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Thread: How true is the Bible?

  1. #161

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by basics View Post
    Common Soldier,


    When we say that there are many truths in the Bible does that also mean there are many untruths in it? If that is the case then we cannot say it is the Word of God because God cannot lie nor has any ned to lie. The Bible is a record of His workings from creation till now and yes even beyond. So, the men who did the writing did so being inspired by the Spirit in them to demonstrate the power that God has over His creation in every aspect. Of course He could have chiselled out the words Himself as He did with the Ten Commandments but then His power to convince would have been lost without the input of man brought to faith throughout the ages. In other words the writers are the messengers carrying His Gospel to the world on His behalf from creation on and so cannot be taken with a pinch of salt if saving grace is to work. It's His Gospel that is the power of God to save and if that Gospel is impaired by error then salvation cannot take place, why? Because what we read or hear of Him has to be by and of faith, a faith that is His gift to give through Jesus Christ our Lord.
    Even granting that God inspired the Bible though the Holy Spirit that does not necessarily make it perfect or entirely free of mistakes in areas that are not critical. God chose to use people to write the Bible and nothing people do is without some error or mistakes and the Bible should not be any exception. People are not perfect, and nothing they do is entirely perfect. Minor errors that are not critical to the message of the Bible is trying to convey are ok. It doesn't really matter if the Last Supper was a Passover Meal or one the day before the Passover, it doesn't take away the critical message that Jesus died and arose on the 3rd day. Confusing the Last Supper meal for a Passover Meal is the kind of error that real eyewitnesses would make remembering events several decades in the past. Scientific studies have shown that eyewitness.memories are not perfect, even for very memorable events. But it is only in the details and not the essenrials that the eyewitness memory is off. Why should the Bible be perfect if nothing else people do is.perfect.
    Last edited by Common Soldier; August 15, 2019 at 11:49 AM.

  2. #162
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Common Soldier View Post
    ...
    While the Bible did complain about harlots, I don't recall any passage where priestess were especially targeted for killing any more than the priests. Can you perhaps.recall the passages? ...
    I think there are two terms used for prostitute in the Bible, one meaning common prostitute and one meaning temple prostitute. When the OT rails against 'harlots" is usually against sacred prostitutes, essentially priestesses of non-Yahweh religions.

    Just did a quick Google and apparently the scholarship has started questioning the prevalence of sacred prostitution. Certainly the OT assumes that priestesses of foreign religions use sex as part of their worship eg Hosea 4:13.
    Jatte lambastes Calico Rat

  3. #163

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    I think there are two terms used for prostitute in the Bible, one meaning common prostitute and one meaning temple prostitute. When the OT rails against 'harlots" is usually against sacred prostitutes, essentially priestesses of non-Yahweh religions.

    Just did a quick Google and apparently the scholarship has started questioning the prevalence of sacred prostitution. Certainly the OT assumes that priestesses of foreign religions use sex as part of their worship eg Hosea 4:13.
    Women can have sex and act as prostitutes as part of their religion, but that does not necessarily make them priestess. I don't recall the OT passages that specifically describe temple prostitutes, can you point them to me? Does rhe Old Testament specifically mention temple prostitutes and specifically describe it, or that merely some scholars opinions on what they merely think that is what the OT says?

    In any case, it wAs Herodotus who clearly described the practice of temple prostitution in ancient Babylon. Women would have to serve in the temple at least once in their life and have sex with strangers in thr Temple of Ishtar in Babylon, and I recall the Greek writer saying how less favored women (i.e. ugly) women could take years to fullfil their requirements.

    PS - Temple prostitution is still practiced in a few places in India today, the system is called Devdasi. The government has tried to ban it, but it still persist in a few locations.
    Last edited by Common Soldier; August 15, 2019 at 08:58 PM.

  4. #164
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Common Soldier View Post
    Women can have sex and act as prostitutes as part of their religion, but that does not necessarily make them priestess. I don't recall the OT passages that specifically describe temple prostitutes, can you point them to me? Does rhe Old Testament specifically mention temple prostitutes and specifically describe it, or that merely some scholars opinions on what they merely think that is what the OT says?....
    The verse I quoted appears to describe sacred prostitution, I assume a person who is an official of a religion performing a rite is a priest or priestess. Certainly that is the scholarly reading of the OT scholarship in the pas although as I say its been challenged.
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  5. #165
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Common Soldier,

    When Jesus taught in the synagogues or temple, even in the open air, it was with great authority that left the religious looking silly or stupid, why? Because to Him regarding the Scriptures as the word of God, He taunted them for their ignorance of them. All that He taught had but one objective that being to declare that the Kingdom of God was fulfilled in Him and that remember was the Old Covenant writings. Why even His disciples were confused by it all and that didn't clear until the Holy Spirit fell on them at Pentecost. So when that time arrived and they began to put on parchment the things they had experienced with Him the connection with the Old Covenant writings was emphasised by their writings authenticating these all the way back to Genesis.

