Why are there no new books of the Bible?

Many times the Bible gives other accounts of the same thing, usually from another view point.

 

The Bible does not comment on this, perhaps a little personal meditation on the question will give you the answer or you might want to visit the Buddhism forum for the generally accepted answer but if you give a Zen master that answer, he'll more than likely hit you on the head.

 

The Bible does not comment on genetic engineering but to me common sense tells me it's a bad idea, after all people have been using fire for thousands of years and know all about it's mechanism but still get burnt. It just seems with as little as we know about genetic engineering, mankind could get pretty badly burnt before we learn how to use it properly or whether we should do it at all.

 

Well if there's precedent for the Bible offering multiple accounts of the same thing, I don't see much reason to believe that it couldn't be added to.

So that would be something that could be added to it?

But "common sense" is pretty much the enemy of God, isn't it. Common sense is at best the presumption that our intuition will be right, and more often than not just represents the sum of all our unconscious prejudices. Not saying that it's never right, but it's been abused so much.

 

You mean other than the fact that it is already complete and that the Bible says that nothing should be added or subtracted from the Bible as it stands now?

Why? How does adding something about genetic engineering make the Bible a better book?

Common sense is not the enemy of God but as you say common sense is not always a good guide. Yes, I did say common sense but at the same time, I gave what I thought was a pretty good reason for believing genetic engineering might not be a good idea.

 

No, I mean those specific "facts", which I dispute for the reasons that I have already stated. You can assert that it's complete all you like, and insist that anything anyone suggests could be added to it doesn't need to be, and you can offer no explanation whatsoever. If you want to, that is. Me, I'm hedging my bets. The Bible has been added to before, and that was fine by God. I'm prepared to bet that it will be added to again, and that God will be fine with that too.

It would make God's position on a contentious issue clearer.

Point being, some might believe that it's common sense that we should do genetic engineering because of the sheer weight of the potential benefits to millions of people worldwide.

 

Oh, there will be new scrolls opened but not until the scriptures we already have are fulfilled.

It's not a contentious issue to God.

So?

 

It seems to me there are so many issues that could at least be clarified, if it's important for God to do so. For example, is abortion wrong? What about homosexual relations that don't involve promiscuity, prostitution, pederasty, or gang rape?

 

I believe those questions are already answered, it's just some people don't like the answers.

 

... K.

Even the really freaky ones?

Maybe God could explain that to some of his followers. People seem very keen to oppose life sciences, genetic engineering etc. on religious grounds. If they're just ascribing divine qualities to their own opinions, I would think God ought to have a problem with that, since it pretty much amounts to taking His name in vain.

I... I don't really know how to explain it any better than that. Two people can invoke common sense as justification for completely opposite things. I'd say that for that reason, anyone who argued that, okay, the Bible doesn't say what God thinks of [x thing], but common sense would suggest [y opinion], would be making a dangerous leap, especially if he believed in the god in question.

I think people are suspicious of the answers when they are being extrapolated from the text via the aforementioned "common sense", often by people who happen to have a clear and mitigating agenda. The Bible offers little clarity and leaves itself wide open to misinterpretation (partly as a consequence of those many many translations that you think make it so great ), and despite your claims is not "self-interpreting".

Do you understand God's reason for closing the dialogue with humanity at a point in history that precedes so many new ethical questions? If so, can you explain it to me?

 

Even the "freaky" ones.

It does and I believe he is getting ready to take care of that.

Go right ahead and evoke common sense for anything you want but that doesn't make it right or wrong. The Bible doesn't say, so my common sense doesn't carry any more weight than your common sense and so one needs to keep an open mind on the subject and not try and force their opinion on others about it. I simply stated my opinion on the matter but I'm not going to riot in the streets over it.

I did not extrapolate anything,I made it pretty clear that it was only my opinion on the matter and was what I though was common sense.

The problem is not with the Bible's clarity, the problem is people don't want it to be clear. People come to the Bible with an agenda and want the Bible to say what want it to say and so when the Bible doesn't agree with them, they obscure what the Bible actually says.

