Reading The Bible (and other scripture)

[touchingcloth]

Buddhism says you shouldn't really engage in normal human life at all doesn't it?

[Famous Mortimer]

I also like how at least 42 kids have all turned up to call this guy a bald bastard. Must have been a school trip or something.

It's up there as a thing to embarrass Sunday School teachers with, along with the one about that bloke who threw his daughters to a mob to placate their desire to rape his male friend.

[checkoutgirl]

I think the message of the Tower of Babel is just "this is why there are different languages,"

I feel stupid, I thought it meant people will ultimately fail if they can't communicate effectively and co-operate. With a side order of you can't build a tower to heaven you dummy, you have to live a good life and be penitent and holy and that.

[checkoutgirl]

Jesus seems like a good cunt.

That's what's so seductive about it. How can you dislike a guy who preaches peace, love and sticking up for the little guy? It amazes me how un-Jesus like a lot of his followers are.

I suppose if you start from a point of unanalytical blind faith it can be easy to tweak slightly and you've completely lost your way ethically.

Has anyone read any pre bible stuff like the book of the dead or that? Be interesting to read the bible and then read the earlier texts that the bible got most of its ideas from. People would be less likely to believe the bible if they realised it's basically a compilation album of previous hits.

[checkoutgirl]

No splitting fucking hairs there

All that bullshit comes from rich people wanting their cake and eating it. Fair play to Jesus though, a modern cult leader would say sell all your shit and give that cash to me.

There's proper left wing appeal there.

[wrec]

Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is based on this sort of thing. It takes some of the apocrypha and imagines that Jesus and Christ were twins who had different levels of morality, with Jesus being the one who went to learn scripture with the priests and Christ was the tear away who called Mary a cunt. It's similar to that theory that the OT god is actually an amalgam of gods from different cultures - a Yahweh, and Elohim, a Cthulhu.

I intended to read this for ages but was put off by something now lost in the mists of time, so should give it a go.

Enjoyed Moorcock's Behold the Man.

[touchingcloth]

I intended to read this for ages but was put off by something now lost in the mists of time, so should give it a go.

Hitchens reviewed it negatively, accusing Pullman of being a "Protestant atheist" - https://archive.ph/NfLCa - but I remember enjoying it! I think mainly due to the iconoclasm of it, having had a bad time growing up in the church.

[bgmnts]

Does Zoroastrianism appear in OT Bible at all? I know Cyrus the Great becomes a rare gentile messiah and so ancient Persians feature but what about their religion, that presumably influenced everything?

[Mr Vegetables]

I feel stupid, I thought it meant people will ultimately fail if they can't communicate effectively and co-operate.

I don't think so; they were doing really well amongst themselves until God came along and said "can't be having that." Apparently linguistics as a field took a bit of time to tacitly admit that all languages probably didn't come from a single confounding in Babylon

The Doctor Who/Bible analogy holds worryingly well for me, I think— I don't really like much of the source material or its adherents, but get so obsessed with the strange and powerful stuff that grows out from the margins

[touchingcloth]

Does Zoroastrianism appear in OT Bible at all? I know Cyrus the Great becomes a rare gentile messiah and so ancient Persians feature but what about their religion, that presumably influenced everything?

They say the Zoroastrians were the first monotheists, so the idea of one true god with all lesser deities actually being demons might have been an influence on Judaism.

[bgmnts]

They say the Zoroastrians were the first monotheists, so the idea of one true god with all lesser deities actually being demons might have been an influence on Judaism.

Yeah so I wonder if their religion appears in the Bible, or if it's a bit of a wipe the slate clean job.

[non capisco]

My favourite bit is when God says to Jesus "Thou art my beloved Son. In thee I am well pleased." He sounds like he's ten years old in late 80s Kent. "That thing you did with the fishes and bread was well wicked."

[Red82]

That's what's so seductive about it. How can you dislike a guy who preaches peace, love and sticking up for the little guy? It amazes me how un-Jesus like a lot of his followers are.

