Comic books have changed since the 1950's. For example you saw Batman have a partner, then go camp, then return to its current dark intensity. Superman also had plenty of incarnations, including changes to his flight suit, the addition of a cousin, etc etc.
The Bible is similar. There were times when witch hunting was all the rage, slaying demons and dragons was a high priority, other times the end was nigh, and times when it was vogue to be wealthy and blessed by God.
The difficulty comes in when people believe that every word in the Bible is a divine inspired word of God. And so at a certain point, after the Bible itself has evolved (it was never written at one moment in time - it was a work in progress for hundreds of years) someone decided - this is it. It's finished, it cannot evolve any more. Then you are faced with believers who evolve, and a changing world and environment. This is why there are difficulties. Some people accept that flexibility is necessary and want to change. Others want to remain rooted to the standards set out at that arbitrary point in time where the Bible was deemed to be The Complete Word of God, no more, no less.
If God changed his mind about the Flood, perhaps he changed his mind about a few other things since too...
The Bible is similar. There were times when witch hunting was all the rage, slaying demons and dragons was a high priority, other times the end was nigh, and times when it was vogue to be wealthy and blessed by God.
The difficulty comes in when people believe that every word in the Bible is a divine inspired word of God. And so at a certain point, after the Bible itself has evolved (it was never written at one moment in time - it was a work in progress for hundreds of years) someone decided - this is it. It's finished, it cannot evolve any more. Then you are faced with believers who evolve, and a changing world and environment. This is why there are difficulties. Some people accept that flexibility is necessary and want to change. Others want to remain rooted to the standards set out at that arbitrary point in time where the Bible was deemed to be The Complete Word of God, no more, no less.
If God changed his mind about the Flood, perhaps he changed his mind about a few other things since too...
 clipped from www.newsweek.comThe biblical Jesus was—in spite of recent efforts of novelists to paint him otherwise—emphatically unmarried. He preached a radical kind of family, a caring community of believers, whose bond in God superseded all blood ties. Leave your families and follow me, Jesus says in the gospels. There will be no marriage in heaven, he says in Matthew. Jesus never mentions homosexuality, but he roundly condemns divorce (leaving a loophole in some cases for the husbands of unfaithful women).
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