[Bible] Let's find something more boring than politics to discuss

So awesome. Your post has sent me down a crazy rabbit hole of exploring Judas and all of the things you're talking about. I have some ideas. I will try and post later when I can clear up a little bit of time. A lot to think about.

 

So I will have to answer you in parts. There is so much to discuss here. But I will go piece by piece and probably regress and go over stuff again.

So as far as my take on pointing out germ theory the no hidden mystery parts. I get it, but I think that's where context comes into play a lot. It was man writing these accounts, poems, the retelling of oral traditions, letters, etc. They lived in a world where the tribe was everything, and where anything the human mind at that time couldn't understand was usually described as whichever god's will.

So if they needed the right weather for the crops, good luck in the hunt, fishing, keeping the herd fed, they made sacrifices hoping whichever god(s) their tribe believed in would be pleased. When it didn't work out, they made more sacrifices. When it worked they gave sacrifices as thanks. When another tribe threatened access to resources or caused damages, there would be a war. Every group would claim they were going to war because it was what their gods wanted and demanded. They wouldn't let men survive because it was a matter of safety. Those survivors would harbor grudges find allies go back make attacks on your tribe. And Grudges lasted for decades if not centuries back then. Grudges and warfare were passed on from generation to generation. They all needed to be killed in order to preserve your tribe's peace and of course each tribe would claim they were following their god's will when they did it.

So while stories like Johah actually advocate forgiving and blessing your worst enemy which was strikingly different from most if not all of the gods at the time, they were still talking to people who lived in that brutal world. If these early authors somehow understood germ theory(there is no way they would, given the type of primitive knowledge and the world in which they were born and raised), nobody would buy it. It had to go in gradual steps. It's why the eye for an eye set of laws wasn't meant to prescribe revenge for someone who took an eye. It was meant to limit the reprisals. Rather than kill a whole tribe, slaughter all of their beasts and enslave all the women and children of the offender, the person was limited to taking an eye for the eye lost. It was a step towards peace, forgiveness, etc.

So while they didn't put germ theory down in their holy books, they were doing something radically different than any of the other religions around at the time. That message of forgiving your worst enemies is one that's repeated over and over throughout the bible. Almost every story that Jesus told he would use the most hated, despised, and bitter enemies of the groups he was talking to. That's true of the good Samaritan, the Sidonites (which were enemies because of a long-time grudge), lepers, prostitutes, women, etc. His stories were about protecting, showing humanity, blessing, forgiving, and loving these despised oppressed groups.

Jesus' story about the Samaritan being the good neighbor would be the equivalent of telling the story to someone in the United States and the good neighbor was someone from the Taliban or possibly even ISIS. It would be hard if not impossible for people now to admit that someone from those groups could be the good neighbor in a story where the evangelical Christian and Evangelist were worse neighbors. So given the violence of that time, they were still trying to push this idea of loving your enemy. If it is difficult to take root now, certainly, no wonder Jesus was making political enemies at the time.

This is my long-winded way of saying.

1. Men from brutal times with limited knowledge wrote these books, poems, letters, histories, and stories. As nearly impossible as it was for them to come up with the broad idea of forgiving and loving your enemy, it would have been even harder to come up with a specific like germ theory.

2. Even though they didn't come up with germ theory, I don't believe that is a reason to ignore the progress they were advocating, towards peace, forgiveness, and love. I find it quite remarkable.

I will take some time to address some of the other things you mentioned in your post, but I just wanted to tackle it bit by bit since I tend to ramble.

 

@DFWRocket Great points regarding Revelations.

Yeah, I kind of feel sorry for Revelations. It gets a lot of the blame and crazy people twisting it to serve their own interests.

John was a pastor and a poet who was writing that as a letter to his congregation. As the book I'm reading points out, they lived in a violent time where Romans were burning villages, attacking the helpless and crucifying people who didn't swear that Caesar was the god they worshipped. As Jews who were following Jesus, they didn't believe that this Roman leader was God. Ceasar would go around with a choir singing about how he was a deserving God who should be loved, honored, and worshipped. In Revelations, John uses some of the same language to talk about Jesus. His followers would have definitely caught the reference. It really isn't about some future thousands of years from then.

Bell mentions that if you had a friend who lived in Syria and their village was attacked with chemical weapons and your friend saw death and destruction everywhere, would you decide to write them a letter about some events that would happen thousands of years in the future? It just doesn't make sense.

People then talk about the violence of Revelations and trying to figure out all of the meaning of the words. Bell points to the song Smells Like Teen Spirit and how people took that in. They got whatever message or lack of message it was conveying but they wouldn't explain what the words...

"A mulatto
An Albino
A Mosquito
My Libido
Yeah!"

meant. It was using poetry to create a feeling just like Revelations was doing at the time.

 

But it isn't about thousands of years in the future which is what is sometimes taught.

It is also fair to say that the attacks did not end in 70 AD. At the time Revelations was written, John's congregation lived in fear.

I like @MadMax 's take.