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[–] 9 points 1 day ago (8 children)

is there a community that treats the bible as pure literature? like a character deconstruction, perhaps examining god's motive, or things like that. with absolutely 0 literal or figurative interpretation, no bashing or deconstructing beliefs, just treating it like the odyssey or harry potter

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  • [–] 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    You should read paradise lost.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Paradise lost is largely pulled from Zoroastrianism influence on Christianity, not the bible. The Bible is largely devoid of depictions of satan or hell, traditionally describing evil as an absence of God. Zoroastrianism's influence on Christianity introduced a lot of the dualistic themes of evil vs good and heaven vs hell that is so prominent in evangelical Christianity that we know today.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    The post is about good and evil, which is why I brought up paradise lost, because of the themes revolving around good and evil. I wasn't suggesting it because I believed it was influenced by the bible. At the start of the poem Satan is trying to reclaim heaven. He's the underdog, which sort of makes him the hero. It sort of flips the script on good and evil by making Satan the underdog. When Satan gets to earth and decides to fuck with god's creation, (man,) god is like, "OK chat, what are we going to do about this?" God's only son is like, "I'll sacrifice myself to save man, it's ok though, because I'm just going to end up back in heaven anyway." When I read those lines, my though process was like, is it even really a sacrifice if he just goes back to heaven anyway and knows that will be the outcome? If the only son wasn't really sacrificing anything, was he really the good guy? Is holding back knowledge from your "children," really a benign act?

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  • The post is about good and evil

    I thought you were responding to the person who asked if there was a good literary deconstruction of the Bible?

    My point was that Paradise lost is a good literary deconstruction of how people interpret the duality of good and evil, but that duality is largely not found in the actual Bible.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    That would be cool. I have the great displeasure of knowing too much about the bible.

    It would be fun to discuss it in a place where its given the same level of believability (0%) that I carry for it.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago

    How people interpret the Bible for their shitty actions for the past 2000 years makes it a really important book - whether you believe it or not. In that case alone knowing this book better is probably a good thing.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago

    Yes, communities that read the bible as mythology are plentiful, usually in academic circles. Biblical scholarship features a lot of this, comparing tropes in the text with other mythical tropes to get at what was going on.

    Dan McClellan bounces between sorting out more precise translations of the original Hebrew / Aramaic / Koine Greek, and then mythical deconstruction of biblical stories to get at the intentions of their original authors.

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