Why do we treat the Bible as a book?

[path_of_one]

I think there's a difference between being negative and being critical. I think Wil is certainly critical, but not negative. He reads his Bible and follows Jesus Christ, so to me he is part of the brotherhood/sisterhood of the Body of Christ whether I agree with him or not. I don't always get along with my sister, but I love her and she is my family. I kind of see the Body of Christ that way. I don't "get" fundamentalists and I am critical, but I still love them and pray for them and I don't doubt their sincerity in their faith in Jesus. We're just different in lots of ways. I guess I'm the sort that just wishes to see the divisions go away and Christians be more encouraging of each other. Critical reading doesn't mean that someone sees the Bible as bad or negative or useless. But anyhoo, I'm always for diversity so there you go. My own family has Buddhist, New Age, Jewish, agnostic, and Christian from the spectrum of liberal to mainline traditional to fundamentalist. I love them all.

As for the ignore function- sorry, it's Brian's decision and he sees it as for the protection of our members so that they don't get moderated without seeing why (because they have us on ignore). But that doesn't stop people from using the scroll button to skim past someone. I'm sure there are Christians who do it to me. No one can be everyone's cup o' tea. I still kind of wish that there was some way for me to post as "myself" and let people ignore me if they wish and have some other way to post as "modly Kim" and have that not be able to be ignored. But as there isn't, not much I can do about it.

 

[Dogbrain]

Am I the only person who has ever heard the term "anthology"? An anthology is a book, a book that compiles several shorter works into one volume. Is it that much of a brain boggle?

 

[Dream]

What is kind of cool about reading the Bible as a book is that when you do, you force all the parts to have equal importance. It is as if you imagine each piece, each word as a cog in a great machine; and it becomes your reading task to closely examine the squeakier parts of that machine as well the parts that don't turn when the whole is on a certain setting. "Now try it with the red button, now with the green!" Now you are a literary engineer studying a huge system, and it becomes possible to trace lines of thought throughout the whole 'Bible'. Those lines that are longest are like lines of connected gears which all turn together and represent the underlying major organs and bones of a great creature. By assuming as a null hypothesis, the Bible is a book, you discover by experience what an anthology is. It may sound strange, but there is a quality of discovery that you get out of it which I doubt you'd get if you started from looking at it as separate books.

I have read the Bible as a book, skipping bits of Leviticus (though I found later that Leviticus was super-important) and Job. Later I read those parts again. Read as a book the Bible requires a lot of explanation before you can mentally give the writings an ordinal arrangement, who wrote what first, and a guess as to why. You also have to get some help understanding the cultures where the different pieces were thought to have been written, and not all are for certain. The origin of Job is debated a lot, for example. Also, you start with poor familiarity and then pick up familiarity as you go; so you understanding can change. It can be frustrating when the resources aren't available, and a lot of people give up before they feel they've gotten the gist of the Bible.

 

[wil]

They had hundreds of books at the time....we know some of them, we are still discovering some others. Out of all those books they picked 66 books to compile. First the Jews cannonized theirs, and then we rearranged their order and added ours.

There is a thought that we first need to understand and familiarize ourselves, reconcile and embrace the 66 before we are ready to move onto the rest....

 

[Quahom1]

Am I the only person who has ever heard the term "anthology"? An anthology is a book, a book that compiles several shorter works into one volume. Is it that much of a brain boggle?

Actually, the word "Bible" is taken from Biblia, which means "Library", and this has been discussed several times before from various view points.

v/r

Q

 

[Selaphiel]

The Bible is indeed a library of books, but it is something more, it is a canon. It being a canon means that it is more than a collection of books, it implies that there is a relationship between the books or it should at least be read as if it were.
That being said, it is fair to say that the Bible offers multiple not always compatible theological views. Th New Testament also has priority over the Old Testament for a Christian, so all the books are not equal per se.
Christ is the word of God, not the Bible. Personally I think that many treat the Bible as an idol, dancing around it as an infallible source in every way sometimes leading to obscene views on certain sciences.
Is Paul (or Jesus in the Gospel of John for that matter) saying that we are to receive the Bible in our body? My Lord Jesus Christ gave me the his Holy spirit, I am a temple to the Holy spirit, and to me that must be a voice of reason and rationality.

