--- Old Testament Synopsis of Bible Books
--- Books of the Law (Synopsis of Bible Books)
Genesis Summary ::: Genesis is the book of origins or beginnings. It is a record of creation (the universe, earth and man), humanitys fall from grace, the story of Noahs flood and the tower of Babel. The second part relates the story of Gods plan to redeem both man and the world beginning with a covenant with Abraham. The rest of Genesis relates the lives of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, ending with the people of God living in Egypt.
Exodus Summary ::: A new pharaoh enslaves the people of God, who cry out for deliverance. God raises up Moses through whom he delivers his people from Pharaoh through a series of plagues. God then guides his people to Mount Sinai where he gives them a set of laws, a constitution by which to live. The people of God become the nation of God. The 10 commandments are part of that law and represent the laws essence. God orders the building of his tabernacle so that he can dwell amongst his people.
Leviticus Summary ::: God gives laws to his people, governing their sacrifices and festivals. In addition, God gives a set of purity laws to his people, including dietary restrictions to keep them holy.
Numbers Summary ::: Israel lacks faith in entering the Promised Land. God punishes Israel by making them wander in the desert for forty years until all of the adult generation that came out of Egypt has died. The book of Numbers takes its name from the census that is conducted at the beginning of the book to count the number of men in order to determine the size of Gods army that would have conquered the Promised Land.
Deuteronomy Summary ::: Deuteronomy means the second law and basically, it is a recounting of the laws that God previously gave to his people at Mount Sinai. The reason the laws are repeated is because the adult generation that came out of Egypt has passed away and a new generation must renew their covenant with God.
--- Historical Books (Synopsis of Bible Books)
Joshua Summary ::: After Israels renewal of the covenant in Deuteronomy (at the foot of the promised land), the Book of Joshua narrates the conquest of this land and the division of the land among the twelve tribes of Israel.
Judges Summary ::: After Joshuas death, the people of God began a cycle of sin which included: idolatry, judgment of God by an invading army, the peoples repentance and clamor for deliverance, raising of a judge and the peace of Gods people. This cycle repeats itself twelve times in the Book of Judges.
Ruth ::: Occurring during the time of the judges, this book tells the story of a foreigner called Ruth, who becomes part of Gods people through marriage.
1 and 2 Samuel Summary ::: Narrates the establishment of the ministry of the prophet Samuel who anoints Saul as the first king of Israel and is witness to the rise of the united kingdom in Israel. These books then trace Sauls demise and Davids ascendance and kingship.
1 and 2 Kings Summary ::: Narrates Solomons kingship, the divided kingdom of Israel and Judah, and Gods judgment of his disobedient people into exile.
1 and 2 Chronicles Summary ::: Narrates David and Solomons kingship as well as a selection of southern kings and Judahs judgment into exile. First and Second Chronicles is written for the people who returned from exile as a way to encourage them in their faith.
They were spiritual heirs of David and Solomon and God would not forget the promises he made to David and to his people. Thus, David and Solomon are portrayed in a more positive light, and only the southern kingdom (Judah) is highlighted.
Ezra and Nehemiah Summary ::: These two books should be seen as one volume. They narrate the return of the exiles from Babylon in three different groups. One is lead by Zerubbabel, who begins to rebuild the temple. Another is lead by Nehemiah, who rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem. A third is lead by Ezra the scribe, who teaches Gods people the law and reestablishes the worship of God and Israels festivals.
Esther Summary ::: Occurs during the exile of Israel and retells the story of Queen Esther, a Jew who saves her people from an evil plot to destroy them.
--- Poetical / Wisdom Books (Synopsis of Bible Books)
Job Summary ::: The Book of Job traces the story of the character by the same name. The setting of the story is a test of Jobs faith by removing everything that is of value to him (wealth, family and health).
The bulk of the story is a conversation between Job and his three friends who argue about why Job is suffering and conclude that it is due to a sin in Jobs life. Job defends his innocence before his friends.
Elihu enters the picture and suggests to Job that he needs to be more humble since God is not required to explain himself.
God finally answers Job but offers no explanation for the suffering. Instead God humbles Job and seeks to remove any sense of self-righteousness in order that he might find his purpose in God. The book ends with God restoring everything that Job had lost.
Psalms Summary ::: The Book of Psalms is essentially a hymnbook for the Hebrew nation. It contains 150 songs and prayers that focus on Israels religious life. There are 70 Psalms attributed to King David, many of which detail Sauls vengeful pursuit of the would-be king David.
There are different types of Psalms: Laments / praises; royal Psalms (where Gods kingship is celebrated); thanksgiving Psalms; and messianic Psalms that the New Testament writers used in speaking about Jesus (for example Psalm 22). One of the most beloved parts of Scripture is Psalm 23 while Psalm 119 celebrates the goodness of Gods word. It is also the longest Psalm.
Proverbs Summary ::: Proverbs are short sayings that communicate a moral truth or principle. The goal of the Book of Proverbs is to communicate wisdom for godly living, a wisdom that originates and comes from God. Wisdom is more precious than gold and only a fool is not interested in receiving its instructions.
Ecclesiastes Summary ::: The Book of Ecclesiastes is attributed to Solomon and is a biography that examines the meaning of life. One of his conclusions is that all of mens actions are essentially transitory and meaningless. Therefore one should enjoy lifes simple pleasures including work which is Gods gift to humans. The authors final conclusion on lifes meaning however is the most noteworthy: Fear God and keep his commandment for that is the whole duty of everyone (Eccl 12:13).
Song of Solomon Summary ::: A passionate love poem that presents the ideal love that should exist between a man and a woman in marriage. The song celebrates intimacy, sexual desire and the marital love of man to woman and woman to man. At the same time, the song serves as a metaphor for the covenant love that exists between God and his people. Indeed, marriage is the appropriate picture that describes our relationship with God.
--- New Testament Synopsis of Bible Books
--- Gospels (Synopsis of Bible Books)
Summary of the Gospel of Matthew ::: Presents the birth, ministry, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This gospel is characterized by the high level of Old Testament citations which seek to prove that Jesus fulfills the long-awaited expectations of a Jewish messiah. To this end, the initial sentence gives us a clue to the contents of the gospel: The genealogy of Jesus the Messiah (or the Christ), the son of Abraham, the son of David (Mat 1:1).
In addition, the book is interlaced with 5 large teaching sections in order to present Jesus as a New Moses.
Summary of the Gospel of Luke ::: Presents the birth, ministry, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as close parallels to the gospel of Matthew and Mark. Luke makes sure to emphasize Jesus Jewish roots (the initial chapters take place in the temple) in order that Luke might present Jesus Christ as the Jewish messiah for a Gentile world.
Another noteworthy feature of Luke is the emphasis he places on the poor, marginalized, women, outcasts and sinners as special recipients of Gods mercy.
--- Historical Books (Synopsis of Bible Books)
Summary of Acts ::: Narrates the beginning of the Christian church on the Day of Pentecost and the expansion of the church through the apostles Peter (Jerusalem), Phillip (Samaria) and Paul (Gentile world). The last 8 chapters deal with Pauls trials before Jewish leaders and Roman magistrates and Pauls voyage to Rome to stand trial before Caesar.
--- Pauls Epistles to Churches (Synopsis of Bible Books)
Romans Summary ::: Romans is Pauls most elaborate definition of the gospel written in anticipation of his visit to the Roman church on his way to Spain. Paul summarizes that both Gentiles and Jews cannot escape the judgement of sin, but that through Jesus Christ and his death, both are now justified by faith. Paul also provides a long response to why Israelites did not embrace their Jewish messiah.
1 Corinthians Summary ::: Pauls first correspondence with the church in Corinth deals with the divisions and multiple problems this church was experiencing. The members of the church were following after particular leaders. In addition they were: involved in sexual immorality, taking their brothers / sisters to court, boasting about their wisdom and superior spiritual gifts and conducting themselves in a disorderly manner in worship services.
Paul responds with various answers: Jesus and his cross are Gods answers to the wisdom of this world. No other leader or philosophy can provide that. Love between brothers and sisters should reign supreme in their relationships. The church is a body with many members and all gifts are important. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and will be resurrected. Therefore, what you do with your body is important.
2 Corinthians Summary ::: In this second correspondence with the Corinthian church, Paul defends his apostleship against the false 0r super apostles who have infiltrated the church. Pauls apostleship (unlike that of the false apostles) is characterized by Gods power and not persuasive words; by boasting in his weakness so that God and not man would be glorified and by suffering on behalf of the gospel. In a separate section of his letter, Paul asks the Corinthians for a generous offering to help those who are experiencing hardship in Jerusalem.
Galatians Summary ::: This is most likely the first book written in the New Testament. Shortly after Paul returned from his first missionary journey (50 A.D.) he received word that a Jewish-Christian group had infiltrated the church in Galatia and was demanding that the Gentile brothers become Jews in order that they might be saved.
Paul wrote his strongest letter condemning the Jewish brothers and reprimanding the Galatian church for so quickly abandoning the faith that Paul had planted in them. O foolish Galatians, he calls the church reminding them once again that no one is justified (made right with God) by the works of the law but rather by faith in Jesus Christ.
Ephesians Summary ::: In his only correspondence with the church he founded in Ephesus, Paul elaborates on the so-called mystery of God. This mystery is that before the foundation of the world, God would form the church from among Jews and Gentiles through Christs sacrifice on the cross. Paul reminds the Ephesians that they have inherited many spiritual blessings as a result of being a part of this glorious church body. For this reason they are to walk in a manner worthy of this holy calling imitating God in his love.
In the final chapter, Paul reminds the Ephesians that they are in a spiritual battle between good and evil and that they must put on Gods full armor in order to have complete victory. (Check out our Ephesians Bible Study to learn more about this wonderful book.)
Colossians Summary ::: In his letter to the Colossians Paul is responding to heretical teaching that is making its rounds in the church. This teaching has Jewish, mystical and ascetic tendencies including: a worship with angels, a keeping of festivals and Jewish holy days, a secret wisdom and a mortification of the body.
What is Pauls response to this falsehood? Jesus Christ is Gods express image, he is firstborn over creation and the resurrection, he is over all principalities and human wisdom and he is head of the church. Christ also fulfilled the law and therefore there is no longer a need to keep Jewish feasts and holy days.
1 Thessalonians Summary ::: Pauls first correspondence with the church in Thessalonica expresses his pastoral concern for the church he planted on his second missionary journey. Paul expresses his profound gratitude for the churchs fruitfulness despite the persecution it is enduring. Paul reminds the Thessalonians about his ministry among them and calls them to holy living.
In Chapters 4 and 5, Paul provides a sustained teaching on Christs second coming as a way to comfort those whose loved ones have passed away. He ends the letter by reminding the Thessalonians that no one knows when Christ will return. Thus, they must always remain alert.
Check out our 1 Thessalonians Bible Study to learn more about this wonderful book.
2 Thessalonians Summary ::: This is a follow-up to Pauls first correspondence to the Thessalonian church. Apparently, the church was still confused about the Lords second coming. Paul provides additional details regarding the timing of that event (the son of perdition must come first and lead many into deception) and encourages the members of the church not to be idle.
--- General Epistles (Synopsis of Bible Books)
1 Peter Summary ::: This is the Apostle Peters first epistle written to Jewish-Christian communities living in Asia Minor. It is at once a letter of encouragement and exhortation for how to live as a Christian and as an oppressed minority within the Roman Empire. Peter uses various terms to describe the churches sufferings throughout the epistle, which he identifies with the sufferings of Christ.
1882. Also in Lost Books of the Bible. New York: Lewis
A Companion to the Bible.]
adam ::: n. --> The name given in the Bible to the first man, the progenitor of the human race.
"Original sin;" human frailty.
A Dictionary of the Bible. Nisroc is equated
A-D of Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible). Among
algum ::: n. --> Same as Almug (and etymologically preferable).
A tree or wood of the Bible (2 Chron. ii. 8; 1 K. x. 11).
Also a sacred wooden pole or image standing close to the massebah and altar in early Shemitic sanctuaries, part of the equipment of the temple of Jehovah in Jerusalem till the Deuteronomic reformation of Josiah (2 Kings 23:6). The plural, ’asherim, denotes statues, images, columns, or pillars; translated in the Bible by “groves.” Maachah, the grandmother of Asa, King of Jerusalem, is accused of having made for herself such an idol, which was a lingham — for centuries a religious rite in Judaea. Sometimes called the Assyrian Tree of Life, “the original Asherah was a pillar with seven branches on each side surmounted by a globular flower with three projecting rays, and no phallic stone, as the Jews made of it, but a metaphysical symbol. ‘Merciful One, who dead to life raises!’ was the prayer uttered before the Asherah, on the banks of the Euphrates. The ‘Merciful One,’ was . . . the higher triad in man symbolized by the globular flower with its three rays” (TG 37). See also ASTARTE.
Also used for the power possessed by adepts to quit or drop their physical body painlessly, in order to work as nirmanakayas, which is the meaning of the stories in the Bible which speak of men being taken to heaven without dying.
Amorites (Hebrew) ’Emorī An Amorite; originally a mountaineer, but finally a Canaanite people living in the land east and west of the Jordan. Used in the Bible interchangeably with Canaanites (though the latter generally referred to people still living, while Amorites especially referred to the people of the past), the term is evidently connected with the Assyrian name Amurru, Egyptian Amar, and Babylonian Mar-tu, referring to the lands north of Palestine as far as Kadesh on the Orontes — although there was a district of the name Mar-tu in the neighborhood of Babylonia.
Anak, Sons of; Anakim (Hebrew) ‘Ānāq, ‘Ānāqīm An ancient race of giants in the Bible. When Moses sent Joshua to spy out the land of Canaan, the people seen were “men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight” (Numbers 13:32-3). Blavatsky comments that the giants of antiquity “lived and flourished one million rather than between three and four thousand years ago. The Anakim of Joshua . . . are thus a piece of Israelite fancy, unless indeed the people of Israel claim for Joshua an antiquity and origin in the Eocene, or at any rate in the Miocene age, and change the millenniums of their chronology into millions of years” (SD 2:340).
Angels of the Ascension. A Miniature from The Bible of St. Paul. 25
Angels of the Ascension. A miniature from The Bible of St. Paul. Reproduced from Lost
angels other than those named in the Bible
Ariel as a poetic name for Jerusalem. In the Bible
Astarte (Greek) Greek form of the Syro-Phoenician goddess Ashtoreth, female counterpart of Baal. The goddess of love and fruitfulness, she was essentially a lunar goddess of productiveness or fertility. The Assyrian and Babylonian form was Ishtar, in Syria Atargates, in Phrygia Cybele, in the Bible Ashtoreth, and in North Africa Tanith or Dido. She was intimately connected in the Chaldean form of her worship with the planet Venus. She corresponds to the Egyptian Isis or Hathor, Greek Aphrodite, and Norse Freya. The Virgin Mary represented on the crescent moon weeping, is taken from similar images of Astarte (BCW 11:96-7).
“As the inner nature of YHVH is hidden; therefore He (YHVH) is only named with the Name of the Shekhinah, Adonai, i.e., Lord; therefore the Rabbins say (of the name YHVH); Not as I am written (i.e., YHVH) am I read. In this world My Name is written YHVH and read Adonai, but in the world to come, the same will be read as it is written, so that Mercy (represented by YHVH) shall be from all sides” (Zohar iii 320a). Adonai is rendered Lord in the Bible, although it means “my Lords”; whereas ’elohim is translated God in the English Authorized Version.
At a certain stage of initiation a voice speaks audibly to the candidate, as discussed in The Voice of the Silence. The Bath Qol (daughter of the voice) of the Qabbalah is a spiritual communication of somewhat the same kind; and Deity often communicates in a voice in the Old Testament. Voice is one way in which a divine presence manifests itself to a mind, as when, according to the Bible, the Lord manifested himself to Elijah in a still small voice.
At first I thought that angels, named angels, were to be found only in the Bible. I soon learned
Babel (Hebrew) Bābāh The inner meaning of the Tower of Babel, by which it was hoped that divinity might be reached or attained, is a house of initiation, a gate, portal, opening, or entrance to the divine. The physical tower was both the building set aside to house and protect the initiation chambers, together with the ceremonies that take place in them, and an architectural emblem to signify a raising up towards heaven. The tower may have either a divine or evil significance, either haughty pride and self-sufficiency or spiritual aspiration. Similar is the lightning-struck tower of the Tarot cards, and the Arabian Nights story of the man who built a palace completely except only for a roc’s egg to hang in the dome, and when the egg is thus hung, the whole palace collapses. The work of the black magician, building from below upwards, is impermanent and, when it strikes the sky, is blasted. If such a tower and system be followed by adepts of the left-hand path for ultimate and foredestined confusion, it is one thing; but if the tower and its inner mysteries be in the charge of adepts of the right-hand path, it is another. The concentration of the narrator in the Bible concerning the Tower of Babel seems to have been entirely upon its aspect of left-hand magic.
bdellium ::: n. --> An unidentified substance mentioned in the Bible (Gen. ii. 12, and Num. xi. 7), variously taken to be a gum, a precious stone, or pearls, or perhaps a kind of amber found in Arabia.
A gum resin of reddish brown color, brought from India, Persia, and Africa.
beden ::: n. --> The Abyssinian or Arabian ibex (Capra Nubiana). It is probably the wild goat of the Bible.
Bible The Judeo-Christian holy book. The Bible is neither the literal word of God translated into the various languages, nor a collection of superstitious folklore, but a Jewish and late Greek version of the archaic wisdom expressed in the ancient mystery-language. Blavatsky classes it among the largely esoteric works whose secret symbolism is found also in the Indian, Chaldean, and Egyptian scriptures. The real Hebrew Bible is to a certain extent known only in small part to its Talmudic and Qabbalistic interpreters. The primeval faith of Israel was not what it was made to be by those who would have converted the secret doctrine into a national exoteric religion — by David, Hezekiah, and later the Talmudists. To trace the steps by which the ancient gnosis was handed down, adapted, transformed, perverted, and yet mysteriously preserved, is work to satisfy the most diligent scholar. “The real Hebrew Bible was a secret volume, unknown to the masses, and even the Samaritan Pentateuch is far more ancient than the Septuagint. As for the former, the Fathers of the Church never even heard of it” (IU 2:471).
biblical ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or derived from, the Bible; as, biblical learning; biblical authority.
biblically ::: adv. --> According to the Bible.
biblicism ::: n. --> Learning or literature relating to the Bible.
biblicist ::: n. --> One skilled in the knowledge of the Bible; a demonstrator of religious truth by the Scriptures.
bibliolatrist ::: n. --> A worshiper of books; especially, a worshiper of the Bible; a believer in its verbal inspiration.
bibliolatry ::: n. --> Book worship, esp. of the Bible; -- applied by Roman Catholic divines to the exaltation of the authority of the Bible over that of the pope or the church, and by Protestants to an excessive regard to the letter of the Scriptures.
bibliology ::: n. --> An account of books; book lore; bibliography.
The literature or doctrine of the Bible.
biblist ::: n. --> One who makes the Bible the sole rule of faith.
A biblical scholar; a biblicist.
Boehme, Jacob: (1575-1624) Of Gorlitz, was the son of poor parents, received little formal schooling, studied the Bible and the works of Pastor Valentine Weigel assiduously. He became noted as a mystic, theosophist, and in his own day was called the German Philosopher. He wrote in German but his early followers translated his works into Latin, hence it is difficult to distinguish his personal thought from that of his school. He thought that all reality, even God, contains a duality of good and evil, the universe and man's soul are nothing without God. He has had much influence on later German and Russian mysticism. Chief works: Aurora, Vierzig Fragen von der Seele, Mysterium Magnum, Von der Gnadenwahl. Deussen, J. Boehme, uber sein Leben u. seine Philos. (Kiel, 1897). -- V.J.B.
Books of the Bible and in Excluded Books of the New
Books of the Bible.
Brazen Serpent As related in the Bible, when the Jews in the wilderness complained to Moses, “the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died” (Num 21:6); wherefore “Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent has bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived” (21:9).
The Bible meaning of the term is a “household
The Bible speaks of there having been giants in an early period in the earth’s history, and theology speaks of these as pre-Adamite races.
bubale ::: n. --> A large antelope (Alcelaphus bubalis) of Egypt and the Desert of Sahara, supposed by some to be the fallow deer of the Bible.
Cain (Hebrew) Qayin In the Bible, the son of Adam and Eve, and a tiller of the ground. Becoming jealous of the offering which his brother Abel presents to the Lord, Cain, according to the legend, slays him (Genesis 4). This allegory signifies that “Jehovah-Cain, the male part of Adam the dual man, having separated himself from Eve, creates in her ‘Abel,’ the first natural woman, and sheds the Virgin blood” (SD 2:388). Cain and Abel represent the third root-race or the “Separating Hermaphrodite” (SD 2:134).
canon ::: n. --> A law or rule.
A law, or rule of doctrine or discipline, enacted by a council and confirmed by the pope or the sovereign; a decision, regulation, code, or constitution made by ecclesiastical authority.
The collection of books received as genuine Holy Scriptures, called the sacred canon, or general rule of moral and religious duty, given by inspiration; the Bible; also, any one of the canonical Scriptures. See Canonical books, under Canonical, a.
Canon ::: The collection of books of the Bible recognized as authoritative.
canticle ::: n. --> A song; esp. a little song or hymn.
The Song of Songs or Song of Solomon, one of the books of the Old Testament.
A canto or division of a poem
A psalm, hymn, or passage from the Bible, arranged for chanting in church service.
Carmel, Mount A mountain spur in Palestine, projecting into the sea south of Haifa, Israel; traditionally a sacred place and refuge, it is mentioned in the Bible (1 Kings 18:19) as the spot where Elijah publicly challenged the priests of Ba‘al. Mt. Carmel was noted for its oracle, which was consulted by the emperor Vespasian. It became a refuge for early Christian anchorites, and a monastery dedicated to Elijah existed there by 570. About 1156 the order of Carmelites was founded, dedicated to continuing on Mt. Carmel the way of life of Elijah, pictured as a monk and the founder of monasticism, and a monastery was built. St. John of the Cross, among others, uses it in metaphors for the mystic and spiritual journey. Blavatsky connects it with the Essenes. See also MOUNTAINS, MUNDANE (BCW 11:256-7)
Carus, Paul. (1852-1919). An early supporter of Buddhism in America and the proponent of the "religion of science": a faith that claimed to be purified of all superstition and irrationality and that, in harmony with science, would bring about solutions to the world's problems. Carus was born in Ilsenberg in Harz, Germany. He immigrated to America in 1884, settling in LaSalle, Illinois, where he assumed the editorship of the Open Court Publishing Company. He attended the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 and became friends with several of the Buddhist delegates, including DHARMAPALA and SHAKU SoEN, who were among the first to promote his writing. Later, Shaku Soen's student, DAISETZ TEITARO SUZUKI, would spend eleven years working with and for Carus in LaSalle. In 1894, Carus published The Gospel of Buddha according to Old Records, an anthology of passages from Buddhist texts drawn from contemporary translations in English, French, and German, making particular use of translations from the PAli by THOMAS W. RHYS DAVIDS, as well as translations of the life of the Buddha from Chinese and Tibetan sources. Second only to Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia in intellectual influence at the time, The Gospel was arranged like the Bible, with numbered chapters and verses and a table at the end that listed parallel passages from the New Testament. The Gospel was intended to highlight the many agreements between Buddhism and Christianity, thereby bringing out "that nobler Christianity which aspires to the cosmic religion of universal truth." Carus was free in his manipulation of his sources, writing in the preface that he had rearranged, retranslated, and added emendations and elaborations in order to make them more accessible to a Western audience; for this reason, the translated sources are not always easy to trace back to the original literature. He also makes it clear in the preface that his ultimate goal is to lead his readers to the Religion of Science. He believed that both Buddhism and Christianity, when understood correctly, would point the way to the Religion of Science. Although remembered today for his Gospel, Carus wrote some seventy books and more than a thousand articles. His books include studies of Goethe, Schiller, Kant, and Chinese thought.
Chaldeans, Chaldees To the seventh subrace of the third root-race belong the far-distant predecessors of the Mystery school; and to now forgotten geologic history the predecessors of those later called Chaldees, along with Hindu, Egyptian, Persian, and Phoenician sages. In their records are mentioned divine dynasties preceding the human kings, and the cycle of 432,000 years. From them came the origins of all such thoughts as are contained in the occult Nabathean Agriculture, and in their ancient records is found the source of the original Biblical cosmogonic allegories. The mathematical and astronomical lore of the Chaldeans was celebrated in all the ancient Mediterranean world: the word Chaldee often meant simply an adept, magician, or astrologer. In the Bible they are usually spoken of as Babylonians.
Christian Content of the Bible, The. See Gilbert.
Christian Spiritualists: Spiritualists who stand by the Bible and emphasize the mastership of Jesus Christ.
Christos (Greek) Anointed; applied in the Greek Mysteries to a candidate who had passed the last degree and become a full initiate. Also the immanent individual god in a person, equivalent in some respects to Dionysos, Krishna, etc. The Hebrew word for anointed (mashiah) is generally written in English as Messiah. What we know as Christianity is a syncretism of borrowings from Neoplatonism, neo-Pythagoreanism, Greek Gnosticism, and Hebrew religion. Christos was commonly used in the Greek translation of the Bible as a title of the Jewish Kings, those who had been anointed for reigning — a symbolic rite taken originally from the Mysteries. St. Paul’s use of the word shows that he understood its true mystical meaning, but spoke with precaution in his public epistles or writings.
Conder, C. R. The Bible and the East. Edinburgh:
Considered as history, the Bible is a patchwork of documents put together at different times, sometimes mere allegory, as in the creation story, or partly allegorical and partly literal, as in the story of the Flood, adapted to serve the purpose of embalming the sacred teachings. It is remarkable that Christians continue to preserve books like Ezekiel — so obviously an esoteric work and so incomprehensible on ordinary doctrinal lines — the Psalms of David, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Job.
contained in Lost Books of the Bible.
copy ::: n. --> An abundance or plenty of anything.
An imitation, transcript, or reproduction of an original work; as, a copy of a letter, an engraving, a painting, or a statue.
An individual book, or a single set of books containing the works of an author; as, a copy of the Bible; a copy of the works of Addison.
That which is to be imitated, transcribed, or reproduced; a pattern, model, or example; as, his virtues are an excellent copy for
Dag, Dagon (Hebrew, Phoenician) Dāg, Dāgōn [from dāg fish + ōn diminutive; or from dāgān grain] Fish or a little fish; a Philistine god, at Ashod and Gaza, mentioned several places in the Bible (e.g. Judges 16). He was more than a local deity, however, as place-names called after him are widespread. Some scholars assert there was an ancient Canaanite deity of similar name, and also associate this Shemitic god with the Babylonian Dagan. It is commonly believed that Dagon was represented as half-man half-fish and identified with Oannes, though no such early representations bear his name. Some scholars cite Philo Byblius as making Dagon the discoverer of grain and the inventor of the plow, an earth god parallel with Bel.
Although the division of the Bible into chapters and verses is of medieval, non-Jewish origin, its use has become standard in all Jewish books. The traditional division is into non-numbered paragraphs (parshiot, sing. parashah) and verses. In addition, the Torah is divided into 54 sections (also parshiot), at least one of which is read each week in the synagogue.
Dharmapāla, Anagārika. (1864-1933). An important figure in the revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and the dissemination of Buddhism in the West. Born Don David Hēvāvirtarne in Sri Lanka, at that time the British colony of Ceylon, he was raised in the English-speaking middle class of Colombo and educated in Christian schools run by Anglican missionaries, where he is said to have memorized large portions of the Bible. His family was Buddhist, however, and in 1880, at the age of sixteen, he met HENRY STEEL OLCOTT and MADAME BLAVATSKY, founders of the Theosophical Society, during their visit to Sri Lanka in support of Buddhism. In 1881, he took the Buddhist name Dharmapāla, "Protector of the Dharma," and in 1884 was initiated into the Theosophical Society by Colonel Olcott, later accompanying Madame Blavatsky to the headquarters of the Society in Adyar, India. Under the initial patronage of Theosophists, he studied Pāli, choosing to adopt the lifestyle of a celibate lay religious. Prior to that time in Sri Lanka, the leadership in Buddhism had been provided exclusively by monks and kings. Dharmapāla established a new role for Buddhist laypeople, creating the category of the anagārika (meaning "homeless wanderer"), a layperson who studied texts and meditated, as did monks, but who remained socially active in the world, as did laypeople. Free from the restrictions incumbent on the Sinhalese monkhood, yet distinct from ordinary laity, he regarded this new lifestyle of the anagārika as the most suitable status for him to work for the restoration and propagation of Buddhism. A social reformer, rationalist, and religious nationalist, he promoted rural education and a reformist style of Buddhism, stripped of what he considered extraneous superstitions, as a means of uplifting Sinhalese society and gaining independence for his country as a Buddhist nation. While he was in India in 1891, he was shocked to see the state of decay of the great pilgrimage sites of India, all then under Hindu control, and most especially of BODHGAYĀ, the site of the Buddha's enlightenment. In that same year, he joined a group of leading Sri Lankan Buddhists to found the MAHĀBODHI SOCIETY, which called on Buddhists from around the world to work for the return of important Indian Buddhist sites to Buddhist control, and one of whose aims was the restoration of the MAHĀBODHITEMPLE at Bodhgayā. This goal only came to fruition in 1949, well after his death, when the newly independent Indian government granted Buddhists a role in administering the site. His influential Buddhist journal, The Mahā-Bodhi, also established in 1891, continues to be published today. A gifted orator, in 1893 Anagārika Dharmapāla addressed the World's Parliament of Religions, held in conjunction with the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, drawing much acclaim. Although he was one of several Buddhist speakers, his excellent English and Anglican education made him an effective spokesperson for the dharma, demonstrating both its affinities with, and superiority to, Christianity. In 1925, he founded the British Mahā Bodhi Society in London and a year later established the first THERAVĀDA monastery in the West, the London Buddhist Vihāra. In 1931, he was ordained as a monk (bhikkhu; BHIKsU), taking the name Devamitta. He died in 1933 at SĀRNĀTH, site of the Buddha's first sermon.
Dictionary of the Bible, A. See Hastings; Schaff.
Dictionary of the Bible, p. 67.
Dictionary of the Bible.
Dictionary of the Bible.]
Dictionary of the Bible, “Tabor.”] The Commentary
Dictionary of the Bible) to read: “when two sit
Divine providence is admitted by all Jewish philosophers, but its extent is a matter of dispute. The conservative thinkers, though admitting the stability of the natural order and even seeing in that order a medium of God's providence, allow greater latitude to the interference of God in the regulation of human events, or even in disturbing the natural order on occasion. In other words, they admit a frequency of miracles. The more liberal, though they do not deny the occurrence of miracles, attempt to limit it, and often rationalize the numerous miraculous events related in the Bible and bring them within the sphere of the rational order. Typical and representative is Maimonides' view of Providence. He limits its extent in the sublunar world to the human genus only on account of its possession of mind. As a result he posits a graded Providence, namely, that the one who is more intellectually perfect receives more attention or special Providence. This theory is also espoused, with certain modifications, by Ibn Daud and Gersonides. Divine providence does by no means impair human freedom, for it is rarely direct, but is exerted through a number of mediate causes, and human choice is one of the causes.
Eden or the garden of Eden (Hebrew) ‘Ēden, Gan-‘ēden [from ‘ēden delight, pleasure, loveliness] The country in which the garden of Adam and Eve was situated according to the Bible. Not wholly a mythical name, for Eden “is an archaic name of the country watered by the Euphrates and its many branches, from Asia and Armenia to the Erythraean Sea” (SD 2:202). Hebraists hold that the site of Eden would be the cradle of the human race. See also GAN-EDEN; PARADISE
Edom (Hebrew) ’Edom The land and the Kings of Edom are mentioned in the Bible (Genesis 36) in allegorical manner, and treated in the Qabbalah as referring to a period of unbalance before balance or harmony was inaugurated; the Kings, in one meaning of this Qabbalistic allegory, refer to the various attempts (and failures) at the formation of worlds before this one. However, “the ‘Edomite Kings’ could never symbolize the ‘prior worlds,’ but only the ‘attempts at men’ on this globe: the ‘pre-Adamite races,’ of which the Zohar speaks, and which we explain as the First Root-Race. . . . the Kings of Edom are the sons of ‘Esau the father of the Edomites’ (Gen., xxxvi, 43); i.e., Esau represents in the Bible the race which stands between the Fourth and the Fifth, the Atlantean and the Aryan” (SD 2:705). Interestingly Edom is exactly the same word as ’Adam (man), the only difference being one of vocalization, of changing the Massoretic points. The seven Kings of Edom are therefore the seven races of man, whether the reference be made to the seven subraces of any one root-race, or to the seven root-races themselves.
Elon or Elion (Phoenician) A name of the sun, recognized as one of the highest active deities or cosmic energies by the Phoenicians; rendered in Greek as ’Elioun. The Hebrew form of this word is found in the Bible in the phrase ’El ‘elyon, “the God or Divinity on high.”
engravings illustrating the Bible. London: George
Enoch, Onech (Hebrew) Ḥanōkh Initiation or initiated; hence also hierophant. In the Bible (Genesis 4, 5), “there are three distinct Enochs — the son of Cain, the son of Seth, and the son of Jared; but they are all identical, and two of them are mentioned for the purposes of misleading. The years of only the last two are given, the first one being left without further notice.” He is the great grandfather of Noah, and stands for the first subrace of the fifth root-race (BCW 14:86&n).
Esoteric [from Greek esoterikos pertaining to the inner] Applied to the advanced instructions given to qualified candidates in Mysteries or schools of philosophy, first used popularly in Greece by Aristotle. Jesus in the Bible had teachings for his disciples in private, and others for the public, precisely as all other ancient religious and philosophical teachers always had. Esoteric teachings both were and are such as could not be understood or profitably received by those not previously prepared by study and probation. Exoteric or outer teachings were often given in symbolic language which revealed the esoteric meaning only to those who were in possession of the keys to interpretation.
exegesis: An analysis or explanation, particularly of a portion of the Bible.
explain ::: a. --> To flatten; to spread out; to unfold; to expand.
To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to expound; to unfold and illustrate the meaning of; as, to explain a chapter of the Bible. ::: v. i. --> To give an explanation.
fitch ::: n. --> A vetch.
A word found in the Authorized Version of the Bible, representing different Hebrew originals. In Isaiah xxviii. 25, 27, it means the black aromatic seeds of Nigella sativa, still used as a flavoring in the East. In Ezekiel iv. 9, the Revised Version now reads spelt.
The European polecat; also, its fur.
From Schaff, A Dictionary of the Bible.
from Schaff, A Dictionary of the Bible.
From the Bible:
futurist ::: n. --> One whose chief interests are in what is to come; one who anxiously, eagerly, or confidently looks forward to the future; an expectant.
One who believes or maintains that the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Bible is to be in the future.
Gei’ Hinnom (Hebrew) Gēi’ Hinnōm Also Gai-hinnom. The valley of Hinnom, generally rendered as by the Greek Gehenna, situated south of Jerusalem, in which was Tophet where children were at one time sacrificed to Moloch (2 Kings 23:10). Later the place was used as a crematorium for the refuse of the city, perpetual fires being kept for that purpose. In the Bible it is translated as hell or hell of fire, but the Hebrew word bears no such interpretation. The Greek Gehenna “is identical with the Homeric Tartarus” (IU 2:507).
Gematria ::: A system of lexical analysis where numbers are assigned to letters, words, phrases, and/or sentences. It can be used as a means of divination and has a history of occult usage over the centuries. Its most famous usage has to be with the Bible where it was used with the Hebrew alphabet to create the various names of God and for prophesizing and trying to understand the deeper mysteries contained within.
Gematria [Hebrew/Aramaic gĕmaṭriyā’ from Greek geōmetría geometry] A Qabbalistic system of interpreting the Bible, consisting in finding the numerical value of a word or words — the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet each designating a number — and then substituting another word whose numerical value is equivalent to the one under consideration. Another method is that of using arithmetical values of words and phrases for interpretation of scriptures. This method forms one of the keys of interpreting sacred scriptures, although a very minor one, and in the hands of one who is inexpert an almost useless method.
Genesis (Greek) Beginning; generation; birth, production; the first book in the Bible as translated into Greek, whose opening chapters deal with the genesis of worlds and creatures. The Book of Genesis is based on the cosmogony of the Chaldeans.
gier-eagle ::: n. --> A bird referred to in the Bible (Lev. xi. 18and Deut. xiv. 17) as unclean, probably the Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus).
Granting that there may be some historical background for the Biblical account, it is nevertheless allegorical throughout. Blavatsky compares the measurements given in the Bible with those of the Great Pyramid and the Tabernacle of Moses, all of which were constructed upon the same abstract formula derived from the number of years in the precessional cycle, and also upon integral values of pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter. Moses symbolized these “under the form and measurements of the tabernacle, that he is supposed to have constructed in the wilderness. On these data the later Jewish High Priests constructed the allegory of Solomon’s Temple — a building which never had a real existence, any more than had King Solomon himself, who is simply, and as much a solar myth as is the still later Hiram Abif, of the Masons, as Ragon has well demonstrated. Thus, if the measurements of this allegorical temple, the symbol of the cycle of Initiation, coincide with those of the Great Pyramid, it is due to the fact that the former were derived from the latter through the Tabernacle of Moses” (SD 1:314-5). And she refers to “the undeniable, clear, and mathematical proofs that the esoteric foundations, or the system used in the building of the Great Pyramid, and the architectural measurements in the Temple of Solomon (whether the latter be mythical or real), Noah’s ark, and the ark of the Covenant, are the same” (SD 2:465).
griffon ::: n. --> A fabulous monster, half lion and half eagle. It is often represented in Grecian and Roman works of art.
A representation of this creature as an heraldic charge.
A species of large vulture (Gyps fulvus) found in the mountainous parts of Southern Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor; -- called also gripe, and grype. It is supposed to be the "eagle" of the Bible. The bearded griffin is the lammergeir.
An English early apple.
Gunānanda. (1823-1890). Also known as Migettuwatte Gunānanda Thera; prominent figure in the Buddhist revival in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) during the 1860s. Born into a wealthy Buddhist family in Mohottiwatta (Migettuwatta), near Balapitiya in southern Sri Lanka, as a child he studied the Bible and Christianity with a Roman Catholic priest at a local church. He was ordained as a novice Buddhist monk in 1835 and received full ordination in 1844. Gunānanda is best known for his involvement in five debates between Christian missionaries and Buddhist monks. (He was a contemporary of SUMAnGALA, who helped him prepare for the debates.) An impressive orator, Gunānanda's extensive knowledge of both Christian and Buddhist doctrine allowed him to present a nuanced critique of Christianity and the superiority of Buddhism. The last of the debates, between Gunānanda and Reverend David de Silva, took place at Panadura over two days in 1873, with an audience of some five to seven thousand spectators. The audience included the ten-year-old David Hevavitarne, who would later become ANAGĀRIKA DHARMAPĀLA. An edited transcript of the debate, known as the Pānaduravādaya, was published in English in the book Buddhism and Christianity Face to Face in 1878. This book inspired Colonel HENRY STEEL OLCOTT and Madame HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY, founders of the Theosophical Society, to travel to Ceylon, where they played active roles in the revival of Buddhism. Gunānanda wrote many articles and edited three texts on Buddhism. He also sought to revive Sinhala language and literature.
Ham ham (Hebrew) Ḥām [from ḥām hot, warm, heat, warmth] In the Bible, one of the three sons of Noah, from whom a great majority of the southern nations were supposed to trace their descent (Genesis 10). Some scholars have suggested that ham is equivalent to khem (black), the native name of Egypt, for Chem is the name of Egypt in the Qabbalah.
Hastings, James. Dictionary of the Bible. Revised by F. C.
heterodox ::: a. --> Contrary to, or differing from, some acknowledged standard, as the Bible, the creed of a church, the decree of a council, and the like; not orthodox; heretical; -- said of opinions, doctrines, books, etc., esp. upon theological subjects.
Holding heterodox opinions, or doctrines not orthodox; heretical; -- said of persons. ::: n.
Hezekiah (Hebrew) Ḥizqiyyāh Jehovah makes strong; according to the Bible, one of the greatest and best kings of Judah, the titular son of Ahaz and son-in-law of Isaiah. He sought to purge the religion and beliefs of the Jews: this is symbolized in the Bible as the breaking of the Brazen Serpent (2 Kings 18:4). “It was Hezekiah who was the expected Messiah of the exoteric state-religion. He was the scion from the stem of Jesse, who should recall the Jews from a deplorable captivity, about which the Hebrew historians seem to be very silent, . . . but which the irascible prophets imprudently disclose. If Hezekiah crushed the exoteric Baal-worship, he also tore violently away the people of Israel from the religion of their fathers, and the secret rites instituted by Moses” (IU 2:441).
Hilkiah (Hebrew) Ḥilqiyyāh The high priest of Jerusalem during the reign of Josiah (2 Kings 22), who found again the manuscripts of the Bible. Blavatsky stresses the fact that he was unable to read “the Book of God,” and states that this copy disappeared (IU 2:470); and that the real Hebrew Bible was and is a volume partly written in cipher, which is what a large number of Qabbalists have always claimed. “What could remain, we ask, of the original writings of Moses, if such ever existed, when they had been lost for nearly 800 years and then found when every remembrance of them must have disappeared from the minds of the most learned, and Hilkiah has them re-written by Shaphan, the scribe?” (BCW 7:263).
hippopotamus ::: n. --> A large, amphibious, herbivorous mammal (Hippopotamus amphibius), common in the rivers of Africa. It is allied to the hogs, and has a very thick, naked skin, a thick and square head, a very large muzzle, small eyes and ears, thick and heavy body, and short legs. It is supposed to be the behemoth of the Bible. Called also zeekoe, and river horse. A smaller species (H. Liberiencis) inhabits Western Africa.
Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d': (1723-1789) One of the Encyclopedists (q.v.) and a prominent materialist. He is the probable author of Le systeme de la Nature, known as "the Bible of Atheism." -- R.B.W.
Horns Much used in the Bible, often as a symbol of might; and the altar in the tabernacle had horns, which were seized as sanctuary by the fugitive suppliant. In the prophetic and apocalyptic books of Christianity and other religions, we find dragons and other monsters with horns, the number of horns possibly having a symbolical reference to races. Its most general sense is as a symbol of natural generative power, whence it is characteristic of several symbolic animals, as the ram, the bull and cow, the goat, etc. It is seen in Greece in Pan, the god of natural generation and procreative fertility; and in Judaism in the goat which, as the scapegoat, stands among other things for the fall into generation, and was thus said to bear away the burden of the people’s sins in early and medieval Europe. Satan or the Devil is represented with horns in a similar sense, for actually he represents the nether aspect of nature, and in popular belief his horns, like his hoofs and tail, are regarded as horrific and bestial attributes. The moon, the oldest and most graphic symbol of productive generation, is said to have horns and the same are seen in the zodiacal Taurus, the sign of the moon’s elevation, while the ram’s horns are seen in Aries — the one representing the passive, the other the active principle in nature.
If the exoteric literal account in the Bible is accepted, Solomon in his later years showed himself as very far from wise, indulging in licentiousness and idolatry (1 Kings 11); further, he began his reign with the murder of Adonijah, Joab, and Shimei and his last recorded act was that he sought to kill Jereboam.
A book was published in 1997 which changed the way the world looked at prediction. This book was The Bible Code written by Michael Drosnin (which was followed by The Bible Code 2: The Countdown in 2002). In The Bible Code, Drosnin tells us of a code that exists within the Holy Bible (written 3000 years ago) which predicts events that (in retrospect) have already happened, are happening now, and are still to happen. The Code was deciphered by an Israeli mathematician (Dr Eliyahu Rips), using a computer-programmed 'skip sequence', which, after eliminating all spaces between words, then looked for key words encoded in the text. Book 2 opens with the predicted destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September 2001. A third book, The Bible Code: The Quest was scheduled to be released in October 2007. It was eventually released in October 2010 under a new subtitle of Saving the World. The whole concept of a code hidden within the text of the Bible is by no means new. Sir Isaac Newton, also convinced of its existence, was still searching for a Bible Code when he died.
In Bates’ The Bible Designed to Be Read as Living
Infinite [from Latin in not + finitus ended] That which is endless or not finite; ancient peoples expressed the frontierless, beginningless, and endless hierarchical immensities, whether of space, time, spirit, or matter in many ways, as in the ’eyn soph (without bounds or frontiers) of the Qabbalah, the Hindu parabrahman (beyond Brahman), the Void, the Sunyata of Buddhism, the Ginnungagap (gaping void) of the Scandinavians, the Deep of the Bible, or the waters of space, etc. Many philosophers of antiquity considered it futile to speculate upon that which is ex hypothesi beyond the understanding of the human mind, confessedly finite in function and range. For whatever the human mind can shape or figurate to itself as a concept must be de facto finite in itself, however great or grand. Infinite was never used as a synonym for deity or any divine being, for however immense in its incomprehensible vastness in both time and space, it could be nevertheless only finite, for the human mind itself had given birth to the human thought, and the human mind is finite.
In Freemasonry, King Solomon is especially honored as the builder of the Temple and as the first of the Three Grand Masters — the other two being Hiram, King of Tyre, and Hiram Abif — all of whom were concerned with the building of the Temple. The evil ending of Solomon’s life, according to the Biblical account, is almost overlooked in Masonic ritual and literature. In the Jewish Encyclopedia (“Solomon”), according to one writer, Solomon is represented as “the wise king par excellence”; and “in Arabic literature, Solomon is spoken of as ‘the messenger of God’ ”; according to another writer in the same work, however, “a critical sifting of the sources leaves the picture of a petty, Asiatic despot, remarkable, perhaps, only for a love of luxury and for polygamous inclinations.” Only by interpreting the Bible esoterically can we arrive at the truth regarding King Solomon; and such interpretation fully corroborates the characterization of “the wise king par excellence”; and fully supports both Masonic ritual and tradition in regarding King Solomon as the first and chief of the Three Grand Masters.
In Lost Books of the Bible. Also contained in the
in Lost Books of the Bible.
in Paradise (Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible ); as
Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, The. “Angels.” 4 vols.
In the Bible Magi is translated “wise men.” The term has also become familiar through the story of the three wise men who came to the infant Jesus bearing gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
In the Bible Nebo is the name of a mountain near Jericho whereon Moses dies; also an adjacent city (Deut 32-4). “The fact that Moses is made to die and disappear on the mount sacred to Nebo, shows him an initiate and a priest of that god under another name . . .” (ibid.).
In the Bible Nergal is named as an idol of the Cuthites (2 Kings 17:30). He “is also the Hebrew name for the planet Mars, associated invariably with ill-luck and danger. Nergal-Mars is the ‘shedder of blood.’ In occult astrology it is less malefic than Saturn, but is more active in its associations with men and its influence on them” (TG 228).
“It was the secresy of the early kabalists, who were anxious to screen the real Mystery name of the ‘Eternal’ from profanation, and later the prudence which the mediaeval alchemists and occultists were compelled to adopt to save their lives, that caused the inextricable confusion of divine names. This is what led the people to accept the Jehovah of the Bible as the name of the ‘One living God.’ . . . Therefore, the biblical name of Jehovah may be considered simply as a substitute, which, as belonging to one of the ‘powers,’ got to be viewed as that of the ‘Eternal.’ . . . the interdiction did not at all concern the name of the exoteric Jehovah, whose numerous other names could also be pronounced without nay penalty being incurred. . . . the ‘Eternal’ being something higher than the exoteric and personal ‘Lord’ ” (IU 2:400-1).
Jabal (Hebrew) Yābāl Stream; in the Bible, the son of Lamech and Adah: “he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle” (Genesis 4:20). Blavatsky compares Jabal to the kabiri who were the instructors of mankind in agriculture (SD 2:390).
Jehovah (Hebrew) Yĕhovāh In the Bible, the god of the Hebrews; a modern mispronunciation of the Hebrew alphabetic characters, resulting from the combining by the Jews themselves of the Hebrew consonants of this word (YHVH) with the vowels of the word Adonai (my lords) because the Jews, while always writing or copying the alphabetic characters of the name correctly in their manuscripts, when reading it never pronounced the word YHVH, but read “Adonai” in its stead — writing the Massoretic points of Adonai to vocalize YHVH to produce Yahovah. Consequently when the Bible came to be studied by those unfamiliar with the real pronunciation of YHVH, it was read in various ways, commonly as Jehovah. It is now held by some scholars that YHVH should be pronounced yahweh or yave. It is also given as Yihweh (he will be, or it will be) (SD 2:129). However, Josephus, a priest who undoubtedly knew the correct pronunciation, wrote that it would be highly unlawful for him to divulge it as the Jews regarded it as too holy to pronounce aloud.
Jehovah Nissi (Hebrew) Yĕhovāh Nissī [from nēs lofty, an elevation + ī mine] Jehovah, my elevation; in the Bible the altar built by Moses (Ex 17:15); Blavatsky maintains that this aspect of Jehovah was equivalent to Dionysos or Bacchus, and that the Jews worshiped this deity (the androgyne of Nissi) as the Greeks might have worshiped Bacchus and Osiris. Tradition has it that Bacchus was reared in a cave of Nysa, which is between Phoenicia and Egypt. As the son of Zeus, he was named for his father (gen Dios) and the place: Dio-Nysos (the Zeus or Jove of Nysa). Diodorus identifies this Dionysos with Osiris.
Jehovah's Witnesses ::: A religious sect, originating in the United States, organized by Charles Taze Russell. The Witnesses base their beliefs on the Bible and have no official ministers. Recognizing only the kingdom of God, the Witnesses refuse to salute the flag, to bear arms in war, and to participate in the affairs of government. This doctrine brought them into conflict with the Nazi's during WWII, during which time they were considered enemies of the state and relentlessly persecuted.
Jethro (Hebrew) Yithrō Also called Reuel (Exodus 2). In the Bible the father of seven daughters: one, Zipporah, he gave in marriage to Moses. These daughters represent his various spiritual, intellectual, and psychic powers and faculties, as the offspring of the monadic or egoic center.
Job (Hebrew) ’Iyyōb Persecuted, tried; one of the books in the Bible, depicting the story of Job, regarded by Blavatsky as far older than the Pentateuch. She points out that there is no reference to any of the Hebrew patriarchs, that Jehovah is not mentioned in the poem itself, that there is no mention of the Sabbatical institution, and that there is a direct discussion on the worship of the heavenly bodies (prevailing in those days in Arabia). “The Book of Job is a complete representation of ancient initiation and the trials which generally precede this grandest of all ceremonies. The neophyte perceives himself deprived of everything he valued, and afflicted with foul disease. His wife appeals to him to adore God and die; there was no more hope for him” (IU 2:494-5). Elihu the hierophant teaches Job, now ready to learn the meaning of his experience, and Job is able to contact his own higher self or inner god.
Jonah, Jonas (Hebrew) Yōnāh Dove; a Hebrew prophet, son of Amitai, about whom the Bible story relates that he heard the voice of the Lord commanding him to go to Nineveh and cry out against the city because of its wickedness. But instead of following the command, Jonah set off upon a vessel bound to Jaffa, was subsequently cast overboard and swallowing by a “big fish,” in which he remains three days. This is reminiscent of the three days allotted to the initiation experience, and also of the fact that fish is a mystery-term imbodying the idea of either an advanced adept whose consciousness swims in the ether of space or, as in this place, an emblem of the initiation chamber. Further, primitive Christians often spoke of Jesus as the big fish and of themselves as little fishes (pisciculi).
Jubal (Hebrew) Yūbāl [from yābēl to flow, stream forth] River, stream; in the Bible the son of Lamech and Adah: “father of all such as handle the harp and organ” (Genesis 4:21). Jubal is compared to the kabiri who “fabricated the harp for Kronos and the trident for Poseidon” (SD 2:390).
Kabalah: The esoteric mystic lore of Judaism, based on an occult interpretation of the Bible and handed down as a secret doctrine to the initiated. It is an essential element in most schools of occultism.
Kerenhappuch (Hebrew) Qeren Happūkh Horn of paint, horn of antimony, or horn of Amalthea or plenty; in the Bible the third daughter of Job (42:14). HPB writes that this is a Pagan mythological name, not in its words but in its significance, and that it shows that the Book of Job is the work of an Initiate: “The presence in the Septuagint of this heroine of Pagan fable, shows the ingorance of the transcribers of its meaning as well as the exoteric origin of the Book of Job” (IU 2:496)
Ketuvim, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are considered one book, as are the two books of Chronicles). The Bible is therefore known in Hebrew as the Tanach, the abbreviation formed by the first letters of the names of these three sections.All the books of the Bible are authored by G-d, though transmitted through prophecy via the souls of the various prophets, who are known as the &
Kimah (Hebrew) Kīmāh [from kūm to heap, cluster together; or from kāmah to long for, be in love with something cf Sanskrit the verbal root kam] The Pleiades, known as the seven stars; mentioned in the Bible as bringing a sweet and gentle influence upon earth and men (Job 38:31).
Ladder Used symbolically in many cultures, to represent a means of ascending or descending to different worlds or the structure of the universe. “The Brahmanical Ladder symbolises the Seven Worlds or Sapta Loka; the Kabalistical Ladder, the seven lower Sephiroth; Jacob’s Ladder is spoken of in the Bible; the Mithraic Ladder is also the ‘Mysterious Ladder.’ Then there are the Rosicrucian, the Scandinavian, the Borsippa Ladders, . . . and finally the Theological Ladder which, . . . consists of the four cardinal and three theological virtues” (TG 185).
Lamech (Hebrew) Lemech In the Bible, a son of Methusael (a descendant of Cain), and also a son of Methuselah (a descendant of Seth) and the father of Noah (Genesis 4:18-24; 5:25-31). Genesis 4:16 through ch 5 “give purely historical facts; though the latter were never correctly interpreted. . . . Every woman is an euhemerized land or city; every man and patriarch a race, a branch, or a subdivision of a race. The wives of Lamech give the key to the riddle which some good scholar might easily master, even without studying the esoteric sciences” (IU 1:579).
Legends of the Bible. See Ginzberg.
Leibowitz, Nehamah (1902-1997) ::: Scholar of the Bible and its rabbinic interpretation; Israel.
Lewy, Immanuel. The Birth of the Bible. New York:
lign-aloes ::: n. --> Aloes wood, or agallochum. See Agallochum.
A fragrant tree mentioned in the Bible.
Lion In Christian mystical thought one of the four sacred animals of the Bible, associated with the evangelist Mark and, as in the mystical thought of other peoples, representing intense energy, sometimes undaunted courage, and occasionally the solar fire. The lion was a favorite symbol with the ancients, for instance with the Chaldeans, and as a leitmotif of Chaldean art is found extensively. It is also found frequently on Gnostic gems and as emblem and as symbol among the ancient Mithraists, where the lion was one of the stages of instruction and initiation.
Locke also was a political, economic and religious thinker of note. A "latitudinarian" and broad churchman in theology and a liberal in politics, he argued against the divine right of kings and the authority of the Bible and the Church, and maintained that political sovereignty rests upon the consent of the governed, and ecclesiastical authority upon the consent of reason. He was also an ardent defender of freedom of thought and speech. Main works: Two Treatises on Gov't, 1689; Reasonableness in Christianity, 1695; Some Thoughts on Education, 1693; An Essay on Human Understanding, 1690. -- B.A.G.F.
Logograms [from Greek logos words + gramma letter] A single letter or other sign representing a whole word. Many ancient esoteric writings are written wholly or partially in logograms, such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, certain names in the Vedas, and to some extent in the Bible, so that they have a hidden meaning beneath the sense of the words and sentences. The Chinese written language itself is logographical. In Hebrew and Greek, letters represent numbers, which also is often a key to hidden meanings. See also GEMATRIA
Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden.
Lost Books of the Bible.
Manson, T. W. (ed.). A Companion to the Bible. Edin¬
Masorah or Masoreth (Hebrew) Massōrāh, Massōreth Division, separation, arrangement, supposedly based upon tradition; applied to a school of rabbis in Palestine which flourished towards the commencement of the Christian era. Scholars differ as to the exact date during which the work was in process of perpetuating the alleged traditional method of vocalizing, and hence of pronouncing the vowelless Hebrew Manuscripts of the Bible by means of “points” or “punctating,” but assign the 7th century as the date of completion of the texts. This work in vocalization enabled the rabbis to place virtually any interpretation that they desired upon the vowelless Hebrew texts. See also MASORETIC POINTS
Masoretes, Masoretic text ::: Derived from masorah, meaning "tradition"; the Masoretes were the rabbis in ninth-century Palestine who sought to preserve the traditional text of the Bible (hence called the Masoretic text), which is still used in contemporary synagogues. The Masoretes were scholars who encouraged Bible study and attempted to achieve uniformity by establishing rules for correcting the text in matters of spelling, grammar and pronunciation. Masoretic (adj.) means that something is in accordance with the masorah.
Mishnah, authorities of: The authorities cited in the Mishnah as rings in "golden chain" of the Jewish masorah (tradition) are: Sopherim (scribes) known also as Anshe Keneseth Hagedolah (men of the great synod), beginning with Ezra of the Bible and terminating with Simeon the Just. Five Zugoth (duumviri) the last pair being the noted Hillel and Shamai. The former was according to E. Renan's hypothesis, a teacher of Jesus, Tannaim (repeaters) --They numbered 277 and are divided into 5 generations. In the first generation were men who still held office in the temple of Jerusalem and witnessed its destruction (70 A.D.). The second generation counts the celebrated Nasi Rabban Gamaliel II and R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, excommunicated for opposing the rule of the majority, R. Ishmael who was held hostage in Rome, and R. Akiba, supporter of Bar Koheba who suffered a martyr's death by the Romans, Elisha b, Abuiah, the heretic.
Moloch (Hebrew) Molekh Royal, king — another form of the more usual melekh; an idol of the Moabites and the Ammonites, also called Milcom, to which Jews after the time of Solomon are said to have sacrificed infants. Some scholars suggest that the Hebrews looked upon Moloch as the title of Yahweh or Yihweh (Jehovah). Even when occurring in the Bible the rendering is “the Molech,” and the idea is that of dedication — “to make one’s son or daughter pass through fire to (the) Molech” (2 King 23:10); and Jeremiah seems to indicate that immolation was practiced. Nothing of such a practice has been discovered in the ancient Assyrian or Babylonian empires, but ancient Greek writers have suggested that the Phoenicians had such a custom. Diodorus (19:14) mentions a Carthaginian idol made of brass into which children were placed, and compares it to the child-eating Kronos. Blavatsky suggests that the Moloch of the Ammonites was the King of the Hosts of Heaven, the sun (SD 1:397); and there was undoubtedly some such connection, yet antiquity has identified Kronos with the planet Saturn, which was held in reverence by all the ancient Shemitic peoples, the Jews included.
Moriah (Hebrew) Moriyyāh In the Bible, the Mount in Jerusalem on which Solomon built the temple (2 Chron 3:1).
mormon ::: n. --> A genus of sea birds, having a large, thick bill; the puffin.
The mandrill.
One of a sect in the United States, followers of Joseph Smith, who professed to have found an addition to the Bible, engraved on golden plates, called the Book of Mormon, first published in 1830. The Mormons believe in polygamy, and their hierarchy of apostles, etc., has control of civil and religious matters.
myrrh ::: n. --> A gum resin, usually of a yellowish brown or amber color, of an aromatic odor, and a bitter, slightly pungent taste. It is valued for its odor and for its medicinal properties. It exudes from the bark of a shrub of Abyssinia and Arabia, the Balsamodendron Myrrha. The myrrh of the Bible is supposed to have been partly the gum above named, and partly the exudation of species of Cistus, or rockrose.
Nabi’ (Hebrew) Nābī’ [from nābā’ to deliver an oracle] A prophet, one inspired to foretell future events; the name given to prophecy in the Bible. One of the “spiritual powers, such as divination, clairvoyant visions, trance-conditions, and oracles. But while enchanters, diviners, and even astrologers are strictly condemned in the Mosaic books, prophecy, seership, and nobia appear as the special gifts of heaven. In early ages they were all termed Epoptai, the Greek word for seers, clairvoyants; after which they were designated as Nebim [nebi’im] ‘the plural of Nebo, the Babylonian god of wisdom.’ The kabalist distinguishes between the seer and the magician; one is passive, the other active; Nebirah [nabi’] is one who looks into futurity and a clairvoyant; Nebi-poel [nebi’-po‘el], he who possesses magic powers” (IU 1:xxxvii).
