Is it normal to sometimes be uncomfortable with the bible?
I love Jesus, but sometimes I feel uncomfortable reading the Bible.
Voting Results
85% Normal
Based on 27 votes
(23 yes)
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Comments ( 15
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Blabla123
Becouse it is sexist and violent? Plus its mostly nonsense, no one is going to punish you if you dont follow that shit, so dont worry
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Morrow
Yeah when reading the old testament and see all the smiting and purging god used to do, damn. You think he'd have a field day with today's world. It would make anyone uncomfortable.
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BlackCatsAreAwesome
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Murun
Jesus would have probably been uncomfortable with the bible had he been around to see it.
He was just a bloke and it's just a book. Any special importance is just in people's heads.Comment Hidden ( show ) -
Grunewald
I've had my questions too. But I think that what is needed to rightly address them is an appropriate sense of scale.
It is hard enough to understand human motivations. But we are smaller than ants compared to God - in our size, complexity, intellect... we can only claim to understand him at all because he provides us the means - the Bible, amongst other forms of witness. Can we expect to judge him according to our own criteria and get an accurate picture of him? We need to find out what parameters God works in rather than relying on our own expectations. Then we can interpret God by the criteria he provides.
There is a difference between 'why?' that seeks only a non-response, so as to build up a case against God, and a 'why' that seeks to understand God for all he is worth, and will accept an answer. I'd add the disclaimer that it's normal to expect some aof the answers to be like the proverbial '42' from the Hitchhiker's Guide. They may not make sense until we understand what to do with them. Are you content with an answer that isn't immediately satisfying or meaningful to you? Understanding God is no small endeavour when you are only human. It will take time. A lot of what Jesus said didn't make sense to his immediate listeners. But this did not logically necessitate the conclusion that he was a phoney.
Jesus knew the Old Testament inside out - he kept quoting it. But he said that not one jot or tittle could be taken away from it. Perhaps a good startinf question to ponder is, 'If Jesus was and is a kind, compassionate and non-judgmental person and quoted the OT authoritatively, then how did he understand it?'
I'm no Bible expert. But just as Jacob wrestled with God, I think that God appreciates it when we wrestle with him too. The Bible is a text I wrestle with, and the wrestling is not proof of God's inexistence, but that texts and my understanding of them are finite, and God is infinite. There are paradoxes in the Bible. There can't not be paradoxes in a text when it presumes to contain the author of the universe. Otherwise the universe would be too simple to be real, and so would the God.
If you are asking because you are open to understanding and can be patient, do PM me.
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Boojum
I've been totally uncomfortable with the Big Bumper Book of Hebrew Fables since I was about 15.
Which was certainly not the aim of the brain-washers in charge of the religious school I attended, but there you go...
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Anonymous Post Author
15. That's the age I was when I developed scrupulosity. :(
I am not sure when my discomfort with the Bible started. I am guessing I was around 15? The Bible is really hard for me to understand, and that stresses me out ALOT.
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rayb12
Jews use other texts to understand the bible, Talmud, Zohar, mid rashes, haftarah, mishna, tanya to name a few. Even most learned Jews, in fact especially those will not attempt to understand it directly. As this work has been done by great thinkers and has been built over generations. I am not sure if such books exist in Christianity that are not of a new religion all together. I only know of ones that seem to deviate quite a bit and bring in other elements than those held in my understanding of catholic Protestant and other non-fringe iterations of Christianity. This isn't necessarily practical advice but I'd imagine an understanding of that historical period, ancient Hebrew and Greek, and if you dare, other religious texts, would be good places to start if attempting to understand on your own.
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Boojum
The fault lies in the book, not you.
The only reason Holy Books survive is if they are ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations. The Bible is SUPPOSED to be hard to understand.
It's written in archaic language, full of contradictions and aimed at an audience that has been dead for a couple thousand years. That's why there are five million versions of Christianity, each of which says that they have the only correct opinions about what the book says.
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Pseodonihm
Yes, Exactly. And one thing I would also like to point out is every western religion have books that tell the same stories. They just tell them in different ways. These books are not historical. They where meant to be read and have there stories retold to inspire the masses who could not read. The masses who spent all day working just to survive. People who don't have the spare time to contemplate god or religion.
Even if god is the author it was man's hands who wrote the words. And men are flawed.
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Shackleford96
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kelliekelliekellie
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Dumb_Ass
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RoseIsabella
I'm not especially interested in certain parts of the Old Testament. Anything in particular that you're uncomfortable with?
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