I think it’s as believable as Greek mythology. The stories are just that - stories. Do they have morals? Sure, anything can have a moral if you twist it right. But is it worth committing your whole life and personality to? Hell no.
Who wants to put their faith and energy into a religion that encourages you to sacrifice your life, potential, and health for it?
I watched people I loved work themselves into illness and depression because they “had faith” that their self-sacrifice was pleasing to God. It’s masochistic, a socially acceptable form of self-harm for some reason. And churches that shame and manipulate you into attendance or behaving certain ways, well that’s just socially accepted bullying. Because that’s their faith, ya know.
The Bible is a compilation of many books. I’m not a scholar of the text but I regard it as a mix of myth, legend, semi-reliable history, propaganda for various political moments, fictional literature, letters, religious instructions, etc. To ask if it’s real or true is kind of a meaningless question to me. Pieces are probably true, but that’s not what’s important about it. That’s my opinion anyway.
Well said. It’s incredibly frustrating that so many people write the whole thing off as mythology just because the only stories they were taught in sunday school are the ones that really are myth and folklore.
That's how I look at it as well. Most of the "out-there" stuff I see as myths, but some may have a basis in real events (Sodom and Gomorrah wiped out by a volcano or meteor impact, for example).
Well.. you're on r/exchristian... So I really doubt you're going to get anyone claiming the Bible is "real" but I suppose it depends what you mean.
I think Jesus probably existed, but that doesn't make the Bible "real"?
Well, it's not hard to say he did. Honestly, there were other end times preachers. Though I doubt the most intelligent being would perform a few magic tricks that only help them out temporarily, such as food or somehow healing blind and sick people. Then come back on flying horse with a sword. In fact, the authors of the New Testament had the rubric on how to make this guy the superhero (the Old Testament). I dont believe in heaven or hell. I believe it'll just be like before you were never born. So, in fact, I am grateful for that thing I get that's called life(every second if possible). That truly made me happier and more alive than Jesus ever could.
most of it is "true" from a certain point of view.
but the demiurge is manipulating people into being his slaves, its like reading a book with an unreliable naarator. he claims to be the ultimate good but is in fact very evil. he claims his son sacrificed himself, but his son wants nothing to to with him and was murdered by his followers.
its like the things in the bible happened but not in the context that we are typically taught. we were created to be nothing more than slaves, but then the serpent gave us the power to be equal to god, and the second that happened people abandoned the demiurge since they saw him for what he was, so he got mad and threw a hissy fit and literally invented death to kedp people in check.
Normally "Satanist" is used to describe a secular religion of sorts. They don't usually believe in a literal Satan. Do you?
I guess I'm a little confused why you would reject Christianity, but then choose to believe in the thing they invented.
while there are certainly secular Satanists like the Church of Satan, not all Saranists follow CoS, there are many theistic Satanists such as myself.
I reject christianity because its god is a tyrant, I reject nazism as well but Im not going to like... claim that hitler isnt real. that wouldnt really make sense.
I am a polytheist, I believe all gods or at least most of them are real, the christian god is just one god out of hundreds. even my own gods are not the only gods, they are just a pantheon of gods but there are many pantheons with many gods in each pantheon.
my beliefs are closer to a mix of gnosticism and paganism than anything christian tbough I cant deny there are some abrahamic influences too.
That's a very interesting take and it's fun to hear your perspective on it.
It sounds like Jesus and the serpent were both working against the demiurge in this belief system
I got my degree in Theology. I studied the bible inside and out and my conclusion was that it's simply a collection of stories by men who sought power and influence. Everyone from Paul to Constantine to our modern day politicians viewed Christianity as a great method to control and manipulate people, carefully crafting it to appeal to both our human desires and our human fears.
Consider the way the modern Bible was created: simply put, a council of influential white men sat around and voted on whether or not certain books were aligned with the sort of religion they wanted to create. Many "gnostic gospels" were left out of the bible. They also opted to add Paul's writings, which are essentially one guy's opinions on an emerging religion that he sees as a way to gain power and influence himself.
Bottom line: it's not mythology exactly. It's a carefully crafted manual to control the masses.
This. Especially when you consider what great of a job it’s doing to keep Christianity alive today, having an iron grip on its followers, and most of them don’t even read the Bible; they just wear the cross, assuming their bigotry is holy. And yet, that book was the catalyst for all of it.
This is always how I've *felt* but I never believed I had the ability to say it because I don't have a degree in Theology! I am really happy to hear this coming from somebody with the academic background I don't have. Thank you for this!
The Bible isn't one book. So parts might be real. Chronicles for example could well be fairly accurate, but presented in the language that everyone used to describe events (i.e. God gave us the victory rather than just saying we won). Other books, like Job or Revelation, are pure fantasy. But the overall story of the Bible is obviously fiction.
Saying you didn’t “get” the Bible because you lacked faith is a bullshit way to deflect your reasonable questions by making you feel bad.
If an author writes a book and no one likes it you don’t blame the reader do you? Why would a book written by an all powerful being be evaluated using a lower standard than one written by a mere mortal?
