Safe Venomous Snake Handling - There's a Catch, See:

[MineralMan]

Mark 16:17–18
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.

The Bible says so. Jesus reportedly said so, if you believe Mark or whoever wrote Mark. In fact, it says that believers can do all of those things, because Jesus.

Apparently, the preacher who died didn't actually "believe," or he wouldn't have died. Maybe that's why not so many Christians are in the habit of handling venomous snakes, 'cause, you know, if they truly "believed," they could do that without harm. They could drink poison, too, but most Christians don't do that either. They could heal everyone who was sick, too, if they "believed," so why are health care costs so high?

The Bible says it. Why aren't people doing those things? That's what I wonder.

[catbyte]

1. I was surfinig YouTube last night & watched some court show case about that very subject.

The plaintiff was suing the defendant because he was bitten by a rattlesnake during a Pentecostal church service & wanted to be reimbursed for the 3 weeks of work he missed. Apparently the plaintiff was a former school friend of the defendant & was talked into attending his church to check it out. The defendant's defense was that the plaintiff was "obviously a non-believer" & the snake realized it then bit him. The judge wasn't buying that argument, lol.

In the comments section, someone wrote that the defendant's church ended up in deep doo-doo because in West Virginia, snake handling churches need to be licensed, the snakes need to be kept away from anybody not authorized to handle them & the snakes were supposed to be de-venomized.

It was only a little less bizarre than the SOTU would've been.

[COLGATE4]

2. And, whatever you do, don't

[pandr32]

3. Not part of the original Mark

Most scholars accept that Mark 16:8 was the original ending and that anything added after that was added much later. There are even alternate endings.
Apparently, no one bothered to inform the literalists. If they really took the words in the Bible literally then they must have missed all the passages that warned not to test God.
Jesus and many during that ancient time period spoke in parables which are allegorical stories.

What makes me angry is that these nuts bring in their children to their "church services"--putting them in harm's way. It is child abuse.

[MineralMan]

4. Not my problem, really.

It's in my copy of the KJV, so...

I have no hand in any religious scriptures. I didn't write them, edit them or do anything else to them. Someone else did all that, so if people believe it, that's on them, really.

Still, what is the "original Mark?" When was the earliest existent version written? And by whom? None of the Gospels were written by the person whose name is at the top of the first page. Not one. Nobody who wrote any of the existent versions was alive at the same time Jesus was supposed to have lived. Nobody. No person contemporaneous with Jesus can be shown to have written any of the New Testament. So, it's all second hand testimony, at best.

And yet, there are literalists out there, literally believing what is not literally contemporaneous with the subject. Odd, that is.

[pandr32]

5. You are correct

Many people seem to think the Gospels were written by people close to Jesus, yet I have read convincing accounts that the authors were many times removed from even a second-hand relationship. And people in those days didn't have any more special powers than they do now. The thing is that Mark is thought to be the earliest and a kind of blueprint for the others. Later unknown author(s) went back and added to Mark to tie it in with the emerging narrative of Jesus' divinity and the Trinity and all that stuff.
I have been enjoying reading your posts in the Religion Group.

[MineralMan]

6. I think most people are unaware of the long and curious

history of the Bible we now use in many different translations. The books we read today, are compilations and translations of a mixed bag of old manuscripts, selected mostly by the Roman Catholic Church hundreds of years after the time Jesus was supposed to have lived. Some books were kept, some destroyed, and all were edited to form the official canon of the Bible.

Then, many different groups translated from different documents to come up with the many versions available to English speakers. All differ in many ways, and some materially differ from the others. It's interesting, but not so much to most Christians, who accept whatever translation is used by their denomination as the "given word of the Lord."

Thanks for your kind comments about my posts. I appreciate that very much!

[pandr32]

11. Keep up the great posts!

[struggle4progress]

7. The earliest versions of Mark end at Mark 16:8

And they left the tomb and fled, for fear and trembling overcame them; and they said nothing to anyone, being afraid

So you quote a later addition to the text

The notion that the text itself might have been amended after first being written is, of course, a stumbling block to literalists, who want to regard "the Bible" as "a book" containing the "inerrant word" which they consider divine

That view is an ahistoric and unsustainable view: the texts are not a single book but a collection of books, by different authors, with different aims, the earlier books being written in Hebrew, and the later ones in Greek, with different groups accepting different texts as canonical

Attitude, towards the significance of these texts, has varied and still varies. The Jewish rabbinical tradition has produced many informative readings of the Hebrew portion. But the gospels only appear as text after the Roman sack of Jerusalem. The original "Christian" tradition was not written: it was oral and largely directed at marginalized persons in a backwater Roman colony. The intended audience is suggested by the fact that Augustine of Hippo, a teacher of rhetoric, was later shocked by the low-quality composition in the gospel of "Mark"

"Doctrine" is perhaps the legacy of Constantine, who sought political unity by imposing religious uniformity

Current Protestant commitment to scripture can be viewed as a remnant of a political strategy based on a technological advance: Luther's allies, in the struggle against the church headquartered in Rome, could take advantage of moveable type and give readers scripture to read for themselves. The strategy had the propaganda advantage that it was forbidden: for example, Henry VIII (before he finally broke with Rome) had Tyndale burned for translating the Greek texts into English; much of his work is familiar from the "King James" version

When reading the texts, it may be worthwhile to recall what the Taoists said of earlier Chinese books: Footprints are made by feet but they are not feet. Some of us think the footprints point a useful way, without thinking that we should stand forever in one pair of prints

[MineralMan]

8. The Most Widely Used Translation by Protestants

is the King James Version, still, and it includes those verses. I'm not responsible for the Bible. I have nothing to do with any version of it.

It is also in the official translation used by the Roman Catholic Church, the largest denomination of Christianity in the world.

I do not bother much with the details of various translations and versions of the Bible. I quote it in the versions most commonly used by Christians. Almost always, I quote from the King James Version, but I can compare passages in any version, thanks to a number of very useful websites.

It is immaterial to me which version of the Bible people use. I don't believe that any of it is more than words written down by humans. It has historical and religious significance because it has been accepted as the literal "word of God" by so many.

So, if you wish to argue fine points of the Bible, that's fine, but what I wrote is correct. That's what Mark 16 says in the most widely used translations.

[struggle4progress]

9. "Why aren't people doing those things?" you asked

I gave you an answer, but here's another: about two-thirds, of those who use the Bible, do not take it literally


http://news.gallup.com/poll/210704/record-few-americans-believe-bible-literal-word-god.aspx

[MineralMan]

10. And yet, one-third does take it literally.

One-third of Americans also make up Donald Trump's base. Why do I think it is the same third?

One-third of Americans is over 100 million poeple. That's an influential third.

[Pope George Ringo II]

12. For crying out loud

Don't you start the "not a real christian" routine.