Is the "bible" a divinely inspired text or not?

I agree completely. When you see the power of the indwelling spirit in situations like that you can't help but be deeply moved. And that often triggers one's own internal spiritual journey. It's after that that you read the bible and understand it because it resonates with what you then know from you own spiritual realisation, IMO. I'm not saying that the bible is useless before. Like Jeff said, it is often seen as saying "good things" and being "inspirational." That's great, and can lead to further questioning and probing. And as belated response to Jeff's question, I don't think the bible is the only inspired book. I've read other books that I feel were inspired and I've seen things too, similar to mr_gootan's experience.

rimbaud:
Perhaps I'm missing something. Are you saying that because the bible refers to incidents that other texts refer to it is therefore not inspired? For the sake of argument, if we say that the Genesis version is more like a parable, does that mean that the bible is not inspired?

kbm:
Easy now … getting hot under the collar isn't going to help your position.

 

Hehe, looks like we'll continue in our own little private debate a bit more.

I guess first of all I'm not exactly sure you man be Jesus's teachings being either true or false. As near as I can figure, or at least what I think of when I think of his teachings, is peace, love, and tolerance.

Now if you're saying that I shouldn't be able to think those ideas are "true", or even if you are wondering how I can, let me point out that Jesus is not the only person to espouse those ideas. Those same ideals are expressed by humanists, which don't believe in supernatural events, an afterlife, etc. So it's just as fair to say that Jesus managed to get those things right in spite of his belief that he is/was the messiah.

Secondly, even if nobody else had said that and Jesus was the only person who expressed those ideals, I can base by judgement of each of his individual statements on how they make me feel. I don't believe in moral absolutes. But I know that personally, I prefer tolerance and peace to the alternatives. I don't need someone to tell me it's "true" or "right" because, remember, I'm not a Christian so I don't believe in a punishment/reward phase after I die.

I think one of the biggest reasons I left Christianity is because of the sense of empowerment I felt when I realized that I was fully capable of deciding what I should do and when I should do it, that I didn't need a voice from on high telling me "this is good," and "this is bad."

 

However, the probability exists that the Biblical account had been preserved either as an oral tradition, or in written form handed down from Noah, through the patriarchs and eventually to Moses, thereby making it actually older than the Sumerian accounts which were restatements (with alterations) to the original.
the probability exists? for some reason that makes the whole "scientific" paper see like hogwash. The paper's reason for moses having the original story all along even though it was similarily written by the sumerians thousands of years ago was because it was probably orally transmitted by the civilized and intelligent human beings in the BC era. Then the author quickly says...well its in the bible, so its HAS to be the pure form anyways...
The divine inspiration of the Bible would demand that the Genesis account is the correct version

But this is what really turned me off to the paper...
The Book of Genesis is viewed for the most part as an historical work, even by many liberal scholars, while the Epic of Gilgamesh is viewed as mythological.
Historical?

 

kbm,

Why sop hostile My apologies, but "language" was a typo...I meant "writing." Again, sorry. If this is the point of your hostility, then you were right because I misspoke, er, typed. The first cuneiform scripts appear in the 3,000's, while the first alphabet appears in the 2,000's...when the Old Babylonian version of Gil appears (pre-dating the Akkadian versions of Nineveh, Assyrian, etc).

As to the rest, yes, I understand oral tradition, even commented upon it. Gilgamesh was probably oral first as well. My point was in asking the question of why it took so much longer after Gilgamesh for the Biblical stories to be written if they, indeed were first. I know this cannot be answered, it it just a question.

Additionally, the similarities, as I pointed out, are not limited to the Great Flood. There have been multiple connections traced, as I listed, throughout the OT.

As far as your accusations of me being unethical...I am trying to be more ethical by relying only on the historical architectural record, not upon conjecture of what could have happened. Even if Bible stories existed first, Gilgamesh was in writing first, meaning that the later written word of the Bible would have been in full understanding of the language used in Gilgamesh, allowing for literary influence. When a character in Gilgamesh presents a soliloquey that is later found almost identical in the Bible, I see that as some kind of written tradition/influence.

Grizzled,

Not exactly. I am saying the literary traditions of the Bible seem to be based upon earlier precedents. As I said above, not just events, but speeches, etc. One cannot dismiss the earlier record as being irrelevant.

