[raliv]

Anyone read "Who Wrote the Bible?" by Richard Elliott Friedman?

It's an amazing book that goes into the Documentary Hypothesis of how the Old Testament came together through editors and authors over thousands of years. Can't recommend it enough. Might answer questions that come up when you read the OT about why you are reading the same passages and stories twice...

[SunW]

(05-23-2015 11:26 PM)h3ltrsk3ltr Wrote:  

Did we ever get an answer to the original question?

Yes, there have been multiple answers from different members. The rest of this topic appears to be a debate about which version of the Bible to read and frankly, that should be its own topic, so that this topic can solely be about the OT, questions related to the OT, and just general observations.

Roosh (latest post about Joseph) - Yes, Joseph experienced a false rape accusation. While it had to have sucked, Joseph's attitude (similar to Brian Bank's) is one of I'll move on and do what I can to further my situation and it works out for him. I'm not saying this was fair (it wasn't), just an interesting character trait of Joseph, who had his fair share of trials.

As for the crime itself, Solomon (Ecclesiastes) says it best later, "There is nothing new under the sun."

[Truth Teller]

(05-26-2015 11:03 AM)raliv Wrote:  

Anyone read "Who Wrote the Bible?" by Richard Elliott Friedman?

It's an amazing book that goes into the Documentary Hypothesis of how the Old Testament came together through editors and authors over thousands of years. Can't recommend it enough. Might answer questions that come up when you read the OT about why you are reading the same passages and stories twice...

I second this recommendation. I don't agree with Friedman about the E source, but I think that he does a fairly good job presenting the DH.

The DH is pretty widely accepted, but if people want to read an opposing view, take a look at The Historical Reliability of the Old Testament, by Kenneth Kitchen.

[didaskalos]

Hey guys, first post here. Wanted to comment earlier but had to wait for account approval. I'm a recovering ex-pastor and wanted to chime in on translations. The KJV is widely regarded for its literary elegance but is based on what they now consider to be inferior manuscripts, which touches on accuracy.

One problem with newer translations, of course, is their desire to be "gender neutral" as much as possible. I still like the New Revised Standard Version, which is well regarded academically.

[infowarrior1]

(05-22-2015 10:04 PM)memcpy Wrote:  

(05-22-2015 09:28 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

Frankly the God of the Old Testament resembles Satan of the New Testament.

The jump in consciousness is so stark to what Jesus taught or Paul who created the church later on, that one would wonder what the two books had in common at all - except a joint origin.

They should literally not be mentioned together at all.

Christ and God were together in the Old Testament and it was Christ who spoke to Abraham, then later to Moses to for the Ten Commandments.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made" (John 1:1–3).

"Word" is "logos" in Greek and has a different meaning.

The Greek word for spokesman is Logos. Jesus was the Logos of God.

A better translation might be:

"In the beginning was the spokesman, and the spokesman was with God, and the spokesman was a god."

Quote:

Jesus, as God's Word and Wisdom, was and is eternally an attribute of God the Father.

Just as our own words and thoughts come from us and cannot be separated from us, so it is that Jesus cannot be completely separate from the Father. But there is more to this explanation that is related to the distinction between functional subordination and ontological equality.

We speak of Christ as the "Word" of God, God's "speech" in living form. In Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern thought, words were not merely sounds, or letters on a page; words were things that "had an independent existence and which actually did things."

Throughout the Old Testament and in the Jewish intertestamental Wisdom literature, the power of God's spoken word is emphasized (Ps. 33:6, 107:20; Is. 55:11; Jer. 23:29; 2 Esd. 6:38; Wisdom 9:1). "Judaism understood God's Word to have almost autonomous powers and substance once spoken; to be, in fact, 'a concrete reality, a veritable cause.'" (Richard N. Longenecker, The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity , 145.)

But a word did not need to be uttered or written to be alive. A word was defined as "an articulate unit of thought, capable of intelligible utterance." (C. H. Dodd, Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 263. It cannot therefore be argued that Christ attained existence as the Word only "after" he was "uttered" by God. Some of the second-century church apologists followed a similar line of thinking, supposing that Christ the Word was unrealized potential within the mind of the Father prior to Creation.)

This agrees with Christ's identity as God's living Word, and points to Christ's functional subordination (just as our words and speech are subordinate to ourselves) and his ontological equality (just as our words represent our authority and our essential nature) with the Father. A subordination in roles is within acceptable Biblical and creedal parameters, but a subordination in position or essence (the "ontological" aspect) is a heretical view called subordinationism.

