What christian tenets are not in the bible?

December 26, 2008 8:04 AM

What christian tenets are NOT in the bible?

I recently saw the movie Religulous and it was mentioned that the original sin was not mentioned in the bible. I thought it obvious after reading Genesis and now want to learn what else is not in the bible that was created along the way.

Can someone point me to a source where I can find this data or make a list here? I had no luck with Google.

posted by theholotrope to religion & philosophy (36 comments total)

The seven deadly sins.
posted by dilettante at 8:15 AM on December 26, 2008

The Bible doesn't say anything about abortion.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:16 AM on December 26, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

The virgin birth is tacked on afterwards as well, due to a mistranslation of the word for 'young woman'.
posted by FatherDagon at 8:27 AM on December 26, 2008

Your question is basically just begging for people like FatherDagon to come along and stick forks in various sacred cows, but I don't think that's what you're really asking. Besides, people have been claiming that "better" critical methodology "disproves" Christian doctrines for decades, but engaging in that type of criticism starts from the position of not taking Scripture seriously. If you aren't going to engage the Bible on its own terms, why bother with complex arguments about obscure mistranslations? You're obviously going to submit Scripture to what you believe rather than allowing what you believe to be shaped by Scripture, so why pretend to do otherwise?

Original sin isn't a terribly good example of this sort of thing, because the idea that man is born sinful appears throughout Scripture (Psalm 51, Job 14, Romans 3, etc.). The words "original sin" don't appear in the Bible, but the fact that the church has developed language to talk about ideas that are not set forth in systematic terms in Scripture should come as no surprise. The word "soteriology" does not appear in the Bible, but it's the term we use to describe Scripture's collected teachings on salvation. So just because a particular word or phrase is not in Scripture is no reason to think that a particular doctrine is extra-Biblical.

But there are good examples of what you're talking about, even for people that take Scripture very seriously, unlike FatherDagon. This is particularly true in the Roman Catholic tradition, though they don't like to talk about it that way. All the dogmas and doctrines of the cult of Mary? Completely extra-biblical. Not a single shred of Scriptural support. Honest, serious Catholics will admit this and not have any problem with it, though they generally use some "consistent with but not required by" line which is a fancy way of saying "This isn't in the Bible because the Bible doesn't say it's not true, we should believe it." Same goes for the cult of the saints, papal supremacy, the church calendar (Lent, etc.), indulgences, purgatory, the various apparitions of Mary, etc. Basically anything Rome has decided on the basis of its presumed authority over tradition you won't find in the Bible, because if it could be found in the Bible they'd say so.

Protestants aren't entirely free from guilt here either, despite their at least theoretical commitment to sola Scriptura, a commitment they do not share with Rome. Rome is actually pretty up front about the fact that they make shit up, as it's part of the whole magisterium gig. But abstention from alcohol and tobacco, the common Protestant fundamentalist shibboleths? Not in the Bible, though oceans of ink have been spilled trying to prove otherwise. Same goes for the radical congregational form of church government adhered to by a majority of Protestants. Just ain't there.

But the problem you're going to run into here is that what is "mentioned in the Bible" is actually a point of contention. Roman Catholics believe that Scripture clearly teaches transubstantiation. Protestants believe that Scripture clearly does not. So there's some room for debate about what's there and what's not. Any "list" you find on this issue is going to be controversial. To make things more complicated, most Christians believe something like the following:

"The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture." Rome clearly would include church tradition in there, but the basic idea is that there are things required by Scripture that are not expressly set down there, because not believing those things would contradict things that are expressly set down. So yeah, the doctrine of the Trinity is not spelled out in any way that would be suitable for a work of systematic theology. But the Old and New Testaments together, as a whole, do seem to require something like that doctrine, and failing to believe that one of the persons of the Trinity is truly God would violate teachings about those persons.

Many doctrines that were "created along the way" are the result of the church, over time, refining what it believes Scripture to teach. The nature of the personhood of Christ is a thorny issue, not set forth systematically in Scripture, so for the first few centuries after the resurrection, various people came along saying "I think Scripture means this about Jesus," and someone else will invariably disagree, and through time, the church came to consensus about what it believes. The Definition of Chalcedon is a perfect example of this. For the first five centuries there was rigorous debate over the nature of Christ, but after AD 451, the disputes were resolved, as the church sat everyone down and came up with that definitive statement of orthodoxy.

