in the Bible... but in other books that have been kept in secret for hundreds of years, because Churches wanted for you to be their slaves ...what would you do  ?
214525
Well I would probably become a gnostic. Hey, come to think of it that's exactly what happened! ;)
508579
If you really read the bible, there's all kinds of stuff in there. If you lived your life by the bible, your life would be extraordinarily complicated.
274697
i think its a great book and it opens peoples eyes even though it fiction, i think that a lot of it might be not to say true but a bit convincing. I think that the church hides lots of things and the bible is just a book written with the things they want us to know. I think that some of the books that have not been included in the bible are taken out for reasons that would make us think twice about the entire world and the entire religion thing. The same way that it would make us change the way we see Jesus.
321035
This could be the strongest point about the 'hidden agenda' of those who perpetrated to TWEAK the compilation of the Holy Bible by simply ignoring the so-called "missing years" of Yeshua ibn Joseph.\n\nIf you study about the ESSENES --the Brotherhood, a clustered community of prophets, visionaries and scribes that banded together since the time of Elijah-- they were the third largest group among the Jewry. The largest groups were the Pharisees, followed closely by the Sadducees, and then by the Essenes. Yet there is NOT ONE SINGLE mention about the Essenes in the Bible. Why is that so??\n\nSimply because that was the very group targeted by the early church [the RCC, who gained power from Constantine] to be OBLITERATED COMPLETELY from the face of the Earth and all historical and recorded references made about them as well as all their writings. The Essenes were the same ones who followed The Law for generations and who "separated" themselves from the rest of the Jewish cities to honor their Nazarite's Vows, which had been institued since the time of Moses...\n\nIt was through them that the maiden, Mary --daughter of Anna and Joachim-- was chosen to be the vessel for arrival of the Promised Messiah. There were two known communities of Essenes during that time: one in Nazareth, located at the foothills of Mt. Carmel; and the other in Qumran, high atop the cliffs overlooking the Dead Sea.\n\nMary, the young maiden, and Joseph, a respected elder and builder of their community both belonged to the community in Nazareth. Her first cousin Elizabeth, and husband Zecheriah --high priest/in-charge of the incense at the Temple in Jerusalem-- lived in Qumran where John the Baptist was born.\n\nAs the proclaimed MESSIAH, Savior and King of the Jews, since the time of Anunciation ['the Announcement'] it was already widespread among the Essene communities about His arrival. His Nativity in Bethlehem --House of David, family line of Joseph and Mary-- was well protected by members of the Brotherhood at all times, up to and including their departure to Egypt and safe return back to their town of Nazareth.\n\nI would venture to conjecture the following:\n\nYeshua's early childhood, or at least His first seven years, were spent with His mother and He obeyed all her laws at home. Between seven years to fourteen years old, He learned His father's trade as a carpenter and began to learn all the Sacred Scriptures [about Him, the Elect One] from the Masters in Mt. Carmel-- the original headquarters of Prophet Elijah and other 100 prophets that followed him since. This would explain why Yeshua/Jesus, at 12, began questioning the practices of the Pharisees and Sadducees at the Temple since, by then, He had already learned the Scriptures for at least five years...\n\nBy fourteen years old, He began His own ministry within the community of the Brotherhood and preached to the youth and the new members who were made welcome to join their open communities. By twenty-one years old, He had chosen the few "elects" among His early disciples and was by then known as The Master among the Brotherhood. Between twenty-one and twenty-eight, it is conceivable that He too was happily married as was the Jewish tradition among sons of men. This could also account for the various travels that He has been credited to have made in various places, learning their ways and bringing His message of the SEVENFOLD TEACHING that was given by the Ancient Great Ones who have seen the face of God...\n\nAnd by the time He was thirty, He began His public ministry to the rest of the Jews outside the Brotherhood.\n\nPresumably, being surrounded by disciples, scribes and elders of the Essene communities, the ENTIRE LIFE OF YESHUA was chronicled and written by at least hundreds, maybe even thousands of those whom The Master had affected... before He began to "choose" His "twelve [public] Apostles" soon after meeting
87797
The bible states that he uses others in his work so maybe the way it should be read is that he is using one to punish the other.