It is not sufficient to object that because Jesus is a person, he cannot be an "attribute" of the Father. Personhood is not incompatible with being an attribute of another person. Moreover, we should not presume that our inability as humans to have a personal attribute also means that God cannot have one.

A good article about the reason Christ was called the Logos.

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trinitydefense.php

[infowarrior1]

(05-24-2015 05:02 AM)N°6 Wrote:  

(05-23-2015 11:26 PM)h3ltrsk3ltr Wrote:  

Did we ever get an answer to the original question?

I answered it. In the OT and NT, God's opinion towards any person or group depends on whether the person or group is in covenant with him. God and Abraham are in blood covenant.

The blood covenant between God and Abraham is recorded in Genesis 15. It involved the cutting of animals length-wise and a walk through the blood and mess by the lesser party or the contract administrator. This was Hittite custom whereby a weaker king would enter blood covenant with the greater. In this case God took the lesser role by passing through the carnage with a burning torch (v.17). This gave Abraham a lot of rights and benefits with the forgiveness of his shortcomings being just one of them. Other benefits included land, riches, military prowess and of course a lineage that would rival the multitude of the stars. In return, through blood covenants, God gets access to the physical world which he had lost owing to the fall of Adam.

It is interesting that a omnipotent deity like God goes through legal procedures himself due to his nature that makes it impossible for him to be unjust in doing so he prevents himself from being justly accused of being arbitrary.

[infowarrior1]

(06-05-2015 07:21 AM)didaskalos Wrote:  

Hey guys, first post here. Wanted to comment earlier but had to wait for account approval. I'm a recovering ex-pastor and wanted to chime in on translations. The KJV is widely regarded for its literary elegance but is based on what they now consider to be inferior manuscripts, which touches on accuracy.

One problem with newer translations, of course, is their desire to be "gender neutral" as much as possible. I still like the New Revised Standard Version, which is well regarded academically.

The latest ones are unfortunately feminist translation and do everything to undermine the patriarchal nature of the family and church structure as well as the nature of OT kingship which is entirely restricted to direct male descendants of David.

[Truth Teller]

I've been inspired to start this thread by Roosh's reading of the OT. Anyway, I'm hoping to create a decent bedrock for anyone interested in the OT.

What is the Old Testament?

The Old Testament is a compilation of books held to be inspired Scripture by both Judaism and Christianity. Christianity also avows the New Testament, but Judaism clearly does not. The Old Testament tells the story of the Israelites from the creation in Genesis 1 to the prophecies of the Messiah, and ends with an eschatological book (Malachi).

Who wrote the Old Testament?

This is not the easiest question to answer, but most scholars today believe in something called the Documentary Hypothesis. This is a hypothesis proposed by Julius Wellenhausen in the 19th century, which suggests four separate authors, often called J, E, P, and D. These stand for the Jahwist (Yahwist), Elohist, Priestly, and Deuteronomical sources. Today, scholars will often collapse J and E into a split J/E source. The J source largely concerns itself with a more anthropomorphic God, and is therefore believed to be the earliest. It will use the name Yahweh (YHWH) for God. The E source, which scholars believe is from the north (the Kingdom of Israel/Samaria) is possibly as old. It's often identified through an emphasis on the Priests of Shiloh as well as use of the word "Elohim" as the name of God.

The P source can be identified through its orderly nature. Largely, if you see lists, numbers, or commandments, the P source is responsible. This is not always the case, though it is often so. The P source can also be identified through its inherent assumption of monotheism. There are reasons for this beyond the scope of an introduction, but if people want to learn about them, I'd be happy to discuss them. Finally, the D source comprises Deuteronomy. It explains the commandments over again, and concludes with Moses' death. It also may include the book of Joshua. There are also elements of it in Kings.

The above is the authorship of the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses. The rest of the Old Testament is written by a combination of scribes and prophets. There are some authorship questions for some of the books, and again, those can be discussed later.

When does the Old Testament date from?

According to most scholars, probably between 1200 BC and 600 BC. Some will argue for Daniel being as late as the 200s, and there may be some evidence of that. Daniel is certainly among the latest books in the OT. In terms of the four sources mentioned above, they date as follows:

J: 1000-800 (?)
E: 800-700s (?)
P: 600-500 BC (?)
D: 700-500 BC (?)