So no, there isn't going to be a "list" of Christian beliefs that are in the Bible and those that aren't, unless you want to listen to people who don't believe the Bible anyways. Still, serious Christians do recognize that there are things we believe that are not set down in any clear way in Scripture, and Roman Catholic Christians explicitly believe things that are not in Scripture with no qualms.
posted by valkyryn at 8:44 AM on December 26, 2008 [48 favorites has favorites]

valkryn very nicely sums it up here.
posted by DWRoelands at 8:49 AM on December 26, 2008

Bible Blunders and the Atheist's Bible Companion are good sources for the kind of information you're asking about.
posted by amyms at 8:49 AM on December 26, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

The New Testament says nothing about same-sex couples or marriage.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:57 AM on December 26, 2008

Many groupings of ideas-- ten commandments, seven deadly sins, the Trinity--are later bundlings that draw from Bible data but aren't themselves Bible terms. Then there are interpretations and inferences from the Bible. Interpretation is absolutely necessary to apply any rules or precedents practically, but are apt to spectacularly diverge, as in the pro-abortion anti-abortion debate.

Some chains of interpretation are less-well anchored than others. Frustration with Bible derivatives has lead to movements "back to the Bible", notably the Reformation and Fundamentalism.

Consider a statement attributed to Mark Twain. “It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that bother me; it’s the parts I do understand.” Delicious double irony: I've not seen this statement traced to a specific Twain work. And "bother me" could mean "challenge me" or "offend me". Despite these issues, the idea resonates.
posted by gregoreo at 8:58 AM on December 26, 2008

The "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" part was mistranslated also. The Aramaic says "poisoner", not witch.

Matt 6:5-6 - Jesus teaches His disciples that they are not to pray in public... but in their secret place with the door shut, whereas Christianity teaches public prayer, and in fact, many sects suggest that salvation lies in publicly demonstrating one's faith by bothering other people.

Matt 10:1, Mark 3:14-15 - Jesus gives power of healing and casting out demons only to His disciples. - whereas Christianity teaches that many have the "gifts" of healing and casting out of demons.

Matthew, Luke and John are filled with rules that are pretty much ignored or where the followed tenet is almost the exact opposite of the bible. (leaving aside the issue that the books themselves disagree on many things)

Also, the belief that the Christian All Father is the *only* god, not held up by the bible. What the Abrahamic believers wrote was "there shall be no god *before* me. Bit of a difference, there.


The belief that the Bible is some inerrant word of God...that's a Christian tenet that has only cropped up in the last 100 years or so. For example, if you run a google search on “What we believe,” or “Our Statement of Faith”, you find hundreds of evangelical sites that put the premise that the bible is infallible *before* "We believe in God".
posted by dejah420 at 9:04 AM on December 26, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

[a few comments removed -- can we please keep this to a narrow discussion and not be like "Well Christians don't seem to like X...." thank you.]
posted by jessamyn at 9:13 AM on December 26, 2008

Many of the tenets rubbished here are not really Christian tenets, so much as they are tenets of particularly peculiar anglo-american strains of protestantism... abstention from alcohol on religious grounds, while undoubtedly common the southern states of the US, is fairly unheard of through most of protestant Europe, for example. The same goes for ideas such as the Bible's being the direct word of God and imbued with authority before God and all that, so well as many other examples I cannot think up right now.

But yeah, watch out for equating fundamentalist crazies (and their posses, which I am lead to believe are a not insubstantial part of US protestants) with Christians, or Christianity.
posted by Brother Dysk at 9:19 AM on December 26, 2008

valkyryn pretty much nails it, but just to reinforce what he wrote: your question is too broad to get good answers. First, there are many types of Christians, who believe (in some cases dramatically) different things. Which set of Christian tenets are you interested in? Second, many Christians, including Catholics and Orthodox, don't turn to the Bible alone for an understanding of God; we also have tradition. Sola scriptura is an invention of the Protestant Reformation. Finally, also note that for the first several hundred years of Christianity, there was no formally approved Biblical canon -- yet there were still clearly Christians.
posted by fhangler at 9:29 AM on December 26, 2008

This is indeed a tough but interesting question. I think valkyryn's comment is a nice summary, but countless books have been written on this subject, so an AskMe comment, or even thousands of them, can't really give a "right" answer.

For one thing, there are way too many variables. Which christians? Which Bible translation? Is a tenet the same as "a lot of christians believe X"? Or does it have to be a written rule of the church, required for membership?

