Re: It's amazing that of all the ancient writings the Bible is least respected...

just an interesting poll

Tony_elTigre® · 2025-03-30T08:02:46.142Z

The poll question is for believers, but everyone can answer. What's your believe in the "word of the bible". To explain a bit, I was taught my grannie(s) that the bible was literal, whatever is written actually happened. Later one of those grannies changed up and said it was not literal (which was confusing AF for a kid). Some believe its written by a people best trying to explain their world, in a superstitious time. Others believe it was written way later, and by who knows who, changed and rechanged, then assembled later by men

Fordtunate Son

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Apr 1, 2025, 9:38 AM

Excellent observation, 88. And the answer is "Yes they did!"

Lamentations (covering the 586 BCE Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem) in the Bible is very similar.

Here's an excerpt of why the city of Ur fell, way back in in about 2000 BCE, to their neighbors, the Elamites over in Persia. It'll almost bring you to tears.

The Lament of Ur

"The people of Ur are no more, the walls are torn down,
The temples are in ruins, their altars cold and silent.
The wind howls through empty streets; no songs rise in the evening air.
The gods have abandoned their city, their shrines left desolate.

Weeping fills the city like a river; mothers wail for their lost children.
The mighty ones have fallen, their voices silenced in the dust.
O Nanna, great lord of Ur, why have you forsaken your home?
Will the city rise again, or shall its name be lost forever?"

"The storm unleashed by Enlil, like a mighty flood, swept over the city.
The people, like reeds torn from the marsh, were scattered in the wind.
Their homes are desolate, their hearths cold and empty.
No more do the streets echo with the laughter of children;
Only the cries of the mourners fill the air.

"O Nanna, lord of Ur, why have you abandoned your city?
Your temple stands in ruin, its doors broken and cast aside.
The sacred fires have turned to ash; no offerings are brought to your altars.
The priests have fled, their songs silenced by sorrow.

"The mighty walls of Ur, once unshaken, now lie in heaps of dust.
The rivers that once brought life to the fields run red with sorrow.
The orchards are withered, their fruit scattered upon the ground.
Famine and despair walk hand in hand through the city gates.

"Where once the people prayed, now jackals make their dens.
The wind howls through the empty temples, calling for the gods who have left.
Enlil has spoken; the fate of Ur is sealed.
Its people must wander, its name must fade like smoke upon the wind.

"Yet still, we raise our voices in supplication.
O great gods, will you not turn your gaze once more upon Ur?
Will you not return and raise her from the dust?
Or must we forever weep for what has been lost?"

The Elamites did the dirty work of destroying Ur here on earth, but to the people of Ur, the reason was that they angered their Gods...perhaps turned their back on them, or failed to show proper piety.

The same ideas were held by the Hebrews 1200 years later, when Assyria destroyed the 10 tribes. Assyria did the dirty work, but they were contracted by God to do it.

Isaiah 10:5

"Assyria, the rod of my anger,
in whose hand is the club of my wrath!
I send him against a godless nation [Israel],
I dispatch him against a people who anger me,
to seize loot and take plunder,
and to trample them down like mud in the streets."

So straying from God, and getting bopped for it, was very, very common in the ancient Middle East.

Here's the Lamentation for Ur in the Louvre. "Where once the people prayed, now jackals make their dens." Wow. Even Shakespeare has nothing on the ancient writers for vivid imagery and turning a phrase.

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I think a lot of the confusion comes from understanding what the Bible, the physical book itself, actually is.

It's a library of smaller books, and for me, to think of it that way greatly simplifies the problem.

I can go into my local library and read Newton's Principia Mathematica, or, I can read The Three Little Pigs. BOTH books are in the library.

And, both books were written by men to try and describe or explain something. One, observations in the natural world, and another a morality tale. Both equally valid, and effective, in their own way.

That makes reading the Bible extremely difficult though. When I read Animal Farm, am I reading a scathing satire of the Communist Revolution in Russia in 1917, or am I reading about a bunch of animals, on a farm?

So knowing the history, and putting one's self in their place, is kind of important in getting the most out of the text. I mean, it can be read either way. It IS a story about animals on a farm. But with background knowledge, it becomes far, far, more.

Think how many songs are enjoyable to listen to, but once one knows the lyrics, and the context they were written in, how much more the song has to give. Bryan Adam's "Summer of '69" comes to mind. Adams was 10 years old in 1969. So how many sorrowful memories of an ex-lover could he have from 1969? Maybe the song means something else. Context matters.

Another complicating factor is the prophetic nature of the Bible. Much of it is written SPECIFICALLY as a prophecy. And as oxymoronic as it sounds, specifically vague. "A great man will appear" "A great thing will happen", etc, So how can one be entirely certain when a prophecy has, or will, occur?

And many times unrelated prophecies cross paths. Sort of "The South will rise again" mixed with "America will become the Great Society." Those two prophesies are 100 years apart, written in different times, under different circumstances, with different expectations, by different people.

But will someone in the future look back on us, with limited knowledge of American history, and ask "When did the Great Southern Society" exist?

just an interesting poll

You can't take it literal simply because of how many times it's been translated

Re: You can't take it literal simply because of how many times it's been translated

Re: You can't take it literal simply because of how many times it's been translated

Re: just an interesting poll

Re: just an interesting poll

Re: just an interesting poll

Re: just an interesting poll

Re: just an interesting poll

Re: just an interesting poll

Re: just an interesting poll

Re: just an interesting poll

Re: just an interesting poll

Re: just an interesting poll

Re: just an interesting poll

There were Jews in Corinth. It was a major port city in the Roman Empire.***

Re: There were Jews in Corinth. It was a major port city in the Roman Empire.***

Re: There were Jews in Corinth. It was a major port city in the Roman Empire.***

Re: just an interesting poll

Re: just an interesting poll

It's amazing that of all the ancient writings the Bible is least respected...

Re: It's amazing that of all the ancient writings the Bible is least respected...

Re: just an interesting poll

I think it is a mixture of fable/myth, history, spiritual wisdom, and human

Re: I think it is a mixture of fable/myth, history, spiritual wisdom, and human

Spot on!***

Do you know what a scribe is?

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