The dates are tough to pin down, and the D source may itself be a compilation over two centuries.

What is the historical value of the Old Testament?

It's tough to tell, and there's still a rather heated debate going on between maximalists (those who believe the OT more trustworthy and historically accurate) and minimalists, those who believe it to be untrustworthy and far too late. Over the last 20 or so years, archeologists have made a variety of discoveries that have called the minimalist hypotheses into question. For example, the minimalists claimed that David did not exist as a historical figure. A discovery at Tel Dan of a stele mentioning "The House of David" changed this line of thinking.

The majority of scholars, however, still fall somewhere between the two camps. The field seems to be somewhat center-right at this time.

What does this mean for historical endeavor?

It certainly shows that the ancient Israelites were henotheists, or believers that, while other gods existed, YHWH was the most powerful. It also explains a lot of the apparent OT contradictions. Furthermore, it shows a great consonance between the Canaanite (and other early Iron Age cultures' religions) and early Judaism. It also shows that they likely worshiped other gods prior to the Exilic period.

[N°6]

The first example of hypergamy in the Bible?

Genesis 6:6-8 Wrote:

6 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with[a] humans forever, for they are mortal[b]; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6

The 'Nephilim' comes from the Hebrew verb 'napal', 'to fall', therefore women married up with these 'Fallen Ones' who are described as the 'heroes of old, men of renown'.

Men of original Adamic stock would have found it impossible to compete against a polygamous demi-god hero and his many offspring for the hypergamic affections of women. In fact, it seems that the pure descendants of Adam would have been made extinct had God not cut man's lifespan to 120 years (the age of Moses when he died), sent a Flood and preserved a family and animals who still carried the genetic material of the Designer's original intent. There is one rule from Genesis that we see repeated several times which is supposed to be the basis of Nature, "each seed is to produce, according to its kind.' This is very relevant in the modern era when genes and hormones are being modified in humans, plants and animals and in the case of Monsanto fruit, it doesn't produce seed for the next natural cycle.

On the subject of hypergamy, the Book of Enoch which has been removed from the OT but still quoted by New Testament writers mentioned that the Fallen Angels taught women the dark arts such as astrology and abortion and how to cast spells with herbs etc.

I won't write it here but I know someone who contended with a coven of witches and what he experienced backs up the belief that the origin of the dark arts is what Fallen Angels originally taught women with the promise that occult power would reverse the physical and mental disadvantages that women have vis-à-vis men.

[kbell]

So now would be a good time to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah. Why were they destroyed?

http://www.gotquestions.org/Sodom-and-Gomorrah.html

That's a decent response. However why did the one woman look back and turn to salt? Did she do something bad beside not follow the instructions to no look back at the city?

[cascadecombo]

(06-26-2015 07:45 PM)kbell Wrote:  

So now would be a good time to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah. Why were they destroyed?

http://www.gotquestions.org/Sodom-and-Gomorrah.html

That's a decent response. However why did the one woman look back and turn to salt? Did she do something bad beside not follow the instructions to no look back at the city?

If I had to make an uninformed guess, her looking back when told explicitly not to shows that she still harbored some fond feelings for the city and its abhorrent customs. Something she may in the future nurture back into popularity through intent or no.

But who knows, maybe simply disobeying an order is enough to punish someone. Why on earth would you disobey someone who just obliterated an area behind you?

[Ambicatus]

(06-26-2015 09:47 PM)cascadecombo Wrote:  

(06-26-2015 07:45 PM)kbell Wrote:  

So now would be a good time to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah. Why were they destroyed?

http://www.gotquestions.org/Sodom-and-Gomorrah.html

That's a decent response. However why did the one woman look back and turn to salt? Did she do something bad beside not follow the instructions to no look back at the city?

Someone once asked me this. My thought was roughly the same as yours cascadecombo - if God was going to save me from being probably raped/sodomized and then destroyed in a fiery inferno and all I had to do was leave without looking back I sure wouldn't be looking back!

If I had to make an uninformed guess, her looking back when told explicitly not to shows that she still harbored some fond feelings for the city and its abhorrent customs. Something she may in the future nurture back into popularity through intent or no.

But who knows, maybe simply disobeying an order is enough to punish someone. Why on earth would you disobey someone who just obliterated an area behind you?

