Famous quotes have frequently been credited to the wrong famous person, like William Shakespeare, Albert Einstein, or even Morgan Freeman.
But another popular reference point is the Bible, to which a surprising number of ideas have been falsely credited.
Trying to set the record straight, Redditor Chinchubrry asked:
"What's something that's not in the Bible but people think it is?"
Dante's Inferno
"The popular depiction of H**l with devils tormenting sinners with ironic punishments. That depiction is more out of Dante's 'Inferno' than anything in the Bible."
- tgruff77
Paradise Lost
"Nine circles of H**l, that's in the 'Divine Comedy,' the most famous fanfic, and Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is also a fanfic which is an unofficial part of what people think is in the Bible."
- GodEmperorOfHell
A Woman's Scorn
"A Baptist preacher told me that 'H**l hath no fury like a woman scorn' was in the bible. Why people look at religious leaders like they're not ordinary people is beyond me."
- DeckOClubs
Spock Spoke
"One time, my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I went out, and one of her friends joined us. When we dropped the friend back off at her house after dinner, and she said, 'Live long and prosper,' and did the hand sign and everything."
"My immediate reply was, 'Oh dang! I didn't realize you were a Trekkie! Kirk or Picard?'"
"She got SUPER confused and asked, 'Isn't that from the Bible?'"
- NachoKehlar
Lost in Translation
"The New Testament uses three words that have been translated to 'H**l': Hades (the grave), Gehenna (a literal place where garbage was burned, but also the corpses of murderers; used figuratively), and Tartarus (a domain of exile for fallen angels; there’s no implication that people can reach Tartarus)."
"The notion of Hell as a domain of torture for the damned wouldn’t come until long after Jesus' time, based loosely on the fate of mortal sinners being disposed of in Gehenna. That it was managed by a fallen angel named Satan wouldn’t be invented until later still."
- FellowConspirator
What's in a Name
"'Satan' is really a much more recent contrivance."
"In the original text, Jesus met 'a satan' out in the desert. Not 'Satan.' A satan was an adversary or someone who got in your way."
"Basically, someone who was being an a** to you in modern vernacular, or you could just call him a d**k."
"Imagine you're retelling this story to your bros about how you were walking and this d**k got up in your face and wouldn't stop messing with you. And then 2,000 years later, people retell the story, thinking Dick is some uber-powerful netherworld deity."
- McRedditerFace
Misquotation
"When Jesus says, 'If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.'"
- tarrareshunger
When's the Sabbath?
"Saturday was the Sabbath; the early Christians broke with that and started a new tradition of treating Sunday as the holiest day because that was the day of Jesus’ resurrection."
"But people learned ‘Sunday is the holy day’ when they were kids, without the more detailed explanation’ and refuse to reconsider their childhood assumptions when they grow up."
- mattmelb69
Pulp Fiction
"I was pretty p**sed that the Ezekiel 25-17 quote from 'Pulp Fiction' wasn't in there. The actual version was bland as h**l."
- raisin_creampies
Priorities
"Money is the root of all evil... that's not what it says. It's the LOVE of money."
- canadaguy9
So Angelic
"I was actually at church today and the preacher put up a picture of a biblically accurate angel, and you could tell people were freaked out."
"I kinda had to stop myself from laughing like, 'Ya, y'all should actually read the book you say you believe in.'"
- reditdidit
The Three Wise Men
"The Three Wise Men's names (Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar) come from traditional Christmas folklore. Their actual names were never mentioned in the Bible."
"Also, despite all the songs that say they were kings, no verse in the Bible says they had any royal status."
- FloridaFlamingoGirl
Christmas in the Spring
Christ was born in the spring during the Roman census. Rome held its census in the spring to double dip: count the population and collect taxes from people who were primarily herders. The Judaean shepherds paid their taxes after selling off their spring lambs."
"Christmas morphed into a winter holiday as part of a larger strategy to convert pagan Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries."
"The sales pitch was likely along the lines of, 'You celebrate the return of the sun in Saturnalia. You're basically Christians and you don't realize it. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is the Light of the World and he was born in the, the, the, winter. Yeah, he was born in the winter, just 4 days after your new year. Here's a basket of Christian wheat.'"
"'Come to church on Sunday, and we'll give you some more.'"
"Or something like that."
- occamhanlon
Noah's Neighbors
"Did Noah's neighbors mock him for building the ark?"
"As a child, I heard this story time and time again. I even had an illustrated Bible with a picture of Noah looking determined with his hammer in hand, as his neighbors pointed at him and guffawed."
"It's quite the inspirational story since it reminds us that we Christians should prepare to be mocked for our faith in God, just as Noah was. In the end, of course, he got the last laugh. There's a lesson to be learned there."
"The only problem is that this inspirational story is absolutely nowhere to be found in the Bible. You can, however, find it in the Qur'an (11:38)!"
- mustashriq
Questions Are Okay
"That you can't or shouldn't question god. I don't think it exactly says anywhere that questioning god's motives or plans are prohibited."
- LowKeyAnA**hole
There are many common misconceptions about what is contained in the Bible and what is not.
But since many of these have been taught to people since their early childhood Sunday school classes, some of these misconceptions are sure to turn some heads.
