They say that The Bible is the word of God. They are right, of course. Everything is the word of God. There is no other Source. What matters, however, is what you, or ‘they’, mean by the word “God”. If they mean the Source, the only Source of absolutely everything, then they are right. Since, according to our scientific understanding, the Universe is eternal, the creative process must likewise be an eternal process. Etc…
Allow me to share an idea with you that you’ll probably find quite revolutionary. Please read this carefully.
The Bible has nothing to do
with religion.
I may have mentioned this before.
The Bible, like most other scriptures, is neither more nor less than various compendia of knowledge that humanity accumulated over hundreds, often thousands of years. If you look at the equations used by particle physicists to describe, let alone define, Quantum Mechanics, you’ll understand as much as we can understand the Bible, without intimate knowledge of their ancient symbolism, let alone languages. We have long evolved into a more up-to-date manner of expressing ideas.
In addition, perhaps even as now, the wise men of the past (and present?), decided to protect the wisdom of their findings, lest “the pigs trample it under their feet”.
Can you blame them?
Yet… it didn’t work.
Today the “learned scholars”, of many disciplines ignore all of the above and paraphrase the biblical wisdom with their à la lettre fundamentalist interpretation that turns a goldmine of information into a farcical dissertation.
See my DELUSIONS—Pragmatic Realism.
Regrettably, the biblical scholars seldom do any better. They install their version of God firmly in some whimsical heaven, usually pointing up, towards the sky, hoping to invoke a response from some sort of deity, presumably sitting on a puffy cloud.
“Kingdom of God is within you,” assured us Yeshûa, apparently desperate to restore some sanity to the sacerdotal fraternity.
To no avail.
Lo and behold, those who wished to control the minds of others did just that. They converted the images of the scriptures to religious texts, omitted the embarrassing passages, ignored the others, and introduced the extreme measures of carrot and the stick (heaven and hell), to control the masses and, hopefully, rob them of their hard-earned shekels, dollars, or whatever denominations were fashionable in their time.
This goes on to this day!
Religious have usurped the philosophy of the Bible, of many great scriptures, in order to control peoples’ minds. Like politicians. Like all fundamentalists.
Shame!
If you want to try and discern what the ancient scholars learned over thousands of years, try my DICTIONARY OF BIBLICAL SYMBOLISM. It will NOT tell you what to believe, but it will help you to understand what the ancients have learned.
Also, my 3 volumes of essays attempt to shed some light on the various aspects of our reality. This undertaking continues in my collection of blogs entitled VICIOUS CIRCLES (Volumes 1-5), which also refer to my novels that illustrate the dry facts with everyday occurrences.
Your thoughts are important to me. Your reviews would be appreciated.