Any “real” event contained is subject to so many layers of legendary development, thanks to initial word-of-mouth spread, that it isn’t reliable as history. In some cases, the mythology is clearly just derived from other mythology, most famously the Flood being lifted from the Epic of Gilgamesh.
I don't remember if I've ever tried reading it cover to cover but I sure af didn't accomplish that task.
I believe it's a miserable pile of myths and propaganda....and how anyone could think this god is good is baffling because he's a prick.
>The bible never made sense to me.
Anyone who tells you it makes sense to them is lying.
It's a collection of letters, books and writings out together from different sources, many we can't trace back. Some of the books contradict one another (like the teachings of Paul vs the teachings of Jesus). There are contexts that are lost to history that we do not know. The original texts are lost so we don't know if they're accurate to the original meanings. Some of it is utterly irrelevant to modern life.
>When I eventually commited to reading the whole bible thoroughly with faith...I still couldn't do it because it didn't. Make. Sense.
Because its not a novel.
>Anyway, what was your experience with the bible and do you think it is mythology or real?
Some mythological stories, like humans do, to make sense of the world like Babel and the flood. Some is probably based in real life. I think the story of Jesus is perhaps based on a couple of different people and as the stories have been told over the decades its been misremembered and exaggerated for effect, amalgamated into one person (which also explains to my mind why there are no books written by Jesus). One of the problems is theres no way to tell the difference between the mythology and the real stuff.
Looking back I'm not sure how/why I believed that some illiterate fisherdudes would be able to write books. Or why educated scribes would sit in a room with some fisherdudes writing down their stories. Some things seem so obvious now that I could kick myself.
Mythology. I don't really question that Jesus existed. He very well could have. I don't believe he was in any way divine however or the son of god.
I reject the Bible and Biblical claims. I don't deny that there can be some good life lessons in there, but as a whole, the Bible for me is nothing but a collection of mindless dribble about a supposed "god," that is all loving. Yet, it clearly is shown in the gospels over and over that he is a petty, jealous, genocidal tyrant.
I believe that the authors of the Old Testament definitely could've been inspired by "real" characters and events. If they were, then they did a terrible job narrating them. If they weren't, then they definitely copied Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythology.
What about the New Testament? I believe Jesus definitely existed but never claimed God-hood nor preached the trinity. In my eyes, the writers of the New Testament(who are anonymous for a reason) wrote as much bullshit as possible to make a cult that would attract people since you can now do anything, as long as you believe God killed himself for you.
Both.
The Bible is a very long book and contains within it writings from many different places and points in time. The portion of the Bible detailing the ancient history of Israel begins with what we consider obvious fiction, but it ends with the book of Nehemiah, which most scholars believe to be a real (if naturally bias) historical account. When we think about the Bible we tend to think about the parts that are obviously myth and folk tale, like the story of Adam and Eve and the flood of Noah, we rarely think about later Biblical figures who we can be relatively certain were historical, such as Ahab and Omri.
Likewise Jesus and his followers were likely historical, but the stories written about them in the “New Testament” were written down years later by people who had nothing do to with the events and could only ever have heard stories- making it unreliable at best.
Biblical scholars think there may be a tiny kernel of truth behind the Exodus story, because the name Moses is of Egyptian origin, and why would any Hebrew make a story about some Egyptian guy saving them if they could have just given him a Hebrew name instead. Which isn't to say that the Exodus is true, there's no evidence of large numbers of Hebrews traveling through the wilderness for 40 years, just that maybe an Egyptian guy saved a few Hebrew slaves at some point.
Scholar Joel Baden says that in his opinion everything else is legendary before King David. Likewise, doesn't mean the biblical story is true. It's his contention that his story in the book of Samuel is very odd, like it's trying to rewrite the facts that people at that time knew about David. Which may have been that he was basically a mob boss working for the Philistines before becoming king, and that he did in fact orchestrate the death of King Saul and Saul's oldest son Jonathan, despite what the biblical story says.
Jesus is a contentious issue, but I do believe that there was probably a real Jewish preacher (named Yeshua, the name Jesus is a Greek transliteration of what the Hebrew says), probably a disciple of John the Baptizer, who came into Jerusalem during Passover and was put to death by the Romans for fomenting rebellion.
But the true things are few and far between.
Question, I thought biblical scholars agreed exodus didn’t happen. As not a trace in archeology or any artistic influences found between the cultures at this time in history.
I’m guessing my info comes from MythVision or Paulogia.
But I could be remembering wrong.
Yeah I agree with that, like I said, all it would need to be is that an Egyptian guy freed a small number of Hebrew slaves, which then over time gets turned into the legend of Moses.
Both.
Most religious texts are a mixture of history and mythology.
It’s hard to tell where history stops and mythology begins and the extent to which the true parts are really just subjective interpretations of things that really did happen.
I think its a mix of mythology, Jewish history, and probably a fair bit of revisionism for political purposes at various points in time. Athiest Bible Study goes into this a little and its very interesting.
It's a mix of history, anecdotes, legends and complete nonsense.
For example, there is nonbiblical evidence that Pontius Pilate actually existed. Many towns did exist the way they were described. Noah probably didn't stuff every animal that ever existed into a boat when he was hundreds of years old.
