Thread: The Bible and Useful Information Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Woodworm (# 13798) on
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Why doesn't the Bible include more in the way of useful information?
Why does it tell us not to covet, but not tell us that drinking water is safer when boiled? Why does it tell us the story of Eden, but not that cowpox can be used to innoculate against smallpox? So much pain and misery could have been avoided if God had just let these gems slip. But He didn't.
What does this say about God, His relationship with the world, and the Bible?
Two parameters, please:
- I am interested in the theological implications so, Atheists, please resist the "nothing, 'cos its all cobblers" replies.
- I don't think this question is about revisiting the Problem of Pain - more about what God chooses to reveal, and what not to reveal, and what that tells us.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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Great question.
I would say that the point of the Bible is eternal life, not how to deal with physical-world issues like disease.
It's also interesting that even when it comes to spiritual information the Bible is pretty cagey. I think this is why Jesus promises more useful information in the future, when people are prepared to handle it.
Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on
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Oh, dear...where to begin.
First of all: The Bible isn't a handbook on science or politics or gender relations or household management or personal productivity. It isn't the end-all, be-all source for "useful information," nor does it ever claim to be so...nor do most Christians see it as such.
Actually Bible is not a "book" per se, but a series of texts written in different genres by different people in different times and places for different audiences. Their impetus was to convey their experience of God working through the history of their people/faith community -- not to give readers/hearers handy tips for living (scoldy stuff in the Pastoral Epistles notwithstanding).
For Christians who believe that the Bible didn't just "happen" but came to be compiled over time through the agency of the Holy Spirit in the discernment process of God's people reading/discussing/debating the texts, this collection taken as a whole also, and even primarily, has the purpose of pointing the reader to Christ. Martin Luther called it the cradle that holds Christ.
[ 09. July 2012, 14:42: Message edited by: LutheranChik ]
Posted by Cedd (# 8436) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I would say that the point of the Bible is eternal life, not how to deal with physical-world issues like disease.
Actually much of the law of Moses deals with real world issues like disease - lots about cleaning mildew off tents and so forth, not to mention cleanliness of food. I suspect that there is much more of this stuff than there is about 'eternal life'.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Cedd:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I would say that the point of the Bible is eternal life, not how to deal with physical-world issues like disease.
Actually much of the law of Moses deals with real world issues like disease - lots about cleaning mildew off tents and so forth, not to mention cleanliness of food. I suspect that there is much more of this stuff than there is about 'eternal life'.
That stuff was about ritual purity.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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Yes, there is some specific practical instruction in the Bible, but for the most part it does focus more on relationships-- to one another and to God.
That doesn't mean the physical world isn't important to God-- the Bible is clear that it is. It just simply isn't the main purpose or goal of the Bible.
But that doesn't mean that God doesn't reveal those things. I believe our minds-- our ability to remember, to preserve oral and written history, to discover through scientific exploration-- that's all God-given. So God has revealed things like how to avoid smallpox. It's just recorded in a different venue with a different goal/purpose.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Cedd:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I would say that the point of the Bible is eternal life, not how to deal with physical-world issues like disease.
Actually much of the law of Moses deals with real world issues like disease - lots about cleaning mildew off tents and so forth, not to mention cleanliness of food. I suspect that there is much more of this stuff than there is about 'eternal life'.
That stuff was about ritual purity.
Really? Because it's also pretty much exactly what a group of people wandering through a desert would need to do to stay healthy. It only became about ritual purity when they stopped wandering.
[ 09. July 2012, 14:51: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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You only think so because you have a 21st century understanding of disease.
[ 09. July 2012, 14:53: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
You only think so because you have a 21st century understanding of disease.
What's your point?
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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Obviously that your categories don't apply to the text, and that the relevant sections refer to ritual purity (a concept the writers actually had) and not sanitation.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Obviously that your categories don't apply to the text, and that the relevant sections refer to ritual purity (a concept the writers actually had) and not sanitation.
Perhaps you miss my point. Yes, to the people of the time those things were all about ritual purity, but they also happened to be exactly what they needed if they were to cross the desert safely - the "useful information" to which the OP refers. God (or, if you prefer, Moses) provided instructions and commanded them to follow procedures that meant they would remain healthy in a hostile environment! How cool is that!
[ 09. July 2012, 15:07: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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Pretty neato, but that doesn't make the text about modern concepts of sanitation.
Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on
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The point of the Bible is not necessarily about eternal life, but to relates how God interacts with the World and in particular in human history.
I like the UCC motto: God is still speaking, (Comma)
There are many "facts" that are related in the Bible. There are different facts than just scientific facts. (Interestingly, science avoids the use of that word. It prefers the word "data". Data can have different interpretations.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Pretty neato, but that doesn't make the text about modern concepts of sanitation.
Depends on your understanding of inspiration. Marvin is suggesting that, whether they realized it or not, God revealed those commands to the Israelites for the purpose of sanitation. Obviously Marvin is representing a relatively high view of inspiration. If you don't share that pov you would of course understand the texts differently.
