How can we believe and trust censored Bibles?

CanadaPlus , 21 hours ago

Lemmy is, like, all atheists. You’re going to get a lot of “we can’t” answers.

jsomae , 20 hours ago

The orthodox would agree.

xmunk , 19 hours ago

So basically Predator handshake meme of religious extremists and atheists?

CanadaPlus , 18 hours ago

<span style="color:#323232;">     The Bible is lies
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Atheists   -o-   Christian revisionists
</span>

I don’t know if that’s what OP meant, though.

CanadaPlus , 18 hours ago

Yeah, Biblical inerrancy is specific to a subset of Protestants. They’re just loud about it. The Catholic church has also flirted with it, but their stance has always been that the church itself is the final authority on all matters, and in Vatican II they soften their endorsement of it with something like “inerrant for the purposes of salvation”.

It’s possible lay believers of other denominations sometimes take the same stance out of confusion, though. I’ve never personally heard someone say “I’m a Christian that doesn’t believe the Bible is all authentic”.

anarchoilluminati , 17 hours ago

You haven’t met a single Christian that knew anything about their religion then.

Sad truth.

CanadaPlus , 17 hours ago

Well, I know a lot of evangelicals too, so that skews it.

anarchoilluminati , 17 hours ago

Yeah, that’s definitely a skewed demographic. Haha

Alb087 OP , 15 hours ago

I have to consider both aethist and believers opinion in order to get a clear picture. So it doesn’t really matter.

Lettuceeatlettuce , 18 hours ago

There is no “original Bible.” Different sects of Christianity have different canons that they consider “scripture.”

Most Protestants adhere to 66 books divided into the “old” & “new” testaments. Roman catholics include several more books commonly called the “apocrypha” or “deuterocanonical” books.

Various traditions in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox sects such as the Syriac Orthodox church or the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church include even more books and depending on the specific tradition, don’t even have a closed canon of official scripture. They don’t really think of scripture in terms of being officially canonized, it’s more of a spectrum from “more authoritative” to “less authoritative.”

There was no defined canon for any of the early Christians for several centuries. Early Christians circulated many different epistles, religious poems, stories, legends, sermons, and parables, often just by oral tradition.

Some, like the gospel of Mark, are considered fairly historical by many scholars, others are more fantastical or don’t have as solid historical attestation.

There is active debate amongst scholars about authorship of the now canonized Biblical corpus and the level of historicity.

Take the Bible for what it is; an impressive and important historical work, really a small library of ancient literature. It’s not a magical text though, it was written by people in very specific sociological and historical contexts and should be studied and examined with those in mind.

If you find it enlightening and inspiring to your life and it helps you be a better person to others, that’s great. And if you attach special spiritual or religious meaning to it, that’s your call. But that doesn’t change the nature of what the Bible is and where it came from.

PiecePractical , 4 hours ago

And on top of that, different translations can effectively make different stories as well. Just look at the story of Dinah. Most translations day that she was assaulted but some would suggest that she just had consensual sex. That’s a distinction that effectively makes it a different story depending on who did the translating.

DmMacniel , 20 hours ago

As religious people most often just pick and choose from scripture to make their point, it doesn’t matter to them that their version of scripture is edited/corrected/censored.

Alb087 OP , 15 hours ago

But can’t it negatively affect us all, expecially if we born in a religious family who take all these things seriously without sense. They used to believe everything said by pastors and priests without using common sense. Anyway they will repeat all the sins, then say my god will forgive me. But how much time ?

MentalEdge , 20 hours ago

You don’t.

Better yet, how do you know any modern religion is anything like what it should be like, generations later?

Religions seem very sure about their own teachings, even as they change. Within your own lifetime you’ve probably noticed that a priest or simply a believer you know has ended up changing their mind on something. Just a generation or two of believers and the current ones won’t be thinking and saying the kind of stuff the first ones were, and vice versa.

One pope says nay, next one says yay. If god is speaking through them, did god change his mind? If he is, why didn’t he just get it right from the start?

Religion isn’t like logic, which states 2+2 will always be 4. The simple passage of time and the broken telephone that is human word of mouth, means religion is incapable of staying consistent for more than about a decade, if that.

What’s more, the religions that exist today are the ones that were the best at spreading. If a religion isn’t appealing, people don’t stick with it. So religions tend to morph and splinter, evolving into whatever is just nice enough that a bunch of people will sign up.

They are the original meme, in the scientific sense. An infectious idea that gets recounted over an over, each person changing it slightly to be more appealing during a re-telling, empowering its spread.

unmagical , 19 hours ago (edited 19 hours ago)

The Bible doesn’t say that you shouldn’t edit or correct the Bible because the authors of the Bible didn’t have the rest of the Bible.

Moses gives some explicit commands to the Israelites to not modify the commands he gives in Deuteronomy, but that doesn’t really apply to the other books.

Likewise, some guy named “John” warns against anyone adding or removing from the account of his acid trip in Revelations, but that doesn’t really apply to other books.

