< The Bible

The Bible/Headscratchers


Please remember the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement. If you have a legitimate question about the Bible, that's fine, ask away. If you're just here to bash it or bash others for not following it or believing in what's written there (or vice versa), please, please don't. That's not what this is for. That's how we lost the first religious Headscratchers.

The three explanations that do not hold water

Note: this isn't meant as destructive criticism. If anything, it encourages creativity in defending The Bible.

Free Will Guilt Trip: Does not hold water because the idea that God provided free will and that we choose our own Hell is so Newer Than You Think, that predestination not only was acceptable until the 18th Century, but is actually supported by the Bible, depending on how you interpret some passages (see Acts 13:48, Romans 8:29 and 30, 2 Timothy 1:9, Ephesians 1:4 and 5, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Jude 4)

  • Free will in Judaism and Christianity actually predates predestination. Also, foreknowledge is not predestination and does not preclude or prevent free will. The interpretation you mentioned is not universally accepted.

Previous to Augustine there was no serious development in Christianity of a theory of predestination.

—The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. IX, page 192

The Greek Apologists and Fathers...They know nothing of unconditional predestination; they teach free will.

—Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. X, page 231

Pandora's Box Predicament: God pretty much was the one to lay the punishment; at no point was it indicated in Genesis that Adam and Eve "opened a Pandora's Box", hence Yahweh is responsible for the world's evils. This is supported by the fact Yahweh is honest enough to describe himself as "creator of good AND evil". (see 2 Kings 6:33)

  • "When under trial, let no one say: 'I am being tried by God.' For with evil things God cannot be tried nor does he himself try anyone. But each one is tried by being drawn out and enticed by his own desire." (James 1:13-14)
    • "[...]Behold, this evil is of the Lord". Also see Isaiah 45:7, Lamentations 3:38, Amos 3:6.
  • Question: Are you trying to blame Yahweh or just stating a fact? There is a difference between evil as part of justice and evil as badness or wrongdoing. The verses you mentioned were about the former, while James 1:13-14 is about the latter. You can't possibly be blaming God for every bad thing every human does, right? Which "evil" are you referring to?

Satan is the God of Evil: Other than Job and maybe Revelation (aside from the chapters concerning the Beast), there's little to indicate that Satan is the God of Evil of Christian mythology. Indeed, if anything, while Satan Is Good is maybe only applicable to the OT, he appears to be a quite minor malicious agent at most, and maybe even just an epithet for any random fallen angel, not a single entity.

Creation

  • The first two chapters of Genesis have always bugged this troper: two conflicting creation accounts right after each other. Plants before man, then man before plants. And somehow people accept these both as true. Huh?
    • Blame the poor choice of English for the Hebrew translation. Basically, Genesis 2 is an expansion of the time on Genesis 1, RIGHT before the creation of man. It should read, roughly, God created man (called Adam), sprung up Eden and then moved man to Eden. The Hebrew word is eretz (אֶרֶץ), which can be translated as earth (global) or land (local). The same word is in the account of Noah.
      • A similar linguistic argument is sometimes made about the claim that God created the animals after man in Genesis 2, but before man in Genesis 1. Ancient Hebrew didn't distinguish between the simple past tense ("God created the animals") and the pluperfect tense ("God had created the animals"), so it's not 100% certain that the animals were created after man in Genesis 2:19.
    • According to my Intro to the Hebrew Bible class the explanation scholars have for this is they believe that some of the books, such as Genesis, were created by different people at different times, and that if you look at what one particular source has written then their own narratives are far less contradictory. Concerning the chapters in question, the first chapter of Genesis is attributed to P, or the priestly source, which is commonly believed to have been written sometime around or shortly after the Babylonian exile, whereas much of chapter 2 was written by J, or the Yahwist, who I think is supposed to have written sometime around the late 10th to early 9th century BCE in the southern Kingdom of Judah.
    • The above, basically, although the exact identities of the writers of the various sources aren't always clear. Basically, the Bible we have today is a weaving together of the religious and folklore traditions of various groups - the primary two being the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. When the former was destroyed, some of its people fled to the latter, given their similar ethnic background and so forth. One of the things the writing of the Bible was supposed to accomplish was to synthesize the two traditions into one religious history that everyone could get behind. This also explains why we have a number of other apparent duplications, such as two versions of the story where David has a chance to kill saul but doesn't. The various patriarchs are thought to be folk heroes of the various Hebrew tribes, combined into one lineage to unite the Hebrews as one ethnic group - one large family. A lot of apparent contradictions in the Bible make sense when viewed this way instead of seeing it as a document that was divinely presented in its current form.
      • I always thought the first chapter was giving a brief summary, and the second was going more in depth. But, the first response sounds better.
    • http://www.gotquestions.org/two-Creation-accounts.html
      • First, it's the events itself described. Second, even if it was not the events, we have Man then Woman in 2. Compare DIRECTLY to "at the same time" in 1.
        • Let's see...Genesis 1:27 "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." If I say "My wife and I had two children, a boy and a girl," does that mean we had them at the same time? It JBM that people read stuff that isn't there into the Bible, and I'm not even a believer.
    • The Mormon response is that the first creation was spiritual and the second of the physical forms of the things involved.
    • The response that a person believing in the unity of the text of the Bible would give is a) the accounts of creation are not meant as historical or scientific accounts at all, but rather are mythology in the fullest sense of the word; the stories that reveal a society's way of seeing the world and man's job within it. Thus, the two conflicting stories are not two different accounts of creation that contradict each other, but are two different, but necessary views of man. In the first, Man is created last and rules over his environment, and is created with an immediate partner. In the second, Man is created before his environment and is placed within it, alone, and must realize his place in the world. Rabbi Joseph. B. Soloveitchik wrote a book ("Lonely Man of Faith") playing off these two conceptions of man to illustrate a philosophy of Judaism.
    • These are all good responses. To give a lame response on a man who harmonizes these two accounts, read The Science of God by Gerald Schroder (apologies if I mispelled)
  • Genesis 1:14-19. These violate two major facts. Light cannot exist without a sun, and secondly, how can morning be distinguished from evening without the sun, moon, or stars? Here we can see yet another self contradiction that leads to the following problem! Plants are made on the third day (Genesis 1:11) before there was a sun to drive their photosynthetic processes. (Genesis 1:14-19). Without a Sun there is no possibility of plant life. The other problem is that plants are not the first forms of life to have existed on Earth. In biblical times these people would have had no clue about the world of microbes or bacteria, they had no concept of life living and growing around thermal vents at the bottom of the Oceans either.. And secondly, plants today are almost all flowering plants that rely on other animals and plants to exist e.g as the Venus fly trap, or parasitic plants that rely on other plants like a tree to do their photosynthesis for them. How do all plants came before animals when they are reliant on them in a co-dependency, or how plants came before the Sun. This is especially problematic if you consider a day of Genesis being 1000 years vs 24 hours. Even under the 24 hours period, plants can neither grow, or live without sunlight!
    • "Light cannot exist without a sun"? From what I've read of the Big Bang, during the instants after the event, when it was, using the phrase loosely, 'too hot' for subatomic particles to come together and form atoms, there were still plenty of photons streaming around. I've seen that bit of information used as an argument in favor of Creation - "The early universe was filled with light."
      • Seriously, if you're gonna criticize, there's a lot better to take on. That may be the only thing it got right.
    • One theory is that when they say "plants" what they actually say is simple lifeforms as plants was considered as the most basic lifeform back then and when they say the sun it's not that the Sun was created but actually appeared on Earth. You yourself said that people back then have no concept of bacterias, exactly why they say plants instead of bacteria or other single celled lifeform because other wise it would make no sense to the audience then.
      • If they had no concept of bacteria, they had obviously had no concept of bacteria, as in, that it existed and what it was. Bacteria were first observed by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1676, using a single-lens microscope. I'm fairly certain that it was meant in the vegetation sense. How could the Sun be in existence but not be perceptible on Earth, and how could plants or even bacteria such as phototrophs live without sunlight? It just doesn't make any sense at all. Which is another thing, how come Christians get to choose how the Bible is read and to be interpreted literally, and which parts figuratively, is it whenever it suits their argument?
      • As mentioned in the WMG, the authors of Genesis probably wouldn't have been able to wrap their minds around the literal creation of the universe anyway, and simply described what they could (assuming God showed them the creation, the Big Bang was light, water and dust gathering was the creation of the Earth, etc.). As for how to interpret the Bible, in all fairness, a metaphorical look at Genesis kinda makes sense; given this, what makes less sense is saying, "well, if we interpret the creation story metaphorically, that helps tie everything together, but let's not go around trying to interpret things metaphorically for the sake of...not interpreting things in an alternate way." More than a few literary critics would find that most nonsensical.
    • The passage is from the point of view of an observer standing on the earth. When it was first formed, there was dense clound cover, thus light could shine through, and day and night could be diferentiated, but no source could be seen. The "creation" of the sun was merely the newfound ability to see it from an earthly point of view. (Just to clarify, this isnt saying there were actually people on the earth at the time)
    • "Light cannot exist without a sun." But what if the "light" isn't photons/whatevertheyare at all? Some people think that the first occurance of "light" refers to the creation of angels rather than stars. In this interpretation, separating light from darkness would probably refer to the casting down of Satan (going by the account of Lucifer rebelling against God and being banished and so on).


Satan

  • If I remember correctly (I don't claim to have remembered correctly), I remember that it said in the beginning, there was only God and that God created everything else. So then where did Satan come from to tempt Eve in Eden?
    • God created him. Not sure why, but I think most theologians agree on that.
    • The Hebrew word that translates to the English 'day' more accurately translates to 'a period of time.' Thus, it took 'seven periods of time' rather then 'seven days, exactly.' I belive (could be wrong) that it's stated that when God made the Heavens (this is said later in the Bible) he also made the Angels. At some point during this period one third of the Angels, lead by Satan, attempted to subvert God's position and instate themselves as leaders of the Universe (basically). 'Course, God was like 'Screw you guys I'm God' and subsequently cast them all down to hell (or some variation thereof). Satan, for whatever reason, is not himself stuck in hell, and can move about both the mortal and immortal plains freely. Now, I'm not sure if it's actually stated, but my belief is that when Satan saw God came up with his big, awesome plan of creating humans, he decided to go screw with said plan and make everyone miserable. 'Course, if you take the beginning of Genesis entirely metaphorically...
      • Come on, those angels were just Too Dumb to Live. They tried to usurp 'God??!!'
      • The days are described with literal mornings and nights, enforcing "day" instead of "period of time", but that is a technicality. If Heaven were important enough to have been created then, it would have been mentioned. Also, the reason Satan supposedly rebelled was because God was paying attention to the humans more than to the angels...which only happened after the Fall because God spent very little time with his humans (otherwise the Fall never would have had a chance). That aside, "Satan" is hebrew for "opposer", a title given to many entities. It was meant in the context of Job to be an angel God sent to test mankind's faith, for the purpose of testing mankind's faith. So even with the "Fall", the "Satan" presented needed not be the "Satan" of the "Rebellion".
        • There are a number of figures in the Bible who have been called "Satan." The serpent in Genesis, the "adversary" in Job, Lucifer in Isaiah and the Satan who tempts Jesus in the desert may all be the same being, they may be all different, or it may be some combination. Your theological mileage may vary.
  • Why no concrete explanation for when, how and why Satan had a Face Heel Turn? Satan was simply an agent to sort out the guilty back in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament he's suddenly become a Complete Monster responsible for sin in the first place, and the Big Bad of everything. No build-up whatsoever. Not to mention, saying he's the snake (who's more of a Trickster Archetype than pure evil) opens up more questions and plot holes. Did the writers purposefully left it blank for you to imagine it? Viewers are Morons? Were they just unable to find a good enough villain, and go "let's make Satan evil." I really want to know.
    • Bigger question might be why you're treating The Bible like it's a piece of fiction literature that was plotted out by a single source with one running plotline and foreshadowing.
    • As to how, Satan likely turned someting during or after the earth's completion.[1] The reason why he (as the serpent) turned was because of Pride; he wanted to rule the earth instead of God, and that's why he spitefully caused mankind to disobey God. Also, considering that the serpent is guilty of genocide on the entire human race, I would consider him evil. He was the Big Bad since Genesis; Satan as "simply an agent to sort out the guilty" as seen in Job is only one interpretation that is not universally believed, others consider his actions there evil too. And no, Satan being the serpent doesn't open up any plot holes, you must be misunderstanding something. I will concede that it was rather late in The Bible (Revelation) that Satan was actually identified as the serpent, but considering Jesus and his followers considered Satan as evil and the Big Bad before Revelation was written, this was likely a common belief among Jews in the first century and before.
      • Alright, but why would someone who already had a Face Heel Turn as the serpent in Genesis be an agent of God in Job? Why choose pride as a reason for his fall? It doesn't seem compelling. Not to mention, booting Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden didn't really seem that evil-they lost their immortality, but would be capable of growing.
      • Uh, maybe because he wasn't an agent of God in Job? Like I said above, that is "only one interpretation that is not universally believed"; in other words, he was still acting as the Big Bad against God at that time. Read what I wrote above; I had already answered that question before you asked it. Anyway, what do you mean "why choose pride"? People don't consciously choose a reason to make a Face Heel Turn. He fell because he was envious of the worship of God and wanted some for himself, essentially becoming the Ur Example of A God Am I. And apparently you failed to grasp the implications and consequences of what happened to Adam and Eve. For one thing, robbing someone of their immortality is basically the same as, or worse than, committing murder. Additionally, the serpent's trickery ended up leading to sin and the Humans Are the Real Monsters trope, not to mention various defects and diseases. If someone doesn't see that as evil, then I sincerely hope I never meet them in person.
        • If God opposed Satan (which was a title applied to many entities, divine and human) then he wouldn't gloat to Satan or give express permission to the extent that was given. And, even more, if Satan wasn't an agent of God then there was no obligation for Satan to follow the rules that God set.
        • Opposing Satan has nothing to do with gloating or giving permission. God gave permission to Satan to prove a point, namely that Job would serve God under any circumstance. And Satan followed God's rules not because he was an agent of God, but because God is more powerful than him.
    • Isaiah 14 contains a pretty good description of what happened.
  • So God knows everything that is, has been, and will be, right? So he obviously knew that Satan was going to turn evil, right? So, why did he create Satan in the first place? He could have easily avoided every single problem on the planet had he not created this guy, or at least, somehow stopped him from turning evil.
    • No, he doesn't know everything. He has the power to know everything, but he doesn't always use it. Until Satan's Face Heel Turn, there wasn't really any reason for God to see the future.
      • Wait... that makes no sense either. So far, we've got a God who is either malicious (he knew that evil would be introduced into the world and did nothing to stop it) or negligently incompetent (he could have known, but intentionally chose not to, and once it occurred he did nothing to correct his own mistake). You cannot have it both ways... either God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, or he's not. And if the former conditions apply, then there is a problem with the idea that Lucifer rebelled'. Because you cannot "rebel" if your actions are all part of the larger plan.
      • The reason why it doesn't make sense from that standpoint is because you are looking at it in hindsight. For one thing, in order to intentionally choose not to know something, you have to first recognize that there is something that needs knowing (unless you are saying that if God has the power to see the future, that he should be omniscient even if he doesn't have to be). After all, why would God choose to use foresight to see if any of his creations would make a Face Heel Turn if there had been no such thing as a Face Heel Turn up to that point. Besides, even if he did foresee Satan's Face Heel Turn, he could not have done anything to prevent it without overriding his free will, and thus the best he could do to prevent the fall of humankind was to limit Satan's contact with them (at least until they had kids). I really don't get why people seem to think that "God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent". God is NOT omnipresent, and saying that he's omniscient and omnipotent are gross oversimplifications. Yes, God knows everything about the past and present and can know the future, but doesn't always know everything about the future, and while God is extremely powerful, including absolute physical power, he must obey his own laws and sense of justice. And God DID take steps to correct Satan's mess (that's what Jesus was for), he just decided not to correct it immediately.
        • "God is NOT omnipresent"
    • Free will.
      • The claim that Satan, like man, possesses Free Will solves one problem, but creates another. Several times throughout the Old Testament, God is shown interfering in the affairs of men if they do something He doesn't like, up to and including killing them outright. Satan, supposedly, is the biggest doer-of-things-God-doesn't-like of them all. So why has God elected to wait until the End of the World (i.e. the time of the Revelation) to destroy Satan? Why hasn't He already destroyed Satan?
        • To make a point. Reading between the lines in Genesis chapter 3, Satan was challenging God's right to rule mankind in the Garden of Eden, inferring that humans would be better off if they were left on their own or in Satan's control. If God had killed off Satan, Adam, and Eve immediately, it would have looked like Satan was right or at least that he could pose some threat to God's sovereignty. Instead, God gave Satan and humans free reign on Earth for millennia in order to prove that Satan is a bad ruler and that humans would screw themselves over without God's guidance.
  • So, God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from The Tree of Knowledge. Satan becomes a snake and tells Eve to eat the Fruit. Adam and Eve do so, and God punishes not Satan, the one who caused the problem, but snakes themselves, removing their legs. What The Hell, God? Are you forgetting that it wasn't the snake itself who made A&E disobey, but Satan? That'd be like if a bunch of guys in gorilla suits robbed a bank and shot lots of people, and then all gorillas had to be shipped to Antarctica because of the aforementioned robbery, it just doesn't seem right.
    • It never actually says the snake was Satan, and many don't think he is. People inferred that from a reference to Satan as "the great serpent" or something like that, which sounds similar, but could just as likely refer to Reptiles Are Abhorrent in general. What you pointed out is another reason that the "snake is Satan" theory just doesn't add up.


