaking. With the stipulation that 1. he wasn't going to allow it to prevent his original purpose for the angels and mankind from being fulfilled beyond what was necessary to establish his defense. That they should live forever in peace, in heaven and on earth respectively. And 2. that justice would be done.

That is why immediately after Adam's sin Jehovah put in motion the plan for all of this to take place while Satan's theory was being tested. In a basic sense the steps were as follows.

1. Select a group of people.
2. Form a nation for those people.
3. Demonstrate to them what was going on by establishing a law which they couldn't keep due to their imperfection, or the incomplete nature; their lack of the aforementioned maturity.
4. Provide a way out through a Messiah or Christ, namely, Michael, who volunteered due to his love for mankind and his father, Jehovah's purpose. So, Michael came to earth as a man, Jesus the Christ.

From Jehovah's perspective the life he created, the life he gave us, is sacred. Belonging to God. According to the Bible our soul is our life, represented by our blood, so blood is sacred. To kill someone, or take their soul, requires the payment of the killer's own soul because it is taking something sacred to Jehovah. The blood sacrifices represented a respect for or acknowledgement of his created life granted to us. For example, if a person was found murdered and no one knew who did the killing then they had to sacrifice a bull and spill its blood on the ground as a symbolic acknowledgement of God's possession. Sacred life. A sort of gesture of justice. (Deuteronomy 21:1-9)

Since we inherited sin through Adam then the only man who could pay the price for the blood of Adam, which had been perfect and without sin from the start until he did sin - was the blood of a man who was without sin.
 
The bible is the greatest Rorschach test of all time.

The OT is a disjointed unconnected wrings by different unknown Jews at different times. Oral history and mythology put to paper.

.
The OT is a set of writings that survived, not all of the writings, the OT is not consistent.

A mix of embellished history, a glorious powerful culture backed by a god. Not exactly unique in human history.

What I was taught in Catholic school was the bile is the inspired words of god.

For over 1000 tears the RCC dictated meaning. Post Reformation anyone cud interpret meaning.

For some Christians the bible is a kind of talisman. A power emanates from a copy of the bible. It wards off evil and brings good fortune.
 
The known, observable universe came into existence some 13.6 billion years ago. Earth formed some 4.6 billions years ago. Life is believed to have formed on earth some 3.8 billion years ago. Modern humans didn’t appear on the scene until around 200,000 years ago. If the entire history of the earth were condensed into one year, starting on Jan. 1, then modern humans did not appear until shortly before midnight on Dec. 31, the final day of the year.

There never was a prelapsarian state. The world has always been red in tooth and claw. Hence Adam and Even could not have introduced sin into the world. Indeed, there never was a first couple, an Adam and Eve. There was a first population of humans, around 1,500. Since there was no prelapsarian state, no Adam and Even, and no introduction of sin, the entire Christian narrative, if taken literally, is invalidated by modern science.

If Christianity is taken in some allegorical or mythological perspective, it can be interesting from a cultural and comparative religions academic point of view.
 
I don't care if it's all myth. The OP left out all the cool stuff. I would never recommend a novel without mentioning the ambience and charm of the work. How in the world does he leave out all these dope stories, daydreams, and jottings (and there's plenty more):

> God kills everyone but 8 zookeepers (Gen 7)
> how to change livestock genetics with magic sticks (Gen 30)
> how to keep God from killing you (hint: you need to have a foreskin handy) (Ex 4)
> how hard to beat your slaves (Ex 21)
> monetary value that God sets on men/women (Lev 27)
> you can have female captives as sex slaves... (Deut 21)
> ...but be sure to execute non-virgin brides (Deut 22)
> God tells you to commit genocide (too many bks to list)
> God gives orders to kill infants (1 Sam 15)
> dead ho is cut into 12 pieces and mailed to various places in Israel (Judges 19)
> two moms make a deal to eat each other's children; they boil and eat one of 'em (2 Kings 6)
> 2000 demon-infested pigs commit suicide (Mk 5/Mt 8/Lk 8)
> all kinds of dead folks climb out of their graves (Mt 27)
C'mon, there's enough plot there for 5 or 6 Tarantino movies. Do more reading, OP!! Prove that you know this crankin' book. Shoo.
 