 

Dylan, I misunderstood your line of thinking and responded inappropriately. I was still in the mindset that people thought Jesus was a good teacher/philosopher, but didn't think He was God. Now I'm back on track. Sorry about that.

You are right in thinking that concepts in which Jesus and you agree can be considered good based solely on your viewpoint.
I genuinely applaud your morals and ethics, especially in this day and age. (I'm not being sarcastic. I am really happy to see genuine love for others.) And the reason for your morality is a whole other conversation all together. If your goal in life is simply to make yourself happy by making your loved ones happy and that goal is enough for you, then I can't disagree with what you want.
But I can tell you that whatever you are able to accomplish without God cannot compare to what you can do with Him.
Love, joy, happiness, and freedom are all His characteristics. Add to this the fact that He is all-powerful and all-knowing, has already earned victory in the future, and has resources to give to you in order for you to do more than you can imagine, I would say you are missing out on some major resources for the advancement of your goals.
Also, any works that you accomplish without Him, will not last forever. But you already know these things. It really comes down to the premise that you find joy in what you do. That's all that matters to you. And it's not my job to convince you otherwise. My goal is just to inform you of your options.

 

gootan -- let me just reiterate how glad I am you post here!!

 

My next question would then be, irrelevant to what? Would it change the meaning of the biblical text if it were one way or the other?

 

Well, I think it would have to change the notion that the Bible was divinely *written*. Either that or Gilgamesh would have to be seen as an early incarnation of God's "hand."

In other words, we can start from the understanding that everything in the Bible is true. We can even say that the Bible stories predate Gilgamesh in that they existed as oral tradition for longer. Now some problems can arise:

1. Unless you accept that God "spoke" through everyone who ever told the stories, then you must accept that the wording would be variable with every telling, compounded over how ever many hundreds or thousands of years you wish to believe.

2. Gilgamesh gets written either in ignorance (highly unlikely) or in understanding of the older Biblical tales.

2a. Gilgamesh would then be distorting a great deal of the Bible stories and not in tune with the peoples of the region, as multiple gods are used and Gilgamesh himself is 2/3 gods, different names, etc.

2b. Why would Gilgamesh have survived, been loved, revived multiple times with each era adding their own mark, etc. if it was a bastardization of older oral traditions and perpetuated monotheism?

3. Once the Bible gets written, parts found throughout are near identicle to what was written in Gil. This could mean:
a. God liked the wording and stories in Gilgamesh and recylcled them.
b. As said before, God divinely inspired Gil.
c. People wrote down the stories that had been passed down over the years and incorporated parts of the long written tradition as well, originating with Gil.

Obviously, I think 3c is the most credible, even if I grant truth to the stories (a is silly and b would be counter-productive). Does that help at all?

 

kbm:

For starters, I don't think the flood was a myth; I am 100% convinced that it actually happened. I simply call it a "flood myth", because that is what everyone calls it.

The whole argument that the Biblical account may predate Gilgamesh is both moot and ridiculous. The central characters relating to the flood episode in each story were the same person. Noah was from where? The city of Ur, I believe. Sumerian. Utnoapishtim was from where? The city of Ur. Both were high-level government officials. Both were warned about an impending flood by a God. Both were instructed to build an ark, stock it with animals (or their "seed"), and ride the flood out. Both ended up on Mt. Ararat. Coincidence? I don't think so...

Noah was a Sumerian. In fact, the entire Hebrew race is a Sumerian offshoot (all semitic peoples are descended from them), so it shouldn't be surprising to find that some Sumerian ideas were incorporated into Hebrew culture.

Not just the flood, either. The entire creation myth (and that one probably is a myth) was taken from even earlier Sumerian/Akkadian/Babylonian sources. It is not word-for-word, but the story is identical to ancient Sumerian creation myth.

The stories were copied. There is very, very little doubt about that. So, were the Sumerian accounts divinely inspired?

 

rimbaud:

There is another option, I think, and that is that God spoke through some and others took the story and adapted or embellished it, but I don't think this is necessarily the case.

Were all the peoples of the time and region of the same faith? Stories are quite easily "changed" even with in a fairly homogeneous culture. Just recently on this board there were two stories about Kurt Warner meeting his wife. Many of the details were different. I don't see the existence of a close but not exact version as being problematic, particularly if Gil was not sympathetic the idea of God as depicted in the original. Why did it last? It's a pretty good story, don't you think? Surely there are other stories that have in one form or another lasted this long.

