Please Help, I don't know what to believe anymore

[minichibi]

I really DO want to believe in Yahweh, I really DO want to believe that Jesus IS God, and that Jesus resurrected… but it’s being harder and harder it’s really depressing The more I read about it, the more I think about it the more reason I have to believe everything I have believed in until now is a lie And I’m honestly hoping someone here prove me wrong…

1. How can I be sure the stories in the OT aren’t a repackaging of cultures the Hebrews found along the way in their nomadic life?
2. If the Hebrews are the last civilization that was built in the Crescent Fertile region, how do I know they didn’t just revise their neighbours’ practises and created a new religion, new rites, based in what was already there (some of their neighbour’s religions even included human sacrifices, the Hebrews used animals - and, honestly, why would an almighty God want the sacrifice of animals?)?
3. How do I know the Hebrews were really monotheistic and didn’t just become monotheistic after the exile? Why were there found so many idols in the Hebrew ruins? Why did they find an idol of the Goddess Ashera associated with Yahweh as his bride?
4. If all of the OT can’t be trusted, then we have no basis to support the NT and all the foundations of our beliefs is over… no Abraham, no Moses, no deadly sin, no reason for Jesus to come, no meaning for Jesus’ OT quotes…
5. How can I be sure Jesus really resurrected and even that Jesus is God? The only argument I have is that the early Christians were killed and persecuted for believing in Christ and that nobody would die if it wasn’t true, but I can’t see any documents, anything at all proving that Peter was crucified upside down, Paul had his head cut off, John was exiled, and about James, the brother of Jesus, Josephus says he was stoned for breaking Jewish laws (which is contrary to what the tradition says that James was killed for saying Jesus was God, right?)
   There are so many flaws, evidences, contradictions that I’m tired of reading apologetics and they are really not helping there are too many holes that can’t be filled or harmonized at all!

sigh sorry for ranting… I’d appreciate from the bottom of my heart if someone could help me with that

 

[Gamera]

First, take comfort in knowing that none of these questions is new. Each has been discussed, dissected, explored and answered long before any of us was born. A wealth of material exists on each.

The “shotgun” approach of asking them all together, though, makes it look like an insurmountable task to even begin looking for the answers. If I had a mountain of questions like that, I would feel overwhelmed by them all. I suggest choosing first the one which bothers you most and starting a thread on that. Then after receiving answers to your satisfaction, start on the next issue.

 

[SaintPatrick333]

First, take comfort in knowing that none of these questions is new. Each has been discussed, dissected, explored and answered long before any of us was born. A wealth of material exists on each.

The “shotgun” approach of asking them all together, though, makes it look like an insurmountable task to even begin looking for the answers. If I had a mountain of questions like that, I would feel overwhelmed by them all. I suggest choosing first the one which bothers you most and starting a thread on that. Then after receiving answers to your satisfaction, start on the next issue.

This is sound advice. If you post all your questions at once, those who would answer your claims will only focus so much attention and effort into each. If you want full and detailed explanations to each of your concerns, simply take them one question at a time. CAF forums isn’t going anywhere, and until you get your questions resolved, I imagine your worries won’t be either. Have patience and pray for guidance while you post these new threads. CAF will answer these questions and prayerfully but your mind at ease and give you the vigor you need to actively pursue the Lord again. God be with you.

 

[minichibi]

Thank you, I’ll follow your advice and start different threads with each question, sepparately.

 

[MPat]

I really DO want to believe in Yahweh, I really DO want to believe that Jesus IS God, and that Jesus resurrected… but it’s being harder and harder it’s really depressing The more I read about it, the more I think about it the more reason I have to believe everything I have believed in until now is a lie And I’m honestly hoping someone here prove me wrong…

