The Hebrew Bible is a Spiritual Magnet.

The Hebrew Bible is a spiritual magnet. Anyone who reads it searching for truth and without prejudice , finds themselves moved in the heart and challenged in the mind. Having said that, the influence it has over people is not always life enhancing. Some people get so moved by the writings, they go out on missions to weed out the heretics and find in the Bible a justification for burning witches to purify them. The Hebrew Bible inspires the spirit and invigorates the soul. It doesn't necessarily improve one's nature. People who like to burn down structures, will find in the Bible reason to do so. And people who love to help and succor others, will find in the Bible reasons to do so. The Hebrew Bible intensifies one's spiritual nature. For better or for worse. But whatever else one can say about it, it is a book of great power. It inspired the Greeks to have it translated and the so called New Testament completed the stories in the Hebrew Bible with the coming of the Messiah. Only trouble was that the followers of this new messianic religion were allowed to cease and desist Jewish dietary laws and circumcision. No longer had to keep the strict laws of Shabaat. To be redeemed all one had to do was to embrace the Messiah, and one's sins are washed away.
This had the emotional affect of feeling one is born again. What a relief! One is no longer dammed for what one has done. Great feeling. But one has to keep coming back to the church because one keeps sinning and the church is where one finds succor from the shame and pains of living.
The Jews have a much harder religion and their loyalty to the God that condemns them is unparalleled in any other religion. Judaism is not an easy way out from sin. No one dies for anyone else except the soldier who throws himself on the grenade to save his brothers in arms. There is always consequence for sin. But the consequence is a work of Divine Art.
What I am saying is that additions to the Hebrew Bible and New Testament are uninspiring to me and very unnecessary. I don't believe in a literal reading of the Bible. It is A mythology of One God.
It is a work of art. Anyone who adds to it, lessens it. And it only needs the gospels where Jesus is quoted, where He responds to questions asked him. The rest should be learned as a study of a miracle, that miracle being the Nation of The JEWS and their influence on Mankind.
Anyway, the CHRISTIAN doctrine you bring here has no power but what it steals from the Hebrew Messianic motifs.
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Last Edited by Hebrew Prophet on 03/08/2016 04:16 PM