The “Bible” was constructed over a long process and while what many think of as the “Bible” was finalized by 400AD there are still disagreements today (See Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Pentecostalism, Mormonism, and many other smaller sects).

The original authors wrote disparate works for distinct purposes at distinct points in time. They were not writing with the goal of manufacturing a multi-thousand year story bound as a single volume.

How do we know the full story?

We don’t. We use archeology, biology, anthropology, and other scientific disciplines to determine a likely path of the story of humanity as a whole. Some disciplines use the books of the Bible and other contemporary accounts to guide areas of future study, but if you want a single source for the history of the earth, humanity, or even the Israelites the Bible isn’t going to offer an honest perspective.

Alb087 OP , 15 hours ago

Revelation 22:18-19, which says:

“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”

This is what mean by nobody should edit/correct the bible.

unmagical , 14 hours ago

Which applies only to the Revelation of John.

mindbleach , 15 hours ago

OP is on step two of a really short journey.

conciselyverbose , 19 hours ago

There is no original Bible.

The Bible is an assortment of works from a variety of authors arbitrarily selected by the Church, then made into a whole bunch of translations that aren’t super consistent with each other and aren’t all that faithful to the original works.

tiredofsametab , 15 hours ago

Clarification: what original bible? The Bible today isn't even a single version of a thing. Historically, it was a bunch of manuscripts (many of which, conversely, were more different to each other the further back in time you go showing that a number of competing stories got combined into one) written by different people at different times in different places and eventually people more or less agreed on some things. Certain things have been found to be added hundreds or even thousands of years ago and some modern bibles will actually remove them (apparently something in I think John where it seems to skip a verse or two where something was added to make it make more sense with the other synoptic gospels).

TL;DR -- there never was one single bible, it's a bunch of stories that got edited before it got into a bible, and we continue to find texts that show older versions closer to any events differ from what modern texts have.

anarchoilluminati , 18 hours ago (edited 16 hours ago)

First of all, as others said, the Bible is a book composed of many books and letters written by many people over an incredibly vast span of time. Consistency is almost impossible. But, for what it’s worth, where does the Bible say “that no one should make a dare to edit or correct” it?

I believe you are referring to Revelations which is, arguably, one of the oldest youngest if not the oldest youngest book in the canon (I don’t remember for sure but I believe it is) and also not universally appreciated. Luther famously criticized Revelations, and I think rightly so. There was also some contention at the time of canonization in Nicea around Revelations. So, just because one book says it, doesn’t mean it’s the final word on the issue. There are Christians that don’t see much weight or value in Revelations. I certainly don’t, I don’t believe it’s an eschatological text revealed by God. I think the only way Revelations makes sense is to read it as an historical text and critique of Nero that was written post hoc to rationalize and comfort Christians for what they suffered by explaining that they will soon be rewarded for their faith because they are in “end times”. Of course, we now know, thousands of years later, that they weren’t.

Besides, I’m not entirely sure I know what you mean by “edited” or what “life” you’re referring to, although I’m assuming you’re talking about Jesus. Have you read the Scriptures in their original languages? I have at least read and translated the Christian Scriptures in and from Greek, and they need editing. It’s not possible to have a transliteration of it that reads well, it takes some finesse and art. Even the Scriptures in the Greek are compiled from different manuscripts and codices because there often are errors or damages in manuscripts so you can’t just find the one “Gospel of Marx” manuscript, for example, and use it to translate it perfectly. You need to find several to get the whole story of one gospel together and then translate them into a single text, so you’re using several sources to put the story together in Greek and then translate into a different language thousands of years later. Naturally, this creates issues and makes it so that the Bible isn’t an unaltered text in its final form. Unless you read it in its original language, this is unavoidable—and, as I said, even if you do read it in Greek, you will still have an “edited” text.

Does it matter? I think it creates issues and one should be able to critically examine these textual criticisms in order to form a better picture of the origins of their belief and better parse what and how to believe, but I don’t think editing or inconsistencies inherently invalidate Christianity nor Judaism.

anarchoilluminati , 17 hours ago

I meant Gospel of Mark, but I’m not going to change it and no one better dare edit or correct it or a spectre will haunt them.

SLfgb , 2 hours ago

Ok Marx

Alb087 OP , 15 hours ago

Thank you for replying…

By edit i mean this verse in Revelation 22:18-19, which says:

“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”

I believed that doing so can change the entire meaning on bible.

And by life, in my personal opinion i believe the bible is a guide to live life and only god have the quality to guide us among life and no human should never try to manipulate his true words.

Also i was very obsessed about thinking all of this censorship thing.

Actually i didn’t readed the originally written bible, probably nobody could.

Most of the things you said make sense and gives me a clear picture about the reality of my worry.

anarchoilluminati , 14 hours ago

Of course.

Well, if it helps, and I hope it will, the author of Revelations wrote Revelations before there was canonization into the Bible we know today. In other words, when Revelations was written it was a stand-alone “book”. The Bible didn’t exist at the time.