Why is Gil an originator and not an adapter? Could there not have been an oral tradition that Gill adapted, a tradition that was later accurately recorded in the bible? This relies on that tradition being accurately passed down over many generations OR that the version that was written down was correct through divine inspiration at the time it was written. I don't think the inspired version even has to be exactly accurate, as long as its message is what it is supposed to be. When you analyse the meaning of a painting, is it important to you how many iterations the artist did before he had his final inspiration? The fundamental problem with this whole line of logic is that the notion of divine inspiration isn't logical. You can't get there from here, so to speak. For me the conclusions that the bible is divinely inspired came after a time when logic broke down in my life. I began looking for spiritual realities, and I believe that I found them. That internal spiritual knowledge resonates with much of what I read in the New Testament in such a way that I'm convinced that it is the inspired word of God (I'll admit that much of the OT I don't get). That's how I got there.

 

Grizzled,

I think we are agreeing here, more or less. I won't harp on the various points because I am tired and you got the general ideas, I can counter a bit, but it would mostly be just to clarify what I originally meant, as I agree with most of your responses.

Anyway, to the meat.

If you think that the message and not the exact presentation is the important thing, then you should not mind if some literary elements are borrowed from earlier writings, right? I know you think the bible is divinely inspired, but it seems as if you do not think it is the "voice of God" word for word. Am I correct? That was my whole point in granting truth to everything. I, then, do not see the problem with acknowledging borrowed form (as you pointed out, it was possible for Gil to have borrowed from oral traditions, but again, that was not my point since I am dealing only with what we have - written).

Tree,

The earliest versions have Utnapishtam landing on Mt Nisir...I know, technicality.

Oh yeah, the Babylonians had two flood stories, actually. The Gilgamesh flood story and the shorter Atrakhasis myth.

If it makes people feel better, Egyptian and Greek/Roman religion also borrowed from Gilgamesh themes (stuff like crossing the river Styx, etc). Of course all of these guys revered water in general because their lives depended on it. Even though Mesopotamia was much more fertile than it is now, they still lived and died by water. The devastating dropping of the Nile in about 2300 bce ended the great pyramid building age in Egypt (a much greater civilization than the Near Eastern ones), so of course floods and droughts and rivers would make it into mythology.

Huh?

History is fun.

 

rimbaud:

You're probably correct on that technicality... I am often wrong on details like this. My books are 150 miles away after all, and my memory is faulty...

I had thought that Mt Ararat was the arrival point for both flood heroes, though. What, is Mt Nisir right next door? I dunno. I'm guessing that it's in the same neighborhood...

I believe that the Atrakhasis was what I was thinking about when I mentioned the creation myth. Seven days, rest on the seventh, mankind on the sixth, all that gobbledygook. I think...

Hey, I didn't memorize this stuff.

But the fundamental argument stands: Hebrew myths/stories were taken from earlier Sumerian originals. Were the Sumerian stories divinely inspired?

 

I guess I would say that my main point is that it's just not a very important question for me. If the real question is whether or not God is real, I would say that this is not a discussion that will address that question very well. This is all really conjecture anyway, so we're not going to be able to reach any solid logical conclusions about what came first and who inspired who. I would say that I think it's more likely that Gil borrowed from God than God borrowing from Gil, but the meaning is the important thing for me. Is 7 days literal or metaphorical? I don't see that as a very important question, and getting hung up on that is a literal/legalistic type distraction that can take you away from the important things, the spiritual things. I don't know of anyone who came to understand God through logic. Indirectly, I suppose, it's part of the process. Logic can get you to a place where your realise, that logic can't answer all the questions.

This is being fairly widely recognised these days, though. In business literature EQ has for some time been recognised as at least as important as IQ and probably more important. Torbert, Fisher et al from Boston College (hey, isn't that haven's school?) are doing work on mental complexity and find that at upper levels managers and people in general see themselves as part of "historical and spiritual" movements and transformations. You'll even find spirituality mentioned in business literature these days.

Anyway, it was a good discussion.

 

Grizzled,

What does this discussion have to do with whether or not God is real? I am not a Christian, but even I believe in a higher power/God (no, I am not an atheist). But what does that have to do with it?

This thread is asking a question that is 100% impossible to answer: was the Bible divinely inspired. No one here will ever answer that question (great thread topic )...