A number of answers here address common christian moral or political beliefs, which may be shared by many other christians. Those things may or may not be tenets. We all have our moral and political beliefs informed by something, whether it's upbringing, schooling, church, friends, internal struggles, etc. The Bible doesn't have to specifically mention something in order for people to draw certain conclusions from the principles put forth.

In the churches I have been involved in, there were many tenets or rules that were not specifically in the Bible. For example, one ultra-conservative denomination has a rule against swimming with members of the opposite sex, excepts spouses and immediate family. This was based on scriptures encouraging purity and avoiding lust. They also had rules against attending movies, dances, and other "worldly amusements" based on the scriptures that address not seeking worldly pleasures. They chose to define what that phrase meant. Makeup and jewelry were also forbidden, and they had scriptures to back it up.

The other reality is that some tenets may indeed be "in the Bible" (such as scriptures used to forbid makeup and jewelry), but those scriptures may be contradicted or superseded by other scriptures.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 9:36 AM on December 26, 2008

I learned a lot from reading The Good Book by Peter Gomes (a gay black minister who serves at the Memorial Church of Harvard University). The book is about how people (especially Americans) relate to the Bible and find meaning in it, and includes a lot of discussion of the history of interpreting the Bible. One of the most interesting discussions was regarding slavery. Both the abolitionists and the pro-slavery people claimed that Christian principles and God's Will were on their side. But, really, there's a lot more seemingly pro-slavery verses in the Bible, things like "Slaves, obey your masters." Of course, as slavery and defending slavery became increasingly socially unacceptable, even the most conservative Christian churches gave up that doctrine. But for centuries the Bible was used to condone slavery--and you could argue that this is in fact in line with Scripture and that it's the opposition to slavery that is extra-Biblical. There is that verse about there being neither slave nor free, man nor woman in Christ... But that hasn't stopped most Christian churches from forbidding women to be pastors.

Something else that Gomes said is that the idea that the Bible is literally true does not itself appear in the Bible.
posted by overglow at 9:41 AM on December 26, 2008

Many Christians (at least the ones I've stumped with this) seem to believe that God threw Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden in anger because they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; according to Genesis He cursed them for eating from that tree, but banished them out of fear that they would eat from the Tree of Life.
posted by nicwolff at 10:04 AM on December 26, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Young Earth creationism is unsupported by the Bible - there's no mention of the age of the Earth. The young Earth position is pure inference based on the number of generations discussed in the Old Testament.

Generally, though, you'd want to narrow your search down; major churches (Orthodox, Catholic) and the squillions of Protestant churches have different doctrine, and many of them have different Bibles they refer to. Some regard a particular Bible as inerrant, others argue the Bible requires interpretation - I think the idea of Papal infallability is tosh, for example, but Catholic scholars would probably be able to come up with a bunch of arguments as to why it's a sound concept.

If you aren't going to engage the Bible on its own terms, why bother with complex arguments about obscure mistranslations? You're obviously going to submit Scripture to what you believe rather than allowing what you believe to be shaped by Scripture, so why pretend to do otherwise?

Which scripture? You talk as through there's a single entity, and has been for all history, which can be definitely selected as a single document. The history of bibles is rife with, amongst other things, political and translation issues determining what goes in and out of particular editions, right back to the Nicene councils.

Recognising that fact is not "making shit up" or "imposing your beliefs on scripture"; quite the opposite.
posted by rodgerd at 10:28 AM on December 26, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Contra Father Dagon upthread, Virgin birth certainly is taught in the New Testament. The Hebrew word in Isaiah 6:14 could be translated "young woman," sure. But Matthew 1:22 uses the Greek word for virgin, following the Septuagint, and it's sure canonical. And the context of Matthew 1:18-25 makes it clear that Joseph assumed that now-pregnant Mary was no longer a virgin, and the angel reassures him that she was. Virgin birth is a significant part of Matthew's telling.

Other than that, I'd second valkyryn and rogerd. You'd have to narrow this down. The little church I grew up in always said that original sin was an erroneous Catholic extrapolation, not a Biblical doctrine. They didn't consider it a "Christian tenet" at all. The closest you could get to an answer is to take major streams of Christianity one by one and research which of their major doctrines were post-Biblical developments.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:00 AM on December 26, 2008

valkyryn said: But there are good examples of what you're talking about, even for people that take Scripture very seriously, unlike FatherDagon. This is particularly true in the Roman Catholic tradition, though they don't like to talk about it that way. All the dogmas and doctrines of the cult of Mary? Completely extra-biblical. Not a single shred of Scriptural support.


