• Atemu@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    If you literally followed all the stuff from the bible, you could end up being punished for even just casually saying the name of another god according to Exodus 23:13 KJV.

    Following a text literally is not the same as following the actual teachings of a religion.

    Any “Bible” most of us can read is a revision of a translation of a translation with the additional problem of being coloured by the opinion of whoever had control over subsequent versions. You cannot take it literally. Like, at all.

    If you as a translator, publisher, king or whoever had influence over a major revision of “the bible” started out with a phrase to the effect of “you shouldn’t follow other religions’ teachings” and had a particular pet peeve for people speaking of other gods, you could easily arrive at a wording forbidding the “mention of the name of other gods”. I’m not knowledgeable about this in the slightest and cannot make any solid assertions here (though if you look at i.e. the older Wycliff version it sounds a lot less specific) but rather want this to serve as an example for just how much room there is for error in such historical documents.

    There is no authoritative and exact source on the beliefs of Christianism as many assume the bible to be.