What then, is the meaning of the Bible? What is it really all about? It can be summed up very simply as this: the vindication of Jehovah God's name through the ransom sacrifice of Christ Jesus.

The tree of the knowledge of good and bad represented, to Adam and Eve, Jehovah God's sovereignty. That is, his right, as our creator, to decide for us what was good and what was bad until we, like children, matured to the point where we could do that for ourselves within the parameters of that sovereignty. Knowledge is facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. The knowledge in this case is experience. Good and bad had been defined by Jehovah and at that point it was very simple. Fill the earth and subdue it, that was good. Don't touch or eat the fruit of the tree, that was bad. The knowledge Adam and Eve had acquired was the decision to decide for themselves what was good and what was bad. That's why they suddenly considered nudity to be bad. (Genesis 2:25; 3:6-11)

The footnote to Genesis 2:17 in the 1966 Jerusalem Bible explains it really well: "This knowledge is a privilege which God reserves to himself and which man, by sinning, is to lay hands on, Genesis 3:5, 22. Hence it does not mean omniscience, which fallen man does not possess; nor is it moral discrimination, for unfallen man already had it and God could not refuse it to a rational being. It is the power of deciding for himself what is good and what is evil and of acting accordingly, a claim to complete moral independence by which man refuses to recognise his status as a created being. The first sin was an attack on God's sovereignty, a sin of pride."

God created Michael first. Then Michael, as Jehovah's master worker, created everything through Jehovah's Holy Spirit or active force. (Proverbs 8:22-31; Colossians 1:15-17; John 8:23; 17:5) The word Holy means sacred, or belonging to God. Spirit means an invisible active force, like wind, breath, mental inclination. Something that we can't see but that produces results that we can see. So, the holy spirit is God's active force, invisible to us. The first thing that Michael, through Jehovah's holy spirit, created, was the spiritual heavens. This was followed by the spirit beings, often called angels. (Job 38:4-7) Then the physical heavens, or universe, including Earth, the stars, sun and moon and finally everything on Earth eventually concluding with Adam and Eve.

The angels existed for a very long time before man was created, and they had time to mature, like children, so that they knew what was good and bad from their creator. (Genesis 1:26; 3:22) It is important that you understand that being created perfect is much like being born a baby. Parents see their newborn children as perfect, but think about it. They can't walk, talk, feed themselves, go to the bathroom properly - they are bald, toothless, chubby, defenseless little creatures. Perfect in the sense that they have great potential and innocence.

By the time man was created the angels had likely already reached their potential.

On the seventh day, when the creation was complete, God "rested." Not that God was tired or that he stopped working, it means he set aside a period of time in which we were allowed to mature, as the angels had done. When we would have accomplished this, we could, as the Bible says, enter into God's Day of rest. In other words, the seventh "day" or more accurately, period of creation, continues to this day. So, the knowledge of what is good and what is bad is the eventual possession of that maturity. The ability to decide for ourselves what was good and what was bad, predicated upon an acknowledgement of our own accord, of our creator, Jehovah's rightful sovereignty. (Psalm 95:11; Isaiah 40:28; John 5:17; Romans 8:22; Hebrews 4:1-5)

Once Adam rejected that concept by deciding for himself what was good and bad on his own before he had matured enough to best do that, Jehovah had to shorten his life from living forever to eventually dying. Apparently because if he and his offspring, mankind, were allowed to live forever under those conditions, they would never reach that maturity and they would bring about an endless series of chaos and destruction.

So, in effect, Satan charged Jehovah with the crime of withholding some knowledge from mankind. He knew this wasn't true, but he wanted to try and seize control of the power that Jehovah's sovereignty represented even if it meant destroying all that it represented and everything else in the process. Even destroying himself. Like a jealous child breaking a toy so no one else can have it.