Tree of Knowledge

  • Adam and Eve eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. By which, they gain the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. God becomes furious and exiles them from Eden. Isn't that a Catch-22? It's wrong to eat of the fruit of the tree, but you don't KNOW it's wrong UNTIL you eat of the fruit of the tree. "Thou shalt open this safe. The combination to the safe... is within the safe."
    • They don't need knowledge of good and evil to understand the concept of "don't disobey God." They don't need to know that eating the fruit is evil, they just need to listen to God and not do it. The Bible emphasizes obedience to God as a virtue.
      • Surely having virtues requires an understanding of good and evil.
      • The thing is, God is entirely good and doing what he says is good. Eating the fruit is disobeying God, which is a sin and evil. The Tree of Knowledge was most likely metaphorical because just eating the fruit is to know evil.
        • Yes, but if you have to eat the fruit to be able to tell the difference between good and evil, they wouldn't understand that disobeying god is a less preferable behavior to obeying him until after they disobeyed him.
        • They knew it was wrong because God specifically told them not to. Adam and Eve, being purely innocent, knew that doing what they were told was good and disobeying was bad. After the serpent told them to eat, it was up to them to choose to listen to God or disobey him. They chose poorly, and thus came to know evil. They weren't stupid, just innocent.
        • Such concepts as "obedience", "trust" and "doing something just because you were told to" are all parts of the GOOD/EVIL paradigm. And before the couple ate the fruit those concepts should've been meaningless to them; they had been, so to say, technical pragmatics. Moreso, since they didn't know evil, the notion of deceit would've been unknown to them as well! Thus, when the snake told them, that the fruit was not lethal and was, in fact, an instant Level Up serum, they had no reason not to believe him!
          • Obedience isn't some moral action. The wording of "Knowledge of Good and Evil" means that they were aware and fully capable of doing evil. In simpler terms, think of conocer vs saber. Conocer is used with acquaintances, in other words kinda knowing. Saber is used as a more technical verb and is a through knowledge.
            • The wording is in fact that they COULD NOT KNOW that disobeying was "evil". Toss in that deceit would be unknown to them, you get the above comment. Even if "obedience" were not a moral choice, they wouldn't have reason to obey the primary command when confronted with a valid argument. Unless thought is wrong, but then we become robots.
            • How is obedience not a moral action? In obedience, you have two options for behaviour: to obey or to disobey. How do you differentiate between them, if not morally? I mean, it's not a technical question? The whole basis for obedience in this instance is that god is good and to disobey would be evil, so it is a value judgment and the values in question are moral values, the moral values of good and evil, to be exact. Might be that your linguistic explanation overcomes this, but could you elaborate a bit, I don't follow your argument there.
              • It depends on who you're obeying. Eve sure obeyed the snake.
                • Actually she technically obeyed herself. The snake merely offered her a suggestion and provided what were the facts.
      • To offer up another view, it isn't so much that they had no idea what Evil was beforehand; rather, eating from the tree did just as Genesis described: it gave them shame, and from then on, they were prone to evil. They knew obeying God was good, and not to obey Him was the opposite of good. Just because they were innocent doesn't mean they couldn't reason that not obeying God and therefore not doing good was, well, a bad thing.
        • They couldn't have known that not doing what God says was a bad thing, because they didn't know that there was such thing as "a bad thing". They're exactly like children, doing what they're told by people who know more than them, and having no reference frame of their own for what counts as good or bad advice. The thing is, though, God lied. He never said "Don't touch the tree because it will let you understand the difference between good and evil, and I don't want that." He told them that touching the tree would result in them dying. The chain of events went more like this:

GOD: Do not touch this tree or you will die.
ADAM AND EVE: Oh, thanks for the warning. We'll be sure not to touch it.
SNAKE: Actually, that's wrong; you'll just become wise, and know the difference between Good and Evil.
ADAM AND EVE: Oh, really? Well, that's okay then. * eats fruit*
And God promptly throws them out.

        • Where's it say they didn't understand they were supposed to do what God says? Eve in fact resists the temptation at first ("but God said not to...") so obviously she wasn't just going to do anything anyone says. Adam and Eve recognized God as their authority, and it's very straightforward logic that if obeying God is good (as they do believe), not obeying God would be the opposite of that. Also, there was no lying involved on God's part. Was the dying part a lie? 'Cause they did kinda die. The serpent, on the other hand, was the one who told them they would basically become gods, which...was the lie here. The serpent told Eve she would have knowledge of Good and Evil; while this means Adam and Eve didn't know everything there is to know, the Bible doesn't say Eve was curious as to what this "Evil" was. The whole point of creating humans is that God imbued them with free will, i.e. the ability to choose good or evil; this wasn't something He withheld at first. They didn't "find out" what this concept of "evil" was; they simply took on guilt.
          • Obedience is intrinsically a moral dilemma, and not knowing about evil/immorality would mean they wouldn't know about deciet. God actually said "and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it -- dying thou dost die." (Genesis 2:17, Young's Literal Translation). So that Adam lived at least 900 years after that point (Genesis 5) means that God did lie. However that they gained knowledge of shame and guilt means they gained knowledge of social consciousness, a core requirement for morality and a fundamental step for wisdom; the Serpent told the truth. They also then realized they would die, the wording across all literal translations suggests that they would have died eventually even if they didn't eat the fruit. To avoid continuous repeating of the person below me.
          • You don't do a very good job at defending God as good. In fact you make God as a parent. That then leads to an error in that you posit parents as infallible authorities on everything ever, which is (in simplest words) pure bullshit. God also did lie because if their spiritual parts had died they would not have been able to feel guilt or love for their children. And also there is no "kinda die"; God said they WOULD DIE. And they didn't so God lied. The snake, on the other hand, only said they would "be like God, knowing good and evil." Additionally, they also showed relative content in their knowledge before eating the fruit, not even taking the time to understand what "death" was, hence making God's promise or warning an empty threat at best. And, even more-so, in the perspective of the bible you take (because reality has morality before humanity), it is undeniable that the characters exercise and develop moral knowledge from the very time of the "fall". And in fact, the "guilt" exhibited is present BECAUSE of their realization of the supposed "evil" in their action.
          • Actually, they die. They become mortal upon eating, which inevitably results in their death and the death of all their descendants. God never said they would die the very second they ate.
    • Thing is; you can't get away from the fact that Adam & Eve couldn't know you should do what you're told until they've eaten the fruit. You can't get away from that. Sure, they had been told "DO NOT EAT OF THIS FRUIT. IF YOU EAT OF IT YOU SHALL DIE." but once they'd been told that they wouldn't die (and been dumb enough to believe it just like that) they would think "Good, now I can eat this fruit. Sure, God said I shouldn't, but since I have no moral problems with disobedience there's no reason why I shouldn't eat it."
      • Adam and Eve were only like children in the sense that they didn't understand the difference between good and evil. They should have known (using just logic) that if God told them not to eat from the tree because they would die, that they would really die if they ate from the tree. In a more modern situation, imagine if you're in a laboratory and the head of research tells you that a beaker is full of acid. He walks out, then some guy comes up and tells you that the beaker is full of something that will cure every disease you've ever had. Who would you listen to?
        • What is this "death" thing you speak of? It is cake? The threat of death in a world where nothing has died is as empty as the threat of starvation to a wealthy glutton, if not more-so.
        • Well, logically the most recent person should have the most up-to-date information, science does march on and it would be For Science!!y their actions. Before God had to tell them full out, but the fruit gave them the godly ability of consequence which also comes with death if misused.. Since only an Omnibenevolent being could avoid making a single err, only an omnibenevlent being could gain the power of immortality while having the power of consequence. OR to better put it, Adman and Eve had and the fruit gave them God Mind but without God Soul they fell to Man Body (mortality).
    • It's simple. The fruit allowed them to determine good and evil for themselves (thus being "like god' the serpent didn't lie.) Without having a higher power tell them. They still knew right and wrong, as we can see.
      • A similar idea: That they already knew right and wrong, good and evil, and the serpent was bluffing them that they didn't.
    • The whole story is a metaphor. The "snake" tempted the woman with the promise of power if she ate the "forbidden fruit." She did and realized she was nude. She then tempted the man to also eat, and he also realized he was nude. Their punishment was that the woman had to go through labor pains, and the man had to work for a living. Does This Remind You of Anything?? In short, this is the story of humankind's awakening consciousness and understanding of sex (and its consequences) and death.
      • You forget that [people take the story very literally. And also, what the snake promised was "knowledge" and hence "realization". The "punishments" could even be claimed to have been physically present before but not experienced; pregnancy would take 9 months, we assume early Spring and they would have Autumn/Winter timing.
    • If anything it's a metaphor for the Agricultural Revolution and Mankind learning how to till the ground ("making" our food instead of waiting for "God to give it to us" upgrading from Hunter-gathering to Farming) , essentially upgrading us from just sapience to both it and sentience.
      • One of biggest issues with the idea that it's a sexual metaphor is the fact that there isn't really anything to bear that out. The fruit is directly related to "The Knowledge of Good and Evil", so it's obviously involved with a literal loss of ignorance and, therefore, innocence.
        • Nothing to bear that out? First of all, remember that in Hebrew, the verb "to know" also means "to have sex with." In fact, the very first line after the end of the Eden story (Gen. 3:24) is "Now the man knew his wife Eve...." (Gen. 4:1) Secondly, the fact that after they eat from the tree of knowledge, they immediately realize that they are nude and seek to cover themselves indicates that the innocence being lost is specifically sexual innocence.
          • Be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil.
    • One problem with this issue is that we are using an English translation. Some scholars believe that the ancient Hebrew translates more closely to "the fruit of the tree of knowledge both good and evil". In this interpretation it isn't so much that Adam and Eve didn't know about good and evil so much as they only had knowledge of the former, and even then incomplete knowledge.
      • A comment on the Tree of Knowledge being metaphorical for sexual innocence: In Genesis 2:23-24, when God creates Eve and presents her to Adam, Adam declares that a man and his wife will become one flesh...and before that, in Genesis 1:28, God advises them to "be fruitful, and multiply." And all of this happens BEFORE the eating of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, so evidently God sanctioned sex (within marriage) and that it therefore was not a metaphorical fruit.
        • The Bible is believed to be written by several groups over several locations over several generations. You yourself exemplify that in using Genesis 1 and 2, where chronology is different with regards to gender.
    • What most people don't remember is that when God went to visit them the day they ate the fruit, they tried hiding from him in the Garden. If they had repented by telling him what they had done, it's entirely possible we would be living in the Garden right now. It's not only that they ate it, but the fact that they didn't admit what they had done wrong(especially if you're going by the interpretation that they didn't know what was wrong until they ate the fruit).
  • Above there already was a thourough debate on the topic of Tree of knowledge, however it seems to me that a substantial point of sheer wrongness of the whole issue was omitted, so I'll raise it here. Why. Why plant a tree, if you forbid your creations to eat from it? What purpose did that tree serve? Why tempt your creations if you know that you're going to punish their indulgence with death? Why punish it with death? They disobeyed you? SO WHAT? Before you say that it was a test, please take moment to consider the meaning of that word. A test is always a simulacrum, a model of some greater, inescapable and uneliminatable (this is important) ordeal that the test subject will have to face later on despite your best will and efforts (this is very important), so you submit him to a mitigated version to see if he's likely to handle it without suffering the whole extent of consequences and/or to prepare him for the real deal. BUT the words inescapable and uneliminatable, will have to loose their meaning in case you're omnipotent. This is your world, you created it literally from a scratch, and you made the rules. There can be no ordeal, no problem, no obstacle in this world for your creations, unless you want it to. So, if the Tree was a test of obedience (or trust, whatever), what was it a test FOR?
    • (1) No, a "test" does not always refer to a simulacrum/model, or what you say it does. (2) God did not know that they would violate his prohibition. (3) God really, really, really doesn't like being disobeyed, which is why they died. (4) As to the answer to your question, its purpose was a symbol of God's right as Creator to tell humans what was right and wrong and expect them to comply.
      • (3) They died? Oh yeah, at least eight hundred years after they were supposed to die according to God. If God doesn't like being disobeyed as much as you claim, why not kill them and start over as he did with the Flood later on? (2) How can God have an Omniscient Morality License (as you claim in 4) if he isn't omniscient? Reverse Psychology would kick in eventually even if the Serpent hadn't, and God would know that.
      • (3) Considering that they otherwise would have had a form of Immortality, it makes no difference whether they died immediately or hundreds of years later. The point is that their death was a consequence of eating from the tree, and had they not done so, they would still be living today. Also, killing them immediately would make it seem like God was afraid of humans making their own decisions about deciding what was right or wrong, and that Satan was at least partially right. Most people don't read between the lines to realize that what Satan was really trying to do was question God's right to rule over humans and angels, and God let humans live and screw themselves over so everyone would realize what happens when God is not in control. (2) & (4) Okay, I misapplied the trope, but the points still stand. What God has is more like a "Creator Morality License".
  • Something confuses me. As far as I understand Genesis, one of the reasons God banished Adam and Eve from the garden was that now that they ate from the tree of knowledge, they would become like god if they ate from the tree of immortality. But he never forbade them to do that in the first place. So, what would he have done if they had eaten from the tree of immortality before the tree of knowledge?
    • Who knows? Perhaps the idea is that the tree of life would only work so long as they kept eating it, and thus so long as they listened to God, they would live forever.


The First Humans

  • The story of Adam and Eve. If you take it completely seriously, then we're all descended from...two people? Hasn't royalty taught us that incest causes problems when you continue to do it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again?
    • There's been quite a bit of discussion on that subject, which I won't get into here for the sake of brevity, that basically boils down to what I call 'Ultra Recessive Genes'. Those genes, plus the centuries-long lives people had back then (allowing for hundreds of children having hundreds of children within just a few generations), would account for enough genetic diversity to avoid problems.
    • We're descended from inbreeding TWICE. People forget that everyone but Noah's family got massacred, and even if God created more humans apart from Adam and Eve in Eden, he decided not to meddle with humans again after he flooded them all. There is evidence of inbreeding in the bible, though - people stop living as long (900 yearsish), and once in a while everyone becomes so evil that God feels he should just give up and kill them all (Noah's ark in Old Testament, Revelations in New Testament)
    • Maybe in fact, we are all retarded compared to what people used to be like, maybe things like hair loss, allergies and other conditions that we deem as normal are just side effects of inbreeding and people were just slightly different and better than what we are now.
      • Then where is the evidence of these super-intelligent people? Surely someone created waterproof houses before Noah's Flood, seeing as the location is a prime area of natural flooding.
      • About the 900 years thing: Some people claim it had to do with changing from a moon-based calendar to a sun-based. In the moon-based calendar, the "year" was what we'd call a month. So Methusaleh and others only became 900+ months old, which is acceptable.
        • Until you realize that if that were correct, a five-year-old kid became a father. Genesis 5:21 if anyone wants the ref.
        • Of course, being closer (genetically speaking) to humanity's original, immortal form might account for the ridiculous lifespans. Genetic degradation slowly shortening lives until there were enough people for good gene diversity would reduce lifespans to something resembling our own. Or the calendar thing, either one.
        • This assumes that you believe someone actually lived to be 900 years old. Is there any evidence of this other than the Bible?
          • No, but if you're going to question that small tidbit of supernatural happenings in the Bible, there isn't much point debating anything on this page at all
      • My pet theory is that pre-Flood humanity was made up of various human species, like Neanderthal and Denisovan and such. Noah and his family were probably mostly homo sapiens (or one of the survivors was of a different species), which accounts for their DNA present in humans today. This second interbreeding streak is what killed off the longevity and whatnot.
  • Where did Cain's wife come from, anyway? Furthermore, where did the people Cain was worried would kill him for killing Abel come from? And what about Seth's wife?
    • From Adam and Eve. They were all born from Adam and Eve.
    • The Bible specifically states that Adam and Eve had a metric ton of kids.
      • Actually the Bible at the time doesn't state that they had any more kids than Cain and Abel at the time. To assume it was one of Adam's and Eve's children would be kind of wrong. Unless it were with either his or Abel's unmentioned twin. But then why would she be banished as well?
      • That incest thing was pretty damn common at the time.
    • Some sources also propose the idea that Cain's wife was Lilith.
    • This used to bother me, but if humans lived for centuries in the Genesis days, while still maturing and reproducing at the same rate, Cain would've only needed to wander around for a century or two before he'd have a few thousand people to choose from.
    • As mentioned above, he could choose from any number of sisters. This also explains who he'd run away from, even if he wasn't just afraid of what Adam and Eve would do to him.
    • If you take The Bible to be about the creation of man as a psychological/intellectual reflection of God and evolution to be about the biological development of the human species, then there is no problem. Adam was the first human to be, intellectually, in God's image. Cain's wife was a biological human without reference to whether her mind was a reflection of God.
      • That interpretation then ignores the significance of the Creation event and diminishes that of the Fall. It also ignores that psychological developments tend to be founded in communal developments, and so only two people would be at best difficult and at worst lead to a dead end.
    • The Bible also states that Adam and Eve were the FIRST humans that God created, not the ONLY humans.
      • I see this argument a lot and it ignores one simple fact. Original Sin. If God created other humans then they would not have been tainted by original sin. Only if we're all descended from Adam could the doctrine still apply, therefore, God creating other people creates a massive plot hole where there was only squick before. Does Occam's razor apply to fan theorising?
        • They could inherit original sin if Adam and Eve are among their ancestors, even if they're not the only ones. Adam and Eve's children could've interbred with other God-created humans' children, eventually passing the stigma on to all of them.
          • I don't think so. Sin is only passed on if both of the original ancestors are sinful.
        • Original Sin is not a fact, it's an interpretation. Just as the "squick" of Cain marrying a sister is an interpration. Whether she was or wasn't is really irrelevent to the Aesop of Cain and Abel, which is "don't commit murder."


