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this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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No Stupid Questions
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I suspect you can find ways to read into the Bible whatever you want to read. As a basic example, modern Catholics are convinced the Bible outlaws abortion, and there's a ton of road side billboards next to Catholic churches that supposedly quote Biblical anti-abortion statements. But the Catholic church didn't adopt this position until the late 19th Century. It literally took nearly two millennia for anyone in the primary Christian religion to notice their book had these (supposedly) anti-abortion messages. What's more likely, they missed them, they ignored them because it was inconvenient, or none of these quotes are as clear cut as the billboards would imply?
Then you have the allegiance to the King James edition of the bible, which most Christian churches do, and that generally feeds into a more direct answer to what you're asking.
Why King James? What makes him more of an authority on what the Bible means than Jesus, his disciples, and the other contemporaries and near contemporaries who put the Bible together? Well, he's a King of course.
...crickets....
And God loves powerful people?
...crickets....
Uh, OK, well, what about if God didn't want him to be King, he wouldn't be a King, therefore, ergo, God thought King James was a pretty cool dude and should be able to do whatever he wanted? Including edit the Bible and put some stuff in there that wasn't in there originally?
Ding ding ding!
NOW is it starting to make sense? Because if God didn't want Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Rupert Murdoch or Peter Theil or Sheldon Adelson or (long list of other rich jerks) to be rich and powerful, they wouldn't be rich and powerful, right?
Now, never mind the contradictions here, I mean, I'm pretty sure the Bible does, in fact, have some choice words to say about rich people, and they're not positive, and it's pretty anti-Roman Empire in parts, especially the bit about crucifixions, but that all requires reading the Bible, and not trying to find double meanings to justify the status quo.
Add to that the fact the rich and powerful control the narrative and always will, and you're left with Prosperity theology and all its ramifications becoming more and more a consensus in countries that allow people to become that rich and powerful.
What the Bible says... well, "it's not meant to be taken literally, it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products" The eye of a needle might be too small for a camel, but the loophole of not being meant to be taken literally certainly can be.
The comment that it took two thousand years for the church to land on its current stance on abortion is not entirely accurate. The Didache, an early Christian writing including a section on Christian ethics, explicitly forbids it.
I'm aware various groups and individuals appeared at various times during the last two millennia that opposed abortion on Biblical grounds. But I was specifically referring to the Catholic church. The quote you're responding to was "(...) the Catholic church didn't adopt this position until the late 19th Century. It literally took nearly two millennia for anyone in the primary Christian religion to notice their book had these (supposedly) anti-abortion messages."
Now, true, "anyone in the (Catholic church)" is probably hyperbole, but certainly "anyone in position to make decisions in the (Catholic church)" is accurate. They didn't adopt their current stance until the late nineteenth century.
The Catholic church has nearly entirely considered abortion a sin since the first century (yes there are exceptions, but a minority). You are thinking of the adoption of "life begins at conception", which was ruled in 1869. Prior to that the church considered early abortion an immoral sin on par with contraception. What changed in 1869 was the category from sin of contraception to sin of murder. But it was still "sin" beforehand.