1. How can I be sure the stories in the OT aren’t a repackaging of cultures the Hebrews found along the way in their nomadic life?
2. If the Hebrews are the last civilization that was built in the Crescent Fertile region, how do I know they didn’t just revise their neighbours’ practises and created a new religion, new rites, based in what was already there (some of their neighbour’s religions even included human sacrifices, the Hebrews used animals - and, honestly, why would an almighty God want the sacrifice of animals?)?
3. How do I know the Hebrews were really monotheistic and didn’t just become monotheistic after the exile? Why were there found so many idols in the Hebrew ruins? Why did they find an idol of the Goddess Ashera associated with Yahweh as his bride?
4. If all of the OT can’t be trusted, then we have no basis to support the NT and all the foundations of our beliefs is over… no Abraham, no Moses, no deadly sin, no reason for Jesus to come, no meaning for Jesus’ OT quotes…
5. How can I be sure Jesus really resurrected and even that Jesus is God? The only argument I have is that the early Christians were killed and persecuted for believing in Christ and that nobody would die if it wasn’t true, but I can’t see any documents, anything at all proving that Peter was crucified upside down, Paul had his head cut off, John was exiled, and about James, the brother of Jesus, Josephus says he was stoned for breaking Jewish laws (which is contrary to what the tradition says that James was killed for saying Jesus was God, right?)
   There are so many flaws, evidences, contradictions that I’m tired of reading apologetics and they are really not helping there are too many holes that can’t be filled or harmonized at all!

sigh sorry for ranting… I’d appreciate from the bottom of my heart if someone could help me with that

Well, it sure is hard to answer everything at once, but let’s look at “How do I know the Hebrews were really monotheistic and didn’t just become monotheistic after the exile?” first. Let’s try assuming that they were all polytheists before the exile and became monotheists after. But how? And why? You throw away all the evidence in the Bible and get only new problems in return, without solving any! After all, the Bible does say that the neighbours of Israel were Pagans and that many in Israel found idolatry “fashionable”, had and worshiped idols. Thus those archeological findings you mention actually support what the Bible says.

And that seems to be much of the trouble: you seem to “think” (or “fear”) that Bible and Church Fathers are wrong unless the contrary is proved. But it doesn’t work that way: on the contrary, in real criminal investigations and detective stories alike the sources - documents and witnesses - are assumed to tell the truth unless there is a reason to doubt that. Remember this and, hopefully, most of these difficulties will be gone.

 

[billg3436]

Hello Minichibi,

Overall, one needs to ask you what constitutes ‘proof’ in your worldview – your understanding of life and knowledge? Your concerns run the gamut from problems with the veracity of specific historical claims to matters of ‘super’-historical faith. The manner in which we would argue and the evidence we would present for Jesus’ having resurrected from the dead (an event in history) would differ significantly from how we would argue for an existential claim such as Jesus’ being God.

One thing that would help us respond to you would be to state your difficulties as direct, specific cases and issues rather than as indirect, “How do I know…’-type general musings. How can we ‘prove’ to you that the Jews didn’t create Abraham out of thin air as an amalgam of parts of traditions existing in cultures with which they came in contact, in spite of what the existing documents do say? Well, we can’t take you back in time and personally introduce you to him. And in the case of Abraham, the veracity of the documents seems to be the problem while in the case of Peter’s manner of having been executed, lack of documents to find problems with seems to be the problem.

What, exactly, constitutes ‘proof’ to you with respect to these very different types of questions?

Bill G

 

[LegoGE1947]

Well, it sure is hard to answer everything at once, but let’s look at “How do I know the Hebrews were really monotheistic and didn’t just become monotheistic after the exile?” first. Let’s try assuming that they were all polytheists before the exile and became monotheists after. But how? And why? You throw away all the evidence in the Bible and get only new problems in return, without solving any! After all, the Bible does say that the neighbours of Israel were Pagans and that many in Israel found idolatry “fashionable”, had and worshiped idols. Thus those archeological findings you mention actually support what the Bible says.

And that seems to be much of the trouble: you seem to “think” (or “fear”) that Bible and Church Fathers are wrong unless the contrary is proved. But it doesn’t work that way: on the contrary, in real criminal investigations and detective stories alike the sources - documents and witnesses - are assumed to tell the truth unless there is a reason to doubt that. Remember this and, hopefully, most of these difficulties will be gone.

Everyone has to believe something so I believe I’ll have a cookie

 

[snarflemike]

minichibi, you keep asking “how do I know?” Well, you need to answer that question. How do you decide on truth claims from the past? How do you know Socrates existed? How do you know the Roman Emperors existed? How do you know anything to which you were not a direct witness?