    So, when Jesus said that not one jot or tittle would pass away regarding Him that must include from Genesis to the book of the Revelation, why? Because every book in the Bible is about His Gospel and taken in faith to be so. That is why a born again believer does so because when they are made regenerate and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, Him not being able to deny Jesus, has to lead them into all truth.

  6. #166

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    I think there are two terms used for prostitute in the Bible, one meaning common prostitute and one meaning temple prostitute. When the OT rails against 'harlots" is usually against sacred prostitutes, essentially priestesses of non-Yahweh religions.

    Just did a quick Google and apparently the scholarship has started questioning the prevalence of sacred prostitution. Certainly the OT assumes that priestesses of foreign religions use sex as part of their worship eg Hosea 4:13.
    The first word, zōnāh isn't necessarily a prostitute. It can be, or just a woman of questionable sexual morals. It's the feminine noun version of the verbal root z-n-h, which is "to fornicate". That's the more common word. It's also pretty common in modern Hebrew so if you try to look it up written in the Hebrew script you get a lot of pictures of Miley Cyrus. I'd say it's probably a lot like the old school usage of harlot in English.

    It's the second word, qədêšāh which is a matter of debate. It's the feminine noun version of the verbal root q-d-š, which is "to be holy" or more literally "to separate" or "to set apart". It is pretty clear that a qədêšāh like the male qadêš had some sort of function in Canaanite temples, and in the Temple of Jerusalem at some point. Early Greek texts translated this as "initiate" rather than as "prostitute". The role of a qədêšāh appears to have been analogous to their Mesopotamian counterpart - qadištu in Akkadian. Since there is no clear evidence of them having a role as prostitutes in any Semitic text, scholars have become increasingly skeptical of Herodotus on this issue. In Ugaritic texts qdšm, the masculine plural cognate are usually grouped together with priests - khnm. That's qədêšîm and kōhănîm in the Masoretic Hebrew pronunciation. The male qədêšîm seem to have served a role along the lines of the Levites in the biblical texts. The female qədêšōt (plural) if they were like their Mesopotamian counterparts depicted in cuneiform texts, most likely performed purification rituals for women and served as temple midwives. According to the various Akkadian law codes, such women were afforded the same protections as married women. They may have also been the women in the temple who did weaving for Asherah (2 Kings 23:7). There is one particular Babylonian text, in which qadištu is grouped together with other classes of women known to be celibate due to their relationship with male deities, rather than grouped together with legal classes of women whose sexuality was not regulated, but a qadištu could marry and have children. It's noteworthy that these other classes of women now known to have been celibate had all been assumed to be temple prostitutes by scholars in the past at one point or another.

    The biblical connection to it being a prostitute comes from the story of Tamar. She disguises herself as a zōnāh in order to trick Judah into impregnating her. Later when Judah sends her a young goat with his friend as payment, his friend asks for the qədêšāh​ who had been by the street earlier, which suggests it was used as a synonym for zōnāh. There is no indication here that Tamar had been associated with a temple. One possibility is that this simply relates to the biblical characterization of the worshiping of Canaanite gods as whoring oneself out to them. Thus a Canaanite qədêšāh is seen as a woman who whores herself out to idols, making the word gradually become a synonym for prostitute.
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  7. #167
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    sumskilz,

    Would it then be true to say that God in instituting worship in the temple and synagogues separated men from women with the pirpose of negating any lustful thoughts by either sexes during the services? I'm thinking of Jesus' saying that to even think lustfully is as bad as actually doing it and that's why the separation in worship. What's your thoughts?

  8. #168

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    I hear that Pope no longer considers to be a sin. Is the Bible truer than before now?
    The Armenian Issue

  9. #169

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    The verse I quoted appears to describe sacred prostitution, I assume a person who is an official of a religion performing a rite is a priest or priestess. Certainly that is the scholarly reading of the OT scholarship in the pas although as I say its been challenged.
    It makes no mention of priestess in the passage. Simply because people make pagan sacrifices does not make them priestess. In fact, if you read Hosea 4:14, God says he will not punish the daughters for being prostitutes, nor the daughter-in-laws for adultery, because the men themselves go intonharlots and consult with the shrine prostitutes. How can you blame the women, God is saying, when the men set such poor examples? People without understanding (i.e. who do there things) will bring their own ruin.

