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Category: Religion 

10 Dec 2004 @ 09:50 by swanny : Spelling
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When I was attending a Presbyterian seminary, in training to becoming an ordained minister, I learned that, during the 300 years following the death of Jesus, the early Roman Church carried out considerable research to choose which of the many religious writings, which were available, to include in the canon the church was assembling. They included the Old Testament, whose writings portray a perception of an angry, jealous, vengeful, judging and punishing God, which are quite at variance with the loving God portrayed in the New Testament. They also included a Book of Apocrypha, which has since been omitted in our modern versions of the early Roman canon, which we now call the Holy Bible.

It is historical fact that neither God nor Jesus directly contributed any writings to the Bible. All of the writings in the Bible were created, edited and interpreted by men (no women!). Many of these men were inspired and created very inspiring writings, but the writings for the New Testament were translated, interpreted and edited by the early church authorities into the ancient language of Attica, from whence they were again translated, interpreted and edited into Latin and other languages. The Bible can be a powerfully inspiring source of good for the benefit of humankind, but, depending on who is doing the translating, interpretation and editing, it can also be a powerfully inspiring source of evil for the detriment of humankind (for example, www.raptureready.com ).

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Thankyou for this Sir Mindlink
It just bespeaks for the troubling questions religion faces in our time yet it even the piece I contributed offers hope but does not come right out and say what is needed.
It strikes me that the great need then for religion is a Global Holy Bible or Concordance. This would not necessarily just be another dogmatic text but a global reference book on spiritual stories and traditions from around the world and of many even some obscure religions. It would be a massive undertaking and who would be responsible for its authorship and editing would probably have to be of a democratic nature at least in part which would be somewhat problematic but perhaps a good exercise in itself.
I think the first task might be easiest in that it could be based on the "themes" of the current text ie Genesis or Creation Stories. It would be interesting to have a collection of say Creation Stories that are say old or on the order of 500 or so years old for it has to has some credibility in time and tradition. These could be derived I suppose for ancient writings and I suppose even some verbal traditions from what few remaining tribal elders are still practicing. Then I suppose you could have a book on miracles or such and another on notable Prophets so we have three books so far and then I suppose one on moral laws so thats four

Heres How it breaks so far

THE GLOBAL HOLY BIBLE

1, CREATION STORIES
2. EARLY MIRACLES
3. THE PROPHETS OF OLD
4. THE LAW GIVERS

etc. etc

Even this would be a massive, problematic but exciting undertaking for some or all to undertake but it would be a start and perhaps a solution to the troubles our world now faces but it would recognize the globality of religion or spirituality and its interpretation would probably give rise to many sects anyway depending on the emphasis and interpretation readers choose to emphasis and embrace but at least it would provide an initial core and unifying reference. It would sort of be the rebirth of a tree on a global basis..... The tree giving birth to itself.  

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