I think it's good to remember the bible's a pretty old book with a collection of stories that have been told to each other for even longer before they were written down. The general beliefs and views of that time are completely woven into that book. I know some people think it is the literal word of god, but I think you should always place it in a historical and cultural context.
deletedabout 10 years
I don't see anything here about "ignoring parts of the Old Testament".
If you're going to present the argument:
"well Christians plant fields with two different seeds and Christians wear clothes made of 2 different fabrics, and Christians eat pork. Christians are nitpickers because the Old Testament says not to do those things"
then you're honestly the one nitpicking and neglecting the rest of what is written in the Bible (due to ignorance of not knowing the religion).
I dont imply you ignore them as in, not having read them. I imply you devalue them for being "historical manual" and somewhat ignore them in that context eaglesbaby
Edark, there is a lot of debate about Leviticus and other Old Testament commandments for that matter. Some, for example I believe circumcision, are directly mentioned in the New Testament as no longer being applicable so people are free to choose if they want to follow them or not. Others, like the types of food you can eat, are thought to have been precautions because of cooking utensils, harmful pathogens, etc from the time, so rather than sin, they were guidelines for better standards of living.
If you want to talk about any specific verse there can easily be debate between Christians of what is wrong to do or not. I myself do not agree with some of the posts on this thread, for example, but that's debate that should be held once you accept the bible as God's word, and not the other way around really.
Edark, I don't ignore anything. I have read every book of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is where Christianity is rooted. The New Testament, specifically The Gospels, is what came of the Old Testament.
deletedabout 10 years
Oh okay. And I was just making a generalized statement.
Most Christians that I'm aware of really don't claim that the Old Testament is particularly "less important" but rather they put more emphasis on the New Testament, and spend more time studying the New Testament.
I guess you could make the inference that "because you spend less time read x that makes y more important" but I'm saying that's not really accurate. Though I fully understand why people would make those assumptions.
What did eaglesbaby say?? I can't speak for her anyway. There are thousands of denominations of Christianity. Not everyone holds the same views. I can only really express my own from what I've learned and understand.
deletedabout 10 years
I was quoting what other people in this thread have said.
@Edark
The Old Testament canon was finalised much earlier, I believe, given that Judaism has been around since somewhere around 2500BC, so sources on that are much harder to come by.
For the New Testament, there was a lot of debate between scholars/priests about whether something was 'authentic' or not. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilegomena
They are collectively known as the Apocrypha. They include several letters to the Corinthians, The Gnostic Gospels (including The Gospel of Mary, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Peter, etc), The Assumption of the Virgin, The History of Joseph the Carpenter, etc. There are many.
Hell doesn't exist, the only mentioned word that could mean hell is the hebrew word "sheol" which actually means the grave and if everyone goes to sheol then that means everyone goes to hell.
THEREFORE IF HELL DOESN'T EXIST, it makes you think about what else could be untrue about this wonky religion
deletedabout 10 years
They were pretty much collections of stories/teachings and documents from the life of Christ to somewhere around 90AD (when the last book, Revelations, was written).
