Cryptic texts in the Bible

[Swammerdami]

The Bible contains puzzles and mysteries. Some facts are conveyed cryptically or with only hints; perhaps the facts were uncomfortable or were kept hidden for some other reason. The Bible was written over centuries, and edited with care. I will mention four puzzles (2 in the OT, 2 in the NT) of which I think at least two were deliberately contrived to convey hidden information.

The Old Man and the Sea is my favorite novella. It is fiction but that doesn't detract from my interest or enjoyment. Similarly I hope atheists can treat the Bible's puzzles as interesting and go beyond "It's fiction anyway. Who cares?"

I will list four puzzles very briefly, though it is Puzzle #4 which is of special interest to me. I'd be happy to discuss any of these interesting puzzles in detail, but will save that effort now in case there is no real interest here.

Puzzle #1) Genesis Chapter 46 contains an arithmetic discrepancy. The case can be made that it is a carefully constructed logic puzzle.

Puzzle #2) 2 Chronicles 35:3

Puzzle #3) The Gospels' fig-tree parable is associated with Palm Sunday, but figs were not in season in the Spring.

Puzzle #4) Paul writes that Cephas (Simon/Peter), John and James are the three Christian "pillars" in Jerusalem. The Gospels also make Simon Peter, John ben Zebedee and James (ben Zebedee) the dominant disciples. Yet Acts 12:2 shows King Herod killing James ben Zebedee early. By coincidence did another James (ben Alphaeus) replace the first James as top "pillar"? The second James has a mother named Mary and brothers named Judas and Joses

 

[steve_bank]

P1 Translation errors or the the writer being a superstitious ignorant tribal nomad wrote what he thought was right.

P2. Have no idea why it is a 'puzzle'.

P3. Again a long chain of translation in which translators undoubtedly made mistakes or intentionally made changes.

P4. Multiple documents by different people who did not necessarily know each other at different times based on oral accounts. I would not expect anything like modern journalistic or historical writhing. Even today they can be very inconsistent and as is obvious completely wrong. It depends on who dies the telling.

Keep in mind there are no original source documents in the original language. I read the Obfprd bible commentary that goes with the Oxfor bible. The commentrau goes through ech bokk on authorship, time, and inconsistencies.

I do not see any intentional puzzle or hidden mysteries. There is a NT line that Jesus passed on secret teachings to those close to him.

In Roman times just like today written narratives ted to have an agenda, suppring a partcu;r view and audience.

I think it is Gnosics who went off on a mystical tangent. More like what we consider eastern traditions.

There are still mystical Christians with old traditions mostly in Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Mid East. One of the more well known are the ones who live at the top of a tall rock and live in seclusion.

Monk Lives Life of Solitude on This 131-Foot-Tall Rock with a 2,000 Year History

The Katskhi Pillar is the name given to a natural limestone column located in Georgia. On the top of this monolith is a monastery, which was built during the 1990s. Today, a solitary monk by the name of Maxime Qavtaradze lives in this monastery atop the Katskhi Pillar.

www.ancient-origins.net

Monastery of Saint Anthony - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Christian theologians have created mysteries and then provides solutions for 2000 years.

From the Oxford commentary Job was probably linked to assimilation and the meaning would have been clear in the day. Job was one of a lost set of teaching materials, Hebrew wisdom literature.

 

[Swammerdami]

I mentioned puzzles #1, 2, 3 just in case there was interest; but it is #4 that baffles me. It seems like it would be an obvious and important puzzle for Christians, but my Googling fails. Can someone with better Googling skills tell me what the usual solutions are?

Puzzle #4) Paul writes that Cephas (Simon/Peter), John and James are the three Christian "pillars" in Jerusalem. The Gospels also make Simon Peter, John ben Zebedee and James (ben Zebedee) the dominant disciples. Yet Acts 12:2 shows King Herod killing James ben Zebedee early. By coincidence did another James (ben Alphaeus) replace the first James as top "pillar"? The second James has a mother named Mary and brothers named Judas and Joses

Except for the Nativity fictions, the Gospels barely mention Mary and Joseph (Jesus' putative parents) at all. They speak of two Marys, e.g. : "Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses." Did Mary have children by BOTH Alphaeus and "Joseph"?

Surely Christian scholars are not so lackadaisical about their sacred book that this question doesn't concern them? Or, as some have suggested, are they deflecting attention from Immaculate Mary's promiscuity?