[Roosh]

I'm on Deuteronomy right now, I took a long pause when reading 23:20:

Quote:

Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

So God wanted Jews to be central bankers and control the financial system of many nations?

Before that, there are many references to allowing the Jews to wipe out their enemies by killing children and taking wives and spoils for themselves.

I am to believe Moses, a Jew, when he said that God wanted the Jews to dominate other peoples because they were held in favor? Isn't that a bit self serving? And both Christianity and Islam accepts the God of Abraham as the one true God, meaning that the Old Testament is fact to them.

[Samseau]

(07-03-2015 06:07 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

I'm on Deuteronomy right now, I took a long pause when reading 23:20:

Quote:

Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

So God wanted Jews to be central bankers and control the financial system of many nations?

Before that, there are many references to allowing the Jews to wipe out their enemies by killing children and taking wives and spoils for themselves.

I am to believe Moses, a Jew, when he said that God wanted the Jews to dominate other peoples because they were held in favor? Isn't that a bit self serving? And both Christianity and Islam accepts the God of Abraham as the one true God, meaning that the Old Testament is fact to them.

Jesus came to spread the blessings of the LORD from just the Jews to anyone who accepts the LORD's son. Keep reading the OT; the narrative changes from Jews as the chosen people into the Jews as a decadent, corrupt people who took God's blessings for granted and pissed of the LORD. (see: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=NIV)

God then sent his son to separate the good Jews from the evil Jews; God's Son also is sacrificed to extend the original Jewish covenant to anyone who accepts his Son. But more to your original question, the Jews who did not accept Christ were exterminated by the Romans and have lived in exile until the present day. Meanwhile the Jews who accepted Christ lived in harmony with their neighbors and became part of other cultures.

Interpreting that old passage in light of the NT would read that Christians are allowed to exterminate their enemies and enslave their women since they have accepted the covenant with God. However this message is tempered by the fact that Jesus said God desires mercy, and not sacrifice or judgement. So even conquered enemies of Christians may deserve to be spared from the wrath of the sword or slavery. Even still, for crimes too great then mercy would be an error as to cast pearls before swine.

[Roosh]

Why did God in Deuteronomy allow Jews to practice usury on gentiles?

[Lumbre]

(07-03-2015 06:07 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

I'm on Deuteronomy right now, I took a long pause when reading 23:20:

Quote:

Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

So God wanted Jews to be central bankers and control the financial system of many nations?

Before that, there are many references to allowing the Jews to wipe out their enemies by killing children and taking wives and spoils for themselves.

I am to believe Moses, a Jew, when he said that God wanted the Jews to dominate other peoples because they were held in favor? Isn't that a bit self serving? And both Christianity and Islam accepts the God of Abraham as the one true God, meaning that the Old Testament is fact to them.

Also take a look at this parallel verse from the same Hebrew law book:

"For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee." (Deuteronomy 15:6)


Most people are in a state of slumber and fail to see the true reality. The very uncomfortable and sickening truth is that the Hebrew Bible, the so-called "Old Testament" which lies at the foundation of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is actually nothing more than an ideological blueprint for the Jewish takeover of Gentile nations through covert infiltration as well as a forged religious history for the justification of themselves as an entitled "Chosen People". The true nature of Zionism, a worldly philosophy intrinsically linked to this absurd biblical concept of Jewish entitlement, is none other than the surrepticious financial and political domination of the entire world by an elect Jewish elite in accordance to the strategy layed out in the biblical blueprint. The Old Testament, whose secret doctrine is only for the Jews, is the "master program".

The Bible orders the Zionist insiders, today's powerful globalist bankers, to conquer whole nations through usurious debt. Usury is the fundamental modus operandi. They form their cartels, they loan large quantities of money out to foreign governments with high interest, they make them crumble under the strains of debt and then they covertly take control of those devastated nations. As evidenced in the Old Testament, this is the will of their warlike "god", already shown to be a xenophobic and psychopathic butcher in his own "holy" book. The same Jewish attitude, anti-Gentile rhetoric and underhanded strategies are elaborated even further in the later talmudic texts.