Nahash (Hebrew) Nāḥāsh [from nāḥash to whisper, hiss, prognosticate, practice divination] Serpent; a constellation — the serpent or dragon in the northern quarter of the heavens; also a city. In the Bible, the name of two Ammonite kings (1, 2 Sam). Used by Western Qabbalists for the Evil One, supposedly meaning the “deprived,” referring to the serpent of the creation story as being deprived of limbs; but Blavatsky holds that this interpretation is erroneous, for “the Fire-Devas, the Rudras, and the Kumaras, the ‘Virgin-Angels,’ (to whom Michael and Gabriel, the Archangels, both belong), the divine ‘Rebels’ — called by the all-materializing and positive Jews, the Nahash or ‘Deprived’ — preferred the curse or incarnation and the long cycles of terrestrial existence and rebirths, to seeing the misery (even if unconscious) of the beings (evolved as shadows out of their Brethren) through the semi-passive energy of their too spiritual Creators. . . . This voluntary sacrifice of the Fiery Angels, whose nature was Knowledge and Love, was construed by the exoteric theologies into a statement that shows ‘the rebel angels hurled down from heaven into the darkness of Hell’ — our Earth” (SD 2:246). See also BRAZEN SERPENT
naturalism ::: n. --> A state of nature; conformity to nature.
The doctrine of those who deny a supernatural agency in the miracles and revelations recorded in the Bible, and in spiritual influences; also, any system of philosophy which refers the phenomena of nature to a blind force or forces acting necessarily or according to fixed laws, excluding origination or direction by one intelligent will.
Nature Philosophers: Name given to pre-Socratic "physiologers" and to Renaissance philosophers who revived the study of physical processes. Early in the 16th century, as a result of the discovery of new lands, the revival of maritime trade, and the Reformation, there appeared in Europe a renewed interest in nature. Rationalism grown around the authorities of the Bible and Aristotle was challenged and the right to investigate phenomena was claimed. Interest in nature was directed at first toward the starry heaven and resulted in important discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. The scientific spirit of observation and research had not yet matured, however, and the philosophers of that time blended their interest in facts with much loose speculation. Among the nature philosophers of that period three deserve to be mentioned specifically, Telesio, Bruno and Carnpanella, all natives of Southern Italy. Despite his assertions that thought should be guided by the observation of the external world, Bernardino Telesio (1508-1588) confined his works to reflections on the nature of things. Particularly significant are two of his doctrines, first, that the universe must be described in terms of matter and force, the latter classified as heat and cold, and second, that mind is akin to matter. Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), a Dominican monk and a victim of the Inquisition, was greatly influenced by the Copernican conception of the universe regarded by him as a harmonious unity of which the earth was but a small and not too important part. The concept of unity was not a condition of human search for truth but a real principle underlying all things and expressing the harmonious order of Divine wisdom. Deity, in his view, was the soul of nature, operating both in the human minds and in the motion of bodies. Consequently, both living beings and material objects must be regarded as animated. Tomaso Campanella (1568-1639), another Dominican monk, was also persecuted for his teachings and spent 27 years in prison. He contended that observations of nature were not dependent on the authority of reason and can be refuted only by other observations. His interests lay largely along the lines previously suggested by Telesio, and much of his thought was devoted to problems of mind, consciousness and knowledge. He believed that all nature was permeated by latent awareness, and may therefore be regarded as an animist or perhaps pantheist. Today, he is best known for his City of the Sun, an account of an imaginary ideal state in which existed neither property nor nobility and in which all affair were administered scientifically. -- R.B.W.
N’cabvah (Hebrew) Nĕqēbāh [from nāqab to hollow out, excavate] Cavity, pipe, or even a cavern, a phallic term applicable to the female, whether of beast or man, hence often used for woman or womb, equivalent to the Sanskrit yoni. Generally rendered female in English translations of the Bible, as in “God created man in his own image . . . male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). The words sacr together with n’cabvah comprise together a reference to the bipolarity in manifested nature, particularly as applicable to this globe; and in the phallic thought of a certain school of ancient Judaism intimately connected with an occult meaning of Jehovah as the so-called creator or bipolar producer; for the two words of which Jehovah itself is composed contain direct reference to original ideas of male-female, as birth-originator [jah or jod phallus + hawwah, havvah Eve, yoni] (cf SD 2:467).
Nimrod (Hebrew) Nimrod The traditional founder of the kingdom of Babylon, known in Babylonia as Izdubar or Gilgamesh. According to the Bible, the son of Cush; in legend a mighty hunter (Genesis 10:9). The name Nimrod has not been found prior to the period of the Israelites (500 BC). Blavatsky equates him with Bacchus, and calls him “the most powerful and strongest of physical men on this side of the flood — the last remnant of the antediluvian giants” (IU 1:150).
Notaricon, Notarikon (Hebrew) Nōṭārīqōn [from Latin notarius stenographer] Writing down, used for that branch of study known as the literal Qabbalah. One method of notaricon consists in selecting a word and then taking each of its letters to stand for another whole word, thus making of the letters of the selected word a whole sentence. The first word of the Bible (bere’shith) is a favorite one so employed. A second method consists of using the first and last letters of a selected word to form another word; or the two medial letters of the selected word. Needless to say, this method is solely one of individual skill and is a most difficult method for interpreting the Hebrew sacred scriptures.
oath ::: n. --> A solemn affirmation or declaration, made with a reverent appeal to God for the truth of what is affirmed.
A solemn affirmation, connected with a sacred object, or one regarded as sacred, as the temple, the altar, the blood of Abel, the Bible, the Koran, etc.
An appeal (in verification of a statement made) to a superior sanction, in such a form as exposes the party making the appeal to an indictment for perjury if the statement be false.
Oesterley in Manson, A Companion to the Bible,
of the Angel Raziel (op. cit.). In the Bible (I Chron¬
‘Og (Hebrew) ‘Ōg A king of Bashan, represented in the Bible as being of gigantic stature, and therefore as a survivor of the giants (Deut 3:11).
original sin: A theological doctrine, stemming from the Bible, arguing that all humans at the moment of conception inherit collective responsibility and guilt for the sins of Adam and Eve, along with an innate tendency towards evil.
PAPER POPE Just as the Roman Catholic Church has a pope invested with infallible authority for the believers, so the Protestant Churches have the Bible as their paper pope.
Paradise [from Greek paradeisos from Old Persian pairidaeza from Sanskrit paradesa region beyond] Applied in Persian and Greek to a pleasure park or royal domain. A Hebrew version (pardes) is found in the Bible, translated “orchard” (Eccl 2:5, Cant 4:3) and “forest” (Neh 2:8). An equivalent is the Hebrew eden (delight). Stories of a Paradise or Eden are universal; and while the general idea is simple, its applications are complex. It is the state of innocence and bliss from which there is departure, and to which there is eventual return. This may apply to the human race as a whole, to particular races, to the lands they inhabit, or to the pilgrimage of the individual human soul.
Pashut (Hebrew) Pāshūṭ [from pāshaṭ to uncover, strip] Stripped, uncovered; one of the four methods used by the Jews in interpreting the Bible.
pericope ::: n. --> A selection or extract from a book; especially (Theol.), a selection from the Bible, appointed to be read in the churches or used as a text for a sermon.
picturization in Schaff, A Dictionary of the Bible).
postil ::: n. --> Originally, an explanatory note in the margin of the Bible, so called because written after the text; hence, a marginal note; a comment.
A short homily or commentary on a passage of Scripture; as, the first postils were composed by order of Charlemagne. ::: v. t.
Pulcho chikchi simch'e yojol. (佛組直指心體要節). In Korean, "Essential Excerpts of the Buddhas and Patriarchs Pointing Directly to the Essence of Mind," also known by the abbreviated titles Chikchi simch'e yojol, or simply Chikchi; the earliest surviving example from anywhere in the world of a text printed using movable metal type, predating Gutenberg's 1455 printing of the Bible by seventy-eight years. The two-roll lineage anthology of the CHAN school was compiled in 1372 by PAEGUN KYoNGHAN (1299-1374), one of the three great Son masters of the late-Koryo dynasty. This anthology was first printed in 1377 at Hŭngdoksa (the ruins of which were located in 1985 in Unch'ondong, near the city of Ch'ongju in South Korea) using movable cast-metal type. This printing technology was known to have been in use in Koryo-period Korea prior to the Mongol invasions of 1231-1232, but no examples survive. The metal-type printing of the Chikchi is held in the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, and its existence was first noted by Maurice Courant in 1901. The first roll of the anthology includes the enlightenment poems of the seven buddhas of antiquity (SAPTATATHĀGATA), the twenty-eight Indian patriarchs of the Son school (starting with MAHĀKĀsYAPA and ending with BODHIDHARMA), the six Chinese patriarchs (ZUSHI) of Chan, and several later Son masters. The second roll is a collection of the poetry, epitaphs, discourse records, and seminal teachings of eminent masters of the Son school, such as the fourteen "nondualities" (ADVAYA) of Kyonghan's Indian teacher ZHIKONG CHANXIAN (K. Chigong Sonhyon; S. *Dhyānabhadra). Like many of these lineage anthologies, the text is derivative, drawing on such earlier genealogical collections as the JINGDE CHUANDENG LU and the SoNMUN YoMSONG CHIP of CHIN'GAK HYESIM (1178-1234). Although the entire first roll and the first page of the second roll of the metal-type recension are lost, a complete xylographic edition of the anthology survives, which dates to 1378, one year later than the metal-type recension.
quote :::The aim of all religions and philosophies is the understanding and the realization of unity. The Vedanta philosophy teaches advaita: there is no such thing as 'two'; the whole is one and the same being. In the Bible it is said, 'I
Rahab among the named angels of the Bible
Rashi ::: (1040-1105) Acronym for Rabbi Solomon (Sholomo) ben Isaac, a great medieval sage of Troyes, France. He is the author of fundamental commentaries on the Talmud, and one of the most beloved and influential commentaries on the Bible. Characterized by great lucidity and pedagogy, his comments emphasized the plain, straightforward sense of a text.
Re’shith (Hebrew) Rē’shīth [from rosh head, chief, principal, first, beginning] Beginning, headship, the most excellent or highest of a series; wisdom. The first word in the Bible (prefixed by the prepositional letter B, meaning in, through, or by means of). “The fathers . . . dreaded above all to have the esoteric and true meaning of the word Rasit [re’shith] unveiled to the multitudes; for if once the true sense of this sentence, as well as that of the Hebrew word asdt . . . were understood rightly, the mystery of the Christian trinity would have crumbled, carrying in its downfall the new religion into the same heap of ruins with the ancient Mysteries”; “Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, Chalcidius, Methodius, and Maimonides, on the authority of the Targum of Jerusalem, the orthodox and greatest authority of the Jews, held that the first two words in the book of Genesis — b-rasit, mean Wisdom, or the Principle. And that the idea of these words meaning “in the beginning” was never shared but by the profane, who were not allowed to penetrate any deeper into the esoteric sense of the sentence” (IU 2:34, 35). The beginning of Genesis is quite correctly translated “by wisdom,” or “by means of wisdom,” (cf Fund 98-102). See also BERE’SHITH
Reuel-Jethro (Hebrew) Rĕ‘ū’ēl Yityrō In the Bible a priest of Midian having seven daughters and giving one of them (Zipporah) in marriage to Moses (Ex 2:16). “Jethro is called the ‘father-in-law’ of Moses; not because Moses was really married to one of his seven daughters. Moses was an Initiate, if he ever existed, and as such an ascetic, a nazar, and could never be married. It is an allegory like everything else. Zipporah (the shining) is one of the personified Occult Sciences given by Revel-Jethro, the Midian priest Initiator, to Moses, his Egyptian pupil. The ‘well’ by which Moses sat down in his flight from the Pharaoh symbolizes the ‘well of Knowledge’ ” (SD 2:465n).
revelation ::: n. --> The act of revealing, disclosing, or discovering to others what was before unknown to them.
That which is revealed.
The act of revealing divine truth.
That which is revealed by God to man; esp., the Bible.
Specifically, the last book of the sacred canon, containing the prophecies of St. John; the Apocalypse.
Saadia, ben Joseph: (Arabic Sa'id Al-Fayyumi) (892-942) Born and educated in Egypt, he left his native country in 915 and settled in Babylonia where he was appointed in 928 Gaon of the Academy of Sura. He translated the Bible into Arabic and wrote numerous works, both in Hebrew and Arabic, in the fields of philology, exegesis, Talmudics, polemics, Jewish history, and philosophy. His chief philosophical work is the Kitab Al-Amanat wa'l-Itikadat, better known by its Hebrew title, Emunot we-Deott, i.e., Doctrines and Religious Beliefs. Its purpose is to prove the compatibility of the principles of Judaism with reason and to interpret them in such a way that their rationality be evident The first nine sections establish philosophically the ten fundamental articles of faith, and the tenth deals with ethics. Philosophically, Saadia was influenced by the teachings of the Mutazilia. See Jewish Philosophy. -- Q.V.
Sabbath ::: The seventh day of the week (Shabbat), recalling the completion of the creation and the Exodus from Egypt. It is a day symbolic of new beginnings and one dedicated to God, a most holy day of rest. The commandment of rest is found in the Bible and has been elaborated by the rabbis. It is a special duty to study Torah on the Sabbath and to be joyful. Sabbaths near major festivals (see calendar) are known by special names.
Sapphire Many ancient peoples knew how to avail themselves of the magical virtues of precious stones. The sapphire was especially valued because supposed to enshrine some of the influences of Venus as transmitted through other attributes to Luna or the higher aspect of the Moon, and so to be able to induce equanimity and banish evil thoughts. ” ‘The sapphire,’ say the Buddhists, ‘will open barred doors and dwellings (for the spirit of man); it produces a desire for prayer, and brings with it more peace than any other gem; but he who would wear it must lead a pure and holy life’ ” (IU 1:265). Modern authorities surmise that the sappheiros of the Greeks and the sappir of the Bible were our lapis lazuli, while our sapphire was called hyacinthus. The same qualities are attributed to the color blue.
Sarah, Sarai (Hebrew) Śārāh Princess; in the Bible, the wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac. Like Eve, a type-figure standing for motherhood and in a phallic sense for the womb. One key to interpreting the verses: “God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be” (Genesis 17:15), lies in the moon and water; Blavatsky compares it to the Hindu legend of Brahma and Sarasvati or Sri (SD 2:77).
Satan [from Hebrew śāṭān adversary, opposer from the verbal root śāṭan to lie in wait, oppose, be an adversary; or possibly from the verbal root shut to whip, scourge, run hither and thither on errands; Greek satan, satanas] Adversary; with the definite article (has-satan) the adversary in the Christian sense, as the Devil. This Satan of the exoteric Jewish and Christian books is a mere figment of the monkish theological imagination. From the second possible derivation many eminent Shemitic scholars have held that the Satan of the Book of Job was a good angel arranged by God to try the characters of men in order to help them; and therefore supposedly to be different from the Satan of other books of the Bible. The theosophist would not limit the good angel to the Book of Job alone, but would look upon the adversative or contrary forces of nature as being the means upon which each one tries his will, resolution, and determination to evolve and grow spiritually and intellectually. The Satan of this hypothesis is in a sense our own lower character combined with the lower forces of nature surrounding earth and elsewhere.
SchafF, A Dictionary of the Bible, p. 26, where
Schaff, Philip (ed.). A Dictionary of the Bible. Phila¬
scripture ::: n. --> Anything written; a writing; a document; an inscription.
The books of the Old and the new Testament, or of either of them; the Bible; -- used by way of eminence or distinction, and chiefly in the plural.
A passage from the Bible;; a text.
seferzohar ::: Sefer Zohar The Sefer Zohar consists of mystical commentaries and homilies on the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). It was written by Moses de Leon (13th century AD) but attributed by him to Simon ben Yohai, the great scholar of the 2nd century AD. See also Torah and Kabbalah.
Shekhinah ::: Divine presence. The Bible refers to God’s dwelling in the midst of the children of Israel (Exod. 13:21-2; 40:34-8). Subsequently the concept of the Shekhinah embodied God’s presence in the world. In Kabbalistic sources the term Shekhinah refers to the tenth Sefirah, representing God’s feminine aspect.
Shir Ha Shirim ::: Song of Songs. ::: Shiur ::: A lesson, generally refers to a lesson on the Bible, Mishnah, or Talmud.
socinianism ::: n. --> The tenets or doctrines of Faustus Socinus, an Italian theologian of the sixteenth century, who denied the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the personality of the Devil, the native and total depravity of man, the vicarious atonement, and the eternity of future punishment. His theory was, that Christ was a man divinely commissioned, who had no existence before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary; that human sin was the imitation of Adam&
Sod occurs frequently in the Old Testament, translated as secret or assembly, where Mysteries would be a more correct rendering: e.g., “Jacob called unto his sons, and said . . . Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. . . . come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly” (Genesis 49:1, 5-6). The Bible is “a series of historical records of the great struggle between white and black Magic, between the Adepts of the right path, the Prophets, and those of the left, the Levites, the clergy of the brutal masses. . . . The great schism that arose between the sons of the Fourth Race, as soon as the first Temples and Halls of Initiation had been erected under the guidance of ‘the Sons of God,’ is allegorized in the Sons of Jacob. That there were two schools of Magic, and that the orthodox Levites did not belong to the holy one, is shown in the words pronounced by the dying Jacob” (SD 2:211).
“Some of the Targums are very mystical, the Aramaic (or Targumatic) language being used all through the Zohar and other Kabbalistic works. To distinguish this language from the Hebrew, called the ‘face’ of the sacred tongue, it is referred to as ahorayim, the ‘back part,’ the real meaning of which must be read between the lines, according to certain methods given to students. . . . The Book of Daniel begins in Hebrew, and is fully comprehensible till chap. ii, v. 4, when the Chaldees (the Magician-Initiates) begin speaking to the king in Aramaic — not in Syriac, as mistranslated in the Protestant Bible. Daniel speaks in Hebrew before interpreting the king’s dream to him; but explains the dream itself (chap. vii.) in Aramaic. ‘So in Ezra iv., v., and vi., the words of the kings being there literally quoted, all matters connected therewith are in Aramaic,’ says Isaac Myer in his Qabbalah [p. 53]. The Targumim are of different ages, the latest already showing signs of the Massoretic or vowel-system, which made them still more full of intentional blinds. The precept of the Pirke Aboth (c. i., §I), ‘Make a fence to the Thorah’ (law), has indeed been faithfully followed in the Bible as in the Targumim; and wise is he who would interpret either correctly, unless he is an old Occultist-Kabbalist” (TG 321).
Sometimes called the sacred animals of the Bible, they have been associated by Christians with the four evangelists. In this connection, “each represents one of the four lower classes of worlds or planes, into the similitude of which each personality is cast. Thus the Eagle (associated with St. John) represents cosmic Spirit or Ether, the all-piercing Eye of the Seer; the Bull of St. Luke, the waters of Life, the all-generating element and cosmic strength; the Lion of St. Mark, fierce energy, undaunted courage and cosmic fire; while the human Head or the Angel, which stands near St. Matthew is the synthesis of all three combined in the higher Intellect of man, and in cosmic Spirituality. . . . The Eagle, Bull and Lion-headed gods are plentiful, and all represented the same idea, whether in the Egyptian, Chaldean, Indian or Jewish religions, but beginning with the Astral body they went no higher than the cosmic Spirit or the Higher Manas — Atma-Buddhi, or Absolute Spirit and Spiritual Soul its vehicle, being incapable of being symbolised by concrete images” (TG 121).
Sortilegium (Latin) [from sors lot + lego choose] Divination by drawing lots; a practice of wide diffusion in antiquity, and constantly mentioned in literature of classical Greek and Latin as well as of other countries, and still practiced in some places. One form of it consisted in picking at random in the pages of a book, after due concentration of the mind on the object to be obtained. This was done by the Romans in their sortes Virgilianae, and the early Christians practiced it with the Bible, as a means of ascertaining the divine will or obtaining guidance. Augustine even sanctioned this practice, provided it was not done for worldly ends, and indulged in it himself. The word sorcery is also derived from sors through late Latin and French, and sortilege was often regarded as a form of sorcery — as indeed it was when the knowledge sought was desired for the purposes of evil. It is the motive in these matters which distinguishes the good from the bad. See also DIVINATION
Sri Aurobindo: "The word is a sound expression of the idea. In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea. That is the principle of the Mantras and of Japa. One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine. It is the same idea that is expressed in the Bible: ‘God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light". It is creation by the Word.” *The Future Poetry
Still another emblem is that of the ark or argha, well known in the Occident from the Bible story, the ark here meaning the container or seeds of lives left by a departed life-wave or group of life-waves, remaining stored in the womb of nature for the generation of new races.
Substitute Word According to Masonic ritual, the Master’s Word was lost through the death of Hiram Abif; the other two Masters, King Solomon and King Hiram agree that the Word shall be used as a substitute for the Master’s word, until such time as the true one is discovered. Among the Pythagoreans the ineffable Word “was considered the Seventh and highest of all, for there are six minor substitutes, each belongs to a degree of initiation” (IU 2:418). Among the Jews, ’Adonai is spoken as a substitute for the Tetragrammaton, incorrectly transliterated in the Bible as Jehovah, and always pronounced as Adonai.
Tallis(t) ::: A large, four-cornered shawl with fringes and special knots at the extremities, worn during Jewish morning prayers. The fringes, according to the Bible (Numbers 15.38-39), remind the worshiper of God's commandments. It is traditional for the male to be buried in his tallit, but without its fringes.
Tanach (&
Tannaim (Hebrew) Tannā’īm Teachers; initiated teachers among the Jews; adepts and Qabbalists who, says Blavatsky, were “the sole expounders of the hidden meaning contained in the Bible,” said to be the first Qabbalists among the Jews, appearing at Jerusalem about the beginning of the 3rd century BC. (IU 2:220; 1:xxxiv).
Targum (&
Temple of Solomon The building of this temple, according to the Bible, was first projected by King David, but on command of the Lord was not carried out by him because he had “shed much blood.” David, however, assembled materials and workmen. To aid him in building the Temple, his son Solomon appealed to Hiram or Huram, King of Tyre, to send him a skillful artisan, and King Hiram sent Hiram Abif to Solomon, also workmen and additional supplies of timber.
Tempter In general, the human mind, whether reacting to outside impulsions or impressions, or from within its own relatively small and uninspired powers; it has been commonly typified by the dragon, Satan, Zeus, etc. “Zeus is represented as a serpent — the intellectual tempter of man — which, nevertheless, begets in the course of cyclic evolution the ‘Man-Saviour,’ the solar Bacchus or ‘Dionysus,’ more than a man” (SD 2:419-20). Indeed, often it is our higher nature which “tempts” us upwards by calling forth latent or inner powers which, once evoked, are the ladder by which we climb. Thus our tempter is also our redeemer. The esoteric teaching of the tempting of humankind by awakening in its light of intellect has been materialized into a sensual temptation by a Devil in the Garden of Eden; and in the Bible, an evolutionary phase has been theologically degraded into a sin. The astral light is also spoken of as the tempter, especially by Eliphas Levi.
that, on the contrary, the Bible was the last place to look for them. True, angels are mentioned
thebaic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Thebes in Egypt; specifically, designating a version of the Bible preserved by the Copts, and esteemed of great value by biblical scholars. This version is also called the Sahidic version.
the Bible (Genesis 14), Melchisedec is the fabled
the Bible. New York: Harper [1955].
the Bible.]
the Bible) W. O. E. Oesterley expresses the belief
The Demiourgos, however, is the deity in its creative aspect, the Second Logos — not a personal deity, but an abstract term denoting the host of creative powers. Later, the conception was anthropomorphized. It is the elohim of the Bible who make kosmos out of chaos; the universal mind, separated from its fountain-source; the four-faced Brahma; the seven principal dhyani-chohans. In the Qabbalah, Hokhmah (wisdom) becomes united with Binah (intelligence), which latter is Jehovah or the Demiourgos. But the Demiourgos itself is dual in the same sense as are those formative powers for which the name stands: acting on all planes from the highest to the lowest, the contrast between above and below, light and its shadow, is shown; added to which, it includes potencies which are symbolized by human minds as masculine and feminine. There was plenty of scope, then, for confusion as to the meaning and application of the word. See also ARCHITECTS; DHYANI-CHOHANS; LOGOS
The differences begin when the questions of the mode of creation and mediators between God and the world are dealt with. In these matters there are to be noted three variations. Saadia rejected entirely the theory of the emanation of separate intelligences, and teaches God's creation from nothing of all beings in the sublunar and upper worlds. He posits that God created first a substratum or the first air which was composed of the hyle and form and out of this element all beings were created, not only the four elements, the components of bodies in the lower world, but also the angels, stars, and the spheres. Bahya's conception is similar to that of Saadia. The Aristotelians, Ibn Daud, Maimonides, and Gersonides accepted the theory of the separate intelligences which was current in Arabic philosophy. This theory teaches that out of the First Cause there emanated an intelligence, and out of this intelligence another one up to nine, corresponding to the number of spheres. Each of these intelligences acts as the object of the mind of a sphere and is the cause of its movement. The tenth intelligence is the universal intellect, an emanation of all intelligences which has in its care the sublunar world. This theory is a combination of Aristotelian and neo-PIatonic teachings; Ibn Daud posits, however, in addition to the intelligences also the existence of angels, created spiritual beings, while Maimonides seems to identify the angels with the intelligences, and also says that natural forces are also called angels in the Bible. As for creation, Ibn Daud asserts that God created the hyle or primal matter and endowed it with general form from which the specific forms later developed. Maimonides seems to believe that God first created a substance consisting of primal matter and primal form, and that He determined by His will that parts of it should form the matter of the spheres which is imperishable, while other parts should form the matter of the four elements. These views, however, are subject to various interpretations by historians. Gabirol and Gersonides posit the eternal existence of the hyle and limit creation to endowing it with form and organization -- a view close to the Platonic.
The early Christian Fathers connected the moon and its functions with Jehovah — as the proximate but not causal “giver of life and death.” Moreover “With the Israelites, the chief function of Jehovah was child-giving, and the esotericism of the Bible, interpreted Kabalistically, shows undeniably the Holy of Holies in the temple to be only the symbol of the womb. . . . This idea must certainly have been borrowed by the Jews from the Egyptians and Indians . . .” (SD 1:264). Jehovah is likewise identified with the serpent or dragon that tempted Eve, the dragon often standing for the primordial principle.
-. The Modern Use of the Bible. New York: Mac¬
The opening words of the Bible refer directly to the activities of the ’elohim, for this is the sole divine name mentioned in Genesis 1:1-2. De Purucker translates these verses from the original Hebrew as: “In a host (or multitude), the gods (Elohim) formed themselves into the heavens and the earth. And the earth became ethereal. And darkness upon the face of the ethers. And the ruah (the spirit-soul) of the gods (of Elohim) fluttered or hovered, brooding” (cf Fund 99-100). He goes on to say that “we see that the Elohim evolved man, humanity, out of themselves, and told them to become, then to enter into and inform these other creatures. Indeed, these sons of the Elohim are, in our teachings, the children of light, the sons of light, which are we ourselves, and yet different from ourselves, because higher, yet they are our own very selves inwardly. In fact, the Elohim, became, evolved into, their own offspring, remaining in a sense still always the inspiring light within, or rather above . . . the Elohim projected themselves into the nascent forms of the then ‘humanity,’ which thenceforward were ‘men,’ however imperfect their development still was” (Fund 101-2).
The prayer and the desire of all great souls was that the light given in all the different forms such as the Buddhist scriptures, the Qur'an, the Bible or the teachings of Krishna or Zarathushtra, should be known by everyone. The work of the Sufi message is to spread the unity of religion. It is not a mission to promote a particular creed or any Church or religion. It is a work to unite the followers of different religions and faiths in wisdom, so that without having to give up their own religion they may strengthen their own faith and focus the true light upon it.
There is an old legend prevalent among many peoples that the color of human skin changes from light to dark as the ages slowly pass by: the legend stating that the first in any new great racial group or stock is light-colored or moon-colored, slowly changing to a more ruddy shade verging into cream or yellow, becoming gradually brown and darker brown, and ending with chocolate or what is called black. Yet the meaning is not that every race runs through these changing tints from light to dark during the course of its evolution, but that the different minor racial groupings, appearing each in its day during the course of the slow evolution of a root-race, gradually range from the root-race’s beginning from the light, and passing gradually through the different stages to the chocolate. Nor is it again to be understood that theosophy teaches that all mankind sprang either from an original pair, as metaphorically taught in the Bible, but that in the beginnings of time seven primary seed-groupings appeared on earth from inner realms, each with its own tint or color as we would now say, and each of the seven having its own karmically defined position on the ladder of evolution.
“The seven Stanzas given in this volume represent the seven terms of this abstract formula. They refer to, and describe the seven great stages of the evolutionary process, which are spoken of in the Puranas as the ‘Seven Creations,’ and in the Bible as the ‘Days’ of Creation” (SD 1:20-1).
These words, however, can have the same impersonal and abstract significance that have the linga and yoni in India. Zachar is generally rendered “male” in the English translation of the Bible: “It is the phallus which is the vehicle of the enunciation; and truly enough, as the sacr, or carrier of the germ, its use has passed down through ages to the sacr-factum of the Roman priest, and sacr-fice and sacr-ment of the English-speaking race” (Source of Measures 236).
The Talmud proved the greatest factor for keeping alive the religious ideas of the Jewish people, especially after the fall of Jerusalem and its temple, together with the Old Testament becoming the Bible of the Hebrews. Both were regarded reverentially, for whereas the Pentateuch was the Torah or written word of Moses, the Talmud was believed to be the prophet’s oral teaching transmitted.
The word Sabean itself has come down to us mainly through Greek and Latin writers, but so thoroughly imbued were the ancient Hebrews with this idea of the celestial hosts or cosmic spirits that the Bible is full of references where the context even wrongly endows the celestial hosts with the properties of the Most High God, and it has been so understood by Christian theologians; forgetting, however, that manifested deities, however high, are but the manifestations of the infinite and ineffable Mystery or parabrahman, from which all the celestial hosts flow or emanate. Thus not only ancient and modern Judaism, but Christianity itself, is filled with the thought of the ancient Sabeans.
The zodiac is found everywhere among the civilized nations, such as the Chaldeans, Hindus, Egyptians, Chinese, and in Job (said to be the oldest book in the Bible); but its antiquity is lost in the night of time. The zodiac may briefly be described as a book on evolution in twelve chapters, and as such its applications and correspondences are innumerable. Time is marked by the passage of the planets through its signs, by their conjunctions in various positions, and by the movement of the nodes and apsides of planets; so that the whole course of cycles large and small can be calculated and the past and future read by those who understand. The twelve divisions of the ecliptic or fixed zodiac have the same names and significance as the zodiacal constellations. They may be applied to cycles in history, such as the Messianic cycle, to races of mankind, and to the human constitution, mental and physical. When applied to the globes of the earth planetary chain — using the esoteric computation of a twelvefold system — the rectors of the houses of the zodiac have each predominance over one globe of the earth-chain.
Thomism ::: The philosophical school that followed in the legacy of Thomas Aquinas. The word comes from the name of its originator, whose summary work Summa Theologiae has arguably been second to only the Bible in importance to the Catholic Church.
“Thus it is only in the anthromorphised systems (such as the Kabala has now greatly become) that Shekinah-Sakti is feminine. As such she becomes the Duad of Pythagoras, the two straight lines of the symbol that can never meet, which therefore form no geometrical figure and are the symbol of matter. Out of the Duad, when united in one basic line of the triangle on the lower plane (the upper Triangle of the Sephirothal Tree), emerge the Elohim, or Deity in Cosmic Nature, with the true Kabalists, the lowest designation, translated in the Bible ‘God’” (SD 1:618-9).
Torrey, R. A. Difficulties in the Bible. New York:
Towers An edifice which rests on earth and, mystically speaking, aspires upwards toward heaven; coming under the general description of high places appropriate, like mountaintops and other natural and artificial elevations, to the worship of celestial powers. Found in many parts of the world, their origin is lost in the obscurity of ages. Prominent among them are the round towers found in Ireland, Scotland, Corsica, Sardinia, etc., undoubtedly used for different purposes at different times: by warriors as fortresses, by priests as sanctuaries and initiation chambers, or as watchtowers, belfries, or places of refuge. The cylindrical shape indicates symbolically the great positive and active principle in nature. In the Bible the tower is erected physically, and spoken of metaphorically, as an emblem of might and aspiration.
“Typhon, called Set, who was a great god in Egypt during the early dynasties, is an aspect of Baal and Ammon as also of Siva, Jehovah and other gods. Baal is the all-devouring Sun, in one sense, the fiery Moloch” (TG 47). As to the leaping of the prophets of Ba‘al, mentioned in the Bible (1 Kings 18:26), Blavatsky writes: “It was simply a characteristic of the Sabean worship, for it denoted the motion of the planets round the sun. That the dance was a Bacchic frenzy is apparent. Sistra were used on the occasion” (IU 2:45).
Ulfilas [from Gothic wulfila little wolf] A Gothic Christian bishop (311-81) who translated the Bible into Gothic, thus preserving the Gothic tongue even to our day. For his translation he invented a written alphabet by building upon the Greek alphabet and supplementing it for some of the Gothic runes. The principal manuscripts of his translation are preserved at the University of Upsala, called the Codex Argenteus (Silver Codex), as it is written in silver characters on a purple ground.
unbeliever ::: n. --> One who does not believe; an incredulous person; a doubter; a skeptic.
A disbeliever; especially, one who does not believe that the Bible is a divine revelation, and holds that Christ was neither a divine nor a supernatural person; an infidel; a freethinker.
Used in connection with Jehovah as well as with non-Jewish gods. Its plural form is ’elim, whereas the Hebrew plural ’elohim is, strictly speaking, the plural of a cognate Chaldee and Hebrew word ’eloah. This last word has a feminine termination, whereas the plural has the masculine termination, thus imbodying in curious fashion both masculine and feminine attributes when used in the plural form. In translations from the Bible, ’elohim is usually translated into English as God, whereas Jehovah is usually rendered into English as Lord. See also ALHIM
Vulgate ::: From Latin, common, popular. The official Roman Catholic Latin version of the Bible, prepared or edited by Jerome (Hieronymus) around the year 400 C.E. See also Septuagint.
Waldenses A movement arising in the last quarter of the 12th century in the south of France, when Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons, distributed his wealth among the poor and went forth as a preacher of voluntary poverty, likewise preaching the doctrines of the Christ. He had the Bible translated into the language of the Provence, which he and his followers read and interpreted in their own way. This brought upon them the wrath of the clergy. At length Pope Alexander prohibited them from preaching without the permission of the bishops (1179). To this Waldo replied that he must obey God rather than man — for which he was excommunicated by Lucius III in 1184, which brought on a persecution of the Waldenses which continued through the Middle Ages. During the cruel and bloody crusade against the Albigenses, the Waldenses were also attacked and almost exterminated: they survived by fleeing into the mountains and secluded valleys of the Alps. Nevertheless the persecution continued inasmuch as their doctrines were called heretical. Many adherents joined the various reforming movements which arose in Europe from time to time — such as the Hussite, Lutheran, and Protestant — although a center remained in the valleys of the Vaudois even to the present day.
Wand The wand of Hermes or caduceus, the magician’s wand, the rods of Moses and Aaron, the scepter of kings which shows the force of temporal power, and the crosier of a bishop, are prototypes and antitypes of a universal principle — the straight line, representing the masculine, active, positive power in nature. The magician may be said to possess a magic wand — a name for the power he can wield — and there may be various material copies of this, ranging from an actual magic wand supposedly prepared according to secret formulas, down to the humble stick or cudgel with which the ruffian enforces his will. The words rod and staff are often used figuratively as well as literally in the Bible.
Westminster Historical Allas to the Bible, (ed.) George
Westminster Historical Atlas to the Bible, shows a
What then is the explanation of the otherwise contradictory statements in the Bible regarding Solomon? Even from a historical and ethnological standpoint one may find a clue, for along purely exoteric lines there is nothing foreign in Solomon’s “idolatry” and his worship of other deities. The same racial strain ran through all the surrounding peoples as in Israel, and the respective worships, gods, and goddesses were all closely interrelated, derived from the same Babylonian concepts, appearing under different names — Blavatsky shows the identity of the mystery gods of the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, and Israelites (SD 2:3). The gods and goddesses of the nations surrounding the Jews were all theologically interrelated, aspects or permutations of the same basic idea; and, as worshiped by the people, all were variants and, in their exoteric forms, degradations of the original conception on which every great theogony and cosmogony was built (cf SD 2:535 et seq).
Witch of Endor The wise woman of Endor or ’Eyn-dor, mentioned in the Bible as having “a familiar spirit” (Sam 28:7-25), who called up the shade of Samuel at the request of the dejected Saul, saying: “I saw gods ascending out of the earth”; and the prophecy of Saul’s death and Israel’s fall into the hands of the Philistines proved to be correct. Blavatsky speaks of her as “Sedecla, the Obeah woman of Endor” (IU 1:494); Sedecla may be a transliteration of an old Hebrew name Tsedeqlah [from tsedeq righteous, just, exact, accurate] — a possible reference to her necromantic skill. She was one of the class of psychic seeresses so well known in ancient story, whose practices were almost universally condemned.
Wizard Book ::: (publication) Hal Abelson, Gerald Sussman and Julie Sussman's Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (MIT Press, 1984; ISBN 0-262-01077-1), called because of the wizard on the jacket. One of the bibles of the LISP/Scheme world. Also, less commonly, known as the Purple Book.[Jargon File] (1995-01-10)
Word ::: “The word is a sound expression of the idea. In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea. That is the principle of the Mantras and of Japa. One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine. It is the same idea that is expressed in the Bible: ‘God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light’. It is creation by the Word.” The Future Poetry
Yalkut Shimoni ::: A 13th-century midrashic anthology on the Bible attributed to a certain Simeon; Germany.
YHWH (Yahweh) ::: The sacred name of God in Jewish scriptures and tradition; also known as the tetragrammaton. Since Hebrew was written without vowels in ancient times, the four consonants YHWH contain no clue to their original pronunciation. They are generally rendered “Yahweh” in contemporary scholarship. In traditional Judaism, the name is not pronounced, but Adonai (“Lord”) or something similar is substituted. In most English versions of the Bible the tetragrammaton is represented by "LORD" (or less frequently, “Jehovah”). Yiddish (from German “Juedisch” or Jewish). The vernacular of Ashkenazic Jews; it is a combination of several languages, especially Hebrew and German, written in Hebrew script.
Yod, Yodh (Hebrew) Yōd The tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet yodrepresenting the number 10. A great deal has been written about this Hebrew character by Jewish Qabbalists because it is the first character in the name of the Hebrew God (IHVH) transliterated as Jehovah or Yahweh. The pronunciation of this name for ages past has been lost, and the Jews, when coming upon it in the Bible, have either mentally or aloud substituted the word ’Adonai (my Lords).
Zamzummim (Hebrew) Zamzummīm [from the verbal root zāmam to meditate, think upon, devising successful plans, ponder successfully; to be strong, vigorous, powerful] A race of prehistoric giants in Palestine, described in the Bible (Deut 2:21). See also ANAK, SONS OF
Zipporah (Hebrew) Tsipporāh A circling, revolving, hence song or singing as a circling of sound; in the Bible, one of the seven daughters of Jethro, the Midianite priest, given in marriage to Moses after the latter had assisted her at the well (Ex 2). In one interpretation, “Jethro is called the ‘father-in-law’ of Moses; not because Moses was really married to one of his seven daughters. Moses was an Initiate, if he ever existed, and as such an ascetic, a nazar, and could never be married. It is an allegory like everything else. Zipporah (the shining) is one of the personified Occult Sciences given by Revel-Jethro, the Midian priest Initiator, to Moses, his Egyptian pupil. The ‘well’ by which Moses sat down in his fight from the Pharaoh symbolizes the ‘well of Knowledge’ ” (SD 2:466n).
Zohar: A Jewish mystical work, the oldest known treatise on Hebrew esoteric teachings, which became the classic text of the Kabalah and the Bible of medieval mysticism and occultism. It is a compendium of Jewish esoteric thought on the nature and attributes of God, the mysteries of the Tetragrammaton (q.v.), the evolution of the cosmos, the nature of man’s soul, magic, astrology, etc.
KEYS (10k)
302 Anonymous
4 Manly P Hall
2 Sri Ramana Maharshi
1 William Blake
1 Waking Life
1 Tom Butler-Bowdon
1 Sri Ramana Maharshi
1 Robert Heinlein
1 Martin Buber
1 Mark Winborn
1 Lewis Carroll
1 James V. Schall
1 Isaac Newton
1 For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a evil net or birds trapped in a snare
1 The Mother
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
96 Anonymous
26 Billy Graham
19 Thomas Paine
18 Timothy J Keller
18 Charles Spurgeon
17 R C Sproul
17 Peter Enns
16 Dwight L Moody
15 Max Lucado
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12 Mark Twain
11 Harper Lee
11 D A Carson
10 Scot McKnight
10 John Piper
10 J I Packer
9 Abraham Lincoln
8 Robert Green Ingersoll
8 Rick Warren
8 Martin Luther
1:God is Love. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1 4:7-21, #KEYS
2:I and my Father are one. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 10:30, #KEYS
3:Pray without ceasing. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Thessalonians, 1, 5:17, #KEYS
4:Pray, lest ye enter into temptation. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Luke, 22:40, #KEYS
5:Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 17:17, #KEYS
6:Kenosis: Christ emptied Himself
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Philippians, 2:7,#KEYS
7:Many are called, but few are chosen. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 22:14, #KEYS
8:For now we see through a glass, darkly... ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 13:12, #KEYS
9:Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 119:105, #KEYS
10:Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 16:1,#KEYS
11:I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 15:1, #KEYS
12:And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1:16, #KEYS
13:A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 23:1, #KEYS
14:As a man thinketh in his heart so shall he be
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 23:7,#KEYS
15:It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 118:8, #KEYS
16:The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Exodus, 14:14, #KEYS
17:Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Job, 5 7, #KEYS
18:I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 119:55, #KEYS
19:Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 17:17,#KEYS
20:For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 10:13, #KEYS
21:The FOOL Has Said In His Heart:There is No God!" ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 14:1, [T5], #KEYS
22:He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 4:8, [T5], #KEYS
23:You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 7:23, #KEYS
24:Let nothing hinder thee from praying always ... ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, 18:22, #KEYS
25:Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 55:6, #KEYS
26:Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 26:4, #KEYS
27:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 6:21, #KEYS
28:But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, James, 1:22, #KEYS
29:But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 6:17, #KEYS
30:Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually! ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Chronicles, 16:11, #KEYS
31:For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 6:20, #KEYS
32:I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 8:17, #KEYS
33:So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 10:17, #KEYS
34:And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 21:22, #KEYS
35:Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Luke, 10:4, #KEYS
36:For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 18:20, #KEYS
37:He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 91, 11 #KEYS
38:Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 65:24, #KEYS
39:Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 8:58, #KEYS
40:The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Job, 33:4, #KEYS
41:I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 10:11, #KEYS
42:I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 119:11, #KEYS
43:I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Luke, 19:40, #KEYS
44:And Elohim said, 'Let there be Light.' and there was Light." (Kether) ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Genesis, 1:3, #KEYS
45:Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 37:3, #KEYS
46:The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Lamentations, 3:25, #KEYS
47:Then Solomon said, "The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Kings, 8:12, #KEYS
48:But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 11:10, #KEYS
49:Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out,
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Acts, 3:19,#KEYS
50:The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1:5, #KEYS
51:You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! ~ Anonymous, The Bible, James, 2:19, #KEYS
52:The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 40:8, #KEYS
53:You have said, "Seek my face." My heart says to you, "Your face, Lord, do I seek." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 27:8, #KEYS
54:In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 18, 10 #KEYS
55:The goat shall carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place..
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Leviticus, 16:22,#KEYS
56:For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 6:14, #KEYS
57:Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, James, 5:13, #KEYS
58:And call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 50:25, #KEYS
59:Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 3:16, #KEYS
60:The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Exodus, 20:21, #KEYS
61:When we set our course for God, He will always be there to direct our path
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 16:9,#KEYS
62:The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 18:10, #KEYS
63:And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1:5, [T5],#KEYS
64:A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might,
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 24:5,#KEYS
65:In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1:1,#KEYS
66:I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Philippians, 4:13, King James Version, #KEYS
67:No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1:18, #KEYS
68:Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 88:12, #KEYS
69:And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Mark, 15:33, #KEYS
70:Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 11:28,#KEYS
71:I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 13:35, #KEYS
72:You, Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Lamentations, 5:19,#KEYS
73:We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 9:4, #KEYS
74:If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 15:7, #KEYS
75:A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 22:1, #KEYS
76:For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, 5:8, #KEYS
77:Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 16:24, #KEYS
78:You will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you, and light will shine on your ways. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Job, 22:28, #KEYS
79:Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 29:2,#KEYS
80:Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 31:24,#KEYS
81:Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 12:2, #KEYS
82:Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, James, 1:22 NIV, [T5],#KEYS
83:If the individual cannot dream of a better future, he cannot live well today. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #KEYS
84:I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 143:5, #KEYS
85:The hand of the diligent will rule, But the slack hand will be put to forced labor.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 12:24,#KEYS
86:But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Micah, 7:7, #KEYS
87:I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 32:8, #KEYS
88:But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 6:33, #KEYS
89:At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, "Ask what I shall give you." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Kings, 3:5, #KEYS
90:But his desire is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 1:2, [T2],#KEYS
91:Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Jeremiah, 33:3, #KEYS
92:For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, 1:18,#KEYS
93:But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Philippians, 4:19,#KEYS
94:Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Revelation, 20:14, #KEYS
95:We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Acts, 5:32 #KEYS
96:Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 139:12, #KEYS
97:Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 20:13,#KEYS
98:To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 10:3, #KEYS
99:Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 55:22,#KEYS
100:I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 14:16, [T0],#KEYS
101:Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 4:4, NIV,#KEYS
102:To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Luke, 1:79, #KEYS
103:The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Genesis, 8:2, #KEYS
104:I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 45:7,#KEYS
105:So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Revelation, 3:16, [NIV], #KEYS
106:In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 14:2, #KEYS
107:Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Micah, 7:8, #KEYS
108:The Lord gives wisdom (sophia), from his face come knowledge (gnosis) and understanding (sunesis)
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 2.6, [T5],#KEYS
109:In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 5:3, #KEYS
110:The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 13:12, #KEYS
111:Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 46:10, [T5],#KEYS
112:But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Genesis, 2:17, #KEYS
113:Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Luke, 10:20, #KEYS
114:The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 9:2, #KEYS
115:"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Exodus, 20:7, #KEYS
116:God is pouring out his wrath upon the nations that acknowledge him not, upon the kingdoms that call not upon his name. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 78:3-4, #KEYS
117:"Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 7:6, #KEYS
118:This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1 1:5, #KEYS
119:"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Jeremiah, 1:5, #KEYS
120: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. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 22:37, #KEYS
121:Critics have found fault with all the world's scriptures, but as yet they have discovered no useful substitutes. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #KEYS
122:And Elohim said, 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the Waters, and let it divide the Waters from the Waters. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Genesis, 1:6, (Chockmah), #KEYS
123:And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a GREAT CALM.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Mark, 4:39,#KEYS
124:The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 27:1,#KEYS
125:For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 8:18,#KEYS
126:Those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. ... They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not fain'
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 40:31 NLT.,#KEYS
127:And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1:14, #KEYS
128:Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 10:9, #KEYS
129:Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 14:13-14, #KEYS
130:But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Deuteronomy, 4:29, #KEYS
131:They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might
~ Anonymous, The Bible, 2 Thessalonians, 1:9,#KEYS
132:Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own
~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 6:19 ESV,#KEYS
133:So Abraham called the name of that place, "The Lord will provide"; as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Genesis, 22:14, #KEYS
134:So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, "You are a God of seeing," for she said, "Truly here I have seen him who looks after me." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Genesis, 16:13, #KEYS
135:There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, 4:18, #KEYS
136:Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 3-3, [T5],#KEYS
137:Of David. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 103:1-2, #KEYS
138:Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Jeremiah, 29:12-13, #KEYS
139:Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, James, 1:17, #KEYS
140:I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Job, 42:5-6, [T5], #KEYS
141:Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 14:27, #KEYS
142:and He instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a mere staff-- no bread, no bag, no money in their belt
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Mark, 6:8, [T5],#KEYS
143:And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, 11:6, #KEYS
144:For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Timothy, 4:8, #KEYS
145:For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 12:8,#KEYS
146:For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, 2:8-9, #KEYS
147:I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 116:1-2, NIV, #KEYS
148:Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 3:5-6, #KEYS
149:Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 23:4,#KEYS
150:He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Micah, 6:8, #KEYS
151:The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 18:2, #KEYS
152:Before the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be shattered at the fountain, or the wheel be broken at the cistern. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, 12:6, #KEYS
153:Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 13:11,#KEYS
154:Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, 6:18, #KEYS
155:When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions. Wait for hope to appear.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Lamentations, 3:28-29 MSG,#KEYS
156:If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 13:2 #KEYS
157:And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 12:2,#KEYS
158:Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 12:2, #KEYS
159:He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Revelation, 9:2, #KEYS
160:He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Revelation, 21:4, #KEYS
161:1FOR GOD alone my soul waits in silence; From Him comes my salvation. 2He alone is my rock and my salvation, My defense and my strong tower; I will not be shaken or disheartened. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 62, #KEYS
162:If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 15:19,#KEYS
163:The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 9:9-10, #KEYS
164:Woe to you experts in the law [nomikois], because you have taken away the key to knowledge [gnosis]. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Luke, 11:52, #KEYS
165:And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Peter, 5:10,#KEYS
166:Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 20:17, #KEYS
167:All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 2 Timothy, 3:16-17, #KEYS
168:If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 16:24-25,#KEYS
169:The captain had answered the man of God, "If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?" And he had said, "You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 2 Kings, 7:19, #KEYS
170:For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 1:20, #KEYS
171:He [Francis Bacon] was a devoutly religious man and was convinced that he would rather believe all the fables of antiquity than deny that the vast fabric of creation is without a mind. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #KEYS
172:In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Genesis, 7:11, #KEYS
173:"Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 43:18-19, #KEYS
174:After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Revelation, 4:1, #KEYS
175:And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Luke, 11:9-10, #KEYS
176:To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that "they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Mark, 4:10-12, #KEYS
177:You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, James, 4:2-3, #KEYS
178:And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, 5:14-15, #KEYS
179:You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Deuteronomy, 5:15, #KEYS
180:Ego sum ostium. Per me si quis introierit, salvabitur: et ingredietur, et egredietur, et pascua inveniet."
(I am the dooR By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved: and he shall go in, and go out, and shall find pastures.) ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 10:9,#KEYS
181:Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Philippians, 4:8, #KEYS
182:No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 10:13, #KEYS
183:Jung's vision for [The Red Book] was ... significantly influenced in form, style, content by The Bible, Dante's Divine Comedy, Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Goethe's Faust, medieval illuminated manuscripts, the illuminated works of William Blake. ~ Mark Winborn, #KEYS
184:Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 6:7,#KEYS
185:"Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 49:15-16, #KEYS
186:As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God! when shall I come and appear before the face of God? My tears have been my bread day and night, while they say to me daily: Where is thy God?" ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, xli, 2 - 4; Douay, #KEYS
187:Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Philippians, 4:6-7, #KEYS
188:And He *said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 17:20 #KEYS
189:For there is going to come a time when people won't listen to the truth, but will go around looking for teachers who tell them just what they want to hear. They won't listen to what the Bible says but will blithely follow their own misguided ideas. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 2 Timothy, 4, #KEYS
190:He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’ ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Revelation, 2:17, #KEYS
191:Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Peter, 3:3-4, #KEYS
192:1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2By this you will know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 4:1,#KEYS
193:...
12-Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13-And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 13:13, King James Version,#KEYS
194:For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, 9:13-14, #KEYS
195:Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, 6:11-12,#KEYS
196:If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, James, 1:5-8, #KEYS
197:...
6-But the one who receives instruction in the word must share in all good things with his instructor.
7-Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return. 8The one who sows to please his flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; but the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.... ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Galatians, 6:7, BSB,#KEYS
198:My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear atentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. ...
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 2:1-22,#KEYS
199:My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. ... ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 3:1-35, #KEYS
200:15-Look, I am with you, and I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."
16-When Jacob woke up, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was unaware of it."
17-And he was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven!"... ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Genesis, 28:16, Berean Study Bible,#KEYS
201:5'If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. 6'But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. 7'Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8'Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, James, 1, #KEYS
202:A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 23:1-6, #KEYS
203:Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 40:28-31, #KEYS
204:Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruit. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 7:15-20 (KJV): #KEYS
205:Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.
O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 130
,#KEYS
206:{3:13} Happy [is] the man [that] findeth wisdom, and the man [that] getteth understanding.
{3:14} For the merchandise of it [is] better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.
{3:15} She [is] more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire arenot to be compared unto her.
{3:16} Length of days [is] in her right hand; [and] in her left hand riches and honour.
{3:17} Her ways [are] ways of pleasantness, and all her paths [are] peace.
{3:18} She [is] a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy [is every one] that retaineth her. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 3:13-18,#KEYS
207:Gird up thy loins now like a man; I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayst be righteous? Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him? Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty. Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud and abase him. Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place. Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret. Then I will also confess unto thee that thine own hand can save thee. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Job, 40:7-14, #KEYS
208:And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:
"Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 6:7-14,#KEYS
209:Although a devout student of the Bible, Paracelsus instinctively adopted the broad patterns of essential learning, as these had been clarified by Pythagoras of Samos and Plato of Athens. Being by nature a mystic as well as a scientist, he also revealed a deep regard for the Neoplatonic philosophy as expounded by Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus. Neoplatonism is therefore an invaluable aid to the interpretation of the Paracelsian doctrine.
Paracelsus held that true knowledge is attained in two ways, or rather that the pursuit of knowledge is advanced by a two-fold method, the elements of which are completely interdependent. In our present terminology, we can say that these two parts of method are intuition and experience. To Paracelsus, these could never be divided from each other.
The purpose of intuition is to reveal certain basic ideas which must then be tested and proven by experience. Experience, in turn, not only justifies intuition, but contributes certain additional knowledge by which the impulse to further growth is strengthened and developed. Paracelsus regarded the separation of intuition and experience to be a disaster, leading inevitably to greater error and further disaster. Intuition without experience allows the mind to fall into an abyss of speculation without adequate censorship by practical means. Experience without intuition could never be fruitful because fruitfulness comes not merely from the doing of things, but from the overtones which stimulate creative thought. Further, experience is meaningless unless there is within man the power capable of evaluating happenings and occurrences. The absence of this evaluating factor allows the individual to pass through many kinds of experiences, either misinterpreting them or not inter preting them at all. So Paracelsus attempted to explain intuition and how man is able to apprehend that which is not obvious or apparent. Is it possible to prove beyond doubt that the human being is capable of an inward realization of truths or facts without the assistance of the so-called rational faculty?
According to Paracelsus, intuition was possible because of the existence in nature of a mysterious substance or essence-a universal life force. He gave this many names, but for our purposes, the simplest term will be appropriate. He compared it to light, further reasoning that there are two kinds of light: a visible radiance, which he called brightness, and an invisible radiance, which he called darkness. There is no essential difference between light and darkness. There is a dark light, which appears luminous to the soul but cannot be sensed by the body. There is a visible radiance which seems bright to the senses, but may appear dark to the soul. We must recognize that Paracelsus considered light as pertaining to the nature of being, the total existence from which all separate existences arise. Light not only contains the energy needed to support visible creatures, and the whole broad expanse of creation, but the invisible part of light supports the secret powers and functions of man, particularly intuition. Intuition, therefore, relates to the capacity of the individual to become attuned to the hidden side of life. By light, then, Paracelsus implies much more than the radiance that comes from the sun, a lantern, or a candle. To him, light is the perfect symbol, emblem, or figure of total well-being. Light is the cause of health. Invisible light, no less real if unseen, is the cause of wisdom. As the light of the body gives strength and energy, sustaining growth and development, so the light of the soul bestows understanding, the light of the mind makes wisdom possible, and the light of the spirit confers truth. Therefore, truth, wisdom, understanding, and health are all manifesta tions or revelations ot one virtue or power. What health is to the body, morality is to the emotions, virtue to the soul, wisdom to the mind, and reality to the spirit. This total content of living values is contained in every ray of visible light. This ray is only a manifestation upon one level or plane of the total mystery of life. Therefore, when we look at a thing, we either see its objective, physical form, or we apprehend its inner light Everything that lives, lives in light; everything that has an existence, radiates light. All things derive their life from light, and this light, in its root, is life itself. This, indeed, is the light that lighteth every man who cometh into the world. ~ Manly P Hall, Paracelsus,#KEYS
210:The Supreme Discovery
IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
The ancient traditions rightly said:
"Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
On this a sage has said:
"I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,#KEYS
211:Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, James, 4:7-8, #KEYS
212:"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved by anything. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 6:12, #KEYS
213:And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, #KEYS
214:I am the mother of pure love and of science and of sacred hope. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, #KEYS
215:For the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, II, #KEYS
216:Walk in charity. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians,. V. 2, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
217:Be sober, be vigilant. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Peter, V. 8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
218:Be strong; fear not. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, XXXV. 4, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
219:Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white.
~ William Blake,#KEYS
220:Let brotherly love continue. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, XIII, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
221:Follow peace with all men. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, XII. 14, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
222:Beloved, let us love one another. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, IV.7, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
223:I will trust and not be afraid. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, XII. 2, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
224:e ye holy in all manner of conduct. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Peter, I. 15, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
225:There is one body and one Spirit. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, IV, 4, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
226:if we live our lives in the light, as he is in the light, we are in union with one another . . . ~ Anonymous, The Bible, #KEYS
227:Covet earnestly the best gifts. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians,.XII. 21, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
228:Death is swallowed up in victory. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, XV. 54, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
229:Do not believe all that men say. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, XIX. 10, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
230:Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Peter, I. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
231:Have your loins girt about with truth. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, VI. 14, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
232:He that killeth an ox is as if lie slew a man. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, LXVT, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
233:Let us, who are of the day, be sober. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Thessalonians, V. 8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
234:Be not children in understanding,be men. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, XIV 20, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
235:Awake thou that steepest and arise from the dead. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, V. 14, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
236:The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, XV, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
237:He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, IV. 8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
238:Let not thy heart give way to discouragement. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, VII 8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
239:There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John,, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
240:Thou remainest the same and thy years shall not fail. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, I. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
241:Here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, XIII, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
242:Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Thessalonians, V. 21, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
243:Lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, HI. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
244:Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, XII. 4, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
245:hough your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, I. 18, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
246:Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, II. 15, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
247:There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, XV. 44, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
248:Let all bitterness and wrath and anger be put away from you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, IV. 31, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
249:I am the mother of pure love and of science and of sacred hope. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
250:Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, XIII. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
251:Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, V. 7, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
252:For the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, II, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
253:Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, IV. 26, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
254:Fear not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revillings. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, LI. 7, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
255:I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.