Noah's Ark

  • The story of Noah's Ark. How come all but two of each animal had to go? Yes, I know it's because of reproduction, but seriously. Were the kittens that took the swim evil? The llamas? The puppies? The horses? I doubt it. Also, don't tell me that EVERY human other than Noah and his sons were evil.
    • That's the official story. I actually asked that very question of a rabbi at my hebrew day school, and he responded that, yes, even the llamas were being bad llamas. The standards they were morally judged by were different from the standards by which God judged humanity, but they failed to measure up nonetheless.
    • Wait, did you ask him that before or after my question? Thanks either way, but still. God just wiped out an entire civilization! Granted, we were dicks, but he's GOD! Can't he just beam good thoughts into their heads?
      • Oh, before, about a decade ago. And as for animals... that's actually a good point. They never ate the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, so technically speaking, he should be able to muck about with their free will...
      • Technically, He could beam good thoughts into our heads now. He doesn't because if He had wanted to create programmable robots, that's what He would have done in the first place. Without the free choice to do evil, it wouldn't mean anything if we chose to do good.
        • Of course, if he did beam good though into our heads, we still would be able to not follow them.
        • Unless he is, and one of the thoughts involved is "disbelieve in the idea of me beaming thoughts into your head". When you get involved with mind control conspiracies, the sky's the limit. But free will with animals is a whole 'nother ball game, they're not as important as people, after all. That's why he asked for animal sacrifices- because animals are a lower class of being, less important than humans you can kill them as much as you want.
        • On the animals issue: my view of sin is that it "unbalanced" the world. When Adam and Eve sinned, it introduced sin into a world not made for it, starting off a "chain reaction", if you will, of sin which caused everyone (and thing) after the first to sin. Thus, animals are, in fact, sinful. However, they're still only animals; killing them isn't as big as deal. The only difference between humans and animals is the awareness of sin.
    • Well the OTHER possibility in the case of humans comes from the beginning of Genesis 6 (and the apocryphal book of Enoch to a greater extent) which implies that mankind was breeding with the rebelling angels and the flood was also purposed to get rid of those hybrids.
          • You do realize that the nature of the animals chosen meant that, in many cases, they would be essentially pets? I'm certain that several people will try to rip into this one, but the essence of those sacrifices was still 'sin hurts'.
    • Honestly, I always thought it was only two of each animal cuz there'd only be room for that many. I mean, it's one boat. Even if it's a really really big boat, there's only going to be so much room on the thing.
      • How much room does a pair of rabbits take up? Now, how much room does a pair of field mice take up? A pair of beetles? Of ants? The large animals may be the impressive ones, but most of those that couldn't take the swim would be small animals that didn't need that much room to begin with.
      • If you take the measurements from the Bible every animal gets about 1.3 feet.
    • He could have just "cloned" some more animals, and just needed the two kinds as a base. Or it could be symbolic.
    • What did the carnivores eat while on the ark? There's only two zebras, so Noah couldn't afford to get those eaten... So how did he prevent the lions from starving?
      • Fish.
      • Noah took seven of every clean animal, and two of every unclean (Genesis 7:2). It's not spelled out, but presumably five of the each of the clean animals were for food.
      • What makes you so sure the carnivores were? I've seen arguments to the effect that meat-eating itself didn't exist until after the flood occured.
        • Those arguments are completely non-supported, and possibly written by a parodist.
        • Simply: Biology. There were dinosaurs at the time. The teeth patterns, and other structural support, as well as descendent genera, all demonstrate and support the fact that at least ONE organism on the ark was carnivorous.
  • How can a ship some 157x50 metres hold two of every animal on Earth?
    • God made it a TARDIS.
      • Some people say it's because it wasn't the entire world that was flooded, just the known world at the time. There were much less animals to carry in that case, and Noah didn't have to bring on any fish or animals that could survive in flood conditions.
      • Fish would've been decimated by the flood. The changes in pH, pressure and temperature of the water would've slaughtered countless species of fish and other water-based animals from sharks to insects (and water plants). Unless God protected them specifically, but that kinda undoes the point of having an Ark in the first place.
    • They simply took baby animals instead of fully grown ones in some cases.
    • How much room does it take to hold a pair of rabbits? Or a pair of beetles? The large animals get press because we're impressed by size, but most animals are small.
      • Yes, but small animals are much more numerous as well. You can get away with two kinds of elephants and one kind of giraffe, but there are twenty-one species of rabbit (and 32 species of hares), not to mention almost a million different beetle species. Depending on how pedantic you are, it would still take up a lot of space to house them all, possibly more than it would to house the larger animals.
      • It was written by people in Israel who didn't know that when they wrote it. Most of the world was unknown to them at the time it was all written. They had no idea how big the world was. This was probably a really plausible story, if you count on the audience believing based on their own experiences. Now, with the Discovery Channel, how can anyone believe this? I'm amazed at how many people still have hope in finding the Ark someday.
    • I also want to know why, if we take this as a literal story, how Noah could have gotten penguins, bears, and such. If we assume it was a metaphor or a myth based on a larger-than-average local flood, then we remove all trace of theological and religious importance.
  • In the story of Noah's Ark, Noah takes two of each animal on his ark to save them from being wiped out. Several questions: How do they keep the boat clean, how do they stop the animals from killing each other, and how did the plants survive?
    • Magic, magic and magic.
    • Or, rather, shoveling waste overboard, Divine Mind-whammy of the animals (he's done it other places), and God probably provided some divine form of sun lamp; fertilizer would be the waste not shoveled overboard, and they wouldn't lack for water.
    • As noted above, some theorize that carnivorous behaviour did not begin until after the Flood.
      • And as noted above, this is complete bullshit. Shovelling the waste of even each kind would be a task even for a family of eight. Rain water would need to be purified, too. There would be no need for fertilizer because no plants were taken. And all plants (as with the fish) would have died quickly but we can only assume given the text that God doesn't care about them.
  • Along those same lines, the logistics of the ark doesnt work. Lets assume 500 animals on board - a gross undersetimation, but lets roll with it. Noah had - what 3 kids and their wives? So 8 people. Assuming no other chores - food prep, laundry and so on - each person would have 125 animals each to care for, feed and so on. That's just nine minuets an animal, assuming no sleeping, no rest breaks, no meals - just around the clock, 24-hour-a-day animal care. What - did god put the animals in stasis or something?


Exodus

  • In Exodus, about halfway through the whole 10 Plagues thing, Pharaoh is completely willing to let the Israelites go, yet God keeps hardening his heart in order to keep sending more plagues for Moses to clean up. Why does He keep doing this? Wouldn't it be easier and faster to leave Pharaoh alone and let him release the Israelites?
    • God is given credit for everything that ever happens. Saying "God caused this to happen" is just the author's style of saying "this happened."
      • Yeah, but God specifically says to Moses that He'll harden Pharaoh's heart. That's God personally taking credit for what happened, rather than just being how the author writes.
        • A couple of things ought to be mentioned here. First, to Hebrew writers, the heart was the organ of logic and reason. So where Moses would have used "hardened heart", most English-writing people would use "closed mind". Second, the Egyptians, led by Pharaoh, did participate in worshiping every item listed in the plagues. If the YHWH of the Hebrews, then, can control these things so much better than any shaman in the employ of Pharaoh, then truly this YHWH is NOT to be messed with.
          • First, that does not excuse the source of the closed-mindedness: God. Second, it does not matter if he is or isn't a FORCE to be messed with: being forced to do something negates any moral consideration and forcing others to do something (except when forced yourself) is immoral.
          • Really? They worshipped festering boils?
        • God wanted to give the Jews a spectacle to enhance their belief. It wasn't enough to just have them leave, they had to leave in a very spectacular way. In fact, the miracles of Exodus and later Mount Sinai are used in contemporary Jewish "outreach" programs as part of the proof of the truth of Judaism (though I'd rather not get further into that debate).
    • I read somewhere that it originally was Ra hardened Pharaoh's heart, and later translations changed it to avoid mentioning a "false god". I don't know how reliable the source was, though.
      • Given the flow and concerns of the rest of the Pentateuch, this seems unlikely. As far as I know, the Hebrew mentions God, and the earliest sources for this section of the bible are actually oral, and thus unrecoverable.
        • I don't have the citation, but it's my understanding that there is a rather strong argument in exegetics, that judaism transfered to monotheism from polytheism and that this can be seen from the bible. I don't know how it affects the argument for Ra's presence.
          • It depends. If we assume that the monotheistic ideology of the Bible was based on polytheistic ideology, we destroy any significance of God as an ultimate being and hence signifies merely a stepping stone in theological thought. If we assume otherwise, then Ra is excluded on principle of no other gods being capable (because they wouldn't exist).
    • Another interpretation is that, had they let the Pharaoh let them go earlier, he would have changed his mind shortly and had them recovered. As it is, by forcing the Pharaoh to hold his resolve up until the final plague, he had better reason to just let the Israelites go. Of course, he still went after them in the famous scene with the Red Sea, but they had several days of lead time.
      • You have to consider: if even a million people left the world superpower for certain death at a time when the total world population arguably exceeded 5 million, then you would chase after them too. Or would you want a million people to die because of their stubborness? I mean who do you think could survive a desert for 40 years? Even more if we take the term used to describe the 'slaves' at face value: "hired laborers" or arguably "mercenaries"; they give up stable jobs, shelter, food, and respectable positions at the request of an old man claiming to talk to God. They may even have been contracted and they left before fulfilling the time they signed for.
    • I always thought that God did all the ten plagues because he wanted to make sure that the entire known world knows what he, as the supreme Master of the universe, is capable of what will happen if you mess with him or his chosen people. So literally, he did it for the reputation.
      • But then why is there no evidence for any of the plagues? It doesn't make sense that no one would ever record such an event, not even the other Israelites. And surely some would have had to report some, such as losing their first-born son.
      • I've been told that each plague systematically undermines each individual Egyptian god.
      • Considering that the Egyptians had a specific god for just about everything, it'd be impossible for any kind of plague not to undermine a specific god.
        • But then that means not all were dealt with, marking the claim as baseless.
      • Another source suggests that the combined effect of the plagues was to nuke the Egyptian economy.
        • Which never happened according to history.
    • Exodus 7:3-5: "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them." In other words, He does it to show the Egyptians just how awesome He is, so that they'll start worshiping Him instead of their own gods, which apparently is more important than the freedom of the Jews or the thousands of lives that will be lost. I honestly believe that the only reason this interpretation isn't held by more people is because it requires one to believe that God Is Evil, as it's pretty well spelled out right there.
      • I'm not so sure about that; biblical archeology seems to suggest that the Israelites probably served as a mercenary army for Egypt for some time before becoming slaves (and even that part is debated), so that would explain the armies parts. As for the idea of the Egyptians worshiping him, I didn't get that at all; rather, I get the impression God is saying that because the Hebrews were brought forth from Egypt by great judgments, signs and wonders, the Egyptians will know that the god protecting the Hebrews vastly outclasses their own. And given how much stock the ancient world put into their gods (particularly as military weapons), this would effectively ensure that Egypt would think twice before trying to attack/enslave/wipe out the Hebrews again. That, and it would serve as a reminder to the Hebrews as to what God could do for them, making his anger over their abandoning him repeatedly very understandable.
        • There is no evidence that the Hebrews were ever in Egypt (as soldiers or slaves). Archeologists have searched in vain for any evidence of the Exodus and have failed to validate the Bible's assertion that millions of people encamped in the Sinai for 40+ years. Scholarship is leaning to the conclusion that the Hebrews were Canaanite and remained Canaanite.
          • This is simply not so. Archeologists have found evidence of an Israelite presence in Egypt at the right period. Whether you accept this evidence or not is up to you.
          • I'd be a lot quicker to accept the evidence if I could see the article and judge their methodology, evidence and conclusions.
          • The movement of the Keme-Semetic Alphabet's(The Ancestor of the Greek, Coptic, Latin, Arabic,Hebrew, Aramaic, and most modern alphabets) passage from Egypt up the Levant matches the Exodus almost exactly.
    • In the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, it states that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
      • This happens for the first half of the plagues, not the last half, and is in the original.
    • Three words: God hates slavery.
      • The Bible actually condones the practice, with certain limits on cruelty towards the slave, such as releasing slaves every 50 years.
        • Although the fact that it's only permission to enslave pagan nations indicates some pretty severe Moral Myopia.
        • Slavery back then tended to be a bit different and slaves weren't necessarily slaves for life. In some cases, it was more of an indentured servant sort of deal. You also couldn't take them against their will for the purpose of making them a slave (apart from prisoners of war, but that's different).
        • Ancient Egypt didn't practice slavery at all. It would have served no purpose in their economy, where the farming majority were displaced with nothing better to do for a chunk of every year anyway.
        • In dealing with any forms of slavery one has to understand that different cultures have different forms of slavery which can aren't always analogous to American/Colonial slavery.
        • The idea that Pharaoh would be displeased that Egypt had too many Hebrews living in it is also contrary to what we know of ancient Nile civilization, which routinely assimilated ethnic groups from outlying reaches of its empire.
    • One interpretation that I've seen is that God does not actively harden the Pharaoh's heart. Rather, God hardened Pharaoh's heart in the same way a call from an old friend might make one nostalgic or seeing an attractive person might make one aroused. There was no specific intent to harden Pharaoh's heart; rather God hardened Pharaoh's heart in that God's actions hardened Pharaoh's heart.
      • But God, being omniscient, would know that his actions would harden Pharoah's heart, and, being omnipotent, would be able to figure out how to accomplish the same goals without doing so. For an omniscient and omnipotent being, action is intent.
    • The plagues aren't there to convince Pharaoh but the Hebrews. They have been living in Egypt for many generations so cultural osmosis is a work. This is Fridge Brilliance when you realize that each plague corresponds to an Egyptian god, and Abraham's god tromps over each one of them.
      • Given the vast extent of the Egyptian pantheon, ten plagues would hardly be enough to undermine EVERY Egyptian god. And that the Egyptians ones don't necessarily care for the Egyptians any more than the Greek ones did for the Greeks also makes God's actions superfluous.
    • The way I saw it, each time the Pharaoh wanted to let them go, he was only doing so out of fear of further punishment. Only once he'd suffered true grief and understood that he was wrong was he allowed to let them go. "Hardening his heart" means making him stick to his guns, because to do otherwise is to use supernatural power to bully someone into submission. Of course, he ended up reneging anyway, but that was out of selfishness. We see several other times in the Bible that God isn't satisfied with "good" behavior motivated only out of fear of divine retribution, you have to actually care.
      • That still means God took Pharaoh's ability to choose. God did not respect free will in that situation.
    • I'm surprised not to find this explanation here; if one reads through the passage carefully, one would note that God does not harden the Pharaoh's heart the first time he refuses to let the Israelites go. It's only after that first refusal, and after the following plagues that God intervenes. The Pharaoh, like any person, would have reacted to the plagues with fear and awe, and likely would have granted the Israelites their freedom the moment the Nile turned to blood. God simply made sure the Pharaoh remain consistent in his original choice, so as to drive the point home that you do not not mess with His people.
      • Pharaoh flaking out is his own choice. God did not let him choose otherwise. Forcing him to be consistent is still removing his ability to choose capitulation over further punishment. God did not respect free will when he did that.
  • The plagues in general bug me. It's not like God needed the pharaoh's permission for the Jews to leave. He could have instantly transported them all to the Promised Land or to the desert to begin their wandering. He could have made them invulnerable to the Egyptians' assaults long enough for their exodus. He could even have ensured that the Egyptians simply didn't notice the Jews leaving. Out of the slew of totally peaceful solutions available to him he chose the one that brought pain to a lot of people most of whom were most likely innocent of any wrongdoing. Why?
    • If you read the above discussion on hardening the Pharaoh's heart, there are times when the Hebrews could have marched out just as easily as if God had done what you suggested, but God refuses to allow this to happen. He justifies his continual uses of the plagues by saying "Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them." (Exodus 7:4-5) and "Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him: And that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am the LORD" (Exodus 10:1-2). Both of these passages seem to imply God is using the plagues and causing all that suffering so he can prove to both the Egyptians and the Hebrews that he is God. The question would be, of course, why the hell does he not choose a less destructive means of proving himself. But then, the old testament God has quite a bit of God Is Evil in him.
      • God Is Evil? Hardly. You forget that people back then were even more thickheaded than we are today. Heck, look at the incidents with Abraham and all the nations he traveled through. Everyone one of them who observed examples of God's power ended up acknowledging Him to be the one true God, yet they apparently decided to stick with their old gods anyway. It may have been the only way for God to impress upon the minds of the Egyptians that not only is the God of Israel the one true God, but that all the gods of Egypt are completely powerless before Him.
        • A number of alternative ways occur. Just for instance, he could appear to everyone as a burning bush, convincing each person of his existence and power personally. He could perform an equal amount of non-violent miracles. For that matter, if he's so convinced that it's necessary for people to believe in him, he could simply will that they do. It would violate free will, sure, but so does killing someone.
      • After bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, God appeared to the them as a column of smoke and fire covering an entire mountain, and they still chose to build a golden calf to worship while Moses went up and talked with the Lord. People were pretty stubborn.
        • A column of smoke and fire is hardly divine. Additionally other gods had ALREADY used both smoke AND fire as symbols and disguises. And that's nothing of that when Moses went for the "talk" they had NOT been forbidden from creating 'idols'.
    • A traditional Jewish answer to this kind of question is that the trauma and theatrics of leaving Egypt, as well as the completely unnecessary length of the time spent wandering in the desert, were really intended to purge the Israelites of any traces of "slave mentality." If they'd just been magically transported out of Egypt, as you suggest, their external condition would have changed but their mindsets wouldn't have. All the unnecessary stuff was really intended to constitute them as a free people.
      • Still superfluous, then. The golden calf is a symbol that they had still had idolatry. And if they were (as history and the Bible dictates) laborers, they would have been easily as free without the trauma associated with the plagues.
    • Here is a bit better explanation, your best friend is being badly treated by this bully and you can help them out, will you only help them out or will you want to see the bully punished for badly treating your friend?
      • Punish the bully, yes. Punish the bully's family, his employees' families, his neighbor's families, rather than the bully himself? That'd just make me a lot worse than the bully.
        • You guys don't seem to know how racism works. It's a system everyone is complicit, especially the Upper class merchants and farm lords (think sharecropping Older Than You Think 500 years early) and the prissy soon to be Pharaoh kids. These people were evil. And as anyone would tell you in the american South (for example) it's pretty powerful,, that whole nation had the sin on its hands, the fact that he didn't level the bastards and instead left them off easy to repent is a sign of his mercy.
          • You fail to understand that history has repeatedly shown the "slavery" present in Exodus to be so drastically different from what was present in America that it's not even able to be defined accurately as "slavery". In fact the closest that Ancient Egypt at ANY of the possible times of the account practiced was hiring labor and soldiers from neighboring areas. And then we have that the Pharoah didn't have any problem meeting several times with a representative of the people. And then we have the effect the plagues would have had. Total economic collapse. A fate worse than death and a complete humiliation of the WORLD SUPERPOWER OF THE TIME. To give no comment on that the Pharoah was COMPLETELY WILLING half the time to AGREE TO LETTING THEM GO, and so wasn't purely evil.
          • And not to mention killing all of the first-born sons, including young infants. Because people are born 'racist'...
          • Ahem... are all of you forgetting that the Egyptians were terrorizing and killing the Israelites' children for years before Moses showed up to lead them out, as well as the whole slavery bit? Even after one of God's people had basically saved Egypt from starvation a few years back? In my opinion, A) God hardened pharaohs heart so he could punish the Egyptians properly; if he had simply said "Oh, well, sure, you can leave", justice wouldn't have been met (the "Old Testament God Is Evil" thing is baseless if you realize that, if God punished someone, they really deserved it; you're mistaking evil for strictness). B) He wanted to show the Egyptians that their gods were absolutely nothing compared to him; he even left their "strongest" gods for last, creating a heavy darkness (Ra) and showing his power over death (which was also a Take That for them doing the same thing to the Israelites)
  • One of the plague was the slaughter of all the animals in Egypt. Then what did the Pharaoh army harnessed to their chariots to pursue the Hebrews??
    • The plague was not God killing all of Egypt's animals. Apart from God distinguishing between the Egyptians' animals and the Israelites' animals, the plague was only to kill livestock. Livestock are defined as "farm animals regarded as an asset." The horses at farms were livestock, but the horses pulling chariots weren't. Those latter horses were war horses, or military animals to use a modern term; they're bred and trained to be used in war which involves combat and carrying supplies. As they weren't livestock, they weren't targeted by the plague as God stipulated it only targeted livestock. Even if their war horses died, the Egyptians could've gotten more war horses from other nations with coin or trade or as tribute.