[ 09. July 2012, 15:19: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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Then according to the parable of the good Samaritan, pouring wine and oil in open wounds continues to be praiseworthy, though we know full well that such habits will only spread infection and kill people.
Posted by HCH (# 14313) on
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I'd say there is quite a lot of factual information presented in the Bible, such as an elaborate legal code and hundreds of years of history. Sure, the history may or may not be accurate, but the same is true of plenty of other accounts.
As for the question of sanitary standards: When my mother was teaching nursing, she had her students read the passage about cleansing a house (scraping the walls and burning the scrapings and so on). The Israelites were not stupid people, or at least not stupid about everything.
Posted by Cedd (# 8436) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Woodworm:
...but not that cowpox can be used to innoculate against smallpox?
To take an obvious point, where would these scientific revelations end? Would there also be medical or scientific information that we may only discover in a few hundred or thousands of years from now? How would this information be expressed, in equations or formula which did not even exist at the time the bible was written? Where would it leave the whole point of science if all the answers were already there?
I understand the general point the OP is making (ie why does God allow suffering?) but, imo, to suggest that the bible was God's opportunity to help humanity avoid suffering and that it somehow missed that opportunity is a serious category error.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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Possibly God has a better idea of humanity's real problem than humanity.
[ 09. July 2012, 15:35: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Possibly God has a better idea of humanity's real problem than humanity.
That's it exactly.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Pretty neato, but that doesn't make the text about modern concepts of sanitation.
Well of course not - we (well, most of us) aren't in a nomadic tribe of desert wanderers any more.
I'm not sure why you have so much of a problem with this idea. Do you think God doesn't concern Himself at all with our physical needs?
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
Well of course not - we (well, most of us) aren't in a nomadic tribe of desert wanderers any more.
The text wasn't about modern concepts of sanitation for nomadic desert wanderers either. They thought they were maintaining ritual purity.
quote:
I'm not sure why you have so much of a problem with this idea. Do you think God doesn't concern Himself at all with our physical needs?
Because it employs an extremely dodgy exegetical technique than can and does distort the meaning of the text.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Well of course not - we (well, most of us) aren't in a nomadic tribe of desert wanderers any more.
The text wasn't about modern concepts of sanitation for nomadic desert wanderers either. They thought they were maintaining ritual purity.
Yes, I've already agreed that that's what they thought. Doesn't mean that was the only reason God had for inspiring those words, does it?
quote:
quote:
I'm not sure why you have so much of a problem with this idea. Do you think God doesn't concern Himself at all with our physical needs?
Because it employs an extremely dodgy exegetical technique than can and does distort the meaning of the text.
So what do you think is the meaning of those particular texts? A bunch of random purity rituals God came up with for no particular reason?
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Woodworm:
Why doesn't the Bible include more in the way of useful information?
Why does it tell us not to covet, but not tell us that drinking water is safer when boiled?
Because there are other books about that?
If everything that is useful to know was in one book it would be very big...
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Yes, to the people of the time those things were all about ritual purity, but they also happened to be exactly what they needed if they were to cross the desert safely - the "useful information" to which the OP refers. God (or, if you prefer, Moses) provided instructions and commanded them to follow procedures that meant they would remain healthy in a hostile environment!
Maybe. The trouble is that most of those laws do no such thing. I think they are mostly about holiness.
In God's mercy we have had prophets who told us about God's word when inspired by the Spirit. We've also had microbiologists who found out about bacterial infection by doing experiments. All equally created by God. But not usually the same people. (And doing experiments on God doesn't work)
[ 09. July 2012, 16:27: Message edited by: ken ]
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
So what do you think is the meaning of those particular texts? A bunch of random purity rituals God came up with for no particular reason?
I think the answer to that can be found by reading the text according to its own context. I am not arguing for a particular interpretation, only that your interpretation is impossible.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
The trouble is that most of those laws do no such thing. I think they are mostly about holiness.
Are you actually denying the health import of avoiding mixed-fiber clothing?
--Tom Clune
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Woodworm:
Why doesn't the Bible include more in the way of useful information?
Why does it tell us not to covet, but not tell us that drinking water is safer when boiled? Why does it tell us the story of Eden, but not that cowpox can be used to innoculate against smallpox? So much pain and misery could have been avoided if God had just let these gems slip. But He didn't.
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Possibly God has a better idea of humanity's real problem than humanity.
To go with the smallpox question specifically; given that God took the trouble to invent the stuff in the first place, wouldn't providing a cure be contrary to whatever reason He had for creating the stuff? If God didn't want people to suffer and die from smallpox, simply not creating it in the first place would be a lot simpler than inventing it and then providing an inoculant.
As Zach82 posits, perhaps things like the Smallpox Eradication Program were wasted effort addressing something that wasn't a "real problem".