555322
200 years ago some people quoted bits of the Bible out of context, devoid of the origional meaning, to justify slavery and racism. Today some people do the same mean trick to try to justify their bigotry.\n\nAn example - some say that Leviticus calls being Gay an abomination, they quote one sentence. If peope would read 3 chapters on either side of that one sentence they would see that eating pork and wearing clothing made of 2 or more materials are also called abominations. If they would read further, they would see that stoning children and killing animals on the alter is called for. If they would read the whole book, they would find why it is called Leviticus - God wanted ther Levites among the Isrealites to be quite different from all other people, the laws in Leviticus are intended only for those born into Levite families. Leviticus means "for the Levites". For any non-Levite to follow those laws is the opposite of what the Bible really says to do!\n\nAnother example - the word "homosexuality" is only about 100 years old. If you have an edition that uses that word in the writings of Paul, it is a deliberate incorrect translation, get another version.\n\nBest to read just the gospels anyway - what did Jesus say? \nLove your neighbor\nDon't judge others\n\nIn making you Gay, God gave you the gift of Love. What God has made, let no man put asunder!
164245
Nope, not possible.  It is simply a work of fiction, albeit a very interesting one.\n\nThe bible was created merely as a means to further control and establish fear in the people of its time.
156337
The vast majority of Christians blindly follow the leadership of the church they attend. Subjects taught in bible study and from the pulpit are carefully constructed so as to leave no unanswered questions. Some life long Christians will even deny the stories to which you refer.\n\nIt is astonishing some of the hoops people will jump through to explain away these stories in the bible. It is ridiculous.
658718
Yes!  Pick a sucker group, claim you've read every word of the Bible and believe it in its literal sense.  State that you read somewhere in there, like John 4:52, that if your followers don't support your ministry financially, they'll go to h*ll.
273913
I don't know any good ones specifically but Wikkipedia would be good. Some slaves were allowed to go to church long as there was a sheriff outside the window, making sure the pastor didn't talk abuot freedom or something. Hope this helps! Good luck on your paper.
571918
You are very right.  When people cut things out of the Bible, they start with Rev  22:18.  ; )  But almost everyone actually just chooses which things to follow, there are VERY few groups that obey everything in the Bible (keeping kosher, not eating shellfish, not allowing men to have long hair, treating their slaves well, etc.).  Really it's all just a buffet.
200885
First, as is obvious from the above comments, people don't read historical documents.  They hear something from a preacher and accept it as true.\n\nSecond, I believe the primary source of the current conspiracy theory on the bible is Chick Publications who do publish actively pamphlets on a Catholic Conspiracy to alter the bible.\n\nThird, in one case a denomination really did edit the bible.  The Jehovah's Witnesses have mistranslated, or from their point of view correctly translated, the bible.\n\nFourth, the Deuterocanonical books are a source of confusion.  Luther removed James, Jude, Revelations, Tobit, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, parts of Esther and Daniel.  Lutherans put James, Jude and Revelations back after the Ecumenical Council at Trent.  The other books remain out of their canon.  The problem comes with the novel idea of sola scriptura.  Like predestination, it lacks any precedent prior to the 16th century.  It is a purely man made, unscriptural doctrine and goes against all prior Christian thought.  However, if you decide to use sola scriptura as your decision tool, then what makes it into scripture matters at a profoundly different level than in the older forms of Christianity because it alters the role of scripture completely.  This means that if you base your appeal on scripture and someone is using a different set, the charge that "they" edited it comes up pretty easily.\n\nThe process of choosing books was in process long before Constantine and was really triggered by the presbyter Marcion's heretical sect forcing orthodox Christianity to look at the books read during the Mass.  The current list was promulgated by Pope Innocent and Damasus following the local synod at Carthage's work and the synod at Hippo Regius and possibly a synod at Rome as well as prior work by other of the Fathers.\n\nConstantine's role was somewhat practical.  The books were in separate form and most congregations could not afford all the books and there wasn't agreement until the year 405 what books should be in it.  His role was to push for a single set of books and that the church spend to get them.  He returned three centuries of seized property of Christians tried and executed for their faith.  He didn't make Christianity the state religion, but in handing back all that property and making it legal, the effect was about the same.\n\nFinally, until the late 19th century many Protestant translations were quite poor.  A simple example of this comes from the "scriptural" Christmas carol.  The verse, "Peace on Earth, good will toward men," is not in the bible.  It is "Peace on Earth toward men of goodwill."  It wasn't really the translator's fault.  They lacked access to the oldest documents, which were in Catholic and Orthodox hands.  When they were permitted access they began retranslating the bible and found that their bibles often matched Catholic bibles.  This triggered a big response in many Protestant denominations because key verses disappeared.  Some extreme denominations lost their justification for existance.  So, it wasn't really "editing," so much as correcting and improving as the textual record improved.\n\nThat, while a long time ago, is retained in the oral traditions and memories of some modern Protestant groups.\n\nLike evolution, arguments about the trinity are arguments about sola scriptura.  Without sola scriptura, the evolution problem disappears as does the trinitarian problem.  If you take sola scriptura to its logical extreme, you have intelligent design, Christomonism, and bibliolatry.
