Monday, December 15, 2008

Protestant / Catholic Preface to the Bible

In my many discussions with Protestants (and having been raised one) I have come to understand their official declaration relative to the Bible and its interpretation. The following represents it as it has been explained/taught to me (some don't share point 3 and/or point 19). This is the preface that the Protestants seem to feel belongs at the front of the Bible, but somehow was forgotten. (Most of these things are also agreed to by Catholicism).

"Preface
While these 66 books are totally correct and don't require revelation to interpret, we must make the following clarifications. And while you can't add to or subtract from Scripture we do have to make the following additions to compensate for misunderstandings that do arise.

1. All the talk of God having body parts is not to be taken literally.
2. All talk of people seeing God and God claiming to have been seen is referring to an angel or cloud only.
3. All talk of Christ being separate from Heavenly Father isn't to be taken literally either.
4. Most talk of "Gods" in the Hebrew script has been altered to the word "God" in English for your convenience.
5. In spite of the enormous size of this collection of books God really doesn't want, nor expect, us to understand him at all, as he's not understandable.
6. It must be understood that all attempts God makes to explain himself are purely for his entertainment only.
7. Any comments God makes about having emotions are just to make some meaningless attempt to appease us, and we should know he doesn't mean it.
8. All talk of God being in one place in any way are just God's confusing way of speaking.
9. All statements referring to Heavenly Father as the father of spirits, change to say that he whipped up our spirits out of thin air.
10. Where it speaks of God creating things in the beginning, change that to "magically whipped up from nothing."
11. All reference to and quotes in the Bible from books no longer present are from books that have been removed for your safety.
12. Though Moses says not to add to his books (the first 5 books of the Old Testament)(Deut 4:2) all the other 61 books, that finally made it into the volume we have today, are fully authorised, but no more than 61 extra are allowed.
13. All talk of Jesus being resurrected with, eating with, being seen having and coming back for his 2nd coming with a body are to be ignored, as he doesn't have one, but just whips it up for appearance sake.
14. All talk of us being in "the image and likeness of God" are to be altered to say "we have some vague similarity to God."
15. Every place where it says that Jesus cried, was surprised or grew in knowledge or any other such statement demonstrating lack of previous knowledge or demonstrating emotion, must be ignored, as he doesn't have emotions and was omniscient (knew everything already).
16. All statements of prophets after Christ in the New Testament books must be disregarded, as no prophets existed after Christ.
17. All mention of priesthood and authority from God being necessary after Christ must be forgotten.
18. All doctrinal discussion Christ made is purely for entertainment only, and isn't really important.
19. God now accepts homosexuality, lesbianism, women ministers and all other modern trends, in spite of his ways being unchangeable.
20. In spite of 4 thousand years of him doing so being recorded in the Bible, and God stating that his ways don't change, God changed his ways some time not long after Christ's death, and is not going to appear to anyone or speak to anyone again.
21. Though God is omniscient (all knowing) he wasn't aware that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit in the garden of Eden or that he would have to flood the world at the time of Noah, when he made the world.

Any other additions to, subtractions from, alterations of words from or explanations of the Bible must be done by majority consent of Protestantism or the Pope (for Catholics), to be classified as 'authorised'."


Neither I nor God endorse this preface.

3 comments:

Doug Towers said...

DeweyOlsen

The site looks interesting, so I'll keep the advertisement there.

DH Towers said...

I think that although this pretty much existed, as stated here, about 40 years ago, I think you'll find that the Mormon influence and that of other 'newer' faiths hashad its remarkable effect re a number of issues that you address in Christendom.

I have noticed, for instance, quite a big shift towards many more Christians today, believing that Jesus literally arose from the dead - physically.
I think if you search out many of these Question and Answer forums, un the religious sub-sections, you would be quite surprised just what % today believes quite progressively in this regard.
Also, a lot of people instinctively believe that we lived in Heaven with God before coming here. But they just don't know in what form or how this came to be.
You might also be surprised just how many discuss ideas of God other than a trinity also.
I think, too, that the larger section of practicing Christians still teaches against homosexuality and same-sex marriage, and is still anti-abortion, except in extenuating circumstances.

Doug Towers said...

denidowi

Thanks for the input. I have noted some shift here and there, that does make some positive change. I hadn't noticed the shift to acceptance of the pre-existence, and so, perhaps, I should look wider in up-dating my information.