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
As Zach82 posits, perhaps things like the Smallpox Eradication Program were wasted effort addressing something that wasn't a "real problem".
SIGH!
Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on
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I don't know, I've always found that, like the vicar played by Alan Bennett in 'Beyond the Fringe', I can make it through the most terrible periods of despair by having a good long meditation on Genesis 27:11.
[ 09. July 2012, 17:21: Message edited by: (S)pike couchant ]
Posted by Woodworm (# 13798) on
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Thank you all, but, honestly, I'm not finding these replies much help.
Don't we want it every which way? Lutheran Chick says that the Bible comes to us through the mediation of the Holy Spirit. Fine, and that's my point. If the Bible is God's revealed truth, why didn't he slip in the odd pointer that could have saved His people a world of horror?
"And the Lord said to his prophet, I shall rain fire on Basham! And pour sweet balm upon Mount Gilead! And holy is the man who boils his water and gives his washbowl a proper scrub." Why this revelation, but not that revelation?
"Possibly God has a better idea of humanity's real problem than humanity" ... is, I'm sorry, such a nasty response. So don't worry that the little scratch that father didn't know to clean went sceptic and the children were left to whore themselves to eat. Its OK, because in fact not knowing to clean scratches was not the real problem. Thanks for that, Good Shepherd.
I can see that the answer viz the Bible may be category error. Its never struck me before this string that the Bible reveals next-to-nothing that is useful materially. Writing that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, but it is true, isn't it? Nothing about how to light a fire or put a roof over your head, nothing about how to cure illness or stay alive. It may comfort you as your daughter lies dying, but it won't tell you how to cure her, however easily you could do it if only you knew. That's just not what it does.
But I am still stuck on, why are these truths revealed but not those truths?
One poster said that scientific truths are being revealed by the power of the Spirit. OK then, reframe the question - why has he chosen an insta-revelation that we should not hide our lights under bushels, but allowed millennia of agony to pass before telling us that if you rub yourself with a bit of cowpox scab then you won't die of smallpox?
Or maybe we noticed that for ourselves, and God had nothing to do with it? We are free creatures, and our ways are not His ways. Is there any reason to suppose that God cares about penicillin? The fact that He revealed Himself in His Son, and then two millenia passed before penicillin turned up, suggests to me that He isn't that fussed.
Or maybe we need to re-think what we mean by "revealed" truth? Fleming noticed dead germs in his petri dish and drew conclusions; maybe the Lord just noticed stuff and drew conclusions, too?
I may be sounding here like an atheist troll. I am really not. But I can understand why non-believers roll their eyes at some of the answers we give about this stuff.
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
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Salvation history isn't "important stuff"?
I think your priorities are a tad misplaced.
Or as Zach82 said
quote:
Possibly God has a better idea of humanity's real problem than humanity.
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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If people were doing right by loving God and loving their neighbors, there would be no wars and little personal turmoil. Most human efforts could be directed toward solving our physical problems. God is not making us choose to screw around with vendettas or selfishly horde our substance. We have done all that ourselves, and we took millenia to discover things that were decidedly learnable if we weren't messing around.
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
If people were doing right by loving God and loving their neighbors, there would be no wars and little personal turmoil. Most human efforts could be directed toward solving our physical problems. God is not making us choose to screw around with vendettas or selfishly horde our substance. We have done all that ourselves, and we took millenia to discover things that were decidedly learnable if we weren't messing around.
This is an excellent way to put it. I have to remember this the next time this chestnut is brought up to me IRL.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Woodworm:
I can see that the answer viz the Bible may be category error. Its never struck me before this string that the Bible reveals next-to-nothing that is useful materially. Writing that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, but it is true, isn't it? Nothing about how to light a fire or put a roof over your head, nothing about how to cure illness or stay alive. It may comfort you as your daughter lies dying, but it won't tell you how to cure her, however easily you could do it if only you knew. That's just not what it does.
Think of it more like a sociological work, not about material well-being but rather social control. It comes in either patriarchal clan variety (Old Testament) or Amway-style pyramid recruitment scheme (New Testament).
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
If people were doing right by loving God and loving their neighbors, there would be no wars and little personal turmoil. Most human efforts could be directed toward solving our physical problems. God is not making us choose to screw around with vendettas or selfishly horde our substance. We have done all that ourselves, and we took millenia to discover things that were decidedly learnable if we weren't messing around.
Doesn't this position require ignoring large sections of the Old Testament where God is, in fact "making us choose to screw around with vendettas or selfishly horde our substance"? Last time I checked the Old Testament was generally considered to be part of the Bible.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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One thing that is different between scientific knowledge and spiritual knowledge is the degree to which it is cumulative and public. I don't want to overstate that difference -- ISTM that there is a cultural aspect to spiritual growth (I imagine that our revulsion to slavery may represent a cultural spiritual development, for example). Nonetheless, there is a notiecable difference between scientific and spiritual progress.