Erm...what? To say that there is no biblical reference giving rise to the canonical beliefs is both false and inflammatory. I am really tired of people attacking Catholics like Catholics aren't real Christians and as though belief in Immaculate Conception or Virgin Birth is any more ridiculous than believing that the sun stopped in the sky or that dead people got up and walked around.

Not a single shred of Scriptural support? How about: Luke (1:34-35), "Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."

Or another: Matthew (1:20), when Joseph is perplexed by the pregnancy of Mary, he is told by the angel: "Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost" .

Is there a huge canonical thought about Mary which stretches back to the 5th century AD and not in the English version of the bible? Certainly. But "not a single shred" of verse is patently false.

Leave the Catholics and their faith alone. It's not yours. You obviously believe a different theology, you've stated it on previous threads. You're not a Catholic, leave it alone.
posted by dejah420 at 11:28 AM on December 26, 2008

You would be hard-pressed to come up with the concept of hell, based on a straightforward reading of the Bible without preconceptions.
posted by designbot at 11:43 AM on December 26, 2008

A corollary to your question is that there are many things mentioned in the Bible which are not enforced or recognized by most contemporary Christians.

For instance, divorce is unequivocally forbidden by Jesus, and at least one of the ten commandments (requiring observation of the Sabbath on Saturday) is routinely ignored.
posted by designbot at 11:50 AM on December 26, 2008

dejah420, it's entirely possible to believe in the Virgin Birth without believing any of the Roman Catholic dogmas about Mary. The Immaculate Conception does not refer to the birth of Jesus, but to the birth of Mary. As there isn't a single mention of Mary's birth anywhere in Scripture, any dogma related to her birth would be, by definition, extra-biblical. Same goes for her Assumption. The Roman dogma is that Mary was caught up into heaven just like Jesus was. Show me that in the Bible.

Look, the fact that these doctrines aren't in the Bible isn't a problem for Catholics, and I didn't intend to suggest that it is. As I said, Catholics don't believe that all of their doctrines need be based in Scripture; the Catholic concept of the magisterium makes such a belief unnecessary. My point there was not to "pick on" Catholics, but to highlight the fact that even answering the OP's question wouldn't necessarily get us anywhere, because the relationship between "essential" doctrines and Scripture is not without its controversies.
posted by valkyryn at 12:38 PM on December 26, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Just saw an interesting documentary from a few years ago called Banned from the Bible , which also has a sequel I've not seen yet. 27 New Testament books were canonized by the Christian Church, and became part of the Christian bible we know today. This official list excluded many popular books either because they were written too late or they weren't felt to have been orthodox. The documentaries talk about those excluded texts.
posted by gudrun at 2:54 PM on December 26, 2008

There are several major things that are in what we generally now consider to be "the Bible" which were not there originally (i.e. which are present in none of the known early copies of the Bible).

One famous example is the Pericope Adulterae, the story of the woman taken in adultery. You know the one - a mob drags some poor woman before Jesus, says that she's an adulteress, and asks him if they should therefore stone her to death, as the Bible says they should. Jesus tells the mob "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."; the mob slinks away in shame, leaving only Jesus and the woman. Jesus asks her where her accusers are, and if anyone has condemned her; she says no one has. Jesus says "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."

Nice. And, pleasantly, a fundamental reason that Christians give for ignoring the fact that their god had previously told them to stone just about everybody for just about everything.

But, unfortunately, not present in any known copy of the Bible before something like four or five hundred years after the purported story would have taken place. Moreover, its writing style, as well as a surprising number of words in it, are totally different than the remainder of the Gospel of John.

Another major example is the Comma Johanneum. 1 John 5 7:8 (in the King James) says "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."

This may not look like a terribly important passage at first glance, but it's actually by far the most explicit Biblical reference to the concept of the Trinity. Except for this passage, to use the Bible to back the fundamental Christian tenet that Yahweh, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are a single entity, you have to do some serious mental gymnastics, slapping together a bunch of unrelated passages and inferring a bunch of stuff.

Unfortunately (for this core tenet of modern Christianity), this, like the Pericope Adulterae, wasn't actually present in the Bible for hundreds of years. What was present was this:

"For there are three that bear record, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."

