Issue list with the Christian religion

Isn't Bible apologetics, which I understand is actually taught under the title of "Apologetics" in seminaries as a way of changing the meaning of Biblical stories and Christ's parables to fit with current knowledge and acceptable societal norms? Isn't that oral tradition at work today? Possibly not, as I'm not an expert.

We have TV evangelists making millions of dollars by pouring out their ideas of what the scriptures mean, and it's hard to believe that the oral traditionists of the past were any different than the modern day "experts." It seems to me that accepting the accuracy of the oral tradition is a matter of faith (regardless of the written documentation you have referred to) as there is no way to check for accuracy since there are no records of the original thoughts and insights. We have at best written records of oral traditions as they were when they were finally recorded.

But all that aside, the Bible says what the Bible says. Sure you can spin the text in anyway you want, but it's all there claiming to be a record of God's inerrancy. What are we to do when parts of it are contrary to scientific discovery and modern ethics?

Obviously, you @David777 have drawn your own conclusions on what is acceptable doctrine and what is not, and I would even consider that as a step forward. But the King James Version, adopted as the modern standard by English speaking clergy is a rewriting of the Bible influenced by 17th Century politics and beliefs. True, many of the original documents of the Bble still exist in the original language, but who refers to them, and in my opinion, why bother, anyway? We are talking about a religion based on philosophies of antiquity.
 

I don't know anything about seminary teachings. The term apologetics is a general term used by those defending or debating for any religion with argumentation. Your post that directly reflects the kind of dominant notions on oral traditions that need to be changed, immediately tells me you didn't bother to read my above link that would answer those questions.

I often add links to my posts with a small amount of text, with those snippets not intended to be the only thing an audience reads to understand my inputs but rather to encourage them to actually open those webpages and peruse whatever they state that is almost always more enlightening with more details. I could usually copy into my posts much more from such sources but do not because I know many people on web boards have trouble reading anything more than they see a couple sentences long that is reflected by the many that when they do post, are usually just one-liners.

How Reliable were the Early Church's Oral Traditions? - Greg Boyd - ReKnew

I much appreciate members like you that can meaningfully write and express themselves in discussions while being aware a majority won't unless a topic is about say popular culture like TV or what some celebrity just did. And such is not generally due to a lack of intelligence as I've seen the same behaviors from many highly intelligent coworkers in high tech that can internally mentally understand complexities especially in math and science, but have difficulty or are inhibited expressing themselves to others that requires higher level language skills.

We have several former teachers on the board that are fine examples of those that not only can understand but also communicate such verbally or in writing that requires repetitive experience doing so due to neural plasticity. I'll add a second following post as an example of how this person that strongly rejects Bible inerrancy, may reinterpret scripture.
 

In the Gospels, Jesus walks on water in Matthew 14:22–33 and also in Mark 6:45–52 and John 6:16–21. Consider the following 3 ways the gospels tell that story:

Mathew 14:22
Immediately afterward He compelled the disciples to get into the boat and to go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away. After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone. 24 But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary.

25 And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea. 26 When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”

28 Peter responded and said to Him, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” 29 And He said, “Come!” And Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30 But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”

31 Immediately Jesus reached out with His hand and took hold of him, and *said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 When they got into the boat, the wind stopped. 33 And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “You are truly God’s Son!”
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Mark 6:45
And immediately Jesus had His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He Himself *dismissed the crowd. 46 And after saying goodbye to them, He left for the mountain to pray. 47 When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land. 48 Seeing them straining at the oars—for the wind was against them—at about the fourth watch of the night, He *came to them, walking on the sea; and He intended to pass by them.

49 But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they thought that it was a ghost, and they cried out; 50 for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately He spoke with them and *said to them, “Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid.” 51 Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished,
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John 6:16
Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, 17 and after getting into a boat, they started to cross the sea to Capernaum. It had already become dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 In addition, the sea began getting rough, because a strong wind was blowing.

19 Then, when they had rowed about twenty-five or thirty stadia, they *saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat; and they were frightened. 20 But He *said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” 21 So they were willing to take Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.
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Note, all 3 gospels relate the same general story but do so with authors including different details. Some details could be absolutely correct while others per my link to the way oral traditions work, may be partial embellishments for the purpose of being more interesting to their immediate primitive audiences and not for the sake of what educated people decades to centuries, to millennia later might interpret literally. Especially at the level of rigid inerrancy.

Mark and Luke may have heard from eyewitnesses the same Peter additions as in John but simply did not include them. Mathew's gospel of the 3 is most likely in that embellishment category. The fact each is a bit different shows one gospel didn't simply copy material from earlier others so is more likely to have been described so by different apostle sources.

Now how does mr dave interpret the story that many modern folks who don't understand oral tradition processes would just laugh at as another nonsense OOO god miracle? Why believe a Bible with such obvious impossibilities? When I analyzed this decades ago, I immediately thought how this could easily be explained. If a race of UIEs was on the Earth supporting Jesus, they would likely have a base in the Sinai Desert where no humans lived or ventured, would have aerial space craft orbiting high in the atmosphere, and would have underwater craft, all 3 of which would not be noticed by humans allowing them not to influence humans with the existence of advanced technology.