Then there are the "prophetic" and "apocalyptic" books of the Hebrew Bible, the infamous Ketuvim, which further outline the perverse Jewish fantasy or cunning plan of world domination through infiltration and war. The prophecized Jewish messianic age is really the Zionist ideal of a worldwide Jew-run communist slave state headed by the "New Jerusalem" in which productive Gentiles are exploited and robbed of their wealth whose property right is naturally handed over to the Jewish nation. When you read those books with a critical eye, you will become aware of the details. The would-be prophecy books say that the Jews will be scattered among the (Gentile) nations, a diaspora necessary in order for them to take financial control over them and continue their parasitic conspiracy. The final outcome is predicted to be a post-Armaggedon one-world theocracy wherein the people of Yahweh - the Jews, not the Christians - possess all the land, make all the laws and help themselves to all the wealth of the nations. It is no surprise that International Jewry has so pushed Marxist ideologies and a shift towards socialistic forms of government.

I would like to recommend that you take a look at the works of author Tony Malone of Saint Oxen Books and also the more heated blog of Christopher Jon Bjerknes for more information of this important subject. Both men share the view that the Hebrew Bible is a sort of blueprint for infiltration and conspiracy.

I am an ex-Christian. I woke up to the deception of abrahamic religion years ago. If Old Testament Judaism is the "master program", then New Testament Christianity is clearly the "slave program". Judaism is a twisted religion that teaches Jewish supremacism, delusional entitlement, anti-Gentile genocide, warmongering, usury and global domination. Conversely, Christianity is a Gentile-oriented offshoot that idealizes meakness and submission, promotes blind pacifism in the face of oppression and tyranny, denies the acquisition of wealth on Earth, rejects earthly pleasure and eudaimonia, preaches unconditional love even for those who abuse us and wish to conquer us, and teaches a mindset of self-victimhood. Therefore, Christianity is a blueprint of how to be a good docile slave. NT Christianity was always a sickly and perverse ideology that went thoroughly against the fundamental virtues of the original Pagan worldview.

Yes, the "god" of Judaism, the evil and bloodthirsty El-Yahweh-Saturn, does indeed wish for the elite Jews to establish themselves as central bankers and take control of our nations' financial systems through infiltration and usurious debt. His own scriptures express that desire clearly and for everyone to see.

[Truth Teller]

^^

Either troll or absolutely psychotic.

For anyone with knowledge of Jesus mythicists, the above sounds like a D.M. Murdock statement.

[Sherman]

Has anyone read Isaac Asimov's guide to the old and new testament? Asimov was a prolific writer of science fiction who also wrote dozens of books explaining science. I think Asimov was actually an atheist but I once had a work colleague who was an Orthodox Jew and a mathematical genius who thought very highly of him. So, I am sure it would be a good source of knowledge.

http://www.amazon.com/Asimovs-Guide-Bibl...8Z2XCGPFG9

[N°6]

(07-03-2015 07:03 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

Why did God in Deuteronomy allow Jews to practice usury on gentiles?

It is probably more correct to use 'Israelite' than 'Jew' for this period, as Jew is a corrupted term that originally meant 'Judean'. Judea the country did not exist yet.

The Gentiles did not have a covenant with Yahweh and those within the Land of Canaan were to be replaced by the 12 tribes of Israel.

We learn therefore that usury is a weapon of mass destruction as we see today with Greece. It was for this reason that Europeans now part of the (new) covenant as Christians were forbidden to lend at usury to another Christian. A usurer was seen as worse than a murderer as Dante's Inferno shows.

Later on the OT, Israel and Judea both extracted usury from their own people and did not observe the year of Jubilee when all debts were to be cleared and slaves freed. The Book of Ezekiel shows that one reason for the punishment of the captivity in Babylon was because of usury. They were also following the Canaanite cults of the Baals and Ashoreths to an even more fervent degree than the Gentiles were.

[cascadecombo]

I'm just now looking into exactly how tall Goliath would have been.
Six cubits and a span.

Most sources agree that a cubit in the Bible was equal to 21.8 inches, an Egyptian cubit was equal to 20.6 inches, a Greek cubit was equal to 18.3 inches, and a Roman cubit was equal to 17.5 inches.

That would have been about 11 feet tall using the standard cubit. If you go by the smallest measure of cubit it'd put him a little under 7 feet tall. Considering the differences in height from now and then that's still huge.

But going from the standard size, I'd like to imagine the size of the sword an 11 foot champion of a man would be wielding.

And then we have his brother.
2 Samuel 21:19
In another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jair the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.

So the dudes spear would have been around 12 feet long and 17 pounds heavy.

