Which part of the Bible is most important?

[turtlerescue1]

33. Am NOT a Biblical scholar.

But the instruction manual is that of the Four Gospels. These are written from different perspectives, but still the words are the same from the one they followed.

My closest friend of nearly 50 years likes the fire and brimstone kind of preacher. I grew up in that Lutheran School with one that could rattle the rafters, and all it did was make me fearful, would rather run away than stay and willingly feel that. If I want to be beaten I'ld become a masochist or sadist, never got the two correct.

It was on my own decided to see that I could understand, and the version I use is the one banned in the US and Canada in 1968, figures eh? It does contain the apocrypha and other canonicals. It is also easier than the old King James English. I need one for simpler minds, the Jerusalem Bible fits.

The Old Testament is history and biographies. Few authors were "good" and many were "flawed". I also see that cracked vase being carried along a path, dripping water where it is dry and barren. Enough trips with that cracked vase...

There is always debates about whether the books are "story"level; symbolic level, metaphoric, but the one that is hoped for is the spiritually linguistic.

iWhen I was a small child, dad's dental insurance plan came through, so off to the dentist I was dragged. My sister was a dental nurse, so it wasn't severe trauma, EXCEPT the child's dentist-he didn't actually hit me, but he was pretty rough on a little child. Needless to say it took a lot of years before I wouldn't have a panic attack. It took more than one gentle dentist to overcome what only one had instilled. That likely compares to experiences with religions and churches, one you're burned, you dont' go running back for more of the same.

Yes, I believe each of us are born with a soul, an inner being, usually playful and usually kind, or at least aware of what gentleness is, how it feels and how its given. Its part of the twinkle in someone's eye. Its creativity and apprecation. Its what the Christ tried to teach us in the Sermon on the Mount. YES the one that Fundies prefer to ignore! I cannot give someone my faith; cannot demand they have it; can't divide mine with them.
Still in that is the freedom of choice, and that is a blessing as well.

I wasn't a good Missouri Synod Lutheran, my dad was a Mason and a union man, which has much to do with why he was a Mason, and so was his Dad, not sure about Gramps, but since he had three taverns and a plumbing shop in Des Moines, possibly. (yeah a long line of bad livers as well) BUT even though dad paid for my education in that church school plus the public school taxes, dad couldn't be a member of that church, because he was a Mason. I thought that was wrong. So I didn't fit well. Went to the Methodist church a lot of years. Then stumbled over the ELCA...aha! As me fodder used to say "You've got to find the lid that fits your pot."
Its okay to be a progressive liberal Christian, the one the group is named after certainly was both progressive and liberal.

Perhaps the Fundies have more issues with us than any of those they belittle, condemn and berate- we may be the thorn in their paw. BUT I see them as a thorn, period.

Its okay if you attack my simplistic views, my silly ideas-I've spent years working on them, and they fit me, my mind, my perspectives.

There are others at DU who have solid Biblical knowledge. I can pass in a crowd, if its large enough. I don't know if I helped answer your question, but please don't put me in the same group as those I believe are doing more destruction than good works.