| Do you agree crafty preachers (religious teachers) can figure out how to get the bible to mean anything they want it to mean? |
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Asked 2 years ago
by Chipmonk  United States |
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About
Kinda squirrely; very opinionated; not always right; not always willing to admit to being not always right. :)
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9 Points
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I asked this question because while helping a neighbor move some boxes I noticed a copy of the New Testament and I picked it up and read a few passages. One passage I read was Revelations 22:15 where it says, "For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." I wondered if whoever wrote the passage was referring to pet dogs (in the USA "dogs" are often kept as family pets).
I researched the passage on some bible oriented web sites and found the word "dogs" used in Revelations refers to some other kind of animal, not the dog Americans often keep as pets. Whew! What a relief!
A relief that was short-lived because I did some additional research and discovered the "dogs" mentioned in Revelations are the very same dogs Americans keep as family pets, "canes" which is Latin for "dogs."
At that point I decided that apparently a crafty preacher (i.e., priest, pastor, nun, Sunday school teacher, etc.) can declare the bible means whatever he or she wants it to mean, and if he or she wants to say all dogs go to heaven all they have to do is tell the "flock" the original Latin or Greek or Aramaic word didn't mean what the KJV says it means, it meant something entirely different. hence my question.
For people who want to research Revelations 22:15 for all possible possibilities... here are a few places to start:
http://scripturetext.com/revelation/22-15.htm
http://bibletab.com/d/dogs.htm
http://bibletab.com/d/dog.htm
I wonder if you've ever seen this:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project
Check out some of their translations.
Regarding that quote from Revelation, I once read someone who insisted that "dogs" was a reference to gays. In the hands of someone with an agenda, the Bible can be twisted to all kinds of meanings.
Revelations contains a lot of metaphors and imagery, so I wouldn't necessarily take that as having a literal meaning, however there are other instances of dogs in the Bible. For example, Job mentions having had sheep dogs before everything was taken away from him and members of Jeroboam's family were eaten by wild dogs. Because the dog was an unclean animal, it was often used as an insult to the Old testament jews in very much the same way that it would be an insult to call someone a mongrel today. I think to determine the real meaning, you have to look at the context and use common sense. While there are some legitimate issues where it would be easy to argue one way or another (the devil tempted Jesus with scripture as an example), it would be hard to argue "anything" both ways because there are a lot of issues that the Bible is crystal clear on.
So "strongly agree" is the answer?
Nope, strongly disagree was my answer. If it was about this particular passage I might have marked agree, but the question was about the entire bible and about the potential to manipulate it to say "anything." When looking at the whole thing, context becomes much more clear than just a single verse or passage plus there are plenty of topics where it would be impossible to twist it, no matter how much someone can try.
Not just preachers and religious teachers, but also atheist and pretty much anyone for that matter.
"The devil can quote scripture for his purpose".
With some many translations available, you can choose which version you want to read, believe, disparage.
This comment was deleted.
[2 points] 2 years ago by deleted user ReplyThat's what I concluded too, I just wanted to see if anyone else noticed it. Looking at the differences here it appears TV evangelists have probably done more than their fair share of twisting the truth, possibly a reason why more agree here than disagree?