[N°6]

^Then there is King Og of Bashan's 9 cubit bed. He is recorded as one of the last of the Rephaim (giants but literally means 'the dead').

[Ambicatus]

(07-03-2015 06:07 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

I'm on Deuteronomy right now, I took a long pause when reading 23:20:

Quote:

Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

So God wanted Jews to be central bankers and control the financial system of many nations?

Before that, there are many references to allowing the Jews to wipe out their enemies by killing children and taking wives and spoils for themselves.

I am to believe Moses, a Jew, when he said that God wanted the Jews to dominate other peoples because they were held in favor? Isn't that a bit self serving? And both Christianity and Islam accepts the God of Abraham as the one true God, meaning that the Old Testament is fact to them.

To really grasp the meaning of the Bible it helps to have a commentary handy as well, otherwise it's easy to get confused or get the wrong idea. Using the KJV makes it a bit harder too, since it's written in "ye Olde English" and is such a literal translation of languages that lack punctuation and have several meanings for each word with multiple nuances. Context is key!

It might be a bit of a stretch to say that God wanted Israel to dominate other nations. In OT times God was building up the nation of Israel to be a mighty and holy nation. It's possible that usury was common practice among all nations in these times, if so then lending without interest to your friends then wouldn't be much different to lending your buddy a few interest-free dollars now. You want to help your buddy get ahead, after all.

Even with lending at interest that doesn't really equate to a proper banking system as we know it now - the Bible doesn't mention the fractional reserve system (which really is a licence to print money). That system didn't come along until the Knights Templar created it according to the sources I've read.

It is a common misconception that Christianity, Islam and Judaism all worship the same God. They don't. Islam and even Judaism don't actually take the OT as fact if you really drill into the meanings of the words.

Since Islam and Judaism both deny the divinity of Jesus, they cannot claim to be worshippers of the Father -
"No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also." 1 Jn 2:23.

Islam denies the divinity of Christ, and that he is the Son of God:
"The Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, is only a messenger from God and a word from Him (“Be” and it is), which He sent to Mary, and a soul from Him.[3] So, believe in God and His messengers, and do not say, “Three.” Stop, it is better for you. Indeed, God is one; exalted is He above having a son." Quran 4:171-172.

Adherents of Judaism/Talmudism frequently quote Deuteronomy 6:4 in an attempt to refute the divinity of Christ:
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one."

But to claim that as evidence against Jesus' divinity is either being ignorant or disingenuous. The word used for "one" is the Hebrew "echad" meaning "unified", rather than the singular "yachid" - see http://www.bible.ca/trinity/trinity-onen...-echad.htm , this link explains it better than I can.

This helps us make sense of what the Bible says about the God of Moses ("Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me[John 5:45-46]) and Abraham (“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad,”[John 8:56-58], "Abraham is our father," they answered. "If you were Abraham's children," said Jesus, "then you would do what Abraham did."[John 8:39]).

Since I don't wish to sidetrack this thread too much, I'll finish by saying that I think it is worthwhile studying exactly how the word "Jew" came about and came to be associated with what we call Judaism too much, and the differences between Dispensationalism, Supersessionism/Replacement theology, Dual covenant theology and Reformed Covenant theology.

[Lumbre]

(07-03-2015 09:19 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

^^

Either troll or absolutely psychotic.

For anyone with knowledge of Jesus mythicists, the above sounds like a D.M. Murdock statement.

I find it hilarious and also quite disturbing that either a hardcore Christian or a pro-biblical sympathizer, somebody who believes in or respects the sacrificial atonement cult of the Nazarene, could call me "psychotic"! We really do live in a twisted and degenerate society wherein perversion is seen as "normal" and immorality is considered "morality".

Christianity, a depraved cult of ritual human sacrifice, the immolation of the son of "god", for the exoneration of the sins of the believer!

Judaism, an earlier depraved cult of constant animal sacrifice to the blood-lusting Hebrew war god Yahweh for the atonement of sins and transgressions of the Law of Moses!

People who believe that the ritualistic shedding of innocent blood and the sacrificial destruction of animal life can cleanse one of his sins and gain him forgiveness for his errors and transgressions are the most psychotic perverts of all.

But in today's crazy society, the blind and the deluded will mock the awoken ones accusing us of being fools and madmen.

