Hi @ In_Christ_Alone ... welcome aboard.
... but most importantly on what the Bible actually says.
This is quite a big statement. To do that proper justice, one would need to know Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek, as well as a grasp of Aramaic...
... for example, it's a common belief that the souls of the unrepentant suffer in hell for all eternity, but that's not what the Bible
actually says. The text says they suffer for a period of time, but not
eternally, and certainly those who read the Gospels in the Koine Greek would not have assumed 'eternal punishment' ... I've discussed this
ad nauseam elsewhere.
When the Bible is translated into local language, there is a fair degree of interpretation, but more importantly than that, we would need to read and think as the people who wrote the books thought, and the people who read the books thought – we would need to understand their world view, and modern scholarship has gone to some lengths, in recent years, to show how far off the mark we sometimes are.
For context, I believe that the Bible is the true and inspired Word of God. I believe it defends itself and speaks with authority.
OK. As a fellow Christian, again I am not so sure about that.
I believe the text is inspired, but not in every letter, every word ... and I also believe the sacred scribe was true to their task, but were not infallible, and nor were they intent on writing a literal history. For example, accounts given in the Gospels sometimes contradict each other in the details, while remaining true to the overall statement, things like that.
I do not believe the Bible is inerrant - no-one did, until the last century.
A point is the Book of Genesis. It's commonly accepted that the first eleven chapters are myth – now I happen to believe that 'myths' are presentations of truths that cannot be expressed easily in any other way – but that's not my point.
My point is the story of creation, and of the early inhabitants of the earth, and the Flood, and so forth, read a lot like the myths of other religions and other peoples in the region. In fact they read more like those myths than anything else, because they are largely drawn from those myths.
Later accounts has God telling the Israelites to kill everyone in their path, carry off their women and livestock, and on occasion engage in total ethnic cleansing, wiping out every man, woman and child ... although, from what we've recovered from the historical record, the Israelites never successfully wiped any particular race off the face of the earth, even when their Scriptures claim they did.
+++
I see the Hebrew Scriptures as the journey of a people from polytheism to monotheism, from the idea of starving Gods who fought amongst themselves to gorge on the food offerings on the first altar to be raised after the floodwaters subsided (as in Gilgamesh), to the idea of a more gracious God who accepted the offering of Noah – but still a God who did terrible things – I do not think Abraham thought of God the way we do today – that's simply asking too much.
So the stories describe God as sometimes angry and vengeful, as cursing and damning and destroying. I do not believe in such a God, and if that is God, then it seems he's taken his eye off what's going on here, because we're up to far worse shenanigans than the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah! I dread to think that He might look round, suddenly realise what we've been up to, and lose his temper ... heaven preserve us then!
I also believe that by Jesus' day, the people believed in the One True God, but they also believed in a hierarchy of divine or semi-divine powers, some good and some not so friendly, and that all living things, from gnats to galaxies, had their share of the spiritual stuff that keeps all living things alive, and holds creation in existence.
And all that, based on what the Bible says ...
The Bible states clearly, on multiple occasions, that when God created the world, it was perfect.
Well He never said
perfect. It was good, indeed Genesis 1 says so seven times, with the final "it was very good" (Genesis 1:31), but it was not perfect. Or rather, it was as perfect as a world that exists in time and space can be – with its seasons, its mountains and oceans, and yes, with its earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, with its famines and plagues, its droughts and other natural events which might well prove unfortunate for those living in the vicinity ... to ask for a world without such happenings is asking for a world very different to this one.
There was nothing evil, twisted, or crooked. There was no violence between humans, nor between animals or between animals and humans. There were no natural disasters or illnesses.
I don't think that's the case. I think illness and disasters are as much part of the experience of the the world, as health and lovely sunsets.
And yes, we all reflect this corruption to some degree.
Well we are all born into a fallen world. I do not think we are directly guilty of the sin of Adam and Eve. I don't believe God will hold me guilty of a sin I did not commit, and could not prevent. (Although I profess Catholicism, I'm more an Orthodox in that aspect.)
I do think we live with the consequences, and that is a tendency to sin, to seek the lesser good when it's seen as more inviting or comfortable.
A curse was placed—on man and woman, on animals, on the earth itself, even on plants.
Well that strikes me as unjust, and I believe God is just.
It's a bit unfair to punish animals for something they don't understand, and for something that wasn't their fault. And the earth has been around for a lot longer than we have ... so I think that's a tad unfair, too.
Would a good God intentionally create a world where animals kill each other, where poison can kill those just trying to eat, or where humans suffer and die so horribly? No. The Bible says what God created was very good.
I think the idea of 'a perfect world' is a dream more than a reality. I don't think this world was created with that in mind.
God did not have to create. He is self-sufficient and needs nothing. But He chose to create—out of the abundance of His nature. Why does a painter paint, or a singer sing? Because it flows from who they are. God is the ultimate Artist.
Agreed.