Once you have a theory of historical knowledge you can apply it to Christian claims.

 

[LegoGE1947]

minichibi, you keep asking “how do I know?” Well, you need to answer that question. How do you decide on truth claims from the past? How do you know Socrates existed? How do you know the Roman Emperors existed? How do you know anything to which you were not a direct witness?

Once you have a theory of historical knowledge you can apply it to Christian claims.

I have never been to Detroit Michigan but I know it exists because it is on the road map of Michigan, I have met people who have been there and have told me about it. I have never been a direct witness to any part of Detroit Michigan but I believe it exists because I trust the road map, and I trust the word of people and books and web sites that have told me about it. It’s called faith.

 

[minichibi]

OK. Let’s start with the following reasoning: tradition claims James, the “brother” of Jesus was stoned to death for leading a sect that teaches that Jesus resurrected and that Jesus is God. Being that evidence so important, why would Josephus simply say James the Just was stoned for breaking Jewish laws? Is he even talking about the same thing? Other than that, Josephus’ account makes it seem that John the Baptist was more popular than Jesus.

 

[MPat]

OK. Let’s start with the following reasoning: tradition claims James, the “brother” of Jesus was stoned to death for leading a sect that teaches that Jesus resurrected and that Jesus is God. Being that evidence so important, why would Josephus simply say James the Just was stoned for breaking Jewish laws? Is he even talking about the same thing? Other than that, Josephus’ account makes it seem that John the Baptist was more popular than Jesus.

Er, first of all, James was one of the leaders, the “local” leader, not “the” leader (that was Peter). Second, why couldn’t the Jewish leaders consider that being a Christian is against their laws? Where is the contradiction? And "eing that evidence so important" - to whom? Maybe Josephus thought that it is important to say that it was about violation of Jewish and not Roman law?

 

[fhansen]

I really DO want to believe in Yahweh, I really DO want to believe that Jesus IS God, and that Jesus resurrected… but it’s being harder and harder it’s really depressing The more I read about it, the more I think about it the more reason I have to believe everything I have believed in until now is a lie And I’m honestly hoping someone here prove me wrong…

1. How can I be sure the stories in the OT aren’t a repackaging of cultures the Hebrews found along the way in their nomadic life?
2. If the Hebrews are the last civilization that was built in the Crescent Fertile region, how do I know they didn’t just revise their neighbours’ practises and created a new religion, new rites, based in what was already there (some of their neighbour’s religions even included human sacrifices, the Hebrews used animals - and, honestly, why would an almighty God want the sacrifice of animals?)?
3. How do I know the Hebrews were really monotheistic and didn’t just become monotheistic after the exile? Why were there found so many idols in the Hebrew ruins? Why did they find an idol of the Goddess Ashera associated with Yahweh as his bride?
4. If all of the OT can’t be trusted, then we have no basis to support the NT and all the foundations of our beliefs is over… no Abraham, no Moses, no deadly sin, no reason for Jesus to come, no meaning for Jesus’ OT quotes…
5. How can I be sure Jesus really resurrected and even that Jesus is God? The only argument I have is that the early Christians were killed and persecuted for believing in Christ and that nobody would die if it wasn’t true, but I can’t see any documents, anything at all proving that Peter was crucified upside down, Paul had his head cut off, John was exiled, and about James, the brother of Jesus, Josephus says he was stoned for breaking Jewish laws (which is contrary to what the tradition says that James was killed for saying Jesus was God, right?)
   There are so many flaws, evidences, contradictions that I’m tired of reading apologetics and they are really not helping there are too many holes that can’t be filled or harmonized at all!

sigh sorry for ranting… I’d appreciate from the bottom of my heart if someone could help me with that

A lot of it hinges on the person of Jesus Christ Himself. On His integrity, on His love, on His humility, on who He was and is. Meditate on Him as you seek God, reading Scripture and praying, and God will reveal Himself to you. There is much evidence to support positions for or against belief, but ultimately faith is a gift that transcends our ability to know by reason alone -one that God will give to those who pursue it, to those who give the benefit of the doubt to the truly transcendent One, the God of the gospels.

 

[tafan]

To the OP: read the first volume of Warren Caroll’s History of Christendom. You seem to be reading a lot of history written from a skeptic viewpoint. Look at the other side of it.