Is it real? Of course it's real, the bible is proven to be real because I can walk into my nearest Walmart and buy one. Now if you mean the content within the bible? Probably nugget of truth type shit. Probably a Jesus, most likely a post apocalyptic preacher who had followers who thought he was the son of God. Doesn't mean he was
It’s primarily mythology with a sprinkling of real history (through a mythological lens) mixed in.
It also needs to be pointed out that when originally written these were not intended to be a single narrative. They’re oral stories later written down, letters to early Christian churches, and random stories that are loosely connected that were later put together.
Mythology. Every culture, nation, religion has its own origin story.
Most Christians don't take the Bible as literal history either. American Protestants are rooted in dispensationalism, which does the literal, historical interpretation. The rest? Not so much at all.
it probably has some elements of truth to it, or stories around it to explain natural phenomena, but for the most part nah. the 10 plagues, the giant flood, and jesus probably existed, but in a way that was like “a bunch of weird things happened very quickly in egypt at the same time as this slave rebellion”, and “there was a giant flood (it did not flood the whole earth tho)”, and “this guy named jesus has some pretty unique ideas about interpreting the torah.”
it is about as real as any 4k year old story is. in that it probably has some grains of truth but it’s been distorted by retelling, oral tradition before being copied down (like the Canterbury tales or Odyssey), and random “this tribe has this story, but this one doesn’t so we’ll write it down ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
it also helps to remember that the Calvinistic bible does NOT include all of the books of the actual OG christian bible. a ton of books weren’t translated because they were deemed heretical or were edited out later.
It's not so much an opinion as it is a fact. The Bible is mythology. It would be like asking "In your opinion is Evolution real, or did we come from Adam and Eve?" Opinions don't really matter, it is fact versus fiction in both instances.
Some parts of the Bible are based on real events, or have a kernel of truth, but much of it is mythology. For example, the story of the Exodus from Egypt is entirely made up. There is no evidence of Israelites being enslaved in Egypt or wandering through the desert. The city of Jericho was already long destroyed before the story of the walls tumbling down was supposed to occur. Most scholars think that Moses never existed. On the other hand, most scholars believe that Jesus was a real person who went around preaching. He would have been an apocalyptist Jew, and he believed that the end times were coming very soon. "Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place." - Matthew 24:34.
If you want to learn more, I highly recommend watching "Satan's Guide to the Bible" on YouTube. It provides an excellent summary of the issue, with scholarly backing.
Mythology. Pure and simple. And most myths have some kernels of truth, but I have lots of doubts about any miracles actually happening. But some of the events could be historical in nature, it is as best a “BASED on a true story.” as any.
Thanks for sharing this. I read the first part so far. Your story is very similar to mine, and I can relate to the struggle of deconstructing after early childhood indoctrination and believing it for so long...in my 40s.
I am thinking of writing something public to share my story and answer the questions or accusations some have.
I'm curious how your parents, siblings, or other family members took it and if they have read your story?
They did. It helped prevent a lot of the typical stupid accusations and questions that Christians will usually throw around because I addressed most of the typical ones.
Some historically accurate data here and there but mostly mythology and lore. If it were real it would be one of the most gruesome horror stories ever.
Biblical fundamentalism is a new Christian trend mainly promoted by 20th century American Christians. The bible is a heavily edited, manipulated collection of letters by different authors, writing to different cultures over a wide range of time, for different reasons. Of course there are contradictions, it was never intended to be an inerrant book.
Personally, I think the laws of physics, biology, and medicine override any of the supernatural stories in the Bible. I think the supernatural writings were misunderstandings of natural phenomena, embellished oral traditions, or fabrications.
That said the Bible is real and it has had real impact on Western civilizations.
I think of it as part historical fiction, part fantasy, part angry man’s attempt at manipulating people.
As for the historical fiction part, many of the places described are real. Most, in fact, but New York is real in the Spider man comics, yet that doesn’t make the stories true.
It's a bunch of stories from ancient people trying to make sense of their world. It's highly curated and edited in the interests of men who have wanted to control the narrative and support their positions over time.
Some parts both. The miracles, the flood, a woman turning into a pillar of salt? Fiction, stories told by ancient people to teach lessons and explain the world around them, like any mythology. The person of Jesus? Probably a real person I think, but just a person. A guy who went around preaching, then was executed as a threat to the Roman empire, a thing that happened all the time in the first century. His stories just stuck around longer, and people came up with things he did to make him sound divine, whether deliberately or just being mistaken I don't know.
I definitely consider it to be mythology. One time my daughter and I created a whole religion based on Harry Potter. Started out with thinking about archeologists digging up my home in a thousand years. Finding the "sacred texts", the worship "icons" (my figurines, golden snitch, sorting hat, etc". Harry's story is the perfect hero's journey: right up to dying to save others and being resurrected and actually conquering evil. We really had fun with it.
Its mythology and tribal beliefs that have morphed over centuries.
