The Bible taken in a Literal Sense

[WConn]

I have read much of the bible and find it to be very disturbing. While I believe there is a power much greater than any of us, I find it hard to accept that the bible is the literal word of God. I find it possible to compare Genesis to the Big Bang and I feel that there was a beginning as stated in the bible. I also can see the comparison of Revelation to the idea that it's not IF but WHEN our earth will be destroyed by an astrological impact.

In short, I am asking myself is at least some of the Bible might not be written by self serving men and not inspired by God.

Your response please.

W

[ageofknowledge]

Keep reading. It has a happy ending. Also suppliment your Bible reading with commentary from top notch Bible scholars to help you understand the context of what you're reading and how it fits together. Don't forget to attend a spirit filled church so you can see the result of it lived out. Peace.

[jlay]

It is very disturbing to encounter a book that so explicity exposes one's own sinful nature and reveals the holy character of God. There has never been a Christian who has not been disturbed by the Bible.

I suspose that if the bible were written by self-serving men, then all the controversial things could have simply been edited out. Would the Bible be more beleivable without it? No, the Bible wouldn't be believable if it didn't deal with the realities. These are real people, who have real sins, and are dealing with a REAL God who REALLY is holy, and hates sin.

I often hear people say, "if there is a God then why is there evil?"

Yet this is a most ridiculous question.
1st: there can be no evil if there is no God as described in the bible. To have evil we must be able to have a measuring stick to know evil. When we see a Lion kill an animal we don't think it evil, even if it disturbs us. But we KNOW it is evil when a man conspires to kill another. Our messed up human minds can see both of these killings and know for sure that one is not evil and the other is pure evil. We can recognize that this is not just survival of the fittest, or the results of nature.
This brings another question:
If there is no God, then who is responsible for the evil of men? The answer of course is, men themselves. Is it possible that the answer is the same if you were to ask, "If there IS a God, then who is responsible for evil?" Man is responsible. We are responsible for evil. Period. And the bible does not shy away from the harsh realities of how God deals with the evil of mankind. The outcome is often disturbing.

[WConn]

Keep reading. It has a happy ending. Also suppliment your Bible reading with commentary from top notch Bible scholars to help you understand the context of what you're reading and how it fits together. Don't forget to attend a spirit filled church so you can see the result of it lived out. Peace.

The last book, Revelation sounds much like what science tells us will happen, not IF but WHEN. The very end is happy if you make it there, otherwise it is an unhappy ending. I have not as yet gained the faith necessary to believe all that I am reading, but I will continue to read. My belief's are in the developmental
stage now.

Thank you for your comments,

W

[ageofknowledge]

Keep reading. It has a happy ending. Also suppliment your Bible reading with commentary from top notch Bible scholars to help you understand the context of what you're reading and how it fits together. Don't forget to attend a spirit filled church so you can see the result of it lived out. Peace.

The last book, Revelation sounds much like what science tells us will happen, not IF but WHEN. The very end is happy if you make it there, otherwise it is an unhappy ending. I have not as yet gained the faith necessary to believe all that I am reading, but I will continue to read. My belief's are in the developmental
stage now.

Thank you for your comments,

W

If it's any encouragement, I've found that this life mostly sucks thanks to the devil and that people are egotistical, often shallow, usually selfish and self-absorbed as a rule; however, God loves those who accept his gift of salvation very deeply. If you ever wanted to be truly loved with a deep abiding love that doesn't go away, despite the horrible things about this world and the shortcomings of the people in it, become an authentic Christian and stay with it.

You'll never be totally alone afterwards even if it all goes wrong and you end up poor, sick, deformed, and all the so called "good" people in the world (including Christians) kick you to the curb as they drive on for greater material wealth, power, and glory because you simply can't add value to their bank account or feed their self-approbation anymore.

It's not a fair world. Some people get born inside the God bubble and have all the advantages of a Christian family and upbringing right along with the American dream. Others get molested and abused and kicked out at a young age where they run in the streets with all the wrong people and often find an early grave without Christ. It is what it is. The devil is busy.

But after you become a Christian, though you might wonder why God doesn't always stop really bad life-changing things from happening to you, you'll find that as you really come to know Him, you'll know that despite all of that He deeply loves you with an abiding love and will work with you on your sin struggles and personal shortcomings and has good plans for you in eternity. If you're an authentic believer committed to Christ and not just faking it or deceiving yourself, he really does forgive you, though you struggle with sin and hangups and don't feel worthy all the time, and you will go to heaven if you persevere to the end.

[WConn]

Keep reading. It has a happy ending.

W

If it's any encouragement, I've found that this life mostly sucks thanks to the devil and that people are egotistical, often shallow, usually selfish and self-absorbed as a rule; however, God loves those who accept his gift of salvation very deeply. If you ever wanted to be truly loved with a deep abiding love that doesn't go away, despite the horrible things about this world and the shortcomings of the people in it, become an authentic Christian and stay with it.

You'll never be totally alone afterwards even if it all goes wrong and you end up poor, sick, deformed, and all the so called "good" people in the world (including Christians) kick you to the curb as they drive on for greater material wealth, power, and glory because you simply can't add value to their bank account or feed their self-approbation anymore.

It's not a fair world. Some people get born inside the God bubble and have all the advantages of a Christian family and upbringing right along with the American dream. Others get molested and abused and kicked out at a young age where they run in the streets with all the wrong people and often find an early grave without Christ. It is what it is. The devil is busy.