Someone, hundreds of years later, inserted into the middle of that, "... in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth...".

And that's essentially why Christians today have this fundamental concept that Jesus and Yahweh and the Holy Spirit are all God: because someone hundreds of years after Jesus blatantly changed their holy book to say so.

Another example: the ending of the Gospel of Mark. The part where Jesus, post-death, appears before the apostles, gives them some final instructions to go forth and spread the new religion, and then ascends into Heaven.

Not present in early Bibles. They instead end with Mary Magdalene and Mary Mother of James going to Jesus' tomb and finding him not present. There is someone else there - alive - who claims not to be Jesus, and who says that Jesus has risen. This person instructs the women to go to the apostles and tell them that Jesus has risen. But they don't. The women are too afraid, so they don't tell anybody.

And that's it. That's the real end of the Gospel of Mark, which is the earliest gospel written, upon which all other gospels are based. According to it, there is absolutely no indication at all that any of the apostles -- or in fact anyone, with the possible exception of the mystery guy at the tomb -- ever saw Jesus after he was crucified.
posted by Flunkie at 4:50 PM on December 26, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

The New Testament says nothing about same-sex couples or marriage.

I hear this a lot. It doesn't actually seem to be true.

For example, the New Testament says that they will not inherit the Kingdom of God, grouping them along with the unrighteous, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, the covetous, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners.

It also says that the law (e.g. "stone him") is not made for the righteous; it is made for gays, among others - those others being the lawless, the disobedient, the ungodly, sinners, the unholy, the profane, murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, manslayers, whoremongers, menstealers, liars, and perjured persons.

It also describes them as vile, unseemly, and reprobate, saying that they deserve death. This time, it groups them with the unrighteous, fornicators, the wicked, the covetous, the malicious, the envious, murderers, debaters, the deceitful, the malign, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, the despiteful, the proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, those disobedient to parents, covenant breakers, those without natural affection, the implacable, and the unmerciful.

Just in case you missed it among the big list of "the bad" that the New Testament groups gay people with, I'll point it out explicitly:

The New Testament says that gays deserve death.

Just so there's absolutely no confusion on this point: The New Testament does not speak for me, not by a long shot.
posted by Flunkie at 5:15 PM on December 26, 2008

"This is particularly true in the Roman Catholic tradition, though they don't like to talk about it that way. All the dogmas and doctrines of the cult of Mary? Completely extra-biblical. Not a single shred of Scriptural support."

It's going to depend on how you define "the dogmas and doctrines of the cult of Mary" and "Scriptural support". Clearly there are some distinctively Catholic doctrines that are not explicitly presented in the Bible. But it doesn't follow that they are all totally without scriptural support. Catholics see the Immaculate Conception, for instance, as being logically entailed by the doctrine made explicit in the Bible. Certainly, the idea of a special role for Mary in the economy of salvation is found throughout the Gospels.

Honest, serious Catholics will admit this and not have any problem with it, though they generally use some "consistent with but not required by" line which is a fancy way of saying "This isn't in the Bible because the Bible doesn't say it's not true, we should believe it." Same goes for the cult of the saints, papal supremacy, the church calendar (Lent, etc.), indulgences, purgatory, the various apparitions of Mary, etc. Basically anything Rome has decided on the basis of its presumed authority over tradition you won't find in the Bible, because if it could be found in the Bible they'd say so. Rome is actually pretty up front about the fact that they make shit up, as it's part of the whole magisterium gig."

While some features of Catholic practice are of human invention or composition, Catholics do not believe that any elements of their faith are invented. I'm pretty sure you realize this, which makes the way you put it fairly offensive and inflammatory. It's not that Catholics believe they have authority over tradition, but that tradition has authority over them. This tradition is not just "what was always done", but the teaching handed down from the apostles.

(Saints, the Pope, indulgences, and purgatory are all in the faith category. The Church calendar is a mix, though the authority of the Church to regulate worship is of faith. Apparitions of Mary are a special case called "private revelation", in which one is not always required to believe.)

"Roman Catholics believe that Scripture clearly teaches transubstantiation."

