I have two scripture references.
The most obvious is 1 John 5:7, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
The other is related to man being made in the image of God.
1 Thess 5:23, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
If man is a triune being and he is made in the image of God, can’t the inference be made that God is a triune being?
I don’t understand what you are asking. And I’d never heard anything similar to that asked before. What I do believe is that everything you need to know to have a relationship with God is written within the Bible.
But your question reminded me of a scripture. John 21:25, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.”
This is the next “contradiction” you mentioned. Part of your “contradiction” includes textural criticism. Contradictions within the Bible are independent of criticism of the text. That is a separate argument.
You mentioning this as a contradiction is a head scratcher. I know that I bought in when my junior year humanities instructor/professor made the claim. I assume that you have read both Genesis chapters 1 and 2. I can only assume that you read them assuming that the accused contradiction is correct. Before we continue, I ask you to read them thinking as a student who is asked to discuss the prevailing theme of each chapter. Are the themes different and how so?
From my perspective, this historical contradictions don’t matter too much bc idt the bible was written to be taken literally
I was listening to a podcast a while back that said that the bible is more of a tool to teach moral/social values through stories, which I agree with even as an atheist
From what I understand, pretty much every other religion has stories that teach more or less the same lessons.
My issue with religion is that I can’t wrap my head around believing in god(s). I have the same view towards spirituality in general tbh
@RT_Nomad another question for you while I go back and read later today.
I understand you believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Why do you believe that the KJV is the most accurate version of it? The KJV is widely regarded among both secular and Christian scholars to contain the most translation discrepancies to the best primary biblical sources currently known.
Given that the Bible is considered the inerrant word, shouldn’t the most accurate translation to the primary source texts be used for those that don’t speak Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic?
I used to feel similarly.
There is a lot of evidence to suggest some sort of supernatural realm. That evidence and stories span cultures/time throughout the world. Now, is that because of some parallel dimension that comes through in “thin” places science has not explained yet, or some carry on of a soul/personal entity not tied to a body? Don’t know.
Modern physics postulates (in some theories) upwards of 11 dimensions and the possibility of parallel universes.
And i have had supernatural experiences I have written about before on this site.
I have never stated that the KJV is the most accurate version. My position is that it is the inerrant word of God.
Since I began to solidify that belief, I did quite a bit of research into the subject. Much of my support I got was from “New Age Bible Versions” by G.A. Riplinger. In fact a friend and myself developed an index of every Bible verse covered within the book, so that it could easily be used as a reference. It is now added to the the book.
So, all of the new bibles use the minority Greek text where the KJV use the majority Greek text. This is just a small portion that sealed by belief that the KJV is the only inerrant word of God.
Covering this is next to impossible in the confines of a forum and accomplished in any reasonable length of time. Not to mention that all desired new translations of the bible must operate within the constraints of the Derivative Copyright Law, if they wish to get a copyright so they can make money.
I really don’t want the questioning proceed in the textural criticism route. It is complicated and the best I can get is that the KJV is the best translation going this route.
Let me give you my interpretation of Genesis 1:1 which I don’t know that has ever been said before that I believe that you might find interesting.
Most everyone who believes in God believes that He has been from eternity past and will be through eternity future. But when they read the very first words of the Bible, “In the beginning”, they don’t seem to be asking: The beginning of what?
Consider this fun thought: Since eternity past God and His Son have been sitting in the dark. Do you suppose that the Father turned to the Son and said, “Why don’t we do something?” I can’t see anyone believing that, who believes in God. How many “creation experiments” might God have done before He got to earth? I would not venture to guess. It might be the vanity of man to believe he is the first and only.
Now to Genesis 1.1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Did you notice the singular “heaven.” All of the new bibles plus the Hebrew text have the plural “heavens.”
I suggest that God had created the universe long before He turned His attention to earth. Maybe earth was just “the third rock from the sun.” It might have been totally uninhabitable. So God placed water on the earth and the atmosphere. The atmosphere of earth is generally agreed on as the first heaven in the Bible. That makes singular “heaven” that which God created “in the beginning.” because the heavens and solar systems had already been created.
Let’s go back to “in the beginning.” The beginning of what? Hold the Bible in your hand and consider its primary suppose. What is it? The Bible is a book dealing with the relationship of God with man. The very first verse states “in the beginning” and it should mean “of God’s dealing with His creation of man on the earth.”
Just something to consider that only a STEM would think to investigate. What STEM doesn’t want to know how did the thing start?
Interesting. I ran across this (in a reddit thread), while trying to understand the original usage of the terms:
Split the word into its components: “b’ - rishit”. Rishit is a conjugation of rishon, which means “first”. So I read the word to mean “firstly”, as in the first thing G-d did was creat the heavens and the earth. This allows for the interpretation that Genesis doesn’t describe the beginning of all things, just the beginning of G-d’s project.
It could mean that for sure.
I have never believed (even when I was Christian) that if humanity was created by a deity that we would be the only sentient beings capable of high level thought that they would create. So here we agree.
This requires much background information to take a deep dive. I don’t have the knowledge level to teach you this stuff, so I will confuse you further.
The minority test has its foundation in Aleph and B:
Aleph is the Codex Sinaiticus
B is the Codex Vaticanus
The majority text are the many manuscripts from the second century (P66) through 1500 that generally agree with one another.
What? Don’t make the mistake of assuming only STEM majors have brains. Any question you could ask about the Bible was probably asked hundreds of years ago.
Of course. Where do you think Strongmen came from?
Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them,
that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.
And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
