this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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History Memes

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[–] Beacon@fedia.io 91 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I just did a quick search on answers to this, and the few literalist ones that i saw were bad. The literalist answers all seem to boil down to "some additional thing happened that wasn't written about". If you can add additional situation-altering things to what the bible actually says, then you're saying what's written isn't actually important

[–] violetsoftness@piefed.blahaj.zone 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

there's hundreds of english versions of 'the bible' and the most popular one was written just a few hundred years ago. They have been adding additional situations as needed the whole time, there's nothing else in there if you don't believe in divine inspiration.

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 week ago

No! Clearly it's an unbroken line of a translations from God to now, with zero alterations. It's the only logical option possible. It's not like going from language A to language B could cause translation errors, right?

[–] callouscomic@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Growing up in all this (both school and church), I remember a few arguments teachers and church leaders would make:

  • Essentially there was a short period of "incest is okay to get things rolling" until it wasn't.
    • The sons had children with their mother to get that ball rolling.
    • There were tons of other kids not named and the siblings did it.
  • A theory about other people outside the garden of Eden. This is almost certainly true since some translations clearly imply the existence of other people/towns when Cain is leaving. This is also the most plausible answer.
  • We don't know cause Genesis was likely written by Moses thousands of years later from flawed oral history

Also, the same issue and questions arise again in some ways after the Flood and Noah's Ark. The resulting cousins all had kids together?

Mostly I remember these apologetics kind of discussions just got us in trouble for asking obvious questions and questioning logic.

While I massively criticize religion anymore, what I will say is that my belief was these religious scripts are possibly holding some truths, but the oral history, telephone game of it all, AND ancient peoples not knowing how to properly explain things results in what we have here, which, if taken literally, is fucking stupid.

It helps to think of the Bible and most religious texts as fables rather than history.

[–] Randomgal@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago

Yeah I think it is more a lit the metaphor of 'we are all family' and less about 'fuck your siblings'

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

While I massively criticize religion anymore, what I will say is that my belief was these religious scripts are possibly holding some truths, but the oral history, telephone game of it all, AND ancient peoples not knowing how to properly explain things results in what we have here, which, if taken literally, is fucking stupid.

It helps to think of the Bible and most religious texts as fables rather than history.

Yeah, this is the only reasonable way to look at it. Once you consider how little sense it makes, and also that all religions have some sort of origin story with the same level of truthiness, but being mutually exclusive, it makes all of them obviously wrong. I'm sure there's some reason the stories exist. Some event happened in the past, or some people trying to explain things based on their understanding. However, that doesn't make it true. Some of it can still be useful though as fables with moral lessons.

I'd advise against using any religious text for morals though, or you end up stoning people for someone's wife doing something wrong, or something like that. They might have been useful at the time, but I feel we have better ways of teaching morality now. Most people don't need to think there's some guy in the sky watching them to not be evil.

[–] Professorozone@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 1 points 1 week ago

A theory about other people outside the garden of Eden.

Whenever I picture religious debates and arguments, I think of this scene from Halo 2. Nay, it was heresy!

[–] Professorozone@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Sounds like the kind of thing you want to wager your soul on.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I just figured that the people who wrote anything in Genesis couldn't be bothered to mention any unimportant daughters that were born. Eve was only a rib.

[–] Kacarott@aussie.zone 13 points 1 week ago

I'm fairly sure the Bible actually does allude to Adam and Eve having heaps of other children, they just aren't named.

[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Does that make things better?

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Downgrades the disturbing factor down a touch. No Oedipus complex.

[–] frostysauce@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Is it worse to fuck your mom or your sister?

[–] bss03 3 points 1 week ago

On average you share 50% of your genes with your mother, but only 25% with your sister. I don't know if that removes any ick, tho.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago

There's no right answer. Just one that's more wrong.

[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Oh, mum or sister, to me it's all the same.

[–] toxicbubble@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

you're not accounting for "missing" pages of the bible. after thousands of years, shit just gets lost

you can downvote me but you're delusional to think the Bible isn't missing parts like Jesus' whole adolescence. i swear the stupidity from reddit is leaking

[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

Many books are entirely missing, but not because they were ‘lost’; they were removed from canon, primarily by the Vatican, but by other authorities, too. A Protestant set of them is known as the Apocrypha.

Some of these censored books have been included in various editions. Most were removed because they were controversial for some reason or another. Often the removed texts have as much reason to exist as others that were included, but they were politically problematic.

Amongst my favourites includes a nativity story in which baby Jesus fights a dragon. I feel cheated that version was edited out.

[–] burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] iamdefinitelyoverthirteen@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Eh, it's one of those 'blink and you'll miss it' moments. I had read the bible front to back a few times as a kid, but it wasn't until a college class that taught the bible as literature, not religious truth, that I remembered where it was pointed out that in the book judges a bunch of people found the book of deuteronomy and brought it to the religious leader of the time to ask if it was real or whatever. I think the whole episode comprised six verses or less.

Thanks, that's very interesting.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago

Sure, there are parts of the story missing. I don't say there's anything wrong when Dune does a time skip though. It's understandable that the author didn't consider anything important to be happening in that time, so they save time by just skipping it. Just like we don't need to hear about them sleeping or anything. Authors generally don't write about meaningless things.