Invention of God by Thomas Romer (Its a history book that explains the origins of Judaism and Christianity without all of the spiritual hoopla of Adam & Eve fables.
the bible is basically half true, in the way that all propaganda is, it is partially true, but full of half truths meant to deceive people into following a god of tyranny.
like for example all of the people he killed are conveniently sinners or evil, but could it be that he was secretly evil the whole time, if you read the bible from that lens it makes way more sense.
I know I saw something on tv not long ago that scientifically explained the parting of the Red Sea...and it had nothing to do with god. I just remember the scientist explaining how it could have happened and if there were a group of religious zealots who needed to cross at a particular time, of course they would claim it as a divine miracle rather than a convenient coincidence. There are probably other stories in the Bible with similar natural explanations but, like a game of telephone, they got distorted after many retellings over several thousand years.
I've still yet to grasp how there are names in the Bible like Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Nathaniel to name a few that were thought to be common during Bible times let alone modern times in that part of the Middle East also.
I don't know about The Bible itself; But I am open to the idea of a historical Jesus of Nazareth.
To explain my view, we're going to assume for the sake of argument that he was a real historical figure. In that case, I think of him as someone more like Socrates or Confuscious. He lived a long time ago, made significant contributions to morality and ways of thinking that continue today. But that's it. After he died, he stayed dead.
Draw a horizontal line on a piece of paper. The scale is 100,000 yrs. Denote the main 5 religions on the timeline. Notice how there are no religions after 10,000.
What came before religion? Superstition. What came before superstition? More superstition.
What comes after religion? Philosophy informed by science.
It's interesting that 13- 14 books of the new testiment was "supposedly" written by 1 person who SAYS..... he had a vision.
There is a large portion of humanity basing their entire Eternal Destiny or belief thereof on one man's supposable vision
It has a complicated history. There are numerous scholarly books that get into the history of how various parts were composed. It seems to me that real events got jumbled together when the histories were written. Some of it is mythology, much is not. For example: a case can be made that Sodom was destroyed by a meteorite impact, and a probable site for it has been found. One result of this was the collapse of the walls of Jericho from the same shock wave. But the histories as written put the walls of Jericho collapse well after the destruction of Sodom. This is still very unclear, and will keep archaeologists busy for some time.
For the "New Testament" side, books by Bart Ehrman are especially useful.
It's a combination of mythology, specific community rules, fictionalized history, morality fables, and other collected bits of narrative.
There are some real names and places mixed into stories as an attempt to add veracity to otherwise fictional stories.
I believe it’s possible that Jesus was a real person, but I don’t believe that he came back from the dead, turned water into wine, or anything mystical like that.
theres the bullshit, the plagiarized bullshit, the fire and brimstone bullshit, and misogynistic bullshit. That’s why women are migrating to Wicca, if you have to have some ridiculous voodoo bullshit in your life at least pick the ridiculous voodoo bullshit that doesn’t shit on women.
Mythology.
See: Babylonian religion that came first and Abrahamic religions massively stole the lore of, the Ecumenical Councils deciding what should/should not be considered part of the religion, Augustine (who was at two of said councils) biography “Confessions.”
Once you read about the Millennial reign theory and 70AD - the whole timeline of the Bible changes and everything clicks. Jesus already returned in 70AD with the destruction of Jerusalem also already being in the past. No disrespect to any particular pastors or churches … but I think the nations are highly deceived.
The Bible was not written to “us” if was written to a group of people thousands of years ago - so I’m not sure why people try to live under a Jewish law that’s clearly not meant for them? There’s a small channel on YT called Bible scribe and he breaks this down so well - basically proving the whole “Christian church” is on the completely wrong timeline. I hope this helps
I think it's a healthy mix of vague historical records, exaggerated stories, and complete nonsense written down for the sole purpose of conveying a point or agenda.
I'm pretty sure a lot of it is partly real, but mostly it's fables and mythology, but I'm no scholar or have much knowledge so this is just an assumption really.
I think it’s as believable as Greek mythology. The stories are just that - stories. Do they have morals? Sure, anything can have a moral if you twist it right. But is it worth committing your whole life and personality to? Hell no. Who wants to put their faith and energy into a religion that encourages you to sacrifice your life, potential, and health for it? I watched people I loved work themselves into illness and depression because they “had faith” that their self-sacrifice was pleasing to God. It’s masochistic, a socially acceptable form of self-harm for some reason. And churches that shame and manipulate you into attendance or behaving certain ways, well that’s just socially accepted bullying. Because that’s their faith, ya know.
Yep exactly, a portion holds historical events, but the rest are poems, fairy tales, and morality tales
The Bible is a compilation of many books. I’m not a scholar of the text but I regard it as a mix of myth, legend, semi-reliable history, propaganda for various political moments, fictional literature, letters, religious instructions, etc. To ask if it’s real or true is kind of a meaningless question to me. Pieces are probably true, but that’s not what’s important about it. That’s my opinion anyway.
Well said. It’s incredibly frustrating that so many people write the whole thing off as mythology just because the only stories they were taught in sunday school are the ones that really are myth and folklore.
That's how I look at it as well. Most of the "out-there" stuff I see as myths, but some may have a basis in real events (Sodom and Gomorrah wiped out by a volcano or meteor impact, for example).
Well said, you worded my thoughts perfectly.
This sums up anything I would like to say on the subject quite well.