No they don't. Catholics believe that Scripture teaches the real presence (think of it as the what), transubstantiation is an explanation (the how).
posted by Jahaza at 6:19 PM on December 26, 2008

Benedict Spinoza devotes a chapter of his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus to arguing that there is no scriptural basis for the belief that God is not a material being, though this seems to be a fairly universal and uncontroversial assumption about the nature of God in Judaeo-Christian metaphysics. I don't know that this could really be called a tenet of Christianity, though, since it would seem possible to be a Christian even if you believed that God had a body (say, the universe itself).
posted by voltairemodern at 7:07 PM on December 26, 2008

Flunkie, with regard to insertions, one thing I've read, and which a friend of mine who went to seminary had also been taught, is that many times a manuscript would be copied from which had had margin notes, footnotes, and the like written in. Some of these were accidentally folded into the text proper.

But the point stands: several of these passages don't appear to be from the original text. It's also worth considering the authorship tradition in those times, which from what I am led to believe included instances of people writing in the name of someone else, as a sort of dedication; and of course simple outright forgeries. And the fact that the stories were told as narratives rather than detailed and carefully researched lists of data (trivia?). Finally with regard to the Hebrew scriptures one should keep in mind — and this goes against both the literalists and the determined-to-be-skeptics — that their literary tradition used repetition with general facts given, and then again different details emphasized, for emphasis.

dejah420, I saw an interesting program on Nova lately. It discussed the evolution of Hebrew and later Jewish monotheism. They discussed the progression of thoughts regarding YHWH from being a national god, to be preeminent for them, to being supreme over other gods, to being the true god of the universe. They also talked about how you could see distinctly in archaeology at what point they actually started taking the "no other gods before me" and "no graven images" seriously.
posted by vsync at 9:19 PM on December 26, 2008

designbot, I agree that a lot of references to Gehenna and "darkness" and the like may have been taken out of context. But what about Matthew 25, which I posted in a different context the other day?

The King will answer them, "Most certainly I tell you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." Then he will say also to those on the left hand, "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you didn't give me food to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and you didn't take me in; naked, and you didn't clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn't visit me."

Then they will also answer, saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and didn't help you?"

Then he will answer them, saying, "Most certainly I tell you, inasmuch as you didn't do it to one of the least of these, you didn't do it to me." These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

(That segment is particularly interesting because it seems to go against what I've heard preached or implied: that "Christians" get a pass as long as they've prayed a "sinner's prayer", something which I don't believe is scripturally supported.)

Anyway, without considering the "eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels" and "eternal punishment" metaphorical, it's hard to dismiss the concept of hell out of hand as you do.

It is interesting to see the concept of death seem to evolve through the Old and New Testaments. There are references in the Psalms and elsewhere to the dead being as those who had never existed, and to death being simply the end. Obviously the current orthodox Christian perspective is different. According to the gospels that was a contemporary debate between the Sadducees and the Pharisees (the Apostle Paul actually took advantage of that to completely troll a religious court and distract them for the time from trying to have him killed).

Flunkie, on the divinity of Jesus I think that could be easily argued from such comments by him as "I and the Father are one" and "How do you say, 'Show us the Father?' Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?". If you want to go by those records.

With regard to translation issues, there's one more interesting thing. The Jews in Jesus's time tended to read from the Septuagint, and Jesus and the apostles quoted from it. Later Christians found the original Hebrew texts and looked at them, which is why in some Bibles you will see discrepancies between quotes in the New Testament and the Old Testament verse they reference. In some cases the verse used as evidence for some point seems to hinge on a particular word translated in a different way.

On the last (well, all of it really), it's late, I'm not an expert, and I forget what my seminary friend said in explanation of some of it. But I'm always interested in learning more.
posted by vsync at 9:38 PM on December 26, 2008

Most of the Bible was tacked onto the Bible, as we don't have a good idea what the original text was. Read "Misquoting Jesus" for some history on how our Bible came to be and an explanation as to why this question is not really answerable.
posted by chairface at 11:57 AM on December 27, 2008

A neat trick used by Fundamentalists is their claim that the version of the bible they support was guided by the hand of god on its journey of translations, and that others weren't. So they can write, or find, a translation that supports their agenda.

Even if one believes that's true, the folly is the arrogant presumption that they are correctly reading god's mind. If there is a god, I'm pretty sure he can speak for himself when he so desires. And I'm pretty sure it would be very clear.

Playing translation games with stories that are thousands of years old is an exercise in futility. The faithful will believe what they want and nobody can change their minds but themselves. That's sort of the point of it. Faith is the ultimate opinion- and saying one person's faith is somehow less pure than another is the height arrogance.

