The Bible and Prophets: a second attempt at conveying my conclusions from studying the Bible

[Infinityloop]

How do Christians reconcile belief in God and Prophets, while taking the Bible as their authority?​

This is another question I want to see answered with actual honesty and not self-righteous elitism.


edit: Four pages in and the OP here still hasn't been answered.

Really this needs to be taken seriously. This thread is an attack against nobody and asked with complete sincerity of heart and intellect. These topics mean far more to me than you would realize. If you choose to complain, derail and troll this thread you will be either blocked or reported. Understand? good.

Onto my mini-essay-length outline of thoughts and observations on the thread title:​

Lets think clearly about this for a minute. We are all of the Abrahamic tradition (presumably) and all believe in the concept of Prophets sent by God? right?
(clearly if it didn't then you would be someone this thread doesn't apply to)

Lets start with the concept of Prophets applied to the Old Testament (Tanakh).
The entire Old Testament (with exception to the books known as Ketuvim) is made up of what claims to be historical accounts of a lot of stuff that has happened throughout history going back to the creation of the world itself.
Are you following so far?
Now, with possible exception to elements of the books Deuteronomy, Ezekiel and Isaiah, none of books are the writings from these different Prophets at different points in history - no, they're accounts, historical records ABOUT the many Prophets (so to speak).

Now lets start with the Torah (Pentateuch), it does not date very far back in history at all, so it cannot be regarded as any form of eyewitness to the creation of the world, nor the garden of eden or Noah (etc). If you have a reason to think otherwise, please let me know.
Everything following on from the Torah is all dated very close to each other and all in the same regions of the middle east by the same Semitic group (Hebrews) around the period of David's temple. Now why is there no accounts of the same things by other cultures? (in the same manner) and why does the Bible only stick within a small radius of that region?
Why is it only the Semitic peoples that have these texts at this quite late part in history? (unless you actually think the world is 6,000 years old like some nutty creationists, then you will be very stressed for an explanation here).
None of the texts in the Old Testament give lineages of the transmission of these materials/texts, so on what basis do we regard them as reflective of actual history?
Now keep in mind that all the tribes and cultures around the Semites at the time in that part of the middle east were all practicing their own pagan religions with their own complex mythologies. Keep this in mind too.
Alongside this keep in mind that the Semites (or proto-Jews) at the time were following many other books which are not part of either Jewish or Christian canon anymore, so many of these texts have survived history and are available to read translations of, others have been lost to history (one famous discovery in recent centuries was the Book of Enoch which is a pre-1st century Jewish text that was considered canon enough back then to be quoted in the Bible). Keep this in mind.

Now we have the New Testament appearing on the scene in the late 1st century (starting with various noncanonical texts before the arrival of Mark's gospel), around 30 years (at the earliest) after the supposed death of Jesus. Even before the end of the 1st century we have lots of different 'sects' already developing their own theologies and splitting off, propagating their beliefs throughout the middle east (all prior to any attempt to build an orthodoxy and canon btw).
None of these texts in the New Testament are the writings of Jesus himself and none of them are by eyewitnesses, keep this in mind as well.

Now given the span of history, and the scientific fact that most individual Old Testament texts (because the Old Testament does claim the furthest actual span of history...again, back to the creation of the world, but even Noah is too far back to even be able to properly comprehend) do not date as early as around 300BC at the earliest, is it not responsible as an adult to ask where the Prophets are?

If these Prophets are true and this is all real history, then why is this all limited to the Semitic cultures only? why has the Bible canon only closed off in the 1st century (which is over 2000 years ago) when history has completely changed in all that time and Jesus has not returned? (not that this is the topic of the points being raised here).

If the Bible is true, then why doesn't the contents of the Bible span outside of these Semitic tribes? sure, Christianity became Rome but that was well after Jesus' supposed teaching. Does this not raise concern for you?

Here's one view which I do not discount as being possible: (from a Judeo-Christian perspective) The texts of the Old Testament themselves can textually all be seen as both a commentary on and evolution of the book of Deuteronomy, if you want to take a textual-critical approach. Deuteronomy came first and then the mythology of Genesis and Exodus were built around it, followed by further recentions and additions to place Deuteronomy within the story of Moses. Then starting with Joshua, the rest of the Old Testament was written to convey and develop the themes of Deuteronomy in a manner that widens the perspective and identity of the Hebraic Semites (proto-Jews) leading up to the full establishment of Jewish identity within texts like Isaiah and Ezekiel.
The New Testament was written and inspired by the growing Jewish mysticism pre-1st century which emphasized ideas relating to the spirit and resurrection more ambitiously, also incorporating a lot of the themes of the Hellenic Jews at the time. These ideas coupled with the growing influence of the book of Isaiah grew the basis for the story of Jesus as an unsurprising fulfillment to the Old Testament and Talmud Prophecies strong on the mindset of the 1st century Jews. This is further expressed by direct quotes from Isaiah and the Psalms throughout many of the New Testament books, demonstrating the influence of these books in the 1st century mindset of the New Testament writers.

Either the Prophets in the Bible were real people, or they were just myths written by these Semites (remember I am not interpolating my own religious worldview here at all, I'm only critiquing the position of the Bible as sole-scripture).
Alongside this, how do you account for all of the non-canonical books mentioned within different books in the Bible (predominantly in the Old Testament). Are they referring to real books or just strange metaphors? if they are referring to real books, then how can the concept of canon have any meaning?
(but obviously they cannot be metaphors and already stated, there are tons of old Hebrew texts that date from the same period as the rest of the Old Testament that are similarly just not included in mainstream Jewish and Christian canons for some unknowable reason)

Alongside this, given the fact that the Old Testament shows a progression of 50 or so Prophets starting from Adam supposedly across a large span of time, how can we honestly believe that the canon can be closed? what determines the canonical from the noncanonical? (afterall 2 Timothy itself does state "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness")
Do you think people had other books before the Torah? do you think there are other things not mentioned in the Bible?

Now to the most important part, do you believe the Prophets were real life, living, breathing people? if so, why do you have such detachment to the Prophets in the Bible?
It seems as though the actions of Moses, Joshua, David, Jeremiah, Solomon and Hosea are all a-ok no matter how disturbing they are, yet Christians see themselves free to kick around Muhammad pretending that they have points?
Moreso than this, how can you take the Bible as 'scripture' when there are no books in the Bible that are God revealing itself directly to a Prophet? why is it only stories (or what Islam would call Hadith) of these Prophets and their supposed encounters with God? Why nothing direct?
Also, what is your methodology for determining how literal to take certain books?


And for my own views, I believe in the Prophets - this is one of the exact reasons I reject the Bible as having authority. You may think this to be a paradox but it really isn't.
Clearly none of these questions can be answered by quoting the Bible itself because the Bible doesn't have (and can't given it's format and context is so different to it's use in Christianity) anything to say about these external issues, the Bible was never a single unit, it took still towards the 2nd and 3rd century till we started to see official formalizations of canons resembling the ones known in mainstream Bible canons now and still took a further century for the Catholic Church to truly make a stamp down to establish the dichotomy of 'orthodoxy versus heresy'.

Think about it between the events of Genesis and now (November 2019), why would God stop sending Prophets? (the opposite aspect to that question is, Why did God even start sending Prophets?) it makes utterly no sense at all. If atonement/redemption for sin was the aim of the Messiah, then it makes God look bad for misleading everybody between Adam and Jesus. One of the big points on the side is that if you believe in a closed system, then you negate yourself. I wish it wasn't that way but it is true, a closed system cannot validate itself as truth, it does the opposite because of how self-referential it is.