First, it is not required that the mass of people participate in scientific progress for it to take place -- it can be the province of a few who provide it for the rest of us. Second, scientific progress is easier to build upon -- the effort needed to get "up to speed" on the last generation's scientific accomplishments requires substantially less effort than it took that generation to actually accomplish the gains. And third, it isn't necessary to carry within you the scientific knowledge needed to do whatever it is that you wish to do -- you can look up how to make gunpowder at the time you want to make it, rather than spending your life becoming prepared to make gunpowder.
To my mind, all those things are substantially different from spiritual growth. Perhaps within those differences is part of an answer to the OP.
--Tom Clune
[ 09. July 2012, 20:17: Message edited by: tclune ]
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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Croesus, that's true. There you have a classic example of where the Bible contradicts itself. Well spotted.
But.
Me: quote:
God is not making us choose to screw around with vendettas or selfishly horde our substance.
I haven't noticed God telling us to do any of this stuff since the First Century. Plenty of time to do some useful things rather than selfish or hare-brained ones.
[ 09. July 2012, 20:15: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
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quote:
There you have a classic example of where the Bible contradicts itself.
Only if you read it with western, modernist lenses on. BTW, both atheists and fundamentalists do this. It leads them to different errors but it comes from the same root.
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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Okay looking at it through a non-western, non-modernist lens, how were the wars of the OT, fought offensively by the Hebrews, and seemingly ordered by God, "loving" to the victims of the wars?
And if you say that God didn't order them in the first place, that would sound pretty "modernist" to me.
Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on
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Personally, I see the Bible as a collection of human writings intended to preserve what people experienced as divine encounter. Over time, people either continued to use and find value in these texts, and so canonized them, or didn't, and we find the texts popping up as apocryphal texts or "the lost books of the Bible," but these are really the writings people in the tradition simply didn't find helpful to their spiritual life.
This isn't to say I don't believe in revelation; I just have a more naturalistic view of it. The Holy Spirit is active in the whole process, but works through human agents and human agency. The experience of divine encounter can only be expressed by humans in ways that are intelligible to them at the time. We are constantly honing our language about God, but we're still only rendering utter mystery intelligible - finding ways to talk about something that ultimately cannot be put into words.
Humans in the Judeo-Christian tradition don't seem to have connected their spirituality with, say, medicine or science as much as they did with national identity, community, and politics. They recorded their experiences with God where they were able to recognize and articulate them, and those writings helped later generations to see God in their own circumstances and to express their experiences of God. I see it as sorta like grammar. If you're an English speaker, it will affect how you can see, interpret, and express the world around you. The language evolves over time, gaining new ways to express new insights, but it also to some degree limits the way its speakers interact with and interpret the world.
Jesus Christ is the Word of God, and the primary revelation of God. That's why we (in the more catholic traditions, at least) read the rest of the Scriptures through the lens of the Gospel. But God's revelation to us can always only be in our language(s) - if God reveals something we can't grasp at all, it's not really revelation. God became human as a man in 1st century Palestine, in the tradition of the Israelite/Jewish faith, and humans around him interpreted him through Jewish categories, and then Greek, and we continue this process wherever Christianity takes hold in the world - interpreting the Christ-event in ever-expanding human cultures, languages, and thought systems.
Following the maxim, "All truth is God's truth, wherever it be found," we might consider all scientific discovery to be divine revelation in a way, but the mechanism of divine revelation (IMO) has never consisted in God clearly stating something humans had no way of understanding. IMO, based in part on my own semi-mystical experiences and those of people I know, I think that when the prophets say, "Thus saith the Lord," they didn't hear a voice dictating what they quote as God's speech, but the mysterious process that gave them their prophetic insights cannot be expressed except through the metaphor of God speaking to them, as if in an audible voice. Many people over history have reported getting specific locutions fully-formed in their minds, but ISTM that these are usually found within contexts that have been concerning the person, not something random like "cowpox can inoculate humans against smallpox." Perhaps scientific and medical discoveries have resulted from experiences like that, but people would usually interpret them as getting an idea which they would then test in a lab. It's not in our grammar, so to speak, to interpret ideas like that as divine revelation, and it doesn't seem to have been such to the ancient Israelite mind either. They had their medicine, whatever it was - we know because medicine does get mentioned in the Bible (and in the deuterocanonical wisdom literature, we're instructed that doctors are to be honored and trusted because they, too, pray to God). Maybe because of the highly developed concept of God as personal, attributing medical procedures to divine revelation might have too much resembled magical practices of neighboring pagan religions.
Sorry this was so long... I'm kinda thinking out loud here. And as my sig line says,...
Posted by Macrina (# 8807) on
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These are just a few random thoughts. I may try to return and post more completely in the morning.
The Bible isn't a book on how to live practically because those things were not written down in that culture at that time. It was mostly a pre-literate culture and most people learned the day to day skills from family and kin and would have seen little point in writing it down. The things they did write down were things that they couldn't 'learn' in a practical sense and most of it was actually a codified written version of what had been passed down as oral accounts for centuries.
