Did we misunderstand the bible?

I was just thinkin that maybe we don't get the actual meaning of the bible. There are soooo many things the bible might mean. For instance maybe thousands of years ago some guy started writin stories to teach his kids lessons. Maybe his son stole bread from the table before dinner so he wrote that adam and eve were punished for eating a fruit from the tree.

 

The bible was pieced together over a long period. What was included depended on what was useful to the religious authorities at the given time.

People who go to seminary school generally learn all this as part of their education and are told how to manipulate their congregations into believing in and focusing on certain semi-valuable lessons taught in the book.

There actually are soooo many things the bible does mean and many of the claims made inside are very contradictory and anti-common-sense.

 

of course, every holy book of EVERY belief has been and continues to be misunderstood.

they all say the same one important thing, each in different ways.
in other words:"don't hurt each other and clean up your mess".

they also speak of big, friendly, invisibleness, that wishes us well and is generally NOT obliged to resemble what ANY one pretends to know about it.

 

Boy, thats a misunderstanding if i ever read one....

 

The bible was written by the lizard people.

 

I think it is extremely likely that people today interpret the bible very differently from how the authors intended it.

 

The bible as well as a lot of other religious and non religious texts really is like that telephone game you play when you are little. Someone originally starts off with a text and it keeps getting misinterpreted and twisted as it gets passed down the line (in time).

The main reason I believe this happens is the civilizations and cultures that originally used these texts are vastly different than the ones that their are today. Different Language, different governments, different ethnicities, different technology,etc. I think language is the key difference though, because it helps us describe our world and paint images, scenarios, situations. I said this in another thread but ill say it again here. The way we even talk about religion from say 50 years ago, I think is vastly different in some instances. For example, I don't think 50 years ago many Christians said "I have a personal relationship with God." I hear that all the time today, now something might have equated to the same thing back then but the language paints a different picture.

 

I don't think anyone's ever understood most holy books.

 

So true, just look at the Romans, even though so many words of ours derive from Latin, what they meant by "Truth" "Vitrue" and a variety of other abstract things is vastly different than what we mean when we use those words today.

 

precisely and exactly my own perception 100%, and of course i'm not claiming to either. some times i think i have a little bit of an inkling. and some times they seem worth studying and sometimes they don't.

mostly i believe it is more important simply to not hurt each other and to clean up after ourselves. and other then returning the love of the unseen, perhaps it is best simply to let it go at that.

 

I agree with this more than anything.