You find these "new" ethical questions important and so want them answered and that is understandable, the problem is that in the grand scheme of things they just aren't that important. God has no interest in having mankind go back to a "new" Mosaic Law where every detail of life is spelled out for you, although it seems a lot of people want that. The old law has served it's purpose and now mankind lives under principles not laws. Christians have a handful of laws that they should obey but the rest of their lives should be guided by Christian principles. That is why these conversations are so difficult, everybody wants hard and fast, rules and laws and I'm trying to use my meager understanding of the principles of the Bible to give them answers that have no rules or laws. Oh well sorry about going off.

 

Of these principles, I think the agapic principle is the most important. That's why it's so difficult to understand your defense of slavery, sexism, homophobia, execution of rebellious or disrespectful youths, etc.

 

I'm glad you brought that up. Many people believe they know what the "agapic principle" is when in fact they are so influenced by what the world thinks it is, they have no clue what God and the Bible says it is.

 

No. See, "opinion vs opinion = let's call the whole thing off" works great with purely philosophical debate. If, however, one person bases an opinion on factual knowledge of a subject, you can appreciate that that person would be frustrated if someone else with no knowledge of the subject whatsoever asserted that their opinions were equal.

This is an extreme example of something which, in milder forms, is annoyingly common, particularly on the Internet.

But you don't seem to have that problem.

Again, I think it's at least in part as a result of people using The Bible to "back up" their own rhetoric. It just seems to me that, unless God is indifferent to how his Word is used, it would make far more sense to constantly update the Bible than it would to set it in stone thousands of years before the Day of Judgment. People do kind of suffer as a result of this, you realise that, right?

 

We were talking about genetic engineering and it’s possible future effects on man kind and I said the effects could be bad and you said the effects could be good. Those seem to be opinions to me, what “facts” are you talking about?

You don’t know me very well. I have all kinds of agendas. But I try very hard to not let them affect what the Bible says to me.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that I engage in homosexual acts. When I read the Bible, I can plainly see that the Bible says that Christians should not engage in homosexual acts. So I can do a number of things. I could say simply that rules out being a Christian for me or I could stop engaging in homosexual acts. So although I would have an agenda of wanting the Bible to say something different, I have simply let the Bible say what it says.

But because I have an agenda, I could spend a lot of time trying to prove that what the Bible simply states is not what it says at all but something entirely different and there is no reason why a person can’t be a Christian and engage in homosexual acts or I could spend a lot of time proving parts of the Bible aren’t true so the part about homosexual acts must not be true or I could spend a lot of time trying to prove the whole Bible is false, so what it says about homosexuality is false. None of these things even care what the Bible is actually saying and can in no way give a person a true understanding of what the Bible is actually saying.

Exactly and that’s not to say that I couldn’t be one of them but in my defense I have repeatedly said that people need to study the Bible for themselves and not just take my word for it.

The Bible is designed to separate people into two groups, those who are earnestly seeking God and those who are not and the Bible does that job quite well without any updating.

 

The ones that would allow us to weigh our opinions against each other, rather than just endlessly and spinelessly agreeing to disagree.

That does nevertheless depend on the correct interpretation of the Bible being your own, doesn't it.

 

So what do you want to do now?

No, the Bible is correct, only people can be wrong.

 

Um... I guess I'll have a nice cup of tea and go to bed?

Weird question, weirdo.

Yes. And you are people. So you could read the Bible and know what you think you've read to be "correct", and you could hear others saying what it has said and you could insist that they were simply trying to distort the message of the Bible because they couldn't come to terms with it, but in fact you could have simply read it in a way that it was not intended to be read. You are very self-assured in your interpretation of The Bible, often to the point of arrogance, and it would be nice if someone else would offer their interpretation from a Christian perspective. This is not because I think that you are wrong, so much as because I don't think you consider the possibility as much as you should when you're telling us poor schmucks what the book does and doesn't say/mean.

 

How can you top Revelation? I mean come on, "great whore sitting on a beast".

 

Maybe in Revelations II the beast sits on the great whore? And wriggles?

EDIT: before anyone gets all sniffy, I checked, and sure enough, many of the books of the Bible DO have sequels. HOW MUCH MORE PROOF DO WE NEED?