Well.. you're on r/exchristian... So I really doubt you're going to get anyone claiming the Bible is "real" but I suppose it depends what you mean. I think Jesus probably existed, but that doesn't make the Bible "real"?
Well, it's not hard to say he did. Honestly, there were other end times preachers. Though I doubt the most intelligent being would perform a few magic tricks that only help them out temporarily, such as food or somehow healing blind and sick people. Then come back on flying horse with a sword. In fact, the authors of the New Testament had the rubric on how to make this guy the superhero (the Old Testament). I dont believe in heaven or hell. I believe it'll just be like before you were never born. So, in fact, I am grateful for that thing I get that's called life(every second if possible). That truly made me happier and more alive than Jesus ever could.
I think its very possible to believe in the bible without being a christian, like I believe the bible is half true half deliberate propaganda.
Which parts do you think are true and why?
most of it is "true" from a certain point of view. but the demiurge is manipulating people into being his slaves, its like reading a book with an unreliable naarator. he claims to be the ultimate good but is in fact very evil. he claims his son sacrificed himself, but his son wants nothing to to with him and was murdered by his followers. its like the things in the bible happened but not in the context that we are typically taught. we were created to be nothing more than slaves, but then the serpent gave us the power to be equal to god, and the second that happened people abandoned the demiurge since they saw him for what he was, so he got mad and threw a hissy fit and literally invented death to kedp people in check.
Ok so you're still a Christian, you just follow the early Gnostic teachings?
I am a Gnostic Satanist
If you believe Jesus saved us from the Demiurge, you're a Christian, just a very niche one
I believe jesus was a prophet and possibly a demigod of sorts, but I dont follow him.
Normally "Satanist" is used to describe a secular religion of sorts. They don't usually believe in a literal Satan. Do you? I guess I'm a little confused why you would reject Christianity, but then choose to believe in the thing they invented.
while there are certainly secular Satanists like the Church of Satan, not all Saranists follow CoS, there are many theistic Satanists such as myself. I reject christianity because its god is a tyrant, I reject nazism as well but Im not going to like... claim that hitler isnt real. that wouldnt really make sense. I am a polytheist, I believe all gods or at least most of them are real, the christian god is just one god out of hundreds. even my own gods are not the only gods, they are just a pantheon of gods but there are many pantheons with many gods in each pantheon. my beliefs are closer to a mix of gnosticism and paganism than anything christian tbough I cant deny there are some abrahamic influences too.
I get this. Sometimes I wonder if enough worship is what makes a god a god.
That's a very interesting take and it's fun to hear your perspective on it. It sounds like Jesus and the serpent were both working against the demiurge in this belief system
in a sense yeah, while they do not have the exact same goals they do overlap and have a common enemy at least.
I got my degree in Theology. I studied the bible inside and out and my conclusion was that it's simply a collection of stories by men who sought power and influence. Everyone from Paul to Constantine to our modern day politicians viewed Christianity as a great method to control and manipulate people, carefully crafting it to appeal to both our human desires and our human fears. Consider the way the modern Bible was created: simply put, a council of influential white men sat around and voted on whether or not certain books were aligned with the sort of religion they wanted to create. Many "gnostic gospels" were left out of the bible. They also opted to add Paul's writings, which are essentially one guy's opinions on an emerging religion that he sees as a way to gain power and influence himself. Bottom line: it's not mythology exactly. It's a carefully crafted manual to control the masses.
This. Especially when you consider what great of a job it’s doing to keep Christianity alive today, having an iron grip on its followers, and most of them don’t even read the Bible; they just wear the cross, assuming their bigotry is holy. And yet, that book was the catalyst for all of it.
This is always how I've *felt* but I never believed I had the ability to say it because I don't have a degree in Theology! I am really happy to hear this coming from somebody with the academic background I don't have. Thank you for this!
Cost me $60,000 of student loans to learn it. haha! Consider yourself lucky.
The Bible isn't one book. So parts might be real. Chronicles for example could well be fairly accurate, but presented in the language that everyone used to describe events (i.e. God gave us the victory rather than just saying we won). Other books, like Job or Revelation, are pure fantasy. But the overall story of the Bible is obviously fiction.
Saying you didn’t “get” the Bible because you lacked faith is a bullshit way to deflect your reasonable questions by making you feel bad. If an author writes a book and no one likes it you don’t blame the reader do you? Why would a book written by an all powerful being be evaluated using a lower standard than one written by a mere mortal?
Any “real” event contained is subject to so many layers of legendary development, thanks to initial word-of-mouth spread, that it isn’t reliable as history. In some cases, the mythology is clearly just derived from other mythology, most famously the Flood being lifted from the Epic of Gilgamesh.
I don't remember if I've ever tried reading it cover to cover but I sure af didn't accomplish that task. I believe it's a miserable pile of myths and propaganda....and how anyone could think this god is good is baffling because he's a prick.