I think our obsession with words and language and writing has prevented us understanding that aspect of the 'gaps' in Biblical writing. Widespread literacy is an incredibly recent phenomenon even in industrialised countries.
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Okay looking at it through a non-western, non-modernist lens, how were the wars of the OT, fought offensively by the Hebrews, and seemingly ordered by God, "loving" to the victims of the wars?
And if you say that God didn't order them in the first place, that would sound pretty "modernist" to me.
If you want to discuss this we should start a new thread. It involves a very long response which would IMHO unfairly hijack the thread far away from its topic.
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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Okay.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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Let's take the OP to its logical conclusion...
Why doesn't the Bible contain a blueprint for colonizing Earth-like planets?
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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Throwing this into the mix...
It appears from various bits of the OT that God DID in fact directly inspire shitloads of useful knowledge--agriculture, music, art, pastoralism, and so forth. (see the refs to various "fathers of" these activities in Genesis, also people like Bezalel and Oholiab later)
The difference is, he didn't enshrine it in writing, he gave it to individuals who presumably passed it along through apprenticeships and other less formal modes of teaching. Which come to think of it is probably a far more useful way of passing along practical this-life type information than writing it down in a world without mass literacy and mass media.
I would be willing to bet that this kind of inspiration is more common than the Bible written stuff by 1000s to 1, and that it is what stands behind the old Greek idea of the Muse. How many people ever laid eyes on the Scripture before the printing press? In any language.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
How many people ever laid eyes on the Scripture before the printing press? In any language.
This.
We have to remember that this is a time and place where 98+% of the population was illiterate, so very few would get value out of any written manuscript at all.
Also, given that they were a mostly pastoral and often nomadic society, carrying around documents which had this kind of limited value; took painstaking hours to copy (but the small elite literate class) but could easily be ruined from the weather, fire, being crapped on by animals or whatever, and which added bulk and weight to the packload just didn't make sense.
This was a society where most information was orally transmitted. It's one thing to have a priestly class keep sacred documents that documented a people's spiritual and political pedigree to use in communal worship, but quite another for them to keep "how to" manuals that document day to day stuff you'd learn from your elders anyway.
[ 09. July 2012, 23:46: Message edited by: ToujoursDan ]
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Cedd:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I would say that the point of the Bible is eternal life, not how to deal with physical-world issues like disease.
Actually much of the law of Moses deals with real world issues like disease - lots about cleaning mildew off tents and so forth, not to mention cleanliness of food. I suspect that there is much more of this stuff than there is about 'eternal life'.
That stuff was about ritual purity.
Zach, all you're basically saying here is that if God tells you to stay clean instead of a doctor telling you to stay clean, the instruction develops Special Holy Status.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Then according to the parable of the good Samaritan, pouring wine and oil in open wounds continues to be praiseworthy, though we know full well that such habits will only spread infection and kill people.
...sorry, why on earth would either wine or oil spread infection? What pathogens live in them?
I'm pretty damn sure wine is not a disease carrier. The whole blooming point is that the alcohol stops being produced when the bugs are killed off.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
Zach, all you're basically saying here is that if God tells you to stay clean instead of a doctor telling you to stay clean, the instruction develops Special Holy Status.
I'll say that is obviously so, knowing that you obviously have not really gotten the point.
quote:
...sorry, why on earth would either wine or oil spread infection? What pathogens live in them?
I'm pretty damn sure wine is not a disease carrier. The whole blooming point is that the alcohol stops being produced when the bugs are killed off.
Please don't pour oil and wine on my wounds if I'm ever injured in your presence.
Posted by Darkwing (# 16207) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Let's take the OP to its logical conclusion...
Why doesn't the Bible contain a blueprint for colonizing Earth-like planets?
It's a Satanic conspiracy to keep everyone on Earth, where the demons can tempt you into sinning.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Let's take the OP to its logical conclusion...
Why doesn't the Bible contain a blueprint for colonizing Earth-like planets?
Because that had to wait for the Book of Mormon?
--Tom Clune
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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Staying away from any special holy status--in that day and age wine (the more potent the better) was the only reasonable antiseptic around -- and continued to be used that way at least into the 1700s. Oil, too, is useful for stopping bleeding when poured on, and i gather surgical grades of oil are still sometimes used for this purpose.
So as far as i'm concerned, if you find me injured and bleeding with no more conventional help available, feel free to pour on the wine and oil. Just be prepared for the screams when alcohol meets raw flesh. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
...sorry, why on earth would either wine or oil spread infection? What pathogens live in them?
I'm pretty damn sure wine is not a disease carrier. The whole blooming point is that the alcohol stops being produced when the bugs are killed off.
