Ian McKellen says Bible should have Fiction Disclaimer

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by MikeH
The four gospels were all written long after the time, certainly not by the apostles they are named for.

if long after the time = 20 - 40 years (we have fragments, which certainly started existing after they had been passed arround for a while, before 100 AD)

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

I agree, (and so did leading Christians 2nd Century AD) that all but Luke are likely not written by the people they are named for (and Mathew assuredly not)

JM

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I think the Bible needs to have a disclaimer on Ian McKellen.

Leviticus 18:22

[molly bloom]

Unfortunately there seems to be a great swathe of unthinking Christianistas who choose to view the collected texts of the Old and New Testaments as the literal word of a god, and the events and personages depicted therein as having the reality of, say, Tony Blair or an E.U. summit on debt relief.

This overlooks the avowed aims of the various writers of the texts, and the writings' didactic nature or their use as propaganda- to justify the occupation of the Promised Land by the Israelites, or to claim the Israelites (or later, the Christians) as the chosen of a jealous god.

Oh, and of course those embarrassing discrepancies between biblical 'truth' and historical fact (that is, what we know from non-Jewish, non-Christian sources which either contradicts or simply does not recognise the supposed inerrancy of the Old and New Testaments).

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by The diplomat
Just more atheist idiocy. sigh.

It amazes me that people try to discredit the Bible which we know was written by real people with real experiences but believe crap like the Da Vinci code which we know is completely fake.

Hmm. The feminine aspect of divinity actually predates the patriarchal version.

Gatekeeper

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper


Hmm. The feminine aspect of divinity actually predates the patriarchal version.

Gatekeeper

I also like the way he dismissed 'atheist idiocy' and then proceeds to plunge into a vast ocean of idiotic assertion by proclaiming the supposed truth of the biblical texts by asserting they were written by 'real' people with 'real' experiences.

How he knows that these experiences were any more real or valid than say, Muhammad's or Gautama Buddha's, or Mani's is anyone's guess.

The biblical texts have also of course been edited- and all those irritating ones which didn't quite fit in with early Church politics (those awkward Gnostic gospels and Gnostic texts which addressed a female god) were left out.

It would be mighty fine if more Christianistas realised just how much editing has gone on, why what has been left out was omitted, and the differences between metaphorical/poetic 'inspirations' on the one hand, and sober eyewitness historical accounts and scientific facts on the other.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by molly bloom
The biblical texts have also of course been edited- and all those irritating ones which didn't quite fit in with early Church politics (those awkward Gnostic gospels and Gnostic texts which addressed a female god) were left out.

I don't see why people go on and on about gnostics.

The gnostics were obviously derivated from greek/other schools of thought. I don't really see why people are so interested in it when it is just an early mix of Christianity and other thought.

JM

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Jon Miller


I don't see why people go on and on about gnostics.

Well golly gee, why aren't those Gnostic texts the literal word of god too ?

Oh, because some human beings decided they weren't.


" I say po tay to, you say po tah to, I say Gospel of Thomas goes in, you say you can't have that in because it contradicts our view of what the church should be, you heretic! "

Here endeth the lesson and begins the long tragic history of Christians censoring, deleting and killing (fellow) Christians over who gets to decide what is and isn't 'the way, the truth and the light'....

[Whaleboy]

It amazes me that people try to discredit the Bible which we know was written by real people with real experiences but believe crap like the Da Vinci code which we know is completely fake.

That the bible was written by real people (as opposed to fictions like God) we can take as a given. Real experiences? Like Jesus walking on water and the creation myth? Well that begs the question! The fact that Brown includes a list in his book of elements of his story that is true, and those that are not, adds to The Da Vinci Code’s credibility as a work of fiction and not purporting to be a description of reality, that the bible tries (and fails) to do.

yes, the 'virtue' of knowing that it is a load of crap, instead of the debate currently about the Bible (which was partially responsible for the enlightenment and the good that has come out of West).

That’s rather like saying that we should thank Hitler because men walked on the moon.

I associate Western Culture with secular, liberal, Democratic Greek City States.

Secular pluralist societies are the true heirs to classical Hellenism. A Christian theocracy would have had more in common with a Sumerian society. Indeed, someone in Abbisad Baghdad in the 10th or 11th Century would have considered himself to be a part of the Greek tradition due to the pluralistic and tolerant society that was prevalent there.

It is well established that the New Testament was written before 100AD.

The Gospel of Matthew is considered to have been written in the late 1st Century, the Gospel of Mark hasn’t been accurately dated yet but the fact that it was either written in Rome or Syria suggests the 2nd Century AD, the Gospel of Luke is considered by most evangelicals to have been written around 60AD (in keeping with their agenda of stating that the Gospels were written early, suggesting the author had personal contact with Christ), while the Gospel of John is thought to have been written at least two generations after the time when Christ is supposed to have lived.

