The Failure of Christianity to Stand Up to Reason.

Originally posted by Draxus
However, I don't think other people wrote the gospels. 1) John is always talking about himself. That would be a weird book to write, unless you were John.

Originally posted by Nemesio
The way to give a book a commanding reputation is to attribute it
to a disciple. This was a very common practice in the first four
centuries of Christianity.

Nemesio

Originally posted by pcaspian
False. The decision was to encorporate scriptures even though they may have seemed contradictory. That is precisely what gives the Bible such authenticity.

Originally posted by Darfius
Luke was a disciple? And Mark? I wonder why it was the testimony of the entire early Church that these two non-disciples wrote their Gospels.

Originally posted by Darfius
Jesus referred both to Genesis and Daniel (off the top of my head), do you count them both as Scripture?

And you made the outlandish claim about the disciples not writing it, prove it, I need divulge nothing.

Originally posted by Nemesio
Jude made explicit reference to the Book of Enoch and
the Assumption of Moses. Do you count these as Scripture?

If you won't give me your accepted dates of the disciples' deaths,
any dating I use can be manipulated by you. I won't play the
game where you can be ambivalent about your opinion until I
present evidence so you can 'interpret' it.
...[text shortened]... Corinthians
simply because the letter claims it was written by him? If not, why not?

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
Can you cite a pre-fifth century source that attests to the importance of inerrancy, where that term is defined as the complete concordance of all the details in the NT?

Curious, how does this apply to my statement ? As you claimed the opposite, ie: no attention was paid to biblical inerrancy, please justify your claim with similar sources.


If you can't, how can you claim it was important to them with all of
these apparent contradictions?

Apparent contradictions are essential to establishing the authenticity of the Bible. We can go back to our debate on 1 John, where the author seems to contradict himself.

9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.

But then we know the author, in his own letter continues to state that anyone who claims to be without sin, is lying...

Had these been two different letters, we could have assumed the authors to have two different opinions. This is not the case however, so we either come to realise we do not understand the Bible and need God's help to understand, perhaps the author was insane, or perhaps he understood God better than any of us today. Either way, the obvious solution to this problem, from a bilical editors point of view, would be to correct this seemingly blatant contradiction. Clearly either the intent was to retain the original text, irrespective of what was not understood, or simple lazyness. Had I been out to promote a faith, and my intentions had not been on sincerely following the scriptures, I may have been tempted to do some last minute editing.

pc

Nemesio[/b]

Originally posted by pcaspian
Curious, how does this apply to my statement ? As you claimed the opposite, ie: no attention was paid to biblical inerrancy, please justify your claim with similar sources.

Your asking me to prove something didn't exist. We have many, many
Christian writings from the first four centuries of Christianity. Many of
these writings are Apologies (i.e., defenses). I know of NONE which have
a 'defence of inerrency.' Certainly, if such a doctrine were part and parcel
to Christianity, in these texts we would find a defense?

My claim is, that given no attention was paid to this so-called doctrine of
Christianity, it was not a consideration. Surely, if it was a consideration
(a big one, as I expect you claim), you could provide me with some
mention of it, no?

Your example is confusing. In this passage, St John is clearly talking about
Jesus who is, by St John's claim, sinless. I think you meant to quote 3:6,
which says, 'No one who remains in Him sins...' and contrast it with 1:8.

The point here is that, because of human imperfection, it is impossible to
remain in Him (i.e., an argument against the absurd 'Once Saved,
Always Saved' non-doctrine, actually). I see no contradiction here, personally;
it says that a person will inevitably sin and will cease to remain in Him. 1:9
provides the Christian solution for it: 'If we confess our sins, He who is faithful
will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.'

I see no internal contradiction in this case and can't think of a single example
of contradiction within a single document (other than later interpolations). All
of the contradictions I can think of are across documents.

Why, then, would the council have ratified all of them to be included, because
these Gospels and Epistles (remember Revelation was added later...) were part
of the various branches of Christianity that existed. It served to unify these
disparate theological groups. The council wasn't concerned with inerrancy (given
the absence of such claims anywhere in early Christian literature); it was
concerned with unifying the face of Christianity (among other things).

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
Originally posted by pcaspian
[b]Curious, how does this apply to my statement ? As you claimed the opposite, ie: no attention was paid to biblical inerrancy, please justify your claim with similar sources.

Your asking me to prove something didn't exist. We have many, many
Christian writings from the first four centuries of Christianity. Ma ...[text shortened]... ure); it was
concerned with unifying the face of Christianity (among other things).

Nemesio[/b]

Originally posted by Darfius
Jude doesn't have quite the authority my Lord Jesus does. The Holy Spirit guided his hand, but not the ones he referenced.

Interesting how you rank 'God-breathed' literature as 'better' or 'worse.'

