Jesus (facts, fiction and speculation)

[Tannin]

The book we nowadays call "The Bible" is impossible to put a single date on. It has been revised, added to, expurgated, modified, restored, and generally turned over many times in many different ways. I'd need to check my references for specific dates - no-one can hold so many different ones in memory! - but to paint with a broad brush, it's been largely stable since the end of the middle ages - say around 500 years ago - and the major revisions were mostly complete about a thousand years before that.

One thing to bear very much in mind here is that the date of a particular revision and the time when that revision became accepted as THE revision - i.e., part of "the Bible" as we think of it today - are often many years or even centuries apart. It is easy to say that "Revision X was largely complete in (e.g.) 325 AD", but quite misleading, as at that time the particular sect which compiled Revision X was typically one of several competing ones, and its actions seem much more important today than they did then simply because that particular sect later turned out to be the one which triumphed in the many, many wars and schisms which have characterised Christianity from the outset and which were especially prevalant in the first thousand years or so. The final shape of today's Bible, in other words, is as much a product of medieval wars and palace coups as it is of scholarly revision. (Rather like the rest of history, when you think about it.)

[Tannin]

BTW, thanks for splitting the threads! This one promises to be quite interesting, where the Christmas one is the sort of thread I only open if I'm especially bored. (Sorry Jo, I know I was supposed to avoid that thread to keep the peace and let people who celebrate Christmas enjoy it unhindered by the likes of me, but that's only half my reason, just not having any interest in it is the other. Life is too short!)

[Tannin]

Oh, one more thing. You could read my first post as saying that the Bible was largely written around 500 AD, but only if you are a careless reader who jumps to conclusions. The continual process of revision notwithstanding, many parts of it are much older than that, and I have no general argument with Laird's statement that large parts of the NT were written very early in the First Millennium.

(Oddly enough, I find the history of theology and the history of the Bible endlessly fascinating subjects, not least because these subjects were considered so crucially important at the time that people took the trouble to write about them in detail at a time when little else was recorded, and later on people though it was worth preserving some of these writings (or at least summaries of them). Of course, the very keenness of the interest people had in these subjects made their testimony suspect - one must read carefully and make wild guesses at how much to allow for bias - but that's half the fun of it. Also, the whole (Western) world was fanatically Christian in those days (using "Christian" in a very broad sense to include many that these days would be regarded as heretics) and it's not possible to understand much about the history of anything between about 200 AD and about 1600 AD or so unless you have a bit of a grasp on theology.)

[think positive]

[David]

Here you go, 1061. Discussions about thread splitting here:

http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/viewtopic.php?t=75999

[David]

[Tannin]

I read Genesis once, imagining that it would provide some kind of extraordinary insight. Not very bright, I know, but I was 13 or 14. Can't say I took anything of value away from it.

But while we are on the topic (sort of), if you were only going to read one book, which one would you read? David, you've gone for Genesis. I'd go for Acts first time and every time. Well, I suppose that's predicated on the assumption that no-one can grow up in a country like Australia without becoming pretty familiar with the gospel stories, and that's probably not the case. So, on reflection, Luke. But I always liked Acts. I've always wanted to read Revelation - probably for the same not-too-bright reasons I read Genesis all those years ago, but it gets too weird and metaphysical and, frankly, turns into gibberish. In fact I have a small shelf full of the obvious holy books; the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Bhagavad-Gita and so on which I've been meaning to read soon - well soonish, well, one day - for the last 40 years. But there is always something more interesting to pick up and I doubt I ever will.

[David]

Revelation seemed pretty cool and trippy when I was younger—hey, with an upbringing like mine, you had to take what you get!—but on reflection it's mostly ham-fisted metaphor. That said, there is some pretty bizarre imagery. That gets parodied brilliantly by the Brick Testament:

http://www.thebricktestament.com/revelation/

[HAL]

Makes sense to me.

[1061]

Revelation is a revelation to those prepared to read it with their mind switched to open!

[David]

Indeed. The revelation that the book was essentially a comically overwrought allegory for an imagined downfall of the Roman Empire circa 70 AD—and not, as I had been taught, a prophecy of things to come within my lifetime—pretty much brought down the whole house of cards for me as a 15 year old. That was the moment that I realised that the Bible couldn't be divinely inspired fact.

[1061]

How do we know our 24/7 time frame is the same time frame the person who inspired the book lives by?

For example how do we know when we read "the world was made in 6 days" that the days referred to are the same as our 24 hour day?

Try to open ones mind and see the possibilities.

[David]

An allegorical interpretation of the Bible's creation account is certainly a great deal more sensible than a literal one, but to take it as anything more than an origin myth is still fundamentally unscientific.

Believe me, I've had these debates with myself. If I hadn't opened my mind, I'd still believe everything I was told.

[1061]

It's why I hold my beliefs strong but I am no longer a member of any organized church.

[swoop42]

I'm not religious, have no real interest in it and can't recall even basic teachings that probably took place sometime in my childhood schooling.

All I want to know is is there any actual real documented evidence that Jesus Christ the man (let alone the alleged Jesus Christ the son of God) even lived and existed?

And no Bible stories don't equate to proof for me.