Hello There,

A lot of you are here to try do one of two things: Prove me wrong. Or: Help confirm this.

Well, the title is of this post is a little misleading. As we all have seen before, a lot of people tend to pick and chose out of the Bible what they want to be true, and say the rest doesn't count.  Take Judaism for example. They only read the Torah, they first five books of the Old Testament. Well, if you say this is the only part of the Bible that is true, how can you say that Moses wrote the inspired word of God, but that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and the rest of the men who wrote the Bible didn't? Other than you don't like what Jesus said, how to you know that the other writers were wrong?

Then there are people who, add what they think to the Bible.... But doesn't the Bible say not to do that? So, you  don't believe the WHOLE Bible either?
So, you're saying, God also inspired these people too? Even though, it goes against what the rest of the Bible says?

Hi Farmboy8,

I hope to give you an explanation of why some people believe the things they believe. Jews actually accept more than the first 5 books of the Old Testament. They accept the entire Old Testament which they call the Hebrew scriptures which includes the Torah which is the Law as well as the writings of the Prophets and wisdom writings. They don't generally believe they pick and choose what they believe out of the Bible. This implies that the Bible precedes these people. The Jews existed long before the writings that became the New Testament came around. They have rejected new writing before the same way Protestant Christians typically reject the Apocrypha and Book of Mormon. Canonization is a not a well-defined process.

There are other books contemporary to the writings of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. The Gospel according to Thomas, Philip, Mary, etc. There's a Revelations that's attributed to Peter. The gospels canonized are some of the more credible though we have of most the documents. So you can understand why some people may have doubts about the canonization process. Historians look at the apparent contradictions that exist in the presently accepted New Testament, they look at how well they seem to have a hold of topography and the Jewish calendar at the time through the gospels. They look at them as documents, not necessarily as God dictating to them what to say. Luke begins his gospel by saying he is using human sources to make his gospel. Implies its not entirely divine source. He claims to be making a proper account after reading other accounts (is he saying other accounts are errored? idk). Through this process they claim there might be legitimacy to doubts about the validity of the gospels. They do not pick and choose or just don't like what Jesus has to say. Then there are those that say that the bible is infallible but not inerrant. Meaning the messages are all true, but its not necessarily entirely true as a historical document (this is one way of accepting contradictions in the Bible). Others will hold everything down to the grammar is 100% accurate. This is not as well accepted anymore.

Also, when John says no one shall add to this book in Revelations, he is writing prior to any construction of the New Testament. This means he couldn't be talking about the New Testament as not being added to. If he was talking about the OT, then this would mean the NT was wrongfully added.  He most likely was referring to his Revelation account.

tornadocam :

julienfolstrom :

Thank you for shedding some light on this subject.  I understand a lot better now.

I am in the sect of people that believe that the message of the Bible is, indeed, the word of God. The writings were guided by Him to give a message that holds absolute Truth. But that message is given using many stories that aren't literal. I don't take every event in the Bible as historical document, but as a guide in how to live for the path to Salvation. Just because something isn't a historical truth doesn't mean that it still isn't 'The Absolute Truth'.

If someone who says that everything in the Bible is 100% true in a literal sense, but says it is wrong to sell one's daughter as a slave, then it is hypocritical. Yes, slavery is not legal. But one who believes in the 100% literal view of the Bible should have no moral opposition to it as long as it is done right. Exodus states that male slaves are to be freed without paying anything after 6 years of servitude. But if one sells their daughter into slavery, she does not go free as the men do. If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people because of his unfairness to her.

So selling your daughter into slavery is okay for the new 'master' to sell her as long as it isn't to foreign people. If someone follows that criteria, a person who views 100% of the Bible to be literal truth can't oppose that, as the Bible says it is okay.

On a moral sense, it is impossible to not pick and choose. Many claim they do not and get in an uproar at the label "cherry picker", but unless you don't oppose slavery, eating fat being forever prohibited (Lev 3:17), someone who is 10th generation of a 'bastard' child not getting salvation as punishment for the parent's sin (Duet 23:2), handicap people not being allowed to approach God as it profanes his sanctuary (Lev 21:16-23), killing anyone who works on the Sabbath (Ex 35:2), women required to be subordinate (Cor 14:33,34), executing all homosexual men (Lev 20:13), the idea that all stubborn children must be stoned and the stoning must be instigated by the parents (Duet 21:18-21), incest being okay if they are only half siblings (Abraham as stated in Gen 20:12), killing the children of a sinner if you can't kill the sinner (Exodus 34:6,7), then you have to pick and choose. If someone claims they don't pick and choose, they can't religiously object to any of the things listed above.

farmboy8 :

To be fair to the Jews, the Orthodox Jews read the Torah as well as the Prophets and Writings as divinely inspired in nearly the exact same sense that Christians do. They just have the Talmud and Mishna that are interpretation guides which make their reading the texts so different than ours.