579118
A God that may give permisson to 'slavery' can approve practically anything else. Nailing and sodomizing included.\nThe question is: Would you follow such a God?
656515
This an article that I am copying from a website. But, you have to differentiate between the original Torah and Injil, what became the Bible of today, and the original Scriptures, which has delibrately been lost and corrupt by early jews and christians. As you can see from the text, it is clear, the languge and the level of barbarity can't be attributed to a Merciful Compassionate God. The link below may answer your questions with regards to Islam. Peace.\nhttp://www.understanding-islam.org/related/search.asp?searchstr=Slavery&lookin=1&x=0&y=0\n\nText: Slavery in the Bible\n \n    Except for murder, slavery has got to be one of the most immoral things a person can do.  Yet slavery is rampant throughout the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments.  The Bible clearly approves of slavery in many passages, and it goes so far as to tell how to obtain slaves, how hard you can beat them, and when you can have sex with the female slaves.\n \n    Many Jews and Christians will try to ignore the moral problems of slavery by saying that these slaves were actually servants or indentured servants.  Many translations of the Bible use the word "servant", "bondservant", or "manservant" instead of "slave" to make the Bible seem less immoral than it really is.  While many slaves may have worked as household servants, that doesn't mean that they were not slaves who were bought, sold, and treated worse than livestock.\n \n    The following passage shows that slaves are clearly property to be bought and sold like livestock.\n \n    However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you.  You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land.  You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance.  You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.  (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)\n \n    The following passage describes how the Hebrew slaves are to be treated.\n \n    If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years.  Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom.  If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year.  But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him.  If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master.  But the slave may plainly declare, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children.  I would rather not go free.'  If he does this, his master must present him before God.  Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl.  After that, the slave will belong to his master forever.  (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)\n \n    Notice how they can get a male Hebrew slave to become a permanent slave by keeping his wife and children hostage until he says he wants to become a permanent slave.  What kind of family values are these?\n \n    The following passage describes the sickening practice of sex slavery.  How can anyone think it is moral to sell your own daughter as a sex slave?\n \n    When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are.  If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again.  But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her.  And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter.  If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife.  If he fails in any of these three ways, she may
366101
If it all be true God and Satan and the whole bit. Satan has done his work through the manipulation of people through the very thing that they think is protecting them from him. Come on a creature like Satan, with powers and has been around for who knows how long, you don't think he was smart enough to think of that and do it? It's what I would have done and I am just a regular mortal person, and if someone tries to twist that idea by saying things like God would never let the Devil do that, well he need not do it him self, he could just manipulate someone else to do it. People talk about the coming of the anti-Christ, maybe he was already here, say about one thousand, nine hundred and sixty years ago. That would have been about the right time for him to do all the damage to the human race that he needed to through their own religion. This maybe the reason the Bible is so absurd. Knowing some would buy into it and other wouldn't, know that this would put people in opposition to each other. I would have done the same thing.
430588
your right it's not in the bible. the catholic church incorporated into their system, because it would be easier for pagan worshippers who sacrificed babies to come into the church.
625216
Yup I do and its funny in a weird sort of way how people will adapt what is in the Bible to suit their own needs. The book hasnt changed in a few thousand years I doubt its going to any time soon. Its all a matter of personal interpretation I guess but it shouldnt change every time you read it or speak about it to someone if you are a person of your convictions then it will stay the same.