    The women turning to prostitution was a metaphor of the people of Judah turning away from God and going after pagan God's. Adultery, prostitution was commonly a metaphor in the OT for God's people unfaithfulness in not following God's requirements. It doesn't say shrine prostitutes or the even the priest being specifically being killed, it said the people (common folk, rich, all who disobeyed God) would be sweet away, which did not necessarily mean killed. Sweft away might mean been by carried off to foreign lands, which is what happened.

    I don't see that passage supporting what you say, if anything, it seems to contradict somewhat what you said.
    Last edited by Common Soldier; August 17, 2019 at 04:51 PM.

  10. #170

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    I hear that Pope no longer considers to be a sin. Is the Bible truer than before now?
    What to be a sin? A sad face?

  11. #171

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    I hear that Pope no longer considers to be a sin. Is the Bible truer than before now?
    That story was made up by a satirical website. I don't know what your question means.
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  12. #172
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    I hear that Pope no longer considers to be a sin. Is the Bible truer than before now?
    PointOfViewGun,

    Didn't Paul declare that if anyone preaches another gospel it is no Gospel at all even if it were delivered by an angel never mind a pope so there lies your answer to that remark. Nobody has the authority to add or subtract from what is laid down.

  13. #173

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Prodromos View Post
    That story was made up by a satirical website. I don't know what your question means.
    Seems like. Though when I first posted I could swear there was a decent article on it being real. My bad.


    Quote Originally Posted by basics View Post
    PointOfViewGun,

    Didn't Paul declare that if anyone preaches another gospel it is no Gospel at all even if it were delivered by an angel never mind a pope so there lies your answer to that remark. Nobody has the authority to add or subtract from what is laid down.
    Interestingly, I have seen you adding to the Gospel. Do you not consider the Bible to be true?
    The Armenian Issue

  14. #174
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Common Soldier View Post
    ...
    I don't see that passage supporting what you say, if anything, it seems to contradict somewhat what you said.
    Well as I say in the past it was read as sacred prostitution, i was certainly taught that in the 1980's and 1990's. Sumskilz has addressed the question very helpfully in his post and it seems the question is more complex.

    My own opinion is sex was probably included in religious practices in the past, and I think there are echoes of that in the Bible (as well as Herodotus, some Indian religions, even in certain witchcraft/folk practices etc). In a similar way alcohol and other drugs have been included in religious practices.

    As the Bible stories have been heavily edited the sense and currency may have changed. Certainly accusations of sexual immorality are part of some Biblical narratives, but its unclear if the imputations are true, false or a mischaracterisation of existing practices.
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  15. #175
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    Seems like. Though when I first posted I could swear there was a decent article on it being real. My bad.




    Interestingly, I have seen you adding to the Gospel. Do you not consider the Bible to be true?
    PointOfViewGun,

    OK, what have I added to the Gospel that declares the Gospel to be wrong?

  16. #176

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by basics View Post
    PointOfViewGun,

    OK, what have I added to the Gospel that declares the Gospel to be wrong?
    You didn't add anything that declares the Gospel to be wrong to my knowledge, but you added stuff that wasn't in it as if it was there. You claimed before that Adam and Eve's biology changed because of their departure from Eden. You claimed that if they didn't leave heaven they'd produce an offspring every single time they had sex when in fact only 5% of intercourse result in pregnancy.
    The Armenian Issue

  17. #177

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    Well as I say in the past it was read as sacred prostitution, i was certainly taught that in the 1980's and 1990's. Sumskilz has addressed the question very helpfully in his post and it seems the question is more complex.

    My own opinion is sex was probably included in religious practices in the past, and I think there are echoes of that in the Bible (as well as Herodotus, some Indian religions, even in certain witchcraft/folk practices etc). In a similar way alcohol and other drugs have been included in religious practices.

    As the Bible stories have been heavily edited the sense and currency may have changed. Certainly accusations of sexual immorality are part of some Biblical narratives, but its unclear if the imputations are true, false or a mischaracterisation of existing practices.

    Sexual immorality was.often a metaphor for spiritual immorality. The people of Israel were often compare to an unfaithful wife, listing after over gods the wayan unfaithful wife listed after over men.

    Anyways, the Bible does not especially target priestess or prostitutes as you claimed. If the best reference you can produced is one mention of "temple prostitutes" mentioned in passing, and where it doesn't even specifically mention that these will be destroyed, your claim doesn't seem to hold up.