 

[steve_bank]

I do not see any puzzles or deep mysteries. I see fiction and mythology typical of the times.

I see anecdotal stories put to paper in the NT and the OT.

We can see the same process today in what gets passed around on social media and also our so called truth seeking news media.

 

[mbaker17]

I'd also like to add Genesis 6. That's a strange cryptic chapter in the Bible.

 

[DBT]

So what about the book of Revelation? The Preterist view is that it is written prior to the destruction of the temple and relates to events happening during that momentous period, which makes sense in relation to what Christians and Jews were experiencing, yet scholars put a later date on it, 95 ad or so, which Christians use to support their belief in future prophesy, the return of Jesus in our time, etc.

To me, the preterist view makes sense, that the Author 'John' was writing for the Christians living in his time, not for those thousands of years in the future

 

[Swammerdami]

In Genesis 6, beginning at verse 5 God sees wickedness and decides to destroy man, but tells Noah to make an ark of gopher wood, so a few humans and other animals can be saved. Verse 4 is interesting: "There were giants in the earth in those days [and] the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them ..." It's all weird, of course, but I'm not sure what particular mystery mbaker17 refers to.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

When I posted 9 months ago, the particular mystery I was interested in were the two Jameses who were pillars of the early Christian church. Since then I understand better, though it's still mysterious. The first three pillars are Simon Peter and two sons of Zebedee: John and James. James is killed (circa 42 AD) and is replaced with a new "third pillar": James the brother of Jesus. (There was a third James: the son of Alphaeus and one of the Twelve.)

The Roman Church insisted on Mary being a perpetual virgin, so Jesus' brother becomes a cousin and, I think, Rome reduces the three Jameses to two, treating James the Just (aka James the Less) as James bar Alphaeus. This is nonsense, and non-Catholic scholars seem to take the more obvious view, with James son of Alphaeus irrelevant. Here are some weird "mysteries":

• The synoptic Gospels all show two Marys attending the crucifixion: Mary Magdalene and "Mary the mother of James and Joses." James and Joses are shown as Jesus' brothers. Why don't the Gospels just call her Jesus' mother? (Matthew mentions a third witness: the unnamed mother of the sons of Zebedee.)
• James bar Zebedee is killed at Acts 12:2. Since he was one of the three top disciples, why is his death dismissed so briefly?
• That James is replaced with another James. Is the name identity just a coincidence? A reader who skims past Acts 12:2 might miss that this is a different James.
• The Gospel of John NEVER mentions either of the sons of Zebedee by name. Once that Gospel refers to them as "the sons of Zebedee." John does refer repeatedly to the "disciple whom Jesus loved" and it is commonly assumed that this was John bar Zebedee.

If Jesus' mother witnessed the Crucifixion, why don't the synoptic Gospels say so? Why does the Gospel of John never refer to the most important disciples (after Simon Peter) by name? John does give anecdotes about some of the other disciples, which the synoptics do not.

Even if you think the Gospels are 100% fiction, the mysteries are still interesting: What were the fiction writers trying to do?

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

I also mentioned Genesis Chapter 46. It does NOT appear to be a simple arithmetic error. If you scrutinize it, you find a very tightly constructed logic puzzle.

 

[ideologyhunter]

1. Chiming in on Genesis 6:1-4, the Nephilim verses. The Nephilim return, briefly, in Numbers 13:33, when the spies returned from scoping out Canaan and said they'd seen Nephilim, who'd made them feel as small as grasshoppers. This reads like it was an old and faint folk tradition that was simply part of the culture and got added to the other wondrous events. Genesis 6 is so vague and disconnected that it leaves the reader hanging. What are 'sons of God', and if they mated with human females and produced 'mighty men', how were they mighty? To Christians, does this subtract from the uniqueness of Jesus? Were the mighty men part-Gods? They clearly weren't the product of all-human DNA.