Evidently not.
When Two opposing points are said to be true, you generally have to assume one is wrong.
Given the Bible has several such internal conflicts is quite easy to rule that not everything is true.

Well the writers of each of books were inspired by God. And I believe in God. So, yes. (Please don't judge my layout )

mariowin13 :

Only God can judge your layout.

But back to the question.

As for if the Bible is true? Sure it is true. Well it was written by many different people in a time that has centuries between them and what we see today as the canonical Bible was compiled some hundred years after the birth of Jesus and lots of stuff was left out. You just have to understand that. It was not written by God or Jesus in a single night. But by people. And as such, you cannot read it like you would a Karl Marx pamphlet.

You can read a timeline of the bible here for instance: http://christianity.about.com/od/biblefactsandlists/a/History-Of-The-Bible.htm

I tried to find where the exact edition of the bible we read today was formed but was either too lazy to find the information or it was too hard to find. If you search for the "first bible" you get a lot of information about when was one first printed in English but not about the 400th century bishops who tried to decide which one of the holy texts should be in the bible and what not.

Since we all know our theology, could anyone give me a link or give some shine on the topic otherwise?

Brigand :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Bible
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/bibleorigin.html

The wikipedia page takes its data from scholars whose historical method I disapprove of, but the gist of it is right. The other link just provides random information for the texts. I'll give you a summary.

The New Testament wasn't finalized until 382/383 when the pope declared a canon and the texts were translated into Latin (Vulgate). This canon is identical to the one proposed by Athanasius in 367. There were other books floating around, but honestly they're either completely useless or so obviously weird/non-Christian it's pretty obvious they shouldn't be used. There has never since been real debate about the new testament canon.

Old testament is actually the tricky one. Catholics maintain the "dueterocanonical" books, which are Tobit, Judith, Additions to Esther, Jeremiah, and Daniel, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira (or Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, not Jesus Christ), Baruch, 1 Maccabees, and 2 Maccabees. Martin Luther was the first protestant to through them out and the rest followed suit. These are not in the Jewish Torah today. Actually, the guy who made the Latin Vulgate, Jerome, did not originally translate these books for that exact reason: the Jews didn't maintain their divinely inspired status. Augustine disagreed, saying they are, in fact, divinely inspired. Jerome did eventually translate the books, but only because he was ordered to by the pope directly.

Greek orthodox sits in between, saying that the books "are good to read", but not holding them to the standard of the rest of the Jewish canon.

Drama on these book continues today because some of them appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls found in a random cave in the 60s that date to about 100 BC. However, not all of them are present and the group of people linked to the Dead Sea Scrolls are most commonly thought to be Essenes. This is a catch-all term that means they were not main stream or any where close to a major group. They had many odd traditions and therefore aren't the best authority for a canon. However, they still kept a wonderfully accurate text and it's essentially exactly our OT texts today.

As for today's translations, NT often taken from recovered manuscripts  or the Vulgate. OT is from Septuagint (325-200 B.C., from Hebrew to Greek, Egyptian guy brought in ~70 Jewish scholars to do it for him), those dead sea scrolls, and the Hebrew Lexicon (actually only dates to ~1000 AD, but is 99% accurate to the dead sea scrolls). As it gods through languages thinks gets sort of fuzzy, for example the name Jehovah, which is the process of translating from Greek to Latin to German to English. The most famous translation oopsie is the Wicked Bible, where the guy forgot to put "not", so the text literally read "thou shall commit adultery". The book sold thousands and thousands of copies before the authorities were told about the oopsie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Bible

rcarter2 :

"If someone who says that everything in the Bible is 100% true in a literal sense, but says it is wrong to sell one's daughter as a slave, then it is hypocritical. Yes, slavery is not legal. But one who believes in the 100% literal view of the Bible should have no moral opposition to it as long as it is done right. Exodus states that male slaves are to be freed without paying anything after 6 years of servitude. But if one sells their daughter into slavery, she does not go free as the men do. If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people because of his unfairness to her.