But to Jehovah justice is very important. You can't just wave away a crime due to the damage that has been incurred. So, he allowed the charges against him to be tried, as in a court of law. He allowed Satan's theory to be tested in a manner of speaking. With the stipulation that 1. he wasn't going to allow it to prevent his original purpose for the angels and mankind from being fulfilled beyond what was necessary to establish his defense. That they should live forever in peace, in heaven and on earth respectively. And 2. that justice would be done.

That is why immediately after Adam's sin Jehovah put in motion the plan for all of this to take place while Satan's theory was being tested. In a basic sense the steps were as follows.

1. Select a group of people.
2. Form a nation for those people.
3. Demonstrate to them what was going on by establishing a law which they couldn't keep due to their imperfection, or the incomplete nature; their lack of the aforementioned maturity.
4. Provide a way out through a Messiah or Christ, namely, Michael, who volunteered due to his love for mankind and his father, Jehovah's purpose. So, Michael came to earth as a man, Jesus the Christ.

From Jehovah's perspective the life he created, the life he gave us, is sacred. Belonging to God. According to the Bible our soul is our life, represented by our blood, so blood is sacred. To kill someone, or take their soul, requires the payment of the killer's own soul because it is taking something sacred to Jehovah. The blood sacrifices represented a respect for or acknowledgement of his created life granted to us. For example, if a person was found murdered and no one knew who did the killing then they had to sacrifice a bull and spill its blood on the ground as a symbolic acknowledgement of God's possession. Sacred life. A sort of gesture of justice. (Deuteronomy 21:1-9)

Since we inherited sin through Adam then the only man who could pay the price for the blood of Adam, which had been perfect and without sin from the start until he did sin - was the blood of a man who was without sin.
Hi Ris,
If I'm correct, I see you are a Jehovah Witness believer - a little late but welcome to the forum. I was myself for the curiosity of perspective taking JW lessons through a JW member who's now a friend. Although I still take to the common convention of Christianity i.e. the 'Trinity' doctrine, I have found these JW lessons are useful amongst a wide spectrum of Christian 'conceptual' understanding. (in a manner of speaking, the common denominators of all 'denominations' can unify into a sound doctrine)

You are only the second JW apologist I've ever come across in a forum. I know there are many out there.
 
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What then, is the meaning of the Bible? What is it really all about? It can be summed up very simply as this: the vindication of Jehovah God's name through the ransom sacrifice of Christ Jesus.

So god sacrificed himself to himself to “vindicate his name,” whatever that is supposed to mean.

Gotcha. :rolleyes:
 
What then, is the meaning of the Bible? What is it really all about? It can be summed up very simply as this: the vindication of Jehovah God's name through the ransom sacrifice of Christ Jesus.
...
God created Michael first.

Michael allegedly inspired Joan of Arc. Great story! My admiration for Saint Joan is INCREASED by the fact that she achieved what she did all by herself; there were no physical angels who communicated with her.

Then Michael, as Jehovah's master worker, created everything through Jehovah's Holy Spirit or active force. (Proverbs 8:22-31; Colossians 1:15-17; John 8:23; 17:5) ... (Job 38:4-7) ... (Genesis 1:26; 3:22) ... (Psalm 95:11; Isaiah 40:28; John 5:17; Romans 8:22; Hebrews 4:1-5)

I have a sincere question: There is something about the Christian Faith that I don't understand.

Let's stipulate that there is some sort of Creator God who takes a personal interest in humanity. (I don't believe this, but let's stipulate it for the sake of discussion.) This God somehow inspired the writings in Proverbs, John, Genesis, Isaiah etc. and we "should" look to those writings for Truth™. But why should we believe those writings are The™ Special™ Sacred™ TRUTH™? Why not the Koran, or Plato, or Mark Twain? I suppose the answer is "We should believe the Bible because the Bible tells us to." But isn't this rather circular? Joseph Smith told us to believe him; should we?