When St Jude says that a 'prophecy' was fulfilled, certainly that gives
'inspiration' to Enoch's prophecy (at least after the fact). Since it is
clear that St Jude considered this Scripture, why do you reject it? Did
Jude err in his judgement?

And I believe I've already said I believe the Holy Spirit oversaw which books were canonized. It's up to you to tell me why I should think otherwise, other than your opinion.

That's interesting, because I thought you rejected 1 and 2 Maccabees,
Baruch, Sirach, the Book of Wisdom, Tobit and Judith. They were
canonized, too. I apologize for confusing your position.

Nemesio

Originally posted by ivanhoe
IvanH: I wish you had the same concern as the council you mention, Nemesio.

Originally posted by Nemesio
I look forward to hearing your well-articulated argument in the
other thread.

Nemesio

Originally posted by ivanhoe

What other thread ?

Originally posted by Nemesio

Certainly, if such a doctrine were part and parcel
to Christianity, in these texts we would find a defense?

I see no reason for this to be the case at all. Most scriptures retrieved were tested for authenticity. I am not making a claim that the church edited and corrected scriptures at will, I am claiming that scriptures were finely examined for authenticity. As such we can find discrepancies between accounts between different authors. Whether these are actual errors or hidden truths , it was not up to the first publishers to ratify any letter by Matthew or Mark, yet can we now state that there was no focus on errancy ? Far from plausible.


My claim is, that given no attention was paid to this so-called doctrine of
Christianity, it was not a consideration. Surely, if it was a consideration
(a big one, as I expect you claim), you could provide me with some
mention of it, no?

Your premise is logically unsound, your 'given' false. The Gospel of St Thomas for one isn't included in the Bible ? Think it could have been for a reason, or did it simply just not 'slip' into the 'Bible' folder ?


Your example is confusing. In this passage, St John is clearly talking about Jesus who is, by St John's claim....

Read 1 John 1 vs 6 -10 .

[i]6 If we say, "We have fellowship with Him," and walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. ... (have fellowship with him and don't sin)

8 If we say, "We have no sin," we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9

Month or two you seemed to question this contradiction, glad you don't see it anymore.

The council wasn't concerned with inerrancy (given
the absence of such claims anywhere in early Christian literature); it was
concerned with unifying the face of Christianity (among other things).

A Christian that doesn't care about truth, one that just wants everyone to get along ? I think not. Search for truth is implicit. Perhaps you know many Christians that are not concerned with accurately quoting Jesus, I however don't see that as likely, especially from a religion raised in the nursery of the Oral tradition.

pc

Originally posted by pcaspian
I see no reason for this to be the case at all. Most scriptures retrieved were tested for authenticity.

What is your evidence for this? Who 'tested' which Scriptures?
Where is the pre-5th century defense of 'St John' as literally
correct, for example?

I am not making a claim that the church edited and corrected scriptures at will, I am claiming that scriptures were finely examined for authenticity.

I understand your claim. What is your historical evidence for
this claim?

Your premise is logically unsound, your 'given' false. The Gospel of St Thomas for one isn't included in the Bible ? Think it could have been for a reason, or did it simply just not 'slip' into the 'Bible' folder ?

It was not included because it was part of a tradition deemed
heretical (i.e., Gnostic). The decision was political. Where is
it written that the Gospel of St Thomas was 'omitted because it
contained errors' with a list of those errors. Why was the Epistle
to St Barnabas or the First Epistle of St Clement almost included?
Because it was part of the 'popular' mainstream Christianity.

Month or two you seemed to question this contradiction, glad you don't see it anymore.

My explanation and your explanation differ markedly. My
understanding of your claim is that you remain in Christ. My
understanding is that it is not possible to remain in Christ. I never
saw a contradiction in these statements, but a contradiction in your
explanation of them.

A Christian that doesn't care about truth, one that just wants everyone to get along ? I think not. Search for truth is implicit. Perhaps you know many Christians that are not concerned with accurately quoting Jesus, I however don't see that as likely, especially from a religion raised in the nursery of the Oral tradition.

Jewish Christians were interested in preserving oral
tradition accurately (but, they too were interested in interpretting
their traditions through Midrash). Gentile Christians had no such
interests (there is no evidence that they had any reverence for
'pure' transmission and a lot of evidence that they edited the
NT like crazy).

Furthermore, when the Epistle was sent to Galatia, for example, it
didn't have a stamp on it that said 'SCRIPTURE: Do not edit.' When
the Epistle was first penned, it did not have the status with the
Christians as Scripture. It was just a letter. As such, it got passed
around, written down, edited, changed, lost, erased, and so on.
Gentiles did this because 1) they didn't have the reverence for the
written Word that the Jews had and 2) they didn't think of St Paul's
letter as the Word of God.

The decision to call St Paul's letter to the Galatians 'Scripture' was
post priori.

Nemesio