The bible is useful for our day-to-day challenges
Lord Mackay of Clashfern is a funny guy. He’s a We Wee Free, and he thinks Scots courts should use the bible to help them out with the law stuff.
Mackay, who is also the current Lord Clerk Register, the oldest surviving “Great Office of State” in Scotland, now acts as honorary president of the Scottish Bible Society (SBS), and has invited sheriffs and judges to refamiliarise themselves with biblical principles and act accordingly when presiding over court cases…
“I believe the teaching of the Bible is vitally important for guidance in daily living for all of us.“The…modern version is especially useful in dealing with our day-to-day challenges.
“If we use it in this way we will soon learn that what it says about human beings is as true today as it was when it was originally written all these years ago.”
Yeah? Like what? Deuteronomy 13, perhaps?
1If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, 2And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
3Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams…
5And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death…
So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. 6If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers…
8Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: 9But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
10And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die…
As true today as it was when it was originally written all these years ago?
Or how about Numbers 25?
1And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.
2And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods…
4And the LORD said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel. 5And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor.
Useful for judges, is it?
It’s the tunnel vision of being raised as a Christian. There are many bits of the Bible that are great advice and are “as true today as when they were written” — but all of those pearls of wisdom, down to every last word, without exception, have been expressed better and with greater clarity elsewhere. Often before the Bible was even written.
One could divide the Bible’s contents into two categories: 1) Meditations on the nature of humanity that are universal and appear in the holy books and philosophical works of every culture across the world, and which are much more clearly articulated in modern writings; and 2) dumb shit.
There’s a few specks here and there where the Bible manages to do well. I’m rather partial to 1 Corinthians 13:11, myself. It’s not a new idea by any means — but I happen to like the wording in the KJV. It helps to remind me that it’s okay to have had dumb ideas and foolish behaviors in the past — as long as you put them firmly in the past and don’t try to cling to them.
Come to think of it, that’s exactly what we ought to do with the majority of the Bible.
And by the way, I had been a de facto atheist for quite some time before I recognized that “Judeo-Christian values” was a meaningless nonsense phrase. I still thought the Bible had been some great quantum leap in moral thought. It’s that friggin’ tunnel vision…
Cool, so I can murder my neighbor for working on Sunday!
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. [Luke 17:2]
Here is a handy biblical teaching to take into account should ratzinger encounter the Scots legal system during his state visit.
(I posted this on richarddawkins.net when the article appeared there)
@DBE #3…no, not can…must…you must kill your neighbor for working on the sabbath…stoning to death is the prescribed method.
Hmmm…a dreamer who speaks of Other Gods…I wonder if that means the stars are almost right….
“That is not dead which can eternal lie, and after strange eons even death may die.” — Alhazred 12:25-27
Bah. If they aren’t talking about how we’ve strayed from the Bible, I pretty much don’t worry about ’em. And I’ll trade you an American evangelical for a Scottish elder any day.
Actually, they’re Wee Frees, and Mackay is- or was- a Wee Wee Free, who regard the Wee Frees as wishy-washy liberals. Some years ago, however, he was suspended from the Wee Wee Frees for the vile crime of attending the funeral of a fellow judge in a roman catholic church, so he may have become a little less intolerant theologically.
Mackay’s treatment led to a split in the Wee Wee Frees. I think it would be a mistake to see the splitters as theologically liberal. It’s just they upheld individual conscience in the matter.
Dan
Ah; thanks for the correction.
Sounds like a pinko commie liberal socialist Nazi to me.
So Terry Prachett’s Wee Free Men is a jab at these guys?
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