So selling your daughter into slavery is okay for the new 'master' to sell her as long as it isn't to foreign people. If someone follows that criteria, a person who views 100% of the Bible to be literal truth can't oppose that, as the Bible says it is okay."


The Bible is completed by the Talmud, in which the Talmud explains in detail all the rules regarding Biblical slavery. Also, the Bible's definition of Slavery is a lot different than the definition that we use today.


Also, it is not about taking the Bible "literally" But about knowing which parts a literal, (like the commands in Leviticus) and with parts are for mere poetry, (like Psalms making God out to have large wings).

Reading the Bible with an open mind, common sense, and proper research regarding the original texts will result in truth.

Local Mods :

Ignore my words please, to much copy and paste.

I have been told by numerous RE teachers that not everything in the Bible is true. So I guess no then. I don't know everything in the bible and what is true and what isn't though. 

DylanMcKaig : Why are you replying to this thread if you don't have something to contribute to the conversation? Just because someone told you not everything is true doesn't mean that they are right. You need to look into it yourself to find out about it. Don't say yes or no until you actually know about the Bible.

Sword legion : The question was is all of the Bible true. Doesn't matter if another part of the Bible says something different about slavery rules. You even state yourself that there are parts that are more poetry. So you, youself agree that not everything in the bible is true. Also, I find it.... interesting that you specifically used Leviticus as the literal truth example. We all know what passage of Leviticus you feel most strongly about. But if you believe that Leviticus is to be interpreted as true, then I hope you have never worn polyester, as Leviticus commands that you don't wear clothes of mixed fabrics. And damned be any farmer who has sewn more than one type of crop in their field.

rcarter2 :  Your post gave me quite a laugh.  XD  I think many people totally misconstrue the question and answer to "Is the bible completely true?"   A huge part of that answer also deals with tradition and law, history and present.

Do I believe the bible is all true?  Yes.  The things that it claims happened... happened.  the things it says will happen... will happen.

Singelli : Yeah That tends to happen a lot with a loaded question such as this one.

Long winded, but all of what I say here will be an extremely critical part of my answer:

Yes, the entire Bible is 100% true. However, as Singelli was saying, not all of the Bible is still in effect. This is NOT contradictory though, nor is it picking and choosing, as the New Testament tells you which passages are still in effect, and which are not.

For example, if you believe the New Testament, it teaches us that Christ did away with "Carnal Ordinances and divers washings". It also teaches that "The law was a school master that led us to Christ" (that is not intended to be quoted Verbatim), meaning the Law was a shadow of the New Testament Gospel (which it also says in those words), and that Christians are not to observe Judaism (the Apostle Paul actually condemned a church's actions because they did so in Galatians 5:1-9).

Furthermore, the New Testament says (concerning the Old Testament way of worship) "In that He saith 'a new covenant' He maketh the first Old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away". Simply put, the old covenant is no longer to be observed. Note that I said "Old Covenant" not "Old Testament": there is a HUGE difference. Not all things in the Old Testament were part of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant is found in the books of the law, and are the verses that talk about religious observations such as sacrifices and other rituals. Basically, the New Testament is where the plan of Salvation and Christian guidelines are contained.

As rcarter pointed out, we no longer observe the law that we aren't to wear certain materials or clothing that mixes two kinds of materials. That is an example of the carnal ordinances that were done away with by the New Covenant.

So...yes, ALL of the Bible is completely true, but not all of it is literal, nor is all of it is still to be observed (only the old covenant is to be no longer observed, we don't pick and choose what to believe as the New Testament tells us exactly what to believe).

Eirinn :

I was going to challenge what you said. . . but after three weeks of studying. . . I found that you right. It may be a long time before I get everything straight in my ideology tree regarding it. Well done research. But I still have some left to do regarding this stuff. I don't know when I'll be done, but I think that I had better finish this with carter.

rcarter2 :

Sorry this response took waaaaaayy too long, I was researching what Eirinn said. I might consider a debate under normal circumstances. . . but I'm making this my last post here.

My point is, that you are saying that the Bible has, basically, evil commands in it. But you don't understand the context because you don't have the oral Torah to clear some stuff up. To you it may look like somethings are messed up, but in Israel much of the laws regarding slavery were just common knowledge, in fact. . . oftentimes "slave" isn't even a good word.