~ Isaac Newton,#KEYS
256:Let your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Thessalonians, V. 23, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
257:For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
~ Anonymous, The Bible?,#KEYS
258:God is love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in him. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, IV. 16, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
259:Seeing many things, yet thou observest not; opening the ears ye hear not. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, XLII.20, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
260:The members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians,. XII. 22, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
261:Hearken unto thy soul in all thy works and be faithful unto it. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, XXXIII. 17, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
262:In rest shall you be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, XXX, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
263:In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, VII, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
264:Scorn not-the discourse of the wise, for thou shalt learn from them wisdom. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
265:Wisdom streng theneth the wise more than ten mighty men which are in a city. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
266:As every man hath received the gilt, even so minister the same one to another. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Peter, IV. 10, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
267:For you were sometimes darkness, but now are light; walk as children of light. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, V. 8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
268:Obey them that guide you and submit yourselves; for they watch over your souls. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, XIII. 17, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
269:Let us lay aside every weight and run with patience the race that is set before us. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, XII. I, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
270:How then shalt thou discover in thy age what in thy youth thou hast not gathered in? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
271:Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 6:2 #KEYS
272:Beloved, believe not every spirit-because many false prophets are gone out into the world. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, IV. 1, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
273:Let your behaviour be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews,. XIII. 5, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
274:God is light; there is no darkness in him at all. . . . if we live our lives in the light, as he is in the light, we are in union with one another . . . ~ Anonymous, The Bible, #KEYS
275:For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, XV. 53, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
276:For this is the message that ye have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, III.11, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
277:With my soul have I desired thee in the night; with my spirit within me will I seek thee early. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, XXVI.9, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
278:Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, IV. 25, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
279:A man's heart showeth to him what he should do better than seven sentinels on the summit of a rock. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
280:The holiness of justice is the health of the soul; it is more precious than heaps ol gold and silver. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiasucus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
281:Do no evil and evil shall not come upon thee; be far from the unjust and sin shall be far from thee. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
282:Neglect not the conversation of the aged, for they speak that which they have heard from their fathers. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
283:O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?...Death is swallowed up in victory. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, XV.56.55, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
284:The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can prove anything from it.
~ Robert Heinlein, Dr. Jacob Burroughs in The Number of the Beast.,#KEYS
285:Affirm thy heart in the uprightness of a good conscience; for thou shalt have no more faithful counsellor. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
286:What is man?... Thou crownedst him with glory and honour.... thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews,, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
287:The Bible says, "Be still and know that I am God". Stillness is the sole requisite for the realisation of the Self as God. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
288:The cosmic mind being not limited by the ego, has nothing separate from itself and is therefore only aware. This is what the Bible means by "I am that I AM". ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
289:Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Peter, II. 11, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
290:Stand firm therefore, having your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians,. VI. 14, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
291:Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, I, 2, 3, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
292:Seek wisdom carefully and she shall be uncovered to thee, and when once thou hast seen her, leave her, not. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, VI, 28, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
293:And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
~ Anonymous, The Bible?, [T5],#KEYS
294:Let no evil communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good that it may minister grace unto the hearers. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, IV. 29, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
295:Happy is he who nourishes himself with these good words and shuts them up in his heart. He shall always be one of the wise. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
296:Every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the lust of concupiscence. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Thessalonians, IV.4. 5, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
297:I don't like religion much, and I am glad that in the Bible the word is not to be found." ~ Martin Buber, (1878 - 1965) Austrian philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, Wikipedia., #KEYS
298:Q:Should we read Gita once in a while?
M:Always.
Q:May we read the Bible?
M:The Bible and the Gita are the same. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks, 164, [T5],#KEYS
299:And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians,. XII. 25, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
300:Thou shalt invest thyself with her as with a raiment of glory and thou shalt put her on thy head as a crown of joy. Say unto wisdom, ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
301:Who loves her loves life and they that keep vigil to find her shall enjoy her peace. Whosoever possesses her, shall have life for his inheritance. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
302:All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, VI. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
303:Now I beseech you, brethren, that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, I. 10, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
304:And we beseech you to know them which labour among you and are over you and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Thessalonians, V. 12. 13, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
305:Ye have been taught that ye put off the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that ye put on the new man. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, IV. 21-24, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
306:For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians,, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
307:e wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, VI. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
308:Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money,...come, buy wine and milk without money and without price...Incline your ear and come, hear and your soul shall live ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, LV. 13, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
309:You are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citizens like all the saints, and part of God's household. You are part of a building that has the apostles and prophets for its foundations, and Christ Jesus himself for its main cornerstone ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, 2:19-20)., #KEYS
310:When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, XV. 54, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
311:Scared for their pathetic little lives, they would agree to be injected with literally anything. ~ For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a evil net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, 9:12, #KEYS
312:Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,' who was, and is, and is to come." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Revelation, 4:8, https://biblehub.com/revelation/4-8.htm #KEYS
313:My son, if thou hearkenest to me with application thou shalt be instructed and if thou appliest thy mind thou shalt get wisdom. If thou lend thine ear, thou shalt receive instruction and if thou love to hearken thou shalt grow wise. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
314:The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done, it is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time which was before us. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, VIII. 9, 18, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
315:I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and behold, all was vanity and pursuit of the wind and there was no profit under the sun. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness and folly... Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
316:Others had trials of mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and unprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tortured, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy: they wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, XI. 36-38, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
317:I often think . . . that the bookstores that will save civilization are not online, nor on campuses, nor named Borders, Barnes & Noble, Dalton, or Crown. They are the used bookstores, in which, for a couple of hundred dollars, one can still find, with some diligence, the essential books of our culture, from the Bible and Shakespeare to Plato, Augustine, and Pascal. ~ James V. Schall, On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs: Teaching, Writing, Playing, Believing, Lecturing, Philosophizing, Singing, Dancing, #KEYS
318:reading :::
Self-Help Reading List:
James Allen As a Man Thinketh (1904)
Marcus Aurelius Meditations (2nd Century)
The Bhagavad-Gita
The Bible
Robert Bly Iron John (1990)
Boethius The Consolation of Philosophy (6thC)
Alain de Botton How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997)
William Bridges Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes (1980)
David Brooks The Road to Character (2015)
Brené Brown Daring Greatly (2012)
David D Burns The New Mood Therapy (1980)
Joseph Campbell (with Bill Moyers) The Power of Myth (1988)
Richard Carlson Don't Sweat The Small Stuff (1997)
Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)
Deepak Chopra The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success (1994)
Clayton Christensen How Will You Measure Your Life? (2012)
Paulo Coelho The Alchemist (1988)
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989)
Mihaly Cziksentmihalyi Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1991)
The Dalai Lama & Howard Cutler The Art of Happiness (1999)
The Dhammapada (Buddha's teachings)
Charles Duhigg The Power of Habit (2011)
Wayne Dyer Real Magic (1992)
Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance (1841)
Clarissa Pinkola Estes Women Who Run With The Wolves (1996)
Viktor Frankl Man's Search For Meaning (1959)
Benjamin Franklin Autobiography (1790)
Shakti Gawain Creative Visualization (1982)
Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence (1995)
John Gray Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (1992)
Louise Hay You Can Heal Your Life (1984)
James Hillman The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling (1996)
Susan Jeffers Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway (1987)
Richard Koch The 80/20 Principle (1998)
Marie Kondo The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (2014)
Ellen Langer Mindfulness: Choice and Control in Everyday Life (1989)
Lao-Tzu Tao-te Ching (The Way of Power)
Maxwell Maltz Psycho-Cybernetics (1960)
Abraham Maslow Motivation and Personality (1954)
Thomas Moore Care of the Soul (1992)
Joseph Murphy The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1963)
Norman Vincent Peale The Power of Positive Thinking (1952)
M Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled (1990)
Anthony Robbins Awaken The Giant Within (1991)
Florence Scovell-Shinn The Game of Life and How To Play It (1923)
Martin Seligman Learned Optimism (1991)
Samuel Smiles Self-Help (1859)
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin The Phenomenon of Man (1955)
Henry David Thoreau Walden (1854)
Marianne Williamson A Return To Love (1993)
~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Self-Help,#KEYS
319:Chapter 18 - Trapped in a Dream
(A guy is playing a pinball machine, seemingly the same guy who rode with him in the back of the boat car. This part is played by Richard Linklater, aka, the director.)
Hey, man.
Hey.
Weren't you in a boat car? You know, the guy, the guy with the hat? He gave me a ride in his car, or boat thing, and you were in the back seat with me?
I mean, I'm not saying that you don't know what you're talking about, but I don't know what you're talking about.
No, you see, you guys let me off at this really specific spot that you gave him directions to let me off at, I get out, and end up getting hit by a car, but then, I just woke up because I was dreaming, and later than that, I found out that I was still dreaming, dreaming that I'd woken up.
Oh yeah, those are called false awakenings. I used to have those all the time.
Yeah, but I'm still in it now. I, I can't get out of it. It's been going on forever, I keep waking up, but, but I'm just waking up into another dream. I'm starting to get creeped out, too. Like I'm talking to dead people. This woman on TV's telling me about how death is this dreamtime that exists outside of life. I mean, (desperate sigh) I'm starting to think that I'm dead.
I'm gonna tell you about a dream I once had. I know that's, when someone says that, then usually you're in for a very boring next few minutes, and you might be, but it sounds like, you know, what else are you going to do, right? Anyway, I read this essay by Philip K. Dick.
What, you read it in your dream?
No, no. I read it before the dream. It was the preamble to the dream. It was about that book, um Flow My Tears the Policeman Said. You know that one?
Uh, yeah yeah, he won an award for that one.
Right, right. That's the one he wrote really fast. It just like flowed right out of him. He felt he was sort of channeling it, or something. But anyway, about four years after it was published, he was at this party, and he met this woman who had the same name as the woman character in the book. And she had a boyfriend with the same name as the boyfriend character in the book, and she was having an affair with this guy, the chief of police, and he had the same name as the chief of police in his book. So she's telling him all of this stuff from her life, and everything she's saying is right out of his book. So that's totally freaking him out, but, what can he do?
And then shortly after that, he was going to mail a letter, and he saw this kind of, um, you know, dangerous, shady looking guy standing by his car, but instead of avoiding him, which he says he would have usually done, he just walked right up to him and said, "Can I help you?" And the guy said, "Yeah. I, I ran out of gas." So he pulls out his wallet, and he hands him some money, which he says he never would have done, and then he gets home and thinks, wait a second, this guy, you know, he can't get to a gas station, he's out of gas. So he gets back in his car, he goes and finds the guy, takes him to the gas station, and as he's pulling up at the gas station, he realizes, "Hey, this is in my book too. This exact station, this exact guy. Everything."
So this whole episode is kind of creepy, right? And he's telling his priest about it, you know, describing how he wrote this book, and then four years later all these things happened to him. And as he's telling it to him, the priest says, "That's the Book of Acts. You're describing the Book of Acts." And he's like, "I've never read the Book of Acts." So he, you know, goes home and reads the Book of Acts, and it's like uncanny. Even the characters' names are the same as in the Bible. And the Book of Acts takes place in 50 A.D., when it was written, supposedly. So Philip K. Dick had this theory that time was an illusion and that we were all actually in 50 A.D., and the reason he had written this book was that he had somehow momentarily punctured through this illusion, this veil of time, and what he had seen there was what was going on in the Book of Acts.
And he was really into Gnosticism, and this idea that this demiurge, or demon, had created this illusion of time to make us forget that Christ was about to return, and the kingdom of God was about to arrive. And that we're all in 50 A.D., and there's someone trying to make us forget that God is imminent. And that's what time is. That's what all of history is. It's just this kind of continuous, you know, daydream, or distraction.
And so I read that, and I was like, well that's weird. And than that night I had a dream and there was this guy in the dream who was supposed to be a psychic. But I was skeptical. I was like, you know, he's not really a psychic, you know I'm thinking to myself. And then suddenly I start floating, like levitating, up to the ceiling. And as I almost go through the roof, I'm like, "Okay, Mr. Psychic. I believe you. You're a psychic. Put me down please." And I float down, and as my feet touch the ground, the psychic turns into this woman in a green dress. And this woman is Lady Gregory.
Now Lady Gregory was Yeats' patron, this, you know, Irish person. And though I'd never seen her image, I was just sure that this was the face of Lady Gregory. So we're walking along, and Lady Gregory turns to me and says, "Let me explain to you the nature of the universe. Now Philip K. Dick is right about time, but he's wrong that it's 50 A.D. Actually, there's only one instant, and it's right now, and it's eternity. And it's an instant in which God is posing a question, and that question is basically, 'Do you want to, you know, be one with eternity? Do you want to be in heaven?' And we're all saying, 'No thank you. Not just yet.' And so time is actually just this constant saying 'No' to God's invitation. I mean that's what time is. I mean, and it's no more 50 A.D. than it's two thousand and one. And there's just this one instant, and that's what we're always in."
And then she tells me that actually this is the narrative of everyone's life. That, you know, behind the phenomenal difference, there is but one story, and that's the story of moving from the "no" to the "yes." All of life is like, "No thank you. No thank you. No thank you." then ultimately it's, "Yes, I give in. Yes, I accept. Yes, I embrace." I mean, that's the journey. I mean, everyone gets to the "yes" in the end, right?
Right.
So we continue walking, and my dog runs over to me. And so I'm petting him, really happy to see him, you know, he's been dead for years. So I'm petting him and I realize there's this kind of gross oozing stuff coming out of his stomach. And I look over at Lady Gregory, and she sort of coughs. She's like [cough] [cough] "Oh, excuse me." And there's vomit, like dribbling down her chin, and it smells really bad. And I think, "Well, wait a second, that's not just the smell of vomit," which is, doesn't smell very good, "that's the smell of like dead person vomit." You know, so it's like doubly foul. And then I realize I'm actually in the land of the dead, and everyone around me is dead. My dog had been dead for over ten years, Lady Gregory had been dead a lot longer than that. When I finally woke up, I was like, whoa, that wasn't a dream, that was a visitation to this real place, the land of the dead.
So what happened? I mean how did you finally get out of it?
Oh man. It was just like one of those like life altering experiences. I mean I could never really look at the world the same way again, after that.
Yeah, but I mean like how did you, how did you finally get out of the dream? See, that's my problem. I'm like trapped. I keep, I keep thinking that I'm waking up, but I'm still in a dream. It seems like it's going on forever. I can't get out of it, and I want to wake up for real. How do you really wake up?
I don't know, I don't know. I'm not very good at that anymore. But, um, if that's what you're thinking, I mean you, you probably should. I mean, you know if you can wake up, you should, because you know someday, you know, you won't be able to. So just, um ... But it's easy. You know. Just, just wake up. ~ Waking Life,#KEYS
320:One little picture in this book, the Magic Locket, was drawn by 'Miss Alice Havers.' I did not state this on the title-page, since it seemed only due, to the artist of all these (to my mind) wonderful pictures, that his name should stand there alone.
The descriptions, of Sunday as spent by children of the last generation, are quoted verbatim from a speech made to me by a child-friend and a letter written to me by a lady-friend.
The Chapters, headed 'Fairy Sylvie' and 'Bruno's Revenge,' are a reprint, with a few alterations, of a little fairy-tale which I wrote in the year 1867, at the request of the late Mrs. Gatty, for 'Aunt Judy's Magazine,' which she was then editing.
It was in 1874, I believe, that the idea first occurred to me of making it the nucleus of a longer story.
As the years went on, I jotted down, at odd moments, all sorts of odd ideas, and fragments of dialogue, that occurred to me--who knows how?--with a transitory suddenness that left me no choice but either to record them then and there, or to abandon them to oblivion. Sometimes one could trace to their source these random flashes of thought--as being suggested by the book one was reading, or struck out from the 'flint' of one's own mind by the 'steel' of a friend's chance remark but they had also a way of their own, of occurring, a propos of nothing --specimens of that hopelessly illogical phenomenon, 'an effect without a cause.' Such, for example, was the last line of 'The Hunting of the Snark,' which came into my head (as I have already related in 'The Theatre' for April, 1887) quite suddenly, during a solitary walk: and such, again, have been passages which occurred in dreams, and which I cannot trace to any antecedent cause whatever. There are at least two instances of such dream-suggestions in this book--one, my Lady's remark, 'it often runs in families, just as a love for pastry does', the other, Eric Lindon's badinage about having been in domestic service.
And thus it came to pass that I found myself at last in possession of a huge unwieldy mass of litterature--if the reader will kindly excuse the spelling --which only needed stringing together, upon the thread of a consecutive story, to constitute the book I hoped to write. Only! The task, at first, seemed absolutely hopeless, and gave me a far clearer idea, than I ever had before, of the meaning of the word 'chaos': and I think it must have been ten years, or more, before I had succeeded in classifying these odds-and-ends sufficiently to see what sort of a story they indicated: for the story had to grow out of the incidents, not the incidents out of the story I am telling all this, in no spirit of egoism, but because I really believe that some of my readers will be interested in these details of the 'genesis' of a book, which looks so simple and straight-forward a matter, when completed, that they might suppose it to have been written straight off, page by page, as one would write a letter, beginning at the beginning; and ending at the end.
It is, no doubt, possible to write a story in that way: and, if it be not vanity to say so, I believe that I could, myself,--if I were in the unfortunate position (for I do hold it to be a real misfortune) of being obliged to produce a given amount of fiction in a given time,--that I could 'fulfil my task,' and produce my 'tale of bricks,' as other slaves have done. One thing, at any rate, I could guarantee as to the story so produced--that it should be utterly commonplace, should contain no new ideas whatever, and should be very very weary reading!
This species of literature has received the very appropriate name of 'padding' which might fitly be defined as 'that which all can write and none can read.' That the present volume contains no such writing I dare not avow: sometimes, in order to bring a picture into its proper place, it has been necessary to eke out a page with two or three extra lines : but I can honestly say I have put in no more than I was absolutely compelled to do.
My readers may perhaps like to amuse themselves by trying to detect, in a given passage, the one piece of 'padding' it contains. While arranging the 'slips' into pages, I found that the passage was 3 lines too short. I supplied the deficiency, not by interpolating a word here and a word there, but by writing in 3 consecutive lines. Now can my readers guess which they are?
A harder puzzle if a harder be desired would be to determine, as to the Gardener's Song, in which cases (if any) the stanza was adapted to the surrounding text, and in which (if any) the text was adapted to the stanza.
Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature--at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it come's is to write anything original. And perhaps the easiest is, when once an original line has been struck out, to follow it up, and to write any amount more to the same tune. I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story--I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it--but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen storybooks have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea'--is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.
Hence it is that, in 'Sylvie and Bruno,' I have striven with I know not what success to strike out yet another new path: be it bad or good, it is the best I can do. It is written, not for money, and not for fame, but in the hope of supplying, for the children whom I love, some thoughts that may suit those hours of innocent merriment which are the very life of Childhood; and also in the hope of suggesting, to them and to others, some thoughts that may prove, I would fain hope, not wholly out of harmony with the graver cadences of Life.
If I have not already exhausted the patience of my readers, I would like to seize this opportunity perhaps the last I shall have of addressing so many friends at once of putting on record some ideas that have occurred to me, as to books desirable to be written--which I should much like to attempt, but may not ever have the time or power to carry through--in the hope that, if I should fail (and the years are gliding away very fast) to finish the task I have set myself, other hands may take it up.
First, a Child's Bible. The only real essentials of this would be, carefully selected passages, suitable for a child's reading, and pictures. One principle of selection, which I would adopt, would be that Religion should be put before a child as a revelation of love--no need to pain and puzzle the young mind with the history of crime and punishment. (On such a principle I should, for example, omit the history of the Flood.) The supplying of the pictures would involve no great difficulty: no new ones would be needed : hundreds of excellent pictures already exist, the copyright of which has long ago expired, and which simply need photo-zincography, or some similar process, for their successful reproduction. The book should be handy in size with a pretty attractive looking cover--in a clear legible type--and, above all, with abundance of pictures, pictures, pictures!
Secondly, a book of pieces selected from the Bible--not single texts, but passages of from 10 to 20 verses each--to be committed to memory. Such passages would be found useful, to repeat to one's self and to ponder over, on many occasions when reading is difficult, if not impossible: for instance, when lying awake at night--on a railway-journey --when taking a solitary walk-in old age, when eyesight is failing or wholly lost--and, best of all, when illness, while incapacitating us for reading or any other occupation, condemns us to lie awake through many weary silent hours: at such a time how keenly one may realise the truth of David's rapturous cry "O how sweet are thy words unto my throat: yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth!"
I have said 'passages,' rather than single texts, because we have no means of recalling single texts: memory needs links, and here are none: one may have a hundred texts stored in the memory, and not be able to recall, at will, more than half-a-dozen--and those by mere chance: whereas, once get hold of any portion of a chapter that has been committed to memory, and the whole can be recovered: all hangs together.
Thirdly, a collection of passages, both prose and verse, from books other than the Bible. There is not perhaps much, in what is called 'un-inspired' literature (a misnomer, I hold: if Shakespeare was not inspired, one may well doubt if any man ever was), that will bear the process of being pondered over, a hundred times: still there are such passages--enough, I think, to make a goodly store for the memory.
These two books of sacred, and secular, passages for memory--will serve other good purposes besides merely occupying vacant hours: they will help to keep at bay many anxious thoughts, worrying thoughts, uncharitable thoughts, unholy thoughts. Let me say this, in better words than my own, by copying a passage from that most interesting book, Robertson's Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians, Lecture XLIX. "If a man finds himself haunted by evil desires and unholy images, which will generally be at periodical hours, let him commit to memory passages of Scripture, or passages from the best writers in verse or prose. Let him store his mind with these, as safeguards to repeat when he lies awake in some restless night, or when despairing imaginations, or gloomy, suicidal thoughts, beset him. Let these be to him the sword, turning everywhere to keep the way of the Garden of Life from the intrusion of profaner footsteps."
Fourthly, a "Shakespeare" for girls: that is, an edition in which everything, not suitable for the perusal of girls of (say) from 10 to 17, should be omitted. Few children under 10 would be likely to understand or enjoy the greatest of poets: and those, who have passed out of girlhood, may safely be left to read Shakespeare, in any edition, 'expurgated' or not, that they may prefer: but it seems a pity that so many children, in the intermediate stage, should be debarred from a great pleasure for want of an edition suitable to them. Neither Bowdler's, Chambers's, Brandram's, nor Cundell's 'Boudoir' Shakespeare, seems to me to meet the want: they are not sufficiently 'expurgated.' Bowdler's is the most extraordinary of all: looking through it, I am filled with a deep sense of wonder, considering what he has left in, that he should have cut anything out! Besides relentlessly erasing all that is unsuitable on the score of reverence or decency, I should be inclined to omit also all that seems too difficult, or not likely to interest young readers. The resulting book might be slightly fragmentary: but it would be a real treasure to all British maidens who have any taste for poetry.
If it be needful to apologize to any one for the new departure I have taken in this story--by introducing, along with what will, I hope, prove to be acceptable nonsense for children, some of the graver thoughts of human life--it must be to one who has learned the Art of keeping such thoughts wholly at a distance in hours of mirth and careless ease. To him such a mixture will seem, no doubt, ill-judged and repulsive. And that such an Art exists I do not dispute: with youth, good health, and sufficient money, it seems quite possible to lead, for years together, a life of unmixed gaiety--with the exception of one solemn fact, with which we are liable to be confronted at any moment, even in the midst of the most brilliant company or the most sparkling entertainment. A man may fix his own times for admitting serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that 'convenient season', which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come before he has finished reading this page,' this night shalt thy soul be required of thee.'
The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages, 1 an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe. Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than annihilation--an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres, drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay verses of that genial 'bon vivant' Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to one's heart. It is the word 'exilium' in the well-known passage
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.
Yes, to him this present life--spite of all its weariness and all its sorrow--was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever have smiled?
And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'
We go to entertainments, such as the theatre--I say 'we', for I also go to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return alive. Yet how do you know--dear friend, whose patience has carried you through this garrulous preface that it may not be your lot, when mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis--to see, with vague wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips, "Is it serious?", and to be told "Yes: the end is near" (and oh, how different all Life will look when those words are said!)--how do you know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?
And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself "Well, perhaps it is an immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too 'risky', the dialogue a little too strong, the 'business' a little too suggestive.
I don't say that conscience is quite easy: but the piece is so clever, I must see it this once! I'll begin a stricter life to-morrow." To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow!
"Who sins in hope, who, sinning, says,
'Sorrow for sin God's judgement stays!'
Against God's Spirit he lies; quite stops Mercy with insult; dares, and drops,
Like a scorch'd fly, that spins in vain
Upon the axis of its pain,
Then takes its doom, to limp and crawl,
Blind and forgot, from fall to fall."
Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the possibility of death--if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.
But, once realise what the true object is in life--that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds'--but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man--and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!
One other matter may perhaps seem to call for apology--that I should have treated with such entire want of sympathy the British passion for 'Sport', which no doubt has been in by-gone days, and is still, in some forms of it, an excellent school for hardihood and for coolness in moments of danger.
But I am not entirely without sympathy for genuine 'Sport': I can heartily admire the courage of the man who, with severe bodily toil, and at the risk of his life, hunts down some 'man-eating' tiger: and I can heartily sympathize with him when he exults in the glorious excitement of the chase and the hand-to-hand struggle with the monster brought to bay. But I can but look with deep wonder and sorrow on the hunter who, at his ease and in safety, can find pleasure in what involves, for some defenceless creature, wild terror and a death of agony: deeper, if the hunter be one who has pledged himself to preach to men the Religion of universal Love: deepest of all, if it be one of those 'tender and delicate' beings, whose very name serves as a symbol of Love--'thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women'--whose mission here is surely to help and comfort all that are in pain or sorrow!
'Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.' ~ Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:The Bible is literature, not dogma. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 2:Men can make an idol of the Bible. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 3:The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 4:The Bible is God's love letter to us ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 5:The Bible is God's Word given in man's language ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 6:I deal with more practical issues of the Bible. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 7:The Bible is the Constitution of Christianity. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 8:The Bible says we must choose two ways of life. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 9:The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 10:Visit many good books, but live in the Bible. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 11:The God of the Bible is a moral monstrosity. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 12:Half our fears arise from neglect of the Bible. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 13:[The Bible] is been my passion almost from my youth. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 14:When you read the Bible, it's as though it reads you. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 15:The Bible is clear that the Holy Spirit is God Himself. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 16:I detest the Bible as I detest everything that is cruel. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 17:Read the Bible. Work hard and honestly. And don't complain. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 18:The Bible teaches that all sin begins with sinful thinking. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 19:No educated man can afford to be ignorant of the Bible. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 20:Odd, the way the less the Bible is read the more it is translated ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 21:Don Quixote — I read that every year, as some do the Bible. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 22:Man will believe anything, as long as it's not in the bible. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 23:The Bible can touch our hearts, order our minds, refresh our souls. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 24:What is it the Bible teaches us? - rapine, cruelty, and murder. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 25:The Bible in the memory is better than the Bible in the book case. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 26:Having knowledge of the Bible is essential to a rich and meaningful life. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 27:It (the Bible) has never bowed its head before the discoveries of science. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 28:The worst sort of clever men are those who know better than the Bible. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 29:Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 30:I've read the last page of the Bible. It's all going to turn out all right. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 31:Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 32:The purpose of the Bible is simply to proclaim God's plan to save His children. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 33:Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 34:A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 35:The Bible is clear - God's definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 36:Until the Bible begins to talk to us, we really have not been reading it. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 37:The Bible was written in tears, and to tears it yields its best treasures. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 38:Not to decide is to decide not to, nowhere in the bible does it promise tomorrow. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 39:[ Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac] was the greatest commentator [of the Bible] we ever had. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 40:Remember: the Bible is our only authoritative source of information about Heaven. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 41:I know for me, and what the Bible teaches, I want to have a relationship with Jesus. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 42:Take from the Bible the Godship of Christ, and it would be but a heap of dust. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 43:The Bible: a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 44:The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 45:I think [Sacrifice of Isaac] is the most important event in the Bible except for Sinai. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 46:The Bible is a supernatural book and can be understood only by supernatural aid. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 47:To me the Bible is not God, but it is God's voice, and I do not hear it without awe ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 48:If you hear a man rail at the Bible, you can usually conclude that he never reads it. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 49:Defend the Bible? I would as soon defend a lion! Unchain it and it will defend itself. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 50:I believe here's what the Bible teaches and from the Christian faith this is what I believe. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 51:I can find ten more who will die for the Bible for every one who will actually read it. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 52:If your faith isn't rooted in the Bible, it will wither like a plant pulled out of the soil. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 53:I read the paper every day and the Bible every day; that way I know what both sides are up to. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 54:It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 55:The Bible is not an option, it is a necessity. You cannot grow spiritually strong without it. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 56:The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible is the religion of Christ's church. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 57:The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 58:The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 59:Communism has decided against God, against Christ, against the Bible, and against all religion. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 60:In the highest sense the Bible is to us the unique repository of eternal spiritual truths. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 61:When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything equal to it. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 62:Whether every story that's there [in the Bible] is a historic truth ... Again, I'm not concerned. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 63:As we come to the Bible, we can come with the holy anticipation of actually meeting with God. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 64:The Bible has the answers to our everyday life. Many times people don't realize how practical it is. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 65:The bible is the cradle that holds the Christ, without him it is nothing more than wood and straw. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 66:Therefore we say that a lying Spirit has been in the mouth of the writers of the books of the Bible. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 67:England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare,but the Bible made England. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 68:The big problem is not whether the Bible is true. The big problem is whether it is true in you. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 69:The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold of me. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 70:The Bible is no mere book, but a Living Creature, with a power that conquers all that oppose it. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 71:Read the Bible and inspirational books for a purpose. Ask for divine guidance. Search for the light. ~ w-clement-stone, @wisdomtrove 72:Doesn't the bible say "blessed are the pure in the heart, so they shall see God?" when? ~ swami-satchidananda-saraswati, @wisdomtrove 73:It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 74:The bible is a remarkable fountain: the more one draws and drinks of it, the more it stimulates thirst. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 75:The only place we can find a clear, unmistakable message is in the Word of God, which we call the Bible. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 76:He that reads his Bible to find fault with it will soon discover that the Bible finds fault with him. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 77:The Bible's emphasis is on the good treatment of animals, and not just the forbidding of cruel treatment. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 78:The Bible teaches that history began in the Middle East, and someday history will end in the Middle East. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 79:God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 80:I wish to see the Bible study as much a matter of course in the secular colleges as in the seminary. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 81:Many people think that the Bible is the authentic word of God and they worship the Bible, making it an idol. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 82:The more you read the Bible; and the more you meditate on it, the more you will be astonished with it. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 83:I am never lonely when I am reading the Bible. Nothing dissolves loneliness like a session with God's Word. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 84:It is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until the very essence of the Bible flows from you. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 85:The Bible illustrated by Dore occupied many of my hours - and I think probably gave me many nightmares. ~ eleanor-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 86:It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 87:Defend the Bible? I'd sooner defend a lion. You don't defend the Bible; you open its cage and let it roar. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 88:The Bible stresses that a marriage ideally should be a picture or a reflection of Christ's love for His people. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 89:The Bible tells us there will be a time for peace. But, so far in this century, mankind has failed to find it. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 90:Jesus didn't go around condemning people. The Bible says it's the goodness of God that leads people to repentance. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 91:No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means. ~ george-bernard-shaw, @wisdomtrove 92:The Bible is no ordinary book. The words are like medicine to your soul, and it has the power to change your life! ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 93:The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 94:... the Bible is such a book of lies and contradictions there is no knowing which part to believe or whether any. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 95:The Bible stands alone in human literature in its elevated conception of manhood, in character and conduct. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 96:The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 97:To every man who faces life with real desire to do his part in everything, I appeal for a study of the Bible. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 98:And it came to pass that in the hands of the ignorant, the words of the Bible were used to beat plowshares into swords ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 99:The Bible says that it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't say that it is impossible! ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 100:Reading the Bible can be like meeting someone you don't know who, oddly, somehow seems to know you deeply. It's uncanny. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 101:It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 102:The Bible is to your soul what bread is to your body. You need it daily. One good meal does not suffice for a lifetime. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 103:In the Bible, the race of life is never considered from the viewpoint of speed... We are to run it with patience. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 104:The Bible is the book that makes fools of the wise of this world; it is only understood by the plain and simple hearted. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 105:I would rather lay my soul asoak in half a dozen verses [of the Bible] all day than rinse my hand in several chapters. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 106:To paraphrase the Bible, what shall it profit a man (or a woman) who gains the whole world but loses his or her own family? ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 107:If the Church is not Making Disciples, then all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible, are a waste of time. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 108:The Bible is the story of two gardens. Eden and Gethsemane. In the first, Adam took a fall. In the second, Jesus took a stand. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 109:The Bible teaches us that God does not cause pain, but that He uses pain and evil to advance His cause and shape His servants. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 110:Those who talk of the bible as a monument of English prose are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 111:And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 112:The stupid texts of the Bible - from which, be the talents of the preacher what they may, only stupid sermons can be preached. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 113:That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 114:And this manner of speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a man, is consistent with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 115:We shall not adjust our Bible to the age; but before we have done with it, by God's grace, we shall adjust the age to the Bible. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 116:I have often thought that unselfishness combined in one word more of the teachings of the Bible than any other in the language. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 117:The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers' abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 118:Though the Bible was written over sixteen centuries by at least forty authors, it has one central theme-salvation through faith in Christ. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 119:Reading the Bible will help you get to know the word, but it's when you put it down and live your life that you get to know the author. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove 120:Inside the Bible's pages lie the answers to all the problems that mankind has ever known. I hope Americans will read and study the Bible. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 121:If I have to build a big company by mistreating other people then the Bible says WOE to me. I don't know what that is, but I don't want any of it. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 122:The Bible urges us to be respectful to all people, especially people with whom we have disagreements, to never libel people, to never label people. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 123:I think we use God's word. I think the principles that you hear Dr. Phil and some of those others talk about many times are right out of the Bible. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 124:The very practice of reading [the Bible] will have a purifying effect upon your mind and heart. Let nothing take the place of this daily exercise. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 125:I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 126:I was thinking about how people seem to read the bible a lot more as they get older, and then it dawned on me—they’re cramming for their final exam. ~ george-carlin, @wisdomtrove 127:I enter a most earnest plea that in our hurried and rather bustling life of today we do not lose the hold that our forefathers had on the Bible. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 128:The Bible does not teach that sin is completely eradicated from the Christian in this life, but it does teach that sin shall no longer reign over you. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 129:We're both [with Elie Wiesel] a long way from the position of the so-called Biblical minimalists. Some of them see no history in the Bible until Josiah. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 130:Lastly, this threefold poetry flows from three great sources - The Bible, Homer, Shakespeare... . The Bible before the Iliad, the Iliad before Shakespeare. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 131:Unless the religious claims of the Bible are again acknowledged, its literary claims will, I think, be given only & 132:As to the book called the bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions and a history of bad times and bad men. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 133:I have undertaken to translate the Bible into German. This was good for me; otherwise I might have died in the mistaken notion that I was a learned fellow. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 134:There are many troubles which you cannot cure by the Bible and the hymn-book, but which you can cure by a good perspiration and a breath of fresh air. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 135:There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 136:It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true Word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 137:I have two pairs of reading glasses. One pair is for reading fiction, the other for non-fiction. I've read the Bible twice wearing each pair, and it's the same. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 138:I do not deal with the text [of the Bible] scientifically. I read it, I'm interested in its layers of meaning, but my relation to it is much more an emotional one. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 139:You cannot study the Bible diligently and earnestly without being struck by an obvious fact-the whole matter of personal holiness is highly important to God! ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 140:I try to see their moral relevance [in the Bible] and, of course, to admire the literary beauty of the text. Prophetic poetry: No one has written the way Isaiah does. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 141:Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 142:The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, of Plato & Cicero, which all men ought to contemn, are set up by artifice against the Sublime of the Bible ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 143:The Bible tells us to be perfect. This is likely a scary thought for many people. It used to scare me. I didn't think I could ever get there, no matter how hard I tried. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 144:Indeed, it is an indisputable fact that all the complex and horrendous questions confronting us at home and worldwide have their answer in that single book [the Bible]. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 145:If there is any verse that you would like left out of the Bible, that is the verse that ought to stick to you, like a blister, until you really attend to its teaching. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 146:A lot of psychological principles and even medical principles, you see them coming around to what the Bible said hundreds of years ago: a merry heart is good like a medicine. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 147:Coming to the Bible through commentaries is much like looking at a landscape through garret windows, over which generations of unmolested spiders have spun their webs. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 148:I read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 149:The Bible is actually a library of books-some long, some short- written over hundreds of years by many authors. Behind each one, however, was [the] Author: the Spirit of God. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 150:If I believe the Bible, then I don't believe that a gay lifestyle or a homosexual lifestyle is the right way to choose to live. I believe that there's something so much better. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 151:When you translate the Bible with excessive literalism, you demythologize it. The possibility of a convincing reference to the individual's own spiritual experience is lost. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 152:The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope, then he sees worlds beyond; but, if he looks at his telescope, then he does not see anything but that. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 153:... It would be more consistent that we call [the Bible] the work of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 154:Of course, afterward, I studied [commentary on the Bible by a Rabbi Moshe Dessauer] more closely. But, in truth, it doesn't touch me. It doesn't change my attitude toward the text. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 155:The Bible is not the light of the world, it is the light of the Church. But the world does not read the Bible, the world reads Christians! ‚ÄúYou are the light of the world.‚Äù ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 156:It is necessary for the welfare of the nation that men's lives be based on the principles of the Bible. No man, educated or uneducated, can afford to be ignorant of the Bible. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 157:We want to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Vedas, nor the Bible, nor the Koran; yet this has to be done by harmonizing the Vedas, the Bible, and the Koran. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 158:The Bible is God's chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on rocks or bars. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 159:The greatest miracle of the Bible is that the prophets of Israel could keep a religion as clean as a hounds tooth amid all the corruption and idolatry of the nations surrounding them. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 160:Not once does the Bible report that (Jesus) rushed anywhere. He was often busy, but never in a mad dash. And yet He perfectly accomplished all the Father designed for Him to do. ~ charles-r-swindoll, @wisdomtrove 161:The Bible recognizes no faith that does not lead to obedience, nor does it recognize any obedience that does not spring from faith. The two are at opposite sides of the same coin. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 162:What interests me so much about the characters of the Bible is that they make mistakes but God uses them anyway, in important ways. Nobody's perfect, but God can even use our imperfection. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 163:I am bound by the texts of the Bible, my conscience is captive to the Word of God, I neither can nor will recant anything, since it is neither right nor safe to act against my conscience. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 164:Unless we form the habit of going to the Bible in bright moments as well as in trouble, we cannot fully respond to its consolations because we lack equilibrium between light and darkness. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 165:Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a thelogically defensible reading of the Bible. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 166:My counsel is, that we draw water from the true source and fountain, that is, that we diligently search the Scriptures. He who wholly possesses the text of the Bible, is a consummate divine. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 167:It's my hope that as you dip your toe into the Bible's story and viewpoint, you'll find yourself feeling that the Good Book knows more about the world - and about you - than any normal book does. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 168:Engage with the Bible. Meditate on it day and night. Think and rethink about God's Word. Let it be your guide. Make it your go-to book for questions. Let it be the ultimate authority in your life. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 169:Hundreds of passages point to a time of judgment for every person who has ever lived-none will escape. If you took all the references to judgment out of the Bible, you would have little Bible left. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 170:Is it because you are sunk in the cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honor of your Creator, that you listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them with callous indifference? ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 171:Love is not talk or theory; it's action. In fact the Bible says that we cannot be walking in love if we see a brother in need, have what it takes to meet his need, and will not do anything to help him. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 172:The Bible teaches that faith is the only approach that we have to God. No man has sins forgiven, no man goes to heaven, no man has assurance of peace and happiness, until he has faith in Jesus Christ. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 173:I hope Americans will read and study the Bible in the coming year. It's my firm belief that the enduring values, as I say, presented in its pages have a great meaning for each of us and for our nation. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 174:The Bible says that as long as we are here on earth, we are strangers in a foreign land. There are enemies to be conquered before we return home. This world is not our home; our citizenship is in heaven. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 175:The obscene and vulgar stories in the Bible are as repugnant to our ideas of the purity of a Divine Being, as the horrid cruelties and murders it ascribes to Him are repugnant to our ideas of His justice. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 176:A knowledge of the true age of the Earth and of the fossil record makes it impossible for any balanced intellect to believe in the literal truth of every part of the Bible in the way that fundamentalists do. ~ francis-crick, @wisdomtrove 177:The Bible says to & 178:The vision of Christ that thou dost see is my vision's greatest enemy . Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read'st black where I read white. His seventy disciples sent against religion and government . ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 179:I believe that the devil has destroyed many good books of the church, as, aforetime, he killed and crushed many holy persons, the memory of whom has now passed away; but the Bible he was fain to leave subsisting. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 180:I believe there's a heaven you know. Afterwards, there's, you know, a place called hell. And I believe it's when we have a relationship with God and his son Jesus and that's what the Bible teaches us. I believe it. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 181:He [Lincoln] had mastered it {the Bible] absolutely... mastered it so that he became almost & 182:When I see throughout this book, called the Bible, a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales and stories, I could not so dishonor my Creator by calling it by His name. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 183:You are using your own moral intuitions to authenticate the wisdom of the Bible - and then, in the next moment, you assert that we human beings cannot possibly rely upon our own intuitions to rightly guide us in the world. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 184:Give yourself to reading.'... You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 185:That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because... the sound of the rain needs no translation. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 186:The bible must be seen in a cultural context. It didn't just happen. These stories are retreads. But, tell a Christian that - No, No! What makes it doubly sad is that they hardly know the book, much less its origins. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 187:The creation is the Bible of the Deist. He there reads, in the handwriting of the Creator himself, the certainty of His existence and the immutability of His power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 188:The purpose of the Bible is simply to proclaim God's plan to save His children. It asserts that man is lost and needs to be saved. And it communicates the message that Jesus is the God in the flesh sent to save His children. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 189:The purpose of the Bible? Salvation. God's highest passion is to get His children home. His book, the Bible, describes His plan of salvation. The purpose of the Bible is to proclaim god's plan and passion to save His children. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 190:What we realize is number one, people want to know what the Bible says. In their heart, they want to know the Bible but it is just hard to understand the big picture of it. And number two, they want to know where they plug in. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 191:The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 192:Christianity is about the heart, and the Bible says that we cannot get to heaven on our own good works. No matter how good we are, we cannot be good enough, because God is perfect, and we're always going to be less than perfect. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 193:There's a belief that you're supposed to be poor, and suffering, and show your humility. I just don't see the Bible that way. I see that God came and Jesus died so that we might live an abundant life and be a blessing to others. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 194:God is not silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second person of the Holy Trinity is called "The Word." The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God's continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 195:I read one psychologist's theory that said, "Never strike a child in your anger." When could I strike him? When he is kissing me on my birthday? When he's recuperating from measles? Do I slap the Bible out of his hand on Sunday? ~ erma-bombeck, @wisdomtrove 196:The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 197:What a moment to take the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other and watch the unfolding of the great drama of the ages. This is an exciting and thrilling time to be alive. I would not want to live in any other period. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 198:Almost every man who has by his life-work added to the sum of human achievement of which the race is proud, of which our people are proud, almost every such man has based his life-work largely upon the teachings of the Bible ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 199:The Bible says that Christians are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. On the job, in the grocery store, even among unsaved friends and family members, God's people are there to bring seasoning to an unsavory situation. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 200:The only real argument against the Bible is an unholy life. When a man argues against the Word of God, follow him home, and see if you cannot discover the reason of his enmity to the Word of the Lord. It lies in some sort of sin. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 201:The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the Church admits to be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in the book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to the original system of theology. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 202:There can be no more reliable authority on earth than God's Word, the Bible. This timeless, trustworthy source of truth holds the key that unlocks life's mysteries. It alone provides us with the shelter we need in times of storm. ~ charles-r-swindoll, @wisdomtrove 203:It is far better that we admitted a thousand devils to roam at large than that we permitted one such imposter and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God and have credit among us. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 204:Religious moderation is the direct result of taking scripture less and less seriously. So why not take it less seriously still? Why not admit the the Bible is merely a collection of imperfect books written by highly fallible human beings. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 205:The observant man recognizes many mysteries into which he can not pretend to see, and he remembers that the world is too wide for the eye of one man. But the modern sophists are sure of everything, especially if it contradicts the Bible. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 206:For some years now I have read through the Bible twice every year. If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree and every word a little branch, I have shaken every one of these branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 207:When I read the Bible, I see that we should have victory in our life and be overcomers, and I can't even control my temper. I'm impatient. I'm hard to get along with. I'm selfish and self-centered, and I don't seem to have any control over it. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 208:What is it the Bible teaches us? - raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? - to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 209:Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books - especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 210:Marriage is referred to in the bible as ‚ mystical union, and it really is in the sense that two people who don’t know each other get together. I’m always interested in how much you find out about the other person and how much you don’t find out. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 211:Let the separation between you and the world be final and irreversible. Say, & 212:Curiously, the most serious religious people, or the most concerned scholars, those who constantly read the Bible as a matter of professional or pious duty, can often manage to evade a radically involved dialogue with the book they are questioning. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 213:It seems to me that the prayers of the Bible can be distilled into one. The result is a simple, easy-to-remember, pocket-sized prayer: Father, you are good. I need help. They need help. Thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. Let this prayer punctuate your day. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 214:For centuries the Bible's emphasis on compassion and love for our neighbor has inspired institutional and governmental expressions of benevolent outreach such as private charity, the establishment of schools and hospitals, and the abolition of slavery. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 215:But in addition to all the moral evidence against the Bible, I will, in the progress of this work, produce such other evidence as even a priest cannot deny; and show, from that evidence, that the Bible is not entitled to credit, as being the word of God. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 216:The Bible is the truest utterance that ever came by alphabetic letters from the soul of man, through which, as through a window divinely opened, all men can look into the stillness of eternity, and discern in glimpses their far-distant, long-forgotten home. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 217:Sink the Bible to the bottom of the ocean, and man's obligations to God would be unchanged. He would have the same path to tread, only his lamp and his guide would be gone; he would have the same voyage to make, but his chart and compass would be overboard! ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 218:My God, what a clumsy olla putrida James Joyce is! Nothing but old fags and cabbage stumps of quotations from the Bible and the rest, stewed in the juice of deliberate, journalistic dirty-mindedness‚Äîwhat old and hard-worked staleness, masquerading as the all-new! ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 219:We ought therefore to suspect that a great mass of information respecting the Bible, and the introduction of it into the world, has been suppressed by the united tyranny of Church and State, for the purpose of keeping people in ignorance, and which ought to be known. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 220:I think that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, but the Bible also teaches that pride is a sin, jealousy is a sin, and hate is a sin, evil thoughts are a sin. So I don't think that homosexuality should be chosen as the overwhelming sin that we are doing today. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 221:Next to the Bible, the book I value most is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I believe I have read it through at least a hundred times. It is a volume of which I never seem to tire; and the secret of its freshness is that it is so largely compiled from the Scriptures. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 222:Jesus Christ is the greatest man in the history of the world. And to me, he's the greatest person in the history of mankind and the universe. We can't prove it, I can't put it in a test tube or in an astronomical formula, but by faith I believe it because the Bible teaches it. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 223:Let us not lose the Bible, but with diligence, in fear and invocation of God, read and preach it. While that remains and flourishes, all prospers with the state; 'tis head and empress of all arts and faculties. Let but divinity fall, and I would not give a straw for the rest. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 224:I've been studying the Bible for a long time. I remember that after the first five years or so of diligently studying the Word, I didn't feel like I had made any progress. There were a lot of things in my life that were out of order, and I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 225:The case, however, is, that the Bible will not bear examination in any part of it, which it would do if it was the Word of God. Those who most believe it are those who know least about it, and priests always take care to keep the inconsistent and contradictory parts out of sight. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 226:OUR INSPIRATION: Billy Graham, July 2, 1962 úWorld events are moving very rapidly now. I pick up the Bible in one hand, and I pick up the newspaper in the other. And I read almost the same words in the newspaper as I read in the Bible. Itôs being fulfilled every day round about us. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 227:The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth. The Bible is endorsed by the ages. Our civilization is built upon its words. In no other book is there such a collection of inspired wisdom, reality, and hope. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 228:People always want to know how you know. And knowing in your heart is very hard to describe. I think so often, we're trying to understand something with our mind. But, actually, the Bible teaches us that much of what God does in our life will be difficult to understand with the mind. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 229:Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being. Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 230:Remembering is a noble and necessary act. The call of memory, the call to memory, reaches us from the very dawn of history. No commandment figures so frequently, so insistently, in the Bible. It is incumbent upon us to remember the good we have received, and the evil we have suffered. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 231:The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 232:Lincoln-sad, patient, kindly Lincoln, who after bearing upon his weary shoulders for four years a greater burden than that borne by any other man of the nineteenth century laid down his life for the people whom living he had served as well-built upon his early study of the Bible. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 233:The Bible promises us that Jesus will return to take His faithful followers with Him to live with Him in His glorious presence forever. Everyone else will be left behind to face God's wrath and judgment. If Jesus were to return today, do you know if He would take you with Him to heaven?. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 234:The Bible is not merely a book-it is a living power. . . . Nowhere as in the Bible can be found such a series of beautiful ideas and admirable maxims which pose before us like the battalions of a celestial army. . . . The soul can never go astray while it has this book for its guide. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 235:I liked the thought of being a country clergyman. Accordingly I read with care Pearson on the Creed and a few other books on divinity; and as I did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible, I soon persuaded myself that our Creed must be fully accepted. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 236:Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 237:The Congress of the United States, in recognition of the unique contribution of the Bible in shaping the history and character of this Nation, and so many of its citizens, has by Senate Joint Resolution 165 authorized and requested the President to designate the year 1983 as the & 238:Most of us do not understand nuclear fission, but we accept it. I don't understand television, but I accept it. I don't understand radio, but every week my voice goes out around the world, and I accept it. Why is it so easy to accept all these man-made miracles and so difficult to accept the miracles of the Bible? ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 239:The command "Be ye prfect" is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He said (in the Bible) that we were "gods" and he is going to make good his words. He will make us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature... a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 240:The bible says no man can take your joy. That means no person can make you live with a negative attitude. No circumstance, no adversity can force you to live in despair. As Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of wheelchair-bound President Franklin D. Roosevelt, often said, òNo one can make you feel inferior without your consent. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 241:Well, it's an ancestral tribe. These were immigrants from north of Germany who came here about the time of the Civil War, but anyway, these people called themselves free thinkers. They were impressed, incidentally, by Darwin. They're called Humanists now; people who aren't so sure that the Bible is the Word of God. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 242:The usefulness of religion - the fact that it gives life meaning, that it makes people feel good - is not an argument for the truth of any religious doctrine. It's not an argument that it's reasonable to believe that Jesus really was born of a virgin or that the Bible is the perfect word of the creator of the universe. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 243:I think that hell essentially is separation from God forever. And that is the worst hell that I can think of. But I think people have a hard time believing God is going to allow people to burn in literal fire forever. I think the fire that is mentioned in the Bible is a burning thirst for God that can never be quenched. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 244:The Bible give us a list of human stories on both sides of the ledger. On list of human stories is used examples - do what these people did. Another list of human stories is used as warnings - don't do what these people did. So if your story ever gets in one of these books, make sure they use it as an example, not a warning. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 245:There is not land beneath the sun where there is an open Bible and a preached gospel, where a tyrant long can hold his place... Let the Bible be opened to be read by all men, and no tyrant can long rule in peace... The religion of Jesus makes men think, and to make men think is always dangerous to a despot's power. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 246:Kids, she says. When they're little, they believe everything you tell them about the world. As a mother, you're the world almanac and the encyclopedia and the dictionary and the Bible, all rolled up together. But after they hit some magic age, it's just the opposite. After that, you're either a liar or a fool or a villain. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 247:I am a Bible Christian and if an archangel with a wingspread as broad as a constellation shining like the sun were to come and offer me some new truth, I'd ask him for a reference. If he could not show me where it is found in the Bible, I would bow him out and say, I'm awfully sorry, you don't bring any references with you ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 248:We are warned by the Word both of our duty, our danger, and our remedy. On the sea of life there would be many more wrecks if it were not for the divine storm-signals which give to the watchful a timely warning. The Bible should be our Mentor, our Monitor, our Memento Mori, our Remembrancer, and the Keeper of our Conscience. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 249:The Bible contains legendary, historical, and ethical contents. It is quite possible to consider them separately, and one doesn't have to accept the legends in order to get the ethics. Fundamentalists make a grave mistake to insist on the letter of the writings, because they drive away many who can't swallow the Adam-and-Eve bit. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 250:There is much in the Bible against which every instinct of my being rebels, so much that I regret the necessity which has compelled me to read it through from beginning to end. I do not think that the knowledge which I have gained of its history and sources compensates me for the unpleasant details it has forced upon my attention. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 251:The greatest encouragement throughout the Bible is God's love for His lost race and the willingness of Christ, the eternal Son, to show forth that love in God's plan of redemption. The love of Jesus is so inclusive that it knows no boundaries. At the point where we stop caring and loving, Jesus is still there loving and caring ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 252:Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain - from cosmology to psychology to economics - has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 253:Just as bank tellers need a thorough knowledge of legitimate currency in order to spot counterfeit bills, so Christians need a thorough knowledge of the Bible in order to spot bogus religious teachings. How grounded are you in the Scriptures? How deep are your theological roots? How capable are you of detecting false teachings? ~ charles-r-swindoll, @wisdomtrove 254:The Bible is the proper book for men. There the truth is distinguished from error far more clearly than anywhere else, and one finds something new in it every day. For twenty-eight years, since I became a doctor, I have now constantly read and preached the Bible; and yet I have not exhausted it but find something new in it every day. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 255:Thus, I came…to a deep religiosity, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books, I soon reached a conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true…. Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience…an attitude which has never left me. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 256:We don’t exhaust the Bible even after reading it hundreds of times. Each time we read it we see it in a new light. That is the greatness of the holy scriptures. They are that way because they were created by holy prophets who experienced the truth. Each time we read these works we elevate ourselves to see a little more. ~ swami-satchidananda-saraswati, @wisdomtrove 257:Anybody who comes together in a large group and they all believe the same thing, they're going to generate a certain amount of power. The Bible says one puts 1,000 in flight, and two 10,000, and so on and so forth. And so even if me and somebody else got into agreement about something, we would have more power than each of us by ourselves. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 258:A person who believes that Elvis is still alive is very unlikely to get promoted to a position of great power and responsibility in our society. Neither will a person who believes that the holocaust was a hoax. But people who believe equally irrational things about God and the bible are now running our country. This is genuinely terrifying. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 259:If you get a drill and drill down 5km beneath the ground, it's teeming with life - millions of tiny living fossils. They resemble the earliest life forms and suggest that life started under the Ground. The bible talks of Eden as a sunny parkland with white fluffy clouds, but it probably ascended from the region that we now associate with Hell. ~ paul-davies, @wisdomtrove 260:Where was Mother Teresa's Jesus? He was in the Bible, in the church, in her prayer, in the Eucharist, in her sisters, in the heart of everyone she met, and especially in the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low. Jesus was in disguise in each one of them. Jesus was behind the foundation of her order. Jesus was behind all that she did. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 261:It should not be surprising if people believe easily in a God who makes no demands, but this is not the God of the Bible. Satan has cleverly misled people by whispering that they can believe in Jesus Christ without being changed, but this is the Devil's lie. To those who say you can have Christ without giving anything up, Satan is deceiving you. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 262:Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 263:Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make? For the Bible says one thing; and the creation says the contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 264:I was reading in the Bible and one translation says that Jesus said that if you publicly will acknowledge me before people, I will acknowledge you before my Father in heaven. So that is a big part of these meetings like Night of Hope, giving people an opportunity to publicly say, "Jesus, I believe you are the messiah, you're Christ, you're my Lord." ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 265:Choose to view life through God's eyes. This will not be easy because it doesn't come naturally to us. We cannot do this on our own. We have to allow God to elevate our vantage point. Start by reading His Word, the Bible... Pray and ask God to transform your thinking. Let Him do what you cannot. Ask Him to give you an eternal, divine perspective. ~ charles-r-swindoll, @wisdomtrove 266:What is the Bible in your house? It is not the Old Testament, it is not the New Testament, it is not the Gospel according to Matthew, or Mark, or Luke, or John; it is the Gospel according to William; it is the Gospel according to Mary; it is the Gospel according to Henry and James; it is the Gospel according to your name. You write your own Bible. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 267:It is chilling to think that the same people who persecuted the wise women and men of Europe, its midwives and healers, then crossed the oceans to Africa and the Americas and tortured and enslaved, raped, impoverished, and eradicated the peaceful, Christ-like people they found. And that the blueprint from which they worked, and still work, was the Bible. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 268:One day - I remember it was a Sabbath afternoon - I came to the synagogue with a book in my hand. I saw a commentary on the Bible by a certain Rabbi Moshe Dessauer, better known as Moses Mendelssohn. An elderly man came up to me - I was then maybe 10 or 12. "What are you studying?" he said. "Dessauer's commentaries," I said. So he gave me a slap on my face. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 269:It is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural language, and your very style is fashioned upon Scripture models, and, what is better still, your spirit is flavored with the words of the Lord. Prick him anywhere; and you will find that his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 270:We can either have a twenty-first-century conversation about morality and the human well-being - a conversation in which we avail ourselves of all scientific insights and philosophical arguments that have accumulated in the last two thousand years of human discourse - or we can confine ourselves to a first-century conversation as it is preserved in the Bible. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 271:The Bible is interpreted by the Talmud. Except, in Rabbinic tradition, a Talmudic law has the weight of the Biblical law. Sometimes we say in a prayer, "Blessed are Thou, O God, who has ordered us and commended us," to do something. But you don't find that "something" in the Bible; you find it in the Talmud. So Talmudic law becomes as important as Biblical law. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 272:I don't believe we are supposed to go through life defeated and not having enough money to pay our bills or send our kids to college. When I hear some of that, I think that is not who I am, he doesn't know me or what I teach. I always talk about God rewards obedience. When you follow His way, the Bible says that His blessings will chase you down and overtake you. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 273:If you suspect that my interest in the Bible is going to inspire me with sudden enthusiasm for Judaism and make me a convert of mountain?moving fervor and that I shall suddenly grow long earlocks and learn Hebrew and go about denouncing the heathen you little know the effect of the Bible on me. Properly read, it is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 274:What does this word holiness really mean? Is it a negative kind of piety from which so many people have shied away? No, of course not! Holiness in the Bible means moral wholeness& 275:I enter a most earnest plea that in our hurried and rather bustling life of today we do not lose the hold that our forefathers had on the Bible. I wish to see the Bible study as much a matter of course in the secular colleges as in the seminary. No educated man can afford to be ignorant of the Bible, and no uneducated man can afford to be ignorant of the Bible. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 276:Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death, and religiosu wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 277:If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why's he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He's not good at design, he's not good at execution. He'd be out of business, if there was any competition. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 278:Is there any man that thinks in chains like the man who calls himself a free-thinker? Is there any man so credulous as the man who will not believe in the Bible? He swallows a ton of difficulties, and yet complains that we have swallowed an ounce of them. He has much more need of faith of a certain sort than we have, for skepticism has far harder problems than faith. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 279:Now if I believe in God's Son and remember that He became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before. Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, as I reflect that he is Lord over all things. ... God writes the Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 280:There are some promises in the Bible which I have never yet used; but I am well assured that there will come times of trial and trouble when I shall find that poor despised promise, which I thought was never meant for me, will be the only one on which I can float. I know that the time is coming when every believer shall know the worth of every promise in the covenant. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 281:The Bible is the story of two gardens: Eden and Gethsemane. In the first, Adam took a fall. In the second, Jesus took a stand. In the first, God sought Adam. In the second, Jesus sought God. In Eden, Adam hid from God. In Gethsemane, Jesus emerged from the tomb. In Eden, Satan led Adam to a tree that led to his death. From Gethsemane, Jesus went to a tree that led to our life. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 282:Truth, in its struggles for recognition, passes through four distinct stages. First, we say it is damnable, dangerous, disorderly, and will surely disrupt society. Second, we declare it is heretical, infidelic and contrary to the Bible. Third, we say it is really a matter of no importance either one way or the other. Fourth, we aver that we have always upheld it and believed it. ~ elbert-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 283:The Bible talks about how God uses difficult situations to develop our character and get us stronger. The death of my father is probably the biggest thing that I ever faced. Daddy and I were best friends. But out of that darkness, out of that disappointment in my life, that's what God used to push me into another level of victory or another level of ministry that I never knew I had. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 284:I believe that people need to get their worth and value from knowing that God loves them. I believe that all healing in our inner man and even, we know Christ also heals people's physical diseases, but the Bible says he heals our wounds and bruises. Don't worry about what's wrong with you right now, God accepts you just the way you are and he will help you be what he wants you to be. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 285:Oh, ye infidel philosophers, teach me how to find joy in sorrow, strength in weakness, and light in darkest days; how to bear buffeting and scorn; how to welcome death, and to pass through it into the sphere of life, and this not for me only, but for the whole world that groans and travails in pain; and till you can do this, speak not to me of a better revelation than the Bible. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 286:To me this world is all one continued vision of fancy or imagination, and I feel flattered when I am told so. What is it sets Homer, Virgil and Milton in so high a rank of art? Why is the Bible more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because they are addressed to the imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and but immediately to the understanding or reason? ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 287:I'm against divorce. I think the Bible teaches that divorce is wrong, but at the same time, I also believe that the Bible has a leave way; Jesus said that a person should not be divorced and should not be separated. But in the Old Testament, men could have more than one wife under certain circumstances. And there must be reasons for that. And I think that some of them are valid reasons. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 288:To speak plainly and truthfully about the state of our world - to say, for instance, that the Bible and the Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish - is antithetical to tolerance as moderates currently conceive it. But we can no longer afford the luxury of such political correctness. We must finally recognize the price we are paying to maintain the iconography of our ignorance. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 289:There is no patent recipe for getting good citizenship. You get it by applying the old, old rules of decent conduct, the rules in accordance with which decent men have had to shape their lives from the beginning .. fundamental precepts, put forth in the Bible and embodied consciously or unconsciously in the code of morals of every great and successful nation from antiquity to modern times. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 290:In a world of danger and trial, peace is our deepest aspiration, and when peace comes we will gladly convert not our swords into plowshares, but our bombs into peaceful reactors, and our planes into space vessels. "Pursue peace," the Bible tells us, and we shall pursue it with every effort and every energy that we possess. But it is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 291:[My approach to the Bible, history does really matter.] Everything matters. But I have priorities. For instance, for me to know whether there were two Isaiahs or one is less important than the text itself. Of course I read the arguments for and against. But it's not my task in life to say there were two or three authors of Isaiah's book, or how many authors there were of Deuteronomy. This is not what I'm doing. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 292:Science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel amongst themselves. This is disillusioning for those untrained in the scientific method, who thus turn to the rigid certainty of the Bible instead. There is something comfortable about a view that allows for no deviation and that spares you the painful necessity of having to think. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 293:The Bible is not primarily a written or printed text to be scrutinized in private, in a scholar's study or a contemplative cell. It is a body of oral messages, announcements, prophecies, promulgations, recitals, histories, songs of praise, lamentations, etc., which are meant either to be uttered or at least read aloud, or chanted, or sung, or recited in a community convoked for the purpose of a living celebration. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 294:Now I realize it's fashionable in some circles to believe that no one in government should encourage others to read the Bible. That we're told we'll violate the constitutional separation of church and state established by the Founding Fathers and the First Amendment. The First Amendment was not written to protect people and their laws from religious values. It was written to protect those values from government tyranny. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 295:Discouragement destroys hope, so naturally the devil always tries to discourage us. Without hope we give up, which is what the devil wants us to do. The Bible repeatedly tells us not to be discouraged or dismayed. God knows that we will not come through to victory if we get discouraged, so He always encourages us as we start out on a project by saying to us, Don’t get discouraged. God wants us to be encouraged, not discouraged. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 296:All fanaticism is false, because it is a contradiction of the very nature of God and of Truth. Truth cannot be shut up in a single book, Bible or Veda or Koran, or in a single religion. The Divine Being is eternal and universal and infinite and cannot be the sole property of the Mussulmans or of the Semitic religions only, - those that happened to be in a line from the Bible and to have Jewish or Arabian prophets for their founders. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 297:I think a lot of people believe that they have to be poor to serve God, that they can't have anything. They don't really even know how to give. And one of the main principles in the Bible is you'll reap what you sew, and that if you give into the lives of others, that it shall be given back to you, good measure, pressed down and shaken together. If you go plant one tomato seed, you don't get back one tomato; you get a vine of tomatoes. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 298:What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ-can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father-that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begin to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 299:The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers' abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual, rights which they found implicit in the Bible's teachings of the inherent worth and dignity of each individual. This same sense of man patterned the convictions of those who framed the English system of law inherited by our own Nation, as well as the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 300:If I'm a blessing to you, then either God will put it on your heart to bless me, or he'll use somebody else to bless me. If I'm friendly with you, then I'll have friends. If I'm merciful with people, the Bible says I'll get mercy back. If I'm not judgmental, then people won't be judgmental with me. And it works also with finances. If you give to help other hurting people and you give to the preaching of the gospel, because you love God, then God takes care of you. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 301:I believe, when in my behavior or in relationships or in the way I react to something, that I'm still dealing with some leftover stuff from my childhood, but the good thing is now, because I have learned so much from the Bible, I can tell when I'm behaving wrong and when I'm not, and it doesn't take me very long to realize that's out of fear, or that's because I was controlled as a child, and I can make a conscious decision to behave the way I know I should behave. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 302:prejudice, prejudice, prejudice, how many hast thou destroyed! Men who might have been wise have remained fools because they thought they were wise. Many judge what the gospel ought to be, but do not actually enquire as to what it is. They do not come to the Bible to obtain their views of religion, but they open that Book to find texts to suit the opinions which they bring to it. They are not open to the honest force of truth, and therefore are not saved by it. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 303:The Bible indicates that for three days, Jesus went into the very depths of hell. Right into the enemy's own territory. And He did battle with Satan face to face. Can you imagine what a show down that was? It was good vs. evil. Right vs. wrong. Holiness vs. filth. Here are the two most powerful forces in the universe have come together to do battle for the first time in history. But thank God. The Bible says, "Satan was no match for our Champion". This was no contest. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 304:People in general know not what wickedness there is in this pretended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good; they permit themselves not to doubt of it, and they carry the ideas they form of the benevolence of the Almighty to the book which they have been taught to believe was written by his authority. Good heavens! It is quite another thing; it is a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 305:It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor? ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 306:Every thinking man, when he thinks, realizes that the teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and intertwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally, I do not mean figuratively, but literally impossible for us to figure what the loss would be if these teachings were removed. We would lose all the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals; all the standards toward which we, with more or less resolution, strive to raise ourselves. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 307:Deep religious beliefs stemming from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible inspired many of the early settlers of our country, providing them with the strength, character, convictions, and faith necessary to withstand great hardship and danger in this new and rugged land. These shared beliefs helped forge a sense of common purpose among the widely dispersed colonies - a sense of community which laid the foundation for the spirit of nationhood that was to develop in later decades. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 308:When you go through difficult times, make sure you pass the test. Don’t be stubborn and hardheaded. Recognize that God is refining you, knocking off some of your rough edges. Stand strong and fight the good fight of faith. God has called each of us to be champions; you are destined to win. If you will work with God and keep a good attitude, then no matter what comes against you, the bible says that all things not just the good things in life, but all things work together for your good. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 309:Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 310:The most horrible wickedness and cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have troubled the human race began with this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. ... It would be far, far better for us to let a thousand devils roam the world, and publicly preach the doctrine of devils (if there were such a thing, which there isn't), than to let one impostor and monster such a Moses, Joshua, Samuel or the Bible prophets come speaking the so-called word of God, and causing men to believe it. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 311:There are many persons of combative tendencies, who read for ammunition, and dig out of the Bible iron for balls. They read, and they find nitre and charcoal and sulphur for powder. They read, and they find cannon. They read, and they make portholes and embrasures. And if a man does not believe as they do, they look upon him as an enemy, and let fly the Bible at him to demolish him. So men turn the word of God into a vast arsenal, filled with all manner of weapons, offensive and defensive. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 312:On Nov. 6, the day before my 94th birthday, our nation will hold one of the most critical elections in my lifetime. We are at a crossroads and there are profound moral issues at stake. I strongly urge you to vote for candidates who support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman, protect the sanctity of life and defend our religious freedoms. The Bible speaks clearly on these crucial issues. Please join me in praying for America, that we will turn our hearts back toward God. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 313:Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain - from cosmology to psychology to economics - has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture. Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 314:Certainly the most obvious . . . example of the strictly infantile essence of America's all-conquering mentality greets our eyes daily, anywhere and everywhere, in the guise of the tabloid newspaper. The tabloid newspaper actually means to the typical American of the era what the Bible is popularly supposed to have meant to the typical Pilgrim Father: viz. a very present help in times of trouble, plus a means of keeping out of trouble via harmless, since vicarious, indulgence in the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 315:When we begin to reflect Christ, the Bible, when more understood as being centered around Christ, seems to be potentially every man's biography regarding God's promised experiences and truth for him - his individual, unique path of humbling oneself before the Lord and then being exalted by the Lord back into his true and righteous personhood. Many followers may speak of it merely to try to change other people (before changing themselves), but the prophets speak of it as a living word which miraculously tells their very own experiences. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 316:Since the Bible is a divine revelation, every single part of it is divine. Anything that comes from the divine could be no other way. Everything that comes from the divine goes down through the heavens all the way to people on earth. In heaven it is adapted to the wisdom of the angels there, and on earth it is adapted to the understanding of the people there. So the Bible has an inner, spiritual meaning for angels and an outer, material-level meaning for people on earth. That is why our connection to heaven happens through the Bible. ~ emanuel-swedenborg, @wisdomtrove 317:For all its peculiarities and unevenness, the Bible has a simple story. God made man. Man rejected God. God won't give up until he wins him back. God will whisper. He will shout. He will touch and tug. He will take away our burdens; he'll even take away our blessings. If there are a thousand steps between us and him, he will take all but one. But he will leave the final one for us. The choice is ours. Please understand. His goal is not to make you happy. His goal is to make you His. His goal is not to get you what you want; it is to get you what you need. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 318:The Bible is the written word of God, and because it is written it is confined and limited by the necessities of ink and paper and leather. The Voice of God, however, is alive and free as the sovereign God is free. & 319:Sovereignty is the term the Bible uses to describe God's perfect control and management of the universe. He preserves and governs every element. He's continually involved with all created things, directing them to act in a way that fulfills his divine purpose. That's why the most stressed-out people are control freaks. They fail at the quest they most pursue. The more they try to control the world, the more they realize they cannot. Life becomes a cycle of anxiety, failure; anxiety, failure; anxiety, failure. We can't take control, because control is not ours to take. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 320:Many will say, "I can find God without the help of the Bible, or church, or minister." Very well. Do so if you can. The Ferry Company would feel no jealousy of a man who should prefer to swim to New York. Let him do so if he is able, and we will talk about it on the other shore; but probably trying to swim would be the thing that would bring him quickest to the boat. So God would have no jealousy of a man's going to heaven without the aid of the Bible, or church, or minister; but let him try to do so, and it will be the surest way to bring him back to them for assistance. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 321:God did not create the strife between races, nor did He intend for it to be that way. Strife between races and ethnic groups comes from sin-and sin resides in the human heart. The Bible says, úWhat causes fights and quarrels among you? Donôt they come from your desires that battle within you? (James 4:1). When one group or one race claims it is superior to another, pride has taken control-and pride is a sin.Instead, God wants us to learn to accept each other and love each other-and this becomes possible, as we turn our lives over to Christ and allow Him to change us from within. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 322:..there is need for a person to be generally educated. Otherwise you shrivel up much too soon. Whether this means reading the bible (I read the New Testament every few years) or reading the great 19th century novelists (the greatest and shrewdest judge of people and of society who ever lived), or classical philosophy (which I cannot read-it puts me to sleep immediately), or history (which is secondary). What matters is that the knowledge worker, by the time he or she reaches middle age, has developed and nourished a human being rather than a tax accountant or a hydraulic engineer. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 323:If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures. Once again, we need look no further than the Jains: Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: & 324:Humanity is an organism, inherently rejecting all that is deleterious, that is, wrong, and absorbing after trial what is beneficial, that is, right. If so disposed, the Architect of the Universe, we must assume, might have made the world and man perfect, free from evil and from pain, as angels in heaven are thought to be; but although this was not done, man has been given the power of advancement rather than of retrogression. The Old and New Testaments remain, like other sacred writings of other lands, of value as records of the past and for such good lessons as they inculcate. Like the ancient writers of the Bible our thoughts should rest upon this life and our duties here. "To perform the duties of this world well, troubling not about another, is the prime wisdom," says Confucius, great sage and teacher. The next world and its duties we shall consider when we are placed in it. ~ andrew-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 325:When someone's body can no longer perform its functions in the natural world in response to the thoughts and affections of its spirit (which it derives from the spiritual world), then we say that the individual has died. This happens when the lungs' breathing and the heart's systolic motion have ceased. The person, though, has not died at all. We are only separated from the physical nature that was useful to us in the world. The essential person is actually still alive. I say that the essential person is still alive because we are not people because of our bodies but because of our spirits. After all, it is the spirit within us that thinks, and thought and affection together make us the people we are. We can see, then, that when we die we simply move from one world into another. This is why in the inner meaning of the Bible, "death" means resurrection and a continuation of life. ~ emanuel-swedenborg, @wisdomtrove 326:So if you blame Facebook, Trump, or Putin for ushering in a new and frightening era of post-truth, remind yourself that centuries ago millions of Christians locked themselves inside a self-reinforcing mythological bubble, never daring to question the factual veracity of the Bible, while millions of Muslims put their unquestioning faith in the Quran. For millennia, much of what passed for news and facts in human social networks were stories about miracles, angels, demons, and witches, with bold reporters giving live coverage straight from the deepest pits of the underworld. We have zero scientific evidence that Eve was tempted by the serpent, that the souls of all infidels burn in hell after they die, or that the creator of the universe doesn’t like it when a Brahmin marries a Dalit—yet billions of people have believed in these stories for thousands of years. Some fake news lasts forever. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 327:The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions. Premodern traditions of knowledge such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism asserted that everything that is important to know about the world was already known. The great gods, or the one almighty God, or the wise people of the past possessed all-encompassing wisdom, which they revealed to us in scriptures and oral traditions. Ordinary mortals gained knowledge by delving into these ancient texts and traditions and understanding them properly. It was inconceivable that the Bible, the Qur’an or the Vedas were missing out on a crucial secret of the universe – a secret that might yet be discovered by flesh-and-blood creatures. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:My mother loved the Bible. ~ Goldie Hawn, #NFDB
2:The Bible, The Stuffed Book. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
3:I read the Bible every day. ~ Denzel Washington, #NFDB
4:When the Bible speaks, God speaks. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
5:And the Bible isn't a fairy tale? ~ Pittacus Lore, #NFDB
6:Jews don't dunk. It's in the bible. ~ Gregg Rogell, #NFDB
7:The Bible is common-sense inspired. ~ Rees Howells, #NFDB
8:The Bible says gays arent natural. ~ Russell Howard, #NFDB
9:God is Love. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1 4:7-21, #NFDB
10:The Bible is the voice of God in print. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
11:If the Bible is true, then I'm Christ. ~ David Koresh, #NFDB
12:Jesus in Every Section of the Bible ~ Norman L Geisler, #NFDB
13:The Bible is literature, not dogma. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB
14:The bible is literature, not dogma. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB
15:I read the Bible - every goddamn day. ~ George S Patton, #NFDB
16:Men can make an idol of the Bible. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
17:The Bible consistently denies free will. ~ Gordon Clark, #NFDB
18:Some people have the Bible. I have Vogue. ~ Anna Wintour, #NFDB
19:The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum. ~ Franz Kafka, #NFDB
20:The Bible is God's love letter to us ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
21:Application is why we study the Bible. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
22:the bible is not a reliable source of truth. ~ Dan Barker, #NFDB
23:In the Bible, "will" is used in three ways. ~ John M Frame, #NFDB
24:I take the Bible literally, but not seriously. ~ Dana Gould, #NFDB
25:Lonely children probably wrote the Bible. ~ Heather O Neill, #NFDB
26:The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
27:The bible knows nothing of solitary religion. ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
28:The Bible provocatively evokes desire. ~ Jen Pollock Michel, #NFDB
29:How can I trust that the Bible is reliable? ~ Michael Horton, #NFDB
30:I am busily engaged in study of the Bible. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
31:I have read many books, but the Bible reads me. ~ Karl Barth, #NFDB
32:The Bible is God's Word given in man's language ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
33:You only believe the part of the Bible you do. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
34:The Bible is the Constitution of Christianity. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
35:You cannot grow as a Christian without the Bible. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
36:The Bible says we must choose two ways of life. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
37:The violence in the Bible is appalling. ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
38:Violence is like Coca-Cola and the Bible. A classic. ~ Jo Nesb, #NFDB
39:30 I and my Father are one. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John 10:30, #NFDB
40:I never read a self-help book except for the Bible. ~ Jon Heder, #NFDB
41:The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
42:The Bible makes the best people in the world. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
43:The birth of Jesus is the sunrise in the Bible. ~ Henry Van Dyke, #NFDB
44:Visit many good books, but live in the Bible. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
45:I study the Bible and spend time on the Internet. ~ Gloria Gaynor, #NFDB
46:Read the Bible; it is your roadmap through life. ~ George Foreman, #NFDB
47:The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
48:The Bible is to gays what Mein Kampf is to Jews. ~ Peter Tatchell, #NFDB
49:The God of the Bible is a moral monstrosity. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
50:We should create law based on the God of the Bible. ~ Sarah Palin, #NFDB
51:Half our fears arise from neglect of the Bible. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
52:[The Bible] is been my passion almost from my youth. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
53:The Bible is true, and some of it actually happened. ~ Marcus Borg, #NFDB
54:The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand... ~ Tom Waits, #NFDB
55:When you read the Bible, it's as though it reads you. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
56:Christians who neglect the Bible simply do not mature. ~ John Stott, #NFDB
57:Have you read your Bible or has the Bible read you? ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
58:The Bible is either absolute, or it's obsolete. ~ Leonard Ravenhill, #NFDB
59:Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so? ~ Karl Barth, #NFDB
60:There is no record in the Bible of a weak man falling. ~ Johnny Hunt, #NFDB
61:They say no one knows the Bible better than the devil. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
62:I am going to put the Bible out of business. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
63:I know the Bible is inspired because it inspires me. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
64:I take the Bible far too seriously to take it literally. ~ Karl Barth, #NFDB
65:Pray without ceasing. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Thessalonians, 1, 5:17, #NFDB
66:The Bible is the great family chronicle of the Jews. ~ Heinrich Heine, #NFDB
67:[The Bible] is the rock on which our Republic rests. ~ Andrew Jackson, #NFDB
68:The Bible is to religion what the Iliad is to poetry ~ Joseph Joubert, #NFDB
69:The Bible's been attacked. What is truth? It's relative. ~ Todd Burpo, #NFDB
70:Where in the Bible does it say I have to drive a Honda?. ~ Benny Hinn, #NFDB
71:Giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible. ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
72:My Mother had taught me to seek all truth in the Bible. ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB
73:The Bible is clear that the Holy Spirit is God Himself. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
74:The Bible is the most important part of your faith. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
75:The Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he ~ Dyan Cannon, #NFDB
76:You cannot read the Bible and ignore the political realm. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
77:I detest the Bible as I detest everything that is cruel. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
78:I try to live by the principles the Bible speaks on. ~ Brandon Marshall, #NFDB
79:The Bible, at the end of the day, is a very human book. ~ Bart D Ehrman, #NFDB
80:The Bible describes everything, including you! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
81:The bible fits man for life and prepares him for death ~ Daniel Webster, #NFDB
82:The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
83:The Bible is the ultimate book of wisdom and advice. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
84:The Bible looks like it started out as a game of Mad Libs. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
85:The Bible looks like it started out as a game of mad libs. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
86:Visit many good books, but live in the Bible. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
87:All quotations were either from the Bible or Shakespeare. ~ Ellen Raskin, #NFDB
88:The Archaeology of the Land of the Bible: An Introduction ~ Simon Schama, #NFDB
89:All things desirable to men are contained in the Bible. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
90:Are you afraid? Remember the "fear nots" of the Bible. ~ Elisabeth Elliot, #NFDB
91:Half our fears arise from neglect of the Bible. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
92:I only read the Holy Koran, the Bible and the sports pages ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
93:Pray, lest ye enter into temptation. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Luke, 22:40, #NFDB
94:The bible says, 'All things are possible.' I believe that. ~ Dolly Parton, #NFDB
95:The words grace and gracious are used 169 times in the Bible. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
96:Hebrew was frozen, like frozen peas, fresh out of the Bible. ~ Etgar Keret, #NFDB
97:I've never seen so much suicide...The Bible is full of hope. ~ Johnny Hunt, #NFDB
98:Kenosis: Christ emptied Himself
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Philippians 2:7,#NFDB
99:Read the Bible. Work hard and honestly. And don't complain. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
100:The Bible teaches that all sin begins with sinful thinking. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
101:Where one man reads the Bible, a hundred read you and me. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
102:Many are called, but few are chosen. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew 22:14, #NFDB
103:the Bible is only as good and decent as the person reading it. ~ Dan Savage, #NFDB
104:The Bible tells us to forgive our enemies, not our friends ~ Margot Asquith, #NFDB
105:The doctrine of inerrancy is the belief that the Bible is true. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
106:There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible... ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
107:Ever feel like God wrote a part of the Bible just for you? ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
108:My commitment to the Bible [is my] source of progressive values. ~ Mel White, #NFDB
109:No educated man can afford to be ignorant of the Bible. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
110:That Book (the BIBLE) accounts for the supremacy of England ~ Queen Victoria, #NFDB
111:[The Bible is] a mass of fables and traditions, mere mythology. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
112:I love reading the Bible. It makes sense of the whole world ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
113:Odd, the way the less the Bible is read the more it is translated ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
114:Real love, the Bible says, instinctively desires permanence. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
115:The Bible is not man's word about God, but God's word about man. ~ John Barth, #NFDB
116:The Bible says in Romans 12:21 that we overcome evil with good. ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
117:The Bible without the Holy Spirit is a sundial by moonlight. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
118:The heart of all idolatry in the Bible is the de-godding of God. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
119:Don Quixote — I read that every year, as some do the Bible. ~ William Faulkner, #NFDB
120:I'm looking for loopholes. (Said when caught reading the Bible.). ~ W C Fields, #NFDB
121:No sciences are better attested than the religion of the Bible. ~ Isaac Newton, #NFDB
122:The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
123:The most frequent promise in the Bible is ‘I will be with you.’ ~ John Ortberg, #NFDB
124:But the Bible says, even though we may blow it every day, ~ Kathie Lee Gifford, #NFDB
125:If the Bible is a creation myth, it is an amorphous confusing one ~ Todd Gitlin, #NFDB
126:I've been in the Bible every day since I've been the president. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
127:Real love, the Bible says, instinctively desires permanence. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
128:So study your rock history, son. That be the Bible of the Blues. ~ Steven Tyler, #NFDB
129:The Bible does not provide a map for life - only a compass. ~ Haddon W Robinson, #NFDB
130:The Bible is claimed as the only true revelation from God. "To ~ Henry M Morris, #NFDB
131:We must hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. ~ Karl Barth, #NFDB
132:What is it the Bible teaches us? -- rapine, cruelty, and murder. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
133:What the pundits call wishy-washiness, the Bible calls repentance. ~ David Dark, #NFDB
134:As so many people in the Bible did, tell God exactly how you feel. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
135:Do not be more devoted to your own brain than you are to the Bible. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
136:It is Stoicism that demands a closed universe, not the Bible. ~ Richard J Foster, #NFDB
137:The accepted versions of the Bible are all substantially correct. ~ William Bell, #NFDB
138:The Bible is not merely a book about God; it is a book from God. ~ Jerry Bridges, #NFDB
139:The firmament of the Bible is ablaze with answers to prayer. ~ Theodore L Cuyler, #NFDB
140:Certain teachings in the Bible are as diamonds in a dung-heap. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
141:Give me any two pages of the Bible and I'll give you a picture. ~ Cecil B DeMille, #NFDB
142:I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
143:If you can't trust the Bible's history, how can you trust its morality? ~ Ken Ham, #NFDB
144:Man will believe anything, as long as it's not in the bible. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
145:Nothing else in this world can renew our minds like the Bible. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
146:The Bible account of the creation of Eve is a preposterous fable. ~ Thomas Huxley, #NFDB
147:the Bible is a book dealing with the science of the mind. ~ Florence Scovel Shinn, #NFDB
148:The only wrong way to read the Bible is to not read it at all. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
149:There were times when I was so sick of talking about the Bible. ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
150:We notice as the Bible goes on, the area of scared space shrinks. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
151:But the God of the Bible is not only One, but the only possible One. ~ Leo Strauss, #NFDB
152:Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic . ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
153:For now we see through a glass, darkly... ~ Anonymous, The Bible, (1 Cor. 13:12), #NFDB
154:I have spent a lot of time searching through the Bible for loopholes. ~ W C Fields, #NFDB
155:It's a pity people pick and choose what they learn from the Bible. ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
156:The God of the Bible is claimed to be the only true God. Jeremiah ~ Henry M Morris, #NFDB
157:But the Bible locates the root issue as our separation from God. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
158:The Bible can touch our hearts, order our minds, refresh our souls. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
159:The Bible is the sceptre by which the Heavenly King rules His Church. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
160:The Bible never seeks to defend the existence of God. It is assumed. ~ Randy Frazee, #NFDB
161:The Bible says that when two or more gather in His name, touch and agree— ~ E N Joy, #NFDB
162:The world doesn´t believe the Bible, Christians don´t obey the ~ Leonard Ravenhill, #NFDB
163:getting the Bible right and getting Jesus right are not the same thing. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
164:I believe [the Bible] is meant to soften our hearts, not harden them. ~ Alex Sanchez, #NFDB
165:I have a really great relationship with God. I pray. I read the Bible. ~ Hunter Tylo, #NFDB
166:luther, he ruined the bible by translating it into their own language. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
167:Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms 16:1,#NFDB
168:Shakespeare has done far more for the world than the Bible. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
169:The Bible is a wonderful book; you can prove anything you want with it. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
170:The Bible is worth all the other books which have ever been printed. ~ Patrick Henry, #NFDB
171:The Bible says that two cannot walk together unless they are agreed. ~ Peter Akinola, #NFDB
172:There is no book on which we can rest in a dying moment but the Bible. ~ John Selden, #NFDB
173:We follow the rules laid out in the Bible for running our church. ~ William Brewster, #NFDB
174:Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy. ~ Frank Sinatra, #NFDB
175:A wife's faithful to her husband, subject to him. It's in the bible. ~ Elmore Leonard, #NFDB
176:Closed Bibles will not convince our children of the value of the Bible. ~ Tony Reinke, #NFDB
177:I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John 15:1, #NFDB
178:I believe that the best way to become an atheist is to read the bible ~ Penn Jillette, #NFDB
179:I don't worship the Bible, I worship the God who gave the Bible. ~ Michael Eric Dyson, #NFDB
180:The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and of the oppressed. ~ Thomas Huxley, #NFDB
181:The Bible in the memory is better than the Bible in the book case. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
182:As a man thinketh in his heart so shall he be
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs 23:7,#NFDB
183:Bookshop Customer: 'Who wrote the bible?'
Customer's friend: 'Jesus. ~ Jen Campbell,#NFDB
184:can’t give any credence to the Bible because so many villains quote it. ~ Lyndsay Faye, #NFDB
185:God himself preserved the Bible, and brought it down through the ages. ~ Jerry Falwell, #NFDB
186:I can't improve on how the Bible expresses itself, so I don't even try. ~ Larry Norman, #NFDB
187:Lord of the Rings is at least superior to the Bible as a source of ethics. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
188:Many store the Bible on their shelves; the best store it in their hearts. ~ T B Joshua, #NFDB
189:sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
190:The Bible and studying the Bible has been an important part of my life. ~ Jimmy Carter, #NFDB
191:...the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
192:The Bible is the authoritative Word of God and contains all truth. ~ William J Clinton, #NFDB
193:The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go. ~ Galileo Galilei, #NFDB
194:The idea that all are children of God is not found in the Bible anywhere. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
195:The tax code is 10 times the size of the Bible with none of the good news. ~ Paul Ryan, #NFDB
196:He who teaches the Bible is never a scholar; he is always a student. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
197:next to the Bible more great men had read Plutarch than any other book. ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB
198:Out from the heart of Nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
199:The Bible reminds us that on the other side of humility we find wisdom ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
200:The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
201:The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
202:Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
203:God is therefore unknowable. This is the fundamental premise of the Bible. ~ Leo Strauss, #NFDB
204:Having knowledge of the Bible is essential to a rich and meaningful life. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
205:I was reading all these books, including the Bible - and I'm an atheist. ~ Margot Kidder, #NFDB
206:Look to the Bible and not your feelings as the basis of the Christian life. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
207:The Bible is not written just to me personally but to all the saints of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
208:The Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't. ~ Kim Vogel Sawyer, #NFDB
209:The Bible was not given for our information but for our transformation. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
210:The verses in the Bible are more than good teachings, they possess power. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
211:What does the Bible say about love? Perfect love?” “It casts out fear. ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
212:Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Job 5 7, #NFDB
213:You cannot cut yourself off from the God of the Bible without consequences. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
214:Don't fall into the trap of studying the Bible without doing what it says. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
215:Gain some knowledge. If not from the Bible or Koran, get a book from college. ~ LL Cool J, #NFDB
216:I didn't know that homosexuality was wrong until I read it in the Bible. ~ Little Richard, #NFDB
217:I'm out to take the Bible, create disciples who make disciples, disciple cycles. ~ LeCrae, #NFDB
218:It (the Bible) has never bowed its head before the discoveries of science. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
219:Our spiritual maturity will never exceed our knowledge of the Bible, ~ R Albert Mohler Jr, #NFDB
220:Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, John 17:17,#NFDB
221:The Bible is not a newspaper to be skimmed but rather a mine to be quarried. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
222:The world does not believe the Bible and the church does not obey it. ~ Leonard Ravenhill, #NFDB
223:The worst sort of clever men are those who know better than the Bible. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
224:What I read in the Bible seemed to me to be very much a part of daily life. ~ Dorothy Day, #NFDB
225:When I read the Bible, the Bible criticizes me, I don't criticize the Bible. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
226:Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white. ~ William Blake, #NFDB
227:God has written His divine guidelines for your life right in the Bible. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
228:Helen Hart is the only person I know with an autographed copy of the Bible. ~ Jerry Lawler, #NFDB
229:I never saw a fruit-bearing Christian who was not a student of the Bible. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
230:I've read the last page of the Bible. It's all going to turn out all right. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
231:I've read the last page of the Bible, it's all going to turn out all right. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
232:The Bible is a book that boldly and clearly reveals who God is on every page. ~ Jen Wilkin, #NFDB
233:The Bible is not God. The Bible is simply the cradle that holds Christ. ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
234:The Bible wasn’t given for our information but for our transformation. ~ Bruce H Wilkinson, #NFDB
235:The Bible will teach you, correct you, instruct you, and give you hope. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
236:The FOOL Has Said In His Heart:There is No God!" ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalm 14:1, [T5], #NFDB
237:To the Bible men will return; and why? Because they cannot do without it. ~ Matthew Arnold, #NFDB
238:any specific teaching that contradicts a teaching of the Bible is false. ~ Norman L Geisler, #NFDB
239:In the end, he said he judged the Bible to be a sound book. Nevertheless, ~ Charles Frazier, #NFDB
240:look to the Bible and not my feelings as the basis of the Christian life. I've ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
241:One leather-bound copy of the Bible, black, Book of Genesis repeated twice One ~ Wendy Mass, #NFDB
242:Study the Bible like a soldier on a mission, not a scholar on a sabbatical. ~ Mark Driscoll, #NFDB
243:The bible belt is oral territory and therefore despised by the literati. ~ Marshall McLuhan, #NFDB
244:The Bible is as much a book of religion with me as the Gita and the Koran. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
245:The Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. ~ Joseph Smith Jr, #NFDB
246:The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future is the Bible of the Free. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
247:There are but two truths in the world - the Bible and Greek architecture. ~ Nicholas Biddle, #NFDB
248:Too often we see the Bible through whatever lens we get from our culture. ~ Brian D McLaren, #NFDB
249:He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John 4:8, [T5], #NFDB
250:How can a rabbi not live with doubt? The Bible itself is a book of doubt. ~ Arthur Hertzberg, #NFDB
251:In the middle of the Bible Belt, active church attendance is actually quite low. ~ J D Vance, #NFDB
252:Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
253:...the Bible and the Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
254:The Bible clearly reminds us that left to ourselves, we would be lost forever. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
255:The Bible is a letter God has sent to us; prayer is a letter we send to him. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
256:The Bible is a supernatural book and can be understood only by supernatural aid. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
257:The Bible is God’s own Word. It is God’s great gift to all people everywhere. ~ Derek Prince, #NFDB
258:The Bible, I've said it before, is a beautifully written work of fiction. ~ Janeane Garofalo, #NFDB
259:The purpose of the Bible is simply to proclaim God's plan to save His children. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
260:The secret of my success? It is simple. It is found in the Bible. ~ George Washington Carver, #NFDB
261:Um, yeah. The Bible. All things are possible through Christ who strengthens me. ~ Liz Talley, #NFDB
262:Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white.
~ William Blake,#NFDB
263:Down through the years, I turned to the Bible and found in it all that I needed ~ Ruth Graham, #NFDB
264:If the Bible and the microscope do not agee, the microscope is wrong ~ William Jennings Bryan, #NFDB
265:I have morning prayers and a nighttime reflection. I also read the Bible daily. ~ Roma Downey, #NFDB
266:It does not say in the Bible that all laws of nature are expressible linearly! ~ Enrico Fermi, #NFDB
267:Our museum uses dinosaurs to help tell their true history according to the Bible. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
268:Read the Bible for the salvation of your soul, not the solution to your problem. ~ T B Joshua, #NFDB
269:The Bible has always been regarded as part of the Common Law of England. ~ William Blackstone, #NFDB
270:The Bible is like a bull fiddle, you can play almost any tune you want on it. ~ Tommy Douglas, #NFDB
271:The Bible says our warfare is with the devil, not with people (Ephesians 6:12). ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
272:There's no better book with which to defend the Bible than the Bible itself. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
273:We are not to worship the Bible; we are to worship the One the Bible reveals. ~ Philip Gulley, #NFDB
274:Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
275:A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
276:How much do I have to hate homosexuals to lie to them about what the Bible says? ~ Ray Comfort, #NFDB
277:If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. The Bible, Proverbs ~ Janet Lowe, #NFDB
278:Let nothing hinder thee from praying always ... ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiasticus, 18:22, #NFDB
279:My experience has confirmed the wisdom of so much of what the Bible teaches. ~ Benjamin Carson, #NFDB
280:Put out the good and keep the bad - don't believe all you read in the Bible. ~ Freddie Mercury, #NFDB
281:The Bible does not present an art of prayer; it presents the God of prayer. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
282:The Bible is clear - God's definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
283:The Bible is God’s infallible Word, the only rule of faith and practice. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
284:The Bible’s concern is not if we shall believe but what we shall believe. ~ William H Willimon, #NFDB
285:Whatever else in the Bible catches your eye, do not let it distract you from Him. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
286:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. ~ Anon, The Bible, Matthew, 6:21, #NFDB
287:If we’re not careful, we can replace study of the Bible with study about the Bible. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
288:I would sooner read five lines of the Bible than hear five masses in the "Church". ~ Anne Askew, #NFDB
289:No one can appropriate God, goodness, the Bible or Jesus. It just seems that way. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
290:Out of 100 men, one will read the Bible, the other 99 will read the Christian. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
291:The word doctrine, as used in the Bible, means teaching of duty, not theory. ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
292:You have to take Bible prophecy literally, just like everything else in the Bible. ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
293:All is vanity, says the Bible. All is now, says Zen, All is dust, says the desert. ~ Phil Knight, #NFDB
294:As it says in the Bible, God fights on the side with the heaviest artillery. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
295:Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read'st black where I read white. ~ William Blake,#NFDB
296:If you want to grow in true wisdom, grow in a knowledge of the God of the Bible. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
297:I have read the last page of the Bible and I know for sure that we win in the end. ~ Greg Laurie, #NFDB
298:Not to decide is to decide not to, nowhere in the bible does it promise tomorrow. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
299:[ Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac] was the greatest commentator [of the Bible] we ever had. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
300:Remember: the Bible is our only authoritative source of information about Heaven. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
301:The Bible says all things work together for good, for those who love the Lord. ~ Louis Zamperini, #NFDB
302:The Bible says, 'Love thy neighbor.'"
"That could mean to leave him alone. ~ Charles Bukowski,#NFDB
303:Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #NFDB
304:The Bible diagnoses the cancer of all cancers and prescribes the cure of all cures. ~ Ray Comfort, #NFDB
305:The Bible is not a book of principles to live by but rather a Person to live for. ~ Mark Driscoll, #NFDB
306:The Bible is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is NOW SPEAKING. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
307:The Bible is the Word of God in such a way that when the Bible speaks, God speaks. ~ B B Warfield, #NFDB
308:The big news of the Bible is not that you fight for God but that God fights for you. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
309:The Founding Fathers were devotees of Cicero and Locke, of the Bible and Aristotle. ~ Ben Shapiro, #NFDB
310:There are, in fact, no halos in the Bible—just as there are no cats or accordions. ~ Alan Bradley, #NFDB
311:There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible that in any profane history ~ Isaac Newton, #NFDB
312:Western literature has been more influenced by the Bible than any other book. ~ Thomas B Macaulay, #NFDB
313:Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document? ~ Clarence Darrow, #NFDB
314:If the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it. ~ William Jennings Bryan, #NFDB
315:Like the Bible, Stanislavsky's basic texts on acting can be quoted to any purpose. ~ Lee Strasberg, #NFDB
316:Look, Brother Chris, women are . . . weak vessels. It is identified in the Bible. ~ Nnedi Okorafor, #NFDB
317:The more people marginalize the true God of the Bible the more chaotic things become. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
318:The overarching narrative of the Bible is that of humanity searching for home. ~ Diana Butler Bass, #NFDB
319:There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history. ~ Isaac Newton, #NFDB
320:The tax code is now nine times longer than the Bible, and not nearly as interesting. ~ Rob Portman, #NFDB
321:The text of the Bible means what God inspired it to mean, not “what it means to ~ Donald S Whitney, #NFDB
322:This is the Mark of Cain. You know the story of Cain and Abel? From the Bible?" I ~ Karpov Kinrade, #NFDB
323:When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data. ~ Henry M Morris, #NFDB
324:I don't see anywhere in the Bible where it says you shouldn't get breast implants. ~ Carrie Prejean, #NFDB
325:It's fair to say that the Bible contains equal amounts of fact, history, and pizza. ~ Penn Jillette, #NFDB
326:I was taught a lot of Bible at home and had a voracious appetite for reading the Bible. ~ Amy Grant, #NFDB
327:Take from the Bible the Godship of Christ, and it would be but a heap of dust. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
328:The Bible: a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
329:The Bible grows more beautiful, as we grow in our understanding of it. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
330:There is a book of Revelation in every one's life, as there is in the Bible. ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery, #NFDB
331:God gave the Bible not so we can know it but so we can know and love God through it. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
332:I have a problem with people who take the Constitution loosely and the Bible literally. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
333:Like God in the Bible, they looked at what they had made and found it very good ~ Katherine Paterson, #NFDB
334:The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB
335:The Bible is so strange, so utterly bizarre, no human brain could have come up with it. ~ A J Jacobs, #NFDB
336:The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. ~ Samuel Butler, #NFDB
337:The existence of the Bible is the greatest blessing which humanity ever experienced. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
338:When it comes to the heart and soul, only the Bible can bring true and lasting changes. ~ Jim George, #NFDB
339:If one preaches the Bible biblically, one cannot help preaching the gospel all the time. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
340:I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out ~ Anonymous, The Bible, (Lk. 19:40)., #NFDB
341:I think [Sacrifice of Isaac] is the most important event in the Bible except for Sinai. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
342:It's not the parts of the Bible I don't know that worries me...it's the parts that I do. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
343:I was a Jewish rabbinical student for 12 years, and studied the Bible all the time. ~ Alan Dershowitz, #NFDB
344:Much of what the Bible demands can be comprised in one imperative: Remember! ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
345:Some people use the Bible as medicine. Others use it as poison." - Charles James ~ Richard Paul Evans, #NFDB
346:The Bible doesn't sugarcoat pain and suffering; it gives you something to move past it. ~ Jud Wilhite, #NFDB
347:The first and almost the only Book deserving of universal attention is the Bible. ~ John Quincy Adams, #NFDB
348:We either accept weaknesses in good people or we have to tear pages out of the Bible. ~ Robert Duvall, #NFDB
349:And Elohim said, 'Let there be Light.' and there was Light." (Kether) ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Gen 1:3, #NFDB
350:Doing justice, loving mercy, seeking truth...these are the issues [the Bible] is clear on. ~ Mel White, #NFDB
351:I absolutely believe in Heaven and Hell. They're just like what the Bible says they are. ~ Jeff Gannon, #NFDB
352:If we abide by the principles taught by the Bible, our country will go on prospering. ~ Daniel Webster, #NFDB
353:It has been my custom for many years to read the Bible in its entirety once a year ~ John Quincy Adams, #NFDB
354:It's a weird state to be in to go to the Bible and try to invoke science, right? ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
355:The Bible is a great source of wisdom and consolation and should be read frequently. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
356:The Bible says God loves all his creatures,' Johnny said. His voice was a bit unsteady. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
357:The company revealed that 18 percent of readers report using the Bible app in the bathroom. ~ Nir Eyal, #NFDB
358:The Gita is a commentary on the Upanishads. The Upanishads are the Bible of India. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
359:The text of the Bible means what God inspired it to mean, not “what it means to me. ~ Donald S Whitney, #NFDB
360:To me the Bible is not God, but it is God's voice, and I do not hear it without awe ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
361:When we open the Bible and read it, we are eavesdropping on an ancient spiritual journey. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
362:A single line in the Bible has consoled me more than all the books I ever read besides. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
363:as the Bible says, a smooth sea never made a good sailor. I believe that to this day. ~ Louis Zamperini, #NFDB
364:He who rejects the Bible has nothing to live by. Neither does he have anything to die by. ~ Greg Laurie, #NFDB
365:I don't like religion much, and I am glad that in the Bible the word is not to be found. ~ Martin Buber, #NFDB
366:If you are serious about changing your life, you are going to have to get into the Bible. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
367:If you believe in the Bible, you've got to do business with it and not just screen it out. ~ N T Wright, #NFDB
368:I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year. ~ John Quincy Adams, #NFDB
369:I love it when the Bible gives Emily Post-like tips that are both wise and easy to follow. ~ A J Jacobs, #NFDB
370:Learning requires work. This is as true of learning the Bible as it is of learning algebra. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
371:The Bible teaches that true joy is formed in the midst of the difficult seasons of life. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
372:The Bible tries to make humans not animals the whole time. I think it's a bit of a mistake. ~ Neko Case, #NFDB
373:The "covenant" language in the Bible is not cold, legal language, but relational language. ~ Mark Dever, #NFDB
374:When they write the sequel to the Bible, that shit is definitely gonna be in there. ~ David Wong, #NFDB
375:Deliverance is to the Bible what jazz music is to Mardi Gras: bold, brassy, and everywhere. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
376:I don't want to shove the Bible down someone's throat with my music. That's not my goal. ~ Stacie Orrico, #NFDB
377:If you hear a man rail at the Bible, you can usually conclude that he never reads it. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
378:I like Jesus and all, but I don't care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
379:The Bible, however, was not created to be amended and altered with each passing culture. ~ Mike Huckabee, #NFDB
380:The Bible is meant to be down-to-earth. It was written for real people facing real issues. ~ Judah Smith, #NFDB
381:The Bible isn’t about people trying to discover God, but about God reaching out to find us. ~ John Stott, #NFDB
382:The Bible's truth does not depend in any way on whether or not a person believes the truth. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
383:The number one book of the ages was written by a committee, and it was called The Bible. ~ Louis B Mayer, #NFDB
384:There is no other book so various as the Bible, nor one so full of concentrated wisdom. ~ Herbert Hoover, #NFDB
385:To me, the screenplay only becomes the Bible of the film after the actors have been cast. ~ Dito Montiel, #NFDB
386:We may have loved the god that we made up in our minds, but the God of the Bible, we hate. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
387:When you read the Bible, you must think that here and now, God is speaking with me ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
388:17 In the middle of the Bible Belt, active church attendance is actually quite low.18 Despite ~ J D Vance, #NFDB
389:All you need is the blues. To me, the blues is the book, it's the bible, it's everything. ~ August Wilson, #NFDB
390:Defend the Bible? I would as soon defend a lion! Unchain it and it will defend itself. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
391:fact: when the Bible speaks about healing, referring to the atoning sacrifice of Christ in ~ Derek Prince, #NFDB
392:How can they look in the eyes of a man and make a slave of him and then quote the Bible? ~ Michael Shaara, #NFDB
393:If I were the devil, one of my first aims would be to stop folk from digging into the Bible. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
394:In the Bible, God makes it very clear that when one of his people suffers, he suffers. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
395:It is the Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible. It is the Holy Spirit who illumines the Bible. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
396:I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction. ~ Ian Mckellen, #NFDB
397:Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out,
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Acts 3:19,#NFDB
398:The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine the Great ~ Dan Brown, #NFDB
399:The Bible looks the way it does because “God lets his children tell the story,” so to speak. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
400:The Bible says that our core problem, the fundamental reason we do what we do, is sin. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
401:The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John 1:5, #NFDB
402:The primary and literal meaning of the Bible, then, is its centripetal or poetic meaning. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
403:This is evidence that goodness and wickedness in the bible have nothing to do with morality. ~ Dan Barker, #NFDB
404:I can find ten more who will die for the Bible for every one who will actually read it. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
405:In the Bible, a woman was made from a man. In real life, a man is made from a woman. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
406:I’ve never understood how so many barely literate people read the Bible so much. It’s hard. ~ Lucia Berlin, #NFDB
407:Of 100 unsaved men, one might read the Bible, but the other 99 will read the Christian. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
408:The ability to discern truth comes from learning, growing, and understanding the Bible. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
409:The Bible makes it clear that self-righteousness is the premier enemy of the Gospel. ~ Tullian Tchividjian, #NFDB
410:the Bible was to him the vehicle of God’s power first, and secondly of our knowledge of Him. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
411:The final and conclusive evidence against evolution is the fact that the Bible denies it. ~ Henry M Morris, #NFDB
412:The mind, not the Bible, is the very first line of defense God has given us against error. ~ Gregory Koukl, #NFDB
413:The object of the Bible is not to tell how good men are, but how bad men can become good. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
414:To get overprotective about particular readings of the Bible is always in danger of idolatry. ~ N T Wright, #NFDB
415:When there's something in the Bible that churches don't like, they call it 'legalism.' ~ Leonard Ravenhill, #NFDB
416:But I had to learn that taking the Bible seriously doesn’t mean taking everything literally. ~ Sarah Bessey, #NFDB
417:Forget the Bible, the greatest argument against human evolution is a YouTube comment thread. ~ Damien Fahey, #NFDB
418:I attended a Baptist church as a child and was an avid reader starting with the Bible. ~ John Henrik Clarke, #NFDB
419:If your faith isn't rooted in the Bible, it will wither like a plant pulled out of the soil. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
420:I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world. ~ John Adams, #NFDB
421:N.T. Wright foregrounds what the Bible backgrounds, and backgrounds what the Bible foregrounds ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
422:The Bible changes your perspective on the people, events, and circumstances of your day. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
423:The Bible speaks not of God’s laws, as if many of them, but of God’s Law as a single whole. ~ Jerry Bridges, #NFDB
424:There are at least four distinct lines of proof in the Bible that the Holy Spirit is a person. ~ R A Torrey, #NFDB
425:For us to err, with the Bible in our hands, is the effect of pride, sloth, and carelessness. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
426:God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
427:If they believe it in the Bible, I don't see why they shouldn't believe it from me. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
428:It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
429:The Bible is not an option, it is a necessity. You cannot grow spiritually strong without it. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
430:The Bible isn’t about people trying to discover God, but about God reaching out to find us. ~ John R W Stott, #NFDB
431:The Bible is very clear that in the last days men will be “lovers of themselves” (2 Tim. 3:2). ~ John Bevere, #NFDB
432:The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible is the religion of Christ's church. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
433:The Christian-Islamic Church, of course, wanted both the Bible and the Koran frozen forever. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
434:The English are mentioned in the Bible; Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
435:The fact evil exists speaks far more about man than about God. The Bible says God hates sin. ~ Dee Henderson, #NFDB
436:The lovers of God's Word praise the preciousness of the Bible and the pleasures it brings. They ~ John Piper, #NFDB
437:There have been more books alone written about Hamlet than have been written about the Bible. ~ Mark Rylance, #NFDB
438:The theme of the Bible is not that the world's not messy but that God's at work in the mess. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
439:The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible. ~ William H Seward, #NFDB
440:Well, that’s not what the Bible preaches. It says if you know the truth, it’ll set you free. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
441:When it comes to the Bible, everything it teaches is believed or nothing it teaches is believed. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
442:Yes, I think that when the Bible refers to a horse or a horseman, that's exactly what it means. ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
443:Civilized men arrived in the Pacific, armed with alcohol, syphilis, trousers, and the Bible. ~ Havelock Ellis, #NFDB
444:Different authors have different points of view. You can't just say, 'I believe in the Bible. ~ Bart D Ehrman, #NFDB
445:God’s word in the Bible can have power only because it corresponds to God’s word in the universe. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
446:If you don’t grasp what the Bible is and how it came to be, you’ll never fully grasp its meaning. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
447:I grew up as a Southern Baptist with strict adherence to the Bible, which I read as a youngster. ~ E O Wilson, #NFDB
448:Jesus says you can read the Bible as a checklist, but if you do, you miss the whole point. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
449:Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of another ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
450:The bible informs us, compels us to care for the poor, to love the outcast, to serve the needy. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
451:The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
452:The Bible is not such a book a man would write if he could, or could write if he would. ~ Lewis Sperry Chafer, #NFDB
453:The Bible says that the servant of the Lord must be patient. Not everyone believes immediately. ~ Greg Laurie, #NFDB
454:The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
455:There has never been a Protestant boy nor a Protestant girl whose mind the Bible has not soiled. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
456:They [ The Simpsons] are just like the Bible to me as far as what the high-water mark of comedy. ~ Eric Andre, #NFDB
457:What's the point of quoting the Bible to people who don't believe it's true" Dad would say. ~ Frank Schaeffer, #NFDB
458:As for the other team, there would be much weeping and gnashing of teeth, as the Bible says. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
459:Communism has decided against God, against Christ, against the Bible, and against all religion. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
460:For every need and issue and decision that must be made in life, the Bible has the answers. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
461:He who reads the Bible in translation is like a man who kisses his bride through a veil. ~ Hayim Nahman Bialik, #NFDB
462:I can’t make the Bible come alive for anyone. The Bible is already alive. It makes me come alive. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
463:If we would destroy the Christian religion, we must first of all destroy man's belief in the Bible. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
464:I read the bible often, not just to prepare for "Noah". I believe it is a very important book. ~ Russell Crowe, #NFDB
465:Our children will grow up confused, not respecting the Bible or anything else that is sacred. ~ Charles Wesley, #NFDB
466:Take the Kama Sutra. How many people died from the Kama Sutra as opposed to the Bible? Who wins? ~ Frank Zappa, #NFDB
467:The goat shall carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place..
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Leviticus 16:22,#NFDB
468:There are few things stressed more strongly in the Bible than the reality of God's work as Judge. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
469:There are more words in the IRS code than there are in the Bible. And not a one of them is as good. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
470:The world sees porn as something to be managed; the Bible sees it as something to be killed. ~ Russell D Moore, #NFDB
471:This generation must know that the total truthfulness of the bible is under continual assault. ~ Albert Mohler, #NFDB
472:[T]o argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
473:What’s in a name? Obviously a lot; otherwise, God wouldn’t have renamed so many people in the Bible. ~ E N Joy, #NFDB
474:In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength. ~ Robert E Lee, #NFDB
475:Intense study of the Bible will keep any writer from being vulgar, in point of style. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB
476:It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. ~ George William Foote, #NFDB
477:My ground is the Bible. Yea, I am a Bible-bigot. I follow it in all things, both great and small. ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
478:Oh, they don't allow the Bible in Heaven, Miss Mary...It contains far too much sex and violence. ~ Bryan Talbot, #NFDB
479:Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hands of another. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
480:The Bible’s teaching on prayer leads overwhelmingly to one conclusion: Prayer changes things. ~ John Ortberg Jr, #NFDB
481:The giving up of (a belief in) witchcraft is in effect the giving up of (a beilief in) the Bible. ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
482:The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
483:The miracles recorded in the strata of the earth's crust are as great as any recorded in the Bible. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
484:Whether every story that's there [in the Bible] is a historic truth ... Again, I'm not concerned. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
485:Don’t merely read the Bible in your private times; study it. There is a difference (2 Timothy 2:15). ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
486:I. All the distinctive characteristics of personality are ascribed to the Holy Spirit in the Bible. ~ R A Torrey, #NFDB
487:In the highest sense the Bible is to us the unique repository of eternal spiritual truths. ~ Dwight D Eisenhower, #NFDB
488:Sometimes the Bible in the hands of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hands of another. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
489:The Bible was not given to replace the supernatural or miraculous; it was given to correct abuses. ~ R T Kendall, #NFDB
490:The emphasis of the Bible is on the work of the Redeemer, not on the work of the redeemed. ~ Tullian Tchividjian, #NFDB
491:When I think of all the harm [the Bible] has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
492:When we set our course for God, He will always be there to direct our path
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Prov. 16:9,#NFDB
493:As Christians, we have an obligation and responsibility to abide by the principles of the Bible. ~ S Truett Cathy, #NFDB
494:... because if you are raised on the Bible, you don’t just walk away, whatever anybody says. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
495:If you look at the Bible almost everything that was predicted, maybe everything, has come to pass. ~ Evel Knievel, #NFDB
496:I'm strongly into the Bible; I'm strongly into God and religion.I'm pro-life and different things. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
497:It is your duty to believe and to teach what the Bible teaches, not what you would like it to teach. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
498:Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country. ~ Gore Vidal, #NFDB
499:Once God started talking to him he never seemed to stop. I don’t think they report that in the Bible. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
500:Our study of the Bible is only beneficial insofar as it increases our love for the God it proclaims! ~ Jen Wilkin, #NFDB
501:People ought to enjoy every day of their lives. (Referencing Ecclesiastes Chapter 11 in the Bible) ~ Tricia Goyer, #NFDB
502:Taking the Bible too literally is a mistake. It should be read as a guidebook of wisdom and insight. ~ A J Jacobs, #NFDB
503:The Bible definitely is infallible, how else could it survive so many years of bad preaching? ~ Leonard Ravenhill, #NFDB
504:The Bible is a revelation of the mind and will of God to men. Therein we may learn, what God is. ~ Jupiter Hammon, #NFDB
505:The shortest verse in the Bible is 'Jesus wept.' The only thing wrong with it is the past tense. ~ R K Milholland, #NFDB
506:And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, John 1:5, [T5],#NFDB
507:As we move into the 21st century, there's what the Bible calls a 'quickening of the spirit.' ~ Neale Donald Walsch, #NFDB
508:Atheism has been on the rise for years now, and the Bible of the atheists is The Origin of Species. ~ Kirk Cameron, #NFDB
509:do. For now…” Rylie nodded, wrapping the Bible in the blanket again. “You can sleep here, if you want. ~ S M Reine, #NFDB
510:Dogs are gonna take over the world. It's a known fact for those who believe it, kinda like the Bible. ~ Mike Dirnt, #NFDB
511:God meant for the Bible to be bread for our daily use, not just cake for special occasions. ~ Suzanne Woods Fisher, #NFDB
512:Most of the world around you doesn't read the Bible. So... God gives the world a living epistle- you. ~ Kay Arthur, #NFDB
513:[...]one who will not learn to handle the Bible for himself is not an evangelical Christian. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
514:Over and over in the Bible, it is fear that threatens to keep people from trusting and obeying God. ~ John Ortberg, #NFDB
515:Remember what the Bible says: He who is without sin, cast the first rock. And I shall smoketh it. ~ Dave Chappelle, #NFDB
516:Search as we may, we don’t find in the Bible any example or concept of an inner call to ministry. ~ Colin Marshall, #NFDB
517:Taken out of context and given a forty-degree twist, you can use the Bible to justify almost anything. ~ J A Jance, #NFDB
518:The bible is the cradle that holds the Christ, without him it is nothing more than wood and straw. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
519:The Bible says that it’s all right to cast the first stone if someone dead is telling you to do it ~ David Sedaris, #NFDB
520:To me [Christianity] was all nonsense based on that profane compilation of fables called the Bible. ~ Bill Haywood, #NFDB
521:We are sometimes called the Nephilim. In the Bible they were the offspring of humans and angels. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
522:We must read the Bible through the eyes of shipwrecked people for whom everything has gone overboard. ~ Karl Barth, #NFDB
523:A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might,
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs 24:5,#NFDB
524:Funny how I never really appreciated the bible until I got free of the people who’d taught it to me. ~ Sarina Bowen, #NFDB
525:In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, John 1:1,#NFDB
526:I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal education. ~ Tallulah Bankhead, #NFDB
527:Open the Bible, start reading it, and pause at every verse and turn it into a prayer. John Piper ~ Donald S Whitney, #NFDB
528:Other religions are stories of man's search for God. The Bible is the story of God's search for man. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
529:The Bible is authoritative on everything of which it speaks. Moreover, it speaks of everything. ~ Cornelius Van Til, #NFDB
530:The Bible is not a book of rules. The Bible reveals the God whom we serve, and we serve him gladly. ~ John H Walton, #NFDB
531:The Bible speaks of our relationship with God as knowing and being known (Gal 4:9; 1 Cor 13:12). ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
532:The plan of salvation as stated in the Bible can be seen through observation of the universe around us. ~ Hugh Ross, #NFDB
533:Therefore we say that a lying Spirit has been in the mouth of the writers of the books of the Bible. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
534:The story line, the comparisons to this show and the Bible Ends after the names of the characters. ~ George Jackson, #NFDB
535:England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare,but the Bible made England. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
536:Every fact in this world, the God of the Bible claims, has His stamp indelibly engraved upon it. ~ Cornelius Van Til, #NFDB
537:I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Philippians 4:13, King James Version, #NFDB
538:My brother, if it's not in the Bible, He's not in it!! If it's not in the Word of God, He is not in it. ~ Benny Hinn, #NFDB
539:Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine. ~ Walter Cronkite, #NFDB
540:Ours is a historical faith, and to uproot the Bible from its historical contexts is self-contradictory. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
541:Political freedom, as the Western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible. ~ Whittaker Chambers, #NFDB
542:The Bible - it's sort of the other person in the room. There's this book, the reader, and the Bible. ~ Anita Diament, #NFDB
543:The BIBLE redirects my will, cleanses my emotions, enlightens my mind, and quickens my total being ~ E Stanley Jones, #NFDB
544:The central message of the Bible is about God redeeming a humanity that is in trouble and suffering. ~ John Townsend, #NFDB
545:We must never forget that both good and evil flow from the Bible. It is therefore not above criticism. ~ Steve Allen, #NFDB
546:we must renounce reading the Bible to find arguments to justify our behavior or that of our group. ~ Frank Schaeffer, #NFDB
547:Wherever the Reformation took hold the Bible replaced the Pope as the final spiritual authority. ~ Barbara W Tuchman, #NFDB
548:For the Bible teaches that God gives us more not so that we can have more but so that we can give more. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
549:I always thought the Bible was more of a salad thing, you know, but it isn't. It's a chocolate thing. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
550:Newspapers today have almost replaced the Bible, the Koran, the Gita and other religious scriptures. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
551:Savagery in the quest for power is older than the Bible, but some of my opponents really hate my guts. ~ Bill Clinton, #NFDB
552:The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold of me. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
553:The Bible is no mere book, but a Living Creature, with a power that conquers all that oppose it. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
554:The Bible makes it plain and simple in Matthew 12:34: For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. ~ Annie F Downs, #NFDB
555:The rhema is regarded as a more immediate word from God which we do not find in the 66 books of the Bible. ~ C Wagner, #NFDB
556:When I commit, I commit with my whole heart, my whole being. I know the Bible like the back of my hand. ~ Barry White, #NFDB
557:And among adults, adultery is an unmentionable thing, which only occurs in the Bible and in Mobile. ~ Michael McDowell, #NFDB
558:I have found truly jubilant Christians only in the Bible, in the Underground Church and in prison. ~ Richard Wurmbrand, #NFDB
559:I never had an intellectual struggle with the Bible, with the gospel, with the claims of Christ. ~ Tullian Tchividjian, #NFDB
560:I think there's as much profundity and wisdom in Shakespeare, more so in fact, than those in the Bible. ~ Steve Coogan, #NFDB
561:I try not to have a day pass where I don't read something from the Bible. It's like my sustenance to me. ~ Lauryn Hill, #NFDB
562:The Bible is authoritative on everything of which it speaks.
