The Bible doesn't talk about God

[Cheshire Cat]

 

 

/discuss

[Stosh]

Ufo theorist

[LAOLONG]

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

illiterate interpretation is always hilarious so let me get this straight on the 7th day not god created the world and not God said let there be light. Genesis has nothing to do with creation, great comedy,really funny video.

 

This is good material for the millennials since they have no cause of their own. the millennials will have to rethink what color to dye their hair or go vegan or eat pork it's all so confusing. The bible? that is the book in hotel rooms right. Maybe if we take one pork rib and put it in a vegetable we could create a gender of meat vegetables and things would not be so confusing. 

[MooNiNite]

4 minutes ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

illiterate interpretation is always hilarious so let me get this straight on the 7th day not god created the world and not God said let there be light. Genesis has nothing to do with creation, great comedy,really funny video.

 

This is good material for the millennials since they have no cause of their own. the millennials will have to rethink what color to dye their hair or go vegan or eat pork it's all so confusing. The bible? that is the book in hotel rooms right. Maybe if we take one pork rib and put it in a vegetable we could create a gender of meat vegetables and things would not be so confusing. 

 

Maybe seventh day is referring to seventh chakra?

[Nungali]

And maybe when it says God  ... it means  you  ?          

[sagebrush]

nice lyrics Joan thank you

 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2017 by sagebrush
realized that I have nothing to say this pm

[Fa Xin]

Ohhhh it's subtitleddddd......

Edited October 13, 2017 by Fa Xin

[Bindi]

It's the first I've heard of Mauro Biglino, but I have compared genesis and Sumerian/Akkadian texts for my own interest and some of the similarities are striking. 

 

Researching Mauro Biglino briefly, he seems to be coming at the whole thing from a fairly solid scholarly base:

 

Quote

 

The linguistic and philological knowledge acquired through the study of Hebrew Masoretic manuscripts, as well as his knowledge of Latin and Greek , allowed Biglino to work as a translator for Edizioni San Paolo, the Vatican publishing house that eventually published 17 books from the Ancient Testament including Biglino’s interlinear literal translations from the Stuttgartensia Bible.

 

 

After working for that publishing house for several years, the author decided to realise a literal and philologically annotated true version of the Old Testament, in the attempt to get as close as possible to the authors’ original message.

After years of professional translations I started to tell on my own as I noticed in the Hebrew texts from which the Bibles that are in use for the believers. The method I decided to apply consists in focusing on the text literal meaning without proposing personal interpretations or receiving canonical exegesis. A clear and coherent framework emerges, which tells/telling us the story of an actual relationship between one people and one individual named Yahweh, who had received a mandate to deal with it. The biblical sequences read with this method reveal a story that calling into question what we’ve been taught and while providing hypothetical answers to questions which remain suspended. This applies to religion but also to science, a part of which is examining new hypotheses of the study and exploration that are able to open pathways that can lead to rewriting the entire history of mankind.
 

https://maurobiglino.com/

 

In choosing to read his literal translation of the Old Testament (as well as the ancient Sumerian and Akkadian texts) as factual history instead of myth, he comes to one possible conclusion - that the technology and Yaweh being referred to is of alien origin, but his scholarly contribution remains, he has produced a literal translation of the Old Testament, which may well be worth reading. We don't need to come to the same conclusions as Biglino, but a stripped back scholarly translation is surely of interest.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2017 by Bindi

[Michael Sternbach]

2 hours ago, Bindi said:

It's the first I've heard of Mauro Biglino, but I have compared genesis and Sumerian/Akkadian texts for my own interest and some of the similarities are striking. 

 

Researching Mauro Biglino briefly, he seems to be coming at the whole thing from a fairly solid scholarly base:

 

In choosing to read his literal translation of the Old Testament (as well as the ancient Sumerian and Akkadian texts) as factual history instead of myth, he comes to one possible conclusion - that the technology and Yaweh being referred to is of alien origin, but his scholarly contribution remains, he has produced a literal translation of the Old Testament, which may well be worth reading. We don't need to come to the same conclusions as Biglino, but a stripped back scholarly translation is surely of interest.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would be interested in hearing more about the parallels you have found.

[Bindi]

8 hours ago, Michael Sternbach said:

 

I would be interested in hearing more about the parallels you have found.

 

The flood story would be the main parallel from Sumerian texts, but there are also Gods (plural) in the Sumerian Eridu genesis which are mentioned in the biblical genesis but don't fit the monotheistic pattern. 