The Jews had the oral version of the law even before mount Sinai as it says in Genesis.

"I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky, and grant them all these lands.... Because Abraham obeyed My voice; and he kept My charge, My commandments, My decrees, and My laws." (Gen. 26:4-5)

The original hebrew word here is actually Torah. It has been speculated that Abraham may have had an oral version of it.

Anyways. . . Abraham is not the only one who kept the Torah, so did Melchizadek, obviously. . . being the first High priest even before Aron. And so did Abrahams children and grand children, or at least the ones who did follow God.


The thing is the Oral version of the Torah is also 10 times the size of your ordinary Bible. It contains lot's of little commands that are straight from God. the problem is discerning which commands came from God. . . and which ones where wrongfully placed inside by the rabbis.

We can find out by looking at the character of God, as it is portrayed in the Bible and by cross referencing the Oral Torah, with the Bible.


You said this:


"On a moral sense, it is impossible to not pick and choose. Many claim they do not and get in an uproar at the label "cherry picker",but unless you don't oppose . . . .

. . . . killing the children of a sinner if you can't kill the sinner (Exodus 34:6,7)"

You missquoted the scriptures right there. The verse says in the NIV:

6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

The King James version says:

6 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.


You only know part of the stuff about slavery. What's wrong with making prisoners of war into slaves? nothing. I'll bet that you will respond with something that supposedly proves that the jews believed in very evil things being right. But I am sure you just have to look into things more.

I do not mean to cause a fight, or be your judge, but I do not appreciate this kind of false talk about the scriptures. The old testament was never meant to be by itself. The oral version is much older, and may have previously existed as the main religious source till we got a written version. Now, it helps us to understand the written version.

And whether we follow's Christ (Yeshua's) commands is very important.

I leave you not as a judge but a man, with this verse. My apologies for anything coming across as rude here.

Matthew 7:21-23 Not every one that saith unto me, Master, Master, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Master, Master, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Let us keep all of God's commands, and be sons or righteousness, His faithful servants.

Sword legion : I understand that you said this would be your last post here. So if you wish, feel free to continue via PM (again, only if you want). The main thing is that you mainly responded to my original posts for a second time. You addressed most of that already as far as interpreting what slaves in translation. You didn't respond at all to the last thing I said to ya. Now, when you have a lot to say in a post, it is easy to do that. Happens to me all the time. I would like to know what you had to say in response to the Leviticus thing.

But on a second note, I don't see how I really misquoted Exodus. You gave 2 different versions of the passage, but didn't provide your interpretation or point out how I misquoted. That verse specifically states that sins will not go unpunished, and the punishment will be dealt to the sinner's descendants to the third and fourth generation. No, you can take the implication interpretation or the verbatim. Starting with the former, the passage states that no sin goes unpunished. The implication is that if the sinner isn't punished, the punishment is dealt to the children of the third and fourth generation (because no sin goes unpunished). For the verbatim, the passage is saying that the sinner is punished for his/her sins, and his/her children to the third and fourth generation shall also be dealt the punishment of the sin. Either way, the teaching is that when a sin is committed, the children must be dealt punishment as well. So if one commits murder, should his/her children 3 and 4 generations down the line be punished?

For the record, "what is wrong with making prisoners of war into slaves? nothing."
I disagree. Whether they be on the other side of a war or not, they are still human beings. I don't condone in enslaving a human being. War these days is political when it comes to America. Our government is far from innocent. We are not the 'heroic good guys'. Who is on the good and bad/evil side of a war is only a matter of perspective. Just because we see ourselves as the 'good guys' doesn't mean that is completely true, and does not give us the right to enslave.
Now that, again, was just for the record here. I don't think we should go into that here or via PM, because absolutely nothing will broaden our understanding or increase our knowledge in that particular topic.

I am going to fully agree with what tornadocam said about this. The entire bible is true, even though it was written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and a ton of others, as eh were messengers from god to write down what happens to gods son, and what he does about everything. God purposely made the writers of these books in the bible to share his message with everyone else, and if god were to lie about all of these experiences between Matthew Mark Luke John and all of the others, what would have been the point of making them? God wouldn't have just lied to everyone through this book, as he wants us to be off on the correct path and know what is right and wrong. For God to lie, that would just be far out of my imagination.