What Is Wrong With Religious Texts?

With the Bible, I’d like to know how they respond to the fact that a lot of the Biblical accounts of Jesus’s resurrection and his life appear in previous myths. I guess Mr. Maher asked that in Religulous, but why not you too?

Let me recommend these two books:
“The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus ” by Earl Doherty, $22.95.

“Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?” by Robert M. Price; Hardcover; $18.47.

Doherty is more blunt than Price. There is no reason to believe that Jesus existed. [It’s not their topic, but I will add that there’s also no reason that any specific saying in the Koran was actually said by Mo.]

The Brothers Grimm compiled many “Fairy Tales” from European culture. The Icelandic Eddas document the deeds and sayings of the Norse gods. What should we think of the courtier’s reply when he says we can’t challenge made-up stories until we know their details?
The golden plates delivered by the white salamander? The deeds of evil galactic overlord Xenu? Why don’t all Christians and Muslims believe these? How are your questions different, in general, from these questions? I wish you good luck on this project.

Very basic question:

How can the veracity or falsehood of historical claims made in holy texts be seen as support for the supernatural claims made?

I’d like to know why it is acceptable to follow some parts of the text while disregarding other parts. Is it OK to pick verses of the text out of context as if from a smorgasbord?

Your questions sound like you’re preparing to interview people with literary expertise on these texts. While it probably will be very interesting, by the way you’re phrasing the questions, you might only get their own personal opinion, and you may be missing out on broader insights they may have about how those texts affect different societies and groups.

Texts have no life without people to read them and respond to them. When the books are closed and on the shelf, all the pages are completely black. Their meanings only exist inside the minds of those who read them. Phrase some of your questions to be about how people respond to the texts, rather than the texts themselves as if they have intrinsic meaning outside the minds of readers. They don’t. For instance, instead of asking,

How reliant are the texts in terms of historical accuracy?

Is there anything wrong with taking a more liberal interpretation of the texts?”

try asking, “Do different people of this text’s faith view its historical accuracy differently? For instance, do some take it literally while others view it as metaphor? Beside that dichotomy, are there other differences in people’s responses to the text within the same religious group?”

Some other books to add to Dr Bruce’s list:

The End of Biblical Studies by Hector Avalos is an excellent book. He argues that genuine study of the scriptures as a scholarly pursuit ended years ago. Now all that’s left are the apologists who make stuff up to defend the faith. If you’ve never read any of Avalos’ work, its worth searching out. He grew up as a youth pastor in Mexico. His parents sent him to study in the US to further his religious education. Lucky for us, he learned too much and became an atheist.

Another interesting take on the historicity of Jesus was Baigents ‘The Jesus Papers’. He gets a little mystical in the middle while comparing Christianity to Buddhism, but his history is well researched and indexed.

I doubt that you could find much new material to add to the discussion. Repackaging these ideas in a way that gets in front of more religious people would be a good focus for a new book on the subject.

What are the master myths that the Hebrew Bible and the NT incorporate and are these structuring myths believable.

The Hebrew Bible is structured to present a “history” of the Judeans (masquerading as all of Israel) that is largely not historical. The NT is built around its own master myth, about the origins and development of the church, much of which is self-serving propaganda.

For “experts” I’ve always wondered what obstacles they encounter in receiving coverage for their information.
For believers I would wonder what they are waiting for? Is there a smoking gun that would truly say, “Guess I need to re-consider.”?

Why did god kill all the 1st born as the 10th plague to induce the Pharoh to let the Jews go? I’m sure god could have obtained the same results if he had given the Pharoh a case of ED with genital herpes, and all the bloodshed could have been avoided.

Perhaps you shouldn’t ask what’s wrong with religious texts, Hemant, but what’s right with them. What messages that would be commonly deemed to be good aren’t contradicted within the book’s own pages; what thoughts aren’t shown to be false by modern science?

A book recommendation: Fighting Words, by Hector Avalos.

I’d be interested to hear, if they’re religious, how the books have supported their belief/faith, and also how their faith influences their interpretations. How might they read and understand it differently as a secular scholar than a religious scholar?

I think the fundamental problem with these texts in general is the idea that people thousands of years ago knew more than we do today (because of divine inspiration or something), and that we can interpret vague or conflicting statements from these works to mean that we shouldn’t do something now. Vague statements in a book thousands of years old are held up as reasons we shouldn’t do something now.

Another problem is that in many cases we don’t actually know what the original says, and it’s pretty clear that stuff has gotten added and removed from the various Greek manuscripts of the Bible, let alone the translation. (See: Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman)

Finally, if we did have texts that were divinely inspired rather than just the stories of humans I’d expect them to be a whole lot more internally consistent than what we’ve got. If God can give Moses the text of the 10 commandments on stone tablets, or reveal the Qur’an to the illiterate Mohammed so that he can dictate it to others to write it down, or inspire the again illiterate Joseph Smith to translate the gold plates of the Book of Mormon, he can ensure that we have a clear, consistent picture of his will. Why don’t we?

