Forum: Editors/Reviewers Hangout

There are authors on this site and on Fine Stories who are familiar with the Bible. While some will help with editing, some would more likely help you with references and interpretations instead of editing.

What's the area you need the Bible help with?

For maximum mileage, I'd make two separate requests. Not ALL of your editors need to be devotees of the Bible to proofread for you. Instead, you want editors to correct your writing mistakes, along with a few resources who'll point out inconsistencies in your storyline.

In the second case, you'll need to stress your level of comfort: do you want people who are familiar with the bible, people who can quote chapter and verse, or people who have their own interpretations of what the Bible means (ex: Southern Baptists, Born-Again Christians or Conservative/Reform Judaism). You'll clearly get different responses based on who you ask for.

For editors, you can either ask here or use the 'Search for an Editor' SOL feature. For bible references, you could simply ask on the Author's forum (there's bound to be someone familiar with the subject, and they're more likely to be reliable than than readers who may never respond).

In my own case, I know several minsters of various stripes I can ask (I'm the son of a minister myself, and grew up in the church), but we're each from different denominations, so I'm not sure what you're looking for.

you'll need to stress your level of comfort: do you want people who are familiar with the bible, people who can quote chapter and verse, or people who have their own interpretations of what the Bible means (ex: Southern Baptists, Born-Again Christians or Conservative/Reform Judaism). You'll clearly get different responses based on who you ask for.

Thanks for reminding me, CW. That's the other thing. There is Bible verse with Bible doctrine, and then there is church doctrine. Much of what a lot of the churches teach as doctrine isn't supported in the Bible, and some of it is against what the Bible teaches, too. So you need to be aware of what you want out of it.

I was discussing inconsistencies, things that make people doubt it as the literal word of God.

I think you've already nailed it. It's a particular theologies internal inconsistencies, say when people insist that God hates one whole class of people, when the bible never once references them anywhere, or where they use the same passage previously used to justify slavery to 'prove their point' for why Jesus wants us to 'not love THOSE people'.

As a member of a non-denominational church, I'm continually surround by people who've fled a variety of churches, finally coming to us (the UU church) because we don't reject anyone who doesn't adhere to a specific belief system and actually encourage people who question their beliefs.

In the same way, others follow the same process, where they reject any religious group which doesn't adhere to what they consider the true word of God, casting anyone objecting to their political rants as 'non-believing heathens'. Just like our current political polarizations, these similar and related tendencies tend to force everyone into confrontational positions. Rather than getting together and agreeing to live together, they end up in an 'us vs. them' confrontation, using government officials for force everyone to bend to their particular viewpoint.

But you're right. If the contest ends at the end of the week, I'd just finish the story. Chances are, you'll learn more from having completed it than you'll ever learn by spending the week studying it without writing anything.

Hopefully, your story will provoke an insightful discussion, providing material for future stories.

I was discussing inconsistencies,

And that's where you run into the differences between Bible Doctrine and Church Doctrine. You also need to look at what is ascribed to God and Jesus in the Bible and what is ascribed to later prophets in the Bible. There's a lot of doctrine the churches pull from what later prophets say as practical advice which aren't really theological advice at all, let alone the places where the church doctrine is contrary to what the Bible says.

thanks, that was what I was looking for

true about cutting it too close, but I saw the contest less than a week ago and got a little inspiration reading peoples questions and complaints about it. After the inspiration, my ignorance about the rest of the story worried me.