 

This page gives a reasonable overview

http://www.piney.com/EriduGen.html

 

One of the bottom line issues is that some people, those that end up in the alien UFO camp really, are reading the Eridu genesis text and other Akkadian texts as factual history instead of myth. 

 

edit: Also 'The genesis of genesis' by Victor Hurowitz regarding the Babylonian creation myth and its similarity to the Biblical genesis.    http://www.michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/babylonbaghdad.pdf

 

 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2017 by Bindi

[Cheshire Cat]

7 hours ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

illiterate interpretation is always hilarious so let me get this straight on the 7th day not god created the world and not God said let there be light. Genesis has nothing to do with creation, great comedy,really funny video.

 

[...]

 

Biglino is pointing out that the verb that theologians translate "to create" doesn't mean "creatio ex nihilo" and it never does.

The term specifically imply an intervention on something that already exists to create something else.

 

 

7 hours ago, Nungali said:

And maybe when it says God  ... it means  you  ?          

 

When the Bible says God, the original term is Elohim.

When the Bible says Lord, the original term is YHWH.

When the Bible says (the) Most Hight, the original term is Elyon.

 

Elohim is a plural and nobody knows what it actually means.

YHWH is the name of an individual and we don't even know how to properly pronounce it.

Elyon... there are chances (but we're not sure) that it comes from a term which means High.

 

This is what it's written.

Now you can interpret as you like or stay literal. It's your choice.

Edited October 13, 2017 by Cheshire Cat

[Bindi]

I looked into 'Olam' for example, one of Biglino's disputed words, usually translated as 'eternity' in the bible, and the more literal translation from the Ancient Hebrew Research Centre:

 

Quote

The Hebrew word olam literally means "beyond the horizon." When looking off in the far distance it is difficult to make out any details and what is beyond that horizon cannot be seen. This concept is the olam. The word olam is also used for time for the distant past or the distant future as a time that is difficult to know or perceive. This word is frequently translated as "eternity" meaning a continual span of time that never ends. In the Hebrew mind it is simply what is at or beyond the horizon, a very distant time. A common phrase in the Hebrew is "l'olam va'ed" and is usually translated as "forever and ever," but in the Hebrew it means "to the distant horizon and again" meaning "a very distant time and even further." 

 

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/vocabulary_definitions_eternity.html

 

So Biglino has reason I believe to make a new literal translation, but it's also true that he does go further than just literal translation, as he then interprets his literal translation. 

[Wu Ming Jen]

It is amazing how much the bible has borrowed from older traditions. The ufo thing fits nicely being like God from another place, two worlds. (world means one), not part of nature, being higher and far away from ourselves The best miss direction ever conceived. LOOK up there.

 

Scientology would be way into this and their spaceship arriving to take them away from themselves. Good SI FI writing made real gotta love it.

 

Being an actual alien believe me there is no such thing as UFO or aliens. Go to work humans for your owners so your owners can enjoy a rich and decadent lifestyle and everything will be ok.

[Cheshire Cat]

6 minutes ago, Bindi said:

(...)

 

 

So Biglino has reason I believe to make a new literal translation, but it's also true that he does go further than just literal translation, as he then interprets his literal translation. 

 

He says that the single Truth that we have about the Bible is that it's not the one originally written. Not only there are variations, apocryphal texts, theological translations ... but also the hebrew original that western christians use, the masoretic code is nothing but ONE of the many available ways to put vowels in a text that is originally made of just consonants. An guess how "ancient" is that masoretic code...

 

Given that, he plainly states that he simply pretends that the Bible tells the truth when you read it literally.

 

But if you choose to read it literally, there's nothing to interpret.

 

 

[Zhongyongdaoist]

It is not so surprising how much the Bible borrows form other traditions, it is surprising the number of people to whom this is news.  Problems with the Biblical narrative were noticed in the Seventeenth Century, by the Nineteenth they were the subject of considerable study and had given rise to serious and well argued doubts about the Bible as a historical document.  With the development of Archeology in the Nineteenth Century similarities to other Near Eastern civilizations became a more and more common observation, with the Early Twentieth Century being a time when these were noted, organized and even brought together into a neat Two Volume scholarly package, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament.  People to whom this is news should start with the Wikipedia Article on the Historicity of the Bible.  There is a great deal of well reasoned and accurate Biblical scholarship available in English and other languages, and people do not need to rely on the opinions of a UFO theorist lecturing in Italian with English subtitles.  Doing the research is both interesting and worthwhile, and after doing it you will realize that all forms of Judeo-Christian fundamentalism, are so many castles built on foundations of sand, and that none of the religions that derive from the Abrahamic myth cycle, Judaism, Christianity, or Islam have any more basis for their claims than any other religion, and the "Bible" in any of its forms, any more claim to special status than Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and similar works of mythology.

