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Is The Bible Open To Interpretation?

To begin with your statement that Adam and Eve didn’t know it was wrong to disobey….

Rethink that statement.
Ok. Before eating the fruit, they did not have the concept of good and evil or right and wrong. They knew they were not to eat of the fruit, but that’s not the same as understanding it was morally wrong.
Your second statement is that Adam and Eve didn’t die. They died as far as God was concerned. God is a Spirit. They died spiritually.
How did you come to that conclusion? Nothing in Genesis supports that claim and I’m not aware of anywhere else in the Bible that supports it.
The serpent, the devil is a liar, and he lied to Eve. Because they disobeyed God He evicted them from the garden, that is from His presence. That is spiritual death.
Nowhere does it say that the serpent was the devil. Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 do refer to the devil as a serpent, but nowhere is it even implied that the devil was the serpent in the garden, who is specifically referred to as a beast.
 
Understanding is not the same thing as interpretation?
I say it is
Your 'understanding' of the bible as a Baptist, for example, is certainly different than the 'understanding' of the bible of a Jehovah Witness?

That's not difficult. Jehovah's Witnesses don't understand the Bible.
 
How did you come to that conclusion? Nothing in Genesis supports that claim and I’m not aware of anywhere else in the Bible that supports it.

Adam and Eve died spiritually.


Genesis 2
7 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”


Genesis 3
3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it,
lest you die.’”




Romans 5
12 Therefore, just as
sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—



Mankind was spiritually dead, hence the need for a Messiah to redeem us.

1 Cor 15
21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.


Ephesians 2
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.



To be "born again," means to be born spiritually alive.


Romans 8:10
And if Christ is in you . . . the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
 
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But sticking to the Christian Bible, Adam and Eve didn’t know it was wrong to disobey God. God told them they’d die that day if they ate the fruit, the serpent said they wouldn’t. They ate the fruit and the serpent was right. In order to punish them for doing wrong when He didn’t want them to know it was wrong, He chooses to punish billions of people in the future.

Adam and Eve knew it was wrong to disobey God.
They understood the difference between right and wrong because they were created to understand it.
They were made in the image of God.

That they hadn't experienced it personally doesn't mean they didn't understand. The fact that Eve hesitated is evidence of that.
It took "craftiness" of the serpent to convince her.

Furthermore, how do we know God didn't explain about right and wrong? We shouldn't assume Adam and Eve were ignorant.
Yes, they have their innocence, but that's not the same as ignorance.
They were not like children - they were created as grown adults - they ruled the earth! They were given responsibilities!

They didn't eat the fruit by accident. They've made a choice.
 
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Then God gets upset that people are breaking rules He never explained so he kills everyone including most animals, except for one family, who break the rules as soon as the flood is over.

After that, God decided not to be God of everyone, just the descendants of Abraham. But he still doesn’t explain any rules until Moses.

How do we know God didn't reach out to anyone from previous civilizations?
Except that they got it all wrong and made their own gods?

Perhaps that's why we have the Scriptures. He's decided we needed a manual!

The descendants of Abraham are His chosen people. That doesn't mean He doesn't consider Himself the God of everyone else.


God chose the nation of Israel to be the people through whom Jesus Christ would be born—the Savior from sin and death (John 3:16). God first promised the Messiah after Adam and Eve’s fall into sin (Genesis chapter 3). God later confirmed that the Messiah would come from the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Genesis 12:1-3). Jesus Christ is the ultimate reason why God chose Israel to be His special people. God did not need to have a chosen people, but He decided to do it that way. Jesus had to come from some nation of people, and God chose Israel.
 
It has to do with the bizarre interpretation of the jealous, vindictive god being the heroic protagonist and the plucky band of rebels who go up against hopeless odds, fighting an army literally twice their size, and an omnipotent, omniscient tyrant as the villains. And, of course, with how my own interpretation differs from the mainstream.
But that’s not really an interpretation. The verse is clear requiring no explanation of the words used. Therefore, it requires the second point in my “keys” — Context. Either immediate or remote. Here it requires a remote context or what I refer to as an overall understanding of both the Bible and culture of the times addressed. You’ve simply condemned the biblical god as being evil based on your own perspective.

If I build you a wall, for your protection and you choose to bang your head against it whose fault is it if you get hurt? You seem to want to blame God for building the wall.
 
But that’s not really an interpretation. The verse is clear requiring no explanation of the words used. Therefore, it requires the second point in my “keys” — Context. Either immediate or remote. Here it requires a remote context or what I refer to as an overall understanding of both the Bible and culture of the times addressed. You’ve simply condemned the biblical god as being evil based on your own perspective.