In the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh, the god of the Jews, clearly orders his people to burden the nations (non-Jews) with usurious debt so that they may rule over them, yet dishonest Christian apologists will read into the passages their own justifications in order to save face for their deceptive cult.

Also, for anyone with knowledge of pre-biblical Middle Eastern mythology, it is clear that the central narratives of Genesis are nothing more than late recasts and even plagiarisms of the earlier Mesopotamian mythological accounts.

But nice try with your ad hominem attack though!

[Ambicatus]

Lumbre Wrote:

I find it hilarious and also quite disturbing that either a hardcore Christian or a pro-biblical sympathizer, somebody who believes in or respects the sacrificial atonement cult of the Nazarene, could call me "psychotic"! We really do live in a twisted and degenerate society..

At least we agree one one thing. Ever wonder how it got that way?

Lumbre Wrote:

...wherein perversion is seen as "normal" and immorality is considered "morality".

I personally find it hilarious and disturbing that you're railing against the immorality you seem to think the Bible promotes, while at the same time lamenting the decline in morality caused by abandoning God's moral absolutism in favour of human moral relativism.

What an intriguing juxtaposition of opposites. You truly are a cut above the average troll.

Lumbre Wrote:

Christianity, a depraved cult of ritual human sacrifice...

No. You must have Christianity confused with the Aztec religion or something. Although disciples are called to die to sin and be a living sacrifice (Rom 6:11, 12:1).

Lumbre Wrote:

the immolation of the son of "god", for the exoneration of the sins of the believer!

Judaism, an earlier depraved cult of constant animal sacrifice to the blood-lusting Hebrew war god Yahweh for the atonement of sins and transgressions of the Law of Moses!

People who believe that the ritualistic shedding of innocent blood and the sacrificial destruction of animal life can cleanse one of his sins and gain him forgiveness for his errors and transgressions are the most psychotic perverts of all.

You mean modern day folks who attempt to be saved through the Old Covenant traditions?

I wouldn't say they're the most psychotic perverts at all. I'd probably put serial child killers/molesters a bit higher on the list personally. They're certainly foolish though, the New Covenant is much better and it's physically impossible to follow the Old Covenant now anyway.

Of course that's just my moral standard being different to yours, and we all know what that's called....

Lumbre Wrote:

But in today's crazy society, the blind and the deluded will mock the awoken ones..

I agree with you there too.... Isaiah 44:18.

Lumbre Wrote:

In the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh, the god of the Jews, clearly orders his people to burden the nations (non-Jews) with usurious debt so that they may rule over them,

Care to offer any evidence beyond what's already been discussed here?

Lumbre Wrote:

yet dishonest Christian apologists will read into the passages their own justifications in order to save face for their deceptive cult.

I'll take that as a "no" then.

Lumbre Wrote:

Also, for anyone with knowledge of pre-biblical Middle Eastern mythology, it is clear that the central narratives of Genesis are nothing more than late recasts and even plagiarisms of the earlier Mesopotamian mythological accounts.

I think you'll find it's the other way around, buddy.

Lumbre Wrote:

But nice try with your ad hominem attack though!

..........

[Lumbre]

Ambiticus,

It was never really my intention to get into a long drawn-out debate on this subject, as an ex-Christian reading the Bible, I just call a spade a spade.

First of all, it is an absurd fallacy that the biblical god Yahweh is an embodiment of goodness and morality. His own scriptures show him to be a ruthless tyrant who orders genocides against non-Hebrew peoples, lootings of foreign wealth and ritual sacrifice of living creatures. The wise American Deist Thomas Paine in his famous book 'The Age of Reason' famously expressed that belief in a cruel god makes for a cruel person. I see today that Christians have no qualms about the many cruel and sadistic acts of barbarity perpetrated by their warlike god throughout the Bible and therefore expose the perversity of their own minds as they value blind faith over reason and innate morality.

Please don't come with the myth of so-called biblical 'moral absolutism'. That has always been a fallacy. The biblical religion is really a clear example of moral relativism. Throughout the scriptures we see that it is always one rule for Yahweh's chosen followers and another rule for everyone else. A departure from Christian "values" was never the cause for the evident moral decline. A departure from common sense and reason was!

I see that you wish to call me a troll simply because I don't agree with your religion. I understand that Christians prefer to resort to personal attacks and deflectory techniques whenever somebody points out the barbarity of their religion's teachings or puts into question the absurdities of their worldview. This is quite understandable given that they have an emotional investment in what they are defending. Christians are forced to shy away from reasonable debate about subjects pertaining to the morality and the authenticity of their own religion.

