Bible Amendments (eBook)

The Challenge

Here is a basic breakdown of the definition of the words — Holy Bible.

Bible is simple enough. It is a book in essence. The expanded definition is any collection or book of writings sacred to a religion.

Defining holy can be a bit more discerning. The focus in this book will be on a definition found in Webster’s New World Dictionary. That definition being — spiritually perfect or pure.

Combining two words from those definitions, you come up with Pure Book. So, how can the words in such a book, the foundation of Christianity, the teachings of Jesus, be filled with contradiction and hypocrisy. A man who taught peace, love and understanding, should not be contradicted within the same text claiming to be pure.

The problem here is two histories bound in a single cover. One is the Old Testament, a history of the Jewish people from the time of Moses up to about 500 years before the arrival of Christ. The first five books of the Old Testament, attributed to Moses, are often referred to as “The Law.” The second history being the New Testament, referred to as “The Spirit” in Christianity, which encompasses Jesus’s teachings, resurrection and the spreading of the gospel by Paul and Jesus’s apostles.

The Old Testament has God creating the heaven and earth, along with every living being, including Adam and Eve. From there on the Old Testament, which takes up nearly three-fourths of the Holy Bible, transitions into the history of the Jewish people. From Moses leading his people out of Egyptian servitude and to their own independence, while establishing God’s law.

When Moses descended Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments chiseled in stone, he told the Jews they should hold every word before and after in the Old Testament as permanent — never to be changed. Thus, the reference to Revelation 22:18-19 before the Introduction. That every word in the Holy Bible is sacred and should not be changed, otherwise anyone who dares change shall face the wrath of God.

Well, times change. And the words written in the Old Testament predate Jesus Christ by 1,200 years in the times of Moses, and as near as 165 years before Christ’s death. What do the teachings in the Old Testament have to do with those by Jesus in the New Testament? Not much. For Christ tried to break humanity away from war, hate and disagreement toward a world encompassed by peace, love and understanding.

Jesus did seek change and offered two new commandments, which broke away from the Old Testament.

In Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 40 On the two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The New Testament is a transition from many teachings of the Old Testament.

So, why is Christianity holding onto three-quarters of a book, the Old Testament, where man can embrace war, racism, sexism, chauvinism, slavery, greed and other unfortunate attributes — including hate? Why would such things be etched in a Pure Book, contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ? It doesn’t make sense.

Most of the laws in the Old Testament are outdated and have been replaced by laws in modern civilizations applicable to their given cultures. The United States basically eliminated the First Commandment when it established the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me, was replaced by what is considered the premise for separation of church and state, as the First Amendment reads, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution does not limit the number of religions, but attempts to limit its influence over government. The First Commandment in the Old Testament refers to the God of the Jewish people. I proclaim Jesus established a new God in the New Testament, one more loving and geared toward peace. A God which doesn’t have the same frailties and unwanted traits as ordinary humans.

More on the Ten Commandments later and how they will come under fire in this book.

What is the purpose of The Bible Amendments?

One purpose is to show Christianity is not living up to the words of Christ by containing a double standard under a single book cover. By holding onto the Old Testament, white men have been using verses within its texts to prove themselves worthy of God, even though they can’t live up to the teachings of Jesus. They can’t live up to peace, so they can revel in war. All they have to do is admire Joshua, who led an army to defeat tribes in order to take over land and spoils. That might sound a bit familiar to early Americans march westward over the Sioux, Apache, Cherokee and numerous other native tribal nations.

Some will argue those harmful acts fall upon individual men, but how often have those same men argued they are doing it for God and country. A Christian can’t have it both ways. Either you believe in the peace and love doctrine of Christ, or you are cheating by referring to Old Testament thinking.

The examples of contradiction between the Old Testament and New Testament are many, and will be put under a microscope in this book.

The easy remedy would be simply to lop off the Old Testament, and simply adhere to the teachings in the New Testament. But faults exist in the New Testament as well, and will be dealt with in due course.

Another purpose of this book, like the U.S. Constitution, is to allow amendments to the Holy Bible. If it wants to be the best possible book for humanity and a way of life for all people, then change must be allowed for the times in which we live. Otherwise, Christian civilizations will be stuck in a rut where the people feel war, hate and misunderstanding is justified. Not by the teachings of Jesus Christ, but by laws and ideas in the Old Testament that predate his existence.

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus speaks of peace, of loving thy enemy and of loving thy brother. These words were passed on 2,000 years ago by his apostles, and being in a litigious society like America, the words ring vague and could use further definition.

The New Testament is a living, breathing document, that can be applied to the lives of today’s followers. It should not be subjected to the stone tablet thinking of the O.T. Jesus brought new thought to the world, one in which man should not commit bloodshed against an enemy. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, was replaced by offering the other cheek.

He sought to bring love to the world. In the Old Testament, people were told to fear God or face his wrath. Under Jesus, God was proclaimed as a loving God for those who sought him.

If the New Testament is a living, breathing text, dedicated to the teachings of a man who sought change, then it should welcome change to modern times, in order to love every brother, sister and child of humanity. It should be a beacon of light, which Jesus intended so human beings could live in better harmony among themselves and other nations.

Thus, the largest purpose of The Bible Amendments is to offer amendments to the New Testament, which can bring peace, love and understanding to every individual on the planet, disregarding religion, culture or national background, race, gender, sexual orientation and personal beliefs.

War, hate and negative attributes have no place in the teachings of a man dwelling on the positive in order to propose a better life for every individual.

Christianity largely became the religion of the white world — Europe — and expanded from there to other continents. This book will demonstrate how white men used tenets in the Old Testament to justify their hostile takeovers of other nations. Thus, they forced their language, religion and customs upon non-white people in South America, North America, Australia, Asia and Africa. The only continent untouched is Antarctica, unless white men displaced the beliefs of elephant seals and Emperor penguins.

It is time to face the facts. Christianity doesn’t work for all people equally. It does discriminate if you were born something other than white and male. The example begins in Genesis 9:27: God shall enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan (a black man) be his slave. White men from various European countries have used that single verse of the Holy Bible to reign over non-whites on every continent except the coldest one down south.

Fifty percent of the world’s population is female, and the Holy Bible does not treat women or girls as equals to men or boys in the private, public or religious sectors on this planet. In the scriptures, time after time, women are instructed to be subservient to men, and to be silent in the church. The glass ceiling is totally in force in the Old Testament, and sadly in the New Testament as well.

Hate and disrespect also falls on the LGBTQ community. Sodom and Gomorrah are held up as examples for this behavior of being wrong or immoral. That gay people existed thousands of years ago and still exist today, means no amount of stoning or persecution can deny the fact they were born with a certain gene or attraction to the same sex.

Subsequent chapters in this book will point out the obvious contradictions...