If I build you a wall, for your protection and you choose to bang your head against it whose fault is it if you get hurt? You seem to want to blame God for building the wall.

Right, the abused are always forcing the abuser's hand, making him do it. It's a pretty common refrain among abusers. God clearly had no choice but to order the genocide of the Amalekites in revenge for something that happened hundreds of years before they were born. Those little infants were just 'banging their heads against the wall that God built.' It's their own fault that they ended up as babykabobs on the swords of his armies. :rolleyes:

You might as well blame the Jews for the holocaust while you're at it.
 
Right, the abused are always forcing the abuser's hand, making him do it. It's a pretty common refrain among abusers. God clearly had no choice but to order the genocide of the Amalekites in revenge for something that happened hundreds of years before they were born. Those little infants were just 'banging their heads against the wall that God built.' It's their own fault that they ended up as babykabobs on the swords of his armies. :rolleyes:

You might as well blame the Jews for the holocaust while you're at it.
Again, you're only demonstrating your fixation on what you've deemed to be an evil biblical god without considering the culture of the time. It was not entirely a rare action that the Israelis took. Remove a God from the equation and then what would you have? A cultural decision. One to insure the ongoing survival of the "tribe". For example:
As in the last example, there appears to have been a clear intention on the behalf of the Athenians to destroy the Melians as a group and a culture. This was meant as a warning to Athens' allies throughout Greece to remain loyal during the war with Sparta.
 
I wonder if the bible is at times inconsistent.

Like it treats stuff like tattoos,eating shrimp,eating pork,not working on the sabbath,crossdressing and such as a abomination against God.

But then it says a man can get away with rape by paying a girl's father some money.

 
Because he is a jealous, spiteful, vengeful God who will visit iniquity upon your children, and your children's children, the children of your children's children, and so on.

"I, Jehovah, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me;" -Deuteronomy 5:9

Just ask the Amalekites. Oh wait, you can't. Because genocide.
…of them that hate me.
 
Ok. Before eating the fruit, they did not have the concept of good and evil or right and wrong. They knew they were not to eat of the fruit, but that’s not the same as understanding it was morally wrong.

How did you come to that conclusion? Nothing in Genesis supports that claim and I’m not aware of anywhere else in the Bible that supports it.

Nowhere does it say that the serpent was the devil. Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 do refer to the devil as a serpent, but nowhere is it even implied that the devil was the serpent in the garden, who is specifically referred to as a beast.
No point in commenting. You seem to think you know it all.
 
I wonder if the bible is at times inconsistent.

Like it treats stuff like tattoos,eating shrimp,eating pork,not working on the sabbath,crossdressing and such as a abomination against God.

But then it says a man can get away with rape by paying a girl's father some money.

The problem here is that because the damsel was defiled no man would want her. That would be a shame not only to the damsel but the whole family. The money is what the father would have received had he given his daughter in matrimony. Thus the father and damsel was compensated. The alternative would not have been good. The context lays out the cultural expectations. Our culture is different.
 
…of them that hate me.

Right, because when someone harbors ill feelings toward you, the appropriate reaction is to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the third and upon the fourth generation. Especially if the people who hate you are scared little nonthreatening children that have no possible way to hurt you. Then you should definitely respond to their professions of hatred with centuries of genocide. :rolleyes:

The path of the Jedi is to respond to those who hate us with understanding, and compassion for their suffering. Jealousy and revenge are not virtues, though I expect it would be hard for those who follow Darth Jehovah to understand this.
 
Again, you're only demonstrating your fixation on what you've deemed to be an evil biblical god without considering the culture of the time. It was not entirely a rare action that the Israelis took. Remove a God from the equation and then what would you have? A cultural decision. One to insure the ongoing survival of the "tribe". For example:

If your argument is that God's values in the book are a reflection of Israeli culture at the time because they are formed from the imagination of authors immersed in that culture, I can see the sense in that. The iron age Israelites liked killing little children, so of course, their god liked it as well. As cultural values shift, the Jehovah character becomes progressively less bloodthirsty around the New Testament times.

In the context of the story though, the character of Darth Jehovah is meant to be immutable and timeless Until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from His Law until everything is accomplished. Going with the conceit that He is timeless and immutable, "It's ok cause that was just what all the kids were doing at the time" doesn't really fly as an excuse for his villainy. Even for the early Iron Age, the "see a baby, stab a baby" policy was particularly egregious.
 
If your argument is that God's values in the book are a reflection of Israeli culture at the time because they are formed from the imagination of authors immersed in that culture, I can see the sense in that. The iron age Israelites liked killing little children, so of course, their god liked it as well. As cultural values shift, the Jehovah character becomes progressively less bloodthirsty around the New Testament times.