Various suggested dates for NT composition range from between a generation or two after Christ (still too long for any weight of historical accuracy in my view), and the late 2nd Century AD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_testament#Authorship

However, many that weren't included were written much later.. or obviously have different ideas (obviously from nearby thought..)

Not really. The apocrypha Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Peter are supposed to have been written from the mid 1st Century AD, well within the time frame of the earliest supposed gospels.

Hmm. The feminine aspect of divinity actually predates the patriarchal version.

Very true, the Minoans are a great example of that.

The gnostics were obviously derivated from greek/other schools of thought. I don't really see why people are so interested in it when it is just an early mix of Christianity and other thought.

It was that great mix of thought that led to the idea of a Jewish messiah in the first place! Consider that for the 1000 years after Alexander the Great died, the whole area of the Middle East he conquered was opened up to ideas from East and West… the ideology of the one man leader from AtheG himself, the Jewish Rabbinic tradition from the example of Plato and his follows, the concept of rebirth in the Bhargavad Gita… all a great melting pot of ideas out with came first Christianity and then Islam. I would say that an example of the thinking that arose at the same time as Christianity is of great worth in deciphering the motivations and nature of early Christians.

My own view is that the bible can be taken on many levels, and unlike many atheists, I actually take it quite seriously. Needless to say, anyone who takes the bible stories literally, and its version of historical events etc, including the life of Christ, is an idiot who is himself proof that intelligent design is a contradiction in terms if indeed he is the product.

However, where else do we have such a complete and extensive tome of ancient myths and examples of thought from an era from which other historical sources are sketchy? You have the garden of Eden, referring to the collapse of Sumerian society, you have the flood myth from the inundation of the black sea. It’s a fascinating window onto the ancient world that can only be seen if you don’t take it seriously.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by molly bloom



Well golly gee, why aren't those Gnostic texts the literal word of god too ?

Oh, because some human beings decided they weren't.


" I say po tay to, you say po tah to, I say Gospel of Thomas goes in, you say you can't have that in because it contradicts our view of what the church should be, you heretic! "

Here endeth the lesson and begins the long tragic history of Christians censoring, deleting and killing (fellow) Christians over who gets to decide what is and isn't 'the way, the truth and the light'....

You are getting to the point of not being worth talking about this with. Will you address my point of Gnostic thought being derivative of outside/earlier nonJewish/Christian thought?

It was similiar to the Catholic Voodoo today, and also similiarly unfortunate (and only interesting in an historic/sociology sense..)

JM

[MRT144]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_problem

take that new testament!

[Whaleboy]

You are getting to the point of not being worth talking about this with. Will you address my point of Gnostic thought being derivative of outside/earlier nonJewish/Christian thought?

While that is true, it is also meaningless, since Christianity was not solely something that developed as internal to Judaism. Gnosticism has clear influences in Greek, Indian and Chinese thinking, just as Christianity does. Christianity too was one of its influences, particularly with the notion of redemption.

I think it would be ludicrous to single out the Gnostics as an anomaly that is not representative of Christian thought on the grounds that it does not solely originate from Judeo-Christian traditions, because Christianity itself does not solely arise out of Jewish monotheistic traditions either.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper


Hmm. The feminine aspect of divinity actually predates the patriarchal version.

Whaleboy's inanities about the Minoans aside, that is not and cannot be known; both feminine and "patriarchal" deities are known as far back as we have historical records, and of prehistoric religion we simply do not have sufficent knowledge to judge.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


While that is true, it is also meaningless, since Christianity was not solely something that developed as internal to Judaism. Gnosticism has clear influences in Greek, Indian and Chinese thinking, just as Christianity does. Christianity too was one of its influences, particularly with the notion of redemption.

I think it would be ludicrous to single out the Gnostics as an anomaly that is not representative of Christian thought on the grounds that it does not solely originate from Judeo-Christian traditions, because Christianity itself does not solely arise out of Jewish monotheistic traditions either.

Yes, some of it was new. We can directly point to gnosticism coming from other traditions.. and it appears to be a mix of the other traditions and the new ideas of pure Christianity (which I admit isn't likely what we call Christianity now). So I am not interested in it for studing what is true Christianity, unless there is something there which is not in traditional Christianity and is not an obivious result of other thinking (and I haven't seen anything of this nature).

I am not interested in greek religious thinking in my search for truth. (and neither should most people, greeks might have been good philosophers, but they had a ****ty religion)

Jon Miller

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Jon Miller

The gnostics were obviously derivated from greek/other schools of thought. I don't really see why people are so interested in it when it is just an early mix of Christianity and other thought.

Christianity is ripped off from other schools of thought. It's basically a watered down Platonism mixed with Jewish religious tradition.