Of course, much of religious faith is arrogance and cognitively dissonant when you think about it. How can someone who believes there's an omnipotent and omniscient god choose to believe only parts of his creation? God loves everyone, but will only save the ones who don't piss him off? If you really believe that god created people, then you have to logically believe that he created the capacity for people to act. If, for example, he didn't want people to be gay, one has to think that an all powerful god would have the ability to create people without the desire to be gay. Or change the size of genitals, or something. If a person really believes that god knows everything and can do anything, they would have to accept that the entirety of creation turned out pretty much as god intended. But then they'd have to find another way to push people around, and I doubt that's going to happen.
posted by gjc at 1:26 PM on December 27, 2008

It also says that the law (e.g. "stone him") is not made for the righteous; it is made for gays, among others - those others being the lawless, the disobedient, the ungodly, sinners, the unholy, the profane, murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, manslayers, whoremongers, menstealers, liars, and perjured persons.

It also describes them as vile, unseemly, and reprobate, saying that they deserve death. This time, it groups them with the unrighteous, fornicators, the wicked, the covetous, the malicious, the envious, murderers, debaters, the deceitful, the malign, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, the despiteful, the proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, those disobedient to parents, covenant breakers, those without natural affection, the implacable, and the unmerciful.

Just in case you missed it among the big list of "the bad" that the New Testament groups gay people with, I'll point it out explicitly:

The New Testament says that gays deserve death.

Yes, along with gossipers, the proud, and those who disobey their parents. In short, the New Testament says that everyone deserves death, and its only by God's forgiveness through Jesus that we don't receive it.

It is crucial that one pays attention to the cultural context when reading the New Testament regarding this issue when it comes up in Paul's correspondence to various Gentile churches. In Greek and Roman culture, homosexuals were not an oppressed minority group as they are today - rather it was completely within social norms. When Paul spoke about homosexuality, he was speaking about the behavior of the elite, the privileged, the establishment, and his tone was consequently harsh and subversive.

To our ears however, his tone seems incredibly harsh and cruel because our culture has a tremendous history of abuse, prejudice, and violence against homosexuals.

I'm not suggesting that the New Testament condones homosexuality - it doesn't. Both Jesus and Paul clearly teach that sexual relations are intended only within a marriage between a man and a woman. Obviously, there will be some disagreement about the relevance and implications of that teaching in today's society.

But implying that vicious hatred and even violence towards gays would be in line with New Testament teaching is blatantly false. Perhaps a more poignant image would Jesus' posture towards the woman accused of premarital sex:

3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

11"No one, sir," she said.
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
posted by jpdoane at 9:27 PM on December 27, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Growing up, my mother was very fond of saying "God helps those who help themselves," and I don't think that's in the bible anywhere.
posted by IndigoRain at 10:34 PM on December 27, 2008

But implying that vicious hatred and even violence towards gays would be in line with New Testament teaching is blatantly false.

Is it? Jesus purportedly said that not one jot, not one tittle, of the law will change until heaven and earth pass, till all is fulfilled. I am aware that many Christians like to gloss over this by claiming that the resurrection of Jesus "fulfilled all", but the earth's still here.

You say that it is important to read these things in the context of the time. I agree. And in the context of the time, that law that Jesus spoke of, of which he said neither one jot nor one tittle would ever change, was well understood to mean that gay people should be stoned to death.

Moreover, as noted, the New Testament explicitly states that the law is for them (and for other people that it claims are "vile"). It also, again, directly states that they deserve death.

Perhaps a more poignant image would Jesus' posture towards the woman accused of premarital sex:

That's a great story. Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier in this thread, it was not actually written in any known copy of the Bible until hundreds of years after it supposedly happened.

Yes, along with gossipers, the proud, and those who disobey their parents. In short, the New Testament says that everyone deserves death

Not everybody. A specific set of people. Those who know that god disapproves of what they do, but do it anyway, with pleasure. Like murderers. And thieves.

And gays.

I'm obviously aware that it calls for the death of a lot of people - I listed them explicitly in the post that you are responding to. But the fact that it explicitly calls for the death of a lot of people does not change the fact that it explicitly calls for the death of gays.

And no matter how positive a spin that you want to put on that fact, it's definitely the New Testament saying something about gays. You should please note that I was directly responding to someone who claimed that the New Testament says absolutely nothing about them.