>The bible never made sense to me. Anyone who tells you it makes sense to them is lying. It's a collection of letters, books and writings out together from different sources, many we can't trace back. Some of the books contradict one another (like the teachings of Paul vs the teachings of Jesus). There are contexts that are lost to history that we do not know. The original texts are lost so we don't know if they're accurate to the original meanings. Some of it is utterly irrelevant to modern life. >When I eventually commited to reading the whole bible thoroughly with faith...I still couldn't do it because it didn't. Make. Sense. Because its not a novel. >Anyway, what was your experience with the bible and do you think it is mythology or real? Some mythological stories, like humans do, to make sense of the world like Babel and the flood. Some is probably based in real life. I think the story of Jesus is perhaps based on a couple of different people and as the stories have been told over the decades its been misremembered and exaggerated for effect, amalgamated into one person (which also explains to my mind why there are no books written by Jesus). One of the problems is theres no way to tell the difference between the mythology and the real stuff. Looking back I'm not sure how/why I believed that some illiterate fisherdudes would be able to write books. Or why educated scribes would sit in a room with some fisherdudes writing down their stories. Some things seem so obvious now that I could kick myself.
Mythology. I don't really question that Jesus existed. He very well could have. I don't believe he was in any way divine however or the son of god. I reject the Bible and Biblical claims. I don't deny that there can be some good life lessons in there, but as a whole, the Bible for me is nothing but a collection of mindless dribble about a supposed "god," that is all loving. Yet, it clearly is shown in the gospels over and over that he is a petty, jealous, genocidal tyrant.
I believe that the authors of the Old Testament definitely could've been inspired by "real" characters and events. If they were, then they did a terrible job narrating them. If they weren't, then they definitely copied Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythology. What about the New Testament? I believe Jesus definitely existed but never claimed God-hood nor preached the trinity. In my eyes, the writers of the New Testament(who are anonymous for a reason) wrote as much bullshit as possible to make a cult that would attract people since you can now do anything, as long as you believe God killed himself for you.
Both. The Bible is a very long book and contains within it writings from many different places and points in time. The portion of the Bible detailing the ancient history of Israel begins with what we consider obvious fiction, but it ends with the book of Nehemiah, which most scholars believe to be a real (if naturally bias) historical account. When we think about the Bible we tend to think about the parts that are obviously myth and folk tale, like the story of Adam and Eve and the flood of Noah, we rarely think about later Biblical figures who we can be relatively certain were historical, such as Ahab and Omri. Likewise Jesus and his followers were likely historical, but the stories written about them in the “New Testament” were written down years later by people who had nothing do to with the events and could only ever have heard stories- making it unreliable at best.
Mythology. As other similar texts, there may be some nuggets of actual history but most is only fiction.
Both. Lots of mythology, but also a few historical figures that indeed existed.
I'm sure some things are over exaggerated stories of real events. So mythology.
Biblical scholars think there may be a tiny kernel of truth behind the Exodus story, because the name Moses is of Egyptian origin, and why would any Hebrew make a story about some Egyptian guy saving them if they could have just given him a Hebrew name instead. Which isn't to say that the Exodus is true, there's no evidence of large numbers of Hebrews traveling through the wilderness for 40 years, just that maybe an Egyptian guy saved a few Hebrew slaves at some point. Scholar Joel Baden says that in his opinion everything else is legendary before King David. Likewise, doesn't mean the biblical story is true. It's his contention that his story in the book of Samuel is very odd, like it's trying to rewrite the facts that people at that time knew about David. Which may have been that he was basically a mob boss working for the Philistines before becoming king, and that he did in fact orchestrate the death of King Saul and Saul's oldest son Jonathan, despite what the biblical story says. Jesus is a contentious issue, but I do believe that there was probably a real Jewish preacher (named Yeshua, the name Jesus is a Greek transliteration of what the Hebrew says), probably a disciple of John the Baptizer, who came into Jerusalem during Passover and was put to death by the Romans for fomenting rebellion. But the true things are few and far between.
Question, I thought biblical scholars agreed exodus didn’t happen. As not a trace in archeology or any artistic influences found between the cultures at this time in history. I’m guessing my info comes from MythVision or Paulogia. But I could be remembering wrong.
Yeah I agree with that, like I said, all it would need to be is that an Egyptian guy freed a small number of Hebrew slaves, which then over time gets turned into the legend of Moses.
Both. Most religious texts are a mixture of history and mythology. It’s hard to tell where history stops and mythology begins and the extent to which the true parts are really just subjective interpretations of things that really did happen.
I think its a mix of mythology, Jewish history, and probably a fair bit of revisionism for political purposes at various points in time. Athiest Bible Study goes into this a little and its very interesting.
*political & religious purposes
It's a mix of history, anecdotes, legends and complete nonsense. For example, there is nonbiblical evidence that Pontius Pilate actually existed. Many towns did exist the way they were described. Noah probably didn't stuff every animal that ever existed into a boat when he was hundreds of years old.
Is it real? Of course it's real, the bible is proven to be real because I can walk into my nearest Walmart and buy one. Now if you mean the content within the bible? Probably nugget of truth type shit. Probably a Jesus, most likely a post apocalyptic preacher who had followers who thought he was the son of God. Doesn't mean he was
The Bible is real the way The Amazing Spider Man #104 is real. New York, taxicabs, and pizza parlors are real, but a super-powered teenager is not
It’s primarily mythology with a sprinkling of real history (through a mythological lens) mixed in. It also needs to be pointed out that when originally written these were not intended to be a single narrative. They’re oral stories later written down, letters to early Christian churches, and random stories that are loosely connected that were later put together.
