The thing is Hugh...hughfarey wrote:If you were a Catholic, Nicki, I would direct you to the Catechism, which discusses the matter quite well, or the old Catholic Encyclopaedia, which also has a good section on it. However, let's see what I can do.Nicki wrote:So do you think the Ten Commandments were decided on and written by some person(s) and they're not all (or any of them) from God? Why do you think he would want them included in his word then? Do you think any of them should be followed, and why? I'm not meaning to be confrontational, just trying to tease out your thinking about these things. Regarding the graven images, I think the implication was that the images would be made to be worshipped - that was probably the only use people had for statues and so on in that place and time.
Why do we say, of any piece of writing or theatre or creative work, that it is "inspired". Because it seems to capture the nature of something with particular clarity? Because it has an effect on people far beyond what it seems on the surface to attempt? Because it seems that its author could not have produced it entirely from his own experience? There are a number of possible reasons. But however "inspired" the dancing of Rudolf Nureyev, for example, or 'Hamlet', or the sculpture of Michaelangelo, its significance pales towards the trivial compared to the influence and power of the bible. I think it's an example of "by their fruits ye shall know them". The people who first formulated the stories were inspired in that their stories, rather than many others, were found relevant and memorable. The people who first wrote them down were inspired in the choice of stories from the many others which could have been included in the Hebrew bible, and the Christian scholars of the first few centuries were inspired in their selection of the Canon. Even so, there remain some half a dozen books about which divine inspiration is disputed from sect to sect.
Essentially, the Old Testament was originally created for a small Middle Eastern Nation, of obscure nomadic origin, and a propensity for sporadic invasion and exile. Even by the time of Jesus, injunctions specific to nomadic life were beginning to be found less useful than they were, but it was part of the 'inspiration' of the Hebrew Bible that so much of it seemed universally relevant, so much so that our extraction of the ten commandments still forms the basis of a moral code today - respect for others, especially ones parents, the value of personal property and the family as the basis of society.
You are almost certainly correct that the injunction against any form of image was to counteract a belief, still present in some societies I believe, that any image at all somehow contained some of the character of the thing portrayed. The development of the monastic copying of books and statues, especially after the invention of printing, weakened this belief so much that it was no longer relevant to ban all 'graven images' and so that particular injunction was recognised as no longer valid.
Genesis 1, Genesis 2 and the story of the flood are all 'origins' myths, with specific, different meanings. Genesis 1 is a stunningly accurate guess at the progression of the universe, and the earth, through time. In detail, of course, it is completely wrong, but the reason we consider it inspired is in its understanding that the earth developed through time, from the simple to the complex, and in its understanding of the pre-eminence of man as a representative of God's reason. Genesis 2 explores the development of conscience, which is worthwhile, and the subservience of woman as little more than a detached organ of man, which is no longer worthwhile. The Noah story recognises the essential relatedness of all people (something later to be ignored as slaves became popular, but more recently joyfully affirmed by the theory of evolution) and even man's responsibility for, rather than domination of, the other animals.
Who or what is telling you which parts of the bible are true and which are not?
I'm so sick of hearing this, really. 