[Jeff]

I think it is also important to differentiate between the Bible (with the New Testament) itself and really what you are describing about the Old Testament. 

[silent thunder]

When the bible was cannonized and the books codified into the form they now occupy, there was I would wager, no one involved in the process who could envision a time such as we live in now... when a common farmer, or carpenter/artist such as myself, would be able to read the bible for himself and thus inquire directly to answer the inconvenient questions, so often ignored or shut down by the church.

 

As such, the wealth of contradictions in the varying books was considered a non issue, as no commoner would ever have access to the wealth, the means, or the time, to devote to learning to read the words for themselves and thus would always be required to rely upon the clergy to interpret the words of god and remain firmly within the context decided by doctrine.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

18 minutes ago, Jeff said:

I think it is also important to differentiate between the Bible (with the New Testament) itself and really what you are describing about the Old Testament. 

 

With all due respect Jeff, the New Testament is not without serious problems of its own, nor can any claims of the "specialness" of the teachings of Jesus, whether canonical or extra-canonical such as Gnostic texts be given any special status outside of a full Trinitarianism, in which the  "historical Jesus" is also conceived of as the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, and thus having a truly special status which would transcend that of all other "merely human" teachers.  The early Church Fathers realized that the Old Testament was the foundation upon which any "Christian" edifice had to be built, which is why it was included in the Christian Bible, in spite of some early opposition to its inclusion, and if the foundation is bad, then what is built upon it is unsound.  This problem also affects any claims of Islam to be God's final word delivered through his last prophet, Mohamed, because if the first "word" is not fundamentally correct, then there can be no last word of correction, because if the Old Testament became corrupt, then it was only because "God" could not or would not protect it from such corruption, and if he could not prevent its corruption, then why should one pay attention to it or anything that claims to follow from it, as being any less corrupt, and if "God" could prevent its corruption why didn't "he", and why if he decided to correct it, why did he decide to do so, and how could he protect it after that correction and any time in the future?  What happens to such notions as Divine Omnipotence and Foreknowledge under these circumstances?

 

Now, I have only outlined some of the problems involved and I have no wish to engage in long debates about the matter, it is the subject of a voluminous literature which I have no wish to recount here.  If you or anyone else wishes to claim a special historical status for the New Testament I don't really care, I have nothing personal involved in the discussion.

 

As a final note to feminists, my references to "God" as a "he" should not be taken as my own beliefs, but only a reflection of the usage of Old and New Testament sources.  Since I don't believe in the Abrahamic "God", its gender doesn't matter to me, except for its historical, social and political uses in the oppression of women, in which I of course consider it to be a bad thing.

 

 

[MooNiNite]

The New Testament with The Book of Revelation is clearly just a description of opening the chakras. 

[Cheshire Cat]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

I think it is also important to differentiate between the Bible (with the New Testament) itself and really what you are describing about the Old Testament. 

 

The new testament requires -at the very least- two fundamental prerequisites from the old testament:

1. the mandator: the one who sent Jesus Christ;
2. the motive aka the original sin;

Known that the Bible doesn't talk about God (the  kind of God that theology made up over the centuries), but this YHWH is a violent warlord who commands his people to kill, rape and conquer.

Considering that the original sin is not present in the old testament as rabbis candidly state:

 

"The term “original sin” is unknown to the Jewish Scriptures, and the Church’s teachings on this doctrine are antithetical to the core principles of the Torah and its prophets. Moreover, your comment that your Christian denomination teaches that water baptism is essential for the removal of sin may rattle the sensitivities of more Christians than anything I am going to say. "

 

https://outreachjudaism.org/original-sin/

 

The conclusion is that if you throw the old testament in the garbage, the new testament immediately follows.

Edited October 13, 2017 by Cheshire Cat

[Jeff]

9 minutes ago, Cheshire Cat said:

 

The new testament requires -at the very least- two fundamental prerequisites from the old testament:

1. the mandator: the one who sent Jesus Christ;
2. the motive aka the original sin;

Known that the Bible doesn't talk about God (the  kind of God that theology made up over the centuries), but this YHWH is a violent warlord who commands his people to kill, rape and conquer.