Were elements of the OT borrowed from other cultures? Yes. Does that really matter? No. Is the NT completely different from the OT with regards to basic philosophy and theology? Yes. Is the NT the most important book ever written with regards to its impact upon western culture? Yes. Was Jesus the greatest MF who ever lived? Yes. Will his philosophy result in a peaceful planet? I sure as hell hope so, I'm just not holding my breath...

I was actually raised Baptist as a child. I saw misjustice, and rebelled. I still do not think that the Christian way is the absolute right way. But I am smart enuf to recognize that the NT is an awesome work of philosophy, and whatever God exists (and I still believe that one exists), he would have to judge that work as a necessary piece for his sheep to read and understand. You can throw the OT away as far as I care, but the NT is a "must-read"...

Was it divinely inspired? The OT was not, IMHO - it is just history and fairy tales, with nightmarish lessons thrown in to scare children. But the NT... Maybe it was, in a sense?

 

Tree,

First, I just wanted to clarify that I was not addressing most of that stuff in my last post to you, only the Mt Nisisr technicality (and I honestly have no idea where it is in relation to Ararat). Sorry if it seemes everything else after that was directed towards you. Poor organization on my part.

Now, to the point I am quoting. While it is true that there are differences, much of the NT was writtin in the OT. Paul himself "witnessed" Jesus through his readings of the scriptures. There are many Psalms, etc, that give predictions, tell stories, etc that are later retold in the OT, only through the person of Jesus.

Of course you are right that the overall themse are quite different: veangeful, anctient-type God vs loving, modern God. So anyway, the same or similar lessons/teachings were there, just not really emphasized, I guess.

So, uh, what was my point? I guess just elaboration on what you posted.

Grizzled,

Agreed, this discussion has nothing to do directly with the existence of God. If you like EQ-type stuff, look into Howard Gardner of Harvard's multiple IQ's. His work is better.

 

treeman:
You raise some interesting points for discussion here, which is great. My confidence level in my understanding of some of them is much lower, but that makes for good discussion.

I guess that I think that whether or not you believe in God, and what you understand the nature of God to be significantly influences this question. If you don't believe there is a God at all, then the prospect of divine inspiration would seem pretty ridiculous, it seems to me. If you believe in a God who is capable of performing miracles and wants to communicate with us in various ways, then it won't be that big a leap to believe that the bible was divinely inspired. Perhaps we should have added a premise and asked the question, "assuming there is a God, is the bible divinely inspired?" I think the discussion would have been a bit different if had this been the question.

I see the point of the OT to a certain extent. Romans talks about how the law, which was a major theme of the OT, was introduced to make us aware of our sin (Romans 5:20, Romans) so that by this we will realise that we can't do it on our own (be justified/live up to what is just/feel truly fulfilled, etc.) and that we need to acknowledge and submit to God. This mirrors my experience. I view the spiritual experience as being at its core a personal experience with God. I think it can be helpful to get together with other people and discuss this faith, and that is what I think church is for. And I think that the greater body of Christians can influence the greater world, but in what manner this all will result in world peace, I'm not sure. The personal connection to God is the core concept. The creator wants his creation to acknowledge him, directly and personally. That's pretty heavy, but that's really the core of the matter, I believe. After that other things start making sense, like why Jesus came and died on the cross etc. This is a process of understanding, and more and more of the NT has made sense to me over time and through discussion etc. So conceivably the OT will make more sense to me someday. I'm thinking that there may be a reason it was packaged with the NT, (history and continuity are a couple, but there could be more.) I'm leaving the door open to it, but it really doesn't mean that much to me now.

Many denominations and many individual churches don't adhere very closely to the true character of Christ, IMHO. This has been true throughout the history of the Church and was even an issue in Christ's day (Corinthians, Matthew 23). So I would say, don't judge Christ based on what the Pope or the Southern Baptists or me or anyone else tells you he is. This is all just reference material, and some of it isn't very good. Judge Christ by who you personally find him to be.

I grew up in a home that was nominally Christian, but essentially atheist, so these are stories I've only heard of second hand. I've heard that they can be quite traumatic though. We have some ex-Catholics in our church who have no use for the Catholic church because of this kind of thing, (no offence to Catholics intended. )

 

seems to me the OT and NT aren't as different as they're made out to be. Christ spent a lot of time taking about hell and judgment, too. I think the prevailing theme of the OT is trust in God above all else, even when things seem to be falling apart, and He'll lift you up. Trust and relationship with God seems to be the key element to me. I think Jesus shows that as well.