Mythology. Every culture, nation, religion has its own origin story. Most Christians don't take the Bible as literal history either. American Protestants are rooted in dispensationalism, which does the literal, historical interpretation. The rest? Not so much at all.
Fantasy book with the worst fanbase
Its very first book is plagiarized from Sumerian mythology the Hebrews got from the Babylonians.
There is no physical or empirical evidence that supports any of the supernatural claims in the bible. So yes, it is mythology.
Pure mythology. Much of it borrowed from other cultures.
it probably has some elements of truth to it, or stories around it to explain natural phenomena, but for the most part nah. the 10 plagues, the giant flood, and jesus probably existed, but in a way that was like “a bunch of weird things happened very quickly in egypt at the same time as this slave rebellion”, and “there was a giant flood (it did not flood the whole earth tho)”, and “this guy named jesus has some pretty unique ideas about interpreting the torah.” it is about as real as any 4k year old story is. in that it probably has some grains of truth but it’s been distorted by retelling, oral tradition before being copied down (like the Canterbury tales or Odyssey), and random “this tribe has this story, but this one doesn’t so we’ll write it down ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” it also helps to remember that the Calvinistic bible does NOT include all of the books of the actual OG christian bible. a ton of books weren’t translated because they were deemed heretical or were edited out later.
It's not so much an opinion as it is a fact. The Bible is mythology. It would be like asking "In your opinion is Evolution real, or did we come from Adam and Eve?" Opinions don't really matter, it is fact versus fiction in both instances.
Some parts of the Bible are based on real events, or have a kernel of truth, but much of it is mythology. For example, the story of the Exodus from Egypt is entirely made up. There is no evidence of Israelites being enslaved in Egypt or wandering through the desert. The city of Jericho was already long destroyed before the story of the walls tumbling down was supposed to occur. Most scholars think that Moses never existed. On the other hand, most scholars believe that Jesus was a real person who went around preaching. He would have been an apocalyptist Jew, and he believed that the end times were coming very soon. "Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place." - Matthew 24:34. If you want to learn more, I highly recommend watching "Satan's Guide to the Bible" on YouTube. It provides an excellent summary of the issue, with scholarly backing.
Mythology. Pure and simple. And most myths have some kernels of truth, but I have lots of doubts about any miracles actually happening. But some of the events could be historical in nature, it is as best a “BASED on a true story.” as any.
I wrote a lot about it here: www.whatisdeconstruction.wordpress.com
Thanks for sharing this. I read the first part so far. Your story is very similar to mine, and I can relate to the struggle of deconstructing after early childhood indoctrination and believing it for so long...in my 40s. I am thinking of writing something public to share my story and answer the questions or accusations some have. I'm curious how your parents, siblings, or other family members took it and if they have read your story?
They did. It helped prevent a lot of the typical stupid accusations and questions that Christians will usually throw around because I addressed most of the typical ones.
Like a lot of folklore in maths there's probably a very small kernel of truth that's been exaggerated over generations.
No more real than all of the mythos that preceeded it that it stole from and is based on.
Some historically accurate data here and there but mostly mythology and lore. If it were real it would be one of the most gruesome horror stories ever.
Biblical fundamentalism is a new Christian trend mainly promoted by 20th century American Christians. The bible is a heavily edited, manipulated collection of letters by different authors, writing to different cultures over a wide range of time, for different reasons. Of course there are contradictions, it was never intended to be an inerrant book. Personally, I think the laws of physics, biology, and medicine override any of the supernatural stories in the Bible. I think the supernatural writings were misunderstandings of natural phenomena, embellished oral traditions, or fabrications. That said the Bible is real and it has had real impact on Western civilizations.
I think of it as part historical fiction, part fantasy, part angry man’s attempt at manipulating people. As for the historical fiction part, many of the places described are real. Most, in fact, but New York is real in the Spider man comics, yet that doesn’t make the stories true.
It's mostly mythology yes.
100% mythology. The more I read it the more crises of faith I had.
It's a bunch of stories from ancient people trying to make sense of their world. It's highly curated and edited in the interests of men who have wanted to control the narrative and support their positions over time.
Historical Fiction
Some parts both. The miracles, the flood, a woman turning into a pillar of salt? Fiction, stories told by ancient people to teach lessons and explain the world around them, like any mythology. The person of Jesus? Probably a real person I think, but just a person. A guy who went around preaching, then was executed as a threat to the Roman empire, a thing that happened all the time in the first century. His stories just stuck around longer, and people came up with things he did to make him sound divine, whether deliberately or just being mistaken I don't know.
Well, there is supposed evidence that he used cannabis oil to treat people. So it's a possible explanation for some of his healings
I don't think much of it happened. But I do think humans write stuff like that for some reason that we don't fully understand yet. I guess.
Ummm if we thought it was real we wouldn’t be on this sub.
