Alex,

I'm a charter member of Karen's fan club and have at least half a dozen or more of her books. The one must used is "A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Stretches the mind to read her, doesn't it?

I also have "The Bible" which is heavily highlighted. How many Christians, Adventist ones, have limited their reading to the Bible or EGW, fearful that they will "wander astray" by the questions these books elicit? Cicero was right when he said "To remain ignorant of what went before us is to remain forever a child (paraphrased).

I attended a class awhile ago where the leader made the point that the biggest mistake the fundamentalists make in their treatment of the Bible is assuming that it has one coherent message, one clear voice, one unified view, and that if something seems contradictory it is only because one isn't interpreting it quite right.

That was certainly the message I got growing up even though I wasn't raised by conservative parents and I always attended large, more liberal SDA churches. Everything fits together somehow if we just study it enough. There have been times in my past when I've wanted to just yell, "Are we reading the same book here? Yes it may say this here but it says something totally opposite over here and they simply can't both be right." Rarely, when studying the SS lesson, do people seem willing to tackle this. They use the texts provided that shore up the particular point and then move on.

It was like a weight taken off when I finally accepted that it really does have discrepancies and it's not just me. It freed me to try and build a belief system that was hopefully God-based but didn't have to account for every view in the Bible.

And starting by focusing on Jesus helped but even he said things that make you turn in circles trying to understand them. I'm not saying that therefore the Bible is useless and meaningless. I do think though that there is this kind of viewpoint accepted by many that everything fits together if we just read it right and we'll just pretend that all these discrepancies aren't really there.

Hi Beth...

these issues with the Bible also sound a bit like the issues that Alden Thompson was tackling in "Inspiration." Interesting...

Frank

Yes Frank I read Thompson's book and liked it. I thought it was a good start to try and introduce the concept to an audience who might find the message threatening. I thought his examples were kind of on the tame side though. A good introductory book but pretty gentle all in all in dealing with the problem. I know he caught a bunch of flak for it so it just goes to show that he knew his audience. I don't fault the book for that, I was just ready personally for more in-depth wrestling.

Beth: Amen and Ditto.

Right near the beginning there a description of no real Christians, just those aspiring to be Christians. sometime I feel that if I were to stand up and say "I am a follower of Christ" everyone I know could set the record straight.

"How to Read the Bible" by James Kugel, an Orthodox Jew, is a great read, although with nearly 700 pages is rather daunting.

Just yesterday I received a book and began devouring it: "The Bondage of the Mind" by R.D. Gold, also a Jew. He illustrates the affects of the fundamentalists who are textual literalists, whether they be Jew, Christian or Muslim. This type of bondage is mental slavery, but freely chosen. Fundamentalism is the enemy of rationality and freedom.

No group is free from this attitude. Is the SDA church an exception?

I would like to share a relevant passage by Gray Temple's book, The Molten Soul. In speaking of the Bible he says, "A deliberately diverse collection of scrolls has been edited and bound into a single volume, its diversity ignored if not indeed cloaked... Though the editors of the Bible deliberately went to little discernible trouble to square conflicting details or viewpoints with each other, you can find a vast literature dedicated to helping us pretend that the Bible is unitary and univocal."

I used to believe that mere verbal inspiration was the biggest bug-a-boo in our efforts to understanding the Bible. I now believe that the notion that the Bible is univocal is an equal hindrance.

While Desire of Ages is a classic devotional book, its effort to sweep the "synoptic problem" under the rug has resulted in a great lose to our spiritual growth as a people.

Pardon the redundancy, but accepting a book as authoritative and demanded by your religious belief should, at minimum, require some investigationof its writers (where possible), formation, and the convoluted manner in which it was put together. No other contemporary book would be so unquestioningly accepted; yet the Bible is "out of bounds" in the fear of losing one's faith if such an inquiry is done. Such fragile faith!

There are many paths to God. Those who believe otherwise are in for many surprises in heaven.

In Kugel's book mentioned above, he demonstrates how only one book, or part of a Bible book was on a single scroll and that no reader had the entire Bible at any time from which to read.

The presuppositions one brings to the Bible are unlike any other ancient book: some look upon it as the Word of God, others, usually scholars, compare it to other writings that were earlier, or contemporary with Scripture. In so doing, there are very similar stories in other cultures that are so alike in many details demonstrating a common origin for all. Accepting everything within the Bible's covers as being divinely inspired, inerrant and infallible has led to much mischief.

It is the history of the Hebrew people, told and greatly embellished, just as the epics of the Babylonians, Sumerians and Greeks have their own unique stories, which few regard as historically accurate. Why should the Bible be read differently?

BTW, Armstrong's best book, IMO, is "A History of God."