For example: you ask how we know the jews were not polytheistic before the exile? Based on idols found in Hebrew ruins. This is rather easily explained: first of all, there were several semetic tribes besides the Jews in Palestine before the exile. And we know from the OT that the Jews broke their covenant with God many times, and it became very widespread. Hence the exile.

 

[Gods_Peace]

Thank you, I’ll follow your advice and start different threads with each question, sepparately.

No one is stopping you from believing. It’s your mind that is making all of these unnecessary road blocks that are keeping you from the True Faith

 

[lao_tzu]

I really DO want to believe in Yahweh, I really DO want to believe that Jesus IS God, and that Jesus resurrected… but it’s being harder and harder it’s really depressing The more I read about it, the more I think about it the more reason I have to believe everything I have believed in until now is a lie And I’m honestly hoping someone here prove me wrong…

1. How can I be sure the stories in the OT aren’t a repackaging of cultures the Hebrews found along the way in their nomadic life?
2. If the Hebrews are the last civilization that was built in the Crescent Fertile region, how do I know they didn’t just revise their neighbours’ practises and created a new religion, new rites, based in what was already there (some of their neighbour’s religions even included human sacrifices, the Hebrews used animals - and, honestly, why would an almighty God want the sacrifice of animals?)?
3. How do I know the Hebrews were really monotheistic and didn’t just become monotheistic after the exile? Why were there found so many idols in the Hebrew ruins? Why did they find an idol of the Goddess Ashera associated with Yahweh as his bride?
4. If all of the OT can’t be trusted, then we have no basis to support the NT and all the foundations of our beliefs is over… no Abraham, no Moses, no deadly sin, no reason for Jesus to come, no meaning for Jesus’ OT quotes…

Well, look. I follow what’s effectively an atheistic tradition. And so you should trust me when I say none of the above are barriers to faith. I’ve found thoughtful Christians who believe the Genesis stories are indeed a repackaging of older ANE myths, that monotheism did become established in Israel only after the Babylonian exile, that Israelite religion did take over the priestly traditions of prior religions, and that Asherah was the traditional consort of Yahweh.

None of those things come close to a disproof of their God. They’re just evidence that no society can know their God fully, and that humans have long been seeking to know their God better.

1. How can I be sure Jesus really resurrected and even that Jesus is God? The only argument I have is that the early Christians were killed and persecuted for believing in Christ and that nobody would die if it wasn’t true, but I can’t see any documents, anything at all proving that Peter was crucified upside down, Paul had his head cut off, John was exiled, and about James, the brother of Jesus, Josephus says he was stoned for breaking Jewish laws (which is contrary to what the tradition says that James was killed for saying Jesus was God, right?)

There are so many flaws, evidences, contradictions that I’m tired of reading apologetics and they are really not helping there are too many holes that can’t be filled or harmonized at all!

sigh sorry for ranting… I’d appreciate from the bottom of my heart if someone could help me with that

Now that’s a different question. How can any mortal “know”? They do call it faith, after all.

Good luck on your journey.

As ever, Jesse

 

[danserr]

1. How can I be sure Jesus really resurrected and even that Jesus is God? The only argument I have is that the early Christians were killed and persecuted for believing in Christ and that nobody would die if it wasn’t true, but I can’t see any documents, anything at all proving that Peter was crucified upside down, Paul had his head cut off, John was exiled, and about James, the brother of Jesus, Josephus says he was stoned for breaking Jewish laws (which is contrary to what the tradition says that James was killed for saying Jesus was God, right?)
   There are so many flaws, evidences, contradictions that I’m tired of reading apologetics and they are really not helping there are too many holes that can’t be filled or harmonized at all!

sigh sorry for ranting… I’d appreciate from the bottom of my heart if someone could help me with that

The evidence of the Resurrection is not solely limited to “the apostles were willing to die and died for their beliefs, so they must be true.” Acts of the Apostles records the death of Stephen for his proclamation of Jesus as risen. It includes the death of James the son fo Zebedee at the hands of Herod, and Peter’s arrest by Herod who intended to kill him. For non-Christian sources, Pliny wrote to the emperor Trajan saying that he had sentenced Christians to death for refusing to renounce their beliefs. As to Peter, in 96 AD (or earlier) Clement of Alexandria wrote in his own letter that Peter and Paul “contended unto death,” (1 Clement 5-6). Even if we didn’t know for sure that every single disciple died, we know that many did. This shows that all the apostles knew that by preaching Jesus risen they were at substantial risk of death. Yet they did so anyway.