In the context of the story though, the character of Darth Jehovah is meant to be immutable and timeless Until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from His Law until everything is accomplished. Going with the conceit that He is timeless and immutable, "It's ok cause that was just what all the kids were doing at the time" doesn't really fly as an excuse for his villainy. Even for the early Iron Age, the "see a baby, stab a baby" policy was particularly egregious.
Israel wanted a King. God warned them that a King wouldn't be good for them. They insisted because the other nations all had one. They got what they wanted. The Israelites were a stubborn and proud nation. Their survival was important because it was through them that the Messiah would be born redeeming mankind. At their times of ignorance God looked away.

That aside you started down this one track road by testing out my "keys" to interpretation. You haven't succeeded in calling them in question. You've barely even addressed the subject of the thread. Condemning a biblical god because of what it says about Israel slaughtering another nation has nothing to do with interpretation. It has everything to do with your moral perspective of right and wrong.
 
Israel wanted a King. God warned them that a King wouldn't be good for them. They insisted because the other nations all had one. They got what they wanted. The Israelites were a stubborn and proud nation. Their survival was important because it was through them that the Messiah would be born redeeming mankind. At their times of ignorance God looked away.

That aside you started down this one track road by testing out my "keys" to interpretation. You haven't succeeded in calling them in question. You've barely even addressed the subject of the thread. Condemning a biblical god because of what it says about Israel slaughtering another nation has nothing to do with interpretation. It has everything to do with your moral perspective of right and wrong.

Evaluating the morality and motives of key characters and the ethics of their decisions is a fundamental part of interpreting literature. You can't really discuss how to interpret Henry V without addressing whether he was a righteous ruler acting in the best interests of his country, or whether his aggression against France was an act of hubris, leading to unneccessary suffering and death for both his own men and for the French.
 
Right, because when someone harbors ill feelings toward you, the appropriate reaction is to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the third and upon the fourth generation. Especially if the people who hate you are scared little nonthreatening children that have no possible way to hurt you. Then you should definitely respond to their professions of hatred with centuries of genocide. :rolleyes:

The path of the Jedi is to respond to those who hate us with understanding, and compassion for their suffering. Jealousy and revenge are not virtues, though I expect it would be hard for those who follow Darth Jehovah to understand this.
I saw Star Wars. I didn't see any understanding nor compassion. ;)
 
I saw Star Wars. I didn't see any understanding nor compassion. ;)
I am still waiting for you to answer my question.

"I deny the existence of God.

Will your God punish me for that?"
 
I am still waiting for you to answer my question.

"I deny the existence of God.

Will your God punish me for that?"
You're a cynic, and that's okay with me, but you know the answer to your question. It's not a question at all. It's just bait. I'm done playing your little games. Find some other form of entertainment.
 
I saw Star Wars. I didn't see any understanding nor compassion. ;)

They are part of the 16 teachings:

"12. Jedi believe that love and compassion are central to their lives. We must love and care for each other as we must love and care for ourselves; by doing this we envelop all life in the positivity of our actions and thoughts. We are providers and beacons of hope.

13. Jedi cultivate empathy. We try to view things from another’s perspective making us sensitive listeners. We provide the confidence people need when talking through their difficulties and we share our learning with those who would benefit. We do this to help create a more harmonious society."


Whereas, "I, Jehovah, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me" is bad guy dialogue, and not particularly subtle about it.
 
I wonder if the bible is at times inconsistent.

Like it treats stuff like tattoos,eating shrimp,eating pork,not working on the sabbath,crossdressing and such as a abomination against God.

But then it says a man can get away with rape by paying a girl's father some money.



No, there are no inconsistencies in the Scriptures.....unless, we take verses out of context, or don't understand the cultures of the time.

Your quoted verse does not indicate rape. That's about seduction.
It would be hard for a non-virgin to find a husband in those times.
Financial recompense is more practical ......perhaps that it would take an unusual amount of dowry to find someone to marry a non-virgin.

Rape is punishable by death.

Deuteronomy 22
25 But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her,
only the man who has done this shall die.
 
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No, one can interpret in the wrong way...as proven by the many denominations of Christendom

Pardon me.....but yes, it can be interpreted the wrong way if we change what is written in the Bible,
and base our "interpretation" on that particular change.

It wouldn't be an interpretation of the Bible...........................because, it isn't what's written in the Bible!



Furthermore, we were warned so many times about FALSE TEACHINGS and FALSE PROPHETS!
That includes teachings that has corrupted the Bible!
Like heretical teachings that deny eternal punishment in a place of torment called HELL, as another example -
even though God had kept repeating it so many times, in so many ways!
 
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