Moreover, it speaks of everything. ~ Cornelius Van Til,#NFDB
563:The Bible's power rests upon the fact that it is the reliable, errorless, and infallible Word of God. ~ Charles Colson, #NFDB
564:The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
565:The greatest proof that the Bible is inspired is that it has stood so much bad preaching. ~ Archibald Thomas Robertson, #NFDB
566:The world will end before there is another .400 hitter. . . . I think that was mentioned in the Bible. ~ Lenny Dykstra, #NFDB
567:Tuesday night at the Bible study we lift our hands and pray over your body, but nothing ever happens. ~ Sufjan Stevens, #NFDB
568:We don’t have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity, it’s written in the Bible. ~ Ted Haggard, #NFDB
569:If one discards the Bible as being unreliable, then he must discard almost all literature of antiquity. ~ Josh McDowell, #NFDB
570:If you look at the Bible as a whole, it's redemptive and beautiful, and it's God's love story to mankind. ~ Tom Shadyac, #NFDB
571:It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
572:Like the Sun Belt or the Bible Belt, there exists, on this multifarious earth of ours, a Hair Belt. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, #NFDB
573:Some Day Someone is going to pick up this book (The Bible) and believe it, and put us all to shame. ~ Leonard Ravenhill, #NFDB
574:the bible gives me a deep comforting sense that (things seen are temporal,and things unseen are eternal. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
575:The Bible is a human product: it tells us how our religious ancestors saw things, not how God sees things ~ Marcus Borg, #NFDB
576:The bible is a remarkable fountain: the more one draws and drinks of it, the more it stimulates thirst. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
577:The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
578:The Bible is the funniest book I have ever read. It's so funny! Right in the first six pages, it's funny! ~ David Cross, #NFDB
579:The most common one-liner in the Bible is, "Do not be afraid." Someone counted, and it occurs 365 times. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
580:The only place we can find a clear, unmistakable message is in the Word of God, which we call the Bible. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
581:You will fear something or someone. The Bible says the wisest way to go about your life is to fear God. ~ Kevin DeYoung, #NFDB
582:Aye, aye, that's the way wi' thee: thee allays makes a peck o' thy own words out o' a pint o' the Bible's ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
583:Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew 11:28,#NFDB
584:Edmund P. Clowney wrote, “The Bible does not present an art of prayer; it presents the God of prayer. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
585:Essentially this promise before curse, this superiority of God's love in Christ, must come from the Bible. ~ Walter Lang, #NFDB
586:For He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways." The Bible - Psalms 91:11 ~ Michelle Rathore, #NFDB
587:He that reads his Bible to find fault with it will soon discover that the Bible finds fault with him. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
588:I believe you are more believing in the Bible than I. I am not, and, you are much happier than I. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss, #NFDB
589:I consider an intimate knowledge of the Bible an indispensable quality of a well educated man. ~ Robert Andrews Millikan, #NFDB
590:I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew 13:35, #NFDB
591:Poe was a student of many things, and among those things he read and referred to in his work was the Bible. ~ John Astin, #NFDB
592:sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of oh, of your father ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
593:The Bible is an ocean of instruction and wisdom. Dip daily into the vast pool to discover its truths. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
594:The Bible is the book of my life. It's the book I live with, the book I live by, the book I want to die by. ~ N T Wright, #NFDB
595:The Bible is the story of a love drama that looked as if it would end in tragedy—but then Jesus came. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
596:The Bible says, Judge not lest ye be judged. Our lives are supposed to be hospitals, not courtrooms. ~ Tammy Faye Bakker, #NFDB
597:The Bible's emphasis is on the good treatment of animals, and not just the forbidding of cruel treatment. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
598:The Bible teaches that history began in the Middle East, and someday history will end in the Middle East. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
599:The most often repeated commandment in the Bible is “Do not fear.” It’s in there over two hundred times. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
600:The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
601:The weapon made me think of the Bible story I had been studying. “Wake up, Deborah! . . . Arise, O Barak, ~ Sharon Hinck, #NFDB
602:why do we forget what we read in the Bible? Is it just a poor memory? No, it’s a failure to meditate. ~ Donald S Whitney, #NFDB
603:You, Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Lamentations 5:19,#NFDB
604:Every person has their pantheon - the Bible, Hollywood, Shakespeare - their way of understanding the world. ~ Ron Suskind, #NFDB
605:God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
606:Holy is the Bible word for all that makes God different from us, in particular his awesome power and purity. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
607:I don't remember reading about nipple clamps in the Bible. Perhaps you were taught from a modern translation. ~ E L James, #NFDB
608:If the Bible is true, it needs no inspiration, and - if not true, inspiration can do it no good. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
609:In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength. Robert E. Lee ~ Ken Gire, #NFDB
610:It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
611:I wish to see the Bible study as much a matter of course in the secular colleges as in the seminary. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
612:Many people think that the Bible is the authentic word of God and they worship the Bible, making it an idol. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
613:People have been cherry-picking the Bible for millennia to justify their every impulse, moral and otherwise. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
614:Saying the Bible is not a book about science is like saying a cookbook is not a book about chemistry. ~ Robert J Marks II, #NFDB
615:The Bible contains more knowledge necessary to man in his present state than any other book in the world. ~ Benjamin Rush, #NFDB
616:The existence of the devil is so clearly taught in the Bible that to doubt it is to doubt the Bible itself. ~ Chip Ingram, #NFDB
617:The more you read the Bible; and the more you meditate on it, the more you will be astonished with it. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
618:You are responsible to believe and to teach what the Bible teaches, not what you would like for it to teach. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
619:Holy” is the Bible word for all that makes God different from us, in particular his awesome power and purity. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
620:I abandoned my religious teachings after I read the Bible twice - cover to cover. It took me a couple of years. ~ Bill Nye, #NFDB
621:I am never lonely when I am reading the Bible. Nothing dissolves loneliness like a session with God's Word. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
622:I consider it the me-equivalent of the Bible-most likely full of nonsense, but comforting to fantasize about. ~ Barry Lyga, #NFDB
623:(Reaching for the Bible on the end table.) There's an answer for every occasion in here. Like a map for life. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
624:sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of - oh, of your father ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
625:The Bible had at best become like the work of Ovid or Homer: containing great truth, but not itself true. ~ Douglas Murray, #NFDB
626:the Bible is a human product: it tells us how our religious ancestors saw things, not how God sees things. ~ Marcus J Borg, #NFDB
627:The Bible is filled with powerful statements about who we are in Christ and what belongs to us as believers. ~ John Osteen, #NFDB
628:The Sistine Chapel is an extraordinary work of education - it lays out all the early books of the Bible. ~ Peter Greenaway, #NFDB
629:WHATEVER your especial need may be, you may readily find some promise in the Bible suited to it. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
630:crimes come down to love, hate, or money, and unlike what it says in the bible, the greatest of these is money. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
631:I am busily engaged in the study of the Bible. I believe it is God's word because it finds me where I am. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
632:I believe Satan exists for two reasons: first, the Bible says so, and second, I've done business with him. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
633:I grew up in the Bible Belt and I made my own clothes and dyed my hair purple. Nobody ever knew what to do with me. ~ Kesha, #NFDB
634:I no longer believed in the known God of the Bible, but rather in the mysterious God expressed in nature. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
635:Isn't is amazing that almost everyone has an opinion to offer about the Bible, and yet so few have studied it? ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
636:I stand fearlessly for small dogs, the American Flag, motherhood and the Bible. That's why people love me. ~ Art Linkletter, #NFDB
637:It is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until the very essence of the Bible flows from you. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
638:People often get upset when you teach them what is in the Bible rather than what they presume is in the Bible. ~ N T Wright, #NFDB
639:Preaching is not talking to people about the Bible; it is talking to people about themselves from the Bible. ~ Andy Stanley, #NFDB
640:The Age of Reason was responsible for making more people into infidels than any other book except the Bible. ~ Gordon Stein, #NFDB
641:The best evidence of the Bible's being the word of God is to be found between its covers. It proves itself. ~ Charles Hodge, #NFDB
642:The Bible illustrated by Dore occupied many of my hours - and I think probably gave me many nightmares. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt, #NFDB
643:The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can prove anything from it. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
644:the Bible is used as a means of reinforcing their [women's] subordination to men through divine sanction. ~ Letty M Russell, #NFDB
645:The main subject in the Bible from the beginning of Genesis through Revelation is none other than Jesus. ~ Charles E Fuller, #NFDB
646:Well, first I would ask them if they had read the Bible; then I would ask them if they had understood it. ~ J rgen Moltmann, #NFDB
647:All the seemingly loose threads and contradictory claims of the rest of the Bible come together in Jesus. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
648:He was attempting to prove to himself and God that he was indeed the new creation the Bible said he was. ~ Kristi Ann Hunter, #NFDB
649:If books were judged by the bad uses man can put them to, what book has been more misused than the Bible? ~ Jacques Maritain, #NFDB
650:If the individual cannot dream of a better future, he cannot live well today. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
651:I read novels but I also read the Bible. And study it, you know? And the more I learn, the more excited I get. ~ Johnny Cash, #NFDB
652:I study the Bible all week, pray to the Lord, and then I speak from my heart. It's all about brutal honesty. ~ Mark Driscoll, #NFDB
653:It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
654:I tell about some of the female characters from the Bible so girls can be inspired and empowered and uplifted. ~ Roma Downey, #NFDB
655:sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of—oh, of your father.” I ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
656:Some will tell you that there are multiple worldviews. The Bible says we have only 2: the Truth and the Lie. ~ Mark Driscoll, #NFDB
657:The best religion the world has ever known is the religion of the Bible. It builds up all that is good. ~ Rutherford B Hayes, #NFDB
658:The bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling block in the way of women's emancipation. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton, #NFDB
659:The fundamental story arc of the Bible is God is passionate about rescuing this world, restoring it, renewing it. ~ Rob Bell, #NFDB
660:Those who wish to base their morality literally on the Bible have either not read it or not understood it. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
661:Translation is so important. The new American translations of the Bible sound like a Judith Krantz novel. ~ Rabih Alameddine, #NFDB
662:And I know what the Bible says—that faith is the substance of things not seen, the evidence of things hoped for. ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
663:Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ps. 29:2,#NFDB
664:Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms 31:24,#NFDB
665:But the Bible isn't mainly about you and what you should be doing. It's about God and what He has done. ~ Elyse M Fitzpatrick, #NFDB
666:Defend the Bible? I'd sooner defend a lion. You don't defend the Bible; you open its cage and let it roar. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
667:Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, James 1:22 NIV, [T5],#NFDB
668:If everyone was so keen to Christianize the slaves, why weren’t they taught to read the Bible for themselves? ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
669:If the individual cannot dream of a better future, he cannot live well today. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
670:I know the Bible is inspired because it finds me at greater depths of my being than any other book. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB
671:Jesus invested everything he had in a team. The Bible knows nothing about solo ministry, only team ministry. ~ Leonard Sweet, #NFDB
672:The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton, #NFDB
673:The Bible does not say you are God’s appliance; it says you are his masterpiece. Appliances get mass-produced. ~ John Ortberg, #NFDB
674:The Bible is a collection of honorable, but primitive legends which are still nevertheless pretty childish. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
675:The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can "prove" anything from it. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
676:The hand of the diligent will rule, But the slack hand will be put to forced labor.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs 12:24,#NFDB
677:There are, in the end, only two ways to read the Bible: Is it basically about me or basically about Jesus? ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
678:The scripture that God used to save me was Isaiah 7.14, which today is still my favourite verse in the Bible. ~ Gloria Gaynor, #NFDB
679:To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid “big” sins-is this passionate, wholehearted love for God? ~ Francois Fenelon, #NFDB
680:To trust the God of the Bible is to trust an irascible, vindictive, fierce and ever fickle and changeful master. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
681:we who seek to indwell the Bible’s Story are indwelling the omniscient perspective of the divine’s narration. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
682:What the Bible says is what God has disclosed and we want to approach this sacred text with cognitive reverence. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
683:Effectiveness in teaching the Bible is purchased at the price of much study, some of it lonely, all of it tiring. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
684:I do not have deep theological understanding or opinion, but I do not read the Bible as the literal word of God. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
685:I just read the last page of the Bible again for some reassurance... And yep, everything is going to be alright ~ Jos N Harris, #NFDB
686:No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied, and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible. ~ John Quincy Adams, #NFDB
687:The Bible has been a bestseller for centuries. Why should I let two thousand years of publicity go to waste? ~ Cecil B DeMille, #NFDB
688:The Bible stresses that a marriage ideally should be a picture or a reflection of Christ's love for His people. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
689:The Bible tells us there will be a time for peace. But, so far in this century, mankind has failed to find it. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
690:[The Internal Revenue Code is] about 10 times the size of the Bible and, unlike the Bible, contains no good news ~ Don Nickles, #NFDB
691:When you read the Bible on its own terms, you discover that it doesn’t behave itself like a holy rulebook should. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
692:Sufficiency: All that is needed to know and believe regarding salvation and what pleases God is found in the Bible. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
693:The Bible is not interested in precisionism unless the context indicates that precision is particularly important. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
694:...the Bible is such a book of lies and contradictions there is no knowing which part to believe or whether any. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
695:But his desire is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms 1:2, [T2],#NFDB
696:Did you wake up feeling fragile? Read the bible till you find a promise strong enough to carry you through the day. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
697:I believe the Bible to be the written Word of God and to contain in it the whole rule of faith and manners. ~ Robert Treat Paine, #NFDB
698:My mother is my pastor
She teaches me the Bible
I love her as my mentor
She tells me to be humble! ~ Israelmore Ayivor,#NFDB
699:No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
700:One reason, of course, as a Christian, I believe the Bible is the word of God. I take the Bible as the standard. ~ Jerry Falwell, #NFDB
701:searched the Bible before as if it held all the answers. But now the Bible was ~ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, #NFDB
702:The Bible does not oppose or forbid interracial marriages but sees them as a positive good for the glory of Christ. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
703:The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
704:The Bible says, “Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
705:The Bible stands alone in human literature in its elevated conception of manhood, in character and conduct. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
706:The more I read, the more I felt the Bible looked a lot more like the movie 300 than the movie Pleasantville. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
707:We need to call sin what the Bible calls it and not soften it with modern expressions borrowed from our culture. ~ Jerry Bridges, #NFDB
708:You focus your attention on a single truth from the Bible and then continue to think about it throughout your day. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
709:But the Bible teaches that we are always either drawing nearer to God or falling away. There is no holding pattern. ~ Jim Cymbala, #NFDB
710:gets up very early each morning and spends two or three hours in prayer and then an hour or two reading the Bible. ~ K P Yohannan, #NFDB
711:I don't doubt that God can bring good out of tragedies, but the Bible is clear that God is not the author of evil! ~ Tony Campolo, #NFDB
712:Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong, they are weak, but he is strong. ~ Reba McEntire, #NFDB
713:Let us hear what the Bible says and what we as Christians are called to hear together: By grace you have been saved. ~ Karl Barth, #NFDB
714:My dad read the Bible ten times, and I want to do it in my lifetime. But it's definitely tough getting through. ~ Pamela Anderson, #NFDB
715:Someone has said that there are four things necessary in studying the Bible: Admit, submit, commit and transmit. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
716:The Bible says we all gonna leave here one day, but He didn't say we all had to leave here sick or senseless. ~ Michelle Stimpson, #NFDB
717:The Bible teaches us again and again that we are slaves to sin. Sin is not only in our nature, but it is our master. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
718:The word morality, if we met it in the Bible, would surprise us as much as the word telephone or motor car. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
719:We shouldn't go to the Bible to back up what we believe. We should look to the Bible to determine what we believe. ~ Jayce O Neal, #NFDB
720:When I teach, I preach. I thump the Bible. I exhort my students morally. I talk to them about the dedicated life. ~ Annie Dillard, #NFDB
721:When I was at school one would have said, 'I swear by the Bible.' But Bibles were not encouraged at Experiment House. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
722:Years ago on the flyleaf of my Bible I wrote in red ink, “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it. ~ Kenneth E Hagin, #NFDB
723:Feelings should neither be ignored nor placed in charge. The Bible says to “own” your feelings and be aware of them. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
724:For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:18,#NFDB
725:[Recent evidence regarding quantum mechanics is] sufficient to rule out all theological options but one - the Bible's. ~ Hugh Ross, #NFDB
726:The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty ... students perusal of the sacred volume will make us better citizens. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
727:The Bible is the one Word of the one God about the one way of salvation through the one Savior, Jesus Christ. ~ Graeme Goldsworthy, #NFDB
728:The Bible says that our real problem is that every one of us is building our identity on something besides Jesus. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
729:The chief reason why the Christian believes in the divine origin of the Bible is that Jesus Christ Himself taught it. ~ John Stott, #NFDB
730:To every man who faces life with real desire to do his part in everything, I appeal for a study of the Bible. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
731:Unlocking the Bible (Pawson, David) - Your Bookmark on page 44 | location 785 | Added on Friday, 19 June 2015 21:17:37 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
732:Until we learn to read the Bible as Story, we will not know how to get anything out of the Bible for daily living. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
733:With vision, every person, organization and country can flourish. The Bible says, 'Without vision we perish.’ ~ Mark Victor Hansen, #NFDB
734:And it came to pass that in the hands of the ignorant, the words of the Bible were used to beat plowshares into swords ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
735:But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Philippians 4:19,#NFDB
736:I admit that books were voted in and out, and that the Bible was finally formed in accordance with a vote. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
737:If your letters are as long as the bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brim full of affection. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
738:In the bible it says you have to forgive seventy times seven. I want you all to know, I'm keeping a chart. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
739:In the Bible there is that which meets every need of man, which answers every mood, which speaks to every heart. ~ J Gresham Machen, #NFDB
740:The Bible-banned, burned, beloved-is more widely read and more frequently attacked than any other book in history. ~ Charles Colson, #NFDB
741:The Bible is always short on details. Didn’t Stephen’s innate sense of self-preservation thwart his martyrdom at all? ~ Hope Jahren, #NFDB
742:The Bible says that it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't say that it is impossible! ~ Jim Rohn, #NFDB
743:The dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the popes. ~ Thomas Huxley, #NFDB
744:to know how to meditate on and delight in the Bible is the secret to a relationship with God and to life itself. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
745:When a critical mass of people have the Bible and apply what it teaches in their lives, a nation is transformed. ~ Loren Cunningham, #NFDB
746:wine is a much better salve than anything the medical profession has ever prescribed. Even the Bible condones it! ~ Jonathan Evison, #NFDB
747:Do I believe in God? Sure. So I believe the Bible is the arbiter of theological knowledge? There it gets a little hazy. ~ Don Hoesel, #NFDB
748:God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #NFDB
749:My wife told me that in the Bible, Abraham circumcised himself... wow! I can't even get to the bank before it closes. ~ Jim Gaffigan, #NFDB
750:Reading the Bible on a regular basis involves engaging in spiritual warfare, because Satan doesn’t want us to read it. ~ Jim Cymbala, #NFDB
751:The Bible tells us to get along with our neighbor. So our commentator Rashi says—but if his dog barks, muzzle him. ~ Sholom Aleichem, #NFDB
752:The main thing that prevents us from understanding the Bible aright is not a lack of hermeneutical skills but our sin. ~ Tim Chester, #NFDB
753:A god of less wrath than the God of the Bible is necessarily a god of less love. His anger is a product of his love. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
754:A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
755:In the, Dei Verbum, there is a great statement of Vatican II: The bible is the word of god but in the words of men. ~ Robert E Barron, #NFDB
756:I think the most challenging thing for me in my life and in the Bible is that we worship Jesus as the Prince of Peace. ~ Jimmy Carter, #NFDB
757:It's not listed in the Bible, but my spiritual gift, my specific calling from God, is to be a television talk-show host. ~ Jim Bakker, #NFDB
758:Reading the Bible can be like meeting someone you don't know who, oddly, somehow seems to know you deeply. It's uncanny. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
759:The idea of literalism in the Bible is a very new phenomenon. In many ways, it's a product of the scientific revolution. ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
760:The simple statement, 'God is for us', is in truth one of the richest and weightiest utterances that the Bible contains. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
761:The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross. ~ James A Baldwin, #NFDB
762:You don't really understand your thoughts until you express them in words. ~ Elmer. L Towns, How to Study and Teach the Bible (1997)., #NFDB
763:As a mother, you're the world almanac and the encyclopedia and the dictionary and the Bible, all rolled up together. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
764:Because it is so scatterbrained and has absolutely no charts and graphs, I'm actually quite surprised the Bible sells. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
765:Five days shalt thou labour, as the Bible says. The seventh day is the Lord thy God's. The sixth day is for football ~ Anthony Burgess, #NFDB
766:If one were to take the bible seriously one would go mad. But to take the bible seriously, one must be already mad. ~ Aleister Crowley, #NFDB
767:I love goodness and hate evil. My favorite verse in the Bible is ‘Those of you who love God—hate evil’ (Psalms 97:10). ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
768:In the Bible the ignorant may learn all requisite knowledge, and the most knowing may learn to discern their ignorance. ~ Robert Boyle, #NFDB
769:It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
770:Look through the Bible and nowhere does Jesus say, “Worship me.” His call to us was “follow me.” There’s a big difference. ~ Pam Grout, #NFDB
771:Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs 20:13,#NFDB
772:My spiritual ideas didn’t come from the Lord’s Prayer or church or pictures in the Bible, they came from the stillness. ~ Steven Tyler, #NFDB
773:One of the many divine qualities of the Bible is that it does not yield its secrets to the irreverent and the censorious. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
774:Original sin is a very commercial idea,” said Duyckinck. “How do you think the Bible stays in print year after year? ~ Mark Beauregard, #NFDB
775:So to know how to meditate on and delight in the Bible is the secret to a relationship with God and to life itself. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
776:The Bible is a stream of running water, where alike the elephant may swim, and the lamb walk without losing its feet. ~ Pope Gregory I, #NFDB
777:The Bible is to your soul what bread is to your body. You need it daily. One good meal does not suffice for a lifetime. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
778:The Bible says we're to be moderate in all things. It's good to help others but not at the expense of your own family. ~ Lori Copeland, #NFDB
779:The Bible tells a story. A story that isn’t over. A story that is still being told. A story that we have a part to play in. ~ Rob Bell, #NFDB
780:The Bible was not written for entertainment purposes, so it's a real hodgepodge and a compendium of all kinds of stuff. ~ Robert Crumb, #NFDB
781:The great evangelist D. L. Moody once said, “The Bible was not given to increase our knowledge, but to change our lives. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
782:They set the kindling afire to consume the body of a man who had but one goal—to make the Bible readable for everyone. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
783:Together with the Bible, the Book of Mormon is an indispensable witness of the doctrines of Christ and His divinity. ~ Tad R Callister, #NFDB
784:You can find justification for slavery in the Bible. Some say this is what the Bible says and that closes the argument. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
785:As I’ve heard said, “Of 100 unsaved men, one might read the Bible, but the other 99 will read the Christian.”1 Ouch. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
786:Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms 55:22,#NFDB
787:I believe God weeps over - over death. Jesus wept at the grave the Lazarus. In the Bible, Jesus weeps at death. ~ Steven Curtis Chapman, #NFDB
788:I don't go to church on Sunday, don't get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way ~ Tom Waits, #NFDB
789:In the Bible poverty is a scandalous condition inimical to human dignity and therefore contrary to the will of God. ~ Gustavo Gutierrez, #NFDB
790:Man and wife, the Bible said. It was a nice thought, but only in the limited way that theoretical things often are. ~ Chinelo Okparanta, #NFDB
791:The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is God's "I Will" to every seeker for full salvation of spirit, soul and body. ~ Kenneth E Hagin, #NFDB
792:The Bible was the only book Jesus ever quoted, and then never as a basis for discussion but to decide the point at issue. ~ Leon Morris, #NFDB
793:The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance. ~ Jesse Jackson Jr, #NFDB
794:The message of the Bible is not about God in Heaven who wants to take from you. It's about God who wants to give to you. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
795:To open the Bible is to open a window toward Jerusalem, as Daniel did (6:10), no matter where our exile may have taken us. ~ N T Wright, #NFDB
796:About the nicest thing God ever invented was alcohol. He's proud of it, too. The Bible's full of kind remarks about booze. ~ Herman Wouk, #NFDB
797:Because the Bible is God’s Word, it has eternal relevance; it speaks to all humankind, in every age and in every culture. ~ Gordon D Fee, #NFDB
798:Dude--she's your wife." He pointed to the locker where the Bible lay concealed. "God first, family second, country third. ~ Ronie Kendig, #NFDB
799:If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory of mankind, nothing of value would be lost. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
800:If attended to with trust and faith, the Bible is the way to actually hear God speaking and also to meet God himself. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
801:I grew up in North Carolina being told that the Bible approves slavery and segregation, that it was the will of God. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
802:I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily. ~ Isaac Newton, #NFDB
803:It is easier for me to have faith in the Bible than to have faith in D.L. Moody, for Moody has failed me lots of times. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
804:It’s interesting that, there really is no Proverbs 31 for men in the Bible. Men need the whole Bible, women need a chapter. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
805:I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, John 14:16, [T0],#NFDB
806:John Wesley said that if you give up the witchcraft, you must give up the Bible. He is right. The choice is easy for me. ~ Rupert Hughes, #NFDB
807:Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew 4:4, NIV,#NFDB
808:Sin blinds our hearts to the true meaning and purpose of the Bible, even if we carry well-highlighted copies in our hands. ~ Tony Reinke, #NFDB
809:The Bible is the book that makes fools of the wise of this world; it is only understood by the plain and simple hearted. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
810:The Bible’s aim, as I read it, is not the freeing of the spirit from the world. It is the handbook of their interaction. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
811:The Bible says a man’s heart is desperately wicked, and who can know it? We’re all capable of more evil than we realize. ~ Colleen Coble, #NFDB
812:The main thing that prevents us from understanding the Bible aright is not a lack of hermeneutical skills but our sin. Our ~ Tim Chester, #NFDB
813:There is always a pressure to separate the Bible from science and to separate the Christian religion from things material. ~ Walter Lang, #NFDB
814:There is no long-range effective teaching of the Bible that is not accompanied by long hours of ongoing study of the Bible. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
815:Thomas Goodwin said that “next to the Bible, he esteemed Dr. Ames, his Marrow of Divinity, as the best book in the world. ~ Joel R Beeke, #NFDB
816:Those with a low view of the Bible should not attempt listening prayer, for it can lead into dangerous gnostic listening. ~ Leanne Payne, #NFDB
817:An eye for an eye.”
“That's a revenge thing, right? From some play.”
“The Bible, darling. The Lord of all plays. ~ J D Robb,#NFDB
818:Darwin begins by assuming life upon the earth; the Bible reveals the source of life and chronicles its creation. ~ William Jennings Bryan, #NFDB
819:Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones frequently said, “The Bible was not given to replace the miraculous; it was given to correct abuses. ~ R T Kendall, #NFDB
820:If American democracy is to remain the greatest hope of humanity, it must continue abundantly in the faith of the Bible ~ Calvin Coolidge, #NFDB
821:I would rather lay my soul asoak in half a dozen verses [of the Bible] all day than rinse my hand in several chapters. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
822:Ronald Reagan used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the End Times foreshadowed in the Bible. ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
823:The Bible got it wrong when it intimated that the valley contained the shadow of death. Death dwells in the high places. ~ Courtney Milan, #NFDB
824:the Bible is the second most important revelation of God to humanity. The most important revelation of God is Jesus himself. ~ Tony Jones, #NFDB
825:The Bible says somewhere that we are desperately selfish. I think we would have discovered that fact without the Bible. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
826:There were Romulus and Remus. They were saved by a she-wolf. Suckled. But that was Roman mythology, not the bible. Wolves. ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
827:We look to the Bible but not to get ideas from what people did for God. We look to see what God did in peoples' lives. ~ Henry T Blackaby, #NFDB
828:Angels are spirit beings who are mentioned more than 250 times in both the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible. ~ Mary C Neal, #NFDB
829:I have known ninety-five of the world's great men in my time, and of these eighty-seven were followers of the Bible. ~ William E Gladstone, #NFDB
830:It is a duty incumbent on every true deist, that he vindicates the moral justice of God against the calumnies of the Bible. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
831:Psychology describes. The Bible prescribes. 'Turn from evil. Let that be the medicine to keep you in health.' Pr 3:7,8. ~ Elisabeth Elliot, #NFDB
832:Sodomy is in the Bible, to be read in churches. I wouldn't rule it out of Mr. Bruce's act if he cares to comment on it ~ Dorothy Kilgallen, #NFDB
833:The Bible declares that on the sixth day God created man. Right then and there, God should have demanded a damage deposit. ~ Jim Hightower, #NFDB
834:The bible must be seen in a cultural context. It didn't just happen. These stories are retreads. But, tell a Christian that ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
835:The Bible says, "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" ~ Chris Oyakhilome, #NFDB
836:The truths that are found in the Bible are universal truths. And it shapes who you are and guides you throughout your life. ~ Ernie Hudson, #NFDB
837:To paraphrase the Bible, what shall it profit a man (or a woman) who gains the whole world but loses his or her own family? ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
838:Well we looked at all the people in the Bible and we added 'em up all the way back to Adam and Eve, their ages: 12,000 years. ~ Bill Hicks, #NFDB
839:YOU ARE REQUIRED TO BELIEVE, TO PREACH, AND TO TEACH WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS IS TRUE, NOT WHAT YOU WANT THE BIBLE TO SAY IS TRUE. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
840:You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
841:All I know is that the closer I get to God, the deeper I get into the Bible, and the heavier the burden seems on my shoulders. ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
842:A lot can happen in a week - just read any Bible, .. On the seventh day, Election Day, unlike the Bible, we can't rest. ~ Michael Bloomberg, #NFDB
843:But I had read all of [the Bible] by then, and I could see that it changed. And if it changed, how could all of it be true? ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
844:I am sorry for men who do not read the Bible every day. I wonder why they deprive themselves of the strength and pleasure. ~ Woodrow Wilson, #NFDB
845:I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah 45:7,#NFDB
846:If the Church is not Making Disciples, then all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible, are a waste of time. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
847:I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.
~ Isaac Newton,#NFDB
848:Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing , religious people of his day. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
849:Show me where it says, in the Bible, “Purgatory.” Show me where it says “relics, monks, nuns.” Show me where it says “Pope. ~ Hilary Mantel, #NFDB
850:So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Revelation 3:16, [NIV], #NFDB
851:The Bible is the story of two gardens. Eden and Gethsemane. In the first, Adam took a fall. In the second, Jesus took a stand. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
852:The Bible teaches us that God does not cause pain, but that He uses pain and evil to advance His cause and shape His servants. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
853:The Bible warns us clearly that we must not attack men of God no matter how sinful they may have become or wicked in our eyes. ~ Benny Hinn, #NFDB
854:Those who talk of the bible as a monument of English prose are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
855:Wave the flag, wave the Bible, wave your sex or your business degree, whatever you want, just don't wave that thing at me. ~ Bruce Cockburn, #NFDB
856:What a bad idea it had been to give the Bible to anyone but priests, Ghosh thought. It made a preacher out of everybody. ~ Abraham Verghese, #NFDB
857:What I like about the Bible is that it doesn't make sense, which makes it more like truth than anything else I've ever read. ~ Rich Mullins, #NFDB
858:I believe with all my heart that the Bible is the infallible word of God. I therefore believe that, whatever it says, is so. ~ Jerry Falwell, #NFDB
859:It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image. ~ Ludwig Feuerbach, #NFDB
860:The most important thing you can do to improve your teaching is to work toward subject-matter expertise on the Bible as a whole. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
861:Thus no other object on earth is as valuable as the Bible, for nothing else can provide anything as essential or eternal. ~ Donald S Whitney, #NFDB
862:When it comes to adding authority to the sermon, the Bible is the most powerful way to comment on what the Bible has to say. ~ Calvin Miller, #NFDB
863:which proved yet again, as I had seen in many lands, that the Bible was often the happy hunting ground of an unbalanced mind. ~ Paul Theroux, #NFDB
864:And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
865:Everybody knows we're entitled to one Jerusalem. History reveals very simply that this is our land from the days of the Bible. ~ Jackie Mason, #NFDB
866:For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
~ Anonymous, The Bible?,#NFDB
867:He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all. Our forefathers opened the Bible to all. ~ Samuel Adams, #NFDB
868:I found myself speaking more slowly (in an attempt to obey the Bible in speech), as if I was speaking French instead of English. ~ A J Jacobs, #NFDB
869:I read the different translations of the Bible they had and really just dove into it, almost so I could prove it all right. ~ Christian Hosoi, #NFDB
870:The Bible declares, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Science admits that there was a "Great First Cause. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
871:The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it. ~ Dan Savage, #NFDB
872:The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
873:their official religious absolutes, the higher call was to ignore what the Bible said in favor of what they hoped it meant. ~ Frank Schaeffer, #NFDB
874:The story of the Bible isn’t primarily about the desire of people to be with God; it’s the desire of God to be with people. ~ John Ortberg Jr, #NFDB
875:The stupid texts of the Bible - from which, be the talents of the preacher what they may, only stupid sermons can be preached. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
876:[T]he translators were united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of the bible as God’s Word in written form. ~ Dan Barker, #NFDB
877:We're going to bring back God and the Bible and drive the gods of secular humanism right out of the public schools of America. ~ Pat Buchanan, #NFDB
878:For the Bible there is nothing numinous, no holy or divine presence, within nature itself. Nature is a fellow creature of man. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
879:I am a terrible and lazy Christian. I do not believe that the Bible is the literal word of God. I just skip about a third of it. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
880:I don't know how old I am because a goat ate the Bible that had my birth certificate in it. The goat lived to be twenty-seven. ~ Satchel Paige, #NFDB
881:In a nutshell, the Bible from Genesis 3 to Revelation 22 tells the story of a God reckless with desire to get his family back. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
882:No task is more important than for the Church to take the Bible out of the hands of individual Christians in North America. ~ Stanley Hauerwas, #NFDB
883:Our ancestors came over to this continent to find freedom of worship, not freedom from worship. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
884:Put your nose into the Bible everyday. It is your spiritual food. And then share it. Make a vow not to be a lukewarm Christian. ~ Kirk Cameron, #NFDB
885:That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
886:The Bible does not tell us that life in this world will be fair. Evil and sin are not Victorian gentlemen; they do not play fair. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
887:The Bible is fundamentally a single book with a single message of God’s redemption through his Son of lost and rebellious sinners. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
888:The Bible, taken as a whole, can be used to praise or condemn practically any human activity, thought, belief, or practice. ~ Peter McWilliams, #NFDB
889:The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
890:The idea of ghosts gave his child's mind no trouble at all... According to the Bible, God Himself was at least one-third Ghost. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
891:voice. It cannot be stressed too much that the permanent address at which the word of God may be found is the Bible. More ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
892:We're supposed to have guns. It says so in the Bible; and the second greatest book ever written, the Texas State Constitution. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
893:Every scene of heaven in the Bible shows us a vision of the Church praying together and singing together and praising together. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
894:God did not give the Bible so we could master him or it; God gave the Bible so we could live it, so we could be mastered by it. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
895:Hadn’t someone once said, “Nothing is impossible?” Um, yeah. The Bible. All things are possible through Christ who strengthens me. ~ Liz Talley, #NFDB
896:If the Bible is true, history cannot end without first seeing a movement of the peoples now living in Islamic lands to the gospel. ~ J D Greear, #NFDB
897:In the Bible we find everything we need to guide and energize our lives, to keep us on track so that we live out God’s plan. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
898:The Bible contains the revelation of the will of God. It contains the history of the creation of the world, and of mankind. ~ John Quincy Adams, #NFDB
899:The Bible says God’s mercies are new every morning. That’s what we have to hang on to if we’re going to stay strong together, ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
900:The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner. ~ William Cameron Townsend, #NFDB
901:The Lord gives wisdom (sophia), from his face come knowledge (gnosis) and understanding (sunesis)
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs 2.6, [T5],#NFDB
902:All of the things that the bible warns you of being: jealous, covetous, murderous, selfish, etc., that's kind of how humans are. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
903:A worthless servant is more popular than his master! This means that the apocalypse mentioned in the Bible is near at hand! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
904:If you want to come behind the Bible and explain everything scientifically, then you're denying God's power over miracles. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
905:I wasn't a stranger to hard times. I used to read the Bible - well, I still do, but when I was young I read the Bible quite a bit. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
906:Speak out for those who cannot speak”—who in the church today realizes that this is the very least that the Bible requires of us? ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
907:The Bible is useful because it opens our eyes, and because it’s highly impractical to walk through life with our eyes closed. ~ Peter J Leithart, #NFDB
908:The Bible says, “Be still and know that I am God”. Stillness is the sole requisite for the realisation of the Self as God. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
909:The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
910:The Daily Bible by F. LaGard Smith, which presents the books of the Bible in their chronological—as opposed to canonical—order, ~ David Limbaugh, #NFDB
911:Theistic evolutionists generally accept the findings of science and attempt to harmonize the evolutionary hypothesis with the Bible. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
912:There's a line in the Bible about perfect love casting out fear. That I don't know about, but orneriness will do it every time. ~ Peter S Beagle, #NFDB
913:According to Gallup, 35 percent of Americans believe that the Bible is the literal and inerrant word of the Creator of the universe. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
914:I had seen too many Christians packed into too many churches who seemed to have no interest in actually doing what the Bible said. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
915:Like an exasperating but invaluable friend, the Bible keeps bringing me back to my senses, often in bracing (and comical) ways. ~ Kathleen Norris, #NFDB
916:Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible. ~ Philip Jenkins, #NFDB
917:One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
918:The Bible is the greatest of all books; to study it is the noblest of all pursuits; to understand it, the highest of all goals. ~ Charles C Ryrie, #NFDB
919:The Bible says, “Be still and know that I am God”. Stillness is the sole requisite for the realisation of the Self as God. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
920:There are two basic restrictions on marriage in the Bible: Number one, she should marry a man. Number two, he should be a Christian. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
921:There's nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, 'If you believe in Me, you ain't going to have no troubles.' ~ Ray Charles, #NFDB
922:Americans’ enthusiasm for apocalyptic fantasy probably owes more to movies like The Exorcist and The Omen than to the Bible itself. ~ Susan Jacoby, #NFDB
923:A strong strand throughout the Bible stresses that you are to GIVE to needs and put LIMITS on sin. Boundaries help you do just that. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
924:In the Bible, we first encounter God when he sides with a bunch of slaves against a powerful Pharaoh, an act of grace freely given. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
925:In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalm 5:3, #NFDB
926:I was referencing the Bible: "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" But I'm not religious. I just thought it was a good title. ~ Ryan Hemsworth, #NFDB
927:And this manner of speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a man, is consistent with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
928:A weak understanding of what the Bible says about sin is tied to a weak understanding of what the Bible says is achieved by the cross. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
929:Consider Palin for President? The most powerful job on earth? You don't give the dumb cheerleader the Uzi. That's in the Bible. ~ Christopher Titus, #NFDB
930:For the most difficult way to be retweeted, or, liked: be thought-provoking. For the easiest way: quote Oprah, or, the Bible. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
931:Galileo was challenged because he declared a theory to be a fact and argued with the Church about the genuine meaning of the Bible. ~ Michael Coren, #NFDB
932:Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of your liberties; write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives. ~ Ulysses S Grant, #NFDB
933:It's ironic that the Bible belt is the killing belt - Texas, Florida, Alabama, Virginia, and so forth, Georgia. Chief executioners. ~ Joseph Lowery, #NFDB
934:Some parts of the Bible are dreadful. In fact, my working title for The Sins of Scripture was "The Terrible Text of The Bible." ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
935:The Bible is chock-a-block with such unnecessary but beautiful antitheses. God, whatever his other failings, is a great rhetorician. ~ Mark Forsyth, #NFDB
936:The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
937:The relation of this God with this man; the relation of this man with this God--this is the only theme of the Bible and of philosophy. ~ Karl Barth, #NFDB
938:The total absence of humor from the Bible,” Alfred North Whitehead once observed, “is one of the most singular things in all literature. ~ Jim Holt, #NFDB
939:The vigor of our spiritual life will be in exact proportion to the place held by the Bible in our life and thoughts.” —George Müller ~ Randy Alcorn, #NFDB
940:This is what The Qur'an and the Bible have been prophesying - the end of a world of evil and injustice: We are at that time, now. ~ Louis Farrakhan, #NFDB
941:To live by faith is to rest in the object of our faith, the God of the Bible, and to come to terms with all of our “I don’t knows. ~ Barnabas Piper, #NFDB
942:We do well to remember that the Bible has far more to say about how to live during the journey than about the ultimate destination. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
943:We shall not adjust our Bible to the age; but before we have done with it, by God’s grace, we shall adjust the age to the Bible. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
944:When you read the Koran, you give up. At least the Bible is very beautiful because Jews have an extraordinary literary talent. ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
945:Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms 46:10, [T5],#NFDB
946:But when the teaching of the Bible is plain, then continuing to maintain an open mind is a sign not of maturity, but of immaturity. ~ John R W Stott, #NFDB
947:I have often thought that unselfishness combined in one word more of the teachings of the Bible than any other in the language. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
948:It is possible to learn all about the mysteries of the Bible and never be affected by it in one's soul. Great knowledge is not enough. ~ John Bunyan, #NFDB
949:Jen Wilkin is a Bible study leader, blogger, and author of Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
950:Reimagining the God of the Bible is what Christians do. More than that, they have to, if they wish to speak of the biblical God at all. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
951:That is, until we find the story that leads us to the gospel claim that Jesus is the Messiah, we don’t have the Bible’s story right. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
952:The Bible—from back to front—is the story of God told from the limited point of view of real people living at a certain place and time. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
953:The main theme of the Bible is the restoration of humanity and, through humanity, of the whole of creation to its original harmony. ~ Bede Griffiths, #NFDB
954:The Psalms are the prayer book of the Bible, but it is noteworthy that the first Psalm is not a prayer per se but a meditation—in ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
955:To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click 'I Agree'. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
956:To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click 'I agree'. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
957:We don't ask what the Bible says, we ask what God says to us in that Bible. The difference is a difference between paper and person. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
958:According to a Wall Street Journal article some 59 percent of Americans don t own a single book. Not a cookbook or even the Bible. ~ Maureen Corrigan, #NFDB
959:I could not put the Bible down. I literally could not. It felt as if my heart would stop beating, perhaps implode, if I put it down. ~ Nabeel Qureshi, #NFDB
960:If I could sum up what the Bible teaches about giving in one statement, it would be this: Generous living produces emotional happiness. ~ Chip Ingram, #NFDB
961:In our household, the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
962:In Proverbs 20:30, the Bible basically says it sometimes takes a painful experience to make us change our ways. And sometimes it does. ~ Kyle Idleman, #NFDB
963:It is less important to ask a Christian what he or she believes about the Bible than it is to inquire what he or she does with it. ~ Lesslie Newbigin, #NFDB
964:The Bible interprets life from its particular perspective; it does not record in a factual way the human journey through history. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
965:The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from God. ~ Daniel Webster, #NFDB
966:The Bible isn’t a book that reflects one point of view. It is a collection of books that records a conversation—even a debate—over time. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
967:The Bible is the greatest of all books; to study it the noblest of all pursuits; to understand it, the highest of all goals. ~ Charles Caldwell Ryrie, #NFDB
968:The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
969:When someone gets up and says that the Bible is not the word of God, I really don't care what their point is. That, to me, is apostasy. ~ Greg Laurie, #NFDB
970:While nothing in the Bible is contradictory, many of the Bible’s most provocative and profound truths appear to us paradoxical. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
971:According to a Wall Street Journal article some 59 percent of Americans don t own a single book. Not a cookbook or even the Bible. ~ Maureen Corrigan, #NFDB
972:I am blessed to receive a word from God every day in receiving the scriptures and reading the scriptures. And God speaks through the Bible. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
973:I made a little money. And like the Bible says, I was enjoying the fruits of my labor. This is my comeback. This is me doing what I love to do. ~ Mr T, #NFDB
974:It is quite possible that we can do greater things than Jesus, for what is written in the Bible about him is poetically embellished. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
975:Students are not to read the Bible, jurors are not to hear it, prosecutors cannot quote from it, and teachers are not to display it. ~ Ralph E Reed Jr, #NFDB
976:The Bible is really a textbook of metaphysics, a manual for the growth of the soul, and it looks at all questions from this point of view. ~ Emmet Fox, #NFDB
977:To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in this treasure house, the Bible? ~ Queen Elizabeth II, #NFDB
978:You are too young to understand it,' she said, 'but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is more dangerous than a whiskey bottle... ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
979:Accordingly the Northern races of Europe found their inspiration in the Bible; and the enthusiasm for it has not yet quite faded away. ~ Lafcadio Hearn, #NFDB
980:Although the Bible is a living book, it will not jump into your palms pleading, "Read me please". You've to make a choice to do so! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
981:Labor unions should study and read the Bible instead of asking for more money. When people get right with God, they are better workers. ~ Jerry Falwell, #NFDB
982:The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers' abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
983:The Christian community continues to exist because the conclusions of the critical study of the Bible are largely withheld from them. ~ Hans Conzelmann, #NFDB
984:Though the Bible was written over sixteen centuries by at least forty authors, it has one central theme-salvation through faith in Christ. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
985:To pray the Bible, you simply go through the passage line by line, talking to God about whatever comes to mind as you read the text. ~ Donald S Whitney, #NFDB
986:Wow. Ted Cruz falsely suggested Marco Rubio mocked the bible and was just forced to fire his communications director. More dirty tricks. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
987:You’ll find that you can read the Bible, even the same verse, over and over again, but God always has a new revelation for you in due season. ~ E N Joy, #NFDB
988:From earliest times men wholly ignorant of the Bible have concluded on the basis of the design in the universe that God must exist. ~ William Lane Craig, #NFDB
989:How could I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength while disengaging those very faculties every time I read the Bible? ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
990:I believe in the Bible. I believe that all good things come from God. I don't believe I'd sing the way I do if God hadn't wanted me to.' ~ Elvis Presley, #NFDB
991:I try to stick to one, single rule, “If you don’t have anything to say, shut the fuck up.” I think that’s in the Bible or something. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
992:Reading the Bible will help you get to know the word, but it’s when you put it down and live your life that you get to know the author. ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
993:The Bible contains not only records of what God has done, but invitations for us to believe in what he will do. (There are, of course, some ~ J D Greear, #NFDB
994:The Bible teaches that God owns the world. He distributes to every man according to His own good pleasure, conformably to general laws. ~ Henry Van Dyke, #NFDB
995:The church the Bible described is exciting and adventurous and wrought with sacrifice. It cost believers everything, and they still came. ~ Jen Hatmaker, #NFDB
996:Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to moral rectitude have the slightest notion of what is actually written in it? ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
997:I don't read the Bible. Not because I don't want to, I just haven't got around to It yet. One day perhaps I'll pick it up and look at It. ~ Ozzy Osbourne, #NFDB
998:If the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree? ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
999:I have met so many young people who do not see the church as relevant and do not consider the Bible a real book of history that can be trusted. ~ Ken Ham, #NFDB
1000:Inside the Bible's pages lie the answers to all the problems that mankind has ever known. I hope Americans will read and study the Bible. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
1001:Scripture: From the Latin scriptura, meaning “writings”; refers to sacred texts, but more specifically, the Bible as the Word of God written. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1002:the Bible is commonly referred to as “God’s Word,” a description that sounds so definitive and singular that it is almost misleading. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1003:The Bible makes it clear that every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God's creative genius is endless. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
1004:Because you can poke someone's eye out legally doesn't mean you should and that it's right. The Bible teaches us a more perfect justice. ~ Shane Claiborne, #NFDB
1005:But “the supreme judge of the world” and “divine providence” were no more specific to the God of the Bible than “Creator” and “Nature’s God. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
1006:I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says. ~ Paul Broun, #NFDB
1007:If there is any cure for thinking of the Bible as a once-told-forever-binding source of information about God and his people, Paul is it. For ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
1008:If we pick out which parts of the Bible we dislike, we actually have a god we've created. How can that god ever call you out on anything? ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
1009:It is the wonderful theme of the Bible, so frightening for many people, that the only visible sign of God in the world is the cross. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
1010:My dad used to sit me on his knee and read from the Bible to us. We were a praying family. Ours was a family of love and a family of prayer. ~ Roma Downey, #NFDB
1011:North American Christians are trained to believe that they are capable of reading the Bible without spiritual and moral transformation. ~ Stanley Hauerwas, #NFDB
1012:Since the success of believers is tied to our knowledge of and obedience to God's Word, the memorizing of portions of the Bible is advisable. ~ Max Anders, #NFDB
1013:The Bible tells us that whenever we come before God, whatever our purpose or prayer request, we are always to come with a thankful heart. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
1014:They believe the bible is the exact word of God - Then they change the bible! Pretty presumptuous, hu huh? "I think what God meant to say..." ~ Bill Hicks, #NFDB
1015:We shall not adjust our Bible to the age; but before we have done with it, by God’s grace, we shall adjust the age to the Bible. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1016:When highbrow critics accused Time of practicing personality journalism, Luce replied that Time did not invent the genre, the Bible did. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1017:Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic . . . Do not defend God’s Word, but testify to it . . . Trust to the Word. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
1018:If the Bible is right about what happens to us after death, it means that more than 250 000 people every day go either to Heaven or to Hell. ~ Randy Alcorn, #NFDB
1019:In the Modern Age, there are still those who refuse to contradict a single word of the Bible, even though the Bible contradicts itself. ~ Jonathan Clements, #NFDB
1020:I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence" Was there ever a more galling verse in the Bible? ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
1021:I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. Was there ever a more galling verse in the Bible? ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
1022:The Bible is not for the people; whosoever will be saved must renounce it. It is a forbidden book. Bible societies are satanic contrivances. ~ Pope Pius IV, #NFDB
1023:The only way to understand these difficult parts of the Bible, or even to approach them with safety, is first to read and obey the easy ones. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
1024:We are sometimes tempted to believe the lie that God does not love us. Thankfully the Bible is filled with evidence that this is not true. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
1025:Women revert to their maiden names in Heaven, Rutherford feels fairly certain. He can’t remember where he learned this—France or the Bible. ~ Karen Russell, #NFDB
1026:Your poor lungs.” “We’re not gonna live long enough to get cancer. The Bible says there’s just seven years of Tribulation after the Rapture. ~ Tom Perrotta, #NFDB
1027:Between the Bible and the Holy Spirit, you have everything you need to grow spiritually. And the more you grow, the more God can use you. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
1028:Continuous persecution of widows and orphans is a crime. Even the Bible says there is a specific place in hell for those who oppress widows. ~ Imelda Marcos, #NFDB
1029:God is pouring out his wrath upon the nations that acknowledge him not, upon the kingdoms that call not upon his name. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalm 78:3-4, #NFDB
1030:In the context of real life, the Bible seems refreshingly whole, an honest reflection on humanity in relation to the sacred and the profane. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
1031:It is impossible to enslave, mentally or socially, a bible-reading people. The principles of the bible are the groundwork of human freedom. ~ Horace Greeley, #NFDB
1032:Like the Bible tells us, when a man will lay down his life for a friend, well, then there ain't no greater love in this here world than that. ~ Bette Greene, #NFDB
1033:Satan is willing to have us worship anything, however sacred - the Bible, the crucifix, the church - if only we do not worship God Himself. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
1034:The Bible doesn't explain everything necessary for our intellectual satisfaction, but it explains everything necessary for our obediance. ~ Elisabeth Elliot, #NFDB
1035:The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
1036:Women revert to their maiden names in Heaven, Rutherford feels fairly certain. He can't remember where he learned this--France or the Bible. ~ Karen Russell, #NFDB
1037:You didn't learn the Bible as a Fundamentalist. You learned fragments of Old Testament legalism mixed with Behaviorism & Nietzschean ethics ~ Jeri Massi, #NFDB
1038:Evangelicals need to take a good look at what their issues are. Are they really being faithful to Jesus? Are they being faithful to the Bible? ~ Tony Campolo, #NFDB
1039:Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
1040:He who understands philosophy understands laughter. That mysterious Word at the beginning, mentioned in the Bible, is a divine guffaw. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky, #NFDB
1041:I’VE BEEN ON A JOURNEY of rediscovering the Bible and the God behind it for over thirty years and I don’t see that journey ending any time soon. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
1042:My main source for faith-based stuff is mostly the Bible, and a childhood with a much, much higher-than-median exposure to theological thought. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
1043:Our legal and political culture has created a bias in the law that borders on censorship against reading, displaying, or quoting the Bible. ~ Ralph E Reed Jr, #NFDB
1044:The Expulsion from Eden is an act of vindictive womanish spite; the Fall of Man, as recounted in the Bible, comes nearer to the Fall of God. ~ Cyril Connolly, #NFDB
1045:There is only one writer in whom I find something that reminds me of the directness of style which is found in the Bible. It is Shakespeare. ~ Heinrich Heine, #NFDB
1046:This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1 1:5, #NFDB
1047:We are giving in to the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
1048:A man’s mind plans his way [as he journeys through life], But the Lord directs his steps and establishes them. (from the Bible, Proverbs 16:9 AMP) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1049:If the Bible didn't show us the weaknesses, the vulnerabilities, the sins of our heroes, we might have deep questions about their true virtue. ~ Baal Shem Tov, #NFDB
1050:If the Bible is about anything at all, it is about God having mercy on the pitiful plight of men, forgiving their sins and restoring their lives. ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
1051:If the Bible is unreliable in what it teaches about these things, the church is left to speculate and has nothing of value to speak to the world. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
1052:I wore the gold for some reasons. One, as a Christian.When Jesus was born wise men bring him gold.No wise man brought bling. Bling is not in The Bible. ~ Mr T, #NFDB
1053: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. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew 22:37, #NFDB
1054:The Bible says that in the last days, there would be false teachers. And, it also says that in the End Times that... there would be an apostasy. ~ Greg Laurie, #NFDB
1055:The most precious truth in the Bible is that God’s greatest interest is to glorify the wealth of His grace by making sinners happy in Him—in Him! ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1056:The most vital, creative, and positive thoughts are those stated in the Bible. Its words are alive and form powerful thought processes. ~ Norman Vincent Peale, #NFDB
1057:Ultimately I think the difference between reading the Bible and studying it is making the connections between who Jesus is and what he's done. ~ Mark Driscoll, #NFDB
1058:We always assume that there’s tomorrow to make things right. Maybe that’s why the Bible says to not procrastinate your day of repentance. ~ Richard Paul Evans, #NFDB
1059:What a difference it would be if our system of morality were based on the Bible instead of the standards devised by cultural Christians. ~ William Wilberforce, #NFDB
1060:what we need from the Bible is not the fulfillment of our dream, but the swallowing up of our failed dream in the all-satisfying glory of Christ. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1061:After I set out to refute Christianity intellectually and couldn't, I came to the conclusion the Bible was true and Jesus Christ was God's Son. ~ Josh McDowell, #NFDB
1062:An older, Puritan approach to Scripture tended to prevail in the American South, where the Bible was regarded as a set of definite, positive laws ~ Mark A Noll, #NFDB
1063:Critics have found fault with all the world's scriptures, but as yet they have discovered no useful substitutes. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
1064:Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to
moral rectitude have the slightest notion of what is actually written
in it? ~ Richard Dawkins,#NFDB
1065:I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
1066:If you don’t trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God? ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1067:No one ever became, or can become truly eloquent without being a reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the purity and sublimity of its language. ~ Fisher Ames, #NFDB
1068:One problem with how we think about the Bible is that people tend to jam it into narrower categories, when in fact it is many things all at once. ~ David Plotz, #NFDB
1069:The Bible gives us a theology which is more human than Calvinism, and more divine than Arminianism, and more Christian than either of them.1243 ~ Philip Schaff, #NFDB
1070:The fact is that far too many professing Christians live their lives, day in and day out, on the basis of something other than the Bible. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
1071:They ought to put a statement on the Bible just like they put on cigarettes - like, the contents of this book may freeze-dry your brains. ~ Katherine V Forrest, #NFDB
1072:We have to admit that there is an immeasurable distance between all that we read in the Bible and the practice of the Church and of Christians. ~ Jacques Ellul, #NFDB
1073:As a child I received instruction in both the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1074:But our fear and our rejection does not take away from truth, and truth is what the Bible instructs us to know in order that we may be free. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
1075:But you can’t beat yourself up or compare yourself to others. Remember, the Bible says that the first will be last and the last will be first. ~ Janice Thompson, #NFDB
1076:Critics have found fault with all the world's scriptures, but as yet they have discovered no useful substitutes. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
1077:If I have to build a big company by mistreating other people then the Bible says WOE to me. I don't know what that is, but I don't want any of it. ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
1078:If we were to remove the Bible from public schools we would be wasting so much time punishing crimes and taking so little pains to prevent them. ~ Benjamin Rush, #NFDB
1079:In the Bible, there is no mention of the Trinity. . . . We get to know God, not through our proud philosophical concepts, but through Christ. ~ Michael Servetus, #NFDB
1080:The Bible is not my book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
1081:The Bible urges us to be respectful to all people, especially people with whom we have disagreements, to never libel people, to never label people. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1082:Theoretically that would make the Bible one of the first ever superhero adventures adapted into a book ... which would explain its popularity. ~ Blake Northcott, #NFDB
1083:whatever it means to speak of the Bible as inspired by God clearly doesn’t mean the Bible is scrubbed clean of the human experience of the writers. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
1084:Why then, if these new books for children must be retained, as they will be, should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book ? ~ Fisher Ames, #NFDB
1085:And Elohim said, 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the Waters, and let it divide the Waters from the Waters. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Gen 1:6, (Chockmah), #NFDB
1086:And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a GREAT CALM.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Mark 4:39,#NFDB
1087:an odious crime, as old as the Bible and for an utterly despicable motive too and carried out in a cowardly manner, making use of intermediaries. ~ Javier Mar as, #NFDB
1088:I want you to wrestle with the Bible. Do it. Wrestle until, Jacob-like, you walk with a limp ever after, and you receive the blessing of the Lord. ~ Sarah Bessey, #NFDB
1089:Look to the Bible for the answer. Ancient Jewish wisdom says, “Delight in serving other people.” This is the best career advice you will ever get. ~ Daniel Lapin, #NFDB
1090:The Bible tells us that the sins of the fathers are passed to succeeding generations. The virtues of the fathers can be passed along, too. ~ Norman Vincent Peale, #NFDB
1091:The people who were honored in the Bible were the false prophets. It was the ones we call the prophets who were jailed and driven into the desert. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1092:The very practice of reading [the Bible] will have a purifying effect upon your mind and heart. Let nothing take the place of this daily exercise. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
1093:You’ve got to wonder what Jesus was like at seventeen,” Anne Lamott wrote. “They don’t even talk about it in the Bible, he was apparently so awful. ~ David Sheff, #NFDB
1094:Adso of Melk: The Koran, the Bible of the infidels, a perverse book …
William of Baskerville: A book containing a wisdom different from ours. ~ Umberto Eco,#NFDB
1095:Christianity finds all its doctrines stated in the Bible, and Christianity denies no part, nor attempts to add anything to the Word of God. ~ William F Buckley Jr, #NFDB
1096:In the formative days of the Republic, the directing influence the Bible exercised upon the fathers of the Nation is conspicuously evident. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt, #NFDB
1097:I want you to have all the academic freedom you want as long as you wind up saying the bible account (of creation) is true and all others are not. ~ Jerry Falwell, #NFDB
1098:The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God's continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us put into our familiar human words. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1099:The Bible is the only force known to history that has freed enitre nations from corruption while simultaneously giving them political freedom. ~ Vishal Mangalwadi, #NFDB
1100:The Bible just said ‘Thou shalt not kill’, then told hundreds of stories of people killing each other and becoming heroes, like David with Goliath. ~ John Marsden, #NFDB
1101:The Bible “This Book [is] the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; this is the royal Law; these are the lively Oracles of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1102:The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms 27:1,#NFDB
1103:These diverse stories of the past that we find in the Bible are not a problem to be solved. They model for us the spiritual immediacy of the present. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
1104:You cannot find, I believe, a case in the Bible where a man is converted without God's calling in some human agency--using some human instrument. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
1105:Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth As fun as the acronym is, the Bible is neither basic nor simply instructions for what to do before you die. ~ Adam Hamilton, #NFDB
1106:For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans 8:18,#NFDB
1107:God in tender indulgence to our different dispositions; has strewed the Bible with flowers, dignified it with wonders, and enriched it with delight. ~ James Hervey, #NFDB
1108:How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible’s astounding words about God’s love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees? ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
1109:If there is a God, no part of the Bible or Christian doctrine will convince me of his existence half as much as the flavor of a barbecued pork rib. ~ Nick Offerman, #NFDB
1110:In fact, it seems that most of the Bible's instructions regarding modesty find their context in warnings about materialism, not sexuality . . . ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1111:I study the bible regularly, meet with older wiser mentors weekly, and keep a group of guys in my life who challenge me spiritually. That keeps me moving. ~ LeCrae, #NFDB
1112:Luther exerted a strong influence on Denmark. Suddenly Danish theologians were preaching in Danish and translating the Bible into Danish. ~ Margrethe II of Denmark, #NFDB
1113:Marriage is a partnership between one man and one woman... Nothing could be clearer in the Bible as to what constitutes a marriage in God's sight. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
1114:REALITY 4: GOD SPEAKS BY THE HOLY SPIRIT THROUGH THE BIBLE, PRAYER, CIRCUMSTANCES, AND THE CHURCH TO REVEAL HIMSELF, HIS PURPOSES, AND HIS WAYS. ~ Henry T Blackaby, #NFDB
1115:The Bible clearly says we shouldn’t feel forced to marry or feel prohibited from marrying; this is one of those life decisions God leaves up to us. ~ Gary L Thomas, #NFDB
1116:The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us, put into our familiar human words. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1117:The bible saw that can get a lot of people killed, so let's try and steer people away from that. I am not an expert on the bible. I am just saying. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
1118:They fully bloomed in the pages of the Bible and the Quran, where the Sumerian word ilu became transliterated as Elohim in Hebrew and Allah in Arabic. ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
1119:Unless the religious claims of the Bible are again acknowledged, its literary claims will, I think, be given only 'mouth honour' and that decreasingly. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1120:All attempts to put the past into words are interpretations of the past, not “straight history.” There is no such thing. Anywhere. Including the Bible. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
1121:As a child, I came across the Bible, but nobody in my family had anything to do with religion. I just felt a profound truth there that appealed to me. ~ Dorothy Day, #NFDB
1122:(For instance, it is a “hate crime” to quote certain politically incorrect verses from the Bible, especially the Old Testament, in any public arena.) ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
1123:He had won it as a child, playing Scriptural Jeopardy in his Sunday-school class. When faced with answers from the Bible, Ig had all the right questions. ~ Joe Hill, #NFDB
1124:I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from The Savior of the world is communicated to us through this Book. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
1125:I really think the Bible is a baseline where all stories come from. All of the zillion stories in the Bible provide inspiration for everything. ~ Emmanuelle Chriqui, #NFDB
1126:It tells us that God gave the Bible a mission: God speaks to us so we will be the kind of people he wants and will live the way he wants us to live. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
1127:I was thinking about how people seem to read the bible a lot more as they get older, and then it dawned on me—they’re cramming for their final exam. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
1128:Most good evangelical Study Bibles have more in common than people sometimes realize. All of them are committed to explaining the Bible to lay readers. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1129:Some persons have ventured to say that it is only since Englishmen ceased to believe in the Bible that they began to discover how beautiful it was. ~ Lafcadio Hearn, #NFDB
1130:The Bible may be an arresting and
poetic work of fiction, but it is not the sort of book you should give
your children to form their morals. ~ Richard Dawkins,#NFDB
1131:The first step in reading the Bible is to ask God to help you understand it … Don’t go to Scripture looking for your own idea; go searching for God’s … ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1132:The greatest menace in this country is not the bootlegger, but the college professor who rejects the Bible and undermines the faith of the young. ~ Arno C Gaebelein, #NFDB
1133:The importance of the Bible to a church is to keep the church on track. The role of the Constitution in government is to keep the government on track. ~ Ted Haggard, #NFDB
1134:There’s something in the Bible about falling sparrows,’ Kevin said. ‘About his eye being on them. That’s what’s wrong with God: he only has one eye. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
1135:Those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. ... They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not fain'
~ Anonymous, The Bible, (Isaiah 40:31 NLT).,#NFDB
1136:According to the Bible, God created the heavens and the Earth. It is man’s prerogative - and woman’s - to create their own particular and private hell. ~ Rod Serling, #NFDB
1137:I enter a most earnest plea that in our hurried and rather bustling life of today we do not lose the hold that our forefathers had on the Bible. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
1138:In fact, the Devil is delighted when we spend our time and energy defending the Bible, as long as we do not get around to actually reading the Bible. ~ R C Sproul Jr, #NFDB
1139:In most respects, the Bible is a very simple book, and many parts of it can be read to children and will benefit them. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
1140:In the Bible, the opposite of Sin, with a capital 'S,' is not virtue - it's faith: faith in a God who draws all to himself in his resurrection. ~ Robert Farrar Capon, #NFDB
1141:I was raised with the Bible Belt mentality, and by coming to California, I came out of this dark place and unlearned a lot of things I'd been taught. ~ Edward Ruscha, #NFDB
1142:No writer of a portion of the Bible was perfect. It was the direct and miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit that what they wrote is without mistake. ~ Walter Lang, #NFDB
1143:People no longer rely on the Bible as either their standard for living or their source of truth. In fact, few people even bother to read it anymore. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
1144:Q:Should we read Gita once in a while?