Maccabees

  • In 1 Maccabees, Israel's conquering by Alexander the Great and persecution of the Jews is portrayed as punishment for turning away from God. However, Judas' rebellion is then portrayed as punishment directed at the Greeks for being so cruel to the Israelites. What gives? Weren't the Greeks doing more or less exactly what God wanted them to do?
    • According to Maccabees, the Greeks were spreading their religion rather aggressively, even turning the holy temple into a shrine of Zeus. There's also graphic depictions of Jewish martyrdom.
    • One might argue that the Greeks went too far, or the punishment was over.
      • Pretty much. The Jews' punishment for turning away from God was the loss of their sovereignty. What Antiochus did was interfere in the practice of the Jewish religion itself.
      • The same argument is made about the Egyptians. The answer is that the Egyptians/Greeks were indeed God's messengers, but that doesn't mean they didn't have free will. They could have punished the Jews, but not done it in quite such a cruel and heartless manner, or not have gotten such extreme enjoyment out of it.
        • You have a culture believing that their gods are guiding them to victory, and hence that the people being conquered are inferior to you. Yet you are to stop when a god you don't believe in and have no reason to believe in wants, despite not letting anyone know when exactly that is? Isn't God supposed to be GOOD? Then why promote senseless violence in that way?
        • It's not senseless. Rather, it means that just because God uses one group of people as a means to punish another, does not excuse the first group for its sins. For this reason, Moses called the pagans, "A people without sense," because when Israel fell under judgment, pagans would conquer them easily, but the pagans would then (foolishly) conclude that the conquest was their own doing, rather than God punishing the Jews EVEN THOUGH PROPHETS WOULD WARN IN ADVANCE OF THE COMING JUDGMENT.
    • This is actually pretty consistent with the entire history of Christianity (remember how Jesus apparently had to be sacrificed as part of God's plan? Now remember the 19 centuries of persecution the Jews had to endure for that?)
    • It's pretty consistent with prior Jewish texts, for that matter. Whenever the Children of Israel were doing wrong, the Lord allowed them to fall victim to neighboring peoples...but those neighboring peoples were themselves eventually brought down for their own wrong-doing, and a fair portion of the time it appears that it was repentant Israelites who did the task. Read the book of Judges for a fair list of examples.


Jesus

  • The story about the stoning of a harlot. Jesus utters "He who's without sin shall cast the first stone". Ok, two things bother me here. The first one is that nobody calls him out on inventing new rules. The law said the criminal caught red-handed should be executed - it didn't demand immaculacy from the executioners, and it's reasonable, because judicial system should operate on the basis of proof, or else it would go to hell (pun not intended). Second is that nobody thought of reverting this suggestion on Jesus himself. They wanted him to either support a cruel law or express disrespect to laws. Well, this is even better! Either he admits that he's a sinner, or directly partakes in the killing.
    • first off jesus didn't create a new law he just added new conditions to a law that already existed. second if they were to go through with execution it would only confirm everthing that jesus been saying about them being hypocrites, also they just wanted jesus to say something that goes againsted the law so they can arrest him (him admitting he's a sinner or partaking in execution wouldn't do anything in term of incriminating himself)
    • I'm really not sure it's possible for you to have looked at this from any more of a wrong way. He's not a lawyer making a legal argument or making new rules, he's shaming the mob to save the woman's life. Jesus isn't about the laws of man. Him being the only one without sin is the point, as he's saying only He can judge.
      • That's exactly my point! He's facing an angry mob and is basically telling them, that they are no better than the harlot they are about to execute. And everybody is fine with that, everybody is SUDDENLY compalcent and aware and ashamed of their own sins so much as to abandon the voice of reason (whether they're sinners or not, she was still a criminal deserving a punishment by their laws, which, by the way, Jesus recognised). But most important, it was not even really about justice, was it - it was a set up for Jesus, right? And he gave them a perfect opportunity to exploit - instead of "defy the laws/support the execution" dilemma they could've forced a "defy the laws/admit that he's a sinner/partake in the execution" one upon him. They didn't. Why?
        • Their laws also acknowledge and rely on the existence of a God. You're thinking in secular terms, in theories of social justice that don't fully apply when the law is believed to have come from an all-knowing God as a divine commandment. Maybe the courts can't prove that the people in the crowd were as guilty as the woman, but God would know, and that was Jesus's point. If you kill someone in the name of God for a crime that's no worse than what you've been getting away with, isn't God going to find that offensive? Ever since Adam, Eve and Cain, we've seen that God really doesn't like being lied to about sin, and Jesus's audience were raised on those stories. As for the second part, Jesus made no bones about what he thought of himself. People had already tried that in other confrontations; had they asked, he would have just outright said he's the son of God. It's what eventually led to the crucifixion. In this case, they may well have already known who he was and what he claimed, which is why they didn't bring it up again (and why they were spooked enough to back down - the thought of "hey, what if he really is God, and he does know everything?" would naturally cross each one's mind just a little).
      • Except that those were not just some random people. They didn't revere J at all, but hated him. They wanted to frame him and expose him as a fraud and eventually kill him (which they did). That was the whole reason of demanding a resolution of case from him. Moreover, if their moral backbones were flexible enough to allow them to commit those misdeeds that J appealed to, why would they suddenly be ashamed to lie about them to the face of the guy they are trying to ruin?
        • The leaders of the crowd were priests and scribes, but most of the people with the actual stones were probably just ordinary people they rounded up. For all we know, maybe the priests were uselessly shouting "hey, come back here, he doesn't have a point!" while their followers were walking away, which is just one more reason for them to really hate him. Also of note is that, according to The Other Wiki, the Sanhedrin Court effectively abolished capital punishment in AD 30, "as God alone was deemed to be the only arbiter in the use of capital punishment, not fallible people". With Jesus's argument taking place in the context of an existing religious debate (and the Sanhedrin already coming down on the anti-stoning side), it'd be politically dangerous for his enemies to even try to argue the point.
          • Actually, it doesn't say that the priests round up a crowd - they just brought the captured harlot to where Jesus was teaching people. It was them who Jesus addressed to and it was them who was so inexplicably and abruptly ashamed of their sins. As for the abolition of stoning, it is a valid point, but it kind of invalidates the whole idea of set-up. Wouldn't it be dangerous or at least pointless for the priests to even put across such a controversary topic in public?
      • I've heard that the story of the stoning was added to the book fairly late as a morality tale. Don't take it literally. Literalism is a faulty, 19th Century Christian way of viewing Classical Jewish storytelling traditions.
        • Yes, the story was a late insertion not found in any of the earliest known manuscripts, so the whole story should be taken with a grain of salt just on general principles.
    • One way I've heard it explained is that the Pharisees were being somewhat dishonest with the law themselves in this case. The Jewish law being brought up in this scenario requires both people committing adultery to be stoned to death, yet we see here that the adulterous man is conspicuously absent. The explanation I've heard is that the man was in on the whole thing with the Pharisees. Why this never gets brought up in the text, I have no idea.
      • It's explicitly mentioned as being a test for Jesus. One, Pharisees weren't literalists in any sense of the word (they were actually political and religious opponents of the Saducees, who were in fact literalists). Two, even the literalist portions of Second Temple-era Judaism were reluctant to impose a death sentence without several very clearly defined warnings (including male eyewitnesses who had warned the perpetrator beforehand that the act in question was both illegal and subject to a death sentence). Three, no Jews outside of temple security would have had the authority to impose a death sentence; that was reserved for the Roman prefect of Judea.
    • Jesus was a fan of Take a Third Option. The point of that story was to illustrate that compassion for people should trump rigid adherence to the law, because all of us are imperfect and in need of forgiveness. Once everybody else had left, leaving Jesus and the woman alone, he tells her to "go and sin no more," meaning that he knew that she was guilty, but was willing to forgive her and give her a fresh start if she tried to do better in the future.
  • So did Jesus's family had to accept him as his lord and savior to get into heaven?
    • Joseph died before his ministry years. Mary was, according to Catholic doctrine, born without any original sin as a prerequisite to conceiving the lord and savior of humanity. His siblings/cousins/whatever were involved in the church from the beginning (particularly James the Just, who was with Peter and Paul one of the paramount leaders of the early church).
      • So were all his cousins including but not limited to third-sixth cousins and siblings were involved in the church and what do other christian doctrines have to say about Mary sin state and what would happen to his family members if they didn't accept him as lord and savior or stayed orthodox jews?
    • Other doctrines do not believe in the immaculate conception (that Mary was conceived without sin). Nowhere in The Bible is it said that Mary was sinless or needed to be sinless to conceive Jesus. After all, if God was capable of causing two sinful parents to have a sinless child, then Jesus' death would be pointless. And while Jesus' half-brother James was an early Christian leader, he was only a Christian after Jesus had already died.[2] Had Jesus' family not believed in him, they would simply have been treated like all other unbelievers by God. However, Acts 1:14 states that Mary and his brothers were present at Pentecost during the founding of the Christian congregation, so they likely all did become Christians.
      • How would God using two sinful parents to give birth to a sinless kid affect the story in anyway and isn't Jesus God so Jesus would send his family to hell and what do you mean by the term unbelievers?
      • The whole point of having a Messiah was so that the people who were already sinners could be redeemed. Jesus Himself would be able to save everyone since he was also divine, as well as sinless, making his sacrifice more powerful. If God created a sinless normal person, and allowed him to die as a Messiah, it would only be good enough to spare one sinner.
        • Not exactly. The thing is, Jesus being Divine means that he is able to rise from the dead, thus triumphs over death. Had Jesus been a normal person, his sacrifice is meaningless and we're all screwed regardless our belief.
      • The Angelic Salutation (when the angel Gabriel reveres Mary as being "full of grace") might actually give Bibical support to the Immaculate Conception. First, the angel is referring to Mary as "filled with grace" before she conceived Jesus (as the whole point of the salutation was to get her permission for her to become pregnant), indicating that God preserved her in some form of holiness earlier in her life. Second, the fact that an angel is actually revering Mary, indicates that she must be greater than an angel in the eyes of God, which would seem less likely if she was a sinner.
      • By 'unbelievers' I meant someone who didn't believe in Jesus' resurrection. Anyway, the whole point of Jesus dying was to give a perfect sacrifice to satisfy Equivalent Exchange, so God would be capable of reversing the sin of imperfect humanity. Adam sinned, then had kids, passing on sin and death, and died as a result of sin. Jesus did not sin, did not have kids, and died despite not sinning. Therefore, Jesus traded his life and the possiblilty of his own perfect human descendants to become the "Father" of the imperfect human race, thus making them eligible to escape sin and death. This implies that either God would not be capable of or at least would have to break his own rules to make a human sinless without using a perfect human sacrifice. Thus, if Jesus' purpose was to provide a ransom so God could make humanity sinless, yet God could make a normal human sinless without it, Jesus' sacrifice would be completely pointless. Besides that, if Mary was sinless, she also would neither age nor die of natural causes, and would theoretically still be living today unless she not been killed at some point in time. And not everyone believes that Jesus is God or in Fire and Brimstone Hell.
  • Why wait so long to be sacrificed why didn't he just sacrificed himself during the Garden of Eden?
      • one of the major reoccurring theme of the bible it that god does thing at his own pace. keep in mind that it took 300 years! for god to send someone to get childeren of isreal out of egypt. 40 years too take them to their promise land and it took god a whole week to destroy the walls of jericho for them too.
  • The crucifixion and its effects border a Mind Screw for this troper. So if Jesus is villified, tortured and murdered in agony, we all earn eternal salvation. But should people have come to their senses and said "No! Free him instead of Barrabas, so he can continue to teach us and enlighten us!", everyone remains doomed to Hell forevermore?
    • Technically, even if Jesus had died peacefully in private, it still would have brought salvation into the world. The whole point was more or less that an innocent man tastes death so that sinful men could be spared eternal death/damnation. Jesus' death was so horrific because He wanted mankind to be aware of how much he loved them, showing how much he would suffer for us.
    • To this troper this goes to show the problem with the codifying of theology... aka Bible Fanon. Nowhere in Canon does it even come close to saying what would have happened! But the questioner cannot be blamed for their assumption of what would have happened, because most of the prevalent Fanons have decided that it only could have worked that one way... putting God in a box.
  • How long did Jesus know he'd have to die a most painful death? Doesn't seem like something you can deal with, knowing that eventually that was going to happen to you. If someone told me I'd have to be crucified, I'd be running the opposite direction.
    • He is called "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," so we can assume that He knew even before Creation. As a practical matter, He personally told Isaiah about the manner of His death, and if His Incarnation concealed any knowledge from Him, the crucifixion wasn't among that. He knew full well He would have to be crucified, and He was prepared for it. Even so, He was afraid when the hour approached, but He was more committed than afraid, so He went through with it.


