'A' Problem With Reading The Bible

Look, we have a real problem with reading the Bible as modern, pretty much fairly super-intelligent people. Actually we have two or three problems: and I will just briefly mention the first mundane ones - these are that it is 1. A text consisting of details of some very intelligent, highly intellectual in fact, albeit they are in ancient eras, and socially responsible, and at the time socially-credited, creditable, people, and their views and opinions. 2. It has some socially-consented witness accounts of 'god things;' the literal interaction of God with men. Let's not worry for the moment about how reliable these witness accounts are, simply accept for argument's purposes that people made witness statements literally 'under oath to a Supreme Being/Divinity;' and let's not add our own 'and witness accounts of what they thought they saw...' 

Let's go for coffee...

That's an utterly pointless argument from this moment in time now looking backwards. It's maybe appropriate for archaeologists and excavation people -, those looking for artifacts, things; it's not appropriate for people examining ideas.

See if someone gave you 'the Laws' or a law, that's already an idea. It doesn't require any verification at all that the identity who ordained the law was real or true or not or whatever. If the idea behind that law is nuts, then the giver is automatically already equally nuts, and that's all there is to it.

And but THEN THEN THEN (and here is the important part), there are, or 'maybe' because these are so announced in the text - actual 'speakings' of actual 'God,' which are also written down, and appear in the whole text of 'the Bible.' The Bible is not therefore 'the' Word of God, it is some words 1. about God, 2. about people's witness statements and accounts, and finally 3. some words of God.

If you go into the weeds about 'whole thing is inspired by God' well that actually runs into so many real factual problems it isn't funny and it just isn't practical for smart people.

But by far the worst modern-day problem is that the translations themselves are problematic.

The best modern resource is BibleHub online, but this is constantly peppered away at by people trying to hack it or create DNS issues because there is a very silly modern antipathy to just 'having religion around' in any form. And that is nuts because scientists don't block information. They can question it always, but they don't pretend to deny its existence.

Nevertheless...

So here's an example of something problematic: you go to BibleHub, Mark 4:19 'the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches...' And so on into the rest of the sentence.

Well right there we have a source for all of this Puritanical anti-wealth, anti-materialism, love and glorifying of poverty that is completely abundant in the West.

Where are the gods hiding?

Right down the bottom of the page at BibleHub, however, you will always find - right down at the very very bottom - the original Greek and/or Aramaic. And so often you will be just left scratching your head going: 'How did they get from this, to how they are reading it commonly now in English??'

'Cares.' The word is merimnai. It doesn't mean 'cares' it means the solicitude. Which maybe can be construed to include caring, but really, it means that someone or something is solicitous, as in the archaic implication of soliciting, calling for, pulling in, begging.

'This life' is almost impossible to say to people now -, that if you consider it in context, it means people living in the Messianic Dawn era, who are actually 'left behind;' who are simply a remnant albeit a powerful material existential social group/a society; the (human) society - but not in the Messianic Realm at all.

'Deceifulness.' The word is apate, and boy could I take you back into 'Apophis' here! Because how can you get away from the fact, that this 'Jesus' was fourteen years in Egypt. What was He doing there? Many early exegetic texts give accounts, and they are basically that He trained with Egyptian temple priests! The end. That's the end of it.

Actually no, not the end - the actual word literally in Greek, means the personification of lying greed; like a snake thing. So, Apophis.

'Riches.' It's not riches - it's pletho or ploutos, the Underworld or Earthly god of overflowing treasures, jealously held.

And there's way more.

Here we are, stuck today, in total nonsense everywhere. 

Amazing person. Was just starting to be
successful at 18 - when both her parents
passed away within a year of each other.
Haliene. Just an amazing person.

How do you get - and the Quran commits this sin totally, too - 'and Satan refused to bow down to the creature made from clay...?'

God, the Creator God in this case, made a dynamic thing from clay, and breathed His own breath into it and it lived.

Well Satan is not being asked to, as a form of action, 'bow down!' As in for thousands of years, a whole world of idiots have been making pictures showing Alexander prostrating like the Persians and then everyone who submitted before Alexander also prostrating, aka bowing down to...

But hey look, the thing is - God's own Divine Breath went into the clay man, and when He bid the angels and the rest of the Council of the Elohim and all of this to follow Him into there, Satan said, 'I'm not going into that!'

The Jews cannot show you Jehovah.

The Satanists cannot show you Satan. They can do some bad and very hurtful things and you will think, for sure, that is pretty awful... Must be 'Satan' right? Nope. Nothing physical you can see and touch at all, in terms of an actual being.

You maybe want to see some beings from other worlds, with masses of great high technology, new to us.

But I can absolutely show you, well, why don't you pick anyone at all, of the ancient figures ancient cultures and societies thought were 'gods,' and whom they considered really and truly to be real, and able to manifest for sure: Hercules did, so they say. Many others.

You know exactly where they all are. Because I have just told you and that indeed does make me someone who can 'remove the veil.' Because in fact I just did do that. Now you go find your 'Aphrodite.'

Easy peasy. 

Roasted cod with cognac cream sauce and
tarragon, and, and...

Instead of being merimnai'd by the remnant world, why don't you peitho it and merimnai it back, or, as in this example, her back. Or him too, if you need - there is a 'him' of that side of things.

Don't tell me, after you have read this you do not know where the gods are all hiding!

Did the early churches and religious scholars and rulers know? Well it's like this, you see - here's the hint:

Amr al As, during the rise of Islam, completely overran Alexandria, where Alexander the Great had placed this stela, the 'Apophis' one (and by the way, nobody has translated the glyphs on it at all so don't bother seriously considering what people think the stela says) - and he was burning all of the religious texts, not just the Christian ones, but 'somebody' luckily took the stela away before he could vandalize it, and then later later later on, funny, but the Muslim Ottoman ruler, Ali Pasha, when he wanted to get some favors from the Austrian Empire, 'suddenly,' he found it in a Franciscan Monastery wall in 1829 and presented it to Prince Metternich, from which act we now get its modern label the Metternich Stela.

Freyja, of course, the Norse Aphrodite, does have a space ship which she shares with her brother. And this is Skidbladner. She also has 'chariots.' Just sayin'.

You need to be looking closer to home... (But with great headphones, right?).