So, when the author of Revelations says ‘don’t change anything in this book’, they mean and are talking about the Book of Revelations—not the Bible as a whole which didn’t exist.

In terms of the ethical value of things like the Gospels, the value is still there. The teachings we have are the teachings we have, if they are valuable to you then that’s great and you should follow them! Jesus says a lot of things which are great to practice. But it’s ultimately up to you to decide whether to believe in the teachings, and then it is up to you to struggle to put them into practice. That doesn’t change.

If you found out there were some changes to the Bible, would you stop believing in “love your neighbor as yourself”? No, because it still has value as an ethical teaching. If you want it to be the direct word of God, then that might be more difficult to prove as fact. But I choose to believe that what Jesus says sounds like what I would expect from a God anyway so I don’t personally have an issue. I hope it helps you though, it is ultimately your decision to choose what, how, and why to believe in something.

scrubbles , 20 hours ago

Ah you’re starting to see the cracks that finally gave me the distrust to leave the church. The church has thrown out entire books of the Bible because they didn’t agree with the messaging. How can I go to a church to where they literally threw out gospels just because they didn’t like it?

Alb087 OP , 15 hours ago

Same. This is where am standing right now.

scrubbles , 14 hours ago

Welcome to the path my friend. I was extremely Christian, but I was shocked that the church would do that. I mean how dare man edit the word of God at all?! I’m not sure what I believe, but I know the church was corrupted

richieadler , 16 hours ago

You shouldn’t trust any Bible. They are myth books that should not be considered other than as very peculiar literature.

Alb087 OP , 15 hours ago

You said so because of the censorship, or just because you are an aethist?

Thavron , 7 hours ago

You seem to consistently spell atheist wrong. It’s not with an e.

sndmn , 20 hours ago

The Lord of the Rings is more believable.

JackGreenEarth , 5 hours ago

Well, it was made by a single person and is mostly consistent throughout. So it’s at least not self-contradictory, which is something.

SoleInvictus , 3 hours ago

And far better written.

I remember reading the Bible for the first time as a teenager, after years of hearing about how great it was from Christians, and both being severely disappointed by its immature writing style and losing a lot of respect for the literary standards of many Christians.

gravitas_deficiency , 19 hours ago

How can we believe and trust censored bibles?

FTFY.

And you can’t. The Bible is a bestselling work of fiction.

For the record, I was raised catholic, though am not one anymore.

jsomae , 20 hours ago

Which bible is censored?

sndmn , 20 hours ago

Everybody Poops

scrubbles , 20 hours ago

Pretty much any version we know now has taken very liberal translations to change the meanings. Most scholars agree that the translations were not accurate. Then on top of that entire books of the Bible were debated and thrown out, the gospel of Mary magdeline is the most famous. They picked and chose what message they wanted.

skullgiver , 19 hours ago

There are different translations for this very reason. Very few people can read the original Hebrew and Greek originals, let alone understand the classical poetic customs.

It’s not exactly written to be read easily, either, large parts of it were written using text complicated even for the native speakers back in the time.

There are plenty of mistakes in the translation, the funniest one being the translation mentioning unicorns, and some of them try to hide the sea monsters from the old testament and use flowery language to talk around the vile things described on the old stories.

Bonifratz , 19 hours ago

Pretty much any version we know now has taken very liberal translations to change the meanings.

That’s not true. Bible translations differ wildly on the approach they take, but there exist many (at least for English) that are focused on offering a rendition as close to the original meaning as possible. Also, Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic as well as Koine Greek have been deeply studied over centuries and are well understood, so accurate translations are possible with the exception of a small percentage of rare vocabulary. Obviously, perfect translations aren’t a thing, but that’s a moot point and not exclusive to Bible translations.

Most scholars agree that the translations were not accurate.

Which scholars? Which translations? These blanket statements make no sense. Again, many translations have been made or reviewed/proofread by scholars of the Bible’s languages, making your claim dubious at best.

Then on top of that entire books of the Bible were debated and thrown out, the gospel of Mary magdeline is the most famous. They picked and chose what message they wanted.

It’s no secret that settling on a canon was a process that took centuries both in Judaism (for the Tanakh) and in early Christianity (for its New Testament), and was never really finished in the latter case, considering the different canons in use in the major Christian churches even today.

That said, I think this process was a necessity. In early Christianity, there were hundreds if not thousands of Jesus-inspired texts floating around, so if the new church was to have any sort of guiding document(s), they had no choice but to pick and choose. Of course, if you think a text (like the Gospel of Mary you mention) is an important witness of the early church, or a more accurate reflection of early Christian thought than are the New Testament writings, you have every right to make that argument. But I don’t think it’s fair to hold it against early Christians that they “picked and chose what message they wanted”, because that’s kind of the whole point of founding a new religious movement.

Alb087 OP , 15 hours ago

Everything available today 🤥

midnight_puker , 19 hours ago

How can you believe and trust the bible at all?

Alb087 OP , 15 hours ago

Isn’t the bible itself a precious text ? I believe the issue is humans manipulating all those that said in it for their personal or religious benefit.