 

[Quahom1]

The Bible is indeed a library of books, but it is something more, it is a canon. It being a canon means that it is more than a collection of books, it implies that there is a relationship between the books or it should at least be read as if it were.
That being said, it is fair to say that the Bible offers multiple not always compatible theological views. Th New Testament also has priority over the Old Testament for a Christian, so all the books are not equal per se.
Christ is the word of God, not the Bible. Personally I think that many treat the Bible as an idol, dancing around it as an infallible source in every way sometimes leading to obscene views on certain sciences.
Is Paul (or Jesus in the Gospel of John for that matter) saying that we are to receive the Bible in our body? My Lord Jesus Christ gave me the his Holy spirit, I am a temple to the Holy spirit, and to me that must be a voice of reason and rationality.

I must point out the historical origins of the "Christian Bible", as we currently understand it. During the first Vatican Counsel, the clergy made decisions as to what books would go in this "Biblia", and which would remain out (eventually going into obscurity). But prior to the first counsel, there were many scriptures viewed by the new "Christians" that were considered viable books. Indeed, there was great resistance by Christian groups, who did not get their favorite books put into the Vatican's "biblia".

Even centuries later there was dissention among the major survivors of the Christian reconcilliation, which lead to the original Latin Vulgate to be disregarded for the current King James version.

Even though I consider the Bible to be God inspired, it has been indellibly marked by the hand of man, for man's purpose.

Ergo, the only relation each book (in my opinion), has with the others, is that it tells stories of people's relationship with God. But one story does not realistically link to or with another perse. That might account for the apparent "conflicts" some books have with others (such as on group of peoples' opininions or views are different from anothers'.

v/r

Q

 

[Selaphiel]

I must point out the historical origins of the "Christian Bible", as we currently understand it. During the first Vatican Counsel, the clergy made decisions as to what books would go in this "Biblia", and which would remain out (eventually going into obscurity). But prior to the first counsel, there were many scriptures viewed by the new "Christians" that were considered viable books. Indeed, there was great resistance by Christian groups, who did not get their favorite books put into the Vatican's "biblia".

Even centuries later there was dissention among the major survivors of the Christian reconcilliation, which lead to the original Latin Vulgate to be disregarded for the current King James version.

Even though I consider the Bible to be God inspired, it has been indellibly marked by the hand of man, for man's purpose.

Ergo, the only relation each book (in my opinion), has with the others, is that it tells stories of people's relationship with God. But one story does not realistically link to or with another perse. That might account for the apparent "conflicts" some books have with others (such as on group of peoples' opininions or views are different from anothers'.

v/r

Q

Personally, I agree with you. I only wanted to underline that the fact that it is a canon (although debated in its time as you said), and it being a canon makes many people consider it one unified work consisting of many books. Historically that case is hard to make of course, it is a position of faith for those holding it.

 

[wil]

I must point out the historical origins of the "Christian Bible", as we currently understand it. During the first Vatican Counsel, the clergy made decisions as to what books would go in this "Biblia", and which would remain out (eventually going into obscurity).

Namaste Q,

Not being Catholic I don't know exactly the answer to this but it was my understanding that you folks use plenty of books other than the 66 cannonized, septugent or something?

 

[Selaphiel]

Namaste Q,

Not being Catholic I don't know exactly the answer to this but it was my understanding that you folks use plenty of books other than the 66 cannonized, septugent or something?

Septuagint is merely the Greek version of the Old Testament (as opposed to the Masoretic text). It is believed that the early Christians used the Septuagint when quoting from the Old Testament. But today both Catholics and Protestants use the Masoretic versions of the Old Testament, however the Orthodox church still uses the Septuagint since they are loyal to the text the early Christians used.
Catholics do have apocryphal books though. But I am not 100% sure of their actual status within the Catholic church today, so I will leave that to someone else.

 

[Dogbrain]

I must point out the historical origins of the "Christian Bible", as we currently understand it. During the first Vatican Counsel, the clergy made decisions as to what books would go in this "Biblia"

Vatican I was convened in 1868. If you're indulging in some kind of Ultramontanist fantasy about Roman rule of the Church, I can point you to a few million Orthodox Christians who will happily point to our multiple Patriarchates of equal age, authority, and prestige to the Pope of Rome.

Even centuries later there was dissention among the major survivors of the Christian reconcilliation, which lead to the original Latin Vulgate to be disregarded for the current King James version.

The Vulgate was NEVER AT ALL any sort of "original". The Vulgate was a TRANSLATION made for those Christians who lived in the backwater Western part of the Empire and couldn't follow Greek. Greek was the language of the Bible long before Latin was used.