M:Always.
Q:May we read the Bible?
M:The Bible and the Gita are the same. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks, 164, [T5],#NFDB
1145:That Book, the Bible, accounts for the supremacy of England. England has become great & happy by the knowledge of the true God through Jesus Christ. ~ Queen Victoria, #NFDB
1146:The Bible does not teach that sin is completely eradicated from the Christian in this life, but it does teach that sin shall no longer reign over you. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
1147:The idea of having no limits, either through education or money or possessions or power, is radically alien to everything the Bible assumes and says. ~ Roger E Olson, #NFDB
1148:The message of the Bible is that the human race is a band of exiles trying to come home. The parable of the prodigal son is about every one of us. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1149:These people´s God has shown them by a million acts that he respects none of the Bible´s statues. He breaks every one of them himself, adultery and all. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1150:I'd taken a big fat crisis off my shoulders and loaded it all on Jesus, which seemed unfair in a way, but was exactly what the Bible recommended. ~ David James Duncan, #NFDB
1151:I shall leave the world, I feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1152:I should have never taught you girls to read! I suspect you have been reading the Bible behind my back-that is enough to fill a girl's head with folly? ~ Anne Fortier, #NFDB
1153:It seems clear that the Bible belongs to an area of language in which metaphor is functional, and were we have to surrender precision for flexibility. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
1154:None of us deserve God's forgiveness. The Bible says to forgive because God forgave us. It doesn't say anything about deserving it or even asking for it. ~ Liz Tolsma, #NFDB
1155:No text more thoroughly penetrated Cleopatra’s world. In an age infatuated with history and calibrated in glory, Homer’s work was the Bible of the day. ~ Stacy Schiff, #NFDB
1156:Personally, I don't believe in anything more supernatural than what you read about in the Bible, and I only believe that one day out of seven. ~ Robert Charles Wilson, #NFDB
1157:The Bible considers it much more important to say that God has made everything work rather than being content to say that God made the physical stuff. ~ John H Walton, #NFDB
1158:The Bible is the one Book to which any thoughtful man may go with any honest question of life or destiny and find the answer of God by honest searching. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
1159:The Bible says, “See that none of you repays another evil for evil, but always aim to show kindness and seek to do good to one another and to everybody. ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
1160:The Bible would not have told us to take up the whole armor of God in order to withstand evil if evil could have been withstood without doing that. ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB
1161:To read the Bible experientially simply means to read it with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That is how the Bible is intended to be read. ~ Joel R Beeke, #NFDB
1162:We're both [with Elie Wiesel] a long way from the position of the so-called Biblical minimalists. Some of them see no history in the Bible until Josiah. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
1163:And we are never too old to study the Bible. Each time the lessons are studied comes some new meaning, some new thought which will make us better. ~ John D Rockefeller, #NFDB
1164:Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be kicked in the nuts as soon as they try to get back up. That wasn’t in the Bible, but maybe it should’ve been. ~ Joe Hill, #NFDB
1165:But evil has been around since the Garden of Eden, and God's plan for victory was designed before the world began. The Bible tells us to fear no evil. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
1166:I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt, #NFDB
1167:I think the most challenging thing for me in my life and in the Bible is that we worship Jesus as the Prince of Peace. And America is constantly at war. ~ Jimmy Carter, #NFDB
1168:I've read the Bible. I think the Bible's a great book, but it's a novel. It's beautifully written and la-di-da, but people really took it the wrong way. ~ Winona Ryder, #NFDB
1169:Joseph is the wearisomest and self-righteous Pharisee who ever ransacked the Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses on his neighbor. ~ Emily Bronte, #NFDB
1170:One of the most dangerous things about the Bible is that it is big enough to say whatever we want it to say if we are willing to remove the context. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
1171:the Bible is a book dealing with the science of the mind. It is a book telling man how to release his soul (or subconscious mind) from bondage. ~ Florence Scovel Shinn, #NFDB
1172:The Bible is a legal document, sealed by the blood of Jesus. However, it is your believing it and your confessing it which makes it a reality to you. ~ Kenneth E Hagin, #NFDB
1173:The Bible said, as Chris quoted one memorable day, there was a time for
everything. I figured my time for happiness was just ahead, waiting
for me. ~ V C Andrews,#NFDB
1174:The Bible takes much of its color from whoever is reading it, and it provides a text to support almost every shade of opinion, however preposterous. ~ Robertson Davies, #NFDB
1175:(The Catholic Church, on the other hand, seized on the big bang model and in 1951 officially pronounced it to be in accordance with the Bible.) There ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
1176:Whatever evil might come upon us, because we all came about out of love and care and the Bible and Mother Goose. What can stand against that? ~ Richard Kennedy, #NFDB
1177:Gay marriage within mainline denominations is gaining traction. Skewed pastors and even the government can't trump the Bible on this issue. Pastors: stand! ~ Steve Camp, #NFDB
1178:Lastly, this threefold poetry flows from three great sources - The Bible, Homer, Shakespeare.... The Bible before the Iliad, the Iliad before Shakespeare. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1179:Nay, if there be any mistakes in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
1180:Probably the most profound thing in the Bible is 'Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.' This is what, to me, is the essence of Christianity. ~ Dave Brubeck, #NFDB
1181:The Bible has been, and probably always will be, a relentless, magnetic force that both drives me away from my faith and continuously calls me home. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1182:The Bible is obviously a mixed book. Literary and nonliterary (expository, explanatory) writing exist side by side within the covers of this unique book. ~ Leland Ryken, #NFDB
1183:The Bible says that the Cross offends. If you are offended, I am doing my job. If you are attracted to Christ, the Spirit is doing his work. - Bruce Barnes ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
1184:The Bible sets no percentage goal in giving. Giving 10 percent of your gross income does not necessarily mean you have fulfilled the will of God. Ten ~ Donald S Whitney, #NFDB
1185:The Bible tells you that real peace is found in resting in the wisdom of the One who holds all of your “what-ifs” and “if-onlys” in his loving hands. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
1186:the most powerful force in human nature is the spiritual-power technique taught in the Bible . . . faith in God, faith in other people, faith in yourself. ~ Tim Sanders, #NFDB
1187:Two great critiques of modernity by biblical scholars are Walter Brueggemann’s Texts Under Negotiation and Walter Wink’s The Bible in Human Transformation. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
1188:Whatever your relationship is to your sacred tradition in the West, you have some relationship to the Bible if only through the names of the characters. ~ Anita Diament, #NFDB
1189:you will hear and see me in the Bible in fresh ways. Just don’t look for rules and principles; look for relationship—a way of coming to be with us. ~ William Paul Young, #NFDB
1190:But when you take the Bible literally, for what it says, you have to come back to the fact that there is only one way of salvation; there's only one Savior. ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
1191:God speaks through a variety of means. In the present God primarily speaks by the Holy Spirit, through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church. ~ Henry Blackaby, #NFDB
1192:Go through John's Gospel, and study the "believes," the "verilys," the " I ams; "and go through the Bible in that way, and it becomes a new book to you. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
1193:The Bible calls debt a curse and children a blessing. But in our culture we apply for a curse and reject blessings. Something is wrong with this picture. ~ Doug Phillips, #NFDB
1194:The Bible is a remarkable document,” he mused. “It can be interpreted many ways, and reveals as much about whoever reads it as it does about the Book itself. ~ Eva Leigh, #NFDB
1195:The Bible would not have told us to take up the whole armor of God in order to withstand evil if evil could have been withstood without doing that. To ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB
1196:They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might
~ Anonymous, The Bible, 2 Thessalonians 1:9,#NFDB
1197:Do you remember the story in the Bible known as the Judgment of Solomon?” Soren asked. “Why can’t we have phone sex like normal perverts?” Kingsley asked. ~ Tiffany Reisz, #NFDB
1198:Everybody in the media thinks the New York Times is the bible. So whatever is in it is safe to run and is gospel, and is unchallengeable. It's infallible. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1199:It has often been pointed out that if a person really believes Genesis 1:1, he will not find it difficult to believe anything else recorded in the Bible. ~ Henry M Morris, #NFDB
1200:I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me . . they’re cramming for their final exam. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
1201:The Bible contains some of the most sublime passages in English literature, but is also full of contradictions, inconsistencies, and absurdities. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton, #NFDB
1202:The Bible does not profess to make men omniscient, but simply to tell them enough to make them happy and good, if they will believe it and live up to it. ~ Henry Van Dyke, #NFDB
1203:The Bible says we should know a tree by the fruit it bears," Makepeace replied, a little sharply. "If you burn my hand off, what should I think of you? ~ Frances Hardinge, #NFDB
1204:The Bible should be taught so early and so thoroughly that it sinks straight to the bottom of the mind where everything that comes along can settle on it. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
1205:the greater the artistic expression, the more important it is to consciously bring it and its world view under the judgment of Christ and the Bible. ~ Francis A Schaeffer, #NFDB
1206:The story of Hosea and Gomer is the second most powerful picture of God's love in the Bible. Other than Christ's death, there is no greater picture of love. ~ Jud Wilhite, #NFDB
1207:When I came here, I put my hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. I didn't put my hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible. ~ Jesse Jackson, #NFDB
1208:A Best Yes is a wise yes. The Bible reminds us, “Get all the advice and instruction you can, so you will be wise the rest of your life” (Prov. 19:20 NLT). ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
1209:According to the Bible, the evil of the world ultimately stems from the self-centeredness, self-righteousness, and self-absorption of every human heart. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1210:As to the book called the bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions and a history of bad times and bad men. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
1211:But when you come to Heritage USA, remember to bring your Bible and your VISA card - because the Bible is the Holy Truth, and God doesnt take American Express ~ Jim Bakker, #NFDB
1212:Doctrine is of limited benefit apart from study of the Bible. Without study of the Bible, we have no means of judging which doctrine is spiritually nourishing. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1213:From no source has the author drawn more conspicuously than from the sacred Scriptures. From all these extracts from the Bible I make no apology. ~ William Holmes McGuffey, #NFDB
1214:God does not see you the way you were. He sees you as a new creation. If you've been born again, the Bible says you-are the righteousness of God in Christ. ~ Charles Capps, #NFDB
1215:I believe there's something in the Bible about 'Thou shalt not call anyone insane who owns and is competent with more firearms than you own sharp sticks.' ~ Andrew Plotkin, #NFDB
1216:I did the bible as told through Hispanic people and they laughed and applauded. I thought, "Oh my god, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life." ~ John Leguizamo, #NFDB
1217:I have undertaken to translate the Bible into German. This was good for me; otherwise I might have died in the mistaken notion that I was a learned fellow. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
1218:I spent six years in Bible study because I needed to get grounded. People really need to spend time in the Bible getting to know the God they claim to love. ~ Willie Aames, #NFDB
1219:I wasn't reading it [the Bible] as literature. I was reading it as literature, and as history, and as a moral guide, and as anthropology and law and culture. ~ David Plotz, #NFDB
1220:Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own
~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV,#NFDB
1221:The Bible remained for me a book of books, still divine - but divine in the sense that all great books are divine which teach men how to live righteously. ~ Joseph Joubert, #NFDB
1222:The Bible understandably glosses over the disagreeable fact that Sennacherib responded by brutally seizing the cities of Judah until Hezekiah was crushed, ~ Neil MacGregor, #NFDB
1223:The great commandment is that we preach the gospel to every creature, but neither God nor the Bible says anything about forcing it down people's throats. ~ Louis Zamperini, #NFDB
1224:There are many troubles which you cannot cure by the Bible and the hymn-book, but which you can cure by a good perspiration and a breath of fresh air. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
1225:There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
1226:There are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. And other people who stand around and watch them eat. ~ Lillian Hellman, #NFDB
1227:This is what Paul told Timothy in the Bible: “Stir up the gift, fan the flame.” When you stir up the passion, your faith will allow God to do amazing things. ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
1228:What makes the difference is not how many times you have been through the Bible, but how many times and how thoroughly the Bible has been through you. ~ Rodney Gipsy Smith, #NFDB
1229:Although considered a book of the Bible for five centuries, The Book of Enoch eventually was excluded from orthodox versions in favor of the book of Revelation. ~ Jim Marrs, #NFDB
1230:A true friend is one with whom you can be playful and serious at the same time. The Bible teaches that God has appointed “a time to weep, and a time to laugh ~ Joel R Beeke, #NFDB
1231:God did not, as the Bible says, make man in His image; on the contrary man, as I have shown in The Essence of Christianity, made God in his image. ~ Ludwig Feuerbach, #NFDB
1232:Mark Twain had a point when he concluded that it was not the parts of the Bible he did not understand that bothered him—but the parts he did understand!) ~ Norman L Geisler, #NFDB
1233:My God is not imprisoned anywhere, not in the Bible nor the tabernacle. Real Presence is everywhere, and those with the hearts of children revel in it. ~ Macrina Wiederkehr, #NFDB
1234:Nowhere in the bible did it say, “Only show compassion and empathy to those you can trust.” If we did that, we would be burying homeless people every day. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
1235:The Bible is still loved by millions, read by millions, and studied by millions. It remains the most published and most read book in the world of literature. ~ Bernard Ramm, #NFDB
1236:There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them. ~ Sally Lloyd Jones, #NFDB
1237:They sounded like intestines, only on the outside, and the men in the Bible were always having them cut off and not being able to go to church. Horrid. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
1238:We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatever. ~ Isaac Newton, #NFDB
1239:We know who we are praying to only if we first learn it in the Bible. And we know how we should be praying only by getting our vocabulary from the Bible. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1240:When the Bible is viewed primarily as a collection of devotional thoughts, its status as the most devastating work of social criticism in history is forgotten. ~ David Dark, #NFDB
1241:-You are too young to understand it.-she said, -but sometimes the bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of--oh,of your faher. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
1242:Don't hide behind the Constitution or the Bible. If you're against gay marriage, just be honest, put a scarlet 'H' on your shirt, and say, 'I am a homophobe! ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
1243:If the Bible is called the Good Book, it's not because its people are. Blood flows as freely through the stories as the ink through the quills that penned them. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1244:If we read the Bible asking first, 'What would Jesus do?' instead of asking 'What has Jesus done?' we’ll miss the good news that alone can set us free. ~ Tullian Tchividjian, #NFDB
1245:I have come to regard with some suspicion those who claim that the Bible never troubles them. I can only assume this means they haven’t actually read it. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1246:Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, St John 3-3, [T5],#NFDB
1247:Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's The Wicked + The Divine is better than Young Avengers. Better than Phonogram. Better than Watchmen. Better than The Bible. ~ Matt Fraction, #NFDB
1248:People need to know why we, as the Jewish people, have a right to be here. We need to tell people what we are doing here... My tourism guidebook is the Bible. ~ Ariel Sharon, #NFDB
1249:Since dictating the Bible, and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it, God has never done much but creep around and try to catch us disobeying it. ~ Sinclair Lewis, #NFDB
1250:The Bible does not authorize us, either by the words of the Lord or His apostles, to believe that the gifts of healing were granted only to the early church; ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
1251:The Bible does not thrill; the Bible nourishes. Give time to the reading of the Bible and the recreating effect is as real as that of fresh air physically. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
1252:The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can prove anything from it.
~ Robert Heinlein, Dr. Jacob Burroughs in The Number of the Beast.,#NFDB
1253:The Bible is to me the most precious thing in the world, because it tells me his story; and what good men thought about him who knew him and accepted him. ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
1254:The Bible's historical accuracy is a reminder that while "the heavens declare the glory of God," there's also plenty of evidence among the rubble and ruins. ~ Charles Colson, #NFDB
1255:The exodus from the flood valley of the Nile, the end of foreign enslavement, was presented by the Bible writers as the condition of becoming fully Israelite. ~ Simon Schama, #NFDB
1256:The Internal Revenue code has ballooned to a 5,600-page, 4 million-word complicated mess that is seven times as long as the Bible with none of the good news. ~ Leonard Lance, #NFDB
1257:There is one death bed repentance recorded in the Bible (the thief on the cross), so that no one despair, but there is ONLY one, so that no one will presume. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
1258:The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, of Plato & Cicero, which all men ought to contemn, are set up by artifice against the Sublime of the Bible ~ William Blake, #NFDB
1259:To me it seems our duty towards the Bible is to obey its teaching in faith. I do not think we are bound to understand or account for all its utterances. ~ Christina Rossetti, #NFDB
1260:You are too young to understand it,” she said, “but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of—oh, of your father. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
1261:As a biblical inerrantist, I believe that what the Bible teaches is true and bow to the text, including its teaching about the Flood and its universality. ~ William A Dembski, #NFDB
1262:Don't hide behind the Constitution or the Bible. If you're against gay marriage, just be honest, put a scarlet 'H' on your shirt, and say, 'I am a homophobe!' ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
1263:Faith in reason as a prime motor is no longer the criterion of the sound mind, any more than faith in the Bible is the criterion of righteous intention. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
1264:He developed his revolutionary philosophy, with its grounding not in the Bible or ancient writers but in human reason, and became famous and infamous for it. ~ Russell Shorto, #NFDB
1265:I have an implicit faith ... that mankind can only be saved through non-violence, which is the central teaching of the Bible, as I have understood the Bible. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1266:In the Bible the food that man eats, the world of which he must partake in order to live, is given to him by God, and it is given as communion with God. ~ Alexander Schmemann, #NFDB
1267:I've read the Bible, but I felt like a lot of the Bible was oppressive towards women. Then I read the Quran, and I thought it was also oppressive towards women. ~ Robert Webb, #NFDB
1268:My fellow believers, it is time to return to the Book. It is time to look to the one source that holds the answers for how our country should operate, the Bible. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
1269:one must either stop reading the Bible altogether, or else leave off spending one's whole time in just doing easy pleasant things one likes to do. ~ Elizabeth Payson Prentiss, #NFDB
1270:The Bible tells us clearly what our parameters are and how to protect them, but often our family, or other past relationships, confuses us about our parameters. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
1271:The presence of the devil is on the first page of the Bible, and the Bible ends as well with the presence of the devil, with the victory of God over the devil. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1272:The purpose of continuous repentance in the life of a quality man is not a return to the crisis of salvation but part of what the Bible calls sanctification ~ James MacDonald, #NFDB
1273:While the romantics rejected the Enlightenment’s exaltation of reason, many theologians accepted it and sought to frame the Bible as a set of empirical data. ~ Joseph Laycock, #NFDB
1274:David, Moses, Saul of Tarsus, these were all people who did terrible terrible things - they were murderers. The Bible would be a lot shorter without grace. ~ Shane Claiborne, #NFDB
1275:I cannot hold the Bible in my hand while denying the Trinity. There is a fundamental contradiction there. The Trinity is a doctrine for Bible-believing people. ~ James R White, #NFDB
1276:If we believe the Bible, we must accept the fact that, in the old days, God and his angels came to humans in their sleep and made themselves known in dreams. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
1277:I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Job, 42:5-6, [T5], #NFDB
1278:It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true Word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1279:I’ve been surrounded by love. I know now what the Bible means when it says that His grace is sufficient, that His peace passes understanding. It’s all so true. ~ Deborah Raney, #NFDB
1280:People can make arguments from the Bible if they want to. But I want them to see that they should also give arguments that all reasonable citizens might agree to. ~ John Rawls, #NFDB
1281:The Bible is our fire-guard. Some read God's Word critically but the Word is their critic and by their own attitude towards the Word they condemn themselves. ~ Reinhard Bonnke, #NFDB
1282:The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1283:This otherness problem is what the gospel “fixes,” and the story of the Bible is the story of God’s people struggling with otherness and searching for oneness. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
1284:Though your ability to quote the Bible is impressive. Better than my Aunt Harriet's.'
'Did you hear that, James? She just compared us to her Aunt Harriet. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
1285:When you are tempted to forsake God because of the greatness of evil and misery in the world, may you remember that the BIble has prepared us for this temptation. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1286:and He instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a mere staff-- no bread, no bag, no money in their belt
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Mark 6:8, [T5],#NFDB
1287:Certain things are complete superstition and have no validity at all in the Bible. Yeah. They're just the antithesis of everything that is correct intellectually. ~ Lenny Bruce, #NFDB
1288:Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic . . . Do not defend God’s Word, but testify to it . . . Trust to the Word. —DIETRICH BONHOEFFER ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
1289:Everywhere I looked in the Bible, from the beginning of the Old Testament to the end of Revelation, people who believe in God are supposed to share with the poor. ~ Katie Davis, #NFDB
1290:Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant. They're quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 Commandments. ~ Sarah Palin, #NFDB
1291:In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times 7. Well, I want you all to know that I'm keeping a chart. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
1292:Most of us do not have a corpus of Scripture in our minds, a comprehensive understanding of the Bible and its truths that can counteract the voices of culture. ~ Sally Clarkson, #NFDB
1293:Religion… is such a belief of the Bible as maintains a living influence on the heart. ~ Richard Cecil, The works of the Rev. Richard Cecil vol. 3 (1825) "On Scriptures", p. 359, #NFDB
1294:The Bible begins gloriously with Paradise, the symbol of youth, and ends with the everlasting kingdom, with the holy city. The history of every man should be a Bible. ~ Novalis, #NFDB
1295:The Bible was written by man to serve his own ends. Like society. Like the church. We use such things to control one another, but what right do we have to do so? ~ Megan Chance, #NFDB
1296:The Psalms of the Bible, because of positive biblical warrant, their inherent excellence, and their divine inspiration, are to be sung in the public worship of God, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1297:There are certain books in the world which every searcher for truth must know: the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Origin of Species, and Karl Marx's Capital. ~ Al Capp, #NFDB
1298:Those who do succeed in reading the Bible from beginning to end will discover that at least it has a beginning and an end, and some traces of a total structure. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
1299:We human beings instinctively regard the seen world as the “real” world and the unseen world as the “unreal” world, but the Bible calls for almost the opposite. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
1300:We often read the Bible as if it were fundamentally about us: our improvement, our life, our triumph, our victory, our faith, our holiness, our godliness. ~ Tullian Tchividjian, #NFDB
1301:I do not deal with the text [of the Bible] scientifically. I read it, I'm interested in its layers of meaning, but my relation to it is much more an emotional one. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
1302:I quote from the Bible: thou shalt not let a sorority girl named Candy dictate anything about your personal lifestyle, or thou shalt turn into a pillar of salt. ~ Lauren Myracle, #NFDB
1303:The Bible compels us to join God in what He is doing in and around us. Studying the Bible is important, but the goal is never knowledge for the sake of knowledge. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1304:The Bible is the ultimate authority and infallible, not the pastor and not the elders. And it doesn't mean that you believe everything he says without examining it. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1305:When trying to explain anything, I usually find that the Bible, that great collection of magnificent and varied poetry, has said it before in the best possible way. ~ Amy Lowell, #NFDB
1306:America derives its laws from its Constitution. It derives its values from the Bible. We don't get inalienable rights from the Constitution; we get them from God. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
1307:But when the Bible speaks of love, it measures it primarily not by how much you want to receive but by how much you are willing to give of yourself to someone. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1308:How do I know the Bible isn't the word of God? Well if it was the word of God it would be clear and easy to understand...considering God was the creator of LANGUAGE! ~ Bill Hicks, #NFDB
1309:If I were stranded on a desert island, the one book I would have with me would is the Bible. There are enough stories in the Bible to keep you engaged for years. ~ Tess Gerritsen, #NFDB
1310:In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said seventy times seven. Well, I want you all to know that I'm keeping a chart. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
1311:No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He's not good at design, he's not good at execution. He'd be out of business. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
1312:Revelation 6–16 is the main section of the Bible that describes the end-times Tribulation. These eleven chapters focus upon the awful judgments of the end times. ~ Mark Hitchcock, #NFDB
1313:There is no shorter path for joining a neutral existential anthropology, according to philosophy, with the existential decision before God, according to the Bible. ~ Paul Ricoeur, #NFDB
1314:The world has corrected the Bible. The church never corrects it; and also never fails to drop in at the tail of the procession-and take the credit of the correction. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1315:This is the great divide on how we approach the Bible. Does it express the heart and mind of a divine person, or is it merely a record of human religious experience? ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1316:We need to know what the Bible says about abortion and marriage, poverty and slavery, and we need to see how all of these issues fundamentally relate to the gospel. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
1317:Word of God” or to treat the words of the Bible as if they were words spoken by the mouth of God is to me not just irresponsible, it is also to be illiterate. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
1318:Each day I take time out to study the Bible, no matter where I am. The teachings of the Bible have added a new dimension to my life. It, somehow, makes me whole. ~ Michael Jackson, #NFDB
1319:I find the evidence for the deity of Jesus and the reliability of the Bible to be powerful and persuasive, and that evidence has only gotten stronger over the years. ~ Lee Strobel, #NFDB
1320:If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
1321:If the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls sports, such as hot oil wrestling, foxy boxing, and such and such. ~ Dan Castellaneta, #NFDB
1322:This sort of absurd subterfuge, and this manner of speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a man, is consistent with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
1323:To say that an account in the Bible may have a symbolical meaning does not necessarily mean that the account is entirely unhistorical. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
1324:We best oppose error by promoting a solid knowledge of the word of truth, and the greatest kindness we can do to children, is to make them early to know the Bible. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
1325:We say that God is true; that the Constitution of the United States is true; that the Bible is true; and that the Book of Mormon is true, and that Christ is true ~ Joseph Smith Jr, #NFDB
1326:When you have read the Bible, you will know it is the word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness and your own duty. ~ Woodrow Wilson, #NFDB
1327:You can point to the alleged miracles of the Bible, or any other religious text, but they are nothing but old stories fabricated by man and then exaggerated over time. ~ Dan Brown, #NFDB
1328:After more than sixty years of almost daily reading of the Bible, I never fail to find it always new and marvelously in tune with the changing needs of every day. ~ Cecil B DeMille, #NFDB
1329:By renouncing the Bible, philosophers swing from their moorings upon all moral subjects..It is the only correct map of the human heart that ever has been published. ~ Benjamin Rush, #NFDB
1330:I don't get asked a lot of questions about science and the Bible, for example. Probably people just know I'm not very smart and I don't have an answer to those anyway. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1331:If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
1332:I have found words [in the Bible] for my inmost thoughts, songs for my joy, utterances for my hidden griefs, and pleadings for my shame and my feebleness. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB
1333:In short, if we do not comprehend the massive role that sin plays in the Bible and therefore in biblically faithful Christianity, we shall misread the Bible. ~ Christopher W Morgan, #NFDB
1334:I try to see their moral relevance [in the Bible] and, of course, to admire the literary beauty of the text. Prophetic poetry: No one has written the way Isaiah does. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
1335:Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
1336:The very heart of worship, as the Bible makes clear, is the business of expressing, from the depths of our spirits, the highest possible honor we can offer before God. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
1337:THUS much for the Bible; I now go on to the book called the New Testament. The new Testament! that is, the ‘new’ Will, as if there could be two wills of the Creator. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
1338:We're either going to be driven to a whole new sense of radical interdependence where we are, in the Bible's words, our neighbor's keeper, or destroy ourselves. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
1339:For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians 12:8,#NFDB
1340:I don't know if you've read the Bible, and if you haven't, I think you may be in a better place than those of us who have read it so much that it has become stale. ~ Shane Claiborne, #NFDB
1341:I'm sick of people who've never been to church telling me that church is full of hypocrites, and people who've never read the Bible telling me that it's baloney. ~ Kristin Chenoweth, #NFDB
1342:Like the Bible-a document that often contradicts itself and from which one can construct sharply different arguments-theology is the product of human hands and hearts. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
1343:The Bible says, “You must make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”14 ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
1344:when the Bible speaks of hope, it is not referring to a desire for a future outcome that is uncertain, but rather a desire for a future outcome that is absolutely sure. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
1345:You know that bit in the Bible when they’re all like, ‘Yo Peter, do you know this Jesus bloke?’ and he’s like, ‘Hell, no.’ It was like that, but even worse.” “My word. ~ Alexis Hall, #NFDB
1346:Every desire to read the Bible and to do God’s will, every manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit, be it ever so small, was the living result of my being in Christ. ~ Jerry Bridges, #NFDB
1347:Forbidden? Listen, I was a lawyer, and I know the law. I was also a Catholic, and I used to know whole sections of the Bible by heart. What do you mean by ‘forbidden’? ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1348:I believe that a woman who loses interest in her Bible has not been equipped to love it as she should. The God of the bible is too lovely to abandon for lesser pursuits. ~ Jen Wilkin, #NFDB
1349:If poetry should address itself to the same needs and aspirations, the same hopes and fears, to which the Bible addresses itself, it might rival it in distribution. ~ Wallace Stevens, #NFDB
1350:I have come to regard with some suspicion those who claim that the Bible never troubles them. I can only assume this means they haven’t actually read it. Clearly, ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1351:I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms 116:1-2, NIV, #NFDB
1352:It's not the things I don't understand about the Bible that bother me; it's the things I understand with perfect clarity and don't comply with that keep me up at night. ~ Bill Hybels, #NFDB
1353:Nah.” His arms tightened around her. “I think the Bible got it backwards. I think God made women first. Then he made man, because he thought, ‘Someone’s gotta see this! ~ Selena Kitt, #NFDB
1354:The bible may be the greatest story every told, but the most popular story is about a couple fornicating that stops for one reason or another while it is still novel. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
1355:THE DOCTRINE OF SCRIPTURE IS FOUNDATIONAL to the Christain faith. But there is more to say about Scripture than simply, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1356:We rarely read the Bible to discover truth; more often, we wish to harmonize it with our belief system and see its meaning in light of our preconceived theological system ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1357:Where was this written? I wondered. Where in the Talmud or the Koran or the Bible did it say, "Lo, and Satan fetcheth the coffee for the Antichrist and her minions"? ~ Lyda Morehouse, #NFDB
1358:For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life. ~ Arthur M Schlesinger Jr, #NFDB
1359:He will find one English book and one only, where, as in the "Iliad" itself, perfect plainness of speech is allied with perfect nobleness; and that book is the Bible. ~ Matthew Arnold, #NFDB
1360:In the Bible’s view of the relation between God and his people, we need the help of God’s Holy Spirit to understand the truth as much as we need his help to do the truth. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1361:Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Kabbalah is its long-hidden connection to the Bible. Kabbalah says the Bible is a complete code. That’s right. It’s a cryptogram. ~ Yehuda Berg, #NFDB
1362:Read the Bible as though it were something entirely unfamiliar, as though it had not been set before you ready-made. Face the book with a new attitude as something new. ~ Martin Buber, #NFDB
1363:The two authors she brought with her from that period of reading were Whitman and Thoreau—but then, she had been reading them for years, as some people read the Bible. ~ Doris Lessing, #NFDB
1364:And so Betsie and I arrived in Barracks 8 in the small hours of that morning, bringing not only the Bible, but a new knowledge of the power of Him whose story it was. ~ Corrie ten Boom, #NFDB
1365:Christianity would have lacked a great essence without the Bible. A Christian who seldom devotes a little time to read the Bible is with a great question mark. ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
1366:Christ is the Word of God in person. The Bible is the Word of God in writing. Both are the Word of God in the words of men. Both have a human nature and a divine nature. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
1367:Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms 23:4,#NFDB
1368:He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Micah 6:8, #NFDB
1369:Indeed, it is an indisputable fact that all the complex and horrendous questions confronting us at home and worldwide have their answer in that single book [the Bible]. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
1370:One of my favorite verses in the Bible says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17, emphasis added). ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB
1371:People who quoted the Scriptures in criticism of others were terrible bores and usually they misapplied the text. One could prove anything against anyone from the Bible. ~ Muriel Spark, #NFDB
1372:The Bible records that whenever the Lord was with them in battle, the children of Israel were never defeated, and every military campaign ended in overwhelming success. ~ Joseph Prince, #NFDB
1373:The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalm 18:2, #NFDB
1374:This is how we know what love is, Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. (from the Bible, 1 John 3:16 NIV) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1375:We treat the Bible, not as if it's a magic book that has to be handled like a piece of abracadabra, make sure it's dusted, never put it on the floor, and things like that. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1376:allowing us to edit the Bible according to some other standard (whatever that might be). In the end, we are left not with God’s Word, but our word—a Bible of our own making. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1377:Before the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be shattered at the fountain, or the wheel be broken at the cistern. ~ Anon, The Bible, Ecclesiastes 12:6, #NFDB
1378:Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans 13:11,#NFDB
1379:Lying Ted, right? You know, lying Ted comes in with a bible held high. You know that, right? It`s held high. He puts the bible down and then he starts lying all day long. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
1380:the necessity of systematic theology for teaching what the Bible says comes about primarily because we are finite in our memory and in the amount of time at our disposal. ~ Wayne Grudem, #NFDB
1381:We have adopted the convenient theory that the Bible is a Book to be explained, whereas first and foremost it is a Book to be believed (and after that to be obeyed.) ~ Leonard Ravenhill, #NFDB
1382:As Christians we are called to care for the orphans, the widows, and the oppressed. These are not just a handful of words from the Bible; they are the tenets of my faith. ~ Rachel Hollis, #NFDB
1383:At night I sit in my chamber and read the bible. Far in the distance roars the sea. Then I lie down and think for a long time about the calm and pale man from Nazareth. ~ Joseph Goebbels, #NFDB
1384:First, a few words about this title. It isn't easy, coming up with book titles. A lot of the really good ones are taken. Thin Thighs in 30 Days, for example. Also The Bible. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
1385:Historically the church has understood the nature of Scripture much the same as it has understood the person of Christ—the Bible is at the same time both human and divine. ~ Gordon D Fee, #NFDB
1386:If I were doing something that the Bible condemns, I have two choices. I can straighten up my act, or I can somehow distort and twist and change the meaning of the Bible. ~ Jerry Falwell, #NFDB
1387:If my parents hadn't been made to do that from living in the Bible Belt, maybe it wouldn't be something that matters to me - maybe I wouldn't even know how to talk to God. ~ Valerie June, #NFDB
1388:If there is any verse that you would like left out of the Bible, that is the verse that ought to stick to you, like a blister, until you really attend to its teaching. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
1389:I remember the will said, 'May God thy gold refine.' That must be from the Bible."
"Shakespeare," Turtle said. All quotations were either from the Bible or Shakespeare. ~ Ellen Raskin,#NFDB
1390:Karl Barth said it well: "We have to read the Bible in one hand... and the newspaper in the other." Our faith should not cause us to escape this world but to engage it. ~ Shane Claiborne, #NFDB
1391:Most of the leading figures of the Old Testament were polygamists. Abraham had several wives and concubines. If they wanted, they could say this was approved in the Bible. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
1392:The Bible rose to the place it now occupies because it deserved to rise to that place, and not because God sent anybody with a box of tricks to prove its divine authority. ~ Bruce Barton, #NFDB
1393:The Bible teaches that if
we sin against one point of the law, we sin against the whole law. Does this not imply that sin is sin and that ultimately there are no degrees? ~ R C Sproul,#NFDB
1394:The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination. ~ Shane Claiborne, #NFDB
1395:Them that's got shall get, Them that's not shall lose. So the Bible says, And it still is news. Mama may have, Papa may have, But God bless the child that's got his own. ~ Billie Holiday, #NFDB
1396:There's a verse in the Bible says, 'In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.' And what brings me peace is the scripture. ~ Tammy Faye Bakker, #NFDB
1397:And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
~ Anonymous, The Bible?, [T5],#NFDB
1398:Anonymous sources are a practice of American journalism in the 20th and 21st century, a relatively recent practice. The literary tradition of anonymity goes back to the Bible. ~ Joe Klein, #NFDB
1399:His father had always stressed that the comforts they enjoyed came with a responsibility to give back. In the words of the Bible, “To whom much is given, much is required. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
1400:Hold fast to the Bible. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for all the progress made in true civilization and to this we must look as our guide in the future. ~ Ulysses S Grant, #NFDB
1401:I have had a lot to put up with," she said, looking meaningfully at me. "I know the Bible tells us to turn the other cheek but there are only so many cheeks in a day. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
1402:I have tried reading the Bible but that's a tough read there. I watch a lot of religious documentaries. I have a keen interest in religion for someone who's not religious. ~ Jim Jefferies, #NFDB
1403:I think the Bible is largely an amazing and beautiful book of fictional stories from which we can glean the most wholesome lessons about how to treat one another decently. ~ Nick Offerman, #NFDB
1404:Letting the Bible speak for itself, that is, letting it speak in its own terms, includes letting the Bible speak from within its own worldview rather than merely our own. ~ Vern Poythress, #NFDB
1405:mind that is fast is sick, a mind that is slow is sound, and a mind that is still is divine. This is what the Bible means when it says, “Be still and know that I am God. ~ Eknath Easwaran, #NFDB
1406:Now here he was, with his hand on the Bible, promising to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. The joke, it turned out, was on us. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
1407:Taken as a whole, the Bible clearly puts the emphasis on what pleases God—the point of worship, after all. To worship, says Walter Wink, is to remember Who owns the house. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
1408:The Bible does tell us who we are and what we should do, but it does so through the lens of who God is. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of self always go hand in hand. ~ Jen Wilkin, #NFDB
1409:The Bible is there to enable God's people to be equipped to do God's work in God's world, not to give them an excuse to sit back smugly, knowing they possess all God's truth. ~ N T Wright, #NFDB
1410:There is a God and there is a Devil. The Bible is the living word of God and there are more Antichrists living among us then you could ever believe or even truly understand ~ Stephen Biro, #NFDB
1411:And here's what I said, if its in the word we accept it but if you dream it and your vision is not in the bible then you got to dismiss it because its not based upon the word. ~ Benny Hinn, #NFDB
1412:Because suffering is the bible she was sworn in on. Because self-doubt was the ferry she took to get here and yes, it did get her here, but she never knew she could swim. ~ Sierra DeMulder, #NFDB
1413:But for the wise, it says in the Bible: when a wise man hears wisdom, he reacts. When a fool hears it, his acts are folly. If you wanna be a fool, help yourself, it's not my problem. ~ RZA, #NFDB
1414:By equality, one once understood equality in the very same sense in which the Bible speaks of equality: that we are all equal, inasmuch as we are created in the image of God. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1415:Coming to the Bible through commentaries is much like looking at a landscape through garret windows, over which generations of unmolested spiders have spun their webs. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
1416:The Bible is remarkably accurate as a basic reference book of scientific principles, and is incomparably superior to any other religious book of antiquity in this respect. ~ Henry M Morris, #NFDB
1417:the greatest miracle of all—the creation of the universe out of nothing—has already occurred, which means Genesis 1:1 and every other miracle in the Bible is believable. ~ Norman L Geisler, #NFDB
1418:You all have by you a large treasure of divine knowledge, in that you have the Bible in your hands; therefore be not contented in possessing but little of this treasure. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
1419:110. When I enter the pulpit with the Bible in my hands and in my heart, my blood begins to flow and my eyes to sparkle for the sheer glory of having God’s Word to expound. ~ John R W Stott, #NFDB
1420:A signature of the Bible App is its selection of over four hundred reading plans—a devotional iTunes of sorts, catering to an audience with diverse tastes, troubles, and tongues. ~ Nir Eyal, #NFDB
1421:At night I sit in my room and read the Bible.
In the distance, the sea roars.
Then I lay awake for a long time
and think of the quiet, pale man from Nazareth. ~ Joseph Goebbels,#NFDB
1422:Even Christians taking in the teaching of the Bible can be deceived about our own sins. We somehow feel that consent to the teaching of scripture is equivalent to obedience. ~ Jerry Bridges, #NFDB
1423:God’s War on Terror ISLAM, PROPHECY AND THE BIBLE A fresh understanding of Biblical prophecy from an Eastern perspective as viewed by an ex-Muslim terrorist By Walid Shoebat ~ Walid Shoebat, #NFDB
1424:I read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1425:The American people don't need to just hear about the importance of the Constitution or the Bible. They have to understand that those principles are in their best interests. ~ James Robison, #NFDB
1426:The Bible has, amazingly- no doubt with supernatural grace-survived its critics. The harder tyrants try to eliminate it and skeptics dismiss it, the better read it becomes. ~ Charles Colson, #NFDB
1427:The Bible is actually a library of books-some long, some short- written over hundreds of years by many authors. Behind each one, however, was [the] Author: the Spirit of God. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
1428:The concept of downsizing so that others might upgrade is biblical, beautiful … and nearly unheard of. We either close the gap or don’t take the words of the Bible literally. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1429:The concept of downsizing so that others might upgrade is biblical, beautiful...and nearly unheard of. We either close the gap or don't take the words of the Bible literally. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1430:To try to distill the Bible, which is bursting with life, drama, and tension, to a series of principles would be like trying to reduce a living person to a diagram. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
1431:Certainty of a good future causes your whole life to be different. He was referring to the promise in the Bible that we have life to come, life forever, life with God. ~ Rachel Devenish Ford, #NFDB
1432:if you search the bible, you will find no reference to birth control or gay marriage, and you will not find a word, strangely, about stem cell research. I have searched. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich, #NFDB
1433:In the Bible, God uses brothel owners, pagan kings, murderers and mercenaries as instruments of good; at one point God even speaks to a guy named Balaam through his donkey. ~ Shane Claiborne, #NFDB
1434:It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality? ~ A J Jacobs, #NFDB
1435:My God may not be your idea of God, but one thing I know of my God he makes me a humanitarian. I am a proud Jew because we gave the world the Bible and the story of Joseph. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1436:Protestant church tradition developed over several centuries when Christians were not yet forced, by virtue of the culminating evidence, to see the Bible in its ancient context. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
1437:The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the bible as a whole. ~ Arno Hintjens, #NFDB
1438:The Bible says that love is a responsibility. We are commanded to love. God doesn't ask us if we feel like it, He tells us in His Word that it is our responsibility to love. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
1439:The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful. ~ Francis Collins, #NFDB
1440:The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that 'if English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me. ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
1441:When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions. Wait for hope to appear.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, (Lamentations 3:28-29 MSG),#NFDB
1442:[Copernicus] did not ignore the Bible, but he knew very well that if his doctrine were proved, then it could not contradict the Scriptures when they were rightly understood. ~ Galileo Galilei, #NFDB
1443:I am glad there are things in the Bible I do not understand. If I could take that book up and read it as I would any other book, I might think I could write a book like that. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
1444:I did not read the Bible today. I am not very good at being religious and don't really feel too bad about not being too good. I do wish that I loved God and His creatures more. ~ Rich Mullins, #NFDB
1445:I have read the Bible many times. But after fasting, and being baptized Orthodox, it's like reading a whole new Bible. You see the depth behind the words so much more clearly. ~ Troy Polamalu, #NFDB
1446:Now the Bible tells us that we are all by nature, sinners, that we are slaves to sin and Satan, and that unless we are converted, or born again, we must be miserable forever. ~ Jupiter Hammon, #NFDB
1447:Still, shifting my thinking on the Bible did not mean I was losing my faith in God. In fact, I had the growing sense that God was inviting me down this path, encouraging it even. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
1448:The Bible is not the light of the world, it is the light of the Church. But the world does not read the Bible, the world reads Christians! “You are the light of the world.” ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
1449:The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that ‘if English was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me’. ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
1450:If you see most people neglect the Bible, and many that can read never look into it, let it not harden you and make you think lightly of it, and that it is a book of no worth. ~ Jupiter Hammon, #NFDB
1451:I just wish people wouldn’t quote Lincoln or the Bible, or hang out the flag or the cross, to cover up something that belongs more to the bank-book and the three golden balls. ~ Sinclair Lewis, #NFDB
1452:...It would be more consistent that we call [the Bible] the work of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
1453:People sometimes say that it is “old-fashioned” to define morality based on the Bible, but nothing is more “old- fashioned” than wanting to define right and wrong for ourselves. ~ Dannah Gresh, #NFDB
1454:Progressive revelation views the Bible not as a textbook on theology but as the continually unfolding revelation of God given by various means throughout the successive ages. ~ Charles C Ryrie, #NFDB
1455:Rather than suffer another attempt by the religious right to base our legalese upon the Bible, I would vote that we found it squarely upon the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. The ~ Nick Offerman, #NFDB
1456:Setting aside its failure to win over most people, the Bible can’t even communicate clearly to the people who already cherish it deeply and believe in it with all their heart. ~ Guy P Harrison, #NFDB
1457:The Bible consistently and directly indicates that when we give generously, we're serving, honoring, and glorifying God. After all, generosity is fundamental to God's nature. ~ Craig Groeschel, #NFDB
1458:The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope, then he sees worlds beyond; but, if he looks at his telescope, then he does not see anything but that. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
1459:The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful. ~ Francis S Collins, #NFDB
1460:The modern world detests authority but worships relevance. Our Christian conviction is that the Bible has both authority and relevance, and that the secret of both is Jesus Christ ~ John Stott, #NFDB
1461:The story of the Jews in the Bible is replete with incidents of their ingratitude to God for His gifts to them: incidents that just as repeatedly merit and receive punishment. ~ Elliott Abrams, #NFDB
1462:Focus on the mind and the soul. Read. Study. Enrol in a course of lectures. Pray. Become a member of a religious congregation. Study the Bible or other ancient works of wisdom. ~ Jonathan Sacks, #NFDB
1463:No, there is no romance so stirring, so thrilling, and so heartrending as life's great epic; but its fate is the same as that of the Bible — there are but few who care to read it. ~ Axel Munthe, #NFDB
1464:People have the idea of missionaries as going out with the Bible and hitting natives with it. It's not really what they were doing. They were all doing something rather different. ~ Colin Firth, #NFDB
1465:That it is a solecism to begin a sentence with 'and' is a faintly lingering superstition. The OED gives examples ranging from the 10th to the 19th c.; the Bible is full of them. ~ Ernest Gowers, #NFDB
1466:the Bible, all of it, is livable; it is the text for living our lives. It reveals a God-created, God-ordered, God-blessed world in which we find ourselves at home and whole. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
1467:To read the Bible and not to meditate was seen as an unfruitful exercise: better to read one chapter and meditate afterward than to read several chapters and not to meditate. ~ Donald S Whitney, #NFDB
1468:When you use your life for God’s glory, everything you do can become an act of worship. The Bible says, “Use your whole body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God.”12 ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
1469:Why is it that so few “pretty people” without checkered pasts are used mightily in the Scriptures? Because the Bible is primarily about God’s grace, not about human cleanliness. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
1470:Do you think the Bible is accurate? I mean, do you think it's real?" " I think Pastor Calvin is hot. In a fortysomething way. That pretty much sums up my religious conviction ~ Becca Fitzpatrick, #NFDB
1471:I like the Bible folded between lids of cloth, or calfskin, or morocco, but I like it better when, in the shape of a man, it goes out into the world-a Bible illustrated. ~ Thomas De Witt Talmage, #NFDB
1472:In the midst of our applauding the feats of civilization, the Bible flings itself like a knife slashing our complacency; remind us that God, too, has a voice in history. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
1473:Of course, afterward, I studied [commentary on the Bible by a Rabbi Moshe Dessauer] more closely. But, in truth, it doesn't touch me. It doesn't change my attitude toward the text. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
1474:The Bible does not present us with a single model for womanhood, and the notion that it contains a sort of one-size-fits-all formula for how to be a woman of faith is a myth. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1475:The existence of the Bible, as a book for the people, is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced. Every attempt to belittle it is a crime against humanity. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
1476:90. The Bible is full of ordinary people who went to impossible places and did wondrous things simply because they decided to obey God, even when others said "You can't do that. ~ Pauline Creeden, #NFDB
1477:Fellow-Christians, do let us study the Bible portrait of the humble man. And let us ask our brethren, and ask the world, whether they recognize in us the likeness to the original. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
1478:Hostility to religion is having an effect. In 1963, the number of Americans who said that they believed the Bible is literally true was 65%. Today, the number has dropped to 32%. ~ Charles Colson, #NFDB
1479:In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue. ~ John Quincy Adams, #NFDB
1480:The only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible. ~ Benjamin Rush, #NFDB
1481:Trying to prove scientifically the historical accuracy of events in the Bible is to faith what having your spouse under twenty-four-hour video surveillance is to marital trust. ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
1482:we must not just preach the Bible in general; we must preach the gospel. Yet unless those listening to the message understand the Bible in general, they won’t grasp the gospel. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1483:Don’t feed your body and keep your spirit starving. Butter bread for your body and living bread for your spirit. Read the Bible every day and keep your spirit away from hunger. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
1484:Given the impossibility of not failing one another, when the Bible says, “We all stumble in many ways,”7 the only way forward in loving community with one another is forgiveness. ~ James MacDonald, #NFDB
1485:I don't really understand it. Never have. The more I think on it the more it horrifies me. How can they look in the eyes of a man and make a slave of him and then quote the Bible? ~ Michael Shaara, #NFDB
1486:It is necessary for the welfare of the nation that men's lives be based on the principles of the Bible. No man, educated or uneducated, can afford to be ignorant of the Bible. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
1487:Jesuits like to invite people into imaginative prayer. That's a classic Jesuit way to pray - to say, what would it look like, sound like, feel like to be in certain parts of the Bible. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1488:Just as you must eat, drink, and breathe to live, you must read the Bible, pray, and be involved in a church to stay spiritually alive and vital. You never will outgrow these things. ~ Greg Laurie, #NFDB
1489:Letting the Bible speak for itself, that is, letting it speak in its own terms, includes letting the Bible speak from within its own worldview rather than merely our own. ~ Vern Sheridan Poythress, #NFDB
1490:Step two of properly interpreting a symbol in Revelation is to recognize that all the symbols in the book are explained either in Revelation itself or in other parts of the Bible. ~ Mark Hitchcock, #NFDB
1491:The Bible alone is the only authority that can bind the conscience of a person absolutely because it is the only authority that carries with it the intrinsic authority of God Himself. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
1492:The Bible is not a Christian owner’s manual but a story—a diverse story of God and how his people have connected with him over the centuries, in changing circumstances and situations. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
1493:The human authors and editors of the Old Testament brought their own experiences and presuppositions to the task of writing. We don’t often think about this when we read the Bible. ~ Adam Hamilton, #NFDB
1494:The story of Joseph is in the Bible for this reason: to teach you to trust God to trump evil. What Satan intends for evil, God, the Master Weaver and Master Builder, redeems for good. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1495:The turn from this end [despair] to a new beginning came from three things. A blooming cherry tree, the unexpected kindness of Scottish workers and their families, and the Bible. ~ Jurgen Moltmann, #NFDB
1496:We want to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Vedas, nor the Bible, nor the Koran; yet this has to be done by harmonizing the Vedas, the Bible, and the Koran. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1497:When a man rises and says, “I believe the Bible” and then ignores the teachings of the Bible on his own pet subjects, he is rejecting the Word more insidiously than outright disbelief. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1498:When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
1499:When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
1500:Yet, in the end, we don’t believe in creation just because it is more likely scientifically. We believe in creation because we trust what God has revealed to us in the Bible. ~ Lawrence O Richards, #NFDB
37 Integral Yoga
19 Occultism
10 Psychology
7 Poetry
5 Philosophy
3 Christianity
2 Theosophy
2 Fiction
1 Yoga
1 Science
1 Philsophy
1 Mysticism
1 Kabbalah
1 Integral Theory
1 Baha i Faith
1 Alchemy
21 Nolini Kanta Gupta
10 Carl Jung
9 Aleister Crowley
7 The Mother
6 Sri Aurobindo
4 A B Purani
3 Sri Ramana Maharshi
3 Jorge Luis Borges
3 Jordan Peterson
3 George Van Vrekhem
2 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Satprem
2 Percy Bysshe Shelley
2 Friedrich Nietzsche
2 Franz Bardon
2 Alice Bailey
2 Aldous Huxley
9 Talks
8 The Bible
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
5 Liber ABA
4 Words Of Long Ago
4 Mysterium Coniunctionis
4 Magick Without Tears
4 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
3 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
3 Preparing for the Miraculous
3 Maps of Meaning
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
3 Aion
2 The Practice of Magical Evocation
2 The Perennial Philosophy
2 Shelley - Poems
2 Labyrinths
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
2 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Eight years later, some time in November 1874, Sri Ramakrishna was seized with an irresistible desire to learn the truth of the Christian religion. He began to listen to readings from The Bible, by Sambhu Charan Mallick, a gentleman of Calcutta and a devotee of the Master. Sri Ramakrishna became fascinated by the life and teachings of Jesus. One day he was seated in the parlour of Jadu Mallick's garden house (This expression is used throughout to translate the Bengali word denoting a rich man's country house set in a garden.) at Dakshineswar, when his eyes became fixed on a painting of the Madonna and Child. Intently watching it, he became gradually overwhelmed with divine emotion. The figures in the picture took on life, and the rays of light emanating from them entered his soul. The effect of this experience was stronger than that of the vision of Mohammed. In dismay he cried out, "O Mother! What are You doing to me?" And, breaking through the barriers of creed and religion, he entered a new realm of ecstasy. Christ possessed his soul. For three days he did not set foot in the Kali temple. On the fourth day, in the afternoon, as he was walking in the Panchavati, he saw coming toward him a person with beautiful large eyes, serene countenance, and fair skin. As the two faced each other, a voice rang out in the depths of Sri Ramakrishna's soul: "Behold the Christ, who shed His heart's blood for the redemption of the world, who suffered a sea of anguish for love of men. It is He, the Master Yogi, who is in eternal union with God. It is Jesus, Love Incarnate." The Son of Man embraced the Son of the Divine Mother and merged in him. Sri Ramakrishna krishna realized his identity with Christ, as he had already realized his identity with Kali, Rama, Hanuman, Radha, Krishna, Brahman, and Mohammed. The Master went into samadhi and communed with the Brahman with attributes. Thus he experienced the truth that Christianity, too, was a path leading to God-Consciousness. Till the last moment of his life he believed that Christ was an Incarnation of God. But Christ, for him, was not the only Incarnation; there were others — Buddha, for instance, and Krishna.
--- ATTITUDE TOWARD DIFFERENT RELIGIONS
0.01 - Letters from the Mother to Her Son, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It may be that life on earth has always been a chaos - whatever The Bible may say, the Light has not yet made its appearance.
Let us hope that it will not be long in coming.
01.01 - Sri Aurobindo - The Age of Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Apart from the well-recognised fact that only in distress does the normal man think of God and non-worldly things, the real matter, however, is that the inner life is a thing apart and follows its own line of movement, does not depend upon, is not subservient to, the kind of outer life that one may happen to live under. The Bible says indeed, "Blessed are the poor, blessed are they that mourn"... But the Upanishad declares, on the other hand, that even as one lies happily on a royal couch, bathes and anoints himself with all the perfumes of the world, has attendants all around and always to serve him, even so, one can be full of the divine consciousness from the crown of the head to the tip of his toe-nail. In fact, a poor or a prosperous life is in no direct or even indirect ratio to a spiritual life. All the miseries and immediate needs of a physical life do not and cannot detain or delay one from following the path of the ideal; nor can all your riches be a burden to your soul and overwhelm it, if it chooses to walk onit can not only walk, but soar and fly with all that knapsack on its back.