Holy Spirit

  • Jesus says that there is only one unpardonable sin: committing blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. What exactly is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Since this is the only sin that can never be forgiven, why doesn't the Bible explain it more?
    • It really is not a case of a sin being unforgivable as it is mortal/venial. In the whole passage, Jesus also refers to those who blaspheme Him (the ancient Jews) and those who blashphemed His father (the ancient pagans), saying they would be saved. He did not mean that they simply CAN be saved, He meant they WOULD be, because they only blashphemed out of ignorance. Those who blashphemed the Spirit (or those who knew better but still refused Jesus as Messiah; it is implied the Pharaisees were this) would be damned because they rejected Christ out of malice. However, he means that they are in a state they would be damned for, not that they were unforgivable; if they repented, they would be forgiven.
    • The basic context of Jesus' content was after a group of Pharisees claimed that he was doing his miracles by means of demonic powers. The main point was that Jesus was performing miracles in the name of God, and the Jewish tradition of the day stated that if someone was performing all these miracles in the name of God, than it's accepted that God sent them, because otherwise God wouldn't allow them to perform the miracles. Jesus fit the criteria (and followed all the Law), but they accused him of being a demon. In that case, the unpardonable sin was attributing to the devil something that was clearly performed by the power of the Holy Spirit solely because he was undermining their authority. The blasphemy is that they refused to accept an act that, according to their standards, was clearly from God, and calling it demonic. It's not so much that the sin is unpardonable. It's saying that anyone who rejects a clear sign from God in this manner has essentially reached a point where they are irredeemable. That said, that's only one interpretation, and there are many others. It's just the only one I could think of off the top of my head.
      • Pretty much that. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit essentially means denying God to the point of being irredeemable.
      • However, this only applies if you are a believer. Unfortunately, some folks don't understand that.
      • Open to interpretation, of course, but what this troper has learned is that the Holy Spirit is the holiness within/connected to you. So committing blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is committing blasphemy against a soul (presumably yours, but it works with anothers).
      • When it comes to the "unforgivable sin" it is twofold; the nature of this sin is where you come to know that the Gospel is true but say no to it anyway. It is one thing for an atheist to go "screw you" because the atheist is ultimately, ignorant. Yet if someone came to know that Jesus is God, believed it and then said no to it - you are denying truth openly of your own volition. As the Holy Spirit is the 'Spirit of Truth' then to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is to deny openly the very truth you profess. The second part of this twofold statement is that in order for God to forgive, you have to be truly sorry (repentant or in a state of contrition), but of course if you openly say no to the truth after knowing it to be true then you're not going to be sorry, are you? Therefore, it is unforgivable not because it is so horrible, but because God quite simply cannot forgive you because you are not sorry!
      • This bothered me for years too, but a theology professor once explained it in a conversation in a way that made sense to me, and kinda said the same thing as above. If someone accepts and then completely rejects the Holy Spirit, they're rejecting God, their connection to God and their own divine sense of right and wrong. In other words, the unforgivable sin is "unforgivable" because you'll never want forgiveness after that. You've crossed the Moral Event Horizon completely and there's no little voice inside you that feels guilty about it anymore. If you reject God in a moment of anger, but then seek forgiveness, then some part of you was holding back and you didn't really cross the line at all. It's only when someone absolutely rejects God for all time, and never feels any regret, that the connection's really been severed.
      • The Holy Spirit has always been a bit of a problem. Ask ten Theologians what the Holy spirit is or represents, you'll be lucky if you get less than twelve different answers. It's part of the Trinity, but even the Catholics never settled on a real definition.
      • And.. just becuse we see it diferntly doens't mean it's not there. I saw it as the force of Morality and Good itself, what Zoraster worshiped as Ahura Mazda
        • A consoling Spirit that also provides strength and miracles. Usually when it says God spoke to a non-preist in the OT, it's the Holy Spirit.
    • It refers to a self fulfilling prophesy. The sin is forgivable but the sin denies the person to seek forgiveness. It is like saying Clinical Despression is incurable. Yes, there are treatments for it, but a Depressed person doesn't believe that there is a cure, or that the cure will work; and doctors cannot treat them without violating their Free Will.


Fasting

  • When Satan came to Jesus to tempt him, he offered three things. One was to bow down to Satan and he would gives Jesus a city. Jesus declines, makes sense, following the devil is a sin. The other was to test God by jumping off a cliff, to see if He would send angels to save His son. Jesus refuses, as you shouldn't tempt God like that. However, I don't get the other one. Satan tells Jesus to turn a rock into bread, Jesus declines, saying man does not live by bread alone, implying God is needed too. Which makes sense, but while man does not live by bread alone, he does need bread (or other foodstuff) to survive. I don't get it, the other two were blatantly sins, but I don't see how turning a rock into bread in order to survive is a sin.
    • He was fasting for religious purposes. Common in Judaism, rare in Christianity.
      • Actually, fasting is still very important in Orthodox Christianity.
        • Even if he were fasting, which would be reasonable as Jesus was and always seemed to consider himself a Jew, he would still be able to turn a stone into bread. Even once, and turn it back. Or feed it to the animals around him. They wouldn't be bound by the same moral conduct that God demands of Humanity, would they?
      • It's also stated that the Holy Spirit had led him into the desert. The reason he was there at all because the Holy Spirit brought him to; it's assumed that the fasting was part of the whole "living the desert" experience. Eating anything would have been ignoring that.
        • That's a good reason why he wouldn't eat the bread, but why can't he turn a stone into bread?
        • To add to what has already been said, what Jesus says is from Deuteronomy 8:3 which talks about God feeding the Israelites manna to teach them that they couldn't just live by bread, that real life came from God. Turning a stone into bread would be akin to choosing this life, or his own way, over the life that God could provide.
    • We could just save the argument and say the third is bad for the same reason as the first.
      • But that ignores that the act called for has no intrinsic reasons to be denied. Unless Jesus could give to temptation, but the He isn't perfect.
    • It could be argued that there were some subtle principles he was learning about how to use his powers appropriately (see Anne Rice's Out of Egypt & Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor scene for more on this.) With the powers at his disposal, he had very broad options of what to do. He could have fed himself and whoever else he wanted every day (and can you imagine what a following that could get him?), he could have raised an army, he could have called lightning down from heaven to get rid of the Romans and liberate his country, he could have really taken over. In fact this list of "power-options" begins to sound like the temptations themselves, especially if you take a view of sin that's less "breaking a specific rule" and more "moving in a wrong direction." This is very much the view espoused by Dostoyevsky. In the Grand Inquisitor scene, turning the stones into bread would simply be the first step towards Jesus' getting the poor to follow him unquestioningly because he feeds them, and Jesus rejects it because people must have free choice; he doesn't want to be a demagogue. (Later of course he does feed a group of five thousand people who've stranded themselves in an unpopulated place without food by following him there. Perhaps because he overcame this temptation early, he makes it quite clear in the gospel of John that he's not going to do it again, vehemently rejecting a group who want to make him king soon after.)
  • So, Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 night in the desert, hm!? You know, aside from the resurrection, nowhere else in the Bible does it shows any indication of Jesus being stronger or more resistant than his fellow man. Maybe it was more like "40 hours" in the original version, but it didn't look badass enough.
    • 40 days doesn't seem like an unreasonable amount of time to survive without food if he had water, especially if he was in pretty good shape or if he was mostly just sitting and meditating or something instead of walking around using up energy.
    • Apparently, 40 days and 40 nights is an old Hebrew idiom for an indefinite period of time.
    • Also, "fasting" doesn't necessarily mean no food. It could refer to being limited to a specific type of food, for example, or eating only at certain times of the day.
      • Fasting is usually not eating during daylight, as I understand it; after sundown and before sunup it's acceptable to eat a small meal, or only a certain selection of foods. Nowadays people treat it as drinking nothing but water for a period of time.
        • Fasting meaning no food between sun-up and sun-down is the islamic definition of fasting. In Catholic practice fasting means no meat and only one meal in a day. It is worth noting that the Catholic Church makes a distinction between fasting and abstinence, abstinence meaning no meat (nowadays, many dioceses allow abstaining from something else as a substitute, the important thing being the sacrifice, not what is sacrificed).
    • This troper has heard anecdotal accounts of people fasting for forty days and surviving.

Sin & Death

  • Something that doesn't sit well with me is the passage "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16), which has been called Christianity in a nutshell. My problem is that since God is all powerful, if it is possible for him to forgive sins through his son's death it should be possible for him to do it without it. Thus, the message that is intended to portray God as infinitely loving of the world comes off making him look like a jerk for requiring Jesus's sacrifice to do it.
    • And yet if god is jesus it makes him look like a dude who would make a human aspect of himslef, prech to us dirlecty rather than the "lord over and shoot lasers" thing and then let us kill him, it makes him look a lot nicer and us a lot worse.
    • Your premise overlooks a few things. It is written that the wages of sin is death, which God pretty much said from the get-go. Man sinned anyway, and continues to do so to this very day. It's terminal in every sense of the word. Jesus' death was necessary because for sinners, Redemption Equals Death (sort of). Jesus didn't have any of that on his record to redeem, so his was the only one that could do anything to save everyone else. Besides, God choosing mankind over His own Son should send a pretty powerful message as far as the lengths to which He's willing in order to go to help us.
      • The problem is that he didn't have to choose to punish anyone. He's God, and therefore the final authority. If he decides that people should be forgiven, he can do it, with no "wages of sin" necessary.
        • If this was the case, we can do truly atrocious deeds and still be saved. Christianity more or less changes us, because of the Holy Spirit acting in us. We are forgiven of our sins because we are sincere and detest our deeds. Your idea removes that bit. IIRC, this was the case with the gnostics.
          • You don't answer WHY he HAD to PUNISH anyone. He would KNOW who is being sincere. And so that issue already defeats itself.
        • Even letting only the truly remorseful people into Heaven in no way required Jesus's death. The basic point is basically that God makes the rules, therefore he can change them without requiring a sacrifice on anyone's part, including his own.
          • Well, actually, the understanding of exactly why Christ had to die for mankind's salvation is not firmly spelled out in scripture. In the West, St. Anselm's theory of atonement (i.e., Christ was a sacrifice to off pay the debt of our sins) is pretty much universal, in the East, while that idea isn't rejected, the incarnation is also seen as sanctifying human existence and allowing part of God's eternal nature to become a part of those who accept Christ. Thus, during the crucifixion, Jesus destroys death because He is eternal. As a person repents and develops a virtuous nature, more and more of them becomes sanctified and allied with Christ, and thus eternal able to overcome death. Thus the point of the incarnation isn't just reparation for sin, but transformation of human existence from within.
        • God needed to sacrifice Himself for us sinners to truly display His love even though we killed Him. Yes, He could wipe away our sins, but that seems so cold and mechanical. It really drives the whole point that God loves us.
          • Not for this troper.
            • Which is a shame really, considering what the guy posted in that little paragraph above.
          • So wait, He sacrificed his son purely for display purposes?
            • Not purely, and not even display. Christ is a permanent reminder of God's love.
              • The problem is that if the crucifixion wasn't actually needed, God/Jesus (trinity) comes across as a Martyr Without a Cause. Even if it was a symbolic gesture.
                • Equivalent exchange, boss. God laid down the rules when he made the universe and he darn well holds us to them. Break 'em and death is the penalty. God had this, let's call it, loophole set up so that you could give up the life of an animal instead of your own, but as people (and their sin) grew, animals just weren't cutting the mustard anymore. Enter Jesus, the only guy around who hadn't lost his life to a rule breaking. He traded his pure, uncorrupted life for all of our wasted ones, which actually allowed God to rewrite the rules of life and death, allowing everyone life without any more death. So, no, not symbolic.
                    • God has no problem holding the sun still for a day, yet can't offer forgiveness withour sacrifice? And it wasn't even a permanent one! It was less than twenty four hours.
        • Well, yes, but he's God. He doesn't need to be 'allowed' to rewrite the rules. He can just do it.
          • Do we know that? A lot of people assume God is absolutely, totally omniscient and omnipotent, but the Bible puts limits on what he can do. He can't break his own promise, for one thing; that comes up both in the Flood story and with the Covenant. And he can't, or at least won't, override free will, even when his own followers are acting against his wishes or are heading towards certain disaster. It seems more like God is bound by certain cosmic rules, or at least by the rules of self-consistency. He can't create a rock so heavy that he can't lift it, he can't break his own word, and he can't revoke free will even to save people. With such rules in place, it's easier to see how some long term plans might be in order to get a human race that's spinning off its axis back on track.
            • I'd be more worried if God didn't keep His promises. And are you really criticizing God's desire to stick to His word?
              • But God never once made any such promise! He's keeping to a word that he never said! That itself is questionable morality.
              • Hmmm , strictly adhering to a set of self-stipulated rules even though these rules cause great suffering to one's followers...Now, which alignment would cover that behavior?
              • The thing is, without any sort of penalty for sin, no one has much motivation to always obey God. If one accepts that obeying God is good, and disobeying God is evil, if one were to disobey God and commit evil without punishment, that leaves the problem of God completely condoning evil. The only way around this is to have a system in which doing evil is undesirable, i.e. to have God punish evil. God is perfectly merciful, but He's also perfectly just, but as creatures of free will, we're going to commit actions that require justice, so...no ignoring one in favor of the other.
              • Name one person who has committed an infinite amount of evil.
              • Why...? What does that have to do with the wages of sin being death? The whole point of Jesus' sacrifice is to un-damn humanity. That wasn't God's plan B; that was pretty much the logical loophole that allows for simultaneous perfect mercy and perfect justice from the beginning.
                • The point is that if a finite amount of sin in life results in an infinite amount of punishment in death, then that justice isn't perfect, but rather disproportionate.
                  • One theory I've heard is that it's the severity of the sin that gets the mark - and all sin is, by definition, committed against an infinitely good God.
                    • But that infinitely good God freely commits the SAME actions. Yet it's not sin. Double standards are more immoral than breaking a promise that's causing suffering.
                • One way I've heard it explained is that Hell, being separation from God, isn't so much an extension of God's wrath as it is the void left when you completely reject God (see the "unforgivable sin" IJBM on here). It's not really God saying "screw you, here's eternal pain," it's more like "Wish you were here, but I can't help you if you won't accept My help." (I should mention my personal theology is fairly lenient when it comes to Heaven; the way I see it, you pretty much have to try to get into Hell, because otherwise, you'd be right about the disproportionate thing.)
                  • Although, since God created the entire universe—including Heaven and Hell—that means He also created the conditions that would prevail for anyone separated from His presence. If Hell is a burning lake of fire, then God created that burning lake of fire as a "default" state for existence when not in His presence. One could argue that God could have created a default sans-Gods-presence state for the Universe that was considerably more comfy than Hell.
                    • Do some research befored conplaining ok. According to the bible god created hell AFTER satan rebellion(NOT during during the creation period!) to be satan prison, then satan supposedly trick humanity into eating the forbidden fruit which allow humans to understand the difference between good and evil which then allowed humans to go to hell too.
  • Another way of seeing it would be this: Righteousness is having a connection, or an understanding, with God. Sinning means that that connection is broken. The link is re-established through redemption. Heaven is being permanently connected to God. Hell is being permanently severed from God. If you accept these statements, Heaven and Hell take on the nature of natural continuations of already existing states, rather than reward and punishment. If you choose to do things that distance you from God, you stay distanced from God.
    • By that token, sinners should never die and remain 'separate' from God. Though it does actually jive with reincarnation themes (even though they are not biblical).
  • Why is being homosexual considered "bad" or a "sin" for Christians?
    • Because it is unnatural and against God's design for human sex relations. (And no, the claim that homosexuality is genetic does not contradict the previous statement.)
    • 1.) It could be argued that same-sex relations are, in and of their very nature adultery and fornication (the notion of gay marriage throws this one for a loop). 2.) The societies that Christianity took hold in saw same-sex relations as upper class decadence (accusations of being the receptive partner in a homosexual relationship were a common slur in republican era Rome, for one).
    • (Same troper from above.) Ah... That makes sense. Thank you kindly to both for answering my question.
    • The Bible says laying with another man. This means anal sex, or so I understand. Anal Sex makes it alot easier to contract diseases than vaginal sex (it causes tears in the flesh you wouldn't know where there, and they would get infected). In a society without modern medicine and treatment, such a thing would be really, really bad and would likley be contagious. So for at least in the camp of Israel, it was banned for sanitary reasons, much like many theorize not eating pig/shellfish was.
    • Here's what I think: A) His rules say no sex outside of marriage, B) The rules say marriage is a "man and woman becoming one flesh". Since homosexuals can't get married in the Biblical sense, than having sex would be a sin.
      • But if "no sex outside of marriage" is indeed one of God's rules, then King Solomon was guilty of breaking that rule 400 times. There was no indication in the Old Testament that Solomon's 400 concubines—whom he never married—were considered in any way a violation of God's rules.
        • Not per se, but many of these were foreign and they led Solomon away from God and into idolatry. God punished Solomon by breaking up his kingdom, leaving only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin to Rehoboam (Solomon's son and successor).
    • being homosexual is not a sin, but homosexual sex is a sin


Redemption

  • What really bothers me is this: It says that once a soul goes to Heaven or Hell, they stay there forever. Apparently, only angels can fall from grace. Does that mean that a soul loses all free-will to commit evil in Heaven, and in Hell it can't redeem itself ever? That is just plain depressing.
    • Humans become unable to sin, due to it being Heaven and completely perfect. And hell is separation from God, eternally.
      • Which begs the question: If it's possible for God to create a place (Heaven) that's so completely perfect that even beings with free will will never sin there, why didn't He create the Earth to be the same kind of place? Then no one, including His own Son, would have had to endure the 6000 years of heartache and grief that Original Sin imposed.
    • The way the Bible explains it and what needs to be understood is that human beings were originally created in the image of God, we were made to be one with Him and share in His glory and powers and we were going to turn this Earth into a paradise with God overseeing that process, the Garden of Eden was going to be the starting point and the Human race was going to expand from there. However when Satan came in the form of a serpent he told Adam and Eve that they could be just as great as God if we ate of the fruit that He told us not to. We were originally made in the image of God, but sin corrupted our original purity and goodness that God made us to have and God being Holy, meaning that He is perfectly good, could no longer maintain that relationship with us because His nature cannot be with another being that is against His nature, God's nature is good and good can't mix with evil. This spiritual separation from God prevents humanity from living lives to the utmost joy and quality and has left humanity doomed to death, our sin has doomed us to physical death and ultimately after physical death eternal death in hell. The reason we go to hell is because our sin separates us from the presence of God, the penalty of sin is death and hell and its state of eternal death is that penalty. Hell is a heavy price to pay for sin, but it is the only price that can appease God according to the Bible.
      • The Bible goes on however to tell us that God saved us by having Jesus pay the price for our sin with His death, that way by accepting what He did for us we can be righteous in the eyes of God because we no longer have any sin debt to pay to God and through this mean we can escape hell. The only reason anyone goes to hell after what Jesus did is because they have rejected Him, God can't do anything more, He gave everything He had when he made His Son Jesus die in the place of humanity, it is now up to humanity to decide whether they want to accept what Jesus did. Despite the mercy of God once you are in hell unlike our time on Earth the grace period where we can be redeemed from our sins is over, everything that is good and holy that God is willing to give us will be something we will no longer have access to, we will be cut off from God forever. To put things into perspective this is what hell is said to be like in the Bible:

1) God is light, He is brighter than any star in the universe His will is what keeps stars burning in the first place allowing us to see the literal world around us but His spiritual light also reveals good things in our souls hidden in the darkness of sin as well. Hell is outside of God's presence, it is a realm of literal darkness where you will be all alone, you won't see your friends and family, Satan, and especially not God, and you will remember for all eternity what you could have had in heaven had you obeyed God. A person in hell would ask themselves if a lifetime of sin on Earth was worth giving up unspeakable joy and glory in the presence of God for eternity, and since they will see God for the briefest of times, as God judges everyone in Revelation, in Hell they will have the memory of seeing God in all His glory but will never have it as an eternal reality since they are cut off from Him. Eternal darkness and loneliness.

