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Most Christians I know about are extremely interested in the origins of the Bible, and tend to be intellectual. What you are saying is true for American evangel

Most Christians I know about are extremely interested in the origins of the Bible, and tend to be intellectual. What you are saying is true for American evangelicals, and not even all of them. Have you ever, for example, met a Jesuit? "they believe the Bible is divinely inspired" There is a big difference between divinely inspired, and divinely dictated. Many of the people who do this research are Christians. The people who buy books and read the articles about it are mostly Christians. The same with the many books on topics such as interpreting "books" of the Bible in the context of the original culture and what we know of authors, intended audience, etc.

FjordWarden 2y ago
There is also a difference between "bible study" and "historical criticism", where the later is devoid of any specific religious interpretation. I am secular person and I find it interesting how ideas evolve over time. I think it was around the year 1000 that Jewish scholars started to wonder why the old testament didn't mention the planets which where a Greek discovery and cultural "meme". People where worried about things like that, but couldn't formulate a good answer. Also most people don't know but ancient Judaism was a polytheistic religion, and only became monotheistic after the return from the Babylonian exile.
Woshiwuja 2y ago
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Suppafly 2y ago
>Most Christians I know about are extremely interested in the origins of the Bible, and tend to be intellectual. I think a lot of christians give this impression, but ultimately mostly of them give up studying when their studies start to diverge from what they've been taught or what they want to believe. The ones that are actually interested in fact finding tend to stop being christians after a while.
tzs 2y ago
> There is a big difference between divinely inspired, and divinely dictated Isaac Asimov had an amusing very short story about the practicalities of divine dictation [1]. [1] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionprof/2011/12/how-it-happened.html https://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionprof/2011/12/how-it-ha...

FjordWarden 2y ago

There is also a difference between "bible study" and "historical criticism", where the later is devoid of any specific religious interpretation. I am secular person and I find it interesting how ideas evolve over time. I think it was around the year 1000 that Jewish scholars started to wonder why the old testament didn't mention the planets which where a Greek discovery and cultural "meme". People where worried about things like that, but couldn't formulate a good answer. Also most people don't know but ancient Judaism was a polytheistic religion, and only became monotheistic after the return from the Babylonian exile.

Woshiwuja 2y ago

[dead]

Suppafly 2y ago

>Most Christians I know about are extremely interested in the origins of the Bible, and tend to be intellectual. I think a lot of christians give this impression, but ultimately mostly of them give up studying when their studies start to diverge from what they've been taught or what they want to believe. The ones that are actually interested in fact finding tend to stop being christians after a while.

tzs 2y ago

> There is a big difference between divinely inspired, and divinely dictated Isaac Asimov had an amusing very short story about the practicalities of divine dictation [1]. [1] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionprof/2011/12/how-it-happened.html https://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionprof/2011/12/how-it-ha...