I suppose if you start from a point of unanalytical blind faith it can be easy to tweak slightly and you've completely lost your way ethically.

Has anyone read any pre bible stuff like the book of the dead or that? Be interesting to read the bible and then read the earlier texts that the bible got most of its ideas from. People would be less likely to believe the bible if they realised it's basically a compilation album of previous hits.

There's a couple of very right wing Catholics on another forum i frequent. One of whom is a gay man who believes Jesus has saved him from bummery.  I suppose if you're on the right you will just think about Christ's belief in charity and square your right wing politics away that way.

[FredNurke]

Yeah so I wonder if their religion appears in the Bible, or if it's a bit of a wipe the slate clean job.

If memory serves, not all Persians were Zoroastrians, and they definitely had some other gods (e.g. Mithras and Anahita). Difficult to say where Cyrus stood, since so many of 'his' inscriptions were actually set up by Darius I; Darius was a follower of Ahura Mazda and talks about the many failed usurpers who sprang up in his reign (which is what you get when you overthrow the reigning dynasty and then pretend you got rid of a fake) 'speaking the lie' which sounds rather Zoroastrian, but what that amounts to in terms of religious belief isn't clear. 'Zoroastrianism' by Mary Boyce was the go-to book for this sort of thing, back in the day, but it's years since I read it and I don't have a copy.

[bgmnts]

If memory serves, not all Persians were Zoroastrians, and they definitely had some other gods (e.g. Mithras and Anahita). Difficult to say where Cyrus stood, since so many of 'his' inscriptions were actually set up by Darius I; Darius was a follower of Ahura Mazda and talks about the many failed usurpers who sprang up in his reign (which is what you get when you overthrow the reigning dynasty and then pretend you got rid of a fake) 'speaking the lie' which sounds rather Zoroastrian, but what that amounts to in terms of religious belief isn't clear. 'Zoroastrianism' by Mary Boyce was the go-to book for this sort of thing, back in the day, but it's years since I read it and I don't have a copy.

I think Mithras was a turn of the millennium roman cult figure during the time of jesus, so long after old Bible times, no?

I'd probably say Cyrus was one, just because he was the king, so he must have been on nodding terms with it. But he did sympathise with the Jews, and practiced religious tolerance, so he may not've been that arsed.

Might check that book out, cheers!

[superthunderstingcar]

It's cover to cover hatred of homosexuality and not allowing abortions under any circumstances. Or is that just the version they have over in that there America?

[poodlefaker]

My favourite bit is when God says to Jesus "Thou art my beloved Son. In thee I am well pleased." He sounds like he's ten years old in late 80s Kent. "That thing you did with the fishes and bread was well wicked."

I've always liked the marriage at Cana; JC as a single man at a wedding with his mum, who's nagging him to do one of his miracles for everyone. "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" It's like Alan Bennett and Thora Hird.

[poodlefaker]

Are there any jokes in the Bible, any deliberate comedy? I read once that having an apple as the forbidden fruit is a pun, because "malum" in Latin means apple or evil, but I suppose that's a translator making a funny, not the original writer.

[FredNurke]

I think Mithras was a turn of the millennium roman cult figure during the time of jesus, so long after old Bible times, no?

No. The Roman Mithras-cult doesn't have much to do with the Persian original (I'm not sure we know exactly how much / little), but there definitely was an original Iranian 'Mitra' - mentioned in Herodotus (although oddly he says 'goddess' rather than 'god', so who knows what happened there), probably in other sources that I don't know (not my area), and Mitra was in the Indo-Iranian pantheon ancestral to both the Persians and the speakers of the ancestors of Pali / the Prakrits / Sanskrit; he shows up in the Indra / Mitra / Varuna trinity in early Indian religion (could be Vedic, don't remember).

Boyce has published a number of things, I think, but 'Zoroastrianism' is the only one I've read. Worth mentioning that Persians were always very keen to respect / appease other religions; there's a lot written on their interactions with Babylon, and they were even quite solicitous about Greek gods. The story in Herodotus about Cambyses disrespecting Egyptian beliefs is hard to square with the epigraphical evidence for his support of Egyptian temples - but Cambyses' reputation seems to have been blackened at some point, possibly something to do with Darius' usurpation again.

