My Bible Projects

Last year I wanted to read the Bible to see what Jesus actually said and did, and now I've started to do so.  This was around the time I stopped believing in Christianity, in Jesus as the Savior of the World.  I'd been hearing people say they pattern their lives after Jesus and that his life was a model to follow.  I remember thinking, "Wait a minute, we know hardly anything about his life."

I will admit that I've never read the whole Bible before, and not even the entire New Testament.  The majority of Mormons haven't.  This, I believe, is for a couple of reasons.  First, there's the Church's Article of Faith #8 which says: "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God."  In Mormons' minds, the Book of Mormon is most certainly correct because Joseph Smith translated it himself from reformed Egyptian into [16th century] English, with no in-between translations.  The Bible has been through so many translations that it's impossible to know which one is correct (the Church has said the King James version is the closest to being accurate, and their copies of the KJ version have Joseph Smith's translation of some of its verses in the footnotes), so it's always open to interpretation and incorrect text and can't be counted on to be 100% the true word of God.  And second, the introduction page of the Book of Mormon says, "Concerning this record the Prophet Joseph Smith said: “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”"  So Mormons spend their time reading and "gaining a testimony" of the Book of Mormon while treating the Bible as supplemental scripture.

Well, if I recall correctly from Church and Seminary lessons, what we know of Jesus from the Bible are second-hand accounts of his birth, of when he was twelve years old talking with the elders near the temple, and then when he was in his 30s and began actively preaching.  From the Bible we know almost nothing about his entire life.  We don't know how he lived, how he treated people, or what he did.

In the LDS Church there's a song the Primary children sing called "Jesus Once Was a Little Child"; here are the lyrics:

Jesus once was a little child,
A little child like me;
And he was pure and meek and mild,
As a little child should be.

[Chorus]
So, little children,
Let's you and I
Try to be like him
Try, try, try.

He played as little children play
The pleasant games of youth;
But he never got vexed if the game went wrong,
And he always spoke the truth.

[Chorus]

This song is clearly teaching little kids how to behave.  And yeah, being truthful is always very important.  But for this song to be true, we have to start with the assumption that Jesus was in fact a half-god and that he was perfect in every way.  Countless General Conference talks mention that Jesus led a perfect life.  But there is absolutely no proof that he did.  It's an assumption based on the idea that he was perfect, that he had to be perfect in order to atone for our sins, which he had to have done.

Last year as I was considering if Christianity in general was for me and just not the branch of Mormonism, I realized that in the scriptures there's always a bad guy.  In the Book of Mormon, the first bad guys were Laman and Lemuel, two of Nephi's older brothers.  If you start with the assumption that Lehi was really being led by the Lord, then Laman and Lemuel are in the wrong.  But if you look at it from Laman and Lemuel's point of view—and if you start with the assumption that Lehi was not being led by God but that he just had a really vivid dream that freaked him out—then Laman and Lemuel are justified in their feelings, words, and actions (all except attempted murder).  The outlook of the story changes a lot when you look at it from a different point of view.

In the New Testament, it's the Pharisees.  I realized that this group of people was considered the bad guys, but why?  Their actions have made the Jews scapegoats around the world for centuries, but were their actions justified?  Were their suspicions of Jesus valid?  So that got me thinking about it.  I searched the internet for "What do the Jews think of Jesus?" There were many results but I found a brief summary on this page: http://www.beingjewish.com/toshuv/whynotbrief.html  Here is also a Wikipedia article that I liked, which goes into more detail:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus

Based on what the Jews understood about a coming Messiah, and based on what Jesus did and didn't do to fulfill those prophesies, I came to the conclusion that Jesus was a false Messiah, that he was not who he claimed to be.  The articles I linked explain why the Jews think that way, and I'll explain my reasoning for believing the same.

We can't start with the assumption that Jesus led a perfect life because there simply is no proof of it.  He must have been charismatic because so many people followed him and listened to him.  But what did he do with the rest of his life?  He performed what looked like miracles, but street performers and magicians can perform similar illusions.  Who's to say Jesus didn't spend a few years learning to be a street magician, to fool gullible people?  When you think about it, the idea isn't that far-fetched.  And what if he really did have a special ability to heal people?  It's possible, I suppose (then again, there's also the placebo effect to consider).  But does that in itself mean he's a half-god, that he's the savior of the world?  No, it doesn't.

I thought of all this last year, and this is what led me away from Christianity.  Fast-forward to a few months ago with the LDS policies on homosexuality and its gay members.  On the one hand you have Christians saying, "Love one another!  Treat others the way you would want to be treated!  That's what Jesus would do!"  And yet all of a sudden you have Christians saying, "Jesus was against homosexuality!  He doesn't accept it, he didn't tolerate it!  It's the sin that got Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed!  It's a sin that must not be tolerated now!"  But did Jesus really say those things?  Did those words, did the intent to prevent loving monogamous homosexual relationships from being allowed, actually come from the mouth of Jesus or God?  Now I don't think they did.  Christians on both sides are using the Bible to defend their position on the issue, but which side is right?

So this brings me to my two Bible projects.  I am going to read the Bible—the Old and New Testaments—in their entirety.  And while I read, here is what I'm going to do:

Project 1:  Find out the nature of God/Jesus
I will go with the LDS theology that the God/Lord of the Old Testament was Jesus Christ.  I am going to underline every passage of scripture where God (Jesus) says or does something, as well as what is being attributed to him by other people (i.e. in Genesis 5:29 when Lemech said the Lord cursed the ground, and in Genesis 16:2 when Sarai said "The Lord hath restrained me from bearing [children]").  Then on a separate piece of paper I will write in my own words what these things say about Jesus' character, of who he is.

Project 2: "Is the Bible a viable model of morality and a way to govern society in today's modern era?"
Twice recently I've watched the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham.  It's a really good one, I'll link it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI  Their topic was, "Is Creation a viable model for origins in today's modern, scientific era?" (my opinion is that no, it isn't), and I've decided to model the title of my project after that debate's topic.  For modern moral issues, Christians will turn to the Bible for guidance.  But then others will point out laws in books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy and say, "Would these laws ever be acceptable in today's society?  No way!  You can't take some parts of the Bible as doctrine from Jesus and ignore the parts you don't like."  I am not a scholar in early Christian history; I don't know which laws and points of view were acceptable back then and which ones were actually the guy being a jerk, like Paul in 1 Timothy 2:11 when he said, "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection".  Although context is important and very interesting to me, for this project of mine I am not taking into consideration the context of the times they were written.  I am looking at the Bible as a book that modern Christians use to live by and tout as the Word of God, and I'm going to determine if that book, which is around 2,000 years old, should be used as a model of morality or a way to govern society in today's modern era.  My prediction is that the Old Testament should absolutely not be used as a model for today, and that the New Testament will be about half viable and half better-left-in-the-past.

This will take me a few months to do since I plan to work on it every day (if I read a chapter a day it would take me over 3 years to finish).  I'm excited for these projects on an intellectual level!  I've never read the whole Bible before, and I'm sure I'll be in for many surprises.