2) God is life, God creates life and sustains life and provides a means for us to live our lives in abundant joy and glory. In hell we will be in a state of eternal death, it is a place where we are not alive but we won't die either, "where the worm dies not.", we will have physical bodies but we will not be able to live any sort of "life" and death will not give us any release from our torment leaving our conscious minds to ponder forever alone in the darkness of hell. And beyond that without God a person in hell will have no joy or pleasure and no ambitions, preventing them from living a life of abundance or meaning regardless of whether they were in a state of undeath or not. Hell is the second death, our first death separates us from our bodies and when God judges a nonbeliever they will be cut off from His presence forever and that state of death will last forever.

3) While the Bible makes mention of a lake of fire, hell's fires are just as much metaphorical as they are literal. God is the water of life, He quinces our spiritual thirst for His presence as we were made in His image and were made to be one with Him. In hell you will have a raging fire inside your soul that is your need for God but you will no longer be comforted by the Spirit of God, you won't hear His Word and He will no longer convict you to return to Him since your salvation period in which you could be redeemed and return to God is now over, you will have a thirst for God but you will never be able to satisfy that thirst. That is why God says to come now while our thirst is strong and our hearts are still open, now is the accepted time to come to Him lest you harden your heart and close yourself off from God, you may never have another chance and if you lose your chance while here on Earth and die you will regret it for all eternity since you can choose where you will be in eternity.

      • So hell is separation from God and His will for eternity, while heaven is us becoming one with God where we will become complete with God and reign with God. Our wills will be the same as God's for we will be one with God, what He wants we shall want, His glory, powers, and dignities as creator and master of the universe we will share for we will reign with Him. Heaven is an exciting place for there will be no more pain, or sadness or anger, and certainly no more sin or death to destroy us anymore, all that is against God will be no more and we will be in a state of eternal joy with Him forever. Hell is a person missing out on that, and never being able to turn back.
        • Wait, heaven is eternal oneness? So, heaven is Instrumentality?
        • Nothing so simple as mind control, it is something so complex it can't properly be expressed in words. Our oneness with God can be likened onto how the Trinity works, God has 3 separate entities, 3 persons, that have different personalities but ultimately share all the same attributes and one unifying will that works together for a greater overall purpose. The Father is God, the Son (Jesus) is God, and so is the Holy Spirit, they are separate but equal, separate and yet one, meaning that everything that makes the Father God makes the Son God and that each member of the Trinity knows each other intimately and infinitely (meaning they know everything about each other) and even love each other infinitely. Each member of the Trinity has a single substance and will and they all share these attributes making them one being and yet still 3 persons, that is what the Bible explains and no one can claim to understand it all. In likewise manner we will intimately and infinitely know and love God for everything that He is and his essence shall consume and command us as our will and desires become one with God's and we shall serve and worship Him. The Trinity will still exist but to be with God, to be in His presence is to be one with Him. But again I stress all of this is far more complicated than that and can't properly be expressed, one would simply have to wait and see.
          • Yeah, can't properly be expressed. No matter how often I hear stuff like that, it sounds like the stuff the villains do in most media I watch, the stuff that gives me nightmares. Either there's a Perspective Flip in here somewhere, or something is being explained wrong/can't be properly explained at some juncture.
            • Because you're taking a description of heaven and trying to paint an image of nirvana on it. To be eternally with God, and of like mind and will, is not to be absorbed into Him...frankly, even saying so smacks of pride to me. He is creator, we are creature, and a nirvana-esque endgame implies the same thing the serpent said - 'Ye shall become as gods'.
        • I hear those sorts of arguments against heaven a lot. Things like, "Oh there is no free will in heaven since we will only have the choice of being with God.", and yet using our free will to choose to not be with God certainly has helped our situation what with all the sin, suffering and death we go through as a result of that choice. What one needs to consider is that going to heaven in the first place was part of your free will to begin with, when you accepted Jesus as your savior that was an act of your will, you said to God when you accepted Jesus, "I recognize myself to be a sinner, one who has gone against the will of God and I turn away from that behavior and want to return to serving you and your will Father, not my own, and by accepting Jesus as savior I acknowledge that my sin debts are paid in full by Him." It really is that simple and heaven is you being rewarded for using your free will to return to God, you wanted to be with Him on Earth and so you accepted His offer, heaven is a continuation of that, heaven is for those people who want to be with God. Hell is not really a punishment as much it is a choice, a person who wants to defy God and turn away from the presence of God can choose to do as such, and hell is simply a continuation of that, hell is for those that didn't want God and so God in return won't acknowledge them as one of His own come Judgment Day.
        • And besides I don't see why heaven would be such a bad thing, the implications of reigning with God are infinitely exciting. Reigning with means that we will be ruling with God, we will be part of His kingdom and that we will share all of His glory and dignities. We will have omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, omni-benevolence, and immortality, we will share all that God has, I don't see how that can be "boring." in the slightest, the universe would be at your beck and call.
            • Not so sure about the omni-s. We're finite creatures, even if we'll be finite creatures expanded beyond our current wildest imaginations. It's a difference of type, not merely of amount.
          • The general fear/arguement isn't of boredom, but rather Loss of Identity- that God's greatness and descriptions of heaven such that it seems from what we are told that some intrinsic part of what makes us ourselves will be overwhelmed by the Presence. As for Hell being a choice and eternal separation for those that reject God, again, from the descriptions, it makes it sound to me like the choices are "hate god and not meet him at all and sit in a cave for eternity" or "fuse with God and all the other deceased, so overcome with awe and whatnot that your personality, ideosyncracies, habits, likes and dislikes, and hobbies are subsumed with reverence and a pathological obsession with prayer, praising, and singing", which seems like a bit of a bum deal as far as choices are concerned. As noted elsewhere on the Wiki, Loss of Identity is Nightmare Fuel. If everything that makes me myself- an unending thirst for understanding, an intrinsic mistrust of absolute authority that goes along wiht the thirst for knowlege (tell my to do something without saying why, and I automatically get suspicious no matter who is saying it), a wry sense of humor and love of reading, shyness, a love of cooking, video games, and gundam model kits, will be subsumed with praising, prayer, singing, and blind obedience and reverence without a thirst for knowledge or understanding, then it sounds more like destruction of the soul and said soul being used as raw material for someone else. I recognize that I don't always do the right thing and that I not infrequently do things that can be deemed sinful, for which I am truly sorry, but if the choices are sitting in a cave with the scum of humanity who aren't sorry for their atrocities (hello Hitler, says Mr. Godwin! Perhaps its pridefulness and overblown sense of deservingness on my part, but a system that equates a desire to retain my present sense of identity with killing eleven million innocents seems unfair) or losing myself, I get a bit indignant.
              • There's a fine line between pride and identity. You're seeing it from a completely self-centered perspective. And worship is not just limited to "PRAISE THE LORD" for all eternity.
              • Let's put it this way: Some people will look at the idea of "becoming one with God" from the perspective of somebody who's just been told they're actually a tasty burger and there's a customer waiting. That's just the way these things go.
                • Worth noting that, according to one biblical fanfic (The Screwtape Letters), that 'tasty hamburger' metaphor is the demonic, not divine, outlook on humanity. And again, for the record, we won't 'become one with God' - we'll be of like mind and will, but still separate, and finite, creatures. Recommendation for those who care: Pick up a copy of the book Heaven by Randy Alcorn and look through it.


Omnipotency

  • So, if God is omnipotent, why would he need to rest for a day?
    • The Hebrew words refer to a ceasing action. It would be better said that God ceased creating things.


Omniscience

  • God is supposedly omniscient, right? Why, then, would he need to test us to see if we're worthy of heaven? An omniscient being, by definition, knows everything; tests are completely unnecessary. On top of that, God supposedly creates every single detail of every single person; so he's testing what he knows is going to happen because he made us exactly as he wanted? What the eff kind of test is that?
    • It's not a test though, we damn ourselves and we chose the impure path.
      • Except we don't because we don't know which path to take, and God isn't willing to tell us, since there are multitudes of religions.
        • But according to the Bible, Jesus is THE path to follow (John 14:6).
      • Which could go with the thought that all religions lead to Jesus. Stay with me here. Basically, there are many religions, all of which lead to God/Jesus. Well, mostly.
      • That then makes the very idea of a "right religion" false. Then all rituals are futile and the implications of forbidding both pagans and atheists from Heaven leave God as even less moral than can be taken.
      • If god doesn't see us worthy of being with him because we "choose" to be vile, disgusting creatures (again, he made us that way), then why bother creating us at all in the first place?
        • Or rather, we simply chose the incorrect path and are suffering for it. God made us to be in a personal relationship with Him, which can't exist if the other party has no choice.
    • It kind of depends on what you mean by omniscience. Omniscience of the kind you're talking about has some pretty horrifying implications which you've touched on. If God knows everything that will ever happen, and crafted a divine plan to that effect, then yes, all that testing is just a cruel joke. But even worse, if everything's already been decided nothing you or I or any of us do means anything. There's no point in caring, loving, trying, being decent, because it matters not one jot. Everything that happens was going to happen anyway no matter what. However, there is a strain of theology called open theism which posits that, among other things, God is a living dynamic entity and he responds to what goes on in the world. I take it to mean that while God may be omniscient, the future doesn't actually exist in any objective form and so he can't know the future. There are other interpretations however. And futhermore, God's omniscience may actually be overstated. In Exodus, God is about to go off on one because of the whole Golden Calf thing and exterminate the Israelites. Moses actually talks him out of it. This particular line of thought is what helps me sleep at night.
      • Actually the point of omniscience is a fundamental one that even pre-Christian thought realized. If he's a perfect being than by definition he must have perfect knowledge, or simply 'be all knowing'. It also keeps Hell as unjust because God would STILL KNOW that HE IS FORCING an infinite punishment on the actions of FINITE CRIMES, many of which are rightly claimed OUT OF IGNORANCE of the TRUE PATH and God's ACTIVE REFUSAL to provide ANY indication of which one IS "right", if any can even be claimed to be "right". And you then contradict yourself in that "God being all knowing still would have made all of that play out differently" meaning that God is the ultimate Chessmaster...not something you would expect from the PERFECT GOOD GUY. Especially since your comment implies underhandedness.
    • Indeed the idea that the Omnipotence of God is often taken to an unfortunate extreme. A logical one by some measure but one that a little research typically breaks down. God's omnipotence is that he's all POWERFUL, not necessarily all KNOWING. He gave us free will when he created us and because of it we can do things he wouldn't originally expect. The example above of Moses calming Gods wraith is one example, as are other times (often by Moses) where others convinced God of things. Abraham convinced God to spare a city from his wraith repeatedly if he could just find enough inccocent people there (Moses didn't, but God being all knowing still would have made all of that play out differently) There are several accounts where people are even offered repentance by god for their deeds, but upon choosing not to change God exacted his punishment on them. If he was of the "all knowing" type of omniscience, he would have just been intentionally wasting his own time offering a chance to people he knew wouldn't take it up. Changes to the laws given to man reflect this as well.
    • Another example: God created the marriage arrangement and then had to later amend it down to ONE wife because guys seemed to think a couple extra (or a couple hundred extra for some biblical playboys) would do them just fine. If he knew his rule wouldn't be followed the way he wanted he would have made all the proper addendum's to begin with.
      • Actually the Bible doesn't really limit marriage to one man and one woman. Several biblical verses even demand that people take on multiple wives, such as those of their brothers when their brothers die. And then the command by God to "go forth and multiply". And then there's that several prominant figures are noted by God as good despite having wuite a few additional wives.
      • Yes, God did require the practice of taking their brother's wives when they died, if they had no children, but this rule was only for the Israelites. However, God only intended for the limit of one woman for one man, and he made it a rule once Christianity came into play.


Who Wants to Live Forever?

  • Did the authors of The Bible even think about the implications of eternal paradise?The whole point of Christianity seems to be overcoming death,and earning heaven. But none of them realises that such paradise could become boring. I mean,there's only a limited number of things someone could come up with or do to pass the time-eternal bliss would get dull.Then again,this is a religion which portrays God as moral perfection,and his enemies as pure evil.
    • This is something this (Christian) Troper has thought about a lot, and has come to the conclusion that God probably took this into account. This Troper is pretty sure God wouldn't overlook such a blatant flaw in His own religion.
    • You're thinking about it as if Heaven is exactly the same as Earth, except nobody dies. That's not the case. Heaven is something that we, as mortal humans, simply cannot understand. If you're trying to understand God as if He is human or as if Heaven is something like Earth, then you're doing it wrong.
    • According to some, Heaven/New Earth is a place where we all work towards our flourishing, in joy of the one we were made for (God). It's a place where deeds are celebrated regardless of who did it, and where we will be able to do many things we couldn't before (one example CS Lewis mentioned was walking on water). Besides, just because we have an infinite amount of time doesn't mean that in heaven we won't have an infinite-30% amount of things to do (which is still infinity if I remember my math concepts), and if we in our humanity couldn't come up with anything more, perhaps God could create something more. Also, think of it like your time in the summer, fall and spring moved into a moment only you enjoyed it all because your best friend and King was actually there to help you and play with you and advise you all that time. But referring to the immediate above poster, we still are limited, so until Revelation, we'll just have to think for the most part.
    • I always thought heaven would be like what a sinless world is like in Ted Dekker's Circle Series, i.e., a playing ground for humans and God.


