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Discussion » Questions » Religion and Spirituality » Could the Bible have been improved?
Benedict Arnold

Could the Bible have been improved?

If God had been truly omniscient would he really have revealed his word through written text? Why would he not have used HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language) so that, say, Moses could have tapped on the third or fourth commandment and gained access to, say, Archangel Gabriel's blog, in order to gain further information.

Now I know that the Internet hadn't yet been invented, but a god who knows all could surely have found a way to make it work.

Can you think of a way it could have been achieved without electricity? 

Posted - March 12, 2017
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Responses


  • Definitely ... there's a bit too much begetting in some places... and violence ... not good for the kiddies!
      March 12, 2017 3:53 AM MDT
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  • The Old Testament certainly has its share of colourful characters and adult themes.
      March 12, 2017 3:56 AM MDT
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  • 184
    That's putting it mildly. LOL
      March 12, 2017 1:57 PM MDT
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  • Hi Dozy,
    Well I never paid much attention to the Bible, as you know I became atheist age 13...
    Then around age 40, some of the authors I WAS interested in, from Hinduism and Sufism, began recommending the Bible as indeed an inspired text! 

    So with their help, and their very gentle understanding, I went back looked at the Bible again, and no I think it is okay as is...I like it now. However, for me the Bible was not a good place to start...too rough and bloody if you try to approach it kiver to kiver.

    * * *
    For instance...in the 1950's Paramahansa Yogananda, a great yogi of Hinduism, went into the California desert and wrote up this two volume treatise called THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, parsing out the verses of the four Gospels...I loved this, read it about three times!
    Example...this makes all kinds of sense to me...

    "What is necessary is for the cosmic wisdom and divine perception of Jesus to speak again through each one’s own experience and understanding of the infinite Christ Consciousness that was incarnate in Jesus. That will be his true Second Coming.”

    This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at March 12, 2017 2:23 PM MDT
      March 12, 2017 4:48 AM MDT
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  • Thanks, Virginia. That "kiver to kiver" (or kiver by kiver) is an interesting thought because I think that's how most people approach the Bible. If any book could be discombobulated the Bible would be that book: it's simply too piecemeal. A modern publisher would call for a re-write if he was interested in it at all. 

    I've never read Yogananda. There were so many Indian holy men in the mid to late 20th century. Some appeal some don't
      March 12, 2017 2:28 PM MDT
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  • 5835
    No matter what God does, there is always some human who thinks he has a better idea.
      March 12, 2017 6:24 AM MDT
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  • 53509
    Well said!
    ~
      March 12, 2017 6:38 AM MDT
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  • And on the eighth day, God created the tilde...
      March 12, 2017 2:31 PM MDT
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  • That's true, Jules. Still it would have been interesting.
      March 12, 2017 2:29 PM MDT
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  • 53509

    I've always wondered why dates and exact locations aren't specified in the Bible. 

    ~
      March 12, 2017 6:40 AM MDT
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  • 170
    It's fascinating trying to find the places though.

    I was lucky enough on one of my trips to Israel to have an local amateur hobbyist historian as a companion.

    Despite the fact that he was Jewish, he knew all the reputed and identified sites from the New Testament and (whilst I am agnostic, probably an atheist) it was good to be able to attach biblical stories to actual places.

    And here's a thing, returning from Haifa on a fairly high level road. I saw a signpost to Megiddo off to the left. I asked my companion about it. "Yes, it's a desert village. You might know it better as Ha Megiddon - although you usually call it Armageddon - it's where the last great battle between good and evil will be fought!"

