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Special Portuguese Spanish    

Year 6 - N° 274 – August 19, 2012

PAULO ARTUR GONÇALVES
pauloarturgoncalves@gmail.com
Paraisópolis, MG (Brasil) 

Translation
Pedro Campos - pedro@aliseditora.com.br  

 

Is it important to interpret the Bible correctly?

Paulo Artur Gonçalves

Introduction

The question that lends its title to this text is an issue that has appeared in spiritualistic channels and this article aims to show that there’s no reason why we should waste time with it.

Before introducing the reasons, let’s conceptualize how the word God will be used in this article.

God, with a capital “G”, meaning the Supreme Intelligence of the Universe, the primary cause of all things.

God, with a small “g”, meaning mentor, guide or saint, etc. in other words, a Spirit. In the first commandment of the Decalogue received by Moses it is written:

“I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.You shall not bow yourself down to them, not serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a zealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

Moses himself explicitly tells about other gods. 

How the Old Testament blended with Christianity 

There’s no Record of Jesus quoting the laws contained in the five books of Moses: the Genesis, the Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These books are the foundation of the Old Testament.

There are many passages in the Gospel in which the doctors of the law (high priests) attempt, without success, to make Jesus contradict those laws.

We also know that Jesus was arrested, scorned and crucified by the action of the same doctors of the law. They feared losing their privileges of being representatives of the god of Israel.

The questions is how those five books came and permeated Christianity and are considered even more important than the teachings of Jesus by some Christian religions?

The answer:

Such books were incorporated by Christianity, gave rise to Catholicism, by the influence of St. Augustine, encouraged by St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan in the 5th century. The argument used was: “To preach the new Gospel, it is indispensable to deeply know the Scriptures, which can only be interpreted through faith, because only faith can identify the revelation of divine truths”.

It was then the birth of a non-rationalized faith. 

Interpreting a few excerpts from the Old Testament 

The afore mentioned books teach the cult to a private god who wants to be worshipped in exchange for not punishing and still be “faithful” to the so-called believer, helping him with miracles sorting out love affairs, cure disease and even nullify financial problems.

In some sections of the five books there’s no interpretation that saves them.

Let’s see:

Deuteronomy, chap. 20, v. 10 to 16:

- When thou comest unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.

- And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and upon unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.

- And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. And the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.

- Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.

But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.

Comment:

The only possible interpretation for this is as a crime, moreover, a hideous one.

Exodus:

- Charged taxes in cash as a precondition for the believers not to suffer punishment (Exodus, chap.30, v. 11 to 16).

- Determined that all gold, silver, bronze and iron objects looted when repossessing Jericho were incorporated into its “sacred treasure” (Joshua, the taking of Jericho, chap.6, v.19).

- Made an alliance, demanding an ark of gold (Exodus, chap.24, v.10 to 23); it is faithful, punishes, rewards and demands loyalty by forbidding alliances with other gods (Exodus, several passages).

Comment:

Wouldn’t that be the basis for the representatives of gods make their business profitable?

The Superior Spirits, when decoding the spiritualistic  doctrine put together by Kardec, did not try to interpret these books either. In, The Gospel According to Spiritualism, Kardec introduces Socrates as a precursor of Jesus and not the prophets.

It is certain that the Old Testament mentions communications between men and Spirits. But the other so-called sacred books by other religions do that as well.

Spiritualists, being aware that such communication exists, should stick to studying and making the best use of it. It is a whole lot more useful. With all due respect, it is a waste of time to study parts of the Bible that are not part of the spiritualistic books.

Spiritualism proposes to be a purely Christian religion based on, as far as moral teachings are concerned, the lessons of Jesus. 

Is the Bible the only “holy” book?  

No, it is not! The Bible only reaches Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism and modified Christianity.

Among the modified Christians there are Catholics, traditional Protestants, the orthodox, the evangelic, etc. Spiritualism is not included there.

They are modified because the Bible that they adopted added texts from the Old Testament to the Gospel of Jesus.

These texts, until then called the law of the prophets, contain many things that have nothing to do with Christianity and gave rise to countless dogmas to the point where, in some cases, it was given them more value than the teachings of Jesus himself.

Other peoples have their own sacred books.

One example of that is Hinduism with the book of Vedas.

Like the Bible, it is said in the book of Vedas that it was also inspired by god.

Being one single God, it would be natural that both – the Bible and the book of Vedas – featured converging teachings.

When comparing each other, in what concerns the genesis of the Universe and man, we have:

Genesis of the Universe:

According to the Bible:

Day 1

- Morning: Created the earth and a hollow and dark sky.

- Afternoon: Created light. Separated light from darkness.

Day 2

- Morning: Created a firmament amidst waters, with water from the sky and waters from below.

- Afternoon: Amidst waters from below created the dry element: the Earth.

Day3

- Created trees and plants that began to produce.

Comment:

How could trees produce without doing photosynthesis, given that the Sun was only created in the next stage?

Day 4

- Created lightning in the sky. Created the Sun for the day, the Moon for the night and the Stars for the night skyline.

Day5

- Created fish in the water and birds in the sky.

Day 6

- Created pets, reptiles and wild animals.

- Created man and woman, to his image.

Day 7

- Rested. 

According to the Vedas: (1) 

- The Universe is a dream of God (Brahma or Brahma).

- After a century of Brahma (314 trillion years) the universe dissolves in a dream without dreams. Then it starts over. It recovers itself in a new dream.

- It is God’s cosmic dream which is an endless cycle of births and deaths.

- There are many Hindu gods that cooperate (intermediary ones who work under Brahma’s supervision).

- Shiva and Vishnu are the main Brahma’s helpers. Shiva helped in the creation of the Universe and Vishnu in the creation of man.

- Our Universe is the cosmic dream of Shiva.

- Meanwhile, somewhere else, there are countless universes, each with its own god (other Shivas?) dreaming the cosmic dream. (This article will be resumed next issue.)


(1)
Reference: Abhilash Rajendran’s blog. 

 

 

 


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