And if God™ really did inspire the Bible, why did he stop there? If I were a Creator God who wrote the Bible to help humanity. I might show up in the 20th century and inspire another book titled "Hey -- You guys are making some serious mistakes."

Or is it some sort of game? God inspired the Bible 2000 years ago and then sits back thinking "I told them what I wanted to tell them. Let's see if they get it without further help."
 
Yeah, it had to come down to blood and agony, because forgiveness has a price, unlike the forgiveness the believer is supposed to extend. That is sommmmmme story.

The price isn't about forgiveness, it's about justice.
Keep your orthodoxy. Doesn't matter to me at all. But consider dropping the description of loving and merciful when referencing your deity. But again, immaterial to me.
 
Yeah, it had to come down to blood and agony, because forgiveness has a price, unlike the forgiveness the believer is supposed to extend. That is sommmmmme story.
I suppose in other words by the statement above...

..alternative peaceful Buddha-like gods, or other "loving god of the hippies" would be incapable of understanding the concept of justice for the victims of atrocious evils...
..since "peace" is all there is to know and to teach. All there is to understand when conflicts of harm arises.

Pure hippy 'love and peace' philosophy is great to teach, but..all humans have to take to that idea and abide by it.

It doesn't quite work well to it's fullest unfortunately in a world that has induced pain, arising from the differences of wills, attacking each other, without the concept of justice, taking no responsibility for your actions.
 
Yeah, it had to come down to blood and agony, because forgiveness has a price, unlike the forgiveness the believer is supposed to extend. That is sommmmmme story.
I suppose in other words by the statement above...

..alternative peaceful Buddha-like gods, or other "loving god of the hippies" would be incapable of understanding the concept of justice for the victims of atrocious evils...
..since "peace" is all there is to know and to teach. All there is to understand when conflicts of harm arises.

Pure hippy 'love and peace' philosophy is great to teach, but..all humans have to take to that idea and abide by it.

It doesn't quite work well to it's fullest unfortunately in a world that has induced pain, arising from the differences of wills, attacking each other, without the concept of justice, taking no responsibility for your actions.

How about no gods at all?

The world you describe above is exactly what you’d expect on the naturalist account. Humans are evolved animals like any other, with a full suite of instincts for both conflict and cooperation, for atrocities and acts of goodness and grace. There are no hippie god, vengeful gods, any gods.
 
Michael allegedly inspired Joan of Arc. Great story! My admiration for Saint Joan is INCREASED by the fact that she achieved what she did all by herself; there were no physical angels who communicated with her.

Great response. Interestingly the Biblical words for gods, satan and angels are all applied to physical mortals and spiritual beings. The word angel means messenger. When it applies to a spirit being it's rendered angel, but when to a mortal man, it is rendered messenger.

I have a sincere question: There is something about the Christian Faith that I don't understand.

Let's stipulate that there is some sort of Creator God who takes a personal interest in humanity. (I don't believe this, but let's stipulate it for the sake of discussion.) This God somehow inspired the writings in Proverbs, John, Genesis, Isaiah etc. and we "should" look to those writings for Truth™. But why should we believe those writings are The™ Special™ Sacred™ TRUTH™? Why not the Koran, or Plato, or Mark Twain? I suppose the answer is "We should believe the Bible because the Bible tells us to." But isn't this rather circular? Joseph Smith told us to believe him; should we?

No, we shouldn't, not without testing. The Bible doesn't tell us to believe it without testing. It says to test the inspired expressions or spirit (God breathed).

Plus, I've briefly studied Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Shinto and Taoism as well as their sacred and quasi-sacred texts. They don't lead to the same place. They don't promise or teach the same things. Religion is always syncretistic so they may adopt elements of other teachings, but the original teachings are something else entirely.

And if God™ really did inspire the Bible, why did he stop there? If I were a Creator God who wrote the Bible to help humanity. I might show up in the 20th century and inspire another book titled "Hey -- You guys are making some serious mistakes."

Or is it some sort of game? God inspired the Bible 2000 years ago and then sits back thinking "I told them what I wanted to tell them. Let's see if they get it without further help."