Wine itself is largely germ free, but that doesn't make it a good antiseptic.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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None of this means that the purity laws of the Old Testament are about modern concepts of sanitation, and since it's distracting from that point I am sorry I even brought up the wine and oil thing.
Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on
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Why didn't God tell us cowpox could be used to stop small pox?
Because God wanted us to use our brains?
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
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Originally posted by Crœsos:
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Originally posted by orfeo:
...sorry, why on earth would either wine or oil spread infection? What pathogens live in them?
I'm pretty damn sure wine is not a disease carrier. The whole blooming point is that the alcohol stops being produced when the bugs are killed off.
Wine itself is largely germ free, but that doesn't make it a good antiseptic.
But it probably is a lot better than water from the spring in a herding culture...
Olive oil can still be bought in small medicinal bottles in a drugstore.
While the Talmud has medical ethics and treament commentary perhaps what you're looking for is the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
None of this means that the purity laws of the Old Testament are about modern concepts of sanitation, and since it's distracting from that point I am sorry I even brought up the wine and oil thing.
I don't think the words "dual purpose" are in your vocabulary, Zach.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Yes, there is some specific practical instruction in the Bible, but for the most part it does focus more on relationships-- to one another and to God.
The trouble is that on my reading the relationship advice for dealing with each other is normally good ('Slaves, obey your masters'). But I want my relationship with the God as presented in the bible to consist of one thing. A restraining order. The relationship as presented is abusive of the "Honey, why did you have to make me hit you" victim-blaming sort. With God being the serial abuser (if that isn't obvious).
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
None of this means that the purity laws of the Old Testament are about modern concepts of sanitation, and since it's distracting from that point I am sorry I even brought up the wine and oil thing.
I don't think the words "dual purpose" are in your vocabulary, Zach.
I wouldn't quite go with "dual purpose." I agree with Zach that the biblical information about cleanliness and purity is given for purely spiritual and ritual purposes.
That the purity laws may have been helpful to an ancient people crossing a wilderness in terms of hygiene, sanitation and avoiding disease, may be true, but that is not why it was given. We don't know how many of those hygienic practices they would have already known.
I don't think that anyone is suggesting that they were physically more healthy than their contemporaries, or that they even thought in those terms. As framed in the Bible the issue is entirely about practices that please God and keep them from being "unclean" - a concept that is clearly both physical and spiritual to them.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
But it probably is a lot better than water from the spring in a herding culture...
If that's what it was about then God would have given the Hebrews the laws the Mongols had. Death penalty for shitting upstream of the camp.
Anyway there are plenty of places in Britain today where drinking water is taken unprocessed from hillsides grazed by vast herds of sheep and deer. And comes out of the tap brown. No unusual health problems there (no-one mention Mad Cow Disease...)
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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This is turning into a quite fascinating conversation.
I would have thought it was pretty well fundamental that God knows a heck of a lot more than us, and also pretty fundamental that sometimes he tells us to do things without immediately explaining the full reasons for doing it. Heck, one only need look at Abraham going to sacrifice Isaac to get the latter.
It's also quite obvious that GOD knew about germs even if the Israelites didn't. And even if he couldn't explain the whole concept to them yet, as they were lacking microscopes.
So it seems perfectly sensible to me that God could have had multiple reasons for a 'purity' rule.
The alternative is to suggest that God cares about ritual purity but, despite knowing about germs, doesn't really give a shit about whether or not his chosen people get sick from doing unclean things, and that it's just sheer chance that some of his ritual purity rules happened to have a second effect.
A proposition I find damned odd, frankly.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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Originally posted by orfeo:
The alternative is to suggest that God cares about ritual purity but, despite knowing about germs, doesn't really give a shit about whether or not his chosen people get sick from doing unclean things, and that it's just sheer chance that some of his ritual purity rules happened to have a second effect.
Yes, that says it pretty well. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
It's not quite "sheer chance" but it's close. The purity laws involved acts that symbolized spiritual virtues, but the symbolism did not involve a direct one-to-one relationship with physical purity. Pigs are not actually much more unclean than sheep.
But if God wanted to give instructions about avoiding disease and healthy diets He has done a bad job.
The whole idea of "chosen people" also runs counter to any sensible idea of God.
Instead everything is centered around the concept that spiritual well-being lies at the heart of human happiness, and that it is acheived by the development and spread of spiritual information. This information has its origin in God through a very few recorded revelations, and it is then spread and received by a long term process that involves human free will and cooperation.
By comparison, the issue of whether some ancient people is getting sick by doing unclean things, just as people worldwide were also getting sick from doing the same unclean things, is unimportant. What is important is the apparent autonomy of God's creation.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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Picking up on minor tangents--Pigs are more unclean than sheep in certain cultures. Namely, the ones where they are allowed to eat human refuse, tainted meat, and so forth. You'll notice that there's a pattern of scavenging animals being unclean (off the food list) for the Israelites, however majestic a particular one may be. (I was surprised to find the eagle off limits until I thought about its eating habits)
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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Originally posted by Freddy:
Instead everything is centered around the concept that spiritual well-being lies at the heart of human happiness
Maybe, but you can't have either spiritual wellbeing or happiness if you've died because of an easily-avoidable illness that your perfect omnipotent God decided it wasn't important to warn you about.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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Originally posted by Freddy:
The whole idea of "chosen people" also runs counter to any sensible idea of God.