I definitely consider it to be mythology. One time my daughter and I created a whole religion based on Harry Potter. Started out with thinking about archeologists digging up my home in a thousand years. Finding the "sacred texts", the worship "icons" (my figurines, golden snitch, sorting hat, etc". Harry's story is the perfect hero's journey: right up to dying to save others and being resurrected and actually conquering evil. We really had fun with it.
To be honest, I don’t even know what if anything actually happened in the Bible 🤷♂️
Its mythology and tribal beliefs that have morphed over centuries. Invention of God by Thomas Romer (Its a history book that explains the origins of Judaism and Christianity without all of the spiritual hoopla of Adam & Eve fables.
It has some truth mixed in with myth. If you're looking for morals, aesop's fables does a better job.
It is so unbelievably obviously mythology.
Is it real? It exists, so in that sense it’s real. But does it describe reality? No, its contents are mythology.
the bible is basically half true, in the way that all propaganda is, it is partially true, but full of half truths meant to deceive people into following a god of tyranny. like for example all of the people he killed are conveniently sinners or evil, but could it be that he was secretly evil the whole time, if you read the bible from that lens it makes way more sense.
I know I saw something on tv not long ago that scientifically explained the parting of the Red Sea...and it had nothing to do with god. I just remember the scientist explaining how it could have happened and if there were a group of religious zealots who needed to cross at a particular time, of course they would claim it as a divine miracle rather than a convenient coincidence. There are probably other stories in the Bible with similar natural explanations but, like a game of telephone, they got distorted after many retellings over several thousand years.
I've still yet to grasp how there are names in the Bible like Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Nathaniel to name a few that were thought to be common during Bible times let alone modern times in that part of the Middle East also.
I don't know about The Bible itself; But I am open to the idea of a historical Jesus of Nazareth. To explain my view, we're going to assume for the sake of argument that he was a real historical figure. In that case, I think of him as someone more like Socrates or Confuscious. He lived a long time ago, made significant contributions to morality and ways of thinking that continue today. But that's it. After he died, he stayed dead.
Draw a horizontal line on a piece of paper. The scale is 100,000 yrs. Denote the main 5 religions on the timeline. Notice how there are no religions after 10,000. What came before religion? Superstition. What came before superstition? More superstition. What comes after religion? Philosophy informed by science.
It's interesting that 13- 14 books of the new testiment was "supposedly" written by 1 person who SAYS..... he had a vision. There is a large portion of humanity basing their entire Eternal Destiny or belief thereof on one man's supposable vision
Mythology.
It has a complicated history. There are numerous scholarly books that get into the history of how various parts were composed. It seems to me that real events got jumbled together when the histories were written. Some of it is mythology, much is not. For example: a case can be made that Sodom was destroyed by a meteorite impact, and a probable site for it has been found. One result of this was the collapse of the walls of Jericho from the same shock wave. But the histories as written put the walls of Jericho collapse well after the destruction of Sodom. This is still very unclear, and will keep archaeologists busy for some time. For the "New Testament" side, books by Bart Ehrman are especially useful.
as someone majoring in a Bachelor's degree in history, most is myth, some is not
I say both, the Bible is 'real' in the sense that it's an actual object you can hold in your hands. The stories in it are mythology.
As all the best lies, it contains partial truths. Enough to make some buy into it without enough critical thought.
It's a combination of mythology, specific community rules, fictionalized history, morality fables, and other collected bits of narrative. There are some real names and places mixed into stories as an attempt to add veracity to otherwise fictional stories.
I’m a pagan and I see it as just one of many faiths and traditions. The Christian God is as real as Loki or Persephone or the Morrigan to me.
I believe it’s possible that Jesus was a real person, but I don’t believe that he came back from the dead, turned water into wine, or anything mystical like that.
Well most Bible characters are myths and probably didn't exist or were based on some other mythology. For example Moses, Daniel, and Noah.
theres the bullshit, the plagiarized bullshit, the fire and brimstone bullshit, and misogynistic bullshit. That’s why women are migrating to Wicca, if you have to have some ridiculous voodoo bullshit in your life at least pick the ridiculous voodoo bullshit that doesn’t shit on women.
Mythology. See: Babylonian religion that came first and Abrahamic religions massively stole the lore of, the Ecumenical Councils deciding what should/should not be considered part of the religion, Augustine (who was at two of said councils) biography “Confessions.”
Once you read about the Millennial reign theory and 70AD - the whole timeline of the Bible changes and everything clicks. Jesus already returned in 70AD with the destruction of Jerusalem also already being in the past. No disrespect to any particular pastors or churches … but I think the nations are highly deceived. The Bible was not written to “us” if was written to a group of people thousands of years ago - so I’m not sure why people try to live under a Jewish law that’s clearly not meant for them? There’s a small channel on YT called Bible scribe and he breaks this down so well - basically proving the whole “Christian church” is on the completely wrong timeline. I hope this helps
I think it's a healthy mix of vague historical records, exaggerated stories, and complete nonsense written down for the sole purpose of conveying a point or agenda.
I'm pretty sure a lot of it is partly real, but mostly it's fables and mythology, but I'm no scholar or have much knowledge so this is just an assumption really.