2. C.S. Lewis fixated on Mark 13:30 in his essay The World's Last Night. This is Jesus saying, after describing things like the sun darkening, the stars falling out of the sky, and Jesus returning in the clouds to gather up the faithful, "Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened." Christians have explained this verse (and its correlates in the other gospels) in various ways, none of them convincing to me, and not to Lewis, either. He says, rather surprisingly, "It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible." He says flat out that Jesus erred here. His solution: "The answer of the theologians is that the God-Man was omniscient as God, and ignorant as Man. This, no doubt, is true..." He goes on to describe his difficulty with this conclusion, and links it up with another problematic moment, Jesus wailing "My God, why have you forsaken me?" At any rate, any believers who have grappled with this verse (and the even more difficult wording of it at Mark 9:1), have had to construct elaborate arguments to avoid labeling it as false prophecy. If you're a freethinker, of course, it's not hard at all to characterize.

 

[steve_bank]

There have been people on the forum on different topics who appear unable to distinguish between meaning of metaphor and literal interpretation.

To me it is a slam dunk.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

1. Chiming in on Genesis 6:1-4, the Nephilim verses.

Gen 6:1-4 and Exodus 4:24-26 are the anatomical Appendix of the Tanakh. Clearly at some point there was a significance to it, but the text has shriveled away and now it sits there in the text causing nothing but confusion and inflammation.

 

[Learner]

There have been people on the forum on different topics who appear unable to distinguish between meaning of metaphor and literal interpretation.

To me it is a slam dunk.

In this Japanese metaphor video, its the sound track that makes it more realistic.
.

 

[Jarhyn]

I mentioned puzzles #1, 2, 3 just in case there was interest; but it is #4 that baffles me. It seems like it would be an obvious and important puzzle for Christians, but my Googling fails. Can someone with better Googling skills tell me what the usual solutions are?

Puzzle #4) Paul writes that Cephas (Simon/Peter), John and James are the three Christian "pillars" in Jerusalem. The Gospels also make Simon Peter, John ben Zebedee and James (ben Zebedee) the dominant disciples. Yet Acts 12:2 shows King Herod killing James ben Zebedee early. By coincidence did another James (ben Alphaeus) replace the first James as top "pillar"? The second James has a mother named Mary and brothers named Judas and Joses

Except for the Nativity fictions, the Gospels barely mention Mary and Joseph (Jesus' putative parents) at all. They speak of two Marys, e.g. : "Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses." Did Mary have children by BOTH Alphaeus and "Joseph"?

Surely Christian scholars are not so lackadaisical about their sacred book that this question doesn't concern them? Or, as some have suggested, are they deflecting attention from Immaculate Mary's promiscuity?

That's the thing though, insofar as the one record we have in corresponding the Jewish records of history do support that SOME Jewish-adjacent individual named Mary gave birth to a child not born of their father, and discussed executing the mother but not the child, but AFAIK that happened 60 years earlier.

I would not doubt that this legend and recited thing of the Jewish temples was part of the claim woven into the fiction.

I expect the old Jewish lore is fictive in its own ways too.

The worst part of all this is that I can see unfortunately well in my middle age how that story unfolds in reality because I lived a disturbingly similar life to the one described, complete with a crazy mother named Mary, from who I was taken unto believing her dead and who I wouldn't put past her to make a virgin birth claim if she wasn't as religious as she was; being raised by others in a conservative religious community and challenging elders of the church; learning something better, and challenging a conservative system administration with my principles to the point where consequences were levied and I was banned on trumped up charges (though I did kind of deserve it anyway).

I'm an insane asshole exposed to too much lead over my lifetime to claim to be perfect, even if I do claim to understand things about consciousness, agency, responsibility, and how we ought treat one another. If I wanted to, I could twist my own lived experience into a true story people would believe was miraculous and would be able to easily embellish into miracle stories.

And, I didn't in any conscious way to emulate that story, but I did end up emulating (and at times simulating) it.

I can absolutely accept that someone could have a life similar to that, even one similar but altogether trivial, because I cannot deny my own lived experience.

So, I concede, insofar as I do accept the plausibility of someone being born of a madwoman named mary who tells tall tales of her child's birth, being taken at a young age to be raised by others, discovering eastern beliefs and synthesizing new philosophies, being in a possy around those philosophies, being a PITA to the church and power structures, flipping tables, and getting whatever punishment is available of those empowered over the system to levy.

That is a story I can must can't not accept as possible.

The thing is, I didn't even really see it up until a year ago or something. I looked at it once and thought "that's dumb". I still think it's dumb. It's the dumbest realization I've ever made not the least reason for which being that it's not psychologically healthy to even acknowledge (can you say delusions of grandeur?).

So yes. Now I can accept that there could have been a historical Jesus who lived a life similar to the one described, albeit performing no actual miracles.

I just don't necessarily accept that it did happen either. There are other plausible explanations widely explored here.

Neither is more valid as a claim.

 

[steve_bank]

There have been people on the forum on different topics who appear unable to distinguish between meaning of metaphor and literal interpretation.

To me it is a slam dunk.

In this Japanese metaphor video, its the sound track that makes it more realistic.
.

God as in Yahweh or any gods and deities are metaphors. Symbolic of human aspects.

Th book of Job is an allegory, extended symbolic metaphor.

Aesop's fables are allegories using talking animals to teach a moral lesson. Orwell used talking animals with human characteristics to mock the Russian Revolution.

The talking snake in Genesis. Not literal, representative of temptations.

A literal belief in biblical tales is analogous to literal belief in Aesop's fables.

The bible is cryptic if you are looking for deep cosmic supernatural mystical revelations. It makes sense when looked at as stories that had context and meaning in the times they were written to a specific culture.

The Paul Bunyan myth had meaningg in the west to peopke. Maybe 2 or 3 thousand years from now people mught think people today really beloeved in a flesh abd blood person.

Paul Bunyan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack and folk hero in American[2] and Canadian folklore.[3] His tall tales revolve around his superhuman labors,[4][5] and he is customarily accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox, his pet and working animal. The character originated in the oral tradition of North American loggers,[2][4][5] and was later popularized by freelance writer William B. Laughead (1882–1958) in a 1916 promotional pamphlet for the Red River Lumber Company.[6] He has been the subject of various literary compositions, musical pieces, commercial works, and theatrical productions.[2] His likeness is displayed in a number of oversized statues across North America.[7][8]

 

[Learner]

There have been people on the forum on different topics who appear unable to distinguish between meaning of metaphor and literal interpretation.

To me it is a slam dunk.

In this Japanese metaphor video, its the sound track that makes it more realistic.
.

God as in Yahweh or any gods and deities are metaphors. Symbolic of human aspects.

Th book of Job is an allegory, extended symbolic metaphor.

Fair enough thats your point of view. I would say my reading of the commandments are literal in context. Thall shalt not put no other gods before me...is a law, which implies to me, God is not a metaphor.

Aesop's fables are allegories using talking animals to teach a moral lesson. Orwell used talking animals with human characteristics to mock the Russian Revolution.

Sure if that was the authors intention in Aesops fables, but that doesn't mean the bible is intended by the authors to be illustrated in the same way as a "symbolic metaphor". We can see - the main characters in the bible (and there are a lot of them) are not animals. Also the talking snake and donkey dialogue combined, are very few verses out of 31 thousand verses.

The talking snake in Genesis. Not literal, representative of temptations.

A literal belief in biblical tales is analogous to literal belief in Aesop's fables.

The bible is cryptic if you are looking for deep cosmic supernatural mystical revelations. It makes sense when looked at as stories that had context and meaning in the times they were written to a specific culture.

The Paul Bunyan myth had meaningg in the west to peopke. Maybe 2 or 3 thousand years from now people mught think people today really beloeved in a flesh abd blood person.

Understood,although people 2 thousand years later may come across literature that could be a little probematic to your suggestion, like for instance if they come across'your very post' or 'reading the wikipedia page' on Paul Bunyan (as you posted below), stored on some distant future archive. That would be useful for atheists if the Jews or Romans wrote about Jesus in the same way (denying he existed).

Paul Bunyan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack and folk hero in American[2] and Canadian folklore.[3] His tall tales revolve around his superhuman labors,[4][5] and he is customarily accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox, his pet and working animal. The character originated in the oral tradition of North American loggers,[2][4][5] and was later popularized by freelance writer William B. Laughead (1882–1958) in a 1916 promotional pamphlet for the Red River Lumber Company.[6] He has been the subject of various literary compositions, musical pieces, commercial works, and theatrical productions.[2] His likeness is displayed in a number of oversized statues across North America.[7][8]

As far as I know, there doesn't seem to be any apologetic literature defending the Paul Bunyan belief today, which would otherwise be subject to the far future,debating as we do today on the bible.

 

[steve_bank]

Of course any leader of a religious group, aka a Modes, would insist his words are cumming from a god and there can be no other. Te pope today in the RCC is considreed the mothperpiece of god on Earth. I was taught that n 50s RCC schools.

The 10 Command,nets are common through host pry and cultures. Don't murder, cheat, lie, steal, and don't mess around with other men's wives. Monogamy attenuates male head butting.


In compassion to the Code Of Hammurabi as a working system of rules what we have as the OTi s an incoherent jumble of a odd rules often buzzard and written at different times. A tribal culture.

Considerable attention paid to marriage and family issues.

https://f5webserv.wright.edu/~christopher.oldstone-moore/Hamm.htm

Code of Hammurabi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed during 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organized, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hammurabi, sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon

The incoherent nature of the bible derived morality and ethics leads to endless interpretation.

Chisrtan's seem to think what they from the bible from cryptic passages is the word of god.

The cryptic bible is a big Rorschach Test.

 

[Learner]

Of course any leader of a religious group, aka a Modes, would insist his words are cumming from a god and there can be no other. Te pope today in the RCC is considreed the mothperpiece of god on Earth. I was taught that n 50s RCC schools.

Yes it is interesting when atheists challenge Christians on morality and the meanings written in the OT - to then.... change hats and argue from a different angle I.e. "Christians have no real connection to the Jewish scriptures" etc. "At least Jews don't preach hell and punishment" is the sentiment I quite understand from the argumentative atheist.

The 10 Command,nets are common through host pry and cultures. Don't murder, cheat, lie, steal, and don't mess around with other men's wives. Monogamy attenuates male head butting.

Not quite universal in the same way as it may seem to you.What atheists keep overlooking is the system needs to have justice built in!

Buddah or the Golden Rule, just as it's conceptually understood, without any deterrent warnings,is not going to mete out resulting consequences for mass murder or killing children, for example. IOW no justice!

In compassion to the Code Of Hammurabi as a working system of rules what we have as the OTi s an incoherent jumble of a odd rules often buzzard and written at different times. A tribal culture.

If you have problems with the scriptures ask a theist.

Considerable attention paid to marriage and family issues.

https://f5webserv.wright.edu/~christopher.oldstone-moore/Hamm.htm

Code of Hammurabi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed during 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organized, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hammurabi, sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon

The incoherent nature of the bible derived morality and ethics leads to endless interpretation.

Interpretations between Christians are pretty much unified on Christ. Any differences between them are merely trivial and doesn't harm the message or change who Christ is etc..

Interpretations between the atheist and theist is more the issue in your post above.

Chisrtan's seem to think what they from the bible from cryptic passages is the word of god.

The writings I find imo is quite profound on many levels. But that's me of course.. and that's you.

The cryptic bible is a big Rorschach Test.

Atheists often argued that Christians merely 'feel good' about themselves and the rhetoric atheists describe is about having the "fuzzy wuzzy feelies" - to mean belief is based on nothing more than emotions.

Absolutely - I'm often amused by this argument because little do they grasp the significant importance, as to why this is actually a fundamental KEY to understanding for many folk. Jesus for example talks in the language of compassion that ordinary folk recognise - even children know and understand. Emotion is indeed key.
.
Some things can be quite simple and not so hard to understand. Anyone (potentially) can understand the simple biblical message. Why would God make it so difficult otherwise?

(you can tell from my posts, revealing grammatically, I'm still a child but I managed to do better a job this time without my glasses on my phone lol).

 

[Cognoscenti324]

The 'cryptic' doesn't concern me as much as the 'contradictory'.

Mark has Jesus as a simple man who is adopted by a god - just as David was. Mark has no idea about a virgin birth, and of course, would not.

Matt and Luke then show Jesus as the genetic son of a god, with the virgin birth adding this gods Y-chromosome, I guess.

Paul and John go a completely different route and have Jesus pre-existing with this god in heaven, having created him along with the angels.

So we have 5 versions of Jesus, with 3 different origin stories, which cannot be reconciled with each other. I suppose that explains why the trinity concept is such a hot mess. Further, all 5 versions of Jesus never claim to be a god and expressly deny that they are a god.

 

[steve_bank]

Of course any leader of a religious group, aka a Modes, would insist his words are cumming from a god and there can be no other. Te pope today in the RCC is considreed the mothperpiece of god on Earth. I was taught that n 50s RCC schools.

