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- _A Brief History of Time_ by Stephen Hawking
_The Way to Wealth_ by Benjamin Franklin
_The Book of Job_ by Job, from The Bible
_Meditations_ by Marcus Aurelius
_The Prince_ by Niccolo Machiavelli
_The Bill of Rights_ by James Madison
_The Gospel According to John_ by John, from The Bible
_The Gospel According to Luke_ by Luke, from The Bible
_The Acts of the Apostles_ by Luke, from The Bible
_The Song of Solomon_ by Solomon, from The Bible
_Heimskringla_ transcribed by Snorri Sturluson
These books have combined to make me the free-thinking, reactionary stoic that I am today. Most of them are old, but they contain much wisdom about life, work, politics, gender relations, spirtuality, and history. Please let me know if you have questions. :)
- Contradictions are sometimes the key to understanding deeper concepts and connections that are not immediately clear or "logical". Also, the Synoptic Gospels were written first, and intended to be used to catechize new Christians and teach them the basics of the life of Jesus Christ. The Gospel According to John was intended to be used to teach newly baptized Christians what it means to be a Christian and what it means to have a mystical relationship with Christ. To say "they don't agree so they're all wrong" is a very simplistic and dismissive take. John probably had the Gospels of Matthew and Luke when he wrote his own account of the Gospel, so if there are contradictions MAYBE they're intentional and are intended to teach you something.
But if you are hung up on how much smarter you are than traditional people, you will never get over how apparently dumb they were for contradicting each other.
- > Contradictions are sometimes the key to understanding deeper concepts and connections that are not immediately clear or "logical".
Fascinating. Can you provide one single example from the Bible where a contradiction is intentionally employed to unveil a deeper concept or connection that is not immediately clear?
> Also, the Synoptic Gospels were written first, and intended to be used to catechize new Christians and teach them the basics of the life of Jesus Christ. The Gospel According to John was intended to be used to teach newly baptized Christians what it means to be a Christian and what it means to have a mystical relationship with Christ.
The author of John's Gospel sourced from a "signs" gospel, possibly the Gospel of Thomas, and seems to have known about Gospels Mark and Luke, but not Matthew, as well as Jewish scripture and non-Jewish sources, such as Greek philosophy. The Johannine community were messianic Jews excommunicated from the Jewish community on account of their belief that Jesus was the Jewish messiah.
> To say "they don't agree so they're all wrong" is a very simplistic and dismissive take.
Unless such a claim was made, this is a straw man.
I disagreed with OP's claim that the Bible is coherent, because it could not possibly be coherent, and I explained why. Is it necessary that the Bible be coherent? I'd like to know why, because it isn't, and it can not be, because it literally is not possible for it to have been intended to be coherent, mostly due to it being a collection of works from multiple ancient authors that lived in different centuries.
> But if you are hung up on how much smarter you are than traditional people, you will never get over how apparently dumb they were for contradicting each other.
Another straw man and an ad hominem. Your argument is twice fallacious.
- I had to guess at what "book of john" was, and i went with the obscure answer :)
There's the gospel according to john, which is the fourth, and non-synoptic, canonical gospel. It's what you get when you take a Hebraic metaphysical worldview and try your damned best to cram it into the heads of hellenestic (neo)platonists, which accounts for the whole Logos thing, etc. And even when trying to speak neoplatonist, the author(s) of john can't resist falling back on revelatory rhetoric.
There's the revelation to john, which i, at least, (as a preterist) think is a survival guide to not getting crucified more than anything else.
and then there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaean_Book_of_John , which i don't know anything about at all. If it does structure itself like a proof, i'd be very surprised.