I'm sorry, did we just throw away the first 39 books of the Bible?!?
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
The whole idea of "chosen people" also runs counter to any sensible idea of God.
I'm sorry, did we just throw away the first 39 books of the Bible?!?
Not at all. The "chosen people" stand for all good people, those who love and obey God. It's just the version of this idea that would work in an ancient culture.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
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Originally posted by Freddy:
Instead everything is centered around the concept that spiritual well-being lies at the heart of human happiness
Maybe, but you can't have either spiritual wellbeing or happiness if you've died because of an easily-avoidable illness that your perfect omnipotent God decided it wasn't important to warn you about.
Luckily they didn't all die. But what would be the point of warning them and not the Egyptians or Canaanites?
I don't think that avoiding disease was high on God's priority list. Which is not to say that it isn't an important benefit of increasing information - especially since survival is a key element in maintaining the human race.
The essential idea, though, is that information is God's tool. Information is what changes everything. It's important for us to have a theory about how it all works.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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Originally posted by Freddy:
Luckily they didn't all die.
Not so lucky for the ones who did. What are they, irrelevant? Collateral damage?
Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on
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Originally posted by Woodworm:
Nothing about how to light a fire or put a roof over your head,
Why should it need to. The Bible mentions fires being lit, I think I remember one or two mentions of buildings in there as well.
The skills were already out there, there was no need to write down a bronze age or iron age set of building instructions as these were handed down by work of mouth, taught to apprentices or in another book.
No instructions about wound cleaning does not mean God wants us to get infections. The cleaning and binding of wounds is yet again something that is mentioned. If you have a wound and know how to clean and bind it you do, or else you find someone who can. If someone else has a wound you treat it, take them to someone who can or bring the medic to them. It comes under "Love your neighbour as you love yourself." Jesus went further and extended it to those we don't like.
Back to fires and roofs: If you are a builder, you build a house, with a roof, for yourself, you build houses for others and you teach others how to build. If you know how to light fires you light a fire for yourself and teach others how to light fires.
I can't understand why these sort of instructions need to be written in the Bible.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
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Originally posted by Freddy:
Luckily they didn't all die.
Not so lucky for the ones who did. What are they, irrelevant? Collateral damage?
Yes, not so lucky for them.
Yes, there was a lot of collateral damage.
No, they weren't irrelevant. Every individual who has ever lived is precious in God's eyes.
The point, though, is long-term improvement based on increasing knowledge, accomplished with apparent autonomy.
In this effort it is the principles that are most important. Hints about food spoilage are important but not the real purpose of divine revelation.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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Originally posted by orfeo:
I don't think the words "dual purpose" are in your vocabulary, Zach.
I do, but modern concepts of sanitation could not have been one of them because the writers of the Old Testament knew nothing about germs. I, personally, do not sign up for this idea that God dictated the Bible, and the prophets, acting as God's secretaries, meekly wrote down passages they had no understanding of. Neither do the vast majority of scripture scholars today.
Really read the Levitical laws for a change- only very few can be construed as sensible disease prevention advice anyway.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Really read the Levitical laws for a change- only very few can be construed as sensible disease prevention advice anyway.
Maybe we could assemble a short list right here. I've always thought that the "disease prevention advice" theory was pretty thin.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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I missed the edit window:
Think about ritual purity this way. The horrible truth is that the counter top you make a sandwich on usually has far more germs on it than the toilet seat. All the same, toilet seats are seen as filthy even when they are cleaner than counter tops. Unclean is the not same as dirty. Uncleanliness is about taint, unhygienic is about germs.
Posted by sebby (# 15147) on
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Surely to view the bible, or any other volume of 'sacred' writing for that matter, as a text book is an example of eisegetical folly.
Rushing to its pages to find a cure for bunions, or even whether we should have nuclear power, is exactly the sort of approach that gives fuel to the arguments of Dawkins, Hitchens and the like.
Perhaps this illustrates once again the sad divorce there has been in so many places between the university and the pulpit.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
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Originally posted by Freddy:
Luckily they didn't all die.
Not so lucky for the ones who did. What are they, irrelevant? Collateral damage?
Actually, Freddy is wrong. They all died. Some lived at most a few decades longer than others but not a one of them is still alive today. The Bible mentions only two people who avoided death. Even Jesus died. God promises us that we can overcome death not avoid it. Ultimately, Christianity isn't all that compatible with materialism.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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Very true, Sebby. We live in an age when everyone is supposed to have equally valid insights into theology- and having an education in theology and the Scriptures is seen as no particular qualification.
