The humans who handed down the stories lived in a very patriarcial society therefore the women were not valued. As you know times have changed and societies view of women and children has changed.

The intrinsic truths presented in the bible are what is important not the time they were written. imo

For me, the Bible has become a spiritual guide.

It can be little more than an historical curiosity if you try to read it literally: the fascinating history of a particular culture through the eyes of that culture that can give insights into our own cultural history.
Trying to "believe" it literally drives people mad or, at the very least, makes them insufferable company.

As "metaphor" and "allegory", the Bible gets diluted into often unintelligible theo-babble, a move that some apologists see as a helpful outreach to postmodernists who have not a clue about their own nature or identity and are therefore ill-equipped to engage with any notion of "meaning", no matter how meaninglessly it is articulated.

There is a kind of verse by verse, book by book scholarly balancing act that can be done to tease out the many threads and this and leads to lots of fascinating debate that usually stays at a safe intellectual level. It can be great fun but it calls for rather more study and book work than many modern folk are willing to get into. It'll cost you a bomb at Amazon.ca or Chapters if you want to keep up with latest "correct" interpretation that every self-respecting independent thinker should be espousing. This led me (you may already have gathered) to a kind of cynicism about the point of this work, though the process is great.

The trouble with each of the above approaches is that they too often and too readily lend themselves to the gathering of tools, weapons or custard pies — ammunition of one sort or another — with which to persecute, recruit, taunt, ridicule or harness OTHER people, as a way to avoid allowing change, mystery or uncertainty to affect one's self. I blame my own unpleasantness on having been conscientious about my Bible study.

As a spiritual guide: a personally transforming inner narrative to be taken absolutely seriously, and as a challenge to integration of understanding and experience, the Bible is a staggeringly fulfilling and deeply transforming document.

Hi Findingmyway and welcome to WonderCafe,

The Bible isn't one big book.  It is more like an anthology of selected works.  Within each book of the Bible there are various types of literary genre like poetry, parable, apocalyptic.

Sometimes the narrative of scripture is intended to be recieved literally.

I think that the exhortation of Christ and others to love neighbours, selves and God are meant to be understood at their most literal level and that they are not allegory or metaphor for something else.

Sometimes the narrative of scripture employs hyperbole and it is not intended to be recieved literally.

The mustard seed that Christ refers to is not the smallest of all seeds nor does it grow to be all that big of a tree.  It certainly doesn't do so over night.

The purpose of scripture is not to be a science text book.  To treat the contents of scripture as one is to abuse the scriptures.  The purpose of scripture is to record a history (not of the world or even parts of it) of how God has interacted with the people of God and even then it is a limited slice of the whole picture.

Apocalyptic literature which is found in the book of Daniel and Revelation among others relies very heavily on symbolism.  The symbols are sometimes explained.  Sometimes they aren't.

I'm not so sure if content was lost.  There are references to books which are not included in the Bible and we have not been able to find.  Some meaning is lost.  Figures of speech are difficult to translate.  The Greek language (the New Testament is written in Greek) includes four words which we translate into the singular English word, "Love."

This makes translations of John 21:  15-17 say different things.  Contrary to what most English translations read Jesus does not ask the same question 3 times.  He asks one question twice and then changes the question the third time so that Peter can actually answer affirmatively.  The first two answers given by Peter look like positive answers but he is actually not answering the question that Jesus has asked.  He is evading the question.

This highlights one of the problems that are encountered by literalists.  Few understand the original language and so they insist on applying literalism to the translation of.  The King James Version of the Bible actually is pretty famous for blowing the translation in several parts.

The King James actually butchers 1 Corinthians 13 rather savagely.

The changes in culture between (for example) 6th Century BC Palestine and 21st Century North America are pretty honking huge.  It is something of a mistake to think of things as being the same and laying our contemporary understandings on an ancient culture.

We may think that the women of scripture are cast in a negative way and that thinking is most likely influenced by certain interpretations which treat scripture as a static (dead) document rather than a dynamic (living) one.

This is a problem associated with literalism which locks a 6th Century BC or a 1st Century AD understanding onto the whole of time.

A faithful and careful reading of scripture will show that there are trajectories of thought at play and that there are higher goals that the scripture aims at.  Locking the arrow in place before it hits the target is not a bull's eye.

For example, slavery.  The Bible accepts that individuals can be owned by other individuals.  It opens in the first five books by sharing how that ownership may happen and how the slave is beholden to their master and what the master must do to look after the slave.

But that isn't the end of it.  The Bible accepts this happens but doesn't intend for it to continue to happen.

As the history of God's interaction with the people of God develops we see that God is not content with a Master/Slave relationship but that God is aiming at a Father/child relationship.  Jesus makes that trajectory clear.  Paul, in stating that there is no Jew or Gentile and no slave or free continues that trajectory.  His letter to Philemon regarding Onesimus shows, I believe, very clearly that God wants to get out of the slavery business and into something more family oriented.

Even the role of women is not uniformly negative.  Women are given positions of authority.  They are recognized as judges and prophets.  Paul, who is often accused of being the most misogenistic author of scripture, is very clear that women are apostles and deacons, both of which are very important leadership offices in the early church.

Grace and peace to you.

John
 

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Hello findingmyway.....God bless you.....

I cant say it any better than RevJohn.....God bless your walk with the Lord Rev...your wisdom and knowledge here are well known and very well appreciated on wondercafe...

IJL:bg

That was good Rev John. A very objective point of view.

Thanks all! It all really helped me to see your point of view.