And just to complete a thought: the Persians were very much not a monolithic people, especially in the time of the Achaemenids; their belief systems are very likely to have differed at the tribe / grouping level. The Magi were often linked (by Greeks, at least) to the Medes, who were a different grouping of Iranian-speaking peoples, and they seem to have had a cluster of very distinctive practices. And Cyrus and Cambyses were from a different family from Darius and his descendants (although Xerxes was Cyrus's grandson as well as Darius's son).

[bgmnts]

Boyce has published a number of things, I think, but 'Zoroastrianism' is the only one I've read. Worth mentioning that Persians were always very keen to respect / appease other religions; there's a lot written on their interactions with Babylon, and they were even quite solicitous about Greek gods. The story in Herodotus about Cambyses disrespecting Egyptian beliefs is hard to square with the epigraphical evidence for his support of Egyptian temples - but Cambyses' reputation seems to have been blackened at some point, possibly something to do with Darius' usurpation again.

Yeah I'm currently reading Persians by Prof Lloyd Llewelyn Jones and he seems to be also of that opinion.

[All Surrogate]

Jesus seems like a good cunt.

Hmm, reading the New Testament lowered my opinion of him, but I guess that's just me.

[touchingcloth]

I was shocked when I grew up and realised the Papists had literally different bibles to us. I liked the missing story where Daniel does his best Jonathan Creek to solve a locked room mystery, especially the part where he slaughters the priests, women, and children inside.

[All Surrogate]

'Vulgate' is a great word.

[bgmnts]

Lol @ papist.

[jamiefairlie]

Buddhism says you shouldn't really engage in normal human life at all doesn't it?

Nah it tries to teach you ways to stay content in a way that is not dependant on other people. It's possible but it takes a lot of work.

[Tarquin]

Job is great bar that fourth guy who just says "what the other three told you."

Noah post flood is a bunch a weird lols.

Numbers is the Yellow Pages.

[Noodle Lizard]

Are there any jokes in the Bible, any deliberate comedy? I read once that having an apple as the forbidden fruit is a pun, because "malum" in Latin means apple or evil, but I suppose that's a translator making a funny, not the original writer.

The story of Jesus walking on water is actually framed as a sort of prank on his mates. If I remember correctly, they're all out on a boat at night and suddenly think they see a ghost floating across the water towards them. They're all shitting it, but then Jesus says "lol dont worry guys it's only me" (paraphrasing).

[JaDanketies]

New Testament is actually readable. I've tried reading the OT, the Book of Mormon and the Qur'an but the NT is the only one I was able to get through. It helped me understand some literary references and see even more contradictions, it wasn't very convincing. However I do agree that Jesus seems like a nice guy.

Highlight was when Judas died in the field (there are two contradictory deaths of Judas but the field accident was the best)

"With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out"

[touchingcloth]

The story of Jesus walking on water is actually framed as a sort of prank on his mates. If I remember correctly, they're all out on a boat at night and suddenly think they see a ghost floating across the water towards them. They're all shitting it, but then Jesus says "lol dont worry guys it's only me" (paraphrasing).

He actually said ሳጮብ አትጨነቅ ሰዎች እኔ ብቻ ነኝ (በተለያዩ ቃላት).

[JaDanketies]

I was also surprised at exactly how explicitly it excuses the Romans and blames the Jews for the death of Jesus. I thought it would be more ambiguous.

Spoiler alert

So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, "Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?"

For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.

While Pilate was sitting on the judge's seat, his wife sent him this message: "Don't have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him."

But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.

"Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" asked the governor. "Barabbas," they answered.

"What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?" Pilate asked. They all answered, "Crucify him!"

"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!"

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!"

All the people answered, "His blood is on us and on our children!"

[close]

thought it was a bit appalling tbh, I think that was the part of the NT I found the most appalling. Other than that bit in Psalms "Blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks."