Pinocchio and the Bible?
459849
it does, it is because there is the issue about disobeying and lying, and it's negative consequences. Probably the writer was not thinking about it, or probably he was.
851313
Love the artwork.  Better watch out for Bruce Leroy, shogun of Harlem.\n\nI would argue that the Bible is better because Aesop, a great black man, did not have the insight of the Pauline letters, the stories of the old testament, nor did they teach respect to your elders.  Deference to those who came before is important, and that was not the focus of Aesop.  I love Aesop, however, and keep a hard cover, gold leaf edition of his fables at my house.\n\nThe most important lesson for children to learn is that there are boundaries set by adults, and those boundaries are to be respected.  The bible does a better job of this than Aesop, and is still less violent that Tom and Jerry.
723935
Ok, i got 2 good ones. The story aboout Balaal and the talking donkey at Numbers 22; 28- 35\nAlso Absalom getting stuck in the tree from his hair at 2 Samuel 18; 9\n\nHere's some more doozies;  Jacob dressing up and getting hairy like Esau in Genesis 27; 15 - 40\nIsraelites disobeying Moses about the manna provision and getting worms in their food at Exodus 16; 19 and 20\nMy personal favorite is Exodus 32; 24 where Aaron is explaining to Moses how he took the jewelry from the people , threw it into the fire , and the golden calf happened to come out on its own. What he really did is mentioned at verse 4.
840472
It pays here to remember that the Bible is a complex set of individual books, spanning a range of literary genre and purpose: history, civil and religious law, poetry, biography, prophecy, etc. One interpretative lens isn't adequate.\n\nThe best approach in my opinion is to know what type of literature you're reading, and to consider the author's purpose: the Psalms are highly figurative in places, but recount history in others, so weave in and out of the literal/figurative: ultimately, their purpose is to declare God's glory in song. The Proverbs, to encapsulate wisdom in poetic form (highly metaphorical). Then you have more literal books, like the Gospels, i.e., the biographies of Jesus, or the New Testament epistles to the eary Christian churches, both types of writing meant to be taken quite literally. Of course, a book like the Revelation is highly symbolic.\n\nWhen the Bible is reporting history (people, places, events), take it as such; when it's using poetry as its communication medium, look for more embedded truth, etc. Allegorizing everything, and coming to individual interpretations, runs contrary to a religious text that is making specific truth claims; on the other hand, forcing a wooden literal interpretation on every word of the scriptures leads to some contradictory and irrational conclusions (the psalmist declares that God will cover you with his wings, but we should not then conclude that He is a chicken).\n\nAs for recordings of the miraculous, I see no problem. If I can swallow "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," I shouldn't choke at the comparative child's play of the parting of a sea, etc. A Creator who brought the laws of physics into existence certainly can intervene by temporarily suspending or altering them them for specific purposes. After all, that's exactly why Christ performed miracles: to establish his bona fides as that Creator who actually could suspend the natural order at will.
1128493
I think the dead sea scolls are a wonderful find and give us great insight to the fact that the Old Testament has largly remained intact thruogh the centuries. Not to mention that they gives a lot as far as understanding lituature of the day. As for the Old Testamnet apocrypha they are good reading and give us useful information about many thing but they are in some cases not historicaly correct and should not be considered scripture. They were never canonized (met the standard) by the jewish people of that day and were recognized as religous material but not the word of God. Later scholar including Jerome,Melito, Epiphanius, and Origen make a distiction between these and the rest of the Old Testamnet. In addition to that Jesus Himself acknowleges the authority of the Scriptures and cite them often but He never cited or acknowledged the apocyrphal books
30953
I agree with you and have said the same thing myself many times.  From my point of view the bible is much like Grimms fairy tales.  To be used as and example of right and wrong.
716196
The content of the Bible has remained constant for many centuries.  It has been translated many times, into different languages.  It has also been "revised" to make the language more accessible to the masses.  For example, the King James Version (my personal favorite) is written in Shakespeare-like language.  The Revised Standard and the New Revised Standard update the language so people can understand it, but when you line up the 3 Bibles and read all 3 versions, the meaning is the same.  It is like reading "Taming of the Shrew" by Shakespeare, and then reading a modern version of the story written by the New York Daily News.  Same story, different words.
1044596
I couldn't list them all for you if I wanted to. There are more that were rejected than there were that were approved. Everyone that has suggested looking up Apochrypal texts is on the right track. The life of Adam and Eve was a good one from the old testament. The Book of Enoch, The gospels of Mary, and Judas, Peters Revalations. Those are just a few of the interesting ones.
1050139
There's a really good article about it, found here -- http://www.beliefnet.com/story/63/story_6364_1.html -- but unfortunately there's no reference to Jesus laughing in the Bible.
1124483
There are loads of contradictions in the Bible. Maybe if the church let us see all the books of the Bible. Including the stuff they rejected for the final canonical version of the bible we would understand fully the religion.
225528
Just so you know where I stand. I asked a question of whether or not all the Bible should be taken literally or not. The best answer chosen was a good one.\n\nhttp://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ales.wK5IftnZfqP3dD5hbHsy6IX?qid=1006012504879\n\nWhen Jesus said regarding the bread and the wine, "this is my body and this is my blood of the New Covenant", He was not speaking literally. When the Bible says that the blood of Jesus washes away sin, we do not go off to mount Calvary and look for spots of blood to wash our sins away. Jesus said, "I am the door, whoever enters by any other way is a theif." The disciples did not turn to Jesus and see a large board with hinges and a knob. Jesus was saying there is a single way to heaven, and He is the Way.\nQuite a bit of the Bible is spoken in allegorical and metaphoic language. Jesus said that He was the Light of the world, the Good Shepherd, Living Water, the Bread of Life, and more. He came as the Lamb of God. He will return as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. All of which is true, but all spoken in a metaphoric language.\n\nWrath, I have not run in to any Christians who believe the Bible is 100% literal. However, there are many areas of the Bible that ARE literal and many are trying to change the statement because it is not politically correct, or they have an agenda or they find it personally offensive.\n\nCase in point:\nRobert Anderson worked for Scotland Yard during the Victorian era. He was the main investigator for finding Jack the Ripper. He took the prophecy in Daniel and was able to calculate the coming of the Messiah to the DAY. This is in the his book "The Coming Prince". He started this project based on taking the prophecy as being literal. He was rewarded for this effort with knighthood from Queen Victoria and became Sir Robert Anderson. However, in this same book, he notes the prophecies about Israel being gathered together and becoming a nation once more. Seeing how this has never happened in history, he dismissed the literal meaning as pure fantasy. In May 14th 1948, this brilliant man was proven wrong. The idea that the Jews would return to the land and make it Israel was so preposterous that this brilliant man equated it to being metaphorical--the literal interpretation was too hard to believe. So we could easily make a mistake by either way.\n__________________________\n\nBTW-This topic reminds me of a very good movie called "Lady Jane". One of the main focuses was the rise of the Protestant movement against the Roman Catholic church--especially in regard to transubstantiation. The Roman Catholics took the sacraments as being literally the body and blood of Christ, while the Protestants kept arguing that it was metaphorical. Check it out sometime!
45566
The bible also teaches that pi=3. I think I would take the bible for what it is; a historical document and work of literature full of allegory and moral rules, and an important part of Western and world culture. I would not take the bible as a mathematics text.
372149
now let me think about that for a nano second...yes!\nlets face it, the bible was a collection of STORIES...and if anyone thinks that people get turned into pillars of salt, then they are more stupid than i thought
347610
It's a parable - a story to teach us a lesson.  The Bible is not always an accurate history of life.
684848
People who have absolutely no idea will scream, "LIES" without even reading the book or investigating the history behind it. From what I was able to find, here is what's true and what's not:\n\n- Gnostic Gospels: True, except the text in the Gospel of Mary Magdaline where is says, "Jesus kissed Mary on the lips" is actually, "Jesus kissed Mary on the (hole in parchment)". Brown took a liberty here. Also, there are several references in the Gnostic gospels as well as the bible itself that refer to Jesus "favoring" Mary Mag but they don't go into detail...leaving room for speculation.\n\n- Priory of Sion: A real org., however every bit of information about links it to one of 3 men in the 1950s, and there's no information or reference of the org before that. It's thought to be a hoax.\n\n- Myth of Jesus's Family: The book is correct that Mary Mag was not a prostitute. The bible makes absolutely no reference to that at all. As for the legend of Mary Mag fleeing to France, the only evidence that I know of is a reference in a 15th century book, and an old French myth. Supposedly she had a daughter named Sara, which in Hebrew means Princess. So, the conclusion could be reached that she was the child of Jesus, but its a bit of a stretch.\n\nDa Vinci: Some agree 100% that Mary Mag is in the painting of the last supper. Several art historians claim that during the Rennesaunce (spelling) John was often painted feminine.\n\nConstantine: This was about 80% true from my research. Yes, Constantine formed the Christian religon as it is now (more or less). History is a little fuzzy though as to how much involvement he had choosing which books to include in the bible (some say it was him alone, some say it was several people over several years). However, he DID remove all other religions claiming to follow another messiah, and shape the Christian religion the way he wanted it and make it mainstream. Whether that's following God's influence or a personal agenda, you decide.\n\nOver all, as for the history and theory part of the book I'd say its about 50% fact, 40% legend-theory-assumption, and 10% false. Dan Brown even admits that, "the opinions in the book are conclusions drawn by the characters". He is himself a Christian.\n\nNow...isn't that better than an angry Christian screaming "LIES" when they don't have a clue what they're talking about?
795419
Actually, I think it would be quite difficult to "understand" the Bible as each concept that is presented is contradicted by another.  It's hard to understand a book that has no clear message.
566548
The Bible is just ancient MEN's view of the world.  The moral codes within it represent the ancient moral codes of a Greek subculture considered a bunch of nutjobs in their day.\n\nWhy should you, or anyone else, bind themselves to such an arbitrary set of nonsense?