this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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Was talking to my masseuse and when she heard I went to catholic school, she asked "so you've read the whole Bible prolly right?" And I was like..."ya, more than once. Is that not common for your side of the aisle?" She just chuckled. She is by no means a fervent believer, but her circle is and she still found it uncommon that I read it.
Not all Protestant denominations are guilty of this, but a huge number of them are basically just cults of personality that follow the guy who stands up on the podium and tells them who and what to hate.
As a kid I actually read the Bible. And found outright contradictions all over the place, either within the text itself, or with what was espoused by the Pastors.
Then, the logic they used to justify some views on why to follow or not follow some verse was contradictory and didnt make any sense itself.
Lots of people are unaware that the Bible actually condones abortion and explains how and when to perform it.
Oh and my favorite, none of us are supposed to be wearing mixed, hybrid fabrics in out clothes.
Or get tattoos.
Jesus does say we are not supposed to change one jot nor one tittle from the Old Testament, so all that stuff is still in play.
Not really, at least not in the sense of needing to follow the commandments and whatnot given to ancient Jews. Jesus came to fulfill the law, that means the law that existed is still important for edification, but he established a new law to take its place.
So the value of the old testament is mostly to understand how God delivered his people and expects obedience. Jesus has the same message, but the new law is simpler:
There are some new observances expected (e.g. baptism, taking the bread and wine, etc), but those are merely part of the two great laws (you'll obey God if you love him, you won't kill a neighbor you love, etc).
The old laws of sacrifice, passover observance, etc are all fulfilled and replaced with a simpler law, which is possible because of Jesus' sacrifice. The old law isn't changed, it's replaced in it's entirety.
That said, there are additional proscriptions in the new testament, such as obesity, drunkenness, etc (see 1 Cor. 6:12-20) because your body is a temple. But again, that circles back to the first law, God gave you your body, and mistreating it disrespects him (e.g. how would you feel if you gave a gift to a friend and they destroyed it?).
Jesus doesn't seem to expect the old law to be enforced (see the prostitute that Jesus forgave instead of carrying out the Jewish law of stoning), but instead replaces it with a more flexible law, but that law carries greater personal responsibility because you're judged by your intent, not the actions themselves.
A lot of denominations just skip to the interesting parts, like pulling random verses to demonize their enemies and justify their actions. That misses the whole point since the entire gospel is about love to God and your fellow man.
Look I am not going to argue theology with you, especially when you just ignore the points I made and pretend they dont exist.
The fact of the matter is the Bible is so full of vague and contradictory statements that it can /and has/ been used to argue basically for or against pretty much every position imaginable.
So I guess have fun with your particular cherry picked version of Christianity: They're all logically inconsistent if you examine them seriously, and I do not care to prove this to a person who explains their position by just ignoring contradictions that are inconvenient for them.
Yes, there are contradictions, but the one you pointed out is easily explained by pretty much every Christian understanding of the relationship between what Jesus taught and what's in the Old Testament.
So pulling something from Leviticus is irrelevant because that's "the old law" that Jesus came to fulfill. That's like Christianity 101 and one of the few things most denominations agree on.
My personal explanation for the rest of the inconsistencies are losses in translation. The New Testament was preserved by monks transcribing documents by hand, and those monks had a set of existing theological beliefs, so it's highly likely they would prefer a certain wording based on those beliefs. However, I highly doubt things were particularly organized in that translation process, hence the weird inconsistencies (e.g. are Jesus and God the same being, or different?) that tends to result in different branches of Christianity (most today hold the doctine of the Trinity, but many reject it, e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, etc). Many reject my belief that the Bible is a hacked together mess that passed through far too many hands and insist it's infallible (and everything in between).
My point here isn't to push my view of Christianity, but to demonstrate that your comment over-simplifies the issue.