    Even the mention of "temple prostitutes" could be the result of the translator's choice, and the original Hebrew could be more ambiguous.

    That some kind of prostitution was associate with some of the ancient pagan religions is definite, based on both Herodotus and modern practiced in some parts of India, but whether there were priestess who were prostitutes is less certain, the Bible does not given definite indication as far as I know.

  18. #178
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    I was gonna come here to post but since you're already talking about it, check out Ezekiel 23. It definitely targets prostitutes.
    Ezekiel 23:20 is of particular importance.



  19. #179

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Gill on Ezekiel 23:
    "In this chapter the idolatries of Israel and Judah are represented under the metaphor of two harlots, and their lewdness."*

    Ezekiel 23:20 (KJV): "For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses."

    Gill's exegesis:
    "For she doted upon their paramours,.... Or "concubines"F26; the neighbouring nations and allies of the Egyptians, whose friendship the Jews courted, and whose idols they served: the Septuagint and Arabic versions wrongly read the Chaldeans:
    whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses; by "flesh" is meant the "membrum virile", which in asses is very large, and therefore dedicated to Priapus by the Heathens; and vast is the profusion of seed in coitus by horses, to which the flesh and issue of the Egyptian paramours are compared; who were very libidinous, and therefore desirable to insatiable women; all which serves to express the eagerness of the people of the Jews after idolatry."

    *Gill's commentary on the chapter as a whole:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

    "In this chapter the idolatries of Israel and Judah are represented under the metaphor of two harlots, and their lewdness. These harlots are described by their descent; by the place and time in which they committed their whoredoms; by their names, and which are explained, Ezekiel 23:1, the idolatries of Israel, or the ten tribes, under the name of Aholah, which they committed with the Assyrians, and which they continued from the Egyptians, of whom they had learned them, are exposed, Ezekiel 23:5, and their punishment for them is declared, Ezekiel 23:9 then the idolatries of Judah, or the two tribes, under the name of Aholibah, are represented as greater than those of the ten tribes, Ezekiel 23:11, which they committed with the Assyrians, Ezekiel 23:12, with the Chaldeans and Babylonians, Ezekiel 23:13 in imitation of the Egyptians, reviving former idolatries learnt of them, Ezekiel 23:19, wherefore they are threatened, that the Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Assyrians, should come against them, and spoil them, and carry them captive, Ezekiel 23:22, and the prophet is bid to declare the abominable sin of them both, Ezekiel 23:36, and to signify that they should be judged after the manner of adulteresses, should be stoned, and dispatched with swords, their sons and their daughters, and their houses burnt with fire; by which means their adulteries or idolatries should be made to cease, Ezekiel 23:45

  20. #180

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Commissar Caligula_ View Post
    I was gonna come here to post but since you're already talking about it, check out Ezekiel 23. It definitely targets prostitutes.
    Ezekiel 23:20 is of particular importance.
    You don't seem to understand what a metaphor is. Let me help you:

    noun


    1. a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
      "her poetry depends on suggestion and metaphor"





      synonyms: figure of speech, figurative expression, image, trope, allegory, parable, analogy, comparison, symbol, emblem, word painting, word picture; literaryconceit






      • a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract.
        "the amounts of money being lost by the company were enough to make it a metaphor for an industry that was teetering"
      • https://www.google.com/search?q=meta...hrome&ie=UTF-8


        Ezekiel is not talking about literal prostitutes, he is using the word prostitute as a metaphor for how the Jews were not faithful to God. It is clear from what Ezekiel says at the beginning of chapter 23:

        23 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, there were two women, daughters of the same mother. 3 They became prostitutes in Egypt, engaging in prostitution from their youth. In that land their breasts were fondled and their virgin bosoms caressed. 4 The older was named Oholah, and her sister was Oholibah. They were mine and gave birth to sons and daughters. Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.
        https://www.biblegateway.com/passage...23&version=NIV
        .
        .
        Ezekiel is using the 2 sisters (Oholah) and Oholibah to stand in for the northern kingdom of Israel, whose capital was Samaria, and Oholibah, to stand in for the kingdom of Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem. Obvious, since he is talking about an entire nation, he isn't really talking about sex here. The lewd sexual acts he talks about were metaphors for the the those kingdoms following after pagan practices. The Bible does this a lot, and any one with any kind of understanding would know. The Bible uses hyperboles and other literary devices. When someone says "it is raining cats and dogs", they don't really mean it is raining furry mammals, and you shouldn't call them a liar if you see only water coming down.


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