    Israel has more sense of history than any other place I have ever been to. This post was edited by Plingsby at March 12, 2017 3:05 PM MDT
      March 12, 2017 7:13 AM MDT
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  • It's gotta be a fascinating land, Plingsby. I'd love to have seen it. So much history in such a tiny place.
      March 12, 2017 2:40 PM MDT
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  • If I play Devil's advocate for a moment (well, God's advocate, in this case) from a religious point of view the Bible was a revelation of God's purpose to his chosen people (the Jews). As such, the ideas would have been more important than locations and dates. Besides, if by the gift of omniscience, Noah's flood had been dated at 3,000 BC (or BCE) there would always have been raised eyebrows from the sceptics.
      March 12, 2017 2:38 PM MDT
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  • 5835
    Genesis 49:17
    Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

    A serpent leaves a distinctive trail wherever it goes. The bible records that wherever the Tribe of Dan went, they named the place after their father Dan. The tribe split into two parts. One part went north, and you can reconstruct their path by the names of places. They followed a river, which they named Donau or Danube, after their father Dan. The founded cities with names like Dunasceksco and Dunapataj and Dunaharazti and Dnieper. The other part went to Ireland where you find names like Dundalk and Donegal and Dunmore and Dungarvan and Dunquin. Some of them continued north and settled in a land which they named Danmark, after their father Dan.

    Most of recorded history is timed by counting days or years, without trying to make any calendar. No calendar has remained valid for long, although we have been using the present one for several hundred years. So the bible records dates the same way people do. For example, people still commemorate the start of Noah's flood every year. Some countries call it Day Of The Dead, and in America we call it Halloween.
      March 13, 2017 6:06 AM MDT
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  • There is certainly much to say on this, but lets first acknowlege the truly profound and useful bits scattered amongst the abject dogmatism. 

    I posit that the NT was the early Christian effort to improve upon the Jewish OT. Though both are rife with contradictions, historical inconsistencies, vulgarities and fantastical claims, the NT God is a warmer, fuzzier version of the wrathful, smiting OT God, ...except for the introduction of hell, that is. 
     
    Improving the book, IMO, would necessitate ridding the many contradictions, providing more tangible historical references, and admission of the outright implausible and miraculous (particularly Revelations) as purely allegorical or metaphorical. Much harm has come due to literalism of such passages, in my view. 

    What many who claim to know scripture fail to account is how few, if any, of the dialogues or events presented in the bible were recorded by anyone present at them. It is therefore a derivative text in every sense of that term, and a great disservice to fact is done by way of this omission. I'll leave it at this. 

    This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at March 12, 2017 3:07 PM MDT
      March 12, 2017 7:31 AM MDT
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  • I'm not going to argue with any of that. We share much the same view. But I was really looking for way God could have introduced some kind of primitive touch screen. >:-/
      March 12, 2017 2:42 PM MDT
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  • If we recall Early Christian history, for many centuries lay-folk and commoners were forbidden to even possess Biblical texts, not to mention most were illiterate anyway.

    In that sense, Didge, the Creator could have (and yet still could) rendered greater creedence and value to the Bible if He(?) would make the occasional public appearance from time to time to do some Promos. I mean two thousand years and nothing....
      March 12, 2017 2:52 PM MDT
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  • Oh Zee, and Didge, I heard a story as to WHY our Creator does NOT do that...
    The angels and heavenly advisors were proposing, "God, you could use some R&R. Why don't you go to Earth for a dalliance with a nice pretty girl or something?"
    God in horror "Oh no! I did that 2,000 years ago and you know, they are STILL gossiping about it down there..."

    Dozy this story actually sounds like something from you...actually, I am pretty sure I got that from you...
      March 12, 2017 3:12 PM MDT
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  • Yep, I dropped that one on Ask a few years ago. It's not an original. I'm surprised you remembered it. :)
      March 12, 2017 3:28 PM MDT
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  • Maybe he is just shy. 
      March 12, 2017 3:15 PM MDT
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  • That would be a surprise. I figure maybe he is just busy elsewhere. 
      March 12, 2017 3:49 PM MDT
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  • 7792
    Sure. By telling the truth instead of all of that hocus pocus stuff.
      March 12, 2017 2:39 PM MDT
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  • I guess HTML
      March 12, 2017 2:43 PM MDT
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  • I guess HTML (the point of my question) would have been kinda difficult. But it's God we're talking about.  This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at March 12, 2017 3:12 PM MDT
      March 12, 2017 2:43 PM MDT
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