Dangerous ground. The one sure way to divide people (and therefore a forum) is Religion. I will site a small planet named Earth as evidence. I'm now keeping well away from this.
I will never understand this. I will never understand how anyone can be offended by another person's opinion. I will never understand the need to hide nor the ignorance that follows. I know no one who consider themselves a believer will read the book I linked to earlier. Which is a pity.
However - my argument was not religious - it was borne from litterature studies. The bible is a text, and can thus be read. It is up to you how you read it though - if you consider it the truth (in which case you will have to ignore all the different passages which talks against eachother) or if you consider it to be metaphorical (in which case Jesus probably was not a real person but rather a manifest of ideas - so to speak). Or if you read it as a historical document. Or - whatever.
For me, and most of my colleagues, the bible is a work of fiction. It tells the tales of myths (just as many other cultural documents, written or otherwise, do). In one of the tales of creation, the god tells people to spread over the earth. In the other it goes into detail. In one the first two people are just made into man and women, and their firstborn is named Set. In the other man is made from .. um, earth, and later the female is made from parts of him; their firstborn is named Cain (who - interestingly enough one of my previous teacher viewed as the origin of the devil).
Now. If one does not allow one's beliefs to be scrutinised, (which surely was
not my intent from the beginning) ... well, that tells me that they are rather shallow. Faith is one thing - (faith is probably good in the long run). Blind faith which means that you will be offended every time someone has a different view upon something, well, that can not be healty.
They might well not be two words that you would group together in the same sentence, but they are definately two words that I would group together. Genesis is written as historical narrative, not poetry, nor metaphorical language.
It does not really matter why it was written, what is important is why it was selected to be included in the bible (see
Wikipedia. That however is rather obvious. Genesis is an attempt to consolidate various myths and themes into one. To make a monothesis out of a polythesis, simply said (point of note here: I am not saying anyone did this deliberately, or from malice. Rather that the same thing happened there as what happened when the nordic countries abandoned their believes in the Æsir. It is easier to control people who only believes in one god, as opposed to many). You can read for yourself though -
here is a good start. Keep following the links. In case you feel overwhelmed - these links will come in handy:
1,
2 and
3. And, well, of course:
theodicy (which might be outside the scoope of this discourse).
Job is considered to be the oldest written book in the Bible (with the exception of the first 11 chapters of Genesis).
You will not find 'devil', but you will find 'Satan' in Job. I suppose it hinges on semantics. Should we use Åklagaren instead of Satan? (Sorry, I don't know much Swedish, but this seems the general name for Satan in a Swedish Bible).
Åklagaren is what he is called in swedish translations (well, it used to be at least, I have not read the newest translation). It is equivalent to
The adversary (or rather
the accuser) which is what he is called in the english bible (
satan, the adversary (or Accuser?). Unless I am missinformed). This does not mean he is the devil. All satan does in the poem is doing the god's will.
Job is written around 4-500 BC, while most of the
septaguint is older. Some parts much older.
The point is that the devil as an opponent to the god is not present in the old testament. God obviously uses someone as handyman to carry out his (sometimes dirty) work, but that entity never does anything by his own accord.
God is known by even more names. I don't expect you would say that anywhere a different name is given, that it's some other god. Likewise, it is well known and well accepted that Satan = the Devil = the Serpent/Snake. There's even two verses to prove it.
The great dragon was hurled down - that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.
He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
Many names for the god, but also a lot of names for other gods, ie
Baal. If there is only one god how can anyone else claim to be a god (this might belong to the
teodicy tough). One text can not be used to prove that what is written inside itself is truth; the circular reasoning does not really work. But then again Revelation is not Old Testament - right?
They did, however, invent purgatory, based on a passage in the second book of Maccabees which refers to saying a prayer for the dead. I don't know what a modern Roman Catholic would say about purgatory; too bad this discussion didn't come up a month ago because I was partying with some Catholic priests at a cathedral two weekends ago and could have asked them. Indulgences were supposed to get your dead relatives out of purgatory and into heaven faster. The people eventually figured out that the bishops were just using it as a scam to get rich and I'm pretty sure you can't buy indulgences anymore.
Religious discussions are hard enough in person; the Internet is probably the worst place for them. As long as this stays civilized, I'm happy to continue.
Hell and Purgatory could as well be the same. You bought indulgence to "go direct to salvation" so to speak. Being in hell or purgatory could as well be the same.
Who is evil and not is also an interesting topic. Please read: 1. Chronicles (I have no idea how to abbrivate these) 21. And tell me why it would upset the god to have the people counted? Or Psalm 137:9 and tell me why the god would want me to crack babies' skulls open against rocks? Ackording to judaism, an evil force separated from the god is kind of secondary, from
wikipedia: "The Talmud mentions the Satan in many places. In all of these places, the Satan is merely an agent of God, and has no independent existence. " which, in context, seems pretty agreeable.
In Judaism they are told to read and question, and to question what others have questioned. In Chrisitianity they are told to read (if that) and accept. Old T was part of Judaism for a long time before being part of Christianity. In Judaism they see (well, or saw, maybe) that if the god is omnipotent, then evil will also come from him, so it matters not who is personifying it.
And, for the record, no, I am not jewish
