How much of the Bible do you believe is true?

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First of all, there are many versions (translations as well as Bibles which contain different numbers of individual books) of the Bible.

To simply it (for those whose language is English), perhaps the KJV of the Bible is a starting point (~ first Bible in the English language more or less).

So, how much of the KJV/the Bible do you believe is true? 100% 99.9% 51% 49% 25% 5% 1% or what?

Do you have a favorite edition of the Bible? If so, what is your favorite edition?

I think there might be some historical facts within the Bible, but because the people who witnessed it back then had no basic understanding of nature, they embellished the events to make it seem as though they were all acts of God.

For example, there is evidence of a catastrophic flood occuring somewhere near the Mediterranean (not a world-wide flood, because that is impossible), and it was believed that the flood was an act of divine retribution. Refer to this Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_flood#Hypotheses_of_origin_of_flood_legends

Also, I remember watching a series on the History Channel that was covering the plagues preceding the great Exodus, and the series attempted to attribute those plagues to natural occurences. I'll have to look that up, though.

I believe every word, Sola Scriptura all the way!

+1

How much of -Lord of the Rings- or -The Silmarillion- do you believe is true?

ruveyn

... and today people with no basic understanding of "god" simply attribute everything to nature!



Graham Philips has written several books about various things mentioned in Scripture, and yes, it seems "god" did use/cause a great volcano to do that.

Be fair....Robin Hood. There's at least the mention of government figures who did actually exist just like how Richard the Lionheart and John of England existed.

ruveyn, your criticism isn't that fair. Scripture isn't an entire fiction. However, I can't really give a percentage claim. I mean.... I also don't know how to assess the question, as it is hard to make this into a good percentage. I would guess that my estimate is significantly less than 50%.

Unless one takes the position that the Lord of the Rings is the absolute truth as much as the Bible is. Then that position doesn't seem that bad, as the consideration is that neither of these are.

BTW, I'm not quite certain about the question, but it seems it may refer to which english version of the Bible is closer to the original writings.

I would say none but then again there is mention of certain things that are scientific or moral truths
Love is patient blah blah blah
Man has one less rib than woman

Which part do you believe more? That pi = 3 or that the Sun and Moon stood still over Gibeon? Or perhaps Jacob could get his sheep to breed spotted and striped offspring by showing them spotted or striped sticks?

ruveyn

The issue is that the Bible holds more than just those particular aspects, if those things are false, that doesn't invalidate completely the Bible to merley a book of fairy tales, there are some aspects in the Bible that conform with history and archeaology, and you have to recognize that, what I believe is that your case can just undermine the belief in the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible as well as supernatural claims, however not to reduce it to a book that has nothing more than a collection of fairy tales as to compare them to other fictional writings.

Last edited by greenblue on 28 Jul 2010, 4:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

I am of the belief that the bible does contain some historical accuracies, but then so do the legends of Robin Hood, King Arthur and the Iliad. So I accept that there is most likely some broadly plausible historical accuracies in the book , but that is as far as it goes.

All the god stuff is pure superstition from a time when we had comparatively almost no knowledge of our natural world and we were looking for explanations to natural events that we had zero comprehension of. Why we still believe the christ story has me baffled

I don't believe a word of it.

Why do people in the 21st century worry about the beliefs of some prehistoric bronze age goat herders?

Why aren't we seriously talking about the gods of Greece or Rome or Egypt? Why aren't we talking about the Norse gods?

Because the "myths" of Egypt and Greece and Rome and Europe are "myths" while the myths of some tiny obscure middle eastern tribe are "true".

Even though their holy books tell them that they are the chosen of god and the rest of us are "cattle" who deserve to be enslaved or killed.

How stupid are we?

It is quite natural for people to accept things they believe, including this:



I know this is merely rhetorical in return, yet how does a present knowledge of our *natural* world prove previous beliefs about an alleged *supernatural* world to be mere superstition of whatever grade?



A similar question: How does/would knowing the plagues of Egypt were the effects of a volcano prove no supernatural being had caused them to happen?

We all know it is easy to accept things we believe, but neither acceptance nor belief necessarily prove things true ...

... but the real question here is more about why we human beings have such a desire for explaining something away just so we can have a belief about it to accept!



"Christ" simply means something like "anointed one", and many of us want to believe we are at least equal in knowledge.

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Jacob had quite an imagination, didn't he?

Matter of fact, whoever wrote the many books in the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) had quite an imagination.

Whoever told the people (from a cloud in the sky or from the top of a mountain like Mt. Sinai) had quite an imagination.

What is the meaning of the following terms?

Hocus pocus
Abracadabra

Let the weak say, I am strong.

What is the difference between a God in the Sky (Invisible God) above the city of Jerusalem and a God/god/Goddess/goddesses (Invisible Gods/gods) living on top of Mt. Olympus in Greece?

Other