But after you become a Christian, though you might wonder why God doesn't always stop really bad life-changing things from happening to you, you'll find that as you really come to know Him, you'll know that despite all of that He deeply loves you with an abiding love and will work with you on your sin struggles and personal shortcomings and has good plans for you in eternity. If you're an authentic believer committed to Christ and not just faking it or deceiving yourself, he really does forgive you, though you struggle with sin and hangups and don't feel worthy all the time, and you will go to heaven if you persevere to the end.

Interesting approach to the subject saying that "life mostly sucks." For many people this is true. My life has it's ups and downs as do most. I find myself struggling with many things right now, life, relationships, friendships, work, the economy, the state of our country and the world in general. Seems that dishonesty and greed have done much to cause life to suck for many of us right now.

I do ask why God doesn't stop the really bad things. It's almost like he is performing a big experiment here on earth and watching what we do. Our planet has become so diverse with so many different types of people, races, ideologies, political bends and personalities. Hard to understand how often evil men manage to control the minds and circumstances of entire countries. (Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Chavez, Castro and the guy in N. Korea) These people are evil personified. Perhaps the genes of those who God tried to eliminate thousands of years ago still live on in these men, who knows?

I continue to struggle with my own beliefs or perhaps, "lack of beliefs." I continue to find the Bible difficult to read, not from the standpoint of understanding but from the standpoint of understanding why there was so much war, violence, stoning, killing, slavery and the like. I continue to question the origin of the bible with the decision by man to decide the 66 books which make up the Bible. Some make sense and I believe could have been divinely inspired, others I have serious doubts about. I understand that Billy Graham even questioned the authenticity of the Bible at some point. I understand that he just "decided" to believe it and that was it. I do not as yet have that level of acceptance.

W

[Jac3510]

W,

I appreciate your openness about where you are with regard to your beliefs. If it helps at all, your position isn't uncommon. It's not simple, but what in life really is? Christian belief can seem like a vicious circle: To believe the Christian God exists, you have to believe the Bible is His Word, but in order to believe the Bible is His Word, you really have to be convinced He exists. The reason for this is evident in your own questions. You will never know all the answers to all the questions, but there do seem to be enough legitimate questions that prevent an honest person from coming to faith. So, where d you start? Well, there are two roads here, which may or may not be totally distinct.

The first is the road you seem to be taking now. That is, you read the Bible and ask questions as they come up. You do this until enough of your questions have been answered until the Bible has "earned" the benefit of the doubt. Now, there's nothing wrong with this. If you stick at it long enough, you'll find that to be the case. The problem here, though, is that you certainly can't assume divine inspiration! So, this road just takes awhile.

The second is to cut to the chase, so to speak. Most religions have their books, so you can certainly test them by studying the literature, so to speak. But Christianity is unique in that it based on historical events more than the ethical teachings of the Bible. The main event we are talking about is the resurrection. If Jesus was not resurrected, then Christianity is false, whatever else we may think about it. But if Jesus was resurrected, then Christianity, in some form or fashion, must be true, whatever else we may think about it. I am, for example, having a YouTube debate over the Moral Argument. The atheists involved have taken the typical track of arguing that the God of the Bible is immoral and therefore could not be the source of our moral law. My response, however, is to point out that, at best, all that does is undermine the doctrine of inspiration. Perhaps the people who wrote the Bible got it wrong. Fine, but that doesn't change the fact that:

1. If God does not exist, then there are no such thing as objective moral values;
2. But objective moral values do exist;
3. Therefore, God must exist.

That's what I mean by "whatever else we may think". So . . . the question I think you should look at is this: "Did Jesus really rise from the dead?" That, best of all, is a question you really can answer from a historical perspective! If you conclude He did, then you conclude Christianity, in some sense, is true. It also proves that Jesus is who He says He is, namely, God. Then you have another argument for the Bible's veracity. Consider these two:

1. God cannot be wrong;
2. Jesus is God;
3. Therefore, Jesus cannot be wrong;
4. Jesus claimed the authority of the whole OT;
5. Therefore, the whole OT must be authoritative, that is, inspired (from 4);
6. Jesus also claimed that Scripture cannot be mistaken, that is, it is inerrant;
7. Therefore, Scripture is inerrant.

This only deals with the OT, but we can make other arguments for the NT. They aren't as important, because most of our objections to infallibility come, as you've noted, from the OT. So, then, the issue is only this: did Jesus raise from the dead? There's a lot about this on this site. I've walked through the issue briefly on the "Questions for Christians" from under the thread "Where do I go from here?" I would also highly recommend you look at William Lane Craig's website--he has a LOT of information on it. You can also get his book Reasonable Faith, which presents a very persuasive argument. And, of course, we can all talk about it here. Everyone on these boards is pretty well versed, I think, in these arguments.

So, I recommend the second road, but whichever you take, God bless you, and feel free to keep asking questions, even if they've been answered before.

[nd925]

W, My advice to you for help in all this is to find yourself a solid Bible based church that's near to your home. This will be a great source of information for questions you have. And fellowship with other Christians is really important as well. Sometimes trying to read the Bible on your own without any help or guidance is difficult. Not to say that you can't get a good understanding of it on your own, but there is a reason why there are scholars that have studied the Bible thoroughly. Good luck in finding your way, I pray the Holy Spirit leads and guides you to a relationship with Jesus.