If one were to be busy about reforming the world and when that was done then alone to turn to other-worldly things, in that case, one would never take the turn, for the world will never be reformed totally or even considerably in that way. It is not that reformers have for the first time appeared on the earth in the present age. Men have attempted social, political, economic and moral reforms from times immemorial. But that has not barred the spiritual attempt or minimised its importance. To say that because an ideal is apparently too high or too great for the present age, it must be kept in cold storage is to set a premium on the present nature of humanity arid eternise it: that would bind the world to its old moorings and never give it the opportunity to be free and go out into the high seas of larger and greater realisations.
0 1968-11-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, yes! There are big signs everywhere in the rooms: He died for our sins, and verses from The Bible all over the place.
Oh!
--
No, I didnt see The Bible, but there was also a sign (I forget what).
They propagandize.
0 1971-11-24, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Again, you say that you ask only for the Truth and yet you speak like a narrow and ignorant fanatic who refuses to believe in anything but the religion in which he was born. All fanaticism is false, because it is a contradiction of the very nature of God and of Truth. Truth cannot be shut up in a single book, Bible or Veda or Koran, or in a single religion. The Divine Being is eternal and universal and infinite and cannot be the sole property of the Mussulmans or of the Semitic religions only,those that happened to be in a line from The Bible and to have Jewish or Arabian prophets for their founders. Hindus and Confucians and Taoists and all others have as much right to enter into relation with God and find the Truth in their own way. All religions have some truth in them, but none has the whole truth; all are created in time and finally decline and perish. Mahomed himself never pretended that the Koran was the last message of God and there would be no other. God and Truth outlast these religions and manifest themselves anew in whatever way or form the Divine Wisdom chooses. You cannot shut up God in the limitations of your own narrow brain or dictate to the Divine Power and Consciousness how or where or through whom it shall manifest; you cannot put up your puny barriers against the divine Omnipotence. These again are simple truths which are now being recognised all over the world; only the childish in mind or those who vegetate in some formula of the past deny them.
You have insisted on my writing and asked for the Truth and I have answered. But if you want to be a Mussulman, no one prevents you. If the Truth I bring is too great for you to understand or to bear, you are free to go and live in a half-truth or in your own ignorance. I am not here to convert anyone; I do not preach to the world to come to me and I call no one. I am here to establish the divine life and the divine consciousness in those who of themselves feel the call to come to me and cleave to it and in no others. I am not asking you and the Mother is not asking you to accept us. You can go any day and live either the worldly life or a religious life according to your own preference. But as you are free, so also are others free to stay here and follow their own way.
02.01 - The World War, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Modern thinkers do not speak of the Asura the Demon or the Titanalthough the religiously minded sometimes refer to the Anti-Christ; but the real, the inner significance of the terms, is lost to a mind nurtured in science and empiricism; they are considered as more or less imaginative symbols for certain undesirable qualities of nature and character. Yet some have perceived and expressed the external manifestation and activities of the Asura in a way sufficient to open men's eyes to the realities involved. Thus they have declared that the present war is a conflict between two ideals, to be sure, but also that the two ideals are so different that they do not belong to the same plane or order; they belong to different planes and different orders. On one side the whole endeavour is to bring man down from the level to which he has arisen in the course of evolution to something like his previous level and to keep him imprisoned there. That this is really their aim, the protagonists and partisans themselves have declared frankly and freely and loudly enough, without any hesitation or reservation. Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' has become the Scripture of the New Order; it has come with a more categorical imperative, a more supernal authority than the Veda, The Bible or the Koran.
When man was a dweller of the forest,a jungle man,akin to his forbear the ape, his character was wild and savage, his motives and impulsions crude, violent, egoistic, almost wholly imbedded in, what we call, the lower vital level; the light of the higher intellect and intelligence had not entered into them. Today there is an uprush of similar forces to possess and throw man back to a similar condition. This new order asks only one thing of man, namely, to be strong and powerful, that is to say, fierce, ruthless, cruel and regimented. Regimentation can be said to be the very characteristic of the order, the regimentation of a pack of wild dogs or wolves. A particular country, nation or raceit is Germany in Europe and, in her wake, Japan in Asiais to be the sovereign nation or master race (Herrenvolk); the rest of mankindo ther countries and peoplesshould be pushed back to the status of servants and slaves, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. What the helots were in ancient times, what the serfs were in the mediaeval ages, and what the subject peoples were under the worst forms of modern imperialism, even so will be the entire mankind under the new overlordship, or something still worse. For whatever might have been the external conditions in those ages and systems, the upward aspirations of man were never doubted or questioned they were fully respected and honoured. The New Order has pulled all that down and cast them to the winds. Furthermore in the new regime, it is not merely the slaves that suffer in a degraded condition, the masters also, as individuals, fare no better. The individual here has no respect, no freedom or personal value. This society or community of the masters even will be like a bee-hive or an ant-hill; the individuals are merely functional units, they are but screws and bolts and nuts and wheels in a huge relentless machinery. The higher and inner realities, the spontaneous inspirations and self-creations of a free soulart, poetry, literaturesweetness and light the good and the beautifulare to be banished for ever; they are to be regarded as things of luxury which enervate the heart, diminish the life-force, distort Nature's own virility. Man perhaps would be the worshipper of Science, but of that Science which brings a tyrannical mastery over material Nature, which serves to pile up tools and instruments, arms and armaments, in order to ensure a dire efficiency and a grim order in practical life.
03.08 - The Democracy of Tomorrow, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The great mantra of individual liberty, in the social and political domain, was given by Rousseau in that famous opening line of his famous book,The Social Contract, almost The Bible of an age; Man is born free. And the first considerable mass rising seeking to vindicate and realise that ideal came with the toxin of the mighty French Revolution. It was really an awakening or rebirth of the individual that was the true source and sense of that miraculous movement. It meant the advent of democracy in politics and romanticism in art. The century that followed was a period of great experiment: for the central theme of that experiment was the search for the individual. In honouring the individual and giving it full and free scope the movement went far and even too far: liberty threatened to lead towards licence, democracy towards anarchy and disintegration; the final consequence of romanticism was surrealism, the deification of individual reason culminated in solipsism or ego-centricism. Naturally there came a reaction and we are in this century, still, on the high tide of this movement of reaction. Totalitarianism in one form or another continues to be the watchword and although neither Hitler nor Mussolini is there, a very living ghost of theirs stalks the human stage. The liberty of the individual, it is said and is found to be so by experience, is another name of the individual's erraticism and can produce only division and mutual clash and strife, and, in the end, social disintegration. A strong centralised power is necessary to hold together the warring elements of a group. Indeed, it is asserted, the group is the true reality and to maintain it and make it great the component individuals must be steamrollered into a compact mass. Evidently this is a poise that cannot stand long: the repressed individual rises in revolt and again we are on the move the other way round. Thus a never-ending see-saw, a cyclic recurrence of the same sequence of movements appears to be an inevitable law governing human society: it seems to have almost the absolutism of a law of Nature.1
In this connection we can recall Plato's famous serial of social types from aristocracy to tyranny, the last coming out of democracy the type that precedes it, (almost exactly as we have experienced it in our own days). But the most interesting point to which we can look with profit is Plato's view that the types are as men are, that is to say, the character and nature of man in a given period determines the kind of government or social system he is going to have. There has been this cyclic rotation of types, because men themselves were rotating types, because, in other words, the individuals composing human society had not found their true reality, their abiding status. Plato's aristocracy was the ideal society, it was composed of and ruled by the best of men (aristas, srestha) the wisest. And the question was put by many and not answered by Plato himself, what brought about the decline in a perfect system. We have attempted to give our answer.
03.09 - Sectarianism or Loyalty, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A spiritual interest is nothing if it is not in this way a question that touches life to its core. That means a definite goal and appropriate means to reach that goal, and that again necessarily involves a choice, a process of acceptance and rejection. The goal is also called the ista, the godhead that one seeks, the Divine that is fulfilled in oneself. Being a personality, an individual, one has to choose, one can best follow the line of evolution and growth and fulfilment of that personality and individuality that is the call of the Psyche, the direction of the Jiva. In other words, one has to be loyal and faithful to one's nature and being. That is why it is said: Better to perish while fulfilling one's own law of life than to flourish by fulfilling another's law. By being curious about another's Dharmait is this kind of curiosity that led to the original fall of man, according to The Bible that is to say, if one is vitally curious, allows oneself to be influenced and so affected and diverted by what is an outside and foreign force, because not in the line of one's own truth and development, one asks for a mixture and intervention which bring confusion, thwart the growth and fulfilment, as that falsifies the nature.
It is not only bad influences that affect you badly, even good influences do solike medicines that depend upon the particular constitution for their action. In ancient times this was called varasankara or dharmasakara, as for example, when a Kshatriya sought to follow the rule of life of a Brahmin or vice versa. This kind of admixture or msalliance was not favoured, as it was likely to bring about an obscurity in the consciousness and in the end frustration in the spiritual life. That was the original psychological reason why heresy was considered such a dangerous thing in all religions.
04.01 - The Divine Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But there is a still closer mystery, the mystery of mysteries. There has not been merely a general descent, the descent of a world-force on a higher plane into another world-force on a lower plane; but that there is the descent of the individual, the personal Godhead into and as an earthly human being. The Divine born as a man and leading the life of a man among us and as one of us, the secret of Divine Incarnation is the supreme secret. That is the mechanism adopted by the Divine to cure and transmute human illshimself becoming a man, taking upon himself the burden of the evil that vitiates and withers life and working it out in and through himself. Something of this truth has been caught in the Christian view of Incarnation. God sent upon earth his only begotten son to take upon himself the sins of man, suffer vicariously for him, pay the ransom and thus liberate him, so that he may reach salvation, procure his seat by the side of the Father in Heaven. Man corrupted as he is by an original sin cannot hope by his own merit to achieve salvation. He can only admit his sin and repent and wait for the Grace to save him. The Indian view of Incarnation laid more stress upon the positive aspect of the matter, viz, the role of the Incarnation as the inaugurator and establisher of a new order in lifedharmasasthpanrthya. The Avatar brings down and embodies a higher principle of human organisation, a greater consciousness which he infuses into the existing pattern, individual or collective, which has -served its purpose, has become otiose and time-barred and needs to be remodelled, has been at the most preparatory to something else. The Avatar means a new revelation and the uplift of the human consciousness into a higher mode of being. The physical form he takes signifies the physical pressure that is exerted for the corroboration and fixation of the inner illumination that he brings upon earth and in the human frame. The Indian tradition has focussed its attention upon the Goodreyasand did not consider it essential to dwell upon the Evil. For one who finds and sees the Good always and everywhere, the Evil does not exist. Sri Aurobindo lays equal emphasis on both the aspects. Naturally, however, he does not believe in an original evil, incurable upon earth and in earthly life. In conformity with the ancient Indian teaching he declares the original divinity of man: it is because man is potentially and essentially divine that he can become actually and wholly divine. The Bible speaks indeed of man becoming perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect: but that is due exclusively to the Grace showered upon man, not because of any inherent perfection in him. But in according full divinity to man, Sri Aurobindo does not minimise the part of the undivine in him. This does not mean any kind of Manicheism: for Evil, according to Sri Aurobindo, is not coeval or coterminous with the Divine, it is a later or derivative formation under given conditions, although within the range and sphere of the infinite Divine. Evil exists as a stern reality; even though it may be temporary and does not touch the essential reality, it is not an illusion nor can it be ignored, brushed aside or bypassed as something superficial or momentary and of no importance. It has its value, its function and implication. It is real, but it is not irremediable. It is contrary to the Divine but not contradictory. For even the Evil in its inmost substance carries or is the reality which it opposes or denies outwardly. Did not the very first of the apostles of Christ deny his master at the crucial moment? As we have said, evil is a formation necessitated by certain circumstances, the circumstances changed, the whole disposition as at present constituted changes automatically and fundamentally.
The Divine then descends into the earth-frame, not merely as an immanent and hidden essencesarvabhtntratm but as an individual person embodying that essencemnu tanumritam. Man too, however earthly and impure he maybe, is essentially the Divine himself, carries in him the spark of the supreme consciousness that he is in his true and highest reality. That is how in him is bridged the gulf that apparently exists between the mortal and the immortal, the Infinite and the Finite, the Eternal and the Momentary, and the Divine too can come into him and become, so to say, his lower self.
04.04 - Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Divine or the spiritual consciousness, instead of being a simple unitary entity, is a vast, complex, stratified reality. There are many chambers in my Father's mansion, says The Bible: many chambers on many stories, one may add. Also there are different levels or approaches that serve different seekers each with his own starting-point, his point de repaire. When one speaks of union with the Divine or of entering into the spiritual consciousness, one does not refer to the same identical truth or reality as any other. There is a physical Divine, a vital Divine, a mental Divine; and beyond the mindfrom where one may consider that the region of true spirit begins there are other innumerable modes, aspects, manifestations of the Divine.
As we say, there are not only aspects of the Divine, but there are also levels in him. The spiritual consciousness rises tier upon tier and each spur has its own view and outlook, rhythm and character. Now, as long as man was chiefly preoccupied with his physico-vital or mentalised physico-vital activities, as long as the burden of his body and life and even mind lay heavy on him and their gravitational pull was normally very strong, almost irresistible, the spiritual impulse in him acted generally and fundamentally as a movement of escape from them into some thing beyond. It was a negative movement on the whole and it was enough to dissociate, reject, sublimate the lower status and somehow rise into something which is not that (neti): the question was not important at that stage of the human consciousness about a scientific scrutiny of the Beyond, its precise constitution and composition.
04.06 - Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Divine or the spiritual consciousness, instead of being a simple unitary entity, is a vast, complex stratified reality. "There are many chambers in my Father's mansions", says The Bible: many chambers on many storeys, one may add. Also there are different levels or approaches that serve different seekers, each with his own starting-point, his point de repre. When one speaks of union with the Divine or of entering into the spiritual consciousness, one does not refer to the same identical truth or reality as any other. There is a physical Divine, a vital Divine, a mental Divine; and beyond the mindfrom where one may consider that the region of true spirit begins there are other innumerable modes, aspects, manifestations of the Divine.
As we say, there are not only aspects of the Divine, but there are also levels in him. The spiritual consciousness rises tier upon tier and each spur has its own view and outlook, rhythm and character. Now, as long as man was chiefly preoccupied with his physico-vital or mentalised physico-vital activities, as long as the burden of his body and life and even mind lay heavy on him and their gravitational pull was normally very strong, almost irresistible, the spiritual impulse in him acted generally and fundamentally as a movement of escape, from them into something beyond. It was a negative movement on the whole and it was enough to dissociate, reject, sublimate the lower status and somehow rise into something which is not that (neti): the question was not important at that stage of the human consciousness about a scientific scrutiny of the Beyond, its precise constitution and composition.
05.01 - Man and the Gods, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Earth symbolises and epitomises material Nature. It is the body and substance, the very personification, of unconsciousness Ignorance carried to the last limit and concretised. It represents, figures the very opposite of the Reality at the summit. The supreme and original Reality is the quaternary:(1) Light, (2) Truth, (3) Love and (4) Life. They are the first and primal godheads with whom creation starts and who preside over the whole play of the manifestation. These gods that emanated out of the supreme consciousness of the Divine Mother as her fundamental aspects and personalities had automatically an absolute freedom of action and movement, otherwise they would not be divine personalities. And this freedom could be exercised and was in fact exercised in cutting the tie with the mother consciousness, in order to follow a line of independent and separate development instead of a merger life of solidarity with the Supreme. The result was immediate and drastic the precipitation of a physical life and an earthly existence which negated the very principles of the original nature of the godheads and brought forth exactly their contraries: instead of Light there brooded Darkness and Inconscience, Truth turned to Falsehood, Love and Delight gave place to Hatred and Suffering and finally, instead of Life and Immortality there appeared Death. That was how separation, "the disobedience" of The Bible, caused the distortion that turned the gods into Asuras, that was how Lucifer became Satan.
And that was how Paradise was lost. But the story of Paradise Regained is yet more marvellous. When the Divine Mother, the creative infinite Consciousness found herself parcelled out and scattered (even like the body of Sati borne about by Shiva, in the well-known Indian legend) and lost in unconsciousness, something shot down from the Highest into the lowest, something in response to an appeal, a cry, as it were, from the depth of the utter hopelessness in the heart of Matter and the Inconscient. A dumb last-minute S O S from belowa De profundis clamaviwent forth and the Grace descended: the Supreme himself came down and entered into the scuttled dead particles of earth's dust as a secret core of light and flame, just a spark out of his own conscious substance. The Earth received the Grace and held it in her bosom. Thus she had her soul born in her the psychic being that is to grow and evolve and bring about her redemption, her transmutation into the divine substance.
05.07 - Man and Superman, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Either you accept the Divine and allow yourself to be influenced and moulded by it; in that case you are in the line of progress and fulfilment. Or else if you stand against and come into clash with the Power that drives inevitably towards its high goal, then the result is, in the graphic words of The Bible:
And whatsoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whatsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.1
05.09 - Varieties of Religious Experience, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The special gift of the Chaldean line of discipline lay in another direction. It cultivated not so much the higher lines of spiritual realisation but was occupied with what may be called the mid regions, the occult world. This material universe is not moved by the physical, vital or mental forces that are apparent and demonstrable, but by other secret and subtle forces; in fact, these are the motive forces, the real agents that work out and initiate movements in Nature, while the apparent ones are only the external forms and even masks. This occultism was also practised very largely in ancient Egypt from where the Greeks took up a few threads. The MysteriesOrphic and Eleusiniancultivated the tradition within a restricted circle and in a very esoteric manner. The tradition continued into the Christian Church also and an inner group formed in its heart that practised and kept alive something of this ancient science. The external tenets and dogmas of the Church did not admit or tolerate this which was considered as black magic, the Devil's Science. The evident reason was that if one pursued this line of occultism and tasted of the power it gave, one might very likely deviate from the straight and narrow path leading to the Spirit and spiritual salvation. In India too the siddhis or occult powers were always shunned by the truly spiritual, although sought by the many who take to the spiritual lifeoften with disastrous results. In Christianity, side by side with the major saints, there was always a group or a line of practicants that followed the occult system, although outwardly observing the official creed. It is curious to note that often where the original text of The Bible speaks of gods, in the plural, referring to the deities or occult powers, the official version translates it as God, to give the necessary theistic value and atmosphere.
But if occultism is to be feared because of its wrong use and potential danger, spirituality too should then be placed on the same footing. All good things in the world have their deformation and danger, but that is no reason why one should avoid them altogether. What is required is right attitude and discrimination, training and discipline. Viewed in the true light, occultism is dynamic spirituality; in other words, it seeks to express and execute, bring down to the material life the powers and principles of the Spirit through the agency of the subtler forces of mind and life and the subtle physical.
07.36 - The Body and the Psychic, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So I say and we are bound to admit that it is an exceptional virtue in the human being to bear the psychic in him. But to tell the truth, he does not seem to have profited much by it. He does not look like considering his virtue as something very desirable, from the manner he has been treating this presence. He prefers to it his mental ideals, he prefers to it his vital demands and he prefers to it his physical habits. I do not know how many of you have read The Bible. But there is a story that I used to like always. There were two brothers, Esau and Jacob. Esau had gone out hunting and felt tired and hungry. He came back home and found his brother preparing a dish. He asked Jacob to feed him. Jacob said he would give him food if he, Esau, sold his birthright to him. Esau said, of what use is the birthright to me now, and sold it to his brother. You understand the significance? You can of course take it quite in the superficial way. But I took it differently. The birthright is the right to be the son of God. And Esau was quite ready to give up his divine right for a mess of pottage. It is an old story, but it is eternally true.
***
09.03 - The Psychic Being, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a story in The Bible which I always liked. Two brothers were there, Esau and Jacob. Esau returns home hungry and tells his brother Jacob that he is very hungry. He was so hungry that he proposed to his brother, "Listen, if you give me your dish of pottage (Jacob had prepared a dish of pottage) I will give over to you my birthright." One can understand the story in quite a superficial way. But it has a deeper meaning. The birthright is the right of being the son of God. And the man was ready to give up his divine right in order to eat because he was hungry. It is a very old story, but it is eternally true.
At its origin, the psychic begins by a kind of a divine spark within oneself, a spark of the divine consciousness. Out of this spark will slowly emerge an independent conscious being which will have its own action and its own will.
1.00b - INTRODUCTION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
formulated in the West, I have gone almost always to sources other than The Bible.
This Christian Smriti, from which I have drawn, is based upon the Shruti of the
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The etheric body has been described as a network, permeated with fire, or as a web, animated with golden light. It is spoken of in The Bible as the "golden bowl." [80] It is a composition of that matter of the physical plane which we call etheric, and its shape is brought about by the fine interlacing strands of this matter being built by the action of the lesser Builders into the form or mould upon which later the dense physical body can be moulded. Under the Law of Attraction, the denser matter of the physical plane is made to cohere to this vitalised form, and is gradually built up around it, and within it, until the interpenetration is so complete that the two forms make but one unit; the pranic emanations of the etheric body itself play upon the dense physical body in the same manner as the pranic emanations of the sun play upon the etheric body. It is all one vast system of transmission and of interdependence within the system. All receive in order to give, and to pass on to that which is lesser or not so evolved. Upon every plane this process can be seen.
Thus the etheric body forms the archetypal plane in relation to the dense physical body. The thinker on his own plane stands, in relation to the physical, as the Logos to His system. In the synthesis of thought it might be expressed thus: The thinker on the astral plane, the plane of desire and of necessity, stands to the physical body as the Logos on the cosmic astral plane stands to His system.
--
make, if one could but see it, a radiant etheric triangle, which triangle is the originating impulse for the later pranic circulation throughout the entire system. The etheric body is really a net-work of fine channels, which are the component parts of one interlacing fine cord,one portion of this cord being the magnetic link which unites the physical and the astral bodies and which is snapped or broken after the withdrawal of the etheric body from the dense physical body at the time of death. The silver cord is loosed, as The Bible expresses it [xlv]44 and this is the basis of the legend of the fateful sister who cuts the thread of life with the dreaded shears.
The etheric web is composed of the intricate weaving of this vitalised cord, and apart from the seven centres [99] within the web (which correspond to the sacred centres, and of which the spleen is frequently counted as one) it has the two above mentioned, which makewith the spleena triangle of activity. The etheric web of the solar system is of an analogous nature, and likewise has its three receptive centres for cosmic prana. The mysterious band in the heavens, which we call the Milky Way, (S. D. II.250) is closely connected with cosmic prana, or that cosmic vitality or nourishment which vitalises the solar etheric system.
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Second. The Rod of Initiation known as the "Flaming Diamond" and used by Sanat Kumara, the One Initiator, called in The Bible, the Ancient of Days. This Rod lies hidden "in the East" and holds the fire latent which irradiates the Wisdom Religion. This Rod was brought by the Lord of the World when He took form and came to our planet eighteen million years ago.
Once in every world period it is subjected to a similar process as that of the lesser Rod, only this time it is recharged by the direct action of the Logos Himself,the Logos of the solar system. The location of this Rod is known only to the Lord of the World, and to the Chohans of the Rays, and (being the talisman of this evolution) the Chohan of the second Ray isunder the Lord of the Worldits main guardian, aided by the deva Lord of the second plane. The Buddhas of activity are responsible for its custody, and under them the Chohan of the Ray. It is produced only at stated times when specific work has to be done. It is used not only at the initiating of men, but at certain planetary functions, of which nothing as yet has been given out. It has its place and function in certain ceremonies connected with the inner round [xciii]91 and the triangle formed by the Earth, Mars [212] and Mercury. But more about this is not at this time permissible.
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
identified with the Yahweh of The Bible), and where there is
ignorance, suffering and death. Sometimes souls, sparks of
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
thing like what The Bible calls the "heart" and considers the
source of all evil thoughts. In the chambers of the heart dwell
1.01 - Historical Survey, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Castile. The characteristic predisposition of this School was its devotion to exegetical methods ; its disciples endeavour- ing to interpret The Bible and the Hagadah in accordance with the doctrinal Qabalah.
A contemporary School believed that Judaism of that day, taken from an exclusively philosophical standpoint, did not show the "right way to the Sanctuary", and endeavoured to combine philosophy and Qabalah, illustrating their various theorems by mathematical forms.
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
metaphorical kernel of a road or path.... In The Bible way normally translates the Hebrew derek and the
Greek hodos, and throughout The Bible there is a strong emphasis on the contrast between a straight way
that takes us to our destination and a divergent way that misleads or confuses. This metaphorical
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
religion Huston Smith draws two examples from The Bible, to illustrate this point:
One is the story of Naboth who, because he refused to turn over his family vineyard to King Ahab, was
1.03 - Reading, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
I think that having learned our letters we should read the best that is in literature, and not be forever repeating our a b abs, and words of one syllable, in the fourth or fifth classes, sitting on the lowest and foremost form all our lives. Most men are satisfied if they read or hear read, and perchance have been convicted by the wisdom of one good book, The Bible, and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their faculties in what is called easy reading. There is a work in several volumes in our Circulating Library entitled Little Reading, which I thought referred to a town of that name which I had not been to. There are those who, like cormorants and ostriches, can digest all sorts of this, even after the fullest dinner of meats and vegetables, for they suffer nothing to be wasted. If others are the machines to provide this provender, they are the machines to read it. They read the nine thousandth tale about Zebulon and Sephronia, and how they loved as none had ever loved before, and neither did the course of their true love run smooth,at any rate, how it did run and stumble, and get up again and go on! how some poor unfortunate got up on to a steeple, who had better never have gone up as far as the belfry; and then, having needlessly got him up there, the happy novelist rings the bell for all the world to come together and hear, O dear! how he did get down again!
For my part, I think that they had better metamorphose all such aspiring heroes of universal noveldom into man weathercocks, as they used to put heroes among the constellations, and let them swing round there till they are rusty, and not come down at all to bother honest men with their pranks. The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down. The Skip of the
1.05 - Morality and War, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In The Bible, God calls Cain and asks him: What have you done with your brother?
Today I call man and ask him: What have you done with the earth?
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
with the personal father who speaks for the old law. We know this conflict best from The Bible story of
Jehovahs comm and to Abraham: Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy
--
3. Mythological renditions of history, like those in The Bible, are just as true as the standard Western
empirical renditions, just as literally true, but how they are true is different. Western historians describe
--
Frye, N. (1982). The great code: The Bible and literature. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch.
Frye, N. (1990). Words with power: Being a second study of The Bible and literature. London: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovitch.
--
...there is one theme that recurs frequently in the early books of The Bible: the passing over of the firstborn son,
who normally has the legal right of primogeniture, in favor of a young one. The firstborn son of Adam, Cain, is sent
1.05 - War And Politics, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
How was it possible that an ordinary man could rise to such a height of power, exercise a command and influence over the whole German race, and receive admiration from Europe, even from the whole world? Sri Aurobindo calls it his asuric my that cast a spell upon the nations to such an extent that he was considered superior even to Alexander and Napoleon! Sri Aurobindo tore the veil from the face of that deception and showed us the dire truth. History has no parallel of a maniac using all kinds of falsehood, hypocrisy, perversity to capture the imagination of a cultured race like the Germans. Sri Aurobindo found his Mein Kampf The Bible of the Nazis a tissue of lies and would not touch it. Looking at a photograph in L'Illustration, he described Hitler, Goebbels and Goering, the trio, in unmistakable terms: "Hitler gives the impression of the face of a street-criminal. In his case it is successful ruffianism with a diabolical cunning and behind it the psychic of a London cabman, crude and undeveloped. That is to say, the psychic character in the man consists of some futile and silly sentimentalism which finds expression in his paintings and weeps at his mother's grave. He is possessed by some supernatural Power and it is from this Power that the voice, as he calls it, comes. Have you noted that people who at one time were inimical to him come into contact with him and leave as his admirers? It is a sign of that Power. It is from this Power that he has constantly received suggestions and the constant repetition of the suggestions has taken hold of the German people. You will also mark that in his speeches he goes on stressing the same ideas this is evidently a sign of that vital possession."
We heard something from the Mother to this effect in one of her talks. She said, "Hitler was an idiot. In his normal moments he was no better than a concierge or a cordonnier and behaved and spoke of things in a most idiotic and stupid manner. He was possessed and made an instrument of by some other power and only when that happened he did extraordinary things. People who have seen him at that time said how he thumped, cried and screamed. The Japanese ambassador said, 'This man is mad. It is dangerous to have any alliance with him.' It is strange how the whole German race was stupid enough to follow this man. Such a thing would not have been possible in France or other countries."
1.06 - Being Human and the Copernican Principle, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
Ages. Its holy book, The Bible, was supposed to be the Word
of God and therefore indubitable truth, together with its
1.07 - The Prophecies of Nostradamus, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
of paganism ("the sanctuary destroyed by paganism"), The Bible
will be burned, and an immense blood-bath will take place: "So
1.08 - The Magic Sword, Dagger and Trident, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
There are evocations of negative beings and such not liking being transferred into our physical world. For these beings the magician will use, should the magic wand not suffice, the magic sword, providing he insists on their manifestation. The magic sword has several symbolic meanings, but generally it serves as the symbol of absolute obedience of a being or a power to the magician. It is also the symbol of victory and superiority over any power or being. The sword is analogous to the light, it is an aspect of the fire and of the word. Already The Bible says: "In the beginning was the word - light - and the word was with God". He who is somewhat acquainted with symbolism will remember that, as an example, Archangel Michael, the killer of the dragon, is symbolized with a burning sword; the dragon, in this case, is the symbol of the hostile, the negative principle. Adam and Eve, too, were driven out of paradise by an angel with a burning sword.
The symbolic meaning is also in this case quite clear and unequivocal.
1.08 - The Supreme Discovery, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in The Bible, The house of God is here and I knew it not.
That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, I am in all things and all beings.
11.01 - The Opening Scene of Savitri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"It was the hour before the Gods awake". Only when the Gods awake, does the light begin to appear on earth. Otherwise it is all night here, black, impenetrable and unfathomable. Indeed the very creation begins with the awakening of the Gods. When the Gods are asleep, it is the non-existencetamast tamas ghamagre'in the beginning darkness was engulfed in darkness'. This is the asat, non-being, this is the acit, the inconscience, this is the blackest night. The Bible also speaks of a similar darknessJob's terrible vision: "A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order and where the light is as darkness."1 The lamp of consciousness is not yet lit. The dark vacancy stretches across the path of creation yet to be, the light that is to come. This shadow is the negation of the light behind, it is the original of the creation. It is presented as the mere material universe apparently dead and dry, the utter inconscience with no sign of consciousness anywhere. And earth seems to be there part of it, a shadow within the shadow, a dark spot wheeling in a dark mass.
It is the pre-creation, one might say, the creation before the creation the shadow creation. We know coming events cast their shadow before, as a kind of forewarning, foreboding: that is the dark messenger, the bright messenger will follow. For after all, it is His shadow"And into the midnight his shadow is thrown."
1.10 - Theodicy - Nature Makes No Mistakes, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
alive. The Bible too has a similar knowledge, but there the
four fallen Powers are reduced to only one, Lucifer, the
1.1.1.02 - Creation by the Word, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The word is a sound expressive of the idea. In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea. That is the principle of the Mantra and of japa. One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine. It is the same idea that is expressed in The Bible, God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light. It is creation by the Word.
6 May 1933
11.13 - In these Fateful Days, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Bible: St. John.
***
1.11 - FAITH IN MAN, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
of oneself and clasp in a tighter embrace (as in The Bible story of
Jacob wrestling with the Angel; and as happens on an everyday
1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
in The Bible story, yet as a Midianite priest he did not serve
Yahweh and did not belong to the chosen people, but departs
1.15 - Index, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
In entries relating to the books of The Bible, the numbers in parentheses
indicate the chapter and verse(s) referred to.
1.15 - In the Domain of the Spirit Beings, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
If, therefore, a spirit with a low degree of development wants to get into contact with a spirit of a higher degree of development, the former must ask the latter, by force of imagination, to come to his sphere. Whether the higher developed being will fulfill the wish of the lower being, always depends on the purpose for which the lower being calls the higher one. This clearly shows that a lower being is not capable of moving to the higher spheres of the astral world. The contrary, however, is quite possible. A magician with a good degree of development is able to place himself iilto any sphere, for he is capable of accomodating and creating every kind of vibration and any form of every sphere he wants to get into touch with. Many a reader will here remember the words of The Bible and perceive its meaning:
"And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not".
1.200-1.224 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: As if the same is not already in the Heart? O Arjuna, I am in the expanse of the Heart, says Sri Krishna He who is in the sun, is also in this man, says a mantra in the Upanishads. The Kingdom of God is within, says The Bible. All are thus agreed that God is within. What is to be brought down? From where? Who is to bring what, and why?
Realisation is only the removal of obstacles to the recognition of the eternal, immanent Reality. Reality is. It need not be taken from place to place.
12.05 - The World Tragedy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A celebrated scientist elated with the wonderful discoveries of modern science and its more wonderful promises of the future seems to have said that if he could get a foothold just outside the earth, he meant perhaps outside its gravitational field, he could as it were, twirl the earth upon his finger, with a little push dislodge it from its orbit and its axis. Well, what he said is true and prophetic but the foothold outside has to be outside the gravitational field, not of his physical existence, (the astronauts are trying it today), but outside his physical or normal consciousness. He has to rise above the physical, material status of his being. There is the error that Hamlet committed in spite of his cultured and enlightened mind: not through the enlightened mind alone but through the enlightened heart, through the enlightened vital, even through an enlightened physical consciousness, the remedy of the earthly malady has to be sought, not to meet violence with violence, not to be resentful, not to retaliate that is what The Bible means when it says, "Resist not evil"but rise in one's consciousness, above the dualities as the eastern wisdom says, seek a higher source from where springs the infallible energy of a purer light. The higher the consciousness, the more effective its action.
Rise in your being and consciousness and by your aspiration and realisation and contagion make others too rise. Then the world will find naturally and spontaneously its lever to shift its old and unhappy basic stand to something higher, greaterdiviner.
1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: That is due to your outlook. There is only one and there are no differences. On meditation the relative consciousness will vanish. That is not annihilation; for Absolute Consciousness arises. The Bible itself says, The Kingdom of Heaven is within you . . . If you consider yourself to be the body there is some difficulty in understanding the statement. On the other hand if you know who you really are, the
Kingdom of Heaven and all are included in your true Self. They are concepts arising after the ego has arisen. Drishtim jnanamayeem krtva pasyet Brahmamayam jagat (Direct your look within and make it absolute). With that absolute awareness realised, look without and you will realise the universe to be not apart from the realised Absolute.
--
In The Bible God says I AM before Abraham. He does not say
I was but I AM.
1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: That is due to your outlook. There is only one and there are no differences. On meditation the relative consciousness will vanish. That is not annihilation; for Absolute Consciousness arises. The Bible itself says, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you" . . . If you consider yourself to be the body there is some difficulty in understanding the statement. On the other hand if you know who you really are, the
Kingdom of Heaven and all are included in your true Self. They are concepts arising after the ego has arisen. Drishtim jnanamayeem krtva pasyet Brahmamayam jagat (Direct your look within and make it absolute). With that absolute awareness realised, look without and you will realise the universe to be not apart from the realised Absolute.
13.05 - A Dream Of Surreal Science, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Is it so? The Age of Reason made its momentous declaration long ago: it is now almost two hundred years, but actually we find man refuses to forget God. Churches and temples, communities and corporations have been cropping up always demanding that God is to be called God, He cannot be called by any other name. He is to be worshipped as God. No lesser gods but the Supreme God Himself. Does not The Bible say: "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God" ?2
A Godless morality or a Religion of Humanity, even at its best is a truncated truth. These do not possess the imperious urge of the total man; it is a headless waif wandering about in search of what it wants in this dreary wilderness of Existence.
1.400 - 1.450 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
In The Bible God says "I AM before Abraham." He does not say
"I was" but "I AM."
1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
The questioner listened to her, argued slightly and resumed his questions to Maharshi. After one or two light questions, Major Chadwick spoke sternly: The Kingdom of Heaven is within you, says The Bible.
D.: How shall I realise it?
--
Major Chadwick: The Bible says within you, and adds no qualifications.
The questioner felt his conversation was already too long and so retired after thanking Maharshi and others.
--
D.: But a dog-consciousness is different from my consciousness. I cannot read The Bible to the dog. The tree again does not move whereas I move and act.
M.: Call the tree a standing man; and call the man a moving tree.
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AM according to The Bible also. Mere Being is alone natural. To
limit it to being a man is uncalled for.
--
mentioned in The Bible and this world are not two different regions.
The Kingdom is within you, says The Bible. So it is. The realised
being sees this as the Kingdom of Heaven whereas the others see it
1.450 - 1.500 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
The questioner listened to her, argued slightly and resumed his questions to Maharshi. After one or two light questions, Major Chadwick spoke sternly: "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," says The Bible.
470
--
Major Chadwick: The Bible says within you, and adds no qualifications.
The questioner felt his conversation was already too long and so retired after thanking Maharshi and others.
1.550 - 1.600 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
D.: But a dog-consciousness is different from my consciousness. I cannot read The Bible to the dog. The tree again does not move whereas I move and act.
M.: Call the tree a standing man; and call the man a moving tree.
1.57 - Beings I have Seen with my Physical Eye, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
This incident is the key to the puzzle of my character. But, as a child, what did I see? I cannot think of any one person who subsequently devoted his life to Magick who has not at least one early experience of seeing angels, or fairies, or something of the sort. But A.C.? Nary a one. I was brought up on The Bible, a literalist, fundamentalist all that a Plymouth Brother could wish. It never occurred to me to doubt a word of what I was told. Perhaps the Wolf's Tail of an healthy scepticism gleamed pale at the age of 10, when I asked my form master how it was that Christ managed to be dead for three days and three nights between Friday night and Sunday morning. He said that he did not know, and (to a further question) that no one had ever explained it. This merely filled me with ambition to be the great exegetist who had explained it. I never thought of doubting the story.
Well, all this time, and then through puberty, despite my romantic bent, my absorption in the gramarye of Sir Walter Scott, my imaginative life as one of his heroes, and the rest of it. I never had even a moment's illusion that anything of the sort had ever happened to me. I went through all the motions; I haunted all the places where such things are reputed likely to happen, but nothing did happen.
1.70 - Morality 1, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
(I do wish that we had the sense to take our ideas of Peace conditions from The Bible, as our rulers so loudly profess that they do. The Enemy knows well enough that there is no other way to make a war pay.)
Now then, I hope that we have succeeded in clarifying this exceptionally muddy marish water of morality from most of its alien and toxic dirt; too often the Aspirant to the Sacred Wisdom finds no firm path under his feet; the Bog of Respectability mires him who sought the Garden of Delights; soon the last bubbles burst from his choked lungs; he is engulfed in the Slough of Despond.
1.74 - Obstacles on the Path, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
It is the same thing with a terrifying percentage of the people that come for "teaching" and "initiation." The moment they learn anything they didn't know before, off they fly in a temper! No sooner does it become apparent that the Master is not a stupid middle-class prig and hypocrite another edition of themselves, in short they are frightened, they are horrified, they flee away on both their feet, like the man in The Bible! I have seen people turn fish-belly pale in the face, and come near fainting outright, when it has dawned upon them suddenly that magick is a real thing!
It's all beyond me!
1.78 - Sore Spots, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
I wonder how many lunatics there are in the "bughouse" to-day in the times of "evangelical revival" the number was fantastic who got there through fear that they had somehow committed the aforesaid "blasphemy against the Holy Ghost." The unknown again. The Bibledoes not tell us that it is; only that it is unpardonable. Nor Grace, nor Faith, nor predestination avail in the least; for all you know, you may have committed it. Reassurance is impossible; no ceinture de chastete avails to avert this danger.
Again with drugs, it is the unknown which is the horrific factor. Most people get their information on the subject from the yellowest of yellow newspapers, magazines and novels. So darkly deep is their ignorance that that do not know what the word means like us so often, yes?
1956-05-23 - Yoga and religion - Story of two clergymen on a boat - The Buddha and the Supramental - Hieroglyphs and phonetic alphabets - A vision of ancient Egypt - Memory for sounds, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I believe that there too it is possible to read the sounds, for quite a number of names given in The Bible have been set right and it has been found that there were deformations: Nabuchodonsor, for example.
Yes. Oh! that has been changed.
1961 03 11 - 58, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The occultist I spoke of used to say that the true interpretation of The Bible story about Paradise and the serpent is that man wanted to rise from a state of animal divinitylike the animalsto a state of conscious divinity through the development of the mind and that is what the symbol means when it is said that they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. And the serpen the always used to say that it was iridescent, that is to say, it was all the colours of the rainbowit was not at all the spirit of Evil, it was the evolutionary force, the force, the power of evolution, and of course it was the power of evolution that had made them taste of the fruit of knowledge.
And so, according to him, Jehovah was the chief of the Asuras, the supreme Asura, the egoistic god who wanted to dominate everything and have everything under his control. And once he had taken the position of supreme lord in relation to earthly realisation, of course he was not pleased that man should make this mental progress, for it would bring him a knowledge that enabled him not to obey any longer! This made him furious! For it would enable man to become a god by the evolutionary power of consciousness. And that is why they were driven out of Paradise.
1.pbs - Oedipus Tyrannus or Swellfoot The Tyrant, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
And reads a select chapter in The Bible
Before it goes to play.
1.pbs - The Mask Of Anarchy, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Clothed with The Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
1.rb - Fra Lippo Lippi, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
Jerome: one of the Christian Fathers, translated The Bible
into Latin\; he led a life of extreme asceticism.
1.rmr - Telling You All, #Rilke - Poems, #Rainer Maria Rilke, #Poetry
Besides, we read in The Bible
how the good is harmful
1.rwe - The Problem, #Emerson - Poems, #Ralph Waldo Emerson, #Philosophy
The burdens of The Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
1.wby - On Woman, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
It's plain The Bible means
That Solomon grew wise
1.ww - 3- The White Doe Of Rylstone, Or, The Fate Of The Nortons, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Integral Yoga
And trod The Bible beneath their feet.
Thence marching southward smooth and free
2.00 - BIBLIOGRAPHY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
LAO TZU. There are many translations of the Tao Teh King. Consult and compare those of Arthur Waley in The Way and Its Power (London, 1933), of F. R. Hughes in Chinese Philosophy in Classical Times (Everymans Library) and of Chu Ta-Kao (London, 1937) reprinted in The Bible of the World (New York, 1939).
LAW, WILLIAM. Several modern editions of the Serious Call are available; but many of Laws finest works, such as The Spirit of Love and The Spirit of Prayer, have not been reprinted in recent years and are hard to come by. An excellent anthology of Laws writings, Characters and Characteristics of William Law, was compiled by Alexander Whyte towards the end of last century (3rd ed., London, 1898).
2.02 - Habit 2 Begin with the End in Mind, #The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, #Stephen Covey, #unset
out of the study of The Bible by many individuals.
In effective personal leadership, visualization and affirmation techniques emerge naturally out of a foundation of well thought through purposes and principles that become the center of a person's life.
2.08 - On Non-Violence, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Integral Yoga
In that way everyone has established idol-worship. He has criticised the Arya Samaj but why not criticise Mahomedanism? His statement is adulatory of the Koran and of Christianity which is idolatry of The Bible, Christ and the Cross. Man is hardly able to do without externals and only a few will go to the kernel.
About conversion also you "do not merely change compartments", as he says, but you change the environment. All are not going to practise the central core of spirituality. Very few can do that, but from the externals some can come to the internal.
2.0 - THE ANTICHRIST, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
of The Bible is the document: with unparalleled contempt and in the
teeth of all tradition and historical facts, they interpreted their own
--
alone. Altogether The Bible allows of no comparison. The _first_ thing
to be remembered if we do not wish to lose the scent here, is, that
--
at the beginning of The Bible,--concerning God's deadly panic over
_science?_ ... Nobody has understood it This essentially sacerdotal
--
You have understood me The beginning of The Bible contains the whole
psychology of the priest--The priest knows only one great danger, and
2.12 - On Miracles, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Integral Yoga
When we were staying in London this old lady used to have daily family prayers and reading of some passage from The Bible. One day Manmohan said something about Moses which made her wild. She said she did not want to live under the same roof with unbelievers, and went to live somewhere else. I felt infinitely relieved and grateful to Manmohan. We were then entering upon the agnostic stage in our development.
I was a great coward virtually and I was weak physically and could not do anything. Only my will was strong. Nobody could have imagined that I could face the gallows or carry on a revolutionary movement. In my case it was all human imperfection with which I had to start and feel all the difficulties before embodying the Divine Consciousness.
2.13 - On Psychology, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Integral Yoga
He is largely influenced by Tolstoy and The Bible and by Jainism in his preachings; at any rate, more than by the Indian scriptures the Upanishads or the Gita which he interprets in the light of his own ideas.
Disciple: Many educated Indians consider him a spiritual man.
--
There is the recorded instance of the servant girl of a famous French scholar of Hebrew. She used to hear, while at work, her master repeating The Bible in Hebrew. To her it was meaningless gibberish. Then when she was in an abnormal condition she repeated her masters recitation exactly, with the same accents and without a mistake. She knew nothing of the language that is, evidently the mind did not understand anything of it. But all the time it was being recorded in the subconscious being. Even the soles of our feet have got a memory of their own.
We have divided and analysed these functions but it is, like all analyses, convenient only for understanding; things in reality are not so cut-and-dry. They don't work separately. There is a great deal of action and interaction among them and the being is much more complex in its actual working than may be supposed from this analysis.
2.15 - On the Gods and Asuras, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. That is what is meant by the struggle between the angels and the devils in The Bible. The being I spoke of with regard to T was not from the hostile vital world, it was from the higher level of the vital plane.
Disciple: What is meant by the Supermind? Is it what is called par akti?
2.16 - The Magick Fire, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
16:But the worst of all phantasms are the moral ideas and the religious ideas. Sanity consists in the faculty of adjusting ideas in proper proportion. Any one who accepts a moral or religious truth without understanding it is only kept out of the asylum because he does not follow it out logically. If one really believed in Christianity,1 if one really thought that the majority of mankind was doomed to eternal punishment, one would go raving about the world trying to "save" people. Sleep would not be possible until the horror of the mind left the body exhausted. Otherwise, one must be morally insane. Which of us can sleep if one we love is in danger of mere death? We cannot even see a dog drown without at least interrupting all our business to look on. Who then can live in London and reflect upon the fact that of its seven million souls, all but about a thousand Plymouth Brethren will be damned? Yet the thousand Plymouth Brethren (who are the loudest in proclaiming that they will be the only ones saved) seem to 1 "One would go mad if one took The Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad."-Crowley. get on very well, thank you. Whether they are hypocrites or morally insane is a matter which we can leave to their own consideration.
17:All these phantoms, of whatever nature, must be evoked, examined, and mastered; otherwise we may find that just when we want it there is some idea with which we have never dealt; and perhaps that idea, springing on us by surprise, and as it were from behind, may strangle us. This is the legend of the sorcerer strangled by the Devil!
2.3.02 - Mantra and Japa, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The word is a sound expressive of the idea. In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea. That is the principle of the Mantra and of japa. One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine. It is the same idea that is expressed in The Bible, God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light. It is creation by the Word.
***
2.32 - Prophetic Visions, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
" 'Face to face (an expression in The Bible)
refers to the Israelites who stood face to face
30.18 - Boris Pasternak, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Still He accepted the Dark Night and passed beyond. He was able to see its necessity and its utility. For calamities are blessings in disguise. Indeed, they should be looked upon s a special Grace of the Divine. The poet cites a parable of The Bible:
Near by stood a fig tree,
3.02 - The Psychology of Rebirth, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
not be documented here. 18 Anyone who knows The Bible will
think of Isaiah 53: 2fT., where the "servant of God" is described,
3.03 - On Thought - II, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
to merit consideration in their eyes, it must have been expressed in some famous book, in one of The Bibles of humanity, and any thought coming in any other way will appear suspect to them.
There are some who accept an idea only from the official sciences, and those who recognise one only in the established religions, old or new. For others, the idea must come from the mouth of a man of renown with enough honorary titles so that none can question his value.
3.05 - SAL, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[347] In spite of their undoubtedly heretical methods the alchemists showed by their positive attitude to the Church that they were cleverer than certain modern apostles of enlightenment. Alsovery much in contrast to the rationalistic tendencies of todaythey displayed, despite its tortuousness, a remarkable understanding of the imagery upon which the Christian cosmos is built. This world of images, in its historical form, is irretrievably lost to modern man; its loss has spiritually impoverished the masses and compelled them to find pitiful substitutes, as poisonous as they are worthless. No one can be held responsible for this development. It is due rather to the restless tempo of spiritual growth and change, whose motive forces go far beyond the horizon of the individual. He can only hope to keep pace with it and try to understand it so far that he is not blindly swallowed up by it. For that is the alarming thing about mass movements, even if they are good, that they demand and must demand blind faith. The Church can never explain the truth of her images because she acknowledges no point of view but her own. She moves solely within the framework of her images, and her arguments must always beg the question. The flock of harmless sheep was ever the symbolic prototype of the credulous crowd, though the Church is quick to recognize the wolves in sheeps clothing who lead the faith of the multitude astray in order to destroy them. The tragedy is that the blind trust which leads to perdition is practised just as much inside the Church and is praised as the highest virtue. Yet our Lord says: Be ye therefore wise as serpents,690 and The Bible itself stresses the cleverness and cunning of the serpent. But where are these necessary if not altogether praiseworthy qualities developed and given their due? The serpent has become a by-word for everything morally abhorrent, and yet anyone who is not as smart as a snake is liable to land himself in trouble through blind faith.
[348] The alchemists knew about the snake and the cold half of nature,691 and they said enough to make it clear to their successors that they endeavoured by their art to lead that serpentine Nous of the darkness, the serpens mercurialis, through the stages of transformation to the goal of perfection (telesmus).692 The more or less symbolical or projected integration of the unconscious that went hand in hand with this evidently had so many favourable effects that the alchemists felt encouraged to express a tempered optimism.
3.12 - Of the Bloody Sacrifice, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
same thing inculcated. The first ethical lesson in The Bible is that the
only sacrifice pleasing to the Lord is the sacrifice of blood; Abel,
3.16.2 - Of the Charge of the Spirit, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Readers of The Bible will remember that Absalom publicly
adopted Davids wives and concubines on the roof of the palace, in
3.18 - Of Clairvoyance and the Body of Light, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
of the Sybil, the works of Vergil, and The Bible have been used very
frequently for this purpose. For theoretical justification, one must
32.06 - The Novel Alchemy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
ACCORDING to The Bible, God said, "Let there be Creation", and the Creation came. God was pleased, not only because the Creation came but also because the Creation was all-perfect, with nothing to change: it was like an edifice firm and solid and flawless, it would endure eternally firm and unchanging, fixed in every detail and exactly as it was on the first day.
The Rishis of the Upanishads give us a slightly different version. God was not at all pleased with the first sketch and with the forms of animal-kind created. He tried a second time, and again it failed to please. After several essays of this nature, He was at last pleased with His work when man came into being. Now it was truly well done, sukrtam etat.
33.11 - Pondicherry II, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I should tell you what one gains by this method, at least what has been my personal experience. One feels as if one took a plunge into the inmost core of the language, into that secret heart where it is vibrant with life, with the quintessence of beauty, the fullness of strength. Perhaps it was this that has prompted me to write prose-poems and verse in French, for one feels as if identified with the very genius of the language. This is the method which Western critics describe as being in medias res, getting right into the heart of things. One may begin a story in two ways. One way is to begin at the beginning, from the adikada and Genesis, and then develop the theme gradually, as is done in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, The Bible. The other method is to start suddenly, from the middle of the story, a method largely preferred by Western artists, like Homer and Shakespeare for instance.
But it was not found possible for Sri Aurobindo to continue with his own studies or even to help us in ours. For, as I have already hinted, our mode of living, our life itself took a different turn with the arrival of the Mother. How and in what direction? It was like this. The Mother came and installed Sri Aurobindo on his high pedestal of Master and Lord of Yoga. We had hitherto known him as a dear friend and close companion, and although in our mind and heart be had the position of a Guru, in our outward relations we seemed to behave as if he were just like one of ourselves. He too had been averse to the use of the words "Guru" and "Ashram" in relation to himself, for there was hardly a place 'in his work of new creation for the old traditional associations these words conveyed. Nevertheless, the Mother taught by her manner and speech, and showed us in actual practice, what was the meaning of disciple and master; she has always practised what she preached. She showed us, by not taking her seat in front of or on the same level as Sri Aurobindo, but by sitting on the ground, what it meant to be respectful to one's Master, what was real courtesy. Sri Aurobindo once said to us, perhaps with a tinge of regret, "I have tried to stoop as low as I can, and yet you do not reach me."
3-5 Full Circle, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
What is to be expected of such a fundamentally mis-designed system as the multiversity? It is structured to commit what The Bible calls the Unforgivable Sin: the kind of sin of which one cannot become aware, which therefore cannot be repented or corrected. The multiversity's expectable output is a cumulative series of disasters. And it is living up to expectations.
"The problem we now confront," says George C. Lodge in Harvard Today--"pollution, population, transportation, education, even perhaps malaise on the assembly line, and alienation and distrust--are not soluble pragmatically." And he puts his finger on the source of trouble: "The traditional sense of the word `science' implies specialization. The transformation in which we find ourselves is `unscientific' in its assertion that specialization, concentration on the parts, is not the way to a useful whole."52
--
Dear Ernest Campbell, best wishes for the coming year! This year will mark the fusion of our ancient Literary Culture with our new Scientific Culture: and thus of religion with science. It was bound to happen: the deeper meaning of such symbols as and was bound to appear as sciences merge and illuminate each other. The Bible passages say ". . . the beginning and the end . . ."; now Unified Science completes these sentences and says of what.
Since I am a member of your Church, Dr. Campbell, you will probably be involved in these developments. People will ask you what your views are on me, as they have asked me how I can listen to you preach.--I've listened many times, so I can answer; I have, in fact, listened to preachers all my life--my father, grandfa ther, and (in print) great grandfa thers among them.--What I have done is, to make it possible for conscientious scientists and their millions of students to listen to men of religion as they have not done, now, for decades. I have also made it possible for you to listen to them, as you have never really done.
36.07 - An Introduction To The Vedas, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Can we look upon the Vedas as the Christians look upon The Bible and the Mohammedans the Koran? All the epithets that we apply to the Vedas are equally applied by the Christians and the Mohammedans to their respective holy scriptures. And it is no wonder that every nation should extol its -own scripture to the skies. But it behoves us to ascertain the value of the Vedas impartially. We must discover whether it is true that they deserve to be called an infallible and supernatural creation.
It is a need of the hour to investigate the contents of the Vedas. The Europeans are to be credited with having started this bold enquiry. Such enquiry has been termed 'Higher Criticism' in Europe. It applies not only to the Vedas, but to their own scriptures as well. It is the inherent characteristic of the Europeans not to accept anything without putting it to a severe test at every step. They are not prepared to accept anything on the ground that it has been handed down from generation to generation. Needless to say that the value of such a habit is incalculable. And to our misfortune we lost this habit long ago. In the present age we take pride in the mere mention of the Vedas without caring to know about their contents. We should remain beholden to the Europeans that a new wave from the West has awakened us to a true spirit of enquiry.
It is quite surprising that very few people in India have any acquaintance with the Vedas. Most have not been fortunate enough even to have a glimpse of this mighty work. But the fate of The Bible has been otherwise in Europe. The common run of people in India were satisfied with the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas. And the learned few concerned themselves with the Upanishads and the six systems of philosophy. Even Rammohan Roy who infused the Hindus with a new spirit and light could not go beyond the domain of the Upanishads. Besides, the few who engaged themselves in a discussion of the Vedas confined themselves more to the commentaries on the Vedas than the Vedas proper. The grammar of Panini, Nirukta, the science of derivation of meanings from the roots, Mimamsa, the commentaries on the Vedas and, above all, the commentaries made by Sayana Acharya made it so difficult to understand the text of the Vedas that it looked like the peak of a mountain that could hardly be reached through deep and intricate forests. Whenever we heard the name of the Veda, we used to give wide berth to it with reverential awe. Our object here is not to discuss who or what is responsible for such a pass but simply to make a plain statement of the bare fact.
Europe made bold to launch an assault on this inaccessible fortress. There is no reason why the Europeans should have the same feeling of reverence as is aroused in our hearts at the mere mention of the Vedas. To them the Veda is but an ancient human product. They did not approach it to derive any cultural benefit from it. All that they wanted was to make themselves acquainted with the Aryan Hindus. The nebulous veil that existed round the Vedas was rent and set aside by them and they replaced it with the daylight of modern thought. We shall later on deal with what followed their rash attempt, but it must be admitted at the very outset that, inspired by their example, the Hindus mustered courage to delve into the Vedas. And what did the European scholars, freed from bias, discover? They found that the unusual reverence of the Hindus for these scriptures was simply due to the traditional superstition devoid of any rational cause. According to them, the Vedas are the first attempt of man at literature. They are a mere collection of pastoral songs comparable to the lispings of a baby. Man in his uncultured and innocent state used to feel every object infused with life and imagined spirits behind the forces Nature. Therefore he prayed to Indra and Varuna for rain, to the Sun for its rays of light. Frightened by the hurricane and storm he would implore the Maruts for safety, and harmed by the soothing beauty of Dawn he would sing her eulogy.
--
If this view was considered as giving the real nature of the Veda, the question would arise: how could the Veda be regarded as the foundation of the Aryan genius and the fount of the civilisation and culture of Hindu India? If the Veda were nothing save nursery rhymes and the like, then how could it exert a lasting influence on our minds and life through centuries? The Bible and the Koran contain some eternal truths beneficial to the life and conduct of men for all time. But according to the naturalistic interpretation of the Western scholars and the sacrificial explanation offered by our orthodox scholars, there is no such elevating or lasting truth in the Veda. Are we then to suppose that our reverence for the Veda owes its origin merely to a blind acceptance of a tradition down the sweep of centuries? Our present culture and civilisation differs widely from that of our forefa thers. How is it that we have still a profound admiration for the Veda? Is it precisely because the Veda serves as the root of our cultural tree adorned with a myriad branches, with foliage, flowers and fruits? No, the supreme authority of the Veda has not been recognised out of mere courtesy. The Shruti has been the sheet-anchor of our guidance at every step and in every activity of our day-to-day life.
Here arises the second question. The Western and modern scholars are prone to make a difference between the Veda and the Shruti. According to them, the term Shruti is synonymous with the Upanishad and not with the Veda proper. But what is it that we actually find in the Upanishad that is considered by all scholars, oriental and occidental, as the repository of knowledge of the highest order? The Upanishad has been studied much more than the Veda in India and abroad. The reason is this that the ideas and language of the Upanishad are simpler than those of the Veda, and also more familiar to modern thought. The Upanishad is free from all the intricacies of sacrificial rites, ceremonies and obscure mantras, etc. It deals precisely with the clear realised truths that form the basis of the philosophical doctrines. That is why the Europeans hold that the Upanishad comes in as a reaction and protest against the Veda. Towards the end of the Vedic era the Aryan Hindus bade farewell to their cult of Nature-worship and sacrifices and turned towards the quest of God and metaphysical truths and thus a new era was ushered in. Now, on what ground do the European scholars make such an assertion as regards the historical development of Indian thought? As a matter of fact, we do notice that every teacher of Philosophy whenever he has cited anything from the Upanishad has also tried to corroborate it with a similar quotation from the Veda for its justification. There is no iota of proof that the Upanishad held any view contrary to that of the Veda or ever contradicted it. The Upanishad is the culmination of or a complement to the Veda. Since the advent of the dialectic philosopher Hegel it has become a fashion among Western scholars to find an antithesis in every field of historical truth. From their own history they come to learn that Christianity arose as a revolt against the idolatry of the Romans, again Martin Luther and Protestantism stood out against the Roman Catholic Church. Likewise they are, as it were, eager to discover a revolt in the religious history of India. It is not that such a spirit of antithesis is altogether absent in the history of Indian religions, but it is utterly meaningless to say that this antithesis exists as between the Veda and the Upanishad as well. In fact, the Upanishad has always approached the Veda most reverentially and hardly failed to mention: "This we heard from the ancient sages who had explained it to us."