In other matters, I think the rampant speculation about food laws is a perfect example of where people go wrong. The fact is there is absolutely no evidence that pork and shellfish are any more "dirty" than any other meat. Anyone that says pigs are filthy but eats chicken has not seen a pig or a chicken in his life. Chickens are gross, you can smell a chicken farm a mile away, and eating chicken sickens far more people than pork. That's just the science, but just see the smug look on the faces of people when they inform you that they don't eat pork before biting into their chicken nuggets.
The fact is, the Levitical food laws are not at all unusual or restrictive. Serve an American or British person dog meat or insects and see what happens. Americans limit themselves almost exclusively to chicken, beef, and pork (with occasional doses of turkey), and even have strict rules about what part of those animals they will eat- most Americans are mortified by the thought of eating offal. French people will eat horse flesh, but Americans think that is horrible.
Every culture has rules about what one can eat and food one should avoid, and for the most part is has nothing to do with health. The difference with the Old Testament is that the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon, and codified these rules in to a ritual law in order to maintain their identity in a foreign culture.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Luckily they didn't all die.
Not so lucky for the ones who did. What are they, irrelevant? Collateral damage?
Actually, Freddy is wrong. They all died....
Ultimately, Christianity isn't all that compatible with materialism.
Great! Ha-ha! That says it all. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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Zach82: Chickens are gross, you can smell a chicken farm a mile away, and eating chicken sickens far more people than pork.
It's not about their smell. I'm a vegetarian, but I think that unless they're industrialized hormone-stuffed broilers, chicken is healthier to eat than pork.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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Originally posted by Freddy:
No, they weren't irrelevant. Every individual who has ever lived is precious in God's eyes.
Not precious enough for Him to tell humanity how to cure their diseases though, right?
quote:
Hints about food spoilage are important but not the real purpose of divine revelation.
Then what is?
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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Originally posted by LeRoc:
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Zach82: Chickens are gross, you can smell a chicken farm a mile away, and eating chicken sickens far more people than pork.
It's not about their smell. I'm a vegetarian, but I think that unless they're industrialized hormone-stuffed broilers, chicken is healthier to eat than pork.
Evidence?
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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The purpose of divine revelation is to reveal the divine.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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Zach82: Evidence?
Sorry, I don't believe your assertion about chicken vs. pork meat, but it isn't important enough for me to do research about it.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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Originally posted by LeRoc:
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Zach82: Evidence?
Sorry, I don't believe your assertion about chicken vs. pork meat, but it isn't important enough for me to do research about it.
Always a pleasure, LeRoc. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Hints about food spoilage are important but not the real purpose of divine revelation.
Then what is?
To fulfil the purposes inherent in the Divine Love. They are:
- To have something outside of Himself to love.
- To be freely joined with it.
- To make it happy.
The point is eternal happiness, peace on earth and in heaven. It's only a long difficult process because of the necessity of autonomy and freedom for it to be meaningful.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
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Zach82: Chickens are gross, you can smell a chicken farm a mile away, and eating chicken sickens far more people than pork.
It's not about their smell. I'm a vegetarian, but I think that unless they're industrialized hormone-stuffed broilers, chicken is healthier to eat than pork.
Evidence?
Chinese people eat a lot more pork and a lot more chicken than Jews do. And there are a lot more of them.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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Originally posted by Freddy:
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Originally posted by Zach82:
Really read the Levitical laws for a change- only very few can be construed as sensible disease prevention advice anyway.
Maybe we could assemble a short list right here. I've always thought that the "disease prevention advice" theory was pretty thin.
Some of them do in fact do that stuff-- but as i see it, the real function of the ritual law was to establish a coherent, unified culture for a group of deculturized former slaves who would otherwise have kept broken bits of their old Egyptian masters' culture-- probably the most debased bits-- and struggled for ages on how to define themselves as a separate unified nation with a dominant orientation toward YHWH and nobody else.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I don't think the words "dual purpose" are in your vocabulary, Zach.
I do, but modern concepts of sanitation could not have been one of them because the writers of the Old Testament knew nothing about germs. I, personally, do not sign up for this idea that God dictated the Bible, and the prophets, acting as God's secretaries, meekly wrote down passages they had no understanding of. Neither do the vast majority of scripture scholars today.
Really read the Levitical laws for a change- only very few can be construed as sensible disease prevention advice anyway.
Ah well, if your view is that it's not God giving the commandments then I entirely agree with your reasoning.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Hints about food spoilage are important but not the real purpose of divine revelation.
Then what is?
To fulfil the purposes inherent in the Divine Love. They are:
- To have something outside of Himself to love.
- To be freely joined with it.
- To make it happy.
The point is eternal happiness, peace on earth and in heaven. It's only a long difficult process because of the necessity of autonomy and freedom for it to be meaningful.
God is a hippy.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
God is a hippy.
A hippy who is all about useful information.
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