Edit: I suppose I could add in one of my major logical problems with religion: If the Bible/Koran/Book of Mormon/etc is the word of God, why did it only get revealed in one geographical location? Why did the people in another geographical location hear another version (involving, for instance, multiple Gods)?

Your religious text was written many centuries ago, for an audience with a very different culture and mindset than a modern reader. Your text often seems to endorse things that don’t sit very well with a modern reader (caste system, slavery, rigid authoritarian structures, genocide, misogyny, etc. . .) Can all the instructions and messages of your text be carried directly over to modern times, or do some of them need to be understood as specific to the time the text was written? If the former, how do you deal with the aspects of your text that seem, at face value, troubling? If the latter, how do you know which messages are specific to the time period, and which are general?

Check out “Caesar’s Messiah” by Joe Atwill. Link: http://www.caesarsmessiah.com/summary.html

Jesus was an invention of the Romans to pacify the Jews after the war in 70AD. “..turn the other cheek…” and “..render unto caesar. . .”

The book compares the new testament with Josephus’ account of the war of 70 AD. Jesus’s path almost exactly follows that of the Roman’s in Josephus’ account of the war. Similar events happened in the same places. A very interesting concept of religion as social engineering.

Bob

1) If everything in the holy texts must be seen as literal truth, why don’t christians support capital punishment for children who curse their parents, or support stoning Governor Sanford for adultery?
In the countries of extremist islamic government, women (though not men) are indeed killed for such crimes (even if the “adultery” was involuntary rape) and we (americans in general, christians in particular) roundly condemn them for it. Why? Christian holy texts require the same.

2) If holy texts were inspired by god (Bible and Koran specifically), why are there so many contradictions and mutually exclusive moral positions? Anyones position can be justified by quotes from either text, effectively rendering them both meaningless.

Is there anything attributed to Jesus that is unique to Jesus?

Or are the teachings of Jesus simply a compilation of ‘greatest hits’ from 100-200 CE?

As some of the others here have indicated, perhaps a better approach would be to ask what each book adds (if anything) to ethics or good behavior. Nobody had to wait for Exodus to know that killing and lying and stealing were bad. The “Golden Rule” was known to Jews, Greeks, and Chinese hundreds of years before Jesus. In fact, virtually every good point attributed to Jesus has been documented in the writings of the Greek Stoics by 400 BC.
So, can anyone name anything good that was added by the bible?

By the way, in answer to those who claim the bible gives both bad (e.g., slavery, genocide) and good (women shut up?!?), the obvious question is how one picks. The ignored answer is that all believers are worshiping the opinions of their preachers, not the bible. Since people worship their priests’ opinions anyway, the texts are irrelevant. The burden of proof is first upon the believer to persuade that they or anyone actually believe their text, not just their preacher’s views. The next burden of proof is again on the believer to establish what if anything their book says that is new.

It has been said that the only new idea added by Jesus was hell. But hell was known to the Zoroastrians, so I guess Senator Joe McCarthy must have meant to say: “in Ahura-Mazda we trust.” Now let’s force everyone to say it, for community cohesion.

Do you believe that all people are completely honest? Do people embellish the truth and make up stories? If people make up stories and embellish the truth, how do you know they were not doing this when the wrote the stories of the Bible/Koran? Would you ever pick up a book off the side of the road and believe every word even if there was no author or other information saying that it was non-fiction? If so, how do you choose which books are accurate?

I don’t know if anyone already said this, but I would be interested in the translations from the original text into the different versions over the centuries. Are christians aware that the translations may have actually warped or completely changed the original text in some instances?

I just thought of another question, but I’m having a hard time formulating it, maybe Hemant can verbalize this better:

Why is it that when people commit atrocities in the name of their holy texts (murdering doctors, killing their kids, flying into buildings) so few believers condemn the religious justifications for it?
Granted after 9/11, there was a huge outcry from less extremist muslims, but for the most part it seems efforts at conversion or image spinning are directed at non-believers, and don’t reference the negative fallout from religion.

Governor Sanford is a recent example: he misused scarce public funds to commit adultery and uses his religious texts to apologize and to justify staying in office, but I hear no outcry from christians that this is a misuse of holy texts. But when I want to get married, I get lectured on how that is not allowed per the Bible and the believers vote my rights away.

Since Christianity spread most successfully with the Roman Empire and the subsequent European colonialism, but never really expanded into the Middle East in the same way does that indicate that it was always European and not a development in Judaism? It seems like it supplanted Pagan beliefs but never got around to replacing Jewish ones until the Inquisitions in Spain, Portugal and Italy.

On the subject of translations what do you think of the LOLCat bible? It is a modern translation after all.

Assuming holy book “X” is infallible, wouldn’t such an infallible book be subject to fallible (i.e. human) interpretation?