Miscellaneous

  • Is it me, or does God, after what took place in the Garden of Eden, curse the snake to SLITHER ON THE GROUND? Seriously, what was it doing before? Flying?
    • Snakes Had legs.
    • Some medieval art shows the pre-curse Snake standing upright on the tip of its tail.
    • My personal theory? Snakes were originally dragons.
    • Arboreal? He did come out of a tree.
    • Snakes do have vestigal legs (vestigal - a thing that's there but is not used for anything, like how humans have an appendix that we don't use for anything). Perhaps that explains something?
      • Only male pythons and boas have tiny buds of hind toes, which are used in mating to stimulate the female; most snakes have no remnants of limbs whatsoever. Which means that, whatever species of snake was supposedly to blame for the Fall, an awful lot of innocent species must've gotten slapped with the same penalty, some more thoroughly than others.
      • While we're on the subject, since when do snakes eat dust? Snakes mostly eat rodents, and ancient Middle Eastern cultures were well aware of that fact.
        • Figure of speech. "Eat my dust" would be a similar phrase that comes to mind. I'd say it meant that the serpent would have to slither around the ground amidst the dust.
        • All snakes are serpents, but not all serpents are snakes. So yeah.
        • It's from the tongue flicking thing. The people who wrote the bible thought that snakes were eating the dirt, as opposed to smelling. You'd think God would know better, buut...
    • Some medieval artists painted the little bugger as being closer to a monitor lizard with a human head in order for this to make sense.
      • Humans still use the appendix. Ever wondered why a burst appendix is so damn deadly? It's storing a shitload of toxins.
    • What's worst is, why did God punished snakes!? it only works if he didn't knew Satan turned into a snake, or controlled the snake (different stories) but still, isn't it very unfair to curse the snakes because that's what Lucifer choose to transform into/control/posses?
      • The Hebrew term used was serpent, not snake. Serpent in the sense of a monstrous thing.
  • In the translation I've read, anyway, God describes himself as "a jealous god" several times in reference to wanting His people to not worship other powers. So why did He make Envy a Deadly Sin? Wouldn't that make God a sinner?
    • First, that 7 deadly sins stuff isn't in the Bible, so it's not canon. It's a fanon thing early Catholic church writers agreed on while trying to shape out the 'verse, but so far there's been no literal Word of God to settle the issue. Secondly, God often breaks his "you shall not murder" rule also, so it looks like he thinks his rule are only meant to apply to humans, and he is beyond them.
      • Jealousy and Envy aren't synonyms. Jealousy means wanting to keep what is yours to a paranoid, dangerous extent, while envy is wanting what others have.
    • Look at the wording more carefully. And the word that was translated into "jealous" refers to the way a lover is jealous over his beloved hanging around men all of the time. And God didn't commit murder, He carried out justice.
      • The same is often said by vigilantes and other human killers. While God is certainly in a much more authoritative position with regards to the claim, it is still somewhat questionable when it comes to the whole "visiting the sins of the fathers upon the sons" thing he does. The people living in Israel when the Jews got back from Egypt were guilty of nothing more than being born to parents that had moved to Israel, and for being born there, God commanded their deaths.
        • And how do you know, these were royals and high class slave masters. And no Slaver, from the moment he gains sentience, is "innocent." They deserved what they got, plain and simpl.
        • War was going to happen though. And it's not like the Canaanites just peacefully gave up their land as the multitudes of battles in Joshua indicates.
      • Importantly, too, the Bible doesn't say that the Canaanites' only sin is living in the land given to Abraham. They weren't just harmless squatters hanging out in an abandoned apartment while the owner was away for a while. They were violent, they were dangerous, and they lived in terrible sin.
        • which it's suspiciously too convenient for the Isrealites don't you think, kind of like the perfect excuse for taking another civilization, they were "all" (yes apparently ALL) bad and were doing terrible stuff, so it was right to kill them. And who's telling us they were bad? the people who wanted the land they were in.
          • Well, not really. The land was promised to their forefather, and they were occupying land that they had no right to. That, and their religions were truly horrible, as quite a few required human sacrifice.
      • Okay, so, send a prophet to the canannites saying that if they don't shape up and/or get out, they'll be destroyed. You know, like how God sent Jonah to Ninnevah because he was "concerned about that great city." But no, no warnings, no chance of escaping judgement, not even a Sodom-esque "Send in Angels and check the place out first" thing. Just jumping right to kill em all. That's part of why people fret about the things God does in the old testament. It doesn't just seem evil, but inconsistent.
        • How about an army of Israelites wandering around the border for a generation after their God led them out of Egypt? You think a huge event like Pharoah and his army drowning in the Red Sea would go unnoticed by the surrounding nations? And for the record, there was one tribe that did repent and beg the Israelites for a peace treaty, which Israel agreed to and abided by, the trickery the tribe used notwithstanding. Rahab, too, illustrated that the people marked for extermination could escape because Redemption Earns Life.
  • OK, here's a theological question for you people. Why is it in the 1st book of Kings, Elisha is permitted to say goodbye to his folks, but the dude Jesus wants to follow him can't go bury his parents first? I've never understood that.
    • Because the guy who wanted to bury his parents first wasn't going back to Jesus. If I recall correctly, Jesus even says that. That, and it works with the whole "Jesus came to divide" bit, where families would be divided over the issue of Jesus.
      • More specifically - some scholars indicate that the actual 'can I go bury my parents' comment came up while the parents were still alive. Basically, it's 'can I put this off until after some other, higher priority task gets finished?' The answer there is no - following the Christ is a binary point - all or nothing. If it's not the top priority, then don't bother.
  • Peter denies Jesus three times. Does this make him a bad man?
    • Yes, but he repented. Judas did not.
      • As shown in his three proclamations of love to the Risen Christ, symbolically countermanding the three cries of denial
    • No, just imperfect.
  • OK, Jesus, you mind telling me why You cursed the fig tree? I get it, you were hungry,but what did that old tree ever do to you to make you go: "May you never bear fruit again!"
    • Its a metaphor for unbelievers saying that they believe, when in reality, they bare no fruit. Also note that the fig tree had bared leaves, but not fruit, which is odd because figs grow both at the same time.
    • His disciples point out to him that it's not the right season for figs, so Jesus' decision is still oddly petty. And even so, why the curse? Should we kill unbelievers?
    • ** There is the undeniable fact nothing is known of where Jesus went and what he did betwen ages 13–30. This has allowed extra-biblical myths to rise to suggest he went everywhere between Glastonbury and Japan in a quest for wisdom. Now let's propose he went to India and encountered Budddhists. Or the Buddhists came to him - Palestine was at the crossroads of trading caravans, so this is not improbable. We know Buddhism left a firm presence as far west as Afghanistan: its missionaires and believers must therefore have penetrated further, maybe as far as Roman Palestine. The fig tree is important in Buddhist legend. In cursing the fig tree to wither, is Jesus therefore denouncing a rival religion as having no substance - no "fruit"? If he had spent time travelling and exploring other religions - and he had seventeen years to do this in - Jesus may have encountered the Buddhist religion but found it lacking in some ways and not to be compared with his innate Abrahamic monotheism. Hence the parable comes down to us, but with its original context lost.
  • Where did God get his own persona or ego (in the Freudian sense also known as individuality, not the ego in the sense of pride) anyway? Don't give immortality arguments: if he lacked his own genesis he has no one or nothing to learn from, which means he should lack a personal ego and remain a part of a chaotic id (You should know that learning requires stimuli, have you ever read in deep silence a massive book while blindfolded?). And the Bible accurately portrays God not as a Brahman -esque collective unconscious, but something which has its own ego (I Am The Lord Thy God, Thou Shall Not Worship Other Gods Besides Me). Having an ego means having an individuality, ergo, the entire universe should not contain anything which he doesn't want in the first place. Also, if he has his own ego, won't his own ego be obliterated by the multiversal management?
    • Magic? Although its possible that there is another force that drives him which is why he (or she) is unable to break some rules. The bible doesn't meantion this, but the bible doesn't meantion a lot of things. Also, since there are "other gods" he could have modeled himself after them, if they came before him.
    • God is a being BEYOND us, and our methods of learning.
      • Then what's the point of even TRYING to understand or learn about God? And, to the one above using "magic", the Bible makes clear that "other gods" either don't exist or are not "gods". As well as that any force greater than God by necessity makes God lack perfection. Unless God is a machine, but then God has no free will and that carries its own implications.
      • The point is eternal life, as Jesus said in John 17:3. To explain, we were created to be in a relationship with God, and when we sinned, we separated ourselves from Him. Essentially, salvation is when this relationship is mended by faith in Christ and repentance (a change of heart rather than change of lifestyle, though the former ought to create the latter). While God id not COMPLETELY knowable, He does reveal that which we can understand.
  • With the sheer number of rules in the Bible, is it still possible to not break all of them? If you follow all the rules in the bible, congratulations, you just put yourself in And I Must Scream -like state. It's better and more satisfying if we just fixed the sin-causing desires and obsessions ala Buddhism and psychoanalysis. Then there's the constant repentance. If we break the rules, we need to repent to Jesus. There's problems with that tactic. First, it seems like self-deprecation if we will continue to be repent for eternity. Second, if we are going to repent, then what is the use of the rules? For example, if a mass murderer repented for all the sins he committed before death, he will go to heaven. Seems like Doublethink.
    • The idea of repentance is SINCERE desire to reform and to not do the action again. As in you recognize you did the wrong and that you want to change. Forgiveness is the striking from the record your sins, in exchange for you changing your life. The rules show us that we screwed up.
      • People on death row are more than willing to be SINCERE about not being the action again. Of course the issues then rises that free will is redundant because use of it IS IN FACT "sin" and hence we are PUNISHED for using it. And then what about those who ONLY restrain themselves BECAUSE they will be rewarded for doing what the Bible says? Aren't they LESS moral than the one who rejects the Bible but does "good acts" because he SINCERELY wants to.
  • The Thou Shall Not Kill commandment. First, if God didn't order us to not kill, then why war? Gandhi followed the commandments better than Christians, who freaking planned world domination before (God is justified as an argument for colonialism). Also, the usage of the commandment to justify suicide and euthanasia as sins. On euthanasia, what will be followed? Thou shall not kill or "Love thy neighbour" (If Love thy neighbour is followed, then euthanasia can be justified as an act of compassion)? On suicide, does the commandment really have to extend to the self? If that's the case, then... Welcome to Nineteen Eighty-Four!!!!!
    • Calm down there Troper. Remember, this isn't for complaining about religions you don't like. But in answer to your questions:
      • Kill meant something different in those days, i.e. murder. The commandment is stating thou shall not murder. Killing in war has never been generally considered murder (whether or not that's a wallbanger is another page).
      • The Bible has nothing to do with nineteenth century Realpolitik. People finding tortured justifications for questionable actions in an 1000+ page holy book is only to be expected. It's be more surprising if they couldn't.
      • Suicide is a sin on practical grounds. As heaven is supposed to be better than earth, suicide has to be a sin, otherwise everyone would do it because, well, why wait for the good stuff?
        • Because the wait makes it better. Because waiting can help provide you the ability to watch your children and make sure they learn properly. Because God told us to "go forth and multiply". Becuase it lets one attempt to discover the Truth for themself. Because it allows one to work in the name of God. And that's just to begin.
            • And we cannot do all those things in haven because...?
      • On euthanasia, the question is open. Some Christians find it reprehensible others do not. It's up to you to decide what the Bible says and whose explanation makes the most sense. Opposition to euthanasia is not an article of the faith.
    • This is one of the many flaws in the King James translation. The word means "murder".
    • Except killing people in war is murder also if you look at it that way.
      • The Hebrew word translated as "kill" in the King James Version, and which (as mentioned above) would be better translated as "murder", had a specific legal meaning. State-sanctioned killing, such as the killing of enemy soldiers in war or the execution of a condemned prisoner, was expressly excluded from that definition.
  • "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it and throw it away". And everyone takes this book seriously. Flat What.
      • dude really? it's a metaphor...the eye represents anyone or anything that causes one to sin(even if it as close to you as an organ) get rid off it,your better off without. jesus commonly spoked in metaphor. which even confused he followers at times.
    • Fair for Its Day; that was the legal policy in many countries for years, at least with hands rather than eyes.
      • At least if the definition of sin only included " stealing from, killing, and harassing other people". After all, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But nowadays sin now included EVERYTHING, from being unbaptized, to doubting the Word of God, to committing suicide, to even just pornography and birth control and gluttony. Even thinking lustful thoughts qualifies you for thoughtcrime (Matthew 5:28). So, if I think lustful thoughts (which if Freud Was Right was impossible to suppress) or think about the wrongness of religion then I should have my brain taken away? If I look at Rule 34 or look at the internet for an article about atheism then I should have my eyes gouged out and my hands cut off? If I swear, do Cluster F Bombs, use God's name in vain, talk about the God delusion, commit excessive gluttony, etc. then I should have my mouth sewn shut? More like Jesus demanded all of us to go And I Must Scream. This Is Madness!
        • Madness? This Is Sparta! But I don't know of anyone who takes those quotes literally. The moral's usually taken as "if you're being tempted to sin, then don't just try to will the sin away, get rid of the temptation itself". Like, if you're trying to quit smoking, then throw away every single cigarette and make it so you can't buy any more, so when you're being tempted later, you won't be able to act on it. But if the issue is more that certain people have no problem taking things like that figuratively but suddenly get all literal with stuff like "the Earth is only 7000 years old" ...yeah, that one baffles me too.
      • The Bible
    • The rule is saying only an eye for an eye, whereas that kind of thing would routinely merit punishments like death in other contemporary situations. Also, when given in the Law of Moses (P) it is meant to be just that, a law, a method of punishment for the law enforcement to carry out in response to a felony. Whereas the expression was twisted by later generations to just mean "fighting fire with fire" (another biblical expression twisted by later generations, this time to the sheer opposite of its original contexual meaning; see also, "Vengeance is mine").
  • The story about Samson and Delilah. Is it just an Ur Example of Too Dumb to Live, or is Samson's inexplicable inability to smell the rat supposed to have some deeper meaning?
    • The time bwteen Delilah's betrayal is never mentioned. It's likely that they happened many years apart, during which time Samson would have fallen back to being madly in love with her and forgotten past greivances. Still, he's definitely holding th Idiot Ball.
    • Samson makes a lot more sense when I imagine him as Lenny from Memento...
  • What bugs me a bit is that for all the claims about God's omnipotence and omniscience floating about (including on this page)...the Bible itself seems to do a poor job to back them up. Sure, He's immensely powerful and, presumably, knowledgeable—creating Heaven and Earth is no small feat just for starters. But infinitely so? Setting aside the fact that that would be hard to actually demonstrate, He sure doesn't seem to act the part very convincingly...
    • Well, the infinite clause is assumed since he created, well, everything (assuming of course he exists). He/They/It's the essence that brought forth all existence with Heaven, Hell, Physical Reality, etc., so he had to be infinite otherwise philisophically we'd be right back at the same problem of the "first domino" (you can't go back an infinite amount of dominoes, otherwise the chain would never start). Perhaps in literary tradition the bible isn't the best way to show God's Infinite ways. It all depends on how you look at it.
  • A herd of two thousand pigs. In Judea. Where it's forbidden to eat pork. What.
    • Were they Roman Pigs? But even if they were, there are certain theories that the whole Kashrut concept came about because unkosher animals were ill-suited for the kind of agriculture that existed in ancient Israel.
      • Yeah. Judea was under Roman occupation at the time. They were either Roman pigs or pigs raised by Hellenized Jews who were raising them for their occupiers. (the Prodigal Son story) It has been theorized that the story of Legion -from the name "Legion" on down to the pigs- are an allegorical attack on the Roman occupation.
      • So when the Roman soldiers saw their meat ration for the next year galloping off the top of a cliff, and they ended up on half-rations, they'd have loved a word with the local who stampeded their pork. And a little later, they got him... the Bible does tell us Jesus was knocked around a bit by the Roman soldiers. Maybe beaten up with real prejudice by half-starved squaddies to whom a meat issue was but a distant memory...
  • While there is a lot of the Bible that bugs me, I can chalk it up to Values Dissonance. Yet there's something that bothers me when the Devil meets Jesus. Okay,the Devil said that, basically, if Jesus served him he would be in charge of all the kingdoms of the land. Um,Satan? HE'S GOD IN A MORTAL FORM! He already is destined to be ruler of the planet! Even if Evil Cannot Comprehend Good was in effect and Jesus wasn't Incorruptible Pure Pureness, you of all of beings should know he's going to be in charge eventually. Sheesh, I can see why you're going to lose in Revelation.
    • He may rule eventually under The Plan, but he has to die first, and then wait x number of years. What Satan was offering was "rule 'em all now, no dying, no waiting".
      • Literary Answer: The temptation of temporal power.
  • Okay, so it was stated in the Bible that Moses had a stutter, so God had Aaron go with Moses to talk to Pharaoh for him. So... why didn't God just cure Moses' stutter?
  • How come jews and muslim would go to hell?
    • John 14:6 - Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, none shall come to the father except through me." Many Christians believe this to mean that Christianity is the only path to God and that anyone who doesn't "accept Jesus as their personal saviour" is going to suffer for all eternity. Of course, you could argue that "through me" means through his ways, giving to the needy, and treating people right, rather than wearing an I-heart-Jesus-tshirt and ringing a Christianity bell. Consider, if you will, Matthew 22: 36 - 40, where Jesus said, "(The Greatest Commandment is) Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.'
      • Couple John 14:6 with John 3:16, where Jesus says that whoever believes in the only begotten Son of God (referring to Himself) should not perish, but have everlasting life. Also Acts 4:12, where Peter the apostle states that "there is no other name given under heaven by which men must be saved".
        • Fair points both. I would counter by saying that Jesus says whoever believes in him should not perish, but that doesn't necessarily mean that people who don't believe in him will perish. Also perish is quite different from suffering in eternal hellfire, I dare say the meaning is entirely opposed to eternal suffering. As to the second point note the use of the word "is", which is temporally localised to the present. He doesn't say "there can be no other name given under heaven by which men must be saved", so theoretically God could, later on, have opened a new path or two for those billions for whom Christianity didn't work.
        • Yeah, it does. You stopped in the middle of a passage- two verses later it says that "Whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the Name of the only Son of God."
    • Good points but if only christians go to heaven what happened to all the old testament people, holocaust victims, and modern day rabbis when they died or die?
      • Those who died in anticipation of the Messiah waited in the netherworld for Jesus to die, and He set them free and took them to Heaven when He rose from the dead.
    • Another question raised by this issue is about those who don't have a CHANCE to hear about Jesus; for example, people in remote tribes somewhere who, through no fault of their own, have no contact with Christian theology. Now, the obvious answer is that "they still sinned, and are therefore culpable." But what if they genuinely felt bad about their sins and took every step humanly possible to both atone and make sure it didn't happen again? That is, after all, one of the criteria for acceptance into Heaven. It hardly seems loving or just to eternally punish someone because they didn't know a specific name they never had a chance to hear, especially when they fit your criteria for not getting eternally punished, save for that one bit.
      • "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:8-10.
      • I'm not entirely sure you get where I'm going. My question wasn't about people who do good but don't know, it was more about those who do bad, but FEEL bad about it. Which is a criteria, at least from what I was taught (Repent of your sins and all that stuff.) Unless you're implying that it's not possible to truly repent except if you believe in Jesus, which, as I mentioned, hardly seems like a fair system given that it's auto-exclusionary to anybody who doesn't get a shot at hearing the word. Blaming and punishing someone for something they had literally zero control over is like failing somebody in gym class for being born without legs.
      • The above scripture applies to those people as well (assuming that the people don't just feel bad but atone and make sure it doesn't happen again, like you said before).
      • It is Roman Catholic doctrine that unbelievers who have never heard of Christ but lived by God's commandments are saved. The logic behind it is that since these people already live Christian lives, they would have no problem acknowledging Him as their Lord when they finally learn of Him. One unfortunate implication is that, once they have heard of Him, they must convert of lose their chance at salvation.
  • How come the new testament and the old testament present two different end of the world scenrios?
    • They're the same scenario, but different metaphors are used.
    • Actually the two testaments depict the world ending in different ways.
      • The world ends in God's judgment. Both John's and Daniel's accounts of the cataclysm are vividly metaphorical.
        • I've heard the theory that John's account makes more sense when viewed not as a prophecy of the end of the world, but rather as anti-Roman propaganda targeted toward the Greeks. One key piece of evidence: the whole Number of the Beast thing, especially considering the confusion about whether it's 666 or 616, works well when you read the number as DCLXVI/DCXVI. Basically, adopting the Roman numeral system was a sign of bad things to come for them.
  • Something that has made me scratch my head in confusion is a particular passage in Matthew 8:14. Having grown up Catholic, this passage stands very clearly about something taught in Catholicism. It says (according to KJV) "And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever." As a Catholic, I was taught Peter never had a wife. But here is this passage as clear as day saying that Peter does in fact have a wife somewhere.
    • As I recall it never specifically states whether Peter had a wife or not, but if he was anywhere over the age of 18, it was likely he did, given the culture at the time. More research is needed into this though, as it's not a passage I'm familar with. Also, why is it Catholics are raised to believe he wasn't married? I myself am protestant, and do not fully understand the concept here, but I'm assuming this has something to do with priests not being able to wed? (which doesn't make any sense if you read Hebrews 13:4, but that's another discussion).
      • The passage says nothing about which Peter is referenced. This is post-Sermon-on-the-Mount, and it is quite probable, at this period, that Jesus had more than one follower named Peter.
    • Catholicism does acknowledge that Peter had a wife and that is was perfectly valid for him to have a wife. Clerical celibacy is a discipline, meaning that, if the Pope wanted to, he could wake up tomorrow morning and make it completely licit for a Priest to have a wife.
  • I honestly don't get how God is Incorruptible Pure Pureness. From what I've seen, God can be petty, jealous, vengeful...oh, and one of the biggest knight templars I've ever seen. Sure, he may be good, or at least have good intentions, but he's not pure good. That seems more like Jesus Christ's MO.
    • Christ is God too. God the Father, God the Son (a.k.a. Jesus) and God the Holy Spirit are all God. Not parts of God, but God. How the three can be one is a question smarter people than I have spent 2000 years to try to figure that one out.
      • I've got an idea. God the Father is the original God aka YHWH, the Knight Templar with a hint of Blue and Orange Morality. Jesus is God on a human level, and thus a pacifist. Finally, the Holy Spirit is the medium between the two.
      • I've got another idea. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are NOT God, and the Trinity belief is a misinterpretation of The Bible. As to the OP, it depends on what your definition for "good" is.
        • Doesn't jive with the Bible, though. Jesus repeatedly claimed divine titles for Himself (like claiming to be the Supreme Judge of humanity, to the exclusion of the Father), and the Holy Spirit is explicitly called God by Peter (Acts 5:4). There's a reason that every time Jesus did something big, the people around Him either worshiped Him or accused Him of blasphemy.
      • It actually does jive with the Bible, though. And makes a whole lot more sense then the idea of a Trinity. And Jesus did claim divinity as the SON of God, but he NEVER directly claimed to be God himself, but instead said that the Father was greater than him (John 14:28). Some may say that he indirectly claimed to be God. And the Holy Spirit is mentioned in Acts 5:3, not 5:4; anyway, Peter says absolutely nothing of the sort in that scripture, so I have no clue where the reasoning that "the Holy Spirit is explicitly called God by Peter" comes from other than You Fail Logic Forever.
      • Actually, He has. "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." (John 14:8, NASB) Another instance is seen in John 8:58, though it takes a bit of Jewish history to understand. When God revealed Himself to Moses back in Exodus, He told him His personal name-YHWH (often pronounced "Yahweh"), meaning, "I am." When Jesus said "Before Abraham was, I am," He used the exact same word to refer to Himself. Not to mention that He was, at the same time, claiming to have been around when Moses was alive, which was centuries back- a trait that only God Himself would have.
      • For one thing, John 14:9 is not meant to be taken literally, that they are the same person. Jesus was effectively saying, "I'm just like daddy." Also, Critical Research Failure on John 8:58. Yahweh does not mean "I am". It means "he who causes to become". The two scriptures have nothing to do with each other. On the other hand, how do you explain John 14:28 and Colossians 1:15, where Jesus is called "the first-born of all creation"?
  • Okay, genuine question here, for Christians - not a rhetorical one, and I'm not trying to be mean or whatever. I haven't actually read the Bible, since I'm an atheist, but something about Christianity, Christians and the Bible has been bugging me for a while. If I'm completely wrong about any point of this, please tell me so. Also, please READ this properly before flaming. In the Old Testament, I believe it says homosexuality is evil. Since many (NOT ALL) Christians obviously believe this, this implies that the Old Testament is in fact still relevant to Christianity. Now, let's consider the following things the Old Testament also says: 1. You must kill your children if they disobey you. 2. You are allowed no contact with women on their period. 3. You must kill your neighbor if he works on the sabbath. 4. You must be put to death if you eat shellfish. Why are these, being in the same Testament, ignored while homosexuals are considered evil? Why are these considered somehow lesser, or even redundant/outdated/archaic/obsolete, while homosexuality is not? (Please don't say 'because God said so', because that is not an actual answer in this context. I'm actually curious, not trolling.)
    • Christian proscriptions on homosexuality really don't have a whole lot to do with the Old Testament. People say they do, but that has more to do with the sola scriptura Protestant movements that have to find a motivation for everything they do in some passage or another of the Bible. They have a hell of a lot more to do with cultural practices of the European and Middle Eastern groups that adopted Christianity (the homosexuality/pederasty of the Groman Mediterranean was a practice of a small upper class). That, and the fact that even if God didn't state directly that adopting a homosexual lifestyle is a sin, you have to commit a hell of a lot of other sins to get there (adultery and fornication come to mind).
    • You are right in saying that the Old Testament is still relevant. However, all the other laws you mentioned were part of the Mosaic Law, which after Jesus died, was no longer necessary to follow. By contrast, the New Testament not only restated the condemnation of homosexuality, but condemned it even more harshly than the Old Testament did.
      • Nuh-uh. "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled," Mathew 5:18.
        • "For Christ is the end of the Law, so that everyone exercising faith may have righteousness." (Romans 10:4) Also, Matthew 5:18 itself refers to the fulfillment, or end, of the Mosaic Law. By the way, what Bible translation is that?
    • Not to mention that the Law was made to show people that they could never hope to save themselves by their own righteousness.
      • But what if two same-sex people who aren't married kiss or make out, without actual sex being involved? Would that break any sins that straight kissing and making out would?
      • What? For one thing, whether the two same-sex people are "married" or not is absolutely irrelevant. It's still homosexuality.
  • The proscriptions on homosexuality are continued in the New Testament, most notably in Paul's letters to the Corinthians, Romans, and (I believe) Timothy. Old Testament laws are generally held to still be in effect if confirmed by the New Testament (or else we'd wind up with an even bigger problem of nothing in the Old Testament being valid, including proscriptions of murder and blasphemy).
    • If I may provide a Jewish response to your questions. For Number one, there are two issues. First of all, your summing up of the rule of "The Rebellious Son" (Deuteronomy 21 18-21), as anybody who doesn't listen to their parents gets killed, is erroneous. It's not just a kid failing to clean his room, it's more drastic than that. Rabbinic interpretation says he has to steal money from his parents and use it to do disgusting things with bad people. They also compile a long list of other qualifications for this rule, such as the parents have to be the same height (!), which leads me to point two: The Talmud says this case never happened and never will. Why then was it written? The answer of the talmud is to give us more to learn. But, I once heard a lecture that this law actually comes to limit parental authority. In other near eastern legal codes, the father had the full right to decide to put his son to death. In these verses, he must bring him to the courts first. Add that to the ridiculous qualifications added by rabbinic exegesis, and you have a law whose point was its inapplicability. As for 2, Jewish law still mandates this, which means Orthodox Jewish men don't have sex with their wives for 2 weeks every month, 1 week for the menstruation and another week of waiting after it stops. While this sounds like it sucks, from what I've heard, after 2 weeks of waiting the sex is fantastic. Now you know why hassidic Jews have so many damn kids. 3. Only meant for a Jewish society, and its not like you can walk over there and shoot him. Rather you have to warn him, and if he continues, you bring him to court, where he is tried. Yes, breaking the Sabbath is a capital crime, and that may befuddle a modern mind, but the way you put it is way more immoral than the actual. Plus, Rabbinic qualifications make it very difficult to attain a death sentence. Two witnesses must warn the person, he must acknowledge the warning, state his intention of ignoring it, and then do it anyway. And if the court rules unanimously, the case is thrown out (its assumed, quite Jewishly, that truth cannot be arrived at without an argument). 4. Eating shellfish is bad, but again, only for a Jewish society. And you are not put to death for it, rather, you get 39 lashes. It is described as an "abomination", yes, just like homosexuality, but for both of those, that term does not effect its legal application. Why is it wrong to eat shellfish? I don't know. I assume God knows. I trust him. Hope I've helped.
  • Where in the bible does the bible say it's error free?
    • The Bible says that "all scripture is inspired of God" (2 Timothy 3:16) and that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). Applying both together means that everything in the Bible is true. It's not exactly the same thing as saying it's "error free", but it's close.
    • Key word: "Inspired." That means man wrote it down, and man is fallible. A story that's "inspired" by truth doesn't necessarily get everything down right.
      • Well, if God really did have a hand in writing The Bible, I doubt he would let the writers write something erroneous. If you don't belive that God did, then The Bible wouldn't be inspired in the first place, so it wouldn't matter. On the other hand, man can and has at times changed scripture either due to mistranslation or to fit their own bias.
      • The other thing to keep in mind is that something can be true From a Certain Point of View.
        • 2 Timothy 3:16 only refers to the Old Testament, not the New, so how do Christians justify the New Testament canon? Is there anywhere in the New Testament that says the New Testament is the word of God? Also, both Testments alluded to books that are not even in the canon itself.
        • No, it doesn't. It says "all scripture", so it refers to the entire Bible, including the New Testament.
          • No, it doesn't. How could it be talking about the new testment when the new testment didn't even exist yet. If you want futher proof check out the whole quote. "However as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." You see in the quote above it talks about scriptures he knew since infancy so how could it be talking about the new testment unless god had a time machine?
          • It still says "all scripture". I understand where you are coming from, but the context of verse 15 applies only to Timothy, thus to him, verse 16 refers to the Old Testament. But to readers living after the Bible's completion, verse 16 refers to the entire Bible, even those written after 2 Timothy. You forget that The Bible has more than one audience.
          • Isn't that taking the verse a bit out of context and stretching it because how could anybody use that verse to justify the N.T canon? Also at the time it was written the scriptures were already completed as the Old Testament canon or the Jewish tanakh.
  • Am I the only one who doesn't get why people say that the serpent is evil? Okay, so the serpent decides to trick humanity into eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Humans learn what good and evil are, and get out. Alright, I understand that the serpent is crafty. But why is this regarded as a Moral Event Horizon on the serpent's behalf? Sure, the serpent got them booted out and supposedly created death, but he basically gave humanity free will, and the capability to truly think. And grow. At its very worst, the serpent comes off as a Well-Intentioned Extremist. Why do people associate that with Big Bad material? It seemed more like the serpent is a Designated Villain, and not the same guy who'd become Satan.
    • Um, for one thing, the serpent did not give humanity free will or teach them good and evil. If humanity didn't have free will beforehand, it would have been impossible for them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. And how is tricking humanity into dying not a Moral Event Horizon? Also, don't forget that with death also came sin and the Humans Are Flawed and Humans Are Bastards tropes.
  • How does the law saying "don't boil a goat in its mother's milk" get interpreted to mean "don't have meat and dairy at the same meal"? It seems pretty obvious to me that the intended meaning is "boiling an animal in it's own mother's milk is cruel and unusual, don't do this cruel and unusual thing to your animals".
    • The goat was almost surely intended to be killed before being dunked in the boiling milk, and then eaten when it was done cooking. The authors of the Talmud, where the "don't mix meat and dairy" rule comes from, might have reasoned along these lines: 1. "Boy, the Torah sure considers goat boiling to be bad! That same admonition against boiling a young goat in its mother's milk appears three separate times." 2. "That means it must have had some great cultural significance, like maybe it was a common practice for some of the neighboring tribes that the Israelites wanted to distance themselves from." 3. "Therefore, it can't just be about baby goats and their mother's milk, it must be hidden code for a far more general prohibition."
  • Sorry if it had been discussed before, but what exactly is wrong with the notion of Jesus being married and having a child? From what little I know of Jewish rabbis at the time, an un-married, childless rabbi would have been completely unheard of! Plus, Jesus was half-human, I'm sure his half-human self may have had eyes and dated a girl when he was a teen. Could make for a sweet (in a cute, d'aawww way) painting: Jesus as a teen kissing a girl in front of a sunset with his father's workship in the background (or hammer by Jesus' side to let us know he was a carpenter before his ministry.)
    • It's not a question of 'What is wrong with it", it's a question of "This is an early twentieth century invention". There is no evidence that Jesus was officially a Rabbi and many Jews of the time were unmarried if they had strong religious beliefs around this (such as St Paul who was a bachelor and didn't seem to consider it a particularly big deal from the way he threw it out). There is no mention anywhere of a marriage or children for Jesus anywhere in the records; given the mania for producing 'Gnostic gospels' one would have expected a 'Gospel of Jesus's Son' to be produced at some time. So, sorry the idea of a Mrs Jesus is an invention of twentieth century conspiracy theorists.
  • Were the various exterminations in the Bible ordered by God or were the Hebrews using that as an excuse?
    • Well you need to understand the mindset of why the Hebrews killed certain groups of people, it was either to gain greater territory or to defend themselves which means that it was motivated by war. The Hebrews saying God ordered it wouldn't be the first time in human history a group of people killed in the name of their God. Logically writing down stuff like that boost morale and helps give a sense of righteousness to the group who claimed it, all war has demonizing of the enemy where you paint your side with a white brush and the enemy with a black brush. Now naturally only God Himself knows if He ordered it but we can't exactly ask Him, but if He did His reasoning might have been that any group that posed a threat to His chosen people were to be destroyed which seems reasonable enough to me; if someone threatened my home I would have their ass destroyed.

