Christian Faith Can Be Difficult

Tagged with bible, christianity, faith, genesis, matthew, religion on October 20, 2024

If you rely on the bible as your only guide to Christianity, you may find your faith tested, or even damaged. You need to be a student of history as well as a student of the bible. After all, no books have been added to the bible in roughly 1800 years. Learn to pray and engage in fellowship. It is possible to misunderstand bible passages.

Looking at Biblical History Through Modern Lenses

Although the books of the bible were written for everyone, even us, they weren’t written to us. A lot of biblical history took place in an area known as historical Mesopotamia, which included present-day Iraq as well as parts of present-day Iran, Turkey, Syria and Kuwait. Some people call that the Middle East or Western Asia.

Before the time of Noah, around 4500 years ago, I doubt anyone knew about the other continents. Even in the time of Moses, more than 3000 years ago, no one should have known about the areas outside of Europe, Asia and Africa. It should be obvious that any stories predating the life of Moses would be targeted toward the people of that era.

If biblical text included places and things the people of that time were unfamiliar with, it would have created more problems than it could have possibly solved. The writers had a hard enough time describing what was familiar.

Losing the Faith

I recently watched a YouTube video where a young man left the Christian religion and chose to become a nonbeliever. He couldn’t reconcile the story of Noah’s Ark with modern scientific knowledge. He was looking at the story with 21st century eyes. Although I doubted I could help, I left a comment on the video.

The story of Noah’s Ark, along with many of the stories before the time of Moses, had to make sense to the first people reading them, namely the original people of Israel. The people of that period were probably not interested in the details someone from today might be looking for.

The Book of Genesis, especially in the time before Moses, leaves out a lot of those details. That’s not unusual. I haven’t seen a history book of any kind that includes every detail. In fact, as history books get updated with new information, they tend to discard older information considered no longer relevant.

Errors in Translation

Not one book of the bible was written in English. I don’t know all the languages involved, but they included ancient Hebrew and Greek. The errors happen when translating to English or some other language. Some words in the bible can have multiple meanings, depending on context. That’s the primary reason we have so many English versions of the bible available.

An example is the Book of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 28, which includes “everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” The word “woman” in Greek can also mean “wife”, which makes more sense. The definition of adultery at that time meant sex with a married woman.

Christian Faith

Various Christian organizations have their own beliefs, based on their own interpretations. It’s easy to get confused. Which one interprets everything correctly? I don’t think even one of them gets everything completely right.

Bible study is important, even if you rarely have time for it. You need to compare what you think you learn to the interpretations explained to you. It can only strengthen your faith by doing so.

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