A Quote by A. J. Jacobs

It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?
... I know for sure, that the universe is wise and compassionate. The question then becomes: How can there be such brutality and pain and such suffering in the world if the universe is compassionate and wise. The reason is we put it there. We create it. And it is up to us to stop creating it.
The truly wise man is he who believes the Bible against the opinions of any man. If the Bible says one thing, and any body of men says another, the wise man will decide, "This book is the Word of him who cannot lie".
God's favorites, especially God's favorites, are not immune from the bewildering times when God seems silent. Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either. Faith demands uncertainty, confusion. The Bible includes many proofs of God's concern - some quite spectacular - but no guarantess. A guarantee would, after all, preclude faith.
Infidelity and skepticism abound everywhere. In one form or another they are to be found in every rank and class of society. Thousands are not ashamed to say that they regard the Bible as an old obsolete Jewish book, which has no special claim on our faith and obedience, and that it contains many inaccuracies and defects. In a day like this, the true Christian should be able to set his foot down firmly, and to render a reason of his confidence in God's Word. He should be able by sound arguments to show good cause why he thinks the Bible is from heaven, and not of men.
When I decided to write about my brother and friends, I was attempting to answer the question why. Why did they all die like that? Why so many of them? Why so close together? Why were they all so young? Why, especially, in the kinds of places where we are from? Why would they all die back to back to back to back? I feel like I was writing my way towards an answer in the memoir.
Every type of destruction that human philosophy, human science, human reason, human art, human cunning, human force, and human brutality could bring to bear against this Book, and yet the Bible stands absolutely unshaken today. At times almost all the wise and great of the earth have been pitted against the Bible, and only an obscure few for it. Yet it has stood.
Some, in their curiosity, will say, "But you Mormons have another Bible! Do you believe in the Old and New Testaments?" I answer we do believe in the Old and New Testaments, and we have also another book, called the Book of Mormon. What are the doctrines of the Book of Mormon? The same as those of the Bible.
read the Bible to the children, until they are old enough to read for themselves ... The Bible, not nursery versions of it. There is a Bible in words of one syllable; I am happy to say I have never seen it. Such a monstrosity should be put alongside of the Rhyming Bible, of which, I believe, only one copy is in existence.
As a Christian, Israel has a very special place in my heart. There's no question about that. I grew up with a Bible, and the back of the Bible has all these pictures of Israel in it. And so all these locations are incredibly significant to me personally in my faith.
Our children should be indoctrinated in the principles of the Gospel from their earliest childhood. They should be made familiar with the contents of the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. These should be their chief text books, and everything should be done to establish and promote in their hearts genuine faith in God, in His Gospel and its ordinances, and in His works.
The Bible is the Only Book That Can Make Us Wise unto Salvation. The Bible is not a book to be studied as we study geology and astronomy, merely to find out about the earth's formation and the structure of the universe; but it is a book revealing truth, designed to bring us into living union with God.
I bury my mind in my book, the Bible. Every morning it's the first thing that I do. I've been doing it for years and years. So I want to come back here [to Israel] to see the places that I read about every day. It's very important to my faith to feed [my] spirit in Israel.
Why should we be willing to go by faith? We do all things in this world by faith in the word of others. By faith only we know our position in the world, our circumstances, our rights and privileges, our fortunes, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our age, our mortality. Why should Religion be an exception?
The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from God.
I start work by spending time in personal Bible study. Because my projects center on a question in my own faith walk, I find Bible study essential. And God gives me scriptures daily that speak to the question with which I'm struggling.
To insist that belief in the Bible demands belief in a young Earth is to put a stumbling block in the path of many nonbelievers. It raises the question of why a God who is committed to revealing truth would make the universe and Earth measure to be old if, in fact, they are not.
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