I am not confusing Christianity with any other religion. Nice deflectory technique buddy! The Old Testament religion, the foundation of the abrahamic worldview and contextual backdrop of the Christian offshoot, was always a religion centered around the bloody sacrifice of living animals through ritual slayings and holocausts for the atonement of the follower's transgressions of the Mosaic Law and also for the appeasement of the violent and bloodthirsty local deity Yahweh. In ancient Judaism, there were three main types of sacrifices: The holocaust, a daily fully burnt animal offering to Yahweh in order to show him devotion and appreciation; the Peace Offering, a bloody sacrifice in order to thank Yahweh for his "mercy" towards his Chosen People; and the Atonement Offering, a brutal immolation of a living creature over the jehovitic altar in order to ask for the forgiveness of so-called sins and transgressions. Judaism was always a cult of barbaric bloodshed and sacrifice.

Christianity gets even more bizzare. The whole core doctrine of the Christian sect is that Jesus, the purported son of Yahweh, was sacrificed on the cross as a live offering to Yahweh for the atonement and exoneration of the sins of Christians! It is a cult of sacrifice founded on the sacrificial offering of a sentient being in exchange for Yahweh's favor and the forgiveness of one's errors! It doesn't get any more blatant, does it? Religions based on blood sacrifice and the destruction of life are never paragons of morality, but rather insane teachings of perversion and degeneracy.

The so-called New Covenant can be likened to a form of spiritual usury. The religious elite, the Christian myth-makers, first attempt to convince us that we have a problem (Original Sin) and that we need help (forgiveness and salvation). Then they offer a solution: acceptance of the doctrine of Jesus's sacrifice for man's supposed sins and obedience to such institution. They convince us that we are somehow indebted to this so-called savior. Then the new converts slavishly follow them and hand over their money and possessions in the form of tything. Much of organized religion has always been a business.

According to the Bible, Yahweh is a child killer and a psychopathic genocidal 'man of war'.

As a modern person, I don't attempt to follow either the "Old Conenant" or the "New Covenant". They are both absurd and deeply immoral as insightful philosophers like Nietzsche and Ayn Rand have pointed out. But I suppose they are just cut-above-the-rest trolls too, aren't they? Deism is a much better option than outrageous barbaric Abrahamism or godless nihilistic materialism.

As for a crazy society of blind and deluded folks, I was referring to people like you, those who follow the absurd sacrificial cult of biblical religion while portaying themselves as moral and enlightened. I don't need some primitive book to reach the conclusion that society has gone mad and has been mad for hundreds of years. In fact, Judeo-Christianity has arguably brought about a lot more madness than anything else.

The evidence offered here is clear. But as I suggested to Roosh, for more information you can read Tony Malone's great work on the matter. Search for 'Saint Oxen Books'. That said, can you offer any evidence for the veracity of the Bible other than "the Bible itself says that it's the word of god"?

On topic, the Jews have always had a reputation for being usurers, in ancient times and today. They were expelled from many European lands hundreds of times. What has always compelled the Jews to engage in usury and financial deception? The obvious answer is that they are motivated by their own scriptures which not only permit this crime but also encourage and even order it. Turn a blind eye if you want, but the truth will always be the truth.

The Sumerian cuneiform texts are more ancient than even the oldest books of the Bible by not only centuries but millennia. The Sumerian culture is the most ancient known civilization in the region and predates the Hebrew culture by an enormous timespan. It is widely acknowledged that the Sumerian mythological accounts influenced the later cultures and religions of the region including the Hebrew one. Great sumerologian Samuel Noah Kramer and many others of his generation have written several highly respected scholarly books on the matter. Attempting to deny this fact and suggest otherwise only shows your ignorance with regards to history and mythology. But I am sure that you are only capable of arguing from an emotional and dogmatic mindset as most religious Christians do, afterall fideistic religions such as Christianity and Islam rely on axiomatic dogma as opposed to research and inquiry.

The previous guy had no argument. He could only compare me to the New Age SJW Acharya S and accuse me of being a troll just because I don't accept his religion!

By leaving Evangelical Christianity some years ago, I regained my sanity and rediscovered a deep sense of spiritual wellbeing. I took the Red Pill for religion so to speak.

Satyameva Jayate!