Yes it is interesting when atheists challenge Christians on morality and the meanings written in the OT - to then.... change hats and argue from a different angle I.e. "Christians have no real connection to the Jewish scriptures" etc. "At least Jews don't preach hell and punishment" is the sentiment I quite understand from the argumentative atheist.

The 10 Command,nets are common through host pry and cultures. Don't murder, cheat, lie, steal, and don't mess around with other men's wives. Monogamy attenuates male head butting.

Not quite universal in the same way as it may seem to you.What atheists keep overlooking is the system needs to have justice built in!

Buddah or the Golden Rule, just as it's conceptually understood, without any deterrent warnings,is not going to mete out resulting consequences for mass murder or killing children, for example. IOW no justice!

In compassion to the Code Of Hammurabi as a working system of rules what we have as the OTi s an incoherent jumble of a odd rules often buzzard and written at different times. A tribal culture.

If you have problems with the scriptures ask a theist.

Considerable attention paid to marriage and family issues.

https://f5webserv.wright.edu/~christopher.oldstone-moore/Hamm.htm

Code of Hammurabi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed during 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organized, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hammurabi, sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon

The incoherent nature of the bible derived morality and ethics leads to endless interpretation.

Interpretations between Christians are pretty much unified on Christ. Any differences between them are merely trivial and doesn't harm the message or change who Christ is etc..

Interpretations between the atheist and theist is more the issue in your post above.

Chisrtan's seem to think what they from the bible from cryptic passages is the word of god.

The writings I find imo is quite profound on many levels. But that's me of course.. and that's you.

The cryptic bible is a big Rorschach Test.

Atheists often argued that Christians merely 'feel good' about themselves and the rhetoric atheists describe is about having the "fuzzy wuzzy feelies" - to mean belief is based on nothing more than emotions.

Absolutely - I'm often amused by this argument because little do they grasp the significant importance, as to why this is actually a fundamental KEY to understanding for many folk. Jesus for example talks in the language of compassion that ordinary folk recognise - even children know and understand. Emotion is indeed key.
.
Some things can be quite simple and not so hard to understand. Anyone (potentially) can understand the simple biblical message. Why would God make it so difficult otherwise?

(you can tell from my posts, revealing grammatically, I'm still a child but I managed to do better a job this time without my glasses on my phone lol).

It is not abut atheists. It is about Christians who made sparse ancient wings into a supernatural mystical belief system.

Christians appear generally ignorant of other more successful cultures and civilizations and their systems o rules, ethics, morality, and mythology,

Case in point, Hammurabi. Rome of course. They considered a state religion essential to civil order.

The Koran is far more consistent and structured than the haphazard OT.

Our modern western liberal democratic systems come mostly trace back to the Greeks ad Romans, not the bible as Christians like to believe.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Of course any leader of a religious group, aka a Modes, would insist his words are cumming from a god and there can be no other. Te pope today in the RCC is considreed the mothperpiece of god on Earth. I was taught that n 50s RCC schools.

Yes it is interesting when atheists challenge Christians on morality and the meanings written in the OT - to then.... change hats and argue from a different angle I.e. "Christians have no real connection to the Jewish scriptures" etc. "At least Jews don't preach hell and punishment" is the sentiment I quite understand from the argumentative atheist.

The 10 Command,nets are common through host pry and cultures. Don't murder, cheat, lie, steal, and don't mess around with other men's wives. Monogamy attenuates male head butting.

Not quite universal in the same way as it may seem to you.What atheists keep overlooking is the system needs to have justice built in!

Buddah or the Golden Rule, just as it's conceptually understood, without any deterrent warnings,is not going to mete out resulting consequences for mass murder or killing children, for example. IOW no justice!

This is a peculiar argument as the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path contain about 10,000% times the moral backbone than all of the New Testament combined. The Tanakh is more about rules than it is about morality.

The cryptic bible is a big Rorschach Test.

Atheists often argued that Christians merely 'feel good' about themselves and the rhetoric atheists describe is about having the "fuzzy wuzzy feelies" - to mean belief is based on nothing more than emotions.

I got to say, nothing like stuffing a strawman and then ripping it apart and saying you made progress.

Some things can be quite simple and not so hard to understand. Anyone (potentially) can understand the simple biblical message. Why would God make it so difficult otherwise?

Have you read the Tanakh, god's a dick.