That being said, evidence for the Resurrection is much better than simply “the disciples died for their beliefs,” though this is indeed good evidence. I know you say you are tired of apologetics, but what have you read on the Resurrection? I ask because I know of no modern case that relies only on the willingness of the apostles to die for their beliefs.

A better case will include the fact that Jesus was buried and his tomb found empty three days later, that the apostles experienced appearances of the risen Christ, and that the Apostles came to believe, in spite of every reason not to, that Jesus had risen from the dead. A short example can be found here. I have also heard Lee Strobel well reputed, as an accessible popular introduction to the subject.

 

[patrick457]

I2. If the Hebrews are the last civilization that was built in the Crescent Fertile region, how do I know they didn’t just revise their neighbours’ practises and created a new religion, new rites, based in what was already there (some of their neighbour’s religions even included human sacrifices, the Hebrews used animals - and, honestly, why would an almighty God want the sacrifice of animals?)?

Come to think of it, ancient Israelite religion is on the face of it not too entirely different from their neighbors’. But who said that the externals have to be ‘different’ for the Israelites to be unique?

I got this response from a thread a few years ago. It might also be of some help to you.

There is no doubt that in some things the Jews innovated or adopted from more ancient cultural art-forms, beliefs and practices. To do anything else would have been to deny their own ancient history and beginnings.

When I first discovered this myself I was horrified since it implied that everything we were lead to believe is true is just another case of man creating God in his own image and likeness as so many atheist accuse those who believe in God.

But over time I began to adapt a different perspective that recognizes that God is progressively revealing Himself to humanity. The Jews were just the first fruits of Divine Revelation to properly respond to God’s grace.

What the more ancient cultured believed were “imperfect” revelations. My theory is based on the assumption of God flooding all of Creation with His Universal grace to let humanity discover Him and to come to Him as Creator God. What we have in the ancient civilizations are thinkers, dreamers and philosophers and secular mystics who have all done just like the rest of us have done in our life - they have contemplated Creation and have tried to understand it. So lacking any teaching they have constructed from scratch their own imprecise “guesses” and conjectures that lead us to various kinds of partial truths, pagan beliefs and in many cases complete mythologies. But in each of these prior constructicons there are some few elements of God revealing Himself; even pagans and uneducated people can “hear” some of what God is trying to tell them if they are truly wanting to listen.

What we we have through Judaism and now Catholicism is God revealing Himself with ever increasing clarity. The Jews were the ones to discover the Just and Holy God. From the Jews we get past the limits of human invention to a God that was completely different than any prior religion - the first monotheistic religion. That seems trivial to us now - but back then that was a huge leap.

I see no real problem is seeing that some of our early Judaic and Christian beliefs have some elements and art forms that can be seen in some part in the ancient cultures. Note that even the Ten Commandments has some elements that can be seen in the Code of Hammurabi.

People tend to forget that Moses was raised as a royal Egyptian. As such he would have been taught in all the pagan beliefs of the Egyptians and have known the Code of Hammurabi. Few were literate in those days.

But why should this surprise or bother anyone? Does it really matter to anyone if God carved the 10 commandments with His own hand or through the chisel in the hand of Moses working through inspiration of Moses’ Egyptian teaching corrected with Divine Revelation?

Bottom Line:
Pagan influence is seen in every aspect of society even today. That should not be a cause for alarm though. God is more than capable of working with imperfect humans to correct the false beliefs and progressively reveal His true teachings.

James

 

[patrick457]

There are so many flaws, evidences, contradictions that I’m tired of reading apologetics and they are really not helping there are too many holes that can’t be filled or harmonized at all!

I know I say this a lot nowadays, but just my own personal two cents (quoted from another thread, again).

