ramble

I have a lot to blog about on all blogs, but I think this one is a priority.

I used to go to a bible study that focused very much on conversion. Each week before the actual study, we would compare stories, positive or negative, about the advances we were making with our 'non-christian' friends. This made perfect sense at the time, but recently I have been wondering about this. Last year I spent a lot of time looking at what the bible has to say about the hungry, and the poor and this has re-raised the classic old question of

'Is a 'good' non-christian damned and a 'bad' christian saved'?

My response has always smugly been, "well what is 'good' really?" Well that's crap, because we know what 'good' is, the bible I believe makes that quite clear. We are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, look after the orphan and the widow, basically help those who need help. So now what if someone (and there are many people like this) devotes their lives to helping people. They are infuriated by the condition of the world and so decide to get their hands dirty and make a difference, this is what the bible teaches, do they go to 'hell'. And what about the christian who knows fine well what Christ has done for him, and is more then happy to sit in his mansion and ride life out (me?) are they to be rewarded?!! What if you had to choose; go around preaching the gospel to people, or give someone who needs food and water? What would you do?

I have been a reading the most fantastic book, and today it made quite the revelation.
It said that Jewish people, in general, are quite baffled at the Christians interpretation of certain sections of the book of Isaiah. It points out that Christan's see Isaiah very much as the book which prophesies most about the coming of Jesus. However it takes two sections and totally rebuffs them. The first is a reference to a virgin birth which Christians take to be concerning Jesus' birth. But the word in Isaiah doesn't actually mean 'virgin', it means young woman. And so the verse is actually talking about the current King's (Ahaz) imminent new daughter from his wife. The second talks about someone 'suffering for God'. Its late and I'm pretty sure that's not exactly correct but it serves the same purpose. Isaiah here is actually not talking about Jesus, but the suffering the current Jewish population is enduring.

This then is very frustrating as we do not know what else 'Christian' translators have messed up to serve their own ends?