4.02 - GOLD AND SPIRIT, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
), the king, is none other than gold, the king of metals.20 But it is equally clear that the gold comes into being only through the liberation of the divine soul or pneuma from the chains of the flesh. No doubt it would have suited our rational expectations better if the text had said not flesh but ore or earth. Although the elements are mentioned as the prison of the divine psyche, the whole of nature is meant, Physis in general; not just ore and earth but water, air, and fire, and besides these the flesh, an expression that already in the third century meant the world in a moral sense as opposed to the spirit, and not simply the human body. Consequently, there can be no doubt that the chrysopoeia (gold-making) was thought of as a psychic operation running parallel to the physical process and, as it were, independent of it. The moral and spiritual transformation was not only independent of the physical procedure but actually seemed to be its causa efficiens. This explains the high-flown language, which would be somewhat out of place in a merely chemical recipe. The psyche previously imprisoned in the elements and the divine spirit hidden in the flesh overcome their physical imperfection and clo the themselves in the noblest of all bodies, the royal gold. Thus the philosophic gold is an embodiment of psyche and pneuma, both of which signify life-spirit. It is in fact an aurum non vulgi, a living gold, so to speak, which corresponds in every respect to the lapis. It, too, is a living being with a body, soul, and spirit, and it is easily personified as a divine being or a superior person like a king, who in olden times was considered to be God incarnate.21 In this connection Zosimos availed himself of a primordial image in the form of the divine Anthropos, who at that time had attained a crucial significance in philosophy and religion, not only in Christianity but also in Mithraism. The Bible as well as the Mithraic monuments and the Gnostic writings bear witness to this. Zosimos has, moreover, left us a long testimony on this theme.22 The thoughts of this writer, directly or indirectly, were of decisive importance for the whole philosophical and Gnostic trend of alchemy in the centuries that followed. As I have dealt with this subject in considerable detail in Psychology and Alchemy I need not go into it here. I mention it only because the above passage from Zosimos is, to my knowledge, the earliest reference to the king in alchemy. As an Egyptian, Zosimos would have been familiar with the mystique of kingship, which at that time was enjoying a new efflorescence under the Caesars, and so it was easy for him to carry over the identity of the divine pneuma with the king into alchemical practice, itself both physical and pneumatic, after the older writings of Pseudo-Democritus had paved the way with their views on
(divine nature).23
4.04 - THE REGENERATION OF THE KING, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[375] It will not have escaped the reader how primitive the idea of Gods ageing and need of renewal is. It does in fact derive from ancient Egypt, though one is at a loss to imagine from what sources, other than The Bible, a Canon of Bridlington in the fifteenth century could have borrowed such a theology. His writings at any rate allow no conjectures in this respect. There is something of a clue, however, in the alchemical tradition itself, in the idea of a corrupt arcane substance whose corruption is due to original sin. A similar idea appears in the Grail tradition of the sick king, which has close connections with the transformation mystery of the Mass. The king is the forbear of Parsifal, whom one could describe as a redeemer figure, just as in alchemy the old king has a redeemer son or becomes a redeemer himself (the lapis is the same at the beginning and at the end). Further, we must consider certain medieval speculations concerning Gods need of improvement and the transformation of the wrathful God of the Old Testament into the God of Love in the New: for, like the unicorn, he was softened by love in the lap of a virgin. Ideas of this kind are found as early as Bonaventure, the Franciscan saint, who died in 1274.82 We should also remember that, in the figurative language of the Church, God the Father was represented as an old man and his birth as a rejuvenation in the Son. In a hymn to the Church as an analogy of the Mother of God Paulinus of Nola says:
Sister and wife at once; for without the use of the body
5.05 - THE OLD ADAM, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[597] The author purports to be a Jew, but was clumsy enough not only to perpetrate anachronisms but to reveal his own unquestionably Christian psychology. He had a good knowledge of The Bible and was familiar with Biblical language. The language of his book is the stylistically and grammatically fluid German of the eighteenth century. He has a liking for edifying rhetoric (could he have been a theologian?) One thing is clear, at any rate, and that is that the expression the old Adam on the lips of such a person can have only one meaning, namely, the old man whom we are to put off (Eph. 4 : 22) in accordance with the comm and in Colossians 3 : 9: Put off the old man with his deeds. These passages must have been known to the author, and he could easily have avoided the resultant contradiction or ambiguity by putting, instead of old, original, or something of that kind.
[598] I must beg the readers indulgence for apparently splitting hairs and harping somewhat pedantically on this little defect in the style of a none too careful author. But it is more than a question of a mere slip of the pen: a text that is riddled with ambiguities, that sets up the most unexpected relationships (Adam and the Shulamite!) and blends together the most heterogeneous situations, has unquestionable affinities with the structure of a dream and consequently necessitates a careful examination of its figures. A clich like the old Adam, which can have no other meaning, does not occur in a dream-text without a very good reason, even though the author might have excused it as a mere slip. Even ifas seems to be the case herehe understood the old Adam as the Ur- or original Adam, he was compelled by some obscure intention to pick on the old Adam, which in this context is thoroughly ambiguous. Had it occurred in a real dream it would be a technical blunder for the interpreter to overlook this ostensible slip. As we know, these quid pro quos invariably happen at the critical places, where two contrary tendencies cross.
5.4.02 - Occult Powers or Siddhis, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is difficult to say [why Christ healed people] - it looks from The Bible account as if he did it as a sign that he was one sent by the Divine with power.
580
5 - The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
have to call it morally indifferent or neutral. When The Bible
says "God is spirit," it sounds more like the definition of a
--
as his sacred animal, and in The Bible too he has a positive significance. See Psalm
147 : 9: "He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry";
7.10 - Order, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
After that The Bible tells how, day by day, things emerged from the chaos in an orderly way until at last the human race appeared.
It is the glory of man to create order and to discover it everywhere.
7.14 - Modesty, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You have heard of great Solomon who was the King of Israel many years ago. There are many stories in The Bible and in other books which tell of his glory and his majesty. I shall tell you one story about him.
He was very rich. He had a magnificent throne, his plates were of gold, and in his palace silver was as common as stones in the city of Jerusalem. Merchants were constantly bringing him gold, silver, ivory, peacocks, monkeys, beautiful clothes, armour,
7 - Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
many of you have read The Bible. But there is a story
that I used to like always. There were two brothers,
Aeneid, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
fuses with the promised land of The Bible and with the terminus of
all desire. But the "true promised land" is never a certainty. Much
APPENDIX I - Curriculum of A. A., #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The Bible, by various authors unknown. ::: The Hebrew and Greek Originals are of Qabalistic value. It contains also many magical apologues, and recounts many tales of folk-lore and magical rites.
Kim, by Rudyard Kipling. ::: An admirable study of Eastern thought and life. Many other stories by this author are highly suggestive and informative.
Big Mind (ten perfections), #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
There's a saying in The Bible about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. We also have a saying in Zen that to give the gift of no fear is the greatest gift.
To me, that's the gift of Big Mind, because in Big Mind there's absolutely no fear. It's only when all boundaries have dissolved, or been transcended, that there's no fear, and that is the greatest gift.
BOOK II. -- PART I. ANTHROPOGENESIS., #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
the Egyptian Typhon, Set), had been one of the seven angels (or Patriarchs in The Bible): then he
became a mortal and Adam's son, after which he communicated the gift of prophecy and astronomical
--
conceal it still more. For the former explains many a saying in The Bible and even in the New
Testament which have hitherto remained incomprehensible; while the latter, owing to its dogma of
--
Turning to The Bible, we find Satan, one of the "Sons of God" (Job. i. 6), becoming in exoteric
interpretation the Devil, and the Dragon in its infernal, evil sense. But in the Kabala ("Book of
--
"Our . . . fragment refers to the creation of mankind, called Adam; as (the man) in The Bible, he is
made perfect . . . but afterwards joins
--
children of Bharata Varsha, or India; the ante- and the post-diluvians of The Bible.
Gyan (or rather Gnan, true or occult Wisdom and knowledge), also called Gian-ben-Gian (or Wisdom,
--
do not take into account The Bible, and its queer chronology.** And how little Herodotus could tell is
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
--
* Thence King Solomon, whose traces are nowhere to be found outside of The Bible, and the
description of whose magnificent palace and city dovetail with those of the Persian tales; though they
BOOK II. -- PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
centuries endeavoured to force The Bible facts into agreement with their systems. Thus, no less than
one hundred and forty different opinions have been formed about the single date of "Creation"; "and
--
Moses, whom The Bible makes to flourish 1571 B.C. -- we now learn from the first of the six Hibbert
lectures delivered by Professor A. H. Sayce, of Oxford, in 1887, that: "Old views of the early annals
--
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 703 WORLDS MENTIONED IN The Bible.
Those who have written on this subject have allowed themselves to be dominated by terrestrial ideas,
--
When, therefore, we find in The Bibles of Humanity "other worlds" spoken of, we may safely conclude
that they not only refer to other states of our planetary chain and Earth, but also to other inhabited
--
We may begin with The Bible -- the youngest of the World-Scriptures. In Ecclesiastes, chap. i., we
read these words of the King-Initiate: -- "One generation passeth away and another generation
--
"Esau the father of the Edomites" (Gen. xxxvi. 43); i.e., Esau represents in The Bible the race which
stands between the Fourth and the Fifth, the Atlantean and the Aryan. "Two nations are in thy womb,"
--
to The Bible, may be referred to an Appendix in M. Flammarion's work dealing in detail with this
question; since in a work like the present it seems unnecessary to point out the
--
answers in The Bible (Genesis) to Enos or Henoch, son of Seth (ch. iv.).
***** Geology records the former existence of a universal ocean, sheets of marine sediments
--
The day when the Church will find that its only salvation lies in the occult interpretation of The Bible,
may not be so far off as some imagine. Already many an abbe and ecclesiastic has become an ardent
--
in support of the metaphysical interpretation of The Bible. But they commence, unfortunately for them,
from the wrong end. They are advised, before they begin to speculate upon the metaphysical in their
--
If The Bible combines with archaeology and geology to show that human civilization has passed
through three more or less distinct stages, in Europe at least; and if man, both in America and Europe,
--
valley and preserved an ancient Semitic language quite distinct from the square Hebrew character -was of a very large stature. The English translations of The Bible can never be relied upon, even in their
modern revised forms. They tell us of the Nephilim translating the word by "giants," and further
--
ambition and defiance of the gods. Thence the same traditions taking form in The Bible about the
antediluvian giants and the Tower of Babel, found also in the "Book of Enoch."
--
unmoved at the rather crude language of The Bible, and some of the events narrated in it, show great
disgust at the immorality in the pantheons of India and Greece.* We may be told that before them
BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
adds that, while Adonai is rendered "Lord" in The Bible, "the lowest designation, or the Deity in
Nature, the more general term Elohim, is translated God." (p. 175.)
--
one answer: it is no more a fairy tale than The Bible, and if one falls, the other must follow it. Even the
mode of divination through "the idol of the moon" is the same as practised by David, Saul, and the
--
foetum," he places their "agriculture," The Bible of Qu-tamy, in the first rank of Archaic literature; and
Abarbinel
--
Hosea iv. 14; and Genesis xxxvii. from verses 15 to 22. The "holy" Kadeshuth of The Bible were
identical, as to the duties of their office, with the Nautch-girls of the later Hindu pagodas. The Hebrew
--
Jehovah of The Bible. This will be
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 465 THE "FOUR-FACED" BRAHMA.
--
called the god Iao.' It is on the authority of The Bible itself, therefore, that we maintain
that before his initiation by Jethro, his father-in-law, Moses had never known the word
--
lingham (phallus) and yoni, notwithstanding their translation in The Bible (Genesis i. v. 27.) "male and
female." As said there "God creates 'Man in his own image'. . . . . in the image of God created he him,
--
Adam, man, and H'Adam are cognate with each other, and are personified in The Bible under one form,
as the Egyptian and Hebrew Mars, god of the generation; and (b) that Jehovah, or Jah, is
--
dwarfed and made terrestrially concrete in The Bible: one is almost inclined to say that in the esoteric
they are grosser and still more anthropomorphic, than in their exoteric rendering. Take as an example
--
Thus it is maintained, that with regard to the contents of The Bible, one of two hypotheses has to be
admitted. Either behind the symbolic substitute -- Jehovah -- there was the unknown, incognizable
--
stupendous scheme now known as The Bible, or their successors who knew, as all Kabalists do, that it
was so invented for a popular blind -- how could they, we ask, feel reverence for such a phallic symbol
--
Moses; the Jehovistic 800, on the authority of The Bible chronology itself. Hence, it is maintained that
the deity, represented as the organ of generation in his pillar form, and as a symbol of the double-sexed
--
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 481 FRAUDULENT TRANSLATION OF The Bible.
proves that Michael is the Mercury of the pagans, and Maury and other French writers corroborate
--
esoteric meaning in The Bible -- in both Testaments -- was the assertion of the same idea as in our
Archaic teachings -- to wit, that the "Fall of the Angels" referred simply to the incarnation of angels
--
Now there are many passages in The Bible which prove on their face, exoterically, that this belief was
at one time Universal; and the most convincing are the two chapters Ezekiel xxviii. and Isaiah xiv.
--
* The only Pharaoh whom The Bible shows going down into the Red Sea was the king who pursued the
Israelites, and who remained unnamed, for very good reasons, perhaps. The story was surely made up
--
the Titans, the demons and giants whom we find in The Bible (Gen. vi.) -- the progeny of the "Sons of
God" and the "Daughters of Men." Their generic name shows their alleged character, and discloses at
--
whose persecution and murder of hundreds and thousands of Initiates led to the adoption of The Bible
story.
--
historical a fact as any other allegory and symbolical event in The Bible. But the Initiates give an
explanation
--
Thus, suppositions and idle hypotheses are made to stand for discovered truths. Defenders of The Bible
dead-letter could never help the writers of missionary tracts more effectually, than do materialistic
--
This, by the way, looks like one of those many "inconsistencies," if The Bible is read literally. For, to
say the least, this is a very strange fear in one who had "found grace in the eyes of the Lord" and been
--
Origen, Clemens, and the Rabbis confessed, with regard to the Kabala and The Bible, to their being
veiled and secret Books; but few know that the esotericism of the Kabalistic books in their present reedited form is simply another and still more cunning veil thrown upon the primitive symbolism of
--
Evidently it is not the crude dead letter phraseology as found in The Bible that is to be accepted. There
are seven meanings in the Kabala, of which we may give two as interpreted by the said two scholars.
--
procreating their species. Thus, geometrically, and according to the reading of The Bible by means of
the numerical method, the author of the "Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery" is quite correct. Their (the
--
It is not, then, in The Bible that we have to search for the origin of the Cross and Circle, but beyond the
Flood. Therefore, returning to Eliphas Levi and the Zohar, we answer for the Eastern Occultists and
--
general. If we remember what is said of this class of Angels in Enoch and in The Bible, then the
allegory is plain: their leader, Narada, while refusing to procreate, leads men to become gods.
--
allegorically in The Bible -- in his Cosmic character.
But whether a Quaternary (Tetragrammaton) or a Triad, The Bible Creative God is not the Universal
10, unless blended with AIN-SOPH (as Brahma with Parabrahm), but a septenary, one of the many
--
welcomes his researches in the occult chronology of The Bible. Just as, while rejecting the theories and
hypotheses of modern Science and its generalizations, we bow before its great achievements in the
--
however veiled, is denied in the case of The Bible, then the six days, and a Sabbath, the seventh, can
hardly disconnect Genesis from the Puranic Cosmogonies. For the first "Week of Creation" shows the
--
that septiform calculation, is good evidence. For if The Bible chronology is, as he says, "regulated by
the law of weeks," and if it is septenary, whatever the measures of the creation week and the length of
--
Let the impartial critic compare the two accounts -- the Vishnu Purana and The Bible -- and he will
find that the "seven creations" of Brahma are at the foundation of the "week" of creation in Genesis i.
The two allegories are different, but the systems are all built on the same foundation-stone. The Bible
can be understood only by the light of the Kabala. Take the Zohar, the "Book of Concealed Mystery,"
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
Worlds mentioned in The Bible ... 703
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd2-0-co.htm (10 von 12) [06.05.2003 03:30:21]
--
contained in The Bible," the latter, in the words of Professor Max Muller, rejoicing only in 3,567,180
letters. Notwithstanding, then, these "325 volumes" (in reality there are 333, Kanjur comprising 108,
--
plagiarized by the Brahmins from The Bible! But the facts cited by the Oxford Professor in his Lectures
on the "Science of Religion," concerning the now famous interpolations, for the benefit, and later on to
--
as the "Seven Creations," and in The Bible as the "Days" of Creation.
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd1-0-pr.htm (18 von 21) [06.05.2003 03:30:32]
--
Puranas, Egyptian papyri, the "Book of the Dead" and even The Bible) must be explained. In the "Book
of Dzyan," as in the Kabala, there are two kinds of numerals to be studied -- the figures, often simple
--
Deus inversus. The devil is now called Darkness by the Church, whereas, in The Bible he is called the
"Son of God" (see Job), the bright star of the early morning, Lucifer (see Isaiah). There is a whole
--
The "Sacred Animals" are found in The Bible as well as in the Kabala, and they have their meaning (a
very profound one, too) on the page of the origins of Life. In the Sepher Jezirah it is stated that "God
--
the translators of The Bible, "Cherubim," "Seraphim," etc.; and by the Occultists, "the winged Globes,"
the "Fiery Wheels," and in the Hindu Pantheon by a number of different names. All these Gandharvas,
--
thus making the blinds in The Bible more confused and difficult to interpret. Add to this the fact that
out of the forty-seven translators of King James I. of England's Bible "only three understood Hebrew,
--
easily understand what reliance can be placed on the English version of The Bible. In this work the
Douay Roman Catholic version is generally followed.
--
and even to the Kabalistic notion so far as we understand it, and to The Bible itself. This looks like
Corporealism and Substantialism colouring positive philosophy, though it is rather hard to feel quite
--
The breath of heaven, or rather the breath of life, called in The Bible Nephesh, is in every animal, in
every animate speck as in every mineral atom. But none of these has, like man, the consciousness of
--
Christian hands, is only a little less exoteric than The Bible itself -- this divine "Vehicle" no longer
appears as it does in the "Chaldean Book of Numbers." True enough, Ain-Soph, the ABSOLUTE
--
** If instead of being taught in Sunday Schools useless lessons from The Bible, the armies of the
ragged and the poor were taught Astrology -- so far, at any rate, as the occult properties of the Moon
--
synonym of man in The Bible. These are our seven "Principles."
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 240 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
--
female" or Adam Kadmon, the "Fiat Lux" of The Bible, as we have already seen. But this
transformation did not take place on our Earth, nor on any material plane, but in the Spacial Depths of
--
esotericism of The Bible, interpreted Kabalistically, shows undeniably the Holy of Holies in the temple
to be only the symbol of the womb. This is now proven beyond doubt and cavil, by the numerical
reading of The Bible in general, and of Genesis especially. This idea must certainly have been
borrowed by the Jews from the Egyptians and Indians, whose Holy of Holies was, and with the latter is
--
wanted The Bible to agree with what he said, and therefore did not say all.
**** Cyclic progress in development.
BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
many churchmen incompatible with the teachings and doctrines of The Bible,* Maxwell had to
calumniate the memory of Newton, and try to convince his public that the principles contained in the
--
* Nevertheless, it will be shown on the testimony of The Bible itself, and of such good Christian
theologians as Cardinal Wiseman, that this plurality is taught in both the Old and the New Testaments.
--
true Kabalists the lowest designation, translated in The Bible "God" (see the same work and page).*
Out of these issue the Scintillas.
--
"There are several designations for 'angels' in The Bible which clearly show that beings like the
Elementals of the Kabala and the monads of Leibnitz, must be understood by that term rather than that
--
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 649 THE ZODIAC IN The Bible.
"which never creates such similarities," there must be allowed for the zodiac a great antiquity indeed.
--
Again, if The Bible is supposed to be an authority on any matter (and there are some who still believe
so, whether from Christian or Kabalistical considerations), then the zodiac is clearly mentioned in II
--
12 signs on their banners. But The Bible is, besides these, full of theo-cosmological and astronomical
symbols and personifications.
--
World according to The Bible chronology.
Creuzer believes it very easy to show that most of the theogonies are intimately connected with
--
expression only through the Christian chronologers of The Bible, who adopted it, as also the 25th of
December, the day on which all the solar gods were said to have been incarnated. What wonder, then,
--
even by The Bible itself when it is read between the lines. We see a flower slowly
developing from a bud, and the bud from its seed. But whence the latter, with all its
--
man, is not made in that likeness, nor is it so asserted in The Bible. Moreover, the Second Adam
[[Footnote continued on next page]]
--
diametrically opposed to the dead-letter statements of The Bible* as well as to the latest hypotheses of
science, that it will evoke passionate denial. The Occultists, however, know that the traditions of
--
Babylonian cylinders, than they paid to it on finding the same in Genesis and The Bible. Yet the
number of the ancestral spirits and their seven groups of human progeny are there, notwithstanding
--
ancient nations, The Bible included, as we proceed. Meanwhile, before we turn to the Anthropogenesis
of the prehistoric Races, it may be useful to agree upon the names to be given to the Continents on
BOOK I. -- PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
entirely male. The number seven, so prominent in The Bible, so sacred in its seventh (Sabbath) day,
came to the Jews from Antiquity, deriving its origin from the four-fold number 7 contained in the 28
--
the "Lord God" and Jehovah in The Bible, yet the latter is full of indiscreet traces of the androgyne
Deity, which was Jehovah the sun, and Astoreth the moon in its female aspect, and quite free from the
--
Cain is shown in tradition and The Bible as the first worker in metals and a miner thereof!
While it is very probable that the Gibborim (the giants) of The Bible are the Rakshasas of the Hindus,
it is still more certain that both are Atlanteans, and belong to the submerged races. However it may be,
--
** The animals regarded as sacred in The Bible are not few: the goat for one, the Azaz-el, or God of
Victory. As Aben Ezra says: "If thou art capable of comprehending the mystery of Azazel, thou wilt
--
to primary 'Creation':" but calls all such forces "the aspects of the Causeless Force." In The Bible
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
--
"view" is certainly more akin to the plastic character of certain verses in The Bible concerning the
Patriarchs, such as Lot (Gen. xix., 34-38) and even Adam (iv., v. 1), and others of a still more
--
ought to show more reverence for the four Elements, if they would show any for Moses. For The Bible
manifests the consideration and mystic significance in which they were held by the Hebrew Lawgiver,
--
* The Gehenna of The Bible was a valley near Jerusalem, where the monotheistic Jews immolated
their children to Moloch, if the prophet Jeremiah is to be believed on his word. The Scandinavian Hel
--
say the least, dangerous, in the presence of The Bible and its prophets. Indeed, if Jupiter, the "chief
Daemon of the Pagan Greeks," hurled his deadly thunder-bolts and lightnings at those who excited his
Book of Exodus, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
The Book of Exodus, along with Genesis, is one of the best known books of Hebrew Scripture, our Old Testament of The Bible. The Book describes how God through Moses lead the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and led them across the Red Sea to freedom, towards the Promised Land. Beginning in Exodus 5:1, God repeatedly sends Moses to Pharaoh to advise him, "Let my people go."
God appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush (3:1-6), and commissioned Moses to free his people. God instructed Moses in his dealings with the obstinate Pharaoh. The solemn Jewish Feast of Passover or Pesach - , called or Pascha in the Greek Septuagint, was instituted by God as a Memorial to commemorate the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, where they had been slaves before God rescued them. On the night of First Passover (Exodus 12:1-28), Moses and the Israelites were instructed to sacrifice a healthy year-old male lamb, and take hyssop and sprinkle the blood of the Paschal Lamb on the overhead and two doorposts, so that the destroying angel would pass over their houses and strike only the Egyptians. They were to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread - HaMatzot for seven days following Passover, during which they were to eat matsah, the unleavened bread (Exodus 12:15-17). After He led them across the Red Sea, God guided them by sending a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. To feed the Israelites, God told Moses he would rain down bread from heaven to feed the Israelites. God fed them manna - from heaven, and on the sixth day, God gave them a double portion of manna (Exodus 16:4-5), so that they could rest and observe the Sabbath of the Lord. God also had Moses strike a rock to give them water (Exodus 17:6).
--
The following Scripture is from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible, now in the public domain. King James I commissioned a group of Biblical scholars in 1604 to establish an authoritative translation of The Bible from the ancient languages and other translations at the time, and the work was completed in 1611. The original King James Bible included the Apocrypha but in a separate section. A literary masterpiece of the English language, the original King James Bible is still in use today.
--- THE BOOK OF EXODUS
Book of Genesis, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
Hebrew Scripture or Tanakh is composed of the Law or Torah, the Prophets or Neviim, and the Writings, the Kethuvim or Hagiographa. The Torah is followed by the Prophets beginning with Joshua of the Former Prophets and Isaiah of the Latter Prophets, and then the Writings which begin with Psalms and the Wisdom Literature in Hebrew Scripture, our Old Testament of The Bible.
The book was first called "Genesis" - - in the Greek Septuagint translation, as it presents both the origin of the world and mankind, and in particular, the Hebrew people. The book in Hebrew was known by its opening expression, "In the beginning" (as above). Genesis 1-11 traces the primeval history of creation, from Adam and Eve through Noah and his sons to Terah; and Genesis 12-50 recounts the patriarchal history of Israel, beginning with Abraham through Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
--
The following Scripture is the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible, now in the public domain, and the New International Version. King James I commissioned a group of Biblical scholars in 1604 to establish an authoritative translation of The Bible from the ancient languages and other translations at the time, and the work was completed in 1611. The original King James Bible included the Apocrypha but in a separate section. A literary masterpiece of the English language, the original King James Bible is still in use today. Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica - The International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of Biblica - The International Bible Society. Chapters 5 and 12-50 are from the King James Bible, and Chapters 1-4 and 6-11 are the NIV version.
--- ACTUAL
Book of Imaginary Beings (text), #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
have been accustomed by The Bible. But occasionally, all at
once in their even-tempered discourse, we are moved by
--
every passage of The Bible has a fourfold meaning - the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the spiritual. Johannes
Scotus Erigena, closer to the concept of divinity, had already
--
hues in a peacocks tail. The Kabbalists would have approved this view; one of the secrets they sought in The Bible
was how to create living beings. It was said of demons that
--
waxed and waned with the moon. To these marvellous circumstances came to be added the fact that The Bible, in the
Septuagint version, uses the word panther in a verse
Book of Proverbs, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
The Book of Proverbs is one of the Wisdom Books of Hebrew Scripture, along with Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs (Song of Solomon). The Greek Septuagint also includes the Books of Wisdom and Sirach. The Wisdom Literature is followed by the Prophets beginning with the Prophet Isaiah in the Greek Septuagint, Latin Vulgate, and the Christian Old Testament of The Bible.
The primary purpose of the book is to teach wisdom, not only to the young and inexperienced but also to the learned. Proverbs personifies wisdom as an idealistic woman.
Book of Psalms, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
The Psalms begin the Writings or Hagiographa in the three-fold division of the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and Writings of Hebrew Scripture. In the four-fold division of the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and the Christian Old Testament of The Bible, the Psalms are part of the Wisdom Literature, which includes in the following order: the Books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. The Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate also included the Books of Wisdom and Sirach.
The Hebrew Psalms number 150, while the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as the Greek Septuagint Old Testament both contain Psalm 151 of David. The numbering of Psalms often differ by one, the Hebrew Psalter being one more than the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate. The numbering here follows the original Hebrew. The Psalms are generally of three types: laments, both individual and communal; hymns; and songs of thanksgiving. Others are classified as royal psalms, some wisdom psalms, and others defy classification.
BS 1 - Introduction to the Idea of God, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
Thank you all very much for coming. Its really shocking to me that you dont have anything better to do on a Tuesday night. Seriously though, its very strange, in some sense, that so many of you are here to listen to a sequence of lectures on the psychological significance of The Bible stories. Its something Ive wanted to do for a long time, but it still does surprise me that theres a ready audience for it. Thats good. Well see how it goes.
Ill start with this, because its the right question: why bother doing this? And I dont mean why should I bother I have my own reasons for doing it but you might think, why bother with this strange old book at all? Thats a good question. Its a contradictory document thats been cobbled together over thousands of years. Its outlasted many, many kingdoms. Its really interesting that it turns out a book is more durable than stone. Its more durable than a castle. Its more durable than an empire. Its really interesting that something so evanescent can be so long-living. So theres that; thats kind of a mystery.
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When I look at the stories in The Bible, I do it, in some sense, with a beginners mind. Its a mystery, this class: how the hell it was made, why it was made, why we preserved it, why it happened to motivate an entire culture for 2,000 years and transform the world. Whats going on? How did that happen? Its by no means obvious. One of the things that bothers me about casual critics of religion is that they dont take the phenomena seriously. Its a serious phenomena, not least because people have the capacity for religious experience, and no one knows why that is. You can induce it reliably, in all sorts of different ways. You could do it with brain stimulation. You can certainly do it with drugs, especially the psychedelic variety. They produce intimations of the divine extraordinarily regularly. People have been using drugs like that for God only knows how long50,000 years, maybe more than thatto produce some sort of intimate union with the divine. We dont understand any of that. When we discovered the psychedelics in the late 60s, it shocked everybody so badly that they were instantly made illegal. They were abandoned, in terms of research, for like 50 years, and its no wonder, because who the hell expected that? Nobody.
Jung was a student of Nietzsches, and he was also a very astute critic of Nietzsche. He was educated by Freud. Freud started to collate the information that we had pertaining to the notion that people lived inside a dream. It was Freud that really popularized the idea of the unconscious mind. We take this for granted to such a degree, today, that we dont understand how revolutionary the idea was. Whats happened with Freud is that weve taken all the marrow out of his bones and left the husk behind. Now, when we think about Freud, we just think about the husk, because thats everything thats been discarded. But so much of what he discovered is part of our popular conception, nowincluding the idea that your perceptions, your actions, and your thoughts are all informed and shaped by unconscious motivations that are not part of your voluntary control.
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It certainly seems, to me, that the archaeological evidence, for example, suggests that the really old stories that The Bible begins with are at least that old, and are likely embedded in prehistory, which is far older than that. You might say, well, how can you be so sure? The answer to that, in part, is that the ancient cultures didn't change fast. They stayed the same; thats the answer. They keep their information moving from generation to generation. Thats how they stay the same, and thats how we know. There are archaeological records of rituals that have remained relatively unbroken for up to 20,000 years: it was discovered in caves, in Japan, that were set up for a particular kind of bear worship that was also characteristic of Western Europe. So these things can last for very long periods of time.
Were watching each other act in the world, and then the question is, how long have we been watching each other? The answer to that, in some sense, is as long as there have been creatures with nervous systems, and thats a long time. Thats some hundreds of millions of years, perhaps longer than that. Weve been watching each other, trying to figure out what were up to, across that entire span of time. Some of that knowledge is built right into your bodieswhich is why we can dance with each other, for example. Understanding isnt just something that you have as an abstraction. Its something that you act out. Thats what children are doing, when theyre learning to rough-and-tumble play. Theyre learning to integrate their body with the body of someone else in a harmonious waylearning to cooperate and compete. Thats all instantiated right into their body. Its not abstract knowledge, and they dont know that theyre doing that. Theyre just doing it. We can even use our body as a representational platform.
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I would say The Bible exists in that space that is half into the dream and half into articulated knowledge. Going into it, to find out what the stories are about, can aid our self-understanding. The other issue is that, if Nietzsche was correct, and if Jung was correct, and Dostoevsky, as wellWithout the cornerstone provided by that understanding, were lost. Thats not good, because then were susceptible to psychological pathology. People that are adamant anti-religious thinkers seem to believe that, if we abandoned our immersement in the underlying dream, wed all, instantly, become rationalists, like Descartes or Baconintelligent, clear thinking, rational, scientific people. I dont believe that for a moment. I dont think theres any evidence for it. I think we would become so irrational, so rapidly, that the weirdest mysteries of Catholicism would seem positively rational by contrastand I think thats already happening.
You have the unknown world. Thats just what you dont know, at all. Thats outside the ocean that surrounds the island that you inhabit. Something like that. Its chaos itself. You act in that world, and you act in ways that you dont understand. Theres more to your actions than you can understand. One of the things that Jung said I loved this, when I first understood it. He says that everybody acts out a myth, but very few people know what their myth is. You should know what your myth is, because it might be a tragedy, and maybe you dont want it to be. Thats really worth thinking about, because you have a pattern of behaviour that characterizes you. God only knows where you got it. Its partly biological, and its partly from your parents; its your unconscious assumptions; its the way the philosophy of your society has shaped you; and its aiming you somewhere. Is it aiming you somewhere you want to go? Thats a good question. Thats part of self-realization.
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Another thing that I think interferes with our relationship with a collection of books like The Bible is that youre called upon to believe things that no one can believe. Thats no good, because thats a form of lie, as far as I can tell. Then you have to scrap the whole thing, because, in principle, the whole thing is about truth. If you have to start your pursuit of truth by swallowing a bunch of lieshow in the world are you going to get anywhere with that? I dont want any uncertainty at the bottom of thisor I dont want any more than I have to leave in it, because I cant get any farther than that. Its going to make sense rationally. Even though science is in flux, I dont want it to be pushing up against what we know to be scientifically untrue. Thats something of a dangerous parameter. If it isnt working with evolutionary theory, for example, then I think that its not a good enough solution.
And then, finally, its phenomenological. Modern people think of reality as objective, and thats very powerful, but that isnt how we experience reality. We have our domain of experience and this is a hard thing to get a grip on, even though it should be the most obvious thing. For the phenomenologists, everything that you experience is real. Theyre interested in the structure of your subjective experience. You have subjective experience, and you have subjective experience, and so do you, and theres commonalities across all of those. For example, youre likely to experience the same set of emotions. We've been able to identify canonical emotions, and, without canonical motivations, we couldnt even communicate, because you wouldnt know what the other person was like; youd have to explain infinitely. Theres nothing you could take for granted, but you can.
Phenomenology is the fact that at the center of my vision my hands are clear, and out in the periphery they disappear. Phenomenology is the way things smell and the way things taste, and the fact that they matter. You could say, in some sense, that phenomenology is the study of what matters, rather than matter. Its a given, from the phenomenological perspective, that things have meaning. Even if youre a rationalist, a cynic, and a nihilist, and say nothing has any meaning, you still run into the problem of pain. Pain undercuts your arguments and has a meaning. Theres no escaping from the meaning. You can pretty much demolish all the positive parts of it, but trying to think your way out of the negative parts...Good luck with that, because that just doesnt work. The Bible storiesand I think this is true of fiction in generalis phenomenological. It concentrates on trying to elucidate the nature of human experience. That is not the same as the objective world. Its also a form of truth, because it is true that you have a field of experience and that it is has qualities. The question is, what are the qualities?
Ancient representations of reality were sort of a weird meld of observable phenomenathings we would consider objective factsand the projection of subjective truth. Ill show you how the Mesopotamians viewed the world. They had a model of the world as a disc. If you go out in a field at night, what does the world look like? Well, its a disc. Its got a dome on top of it. That was basically the Mesopotamian view of the world, and the view of the world of people who wrote the first stories in The Bible. There was water on top of the dome. Well, obviously. It rains, right? Where does the water come from? Theres water around the dome. The disc is made of land, and then underneath that theres water. How do you know that? Well, drill. Youll hit water; its under the earth. Otherwise, how would you hit the water? And then whats under that? Fresh water. And then whats under that? If you go to the edge of the disc, you hit the ocean. Its salt water. So its a dome with water outside of it, and then its a disc that the dome sits on, and then underneath that theres fresh water, and then underneath that theres salt water. That was roughly the Mesopotamian world.
Thats a mix of observation and imagination, because that isnt the world, but it is the way the world appears. Its a perfectly believable cosmology. The sun rises and the sun sets on that dome. Its not like the thing is bloody well spinning. Who would ever think that up? Its obvious that the sun comes up and goes down, and then travels underneath the world and comes back up again. There's nothing more self-evident than that. Thats that strange intermingling of subjectively fantasy, right at the level of perception and actually observable phenomena. All of the cosmology thats associated with the Biblical stories is exactly like that: its half psychology and half reality, although the psychological is real, as well.
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Really, its hard to think scientifically. Man, it takes a lot of training, and even scientists dont think scientifically once you get them out of the lab, and hardly even when theyre in the lab. You have to get peer-reviewed and criticized. Its hard to think scientifically. However, the people who wrote these stories thought more like how dramatists thinkmore like how Shakespeare thought but that doesnt mean there isnt truth in it. It just means you have to be a little bit more sophisticated about your ideas of truth, and thats ok. There are truths to live by. Ok, fine. We want to figure out what those are, because we need to live and maybe not to suffer so much. And so if you know that what The Bible stories, and stories in general, are trying to represent is the structure of the lived experience of conscious individuals, you open up the possibility of a whole different realm of understanding. It eliminates the contradiction thats been painful for people, between the objective world and the claims of religious stories.
Section V
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Lets take a look at the structure of the book itself. The first thing about The Bible is that its a comedy, and a comedy has a happy ending. Thats a strange thing, because the Greek God stories were almost always tragic. The Bible is a comedy. It has a happy ending. Everyone lives, and theres a heaven. What you think about that is a completely different issue. Im just telling you the structure of the story. Its something like, there was paradise at the beginning of time, and then some cataclysms occurred, and people fell into history. History is limitation, mortality, suffering, and self-consciousness. But theres a mode of beingor potentially the establishment of a state that will transcend that, and thats what time is aiming at. Thats the idea of the story.
Its a funny thing that The Bible has a story, because it wasnt written as a class: it was assembled from a whole bunch of different books. The fact that it got assembled into something resembling a story is quite remarkable. The question is, what is that story about? And how did it come up as a story? Is there anything to it? It constituted a dramatic record of self-realization or abstraction. I already mentioned that. The idea of the formulation of the image of God is an abstraction. Thats how were going to handle it, to begin with. I want to saybecause I said I wasnt going to be any more reductionist than necessary that I know the evidence for genuine religious experience is incontrovertible, but its not explicable, and so I dont want to explain it away. I want to just leave it as a fact, and then I want to pull back from that and say, ok, well leave that as a fact and mystery. Were going to look at this from a rational perspective and say that the initial formulation of the idea of God was an attempt to abstract out an ideal, and to consider it as an abstraction outside of its instantiation. Thats good enough. Thats an amazing thing, if its true. But I dont want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Its a collection of books with multiple redactors and editors. What does that mean? Many people wrote it, theres many different books, and theyre interwoven togetherespecially in the first five books by people who, I suspect, took the traditions of tribes that had been brought together under a single political organization and tried to make their accounts coherent. They took a little of this, and they took a little of that, and they took a little of this, and they tried not to lose anything, because it seemed valuable. It certainly seemed valuable to the people who collected the stories, because they werent gonna tolerate too much editing. But they also wanted it to make sense, to some degree, so it wasnt completely logically contradictory and completely absurd. Many people wrote it, and many people edited it, and many people assembled it over a vast stretch of time. We have very few documents like that, and so just because we have a document like that is sufficient reason to look at it as a remarkable phenomena, and to try to understand what it is that its trying to communicate. I said its also the worlds first hyperlinked text, which is very much worth thinking about, for quite a long time.
Theres four sources in the Old Testament, or the Hebrew Biblefour stories that we know came together. The first one was called the Priestly. It used the name Elohim, or El Shaddai, for God. I believe el is the root for allah, as well. This is usually translated as God, or the gods, because Elohim is utilized as plural in the beginning books of The Bible. Its newer than the Jahwist version. The reason Im telling you that is because Genesis 1, which is the first story, isnt as old as Genesis 2. Genesis 2 contains the Jahwist version. It contains the story of Adam and Eve. Thats older than the very first book in The Bible, but they decided to put the newer version first. I think its because it deals with more fundamental abstractions. Its something like that. It deals with the most basic of abstractionshow the universe was created and then segues into what the human environment is like. That seems to be the logic behind it.
The Jahwist version uses the name YHWH , which, apparently, people didnt say, but we believe was pronounced something like Yahwa. It has a strongly anthropomorphic God, that takes human form. It begins with Genesis 2:4. This is the account of the heavens and the earth, and it contains the story of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, and Noah, and the Tower of Babel, and Exodus, and Numbers, along with the Priestly version. It also contains the law in the formjust the formof the Ten Commandments, which is like a truncated form of the law.
Deutsches Requiem, #Labyrinths, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
German Empire; Luther, translator of The Bible, could not suspect that his
goal was to forge a people destined to destroy The Bible for all time;
Christoph zur Linde, killed by a Russian bullet in 1758, was in some way
ENNEAD 06.05 - The One and Identical Being is Everywhere Present In Its Entirety.345, #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
First a few words about the distinction of periods in general. Among unreflecting people, for centuries, it has been customary to settle disputes by appeals to The Bible as a whole. This was always satisfactory, until somebody else came along who held totally different views, which he supported just as satisfactorily from the same authority. The result was the century-long bloody wars of the Reformation, everywhere leaving1271 in that particular place, as the orthodox, the stronger. Since thirty years, however, the situation has changed. The contradictions of The Bible, so long the ammunition of scoffers of the type of Ingersoll, became the pathfinders of the Higher Criticism, which has solved the otherwise insoluble difficulties by showing them to rest on parallel documents, and different authors. It is no longer sufficient to appeal to Isaiah; we must now specify which Isaiah we mean; and we may no longer refer to the book of Genesis, but to the Jehovistic or Elohistic documents.
This method of criticism is slowly gaining ground with other works. The writer, for instance, applied it with success to the Gathas, or hymns of Zoroaster. These appear in the Yasnas in two sections which have ever given the editors much trouble. Either they were printed in the meaningless traditional order, or they were mixed confusedly according to the editor's fancy, resulting of course in a fancy picture. The writer, however, discovered they were duplicate lives of Zoroaster, and printing them on opposite pages, he has shown parallel development, reducing the age-long difficulties to perfectly reasonable, and mutually confirming order.
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When we try to study the periods in Plotinos's thought, as shown in his books, we are met with great1278 difficulties, which are chiefly due to Porphyry. Exactly following the contemporary methods of the compilers of The Bible, he undiscerningly confused the writings of the various periods, so as to make up an anthology, grouped by six groups of nine books each, according to subjects, consisting first of ethical disquisitions; second, of physical questions; third, of cosmic considerations; fourth, of psychological discussions; fifth, of transcendental lucubrations; and sixth, of metaphysics and theology.440 As the reader might guess from the oversymmetrical grouping, and this pretty classification, the apparent order is only illusory, as he may have concluded from the fact that the discussions of matter analyzed above are scattered throughout the whole range of this anthology. The result of this Procrustean arrangement was the same as with The Bible: a confusion of mosaic, out of which pretty nearly anything could be proved, and into which almost everything has been read. Compare the outlines of the doctrines of Plotinos by Ritter, Zeller, Ueberweg, Chaignet, Mead, Guthrie, and Drews, and it will be seen that there is very little agreement between them, while none of them allow for the difference between the various parts of the Enneads.
How fearful the confusion is, will best be realized from the following two tables, made up from the indications given in Porphyry's Life of Plotinos.
Gorgias, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
'Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:' Art then must be true, and politics must be true, and the life of man must be true and not a seeming or sham. In all of them order has to be brought out of disorder, truth out of error and falsehood. This is what we mean by the greatest improvement of man. And so, having considered in what way 'we can best spend the appointed time, we leave the result with God.' Plato does not say that God will order all things for the best (compare Phaedo), but he indirectly implies that the evils of this life will be corrected in another. And as we are very far from the best imaginable world at present, Plato here, as in the Phaedo and Republic, supposes a purgatory or place of education for mankind in general, and for a very few a Tartarus or hell. The myth which terminates the dialogue is not the revelation, but rather, like all similar descriptions, whether in The Bible or Plato, the veil of another life. For no visible thing can reveal the invisible. Of this Plato, unlike some commentators on Scripture, is fully aware. Neither will he dogmatize about the manner in which we are 'born again' (Republic). Only he is prepared to maintain the ultimate triumph of truth and right, and declares that no one, not even the wisest of the Greeks, can affirm any other doctrine without being ridiculous.
There is a further paradox of ethics, in which pleasure and pain are held to be indifferent, and virtue at the time of action and without regard to consequences is happiness. From this elevation or exaggeration of feeling Plato seems to shrink: he leaves it to the Stoics in a later generation to maintain that when impaled or on the rack the philosopher may be happy (compare Republic). It is observable that in the Republic he raises this question, but it is not really discussed; the veil of the ideal state, the shadow of another life, are allowed to descend upon it and it passes out of sight. The martyr or sufferer in the cause of right or truth is often supposed to die in raptures, having his eye fixed on a city which is in heaven. But if there were no future, might he not still be happy in the performance of an action which was attended only by a painful death? He himself may be ready to thank God that he was thought worthy to do Him the least service, without looking for a reward; the joys of another life may not have been present to his mind at all. Do we suppose that the mediaeval saint, St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Catharine of Sienna, or the Catholic priest who lately devoted himself to death by a lingering disease that he might solace and help others, was thinking of the 'sweets' of heaven? No; the work was already heaven to him and enough. Much less will the dying patriot be dreaming of the praises of man or of an immortality of fame: the sense of duty, of right, and trust in God will be sufficient, and as far as the mind can reach, in that hour. If he were certain that there were no life to come, he would not have wished to speak or act otherwise than he did in the cause of truth or of humanity. Neither, on the other hand, will he suppose that God has forsaken him or that the future is to be a mere blank to him. The greatest act of faith, the only faith which cannot pass away, is his who has not known, but yet has believed. A very few among the sons of men have made themselves independent of circumstances, past, present, or to come. He who has attained to such a temper of mind has already present with him eternal life; he needs no arguments to convince him of immortality; he has in him already a principle stronger than death. He who serves man without the thought of reward is deemed to be a more faithful servant than he who works for hire. May not the service of God, which is the more disinterested, be in like manner the higher? And although only a very few in the course of the world's historyChrist himself being one of themhave attained to such a noble conception of God and of the human soul, yet the ideal of them may be present to us, and the remembrance of them be an example to us, and their lives may shed a light on many dark places both of philosophy and theology.
Guru Granth Sahib first part, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
You may chant your prayers five times each day; you may read The Bible and the Koran.
Says Nanak, the grave is calling you, and now your food and drink are finished. ||4||28||
Liber 46 - The Key of the Mysteries, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
that The Bible and the Quran are different translations of the same
book, but treats the Incarnation as an allegory, it is evident that a
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We shall now sketch out an explanation of The Bible by the aid of
numbers, for The Bible is the book of the images of God.
We shall ask numbers to give us the reason of the dogmas of eternal
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The Bible is not a history, it is a collection of poems, a book of
allegories and images.
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The Bible has consecrated the names of Judith and Ehud, and one of the
most sublime figures of the Holy Book is that of Samson, blind and
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it has added a page to The Bible of the human race.
Do not say that civilization is bad; for it resembles the damp heat
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in this new explanation of the figures of The Bible; but those sincere
hearts afflicted by doubt, which are tortured by eighteenth-century
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figures of The Bible to the allegories of Hermes? Is it to condemn St.
Paul, is it to bring doubt to believers? No, indeed, for believers have
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Voltaire parodied The Bible, dogma and worship; and then he mocked and
insulted that parody.
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obscurities which are to be found in the stories of The Bible. {198}
The sacred historians themselves recognize the existence and the power
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The Bible tells us that Jannes and Jambres, Pharaohs magicians, at
first performed "the same miracles" as Moses, and that they declared
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The Bible tells us that King Nebuchadnezzar, at the highest point of
his power and his pride, was suddenly changed into a beast.
MoM References, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
Frye, N. (1982). The great code: The Bible and literature. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch.
Frye, N. (1990). Words with power: Being a second study of The Bible and literature. London: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovitch.
Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (text), #Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Footnote: This story is not in The Bible and there is nothing in The Bible coming near it. It might be in
the 'apocrypha', and Sri Ramakrishna might have heard it from somebody acquainted with it.
Talks 076-099, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
The Master, while referring to The Bible for Be still and know that
I am God, Psalm 46, found in the Ecclesiastes. There is one alone and there is no second and The wise mans heart is at the right hand and a fools heart is at the left.
Talks 151-175, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
D.: May we read The Bible?
M.: The Bible and the Gita are the same.
D.: The Bible teaches that Man is born in sin.
M.: The Man is sin. There was no man-sense in deep sleep. The bodythought brings out the idea of sin. The birth of thought is itself sin.
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D.: The Bible says that the human soul may be lost.
M.: The I-thought is the ego and that is lost. The real I is I am
Talks 176-200, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
The essence of mind is only awareness or consciousness. When the ego, however, dominates it, it functions as the reasoning, thinking or sensing faculty. The cosmic mind being not limited by the ego, has nothing separate from itself and is therefore only aware. This is what The Bible means by I am that I AM.
The ego-ridden mind has its strength sapped and is too weak to resist the torturing thoughts. The egoless mind is happy in deep, dreamless sleep. Clearly therefore Bliss and misery are only modes of mind; but the weak mode is not easily interchangeable with the strong mode. Activity is weakness and consequently miserable; passivity is strength and therefore blissful. The dormant strength is not apparent and therefore not availed of.
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There is a parallel passage in The Bible where Jesus says, Before
Abraham was, I am. The teachings of the Sages are suited to the time, place, people and other surroundings.
Talks 600-652, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
AM" according to The Bible also. Mere Being is alone natural. To limit it to 'being a man' is uncalled for.
D.: (Humorously) If votes be taken the majority will be on my side.
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Sri Bhagavan, while looking into some correspondence, heard it, smiled and said: This is the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven mentioned in The Bible and this world are not two different regions.
"The Kingdom is within you," says The Bible. So it is. The realised being sees this as the Kingdom of Heaven whereas the others see it as 'this world'. The difference lies only in the angles of vision.
D.: How can we deny the world and the people therein? I hear some music. It is sweet and grand. I recognise it to be Wagner's music.
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 1, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
SRI AUROBINDO: In The Bible there is also the multiplication of fish and the descent of the Holy Ghost and the disciples getting gift of tonguesspeaking
many languages perhaps? I don't understand what they mean by it.
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 2, #Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Integral Yoga
PURANI: He is also against temples. There is no necessity of temples according to him. As somebody said, churches are not necessary, for The Bible
can be read in the fields.
The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
wish to manifold The Bible, I wish to have the copies ready for the
pilgrimage to Aix la Chapelle.
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like your foot when it multiplies its print. There is The Bible!
2. Gravity and the Holy Ghost
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which became The Bible of my youth. Haeckel was die first propa-
gandist of Darwin in Germany, and the first to draw up a geneological
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least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in The Bible'. 17
Even during the voyage of the Beagle he amused the officers by his
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literal truth of every word in The Bible'; later on he considered himself
an atheist because he did not believe in the Tower of Babel. Neither
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asking 'Why? Why? Why?' A fool, says The Bible, can ask more
questions in a minute than a sage can answer in a week. But sages are
The Book of Certitude - P1, #The Book of Certitude, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
And when the days of Moses were ended, and the light of Jesus, shining forth from the dayspring of the Spirit, encompassed the world, all the people of Israel arose in protest against Him. They clamoured that He Whose advent The Bible had foretold must needs promulgate and fulfil the laws of Moses, whereas this youthful Nazarene, who laid claim to the station of the divine Messiah, had annulled the law of divorce and of the sabbath day-the most weighty of all the laws of Moses. Moreover, what of the signs of the Manifestation yet to come? These people of Israel are even unto the present day still expecting that Manifestation which The Bible hath foretold! How many Manifestations of Holiness, how many Revealers of the light everlasting, have appeared since the time of Moses, and yet Israel, wrapt in the densest veils of satanic fancy and false imaginings, is still expectant that the idol of her own handiwork will appear with such signs as she herself hath conceived! Thus hath God laid hold of them for their sins, hath extinguished in them the spirit of faith, and tormented them with the flames of the nethermost fire. And this for no other reason except that Israel refused to apprehend the meaning of such words as have been revealed in The Bible concerning the signs of the coming Revelation. As she never grasped their true significance, and, to outward seeming, such events never came to pass, she, therefore, remained deprived of recognizing the beauty of Jesus and of beholding the face of God. And they still await His coming! From time immemorial even unto this day, all the kindreds and peoples of the earth have clung to such fanciful and unseemly thoughts, and thus have deprived themselves of the clear waters streaming from the springs of purity and holiness.
18
The Book of Sand, #Labyrinths, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
'I propose a swap,' I said. 'You got this book for a handful of rupees and a copy of The Bible. I'll offer you the amount of my pension cheque, which I've just collected, and my black-letter Wiclif Bible. I inherited it from my ancestors.'
'A black-letter Wiclif!' he murmured.
The Dwellings of the Philosophers, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
familiar to philosophers, the ane-Timon (32) , the guide which in The Bible leads the Jews to the
Fountain. It is the mythical Aliboron, [*236-1], horse of the sun. One more word. You
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principle, origin, source, foundation. The Latin name Abraham, which The Bible gives to the
venerable ancestor of the Hebrews, means Father of a multitude. He is therefore the first
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Hebrew Kabbala is only concerned with The Bible; it is therefore strictly limited to sacred
exegesis and hermeneutics. Hermetic cabala concerns books, texts and documents of the
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indisputable and real. Furthermore, we know to what extent The Bible is superior to other
books, how it remains the immutable Eternal Book, the Book of Cycles par excellence, in
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cyclic generation. And since history forever repeats itself, The Bible, which figuratively
describes its process, will forever remain the unique source, the true collection of historical
The Gospel According to John, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
John's Gospel is followed by the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of The Bible.
St. John's Gospel is a mystical reflection on the Word Made Flesh, Jesus Christ. This theologically profound Gospel is composed by the beloved disciple John, who dined next to Jesus at the Last Supper. John's Gospel gives a fresh depiction of the life, passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The "hour" of his Passion expresses his Kingship and His triumphant road to glory. For example, the three predictions of his passion (3:14-15, 8:28, 12:31-33) are expressed by the verb - to exalt or lift up. Remember that John was the only Apostle at the foot of the Cross with Mary. Jesus, when dying on the Cross, gave his Mother Mary to John (19:25-27).
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The following Scripture is from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible, now in the public domain, and the Revised Standard Version. King James I commissioned a group of Biblical scholars in 1604 to establish an authoritative translation of The Bible from the ancient languages and other translations at the time, and the work was completed in 1611. The original King James Bible included the Apocrypha but in a separate section. A literary masterpiece of the English language, the original King James Bible is still in use today. Permission to publish Scripture quotations from the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible (copyright 1946, 1952, and 1971), has been granted by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Chapters 4-5 and 7-16 are from the Authorized King James Bible, and Chapters 1-3, 6, and 17-21 are from the Revised Standard Version.
--- THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
The Gospel According to Luke, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
The Gospel according to Luke is one of Four Gospels of the New Testament of The Bible - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
St. Luke was a Syrian born in Antioch and one of the earliest converts to Christianity. Luke, well-educated in classical Greek and noted for his literary talent, wrote his Gospel and a sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, which follows the Gospel of John. Together the two works cover 60 years of the Life and Teachings of Jesus and the early Christian Church. Luke is unique in that he was the only Gentile to compose a New Testament Book. Luke was a physician (Colossians 4:10-14) and likely accompanied Paul on three of four missionary journeys as described in Acts (the "we" passages from Acts 16:1 to Acts 28:16).
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The following Scripture is from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible, now in the public domain, and the Revised Standard Version. King James I commissioned a group of Biblical scholars in 1604 to establish an authoritative translation of The Bible from the ancient languages and other translations at the time, and the work was completed in 1611. The original King James Bible included the Apocrypha but in a separate section. A literary masterpiece of the English language, the original King James Bible is still in use today. Permission to publish Scripture quotations from the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible (copyright 1946, 1952, and 1971), has been granted by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Chapters 5-17 are from the Authorized King James Bible, and Chapters 1-4 and 18-24 are from the Revised Standard Version.
--- THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
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The Gospel According to Mark, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
The Gospel according to Mark is the second of the Four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in the New Testament of The Bible.
John "whose other name was Mark" was noted in the Acts of the Apostles - in 12:12 as the son of Mary, in whose house the first Christians used to gather and whose land included the Garden of Gethsemane. He was a companion of his cousin Barnabas and Saul on the return from Jerusalem to Antioch in Acts 12:25, and then as a companion of Barnabas and Saul on the first missionary journey to Cyprus. He was called by his Hebrew name John while in Cyprus in Acts 13:5 and on his return to Jerusalem in Acts 13:13. John called Mark was the source of a dispute between Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15:37. John Mark was finally called Mark in Acts 15:39 when he accompanied Barnabas to Cyprus, and thereafter was known as Mark in the Letters of Paul (Colossians 4:10, 2 Timothy 4:11, Philemon 1:24). Mark knew Jesus Christ personally, and in fact, the episode of the young man in Mark 14:51-52 fleeing in the Garden when Jesus was arrested is considered by many writers to be autobiographical, as this appears only in the Gospel of Mark.
The Gospel According to Matthew, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
The Gospel according to Matthew is the opening book of the New Testament of The Bible, and the first of the Four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The four Gospels are followed by the Acts of the Apostles, the Letters of Paul beginning with Romans, the catholic or universal letters beginning with James, and the Book of Revelation.
The Gospel of St. Matthew is one of the most quoted books of The Bible. Noted especially for Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Chapters 5-7, Matthew is the source of the Beatitudes (5:3-10) and the Lord's Prayer, the Our Father (6:9-13). Jesus states the Golden Rule in the Sermon on the Mount (7:12). Christ reaffirms the Law of Moses (5:17) and the Commandments of God (19:17-19). Known as the Great Commission, the Gospel closes with Jesus calling the Apostles, "to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded to you" (28:19-20).
The Gospel of Matthew is especially important for it is one of the two Gospels originally written by an Apostle (the other being the Gospel of John). The Gospel of Matthew was possibly written in Antioch, Syria, an early home of Christianity. Indeed, the Acts of the Apostles (11:26) recorded that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians in Antioch.
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Our New Testament of The Bible in the West was written in Greek. There are indications in the writings of the Fathers of the Church (Papias of Hierapolis, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, and St. Jerome) that "Matthew put together the sayings of the Lord in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could" (Papias, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, III, 39, 16). St. Irenaeus of Lyons in 180 AD wrote "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the Church" (Against Heresies Book III, 1:1). Origen about 240 AD wrote in his Commentary on Matthew: "I have learned by tradition that the Gospel according to Matthew, who was at one time a publican and afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, was written first; and that he composed it in the Hebrew tongue and published it for the converts from Judaism" (Eusebius 6:25). Eusebius in 325 AD in his Ecclesiastical History wrote "when Matthew, who had first preached among the Hebrews, decided also to reach out to other peoples, he wrote down the Gospel he preached in his mother tongue" (III, 24, 6). St. Jerome noted that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew ("Ad Damasum", xx), but said that it is not known who translated it into Greek. It is not known whether Matthew's writings were in Hebrew or Aramaic, for while Hebrew was the formal language of Israel, daily language was in the Western Aramaic dialect of Palestine, as with Jesus and the Apostles. The oldest manuscripts available to us are the Curetonian and Sinaiticus texts of the Old Syriac Gospels, the Greek Codex Sinaiticus from St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai, Egypt, and the Codex Vaticanus in Greek from the fourth century AD.
Was Matthew or Mark written first? There must be a reason for St. Augustine and the Church Fathers to have placed Matthew first in the New Testament!
The Gospel of Thomas, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
All the following sayings have no parallels in The Bible or other non-Gnostic traditions:
2 23 51 77 98
The Pilgrims Progress, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
2. If I have heard any read in The Bible; or,
3. If mine head did begin to ache; or,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra text, #Thus Spoke Zarathustra, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
position in the cosmos which The Bible considered his
divine birthright. The meaning of life is thus found on