Fun and Prophets

Am I the only one who finds chapter 13 of the first book of Kings seriously screwy? For those unfamiliar with, the key passage is verses 6-24:

6 And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Entreat now the face of the LORD thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again. And the man of God besought the LORD, and the king's hand was restored him again, and became as it was before.
7 And the king said unto the man of God, Come home with me, and refresh thyself, and I will give thee a reward.
8 And the man of God said unto the king, If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place:
9 for so was it charged me by the word of the LORD, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest.
10 So he went another way, and returned not by the way that he came to Beth–el.
11 Now there dwelt an old prophet in Beth–el; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Beth–el: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father.
12 And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came from Judah.
13 And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass: and he rode thereon,
14 and went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am.
15 Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread.
16 And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place:
17 for it was said to me by the word of the LORD, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest.
18 He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the LORD, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him.
19 So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water.
20 And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the LORD came unto the prophet that brought him back:
21 and he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the LORD, and hast not kept the commandment which the LORD thy God commanded thee,
22 but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the LORD did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcass shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers.
23 And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had brought back.
24 And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him: and his carcass was

cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcass.

So, a true prophet of the Lord is decieved by another true prophet and dies for his trust of a man he thought spoke for his Lord; meanwhile, the prophet who decieved him to his death gets off scott free. What moral lesson is this supposed to teach, other than possibly "you're screwed no matter what"? (Neil Gaiman theorised that the message was "don't do what anyone else tells you to do, even if they say that God said for you to do it, or you'll be eaten by a lion on the way home.")

In regards to Christian attitudes about Satan

As Mark Twain eloquently put it, why bother to pray for sinners when you don't pray for the person who supposedly needs it most?

Also, why accusing someone of deceit if all you have yourselves is verses that went through billions of mistranslations?

This is, of course, entertaining the idea that Satan has any merit as a concept. Original biblical verses use it as nothing more than an epiphet for fallen angels.

  • Do you have proof that it's gone through "billions of mistranslations"? Cite sources. And no, "it's been around so long that it must have been significantly altered" doesn't count as a source.
    • The main indication that it's been through mistranslations is that there are so many different versions—I can think of NIV, NCV, NLT, RCV, ASV, KJV, NKJV, CEV, ESV, and ISV off the top of my head. Not all of these can be correct simultaneously.
      • I was referring more to the extant Hebrew and Greek texts. We still have those, and so can compare current translations to see if they hold up. There's nothing to indicate that the Hebrew and Greek texts that we currently have deviate significantly from the originals (and being able to prove otherwise would necessitate having access to the originals anyway, so the whole argument has no real ground to stand on in the first place).
      • Obviously you have no knowledge of the subject matter, then. The english translations of the Bible are notoriously for being utter parodies of the original hebrew and greek verses.
      • You realize that you're making statements without backing them up? The burden of proof is on you here. Post a few links supporting this point of view.
      • This offers a good start. Really, it's such basic knowledge that it surprises me that you don't understand the concept.
      • See, you should have posted that in the first place, rather than assuming that "everyone knows this stuff", and I'll ignore that condescending remark that you felt the need to include with it.
  • Many Chiristians consider Satan irredeemable, and thus not "worth" prayer. He has already been judged by God and cast from Heaven, and Revelation indicates that he isn't going to be suddenly saved (though that book is especially open to interpretation). Most Christians who believe Satan or some form of the Devil exists consider him/it/them the cause of evil, possibly delighting in making people hurt, suffer, and turn against each other and God.
    • This. Mainstream Christian theology considers angels to not be offered the same chance at redemption that humans are. Angels are created without sin and can thus experience the full presence and glory of God, therefore they have full understanding of exactly what they're giving up if they sin, whereas humans, being imperfect and naturally inclined towards sin, don't have full comprehension of the consequences of their actions on that scale.
    • 1- Such view points are not supported by the Bible (which doesn't even have a true notion of Satan; again, it's just an epiphet for numerous entities, some of them now thought to be human) and 2- It seems a rather horrendous view point, since it just propagates the Black and White Insanity that christian sects are infamous for.

And on a different note from one lecture on such questions, "Heaven will be a place where a big sound heard will be, 'Oooooooooooooohhhhhhh'" as our questions are given a near perfect answer.

Back to The Bible
  1. ↑ Job 38:4-7 infers that "all the sons of God" were still good when God "founded the earth"
  2. ↑ Paul mentions at 1 Corinthians 15:7 that resurrected Jesus personally appeared to him, which likely played a huge role in him becoming a Christian.
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