I think part of the problem here is the common mentality that the Bible is this closed book of ready-made answers and black-and-white morality, speaking with one voice, and that there is only one correct way of interpreting this book. But as [Mark] Twain said, the Bible is both a curative and a poison, and these two are often inextricably intermixed. It is really a library of endless questions and perpetual ambiguity: no black-and-whites, but various shades of grey which is open to different readings. Simply put, the Bible (or literally, “the Bibles”; the Greek ta biblia ‘the books/scrolls’ was originally plural after all) is avery complex, rich, difficult, polyvocal collection. I mean, you can find different, even contradictory stuff which is difficult to reconcile at first glance (or even at the second or third glances). You have unsolved questions like: did Judas die by hanging himself or spilling his guts? Did David or Elhanan kill Goliath? How exactly did Paul see Jesus on the road to Damascus? How many women went to Jesus’ tomb? Is God a fierce warrior, a just judge, a powerful king, a jealous, demanding husband, a caring nurse, or a loving, merciful father? Is He an eagle, a rock, a fortress, a consuming fire, a strong wind, or perhaps a still, small voice? How could God condone violence and bloodshed and at the same time, still be described as compassionate? How did the world begin? Was man created first or last? Is God or hassatan (‘the Accuser’) responsible for various evils? Why do innocent people suffer? What is justice?

Now many people seem to think that the fact that these questions exist is bad and is something to be rectified or even whitewashed. This is actually why I believe that people who are dedicated to removing all potential biblical difficulties and people who use said difficulties to ‘debunk’ religion are really two sides of the same coin: they agree in that they think that Christianity (and Judaism) stands or falls in whether the Bible is found to be ‘inconsistent’. The question is whether it fails to answer questions, consistently and reliably. But the clincher is, the Bible itself doesn’t claim to be an almanac of answers to all of life’s questions; it doesn’t claim to interpret itself. That was just a view that was forced onto it by popular culture. You can’t really fail at something you’re not trying to do.

Let me just make it clear that I don’t think there’s any problem with attempting to study the Bible - the Scriptures are after all, the product of a different time and culture, and one shouldn’t expect them to read like the morning paper: you really need to have a grasp of the historical and cultural background, even if only a tiny bit, to understand and appreciate stuff more - but I do feel that there’s nothing wrong with ambiguity and unanswered questions. In fact, I might even say that the desire among many readers to establish univocality within duch a polyvocal collection stifles the rich complexity of the text and robs it of its beauty - in other words ‘beauty in ambiguity’ and ‘beauty in difficulty’.

In fact, it is precisely because the Scriptures are so grey that it is like excavating in a given archaeological site: the deeper you dig, the more you discover. In fact, there is a saying attributed to Rabbi Bag b. Bag Bag (funny name, that ) which goes: “Turn the Torah over and over for everything is in it.” The Torah is thus viewed here as a mirror-image of the universe, containing every shade of perspective, every viewpoint within it. A far cry from the stereotype of a univocal, crystal-clear instruction manual.

Now it might be a cultural thing: the West likes a clearly- and properly-defined “yes” and “no,” but in other cultures, like the Japanese and even the Middle-Eastern - more value is placed on “maybe,” since being ‘too’ blunt is seen as very rude and disrespectful. These two are both “honor and shame” cultures, where one’s own honor is so valued that preservation of it is highly crucial; an “honorable lie” is sometimes seen as necessary if only to keep social harmony, and doing things that disrupt that same harmony (which includes being frank and to-the-point) is seen as barbaric. Abraham Mitrie Rihbany, in his book The Syrian Christ, noted that Westerners will be frustrated by the tendency of people in the Middle East to not “say what he means.” It’s not that such people are being intentionally malicious: to avoid confrontation and disruption of harmony, being ambiguous is seen as necessary, a positive trait even. But the fact still stands: ambiguity is not bad, and neither is difficulty or having a question. In fact I’d encourage everyone (including myself) to keep asking questions, because “God is in the question” (Hebrew she’elah - note how the word contains 'El “God” within it).

 

[oyaji]

The most important issue for you to come to grips with is the resurrection. Did it really happen? If it didn’t, we are, like Saint Paul says, fools.

I watched some good youtube vids awhile back. I’ll try and find them and post a link to them. But until ten, stay strong and believe. Jesus is risen!