(Again, to be clear, the New Testament does not speak for me.)
posted by Flunkie at 9:53 PM on December 28, 2008

Growing up, my mother was very fond of saying "God helps those who help themselves," and I don't think that's in the bible anywhere.

Yes, I believe that's actually a quote of Benjamin Franklin, who also said that he found Christianity to be unintelligible.
posted by Flunkie at 9:55 PM on December 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Is it? Jesus purportedly said that not one jot, not one tittle, of the law will change until heaven and earth pass, till all is fulfilled. I am aware that many Christians like to gloss over this by claiming that the resurrection of Jesus "fulfilled all", but the earth's still here.

The nature of the law in the New testament is a lot more complex than you are implying. For starters, the law in its entirety was only ever meant for the Jewish people. There is a significant debate (recorded in Acts 15) in the early church about what parts of the law that Gentile Christians should be bound by, and it is determined that the non-Jewish Christians are not bound by the majority of the OT law:

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.’ (Acts 15:28-29)

Now, that clearly raises a lot of questions because this appears to do away with most of the OT for most Christians. For example, what about the Ten commandments, etc, etc. What about the statement from Jesus that you referenced - how not one jot and tittle will be removed. The resolution of those questions are complex, and different Christian traditions have very different perspectives on this. This really touches on a whole bunch of interrelated theological issues:

-Differences between ceremonial, legal, and moral laws (eg the commandments regarding skin care are in a whole different category than those regarding lying and stealing)

-relationship between faith and works

-The purpose of the law (is the law to show us how to live? Is the law to point us to Jesus, is the law to convict us of our sin and prove to us that we can't achieve righteousness on our own? Combination of some/all of these things? Different Christians have different ideas here)

-Jesus' fulfillment of the law

As for this last one which you brought up, this means a number of things. The way to God is not by following the law anymore, but in following Jesus. That doesn't mean that God doesn't require obedience (this gets into faith and works, and again, there are different perspectives here). This is different than what theologians call consummation, which is when Jesus returns again as Lord and the final judgment occurs (LOTS of disagreement within the Church about this stuff). Fulfillment and Consummation are both in the category of Eschatology, but are not the same thing, and so ongoing life on earth doesn't really imply that Jesus didn't fulfill the law.

Not everybody. A specific set of people. Those who know that god disapproves of what they do, but do it anyway, with pleasure. Like murderers. And thieves.
And gays.

Actually, this is everybody. There is nobody among us who has lived up to God's standard or even their own standard. Not to prooftext, but Romans 3 has a good summary of this:

‘There is no one who is righteous, not even one;
there is no one who has understanding,
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned aside, together they have become worthless;
there is no one who shows kindness,
there is not even one.’

Within the context of NT theology, someone's sexual behavior is pretty much irrelevant when it comes to their place under the law. Because under the law, we are all guilty, gay or straight. Its not by following all the rules that gets us good standing with God, its by being forgiven by Him, and choosing to follow Him. When our behavior becomes relevant is in what it looks like to actually follow Jesus, because this involves living by his standards and guidance, not our own. And he has challenging and difficult things to say to all of us, gay and straight. He saves most of his criticism for religious people that felt they were better than others. But even when defending the adulterous woman, he still told her to "go and sin no more" (Point taken regarding the origination of this passage, but the point stands - the Gospels are chock full of stories like this:Mark 2:13-17, Luke 6:37-42

Honestly, I really do wrestle with the issue of homosexuality. Frankly, within the church its way too easy to just say, oh, that's sinful and move on without much more thought. Its easy to say, well, all of us struggle with things that we want to do, but are forbidden to. But I do realize (more than I used to at least) how painful it would be to be told that a very fundamental part of you was wrong, that you can't have a relationship, that you can't get married. Seriously, thats messed up, and I don't really have a satisfying answer for that. As a Christian, I can say that life isn't always easy and that God gives different people different challenges, and we ought to be living for deeper pleasures than sex and marriage. And while I do think all of that is true, it still rings a little empty, because I don't have to face the consequences of that myself, at least as it relates to my sexuality.
posted by jpdoane at 12:14 PM on December 30, 2008

The nature of the law in the New testament is a lot more complex than you are implying. For starters, ...

... interpretation follows.

I'm sorry, but, again, you're spinning. The New Testament most definitely and quite explicitly calls for the death of gay people, this vague "we're all sinners" not withstanding.
posted by Flunkie at 9:14 PM on December 30, 2008