A submarine like craft at night in the Sea of Galilee with a level deck at the sea surface might move slowly just at say shin to knee depth so that a person standing on that deck might appear to be walking on water as they approached closer to an observer. What about the Peter narrative? Note how Jesus never explains how miracles occur that allows primitives to add miracle like embellishments and not by Jesus himself. Thus it isn't Jesus tricking his audience as he is merely limiting details. In this case more likely just an oral tradition embellishment.

It is readily arguable that any race of ancient UIEs won't explain mysterious things to science primitives, nor are they likely to correct however primitives interpret events or how such is recorded as that task would expose to natives what UIEs really are that would have to do so endlessly in each following generation. I'd also expect UIEs keep video like records of some events like how they communicate such so millennia later in the future they can prove they didn't mislead primitives but rather primitives themselves over generations modified and or added to what they had been given.

There is a fair amount of miracle like physically impossible scripture in the OT/NT Bible that people use to dismiss any of it as true. If any members have troubling miracle like scripture that affects their belief, please go ahead and ask me how whatever might be interpreted in new believable ways.
 
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David777 said:
I don't know anything about seminary teachings. The term apologetics is a general term used by those defending or debating for any religion with argumentation. Your post that directly reflects the kind of dominant notions on oral traditions that need to be changed, immediately tells me you didn't bother to read my above link that would answer those questions.
Click to expand...
Actually, I did, but not the entire Wikipedia article, which was more than I wanted to spend my time on, but I did focus on the for/ against debate part over the validity of the oral tradition, I found neither the for or the against sides of the issue convincing enough to alter my perception from skeptical. Today, I read the link you included this morning, which included the arguments for and against without being convinced of either side.

It was interesting to see they claimed the oral tradition from the Jewish and Christian perspective was more reliable than the Native American oral tradition. I attended a class that spent an entire afternoon listening to council members of the Blackfeet Nation of Northern Montana vigorously defending their own oral tradition. I wonder how they feel about that claim. I thought it was an interesting part of their culture, but didn't feel swayed by their arguments. They had their own supreme being, who's name I would not dare to spell.

But now that we have more or less covered a bit of that, I'm not even sure how we got on the oral tradition topic. I think I brought it up, but now can't remember why. I'm more interested in your customized Christianity, because I had my own similar version during the days when I was on my own quest to make allowances for a god I could not hear, see, or feel.
 
I related that because it seemed you didn't read or understand the link carefully because you wrote:

JD>>>"... We have TV evangelists making millions of dollars by pouring out their ideas of what the scriptures mean, and it's hard to believe that the oral traditions of the past were any different than the modern day "experts." It seems to me that accepting the accuracy of the oral tradition is a matter of faith as there is no way to check for accuracy since there are no records of the original thoughts and insights..."

The link article explains how absolute "accuracy" was not the intent in ancient oral traditions but rather conveying the general primary meaning of events without actually being exact so the primary meanings could be reasonably passed down over generations. That orators were expected to embellish stories with minor details as imagined in order to interest their audience using normal conversation story telling styles. And that today, "accepting the accuracy of oral tradition" is not a goal but rather understanding why oral traditions are likely more accurate than most scholars per "form criticism" had thought while being aware much oral tradition still requires considerable skepticism and doubt without ever black and white certainty. My walking on water post is a clear example.

That is very different from the dominant Christian dogma inerrancy demands treating all scripture as Holy Spirit perfectly inspired that I state is nonsense. Even many scholars quietly never believed in inerrancy but which they had to act so lest were labeled heretics. And as the article makes clear, that is very different from say your example of how modern denominations interpret scripture that is strangled by inerrancy. Of the 4 gospels, the late written Gospel of John, is the one most likely most inspired.
 
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Will repeat what I finished with in post #30, challenging members that dismiss the OT/NT due to apparent miracles:

...There is a fair amount of miracle like physically impossible scripture in the OT/NT Bible that people use to dismiss any of it as true. If any members have troubling miracle like scripture that affects their belief, please go ahead and ask me how whatever might be interpreted in new believable ways.
 
I don't care what anyone believes. My beef with Christianity is the zealousness of the preaching, and the inability to appreciate others' beliefs. I've had people knock on my door, and start screaming that I'm going to hell, if I don't believe exactly as they believe. I don't think being a Christian gives anyone the right to intrude and trash others beliefs.
 
@fuzzybody, that is certainly the situation in some places like in our Southern bible Belt and some rural regions. However in others less so, and in others like California where I've lived in suburbia, never so. Thus could add that to my 18 point list probably under number 15. Thanks.

@Timewise 60+, indeed would have value. But in a new thread for reasonable focus but not within this thread, haha. Someone would need to brainstorm that first with a list as a starting point.
 

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