The thing about the Bible is that the writings weren't recorded for our practical use, they were recorded for the people in the place and times they were written. The originals were inspired, infallible, but the uninspired fallible Bible translations we have now are only useful to us as an example, just as Jude wrote that the earlier Hebrew scriptures were only an example to the people of his time.

The Bible wasn't written 2000 years ago by one person, it was written over a long period of time before that with over 40 different writers. It isn't circular to corroborate an earlier scientific text with that kind of history. It's impossible because the text would have evolved so much.
 
So god sacrificed himself to himself to “vindicate his name,” whatever that is supposed to mean.

Gotcha. :rolleyes:

No. That's pagan nonsense from Plato adopted by the apostate church. Jesus wasn't the God with whom he was. Duh.
 
So god sacrificed himself to himself to “vindicate his name,” whatever that is supposed to mean.

Gotcha. :rolleyes:

No. That's pagan nonsense from Plato adopted by the apostate church. Jesus wasn't the God with whom he was. Duh.

OK, Jehovah’s Witness then. I love the “duh” about a book of fairy tales that can and has been interpreted in countless ways, as if your way is a no-brainer. :rolleyes:

I’d rather read about disputes over quantum mechanics any time, then read people who squabble over the “meanings” in an ancient book of myths and fables that bears no actual relation to reality.
 
RIS

If you are JW your tag as a kind of skeptic is bit disingenuous.

Bile was a typo, what I do call it is the Holy Babel.

Inspired word of god? Let's see, stoning people to death for violating social norms like homosexuality or fornication? We see it in backwards Islamic areas in the world.

God destroying the world with a flood because he was unhappy with his own creation?

Justice and Chrtianity - ancient Judaism are mutually exclusive in terms of our modern western view of justice.

The idea that modern western liberal democracy is based and founded on ancient Judeo-Christian values is is obviously wrong based on what the bible says.

Anent Jews based on what the bible says were more like the conservative Islamic cultures today like Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Jews go more by the long history of rabbinical side teachings and commentary than literal interpretation of old scripture. There are modern Jewish literalists analogous to Christian literalists.

Israeli Zionists argue they had a right to seize land from Arabs to form modern Israel because god gave it to them.
 
Yeah, it had to come down to blood and agony, because forgiveness has a price, unlike the forgiveness the believer is supposed to extend. That is sommmmmme story.


..alternative peaceful Buddha-like gods, or other "loving god of the hippies" would be incapable of understanding the concept of justice for the victims of atrocious evils...
..
Since Biblegod orders wars of extermination and authorizes brutal behavior toward slaves, this is nonsense. No one in the Bible, from start to finish, denies that their deity does this or finds anything grotesque about it. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, mankind at last began to see with clear vision what slaveholding and genocide really meant.
 
Yeah, it had to come down to blood and agony, because forgiveness has a price, unlike the forgiveness the believer is supposed to extend. That is sommmmmme story.
I suppose in other words by the statement above...

..alternative peaceful Buddha-like gods, or other "loving god of the hippies" would be incapable of understanding the concept of justice for the victims of atrocious evils...
..since "peace" is all there is to know and to teach. All there is to understand when conflicts of harm arises.

Pure hippy 'love and peace' philosophy is great to teach, but..all humans have to take to that idea and abide by it.

It doesn't quite work well to it's fullest unfortunately in a world that has induced pain, arising from the differences of wills, attacking each other, without the concept of justice, taking no responsibility for your actions.

How about no gods at all?
We're not on the same page, me being a theist and all.
The world you describe above is exactly what you’d expect on the naturalist account. Humans are evolved animals like any other, with a full suite of instincts for both conflict and cooperation, for atrocities and acts of goodness and grace.
The bible has said for eons, humans have within them the 'conscience'. How one acts or reacts to the wellbeing of others; positively or negatively through the 'conscience' is one of the main things up for judgement. Religious or otherwise.

There are no hippie god, vengeful gods, any gods.
Your viewpoint noted. Ta very much.
 
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