The Political Affiliation of The Bible

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And who can say for sure what meaning was and was not written, with all due respect I belive the bible is open to interpretation. Even the various denominations of christianity do not agree on exactly what is meant by each passage.

and i say the pattern recognition of the human brain will have too much bias to actually determine that.

i think you are right by virtue of the fact that no one can seperate themselves from their own bias, making the bible reader as important a part as the bible.
in that sense all political sides are represented whith a good probability of none of them actually being true.

politics as we see them today take a very different shape to politics in 600 ad

Well that is not quite what I was getting at....especially since I feel like I do have the ability to look beyond my personal bais. I read it with an open mind. I do see your point though. But as I said in my earlier comment I don't think the bible represents a specific political ideology...that really does not make sense.

As far as "correct" interpretation goes: It's a book, and all we really have now if we ignore tradition is the text. I'd only say that you need to be careful in saying that it is an "open" text interpretively because modern-day translations are sourced from the same ancient texts that have been with us some thousands of years now. Those texts are clearly largely unchanged from the original, and we know by comparing manuscripts that different variations are really silly to debate about--things like word order, the ancient equivalent of misplaced decimals, misspellings due to certain letters resembling others, and so on--since those kinds of things have never changed the meaning and intent of the text. At a basic level you can compare the Masoretic and the Septuagint. Most of us tend to favor the Masoretic Bible unless there is good reason to believe the Septuagint renders it better. And that's just the OT. The NT is virtually unchanged from its earliest known manuscripts back in the 2nd century.

So we have a good idea what these guys said and did. I tend to take the Bible literally unless and until there is a clear indication that it shouldn't be literal. Jesus' words are full of hyperbole and sarcasm. I don't take that to mean He meant to be a jerk, but rather that His listeners needed to be spoken to in very clear terms. The parables are clearly symbolic fables and riddles intended to teach a lesson. They also functioned to "separate the sheep from the goats," a test to see who was open-minded enough to understand and to see who already had their minds made up. He DID explain the riddles to His inner circle and taught that they should reveal these "secrets" at the appropriate time. The OT retains that Semitic flavor of styled speech, so it does take a certain amount of discretion to read between the lines and glean the actual contextual meaning. But again, this really isn't all that terribly difficult for anyone to do.

Example: King David tells Uriah to go home and "wash his feet." This can't be the literal meaning. David had done something wrong and wanted to cover it up. The easiest and cleanest way to avoid being found out would have been to make sure Uriah slept with his wife. Unfortunately for David, it had also become tradition that soldiers avoid sexual contact during wartime. While washing one's feet usually can be taken at face value, King David is using it as a euphemism for having sex.

A literal interpretation is usually best as long as one understands that the Bible is not unlike other texts in the sense that it is somewhat nuanced. Rather than being "interpreted," I think very often the Bible is MISinterpreted. Very often I think it is done so deliberately, rather than some well-meaning debate over doctrinal issues, such as with Calvinism vs. Arminianism as one example.

Since you are not the OP in question, all that I can say in response to that is "Pot ... Kettle ... Black".

"... women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says." -- the Apostle Paul (ne Saul), in his first letter to the Corinthians (1CO 14:34). Clearly as misogynistic statement, and one of many.

we might feel that way but the fact is that what you see is more akin to your brains prediction of what will happen and not what actually happens, thus when reading the bible the actual meaning gathered will most probably be based more on the person reading than the text itself, this holds true for most experiences, also one of the reasons the illusions of magicions work.

Alright... For the sake of argument, let's say the Bible DOES have a "political affiliation." If so, it appears that said "affiliation" is entirely its own. Except for a couple of minor prophets, it's scope doesn't directly include anyone outside Israel. One could justifiably make a case that this was the original intent, that Israel be a "nation of priests," etc., but in actual implementation the Israelites weren't known for being evangelistic--at least not in any sense that those living in the 1st century understood. Sure, there were exceptions like the Hellenistic Jews, but this just wasn't a priority for most of them as it was for those in the early church.

Sure, I believe in divine authorship. If the prophets (and even Moses) believed what they wrote, then they believed their own words were given to them by God: "And the Lord said, 'Say this...'" or "And the Lord said, 'Write...'" Man-made or not, the Bible isn't overly concerned with political associations. Yes, it deals with legal and moral issues, but when legal and moral issues come up the questions it answers has to do with implementing responses to laws and practices, those responses being consistent with Judaic and Christian theology. But that doesn't mean that the OT endorses Western-style or Western-resembling conservatism or that Jesus embraced Western-like liberal attitudes.

Law? There is nothing in the Torah that requires women to be silent or to be in submission to their husband.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 21 Aug 2011, 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well there is some truth to that but its not like I completely lack the ability to look outside of my personal biases...and look at it from different perspectives. One does not have to be enslaved to their personal bias and completely stick to it. Obviously my personal experiances, opinions, mental state and all that are going to play a role in how I interpret things..but I always try to look at things from more than one perspective.

http://blog.videosift.com/jwray/20-reas ... nd-liberal

no of course our conscoius bias can be altered and to some extent taken into account,
we are ourselves constantly altered by living, i just dont think its possible to be completely rid of it.

Fnord, I gave a basic objection to your interpretation. There is no "Pot. Kettle. Black" response plausible, as I didn't make the claim that the OP was saying something that the OP didn't appear to say.

I didn't say the NT was not misogynist. Learn to reason. Learn to think. Even if there are commonalities between Old and New testaments, the teachings are at variance, a problem that most Christians have to grapple with. The extreme is not as much as the layman may think because both texts do have oddly controlling and sexist beliefs. However, one text clearly establishes a theocracy, and the other does not appear to do so.

In actuality, the Romans didn't just kill Jesus, then blame it on the Jews. Jesus was handed over to the Romans by those Jewish religious leaders who could best be described as collaborators with the Romans, who didn't need this upstart from Galilee threatening to ruin a good thing that they had going.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

"... women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says." -- the Apostle Paul (ne Saul), in his first letter to the Corinthians (1CO 14:34)...."

That was mostly likely a nod toward local law. Paul threw the insecure men of the local population a bone. Yes, the Old World was very misogynistic.

That is nonsense. There is nothing in the Torah that requires women to be silent to be be submissive to their husbands. Not in the written law and not in the oral tradition.

Paul was a D- student of Rabbi Gamliel. Two things you should never do with Paul. 1. Believe what he says and 2. Invite him to dinner. Your silverware may go missing.

ruveyn

Oh, but did not Paul speak for God? Was he not an apostle? Did he not have a personal conversion at the very hands of Jesus? Was he not responsible for the majority of New Testament writings?

Paul was a misogynist, and his opinions and teachings have influence Christian doctrine for nearly two-thousand years.