Considering that the original sin is not present in the old testament as rabbis candidly state:

 

"The term “original sin” is unknown to the Jewish Scriptures, and the Church’s teachings on this doctrine are antithetical to the core principles of the Torah and its prophets. Moreover, your comment that your Christian denomination teaches that water baptism is essential for the removal of sin may rattle the sensitivities of more Christians than anything I am going to say. "

 

https://outreachjudaism.org/original-sin/

 

The conclusion is that if you throw the old testament in the garbage, the new testament immediately follows.

 

I would disagree.  The "God" in the Old Testament is a totally different "thing", than in the New Testament with the teachings of Jesus. Additionally, the "motive" with the teachings of Jesus is not about any original sin.  It is more about "returning" or seeing through the worldly crap.  

 

As Jesus clearly states, he brought the "truth" (or higher realization), not subject to the old laws (old understanding).  Or, you can't put new wine in an old wineskin... 

Edited October 13, 2017 by Jeff

[MooNiNite]

The Book of Revelation is about opening 7 seals on a scroll and each time one opens, the creature that corrisponds to the charkas horoscope sign comes out.  Finally when all 7 are open there is 30 minutes of silence. 

The book is about an "apocolypse."

 

An apocalypse (Ancient Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis, from ἀπό and καλύπτω, literally meaning "an uncovering") is a disclosure of knowledge or revelation. In religious contexts it is usually a disclosure of something hidden, "a vision of heavenly secrets that can make sense of earthly realities".^[1]

 

 

The book (if you can call it that) is clearly just some stolen Hindu/Tibetan Buddhist ideas.   

[Jeff]

6 minutes ago, MooNiNite said:

The Book of Revelation is about opening 7 seals on a scroll and each time one opens, the creature that corrisponds to the charkas horoscope sign comes out.  Finally when all 7 are open there is 30 minutes of silence. 

The book is about an "apocolypse."

 

An apocalypse (Ancient Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis, from ἀπό and καλύπτω, literally meaning "an uncovering") is a disclosure of knowledge or revelation. In religious contexts it is usually a disclosure of something hidden, "a vision of heavenly secrets that can make sense of earthly realities".^[1]

 

 

The book (if you can call it that) is clearly just some stolen Hindu/Tibetan Buddhist ideas.   

 

To me, it tells much more than that.  But, I would agree that you could find many similar concepts specifically in the Lotus Sutra and the coming of the many jeweled Stupa (or twin tower buddha).  From the last part of Revelations...

 

Revelations 21:1-7

1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. 2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. 5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. 6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. 7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

[Cheshire Cat]

I'm familiar with many of the parallels and interpretations that you've cited: in particular I studied the Apocalypse in depth because of some pseudo-gnostic teachings about chakras and the churches.

 

But my conclusion is that everything must be read in context and that we shouldn't begin our analysis with the stretching of the text, a stretching which is necessary for it to fit our pre-conceived ideas.

In other words: if you assume from the beginning that it's a sacred text, inspired by God or some astro-ascended Masters and you immediately try to read in there the "superior" spiritual knowledge that you already possess, you'll go astray 99,99% ot the time.

 

First thing: study the time in which it was written. Then read what it's actually there. You can hardly find instructions on internal yogas in the bible.

 

Did you know for example that the number of the beast changed -at least- a couple times to fit different roman emperors?

Those who actually "used" the text on a daily basis (being it for liturgy or teachings) felt the need to "update" it continuously because it became obsolete in a few decades!

What are you trying to get about modern days?

 

13 hours ago, Jeff said:

 

I would disagree.  The "God" in the Old Testament is a totally different "thing", than in the New Testament with the teachings of Jesus. Additionally, the "motive" with the teachings of Jesus is not about any original sin.  It is more about "returning" or seeing through the worldly crap.  

 

According to St. Paul (the guy who made up the all thing and whose teachings are present in Acts and epistles and are regarded as extremely important) Jesus came here to save us from original sin.

This idea was present in many (if not all) gnostic sects as well.

 

Quote

 

As Jesus clearly states, he brought the "truth" (or higher realization), not subject to the old laws (old understanding).  Or, you can't put new wine in an old wineskin... 

 

"Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill (the prophets)" (Matthew 5:17)

 

Jesus' truth was that he was the prophesied Mashiach (not the "spiritual Messiah" invented after his death) ... and the "Law" is Moses' laws, written in the Bible.

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2017 by Cheshire Cat