Originated by Yozzer:
......It is with great honor that I ennumerate a few of the many failings of the Bible, and Christianity in general, to stand up to logical reasoning...
Yozzer have quoted and transcribed many findings of the "secular world" about the history, content, ideology, etc., of the Bible. What he fails to understand is miraculous transformation. Once you ascertain the existance of miracles, then "logical reasoning" is thrown out the window.
You can reason all you want that it is impossible for a goiter (massive inflammation on the neck) to disappear before your very eyes because a "Christian" exercised his "faith" and it will still not change the fact. My friend witnessed this first hand in India in April 2002.
You can theorize reasonably all you want how cancer cells disappear and not give credance that it was through the faithful prayers of Christians and you will still not change the fact. My doctor witnessed this first hand in California in December 1985 about my father. My father is 78 years old now.
Just because you "reason" that the Bible is full of inaccuracies and God is an "invented fantasy", doesn't make miracles go away.
Understand that for every secular study of the Bible, there are theological studies of the Bible that has opposite findings. If an objective study of the Bible is done, one has to take into account both secular and theological findings and give equal weight to both.
However, to give equal weight to theological findings, one must exercise his/her faith in order to accept the findings.
Without faith in God, you are lost.
With faith in God, you are found... in Christ.
Kris
Originally posted by Nemesio
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?
Fascinating how quickly you've relied on scientific 'evidence' when you know that period of time produced so little 🙂 You do realise the Vatican does not release all documentation don't you ?
I understand your claim. What is your historical evidence for
this claim?
See my point re St Thomas. As you're claiming the opposite, yet fail to provide any form of evidence (which you seem to be in desperate need of) to support your view, perhaps you can climb off your self appointed throne and do the same.
It was not included because it was part of a tradition deemed
heretical (i.e., Gnostic).
You actually even read the gospel of St Thomas ? It defies just about every other book of the Bible promoting the Church.
By stating that however, you've already made a contradiction in your statement... and I quote your given
no attention was paid to this so-called doctrine of Christianity ,
however now you claim
"The decision was political".
So we know your statement, which was based on a 'given' would be logically unsound. Indeed your new belief is that politics, instead of God, resulted in the first edition. Fascinating editing then. The Bible, which itself claims to be the 'Word of God' , was a political collaboration of random manuscripts.
Originally posted by pcaspian
Fascinating how quickly you've relied on scientific 'evidence' when you know that period of time produced so little 🙂 You do realise the Vatican does not release all documentation don't you ?
Are you KIDDING? There dozens of apologies, dozens of theological
treatises. There is a tremendous amount of literature from various
Christian communities before the 5th century.
Surely, if inerrancy were this major critical doctrine, don't you think
that there would be some mention of it, some 'defense of the
inerrancy of Scripture.'
I don't know the entire literature, but as far as I know such a claim
for inerrancy does not exist.
This is my point: no claims of inerrancy exist before the canonization
of the NT. If it were this super-duper, major significant doctrine, it
would have been mentioned.
See my point re St Thomas. As you're claiming the opposite, yet fail to provide any form of evidence (which you seem to be in desperate need of) to support your view, perhaps you can climb off your self appointed throne and do the same.
It is not written anywhere why the Gospel of St Thomas was not
included. Since there is no writing that attests to the importance of
'inerrancy' but there is a great deal of writing attesting to the heresy
of Gnosticism, what do you think was the reason? 'Inerrancy' (the
mystery term that is never mentioned) or 'Gnosticism' (a well-defined
evil by the 4th century).
You actually even read the gospel of St Thomas ? It defies just about every other book of the Bible promoting the Church.
I've read it many times. Are you saying that there are contradictions
between it and the canonized NT? Sure there are. But there are
contradictions within the canonized NT, too. Why? Because inerrancy
was not a significant concern of early Christians.
If it were a significant concern, then within the volumes of writing that
came before the canonization of Scripture, there would undoubtedly
be a reference to 'inerrancy.'
no attention was paid to this so-called doctrine of Christianity ,
however now you claim
"The decision was political".
You are confused. Those statements complement each other. Watch:
Since 'no attention was paid to this so-called doctrine of Christianity' --
namely inerrancy -- we can conclude that 'the decision was political'
since Gnosticism was deemed a heresy by the mainstream church.
So we know your statement, which was based on a 'given' would be logically unsound. Indeed your new belief is that politics, instead of God, resulted in the first edition. Fascinating editing then. The Bible, which itself claims to be the 'Word of God' , was a political collaboration of random manuscripts.
Did I use the word 'random?' No, I did not. The decision was very
concerted, actually, and there was great debate (like, say about
Revelation, which was added later). It was about unifying the existing
mainstream churches. Gnosticism was deemed a heresy and, so,
did not have a say-so in getting the Gospel of St Thomas included.
Why is it that God was there when He blessed the early Church with
the 'perfect NT' but somehow He left when the same Church ratified
the OT? How do you know when God was blessing the decisions of
others or not?
Nemesio
Yozzer, have you read a book called "Jesus lived in India" forget the author but it gives another alternate death theory, one with some historical basis: SOMEONE started up monestaries leading away from Jerusalem on the silk road leading into india, starting way before Paul was even born. Who else was around who could have done that if not Jesus himself? Like you said, Chrisianity was started by Paul some 50 or more years after Jesus died, left the scene or whatever. There is a grave in Kashmir the archeologists would love to be able to examine that shows a carving of feet with crescents showing, the idea being it is the actual grave of Jesus, with the name inscribed as "azise" or some such spelling. These are facts, I saw the photo's of the gravesite myself but the fighting going on in Kashmir prevents any study of the site because no westerner would be safe in that area till the present civil wars die down.
My own idea is this: Back up and look at the larger picture. It seems to me patently impossible for all religions to be right, that a god would set things up to where Christians can be justified in killing Muslims just because the one true and almighty one says to, then having the Muslims feeling justified in killing Christians because THEIR god tells them its required. Now looking at Godliness, how can such a dichotomy arise? Could it instead be only a couple of hallucinating power seekers
setting up a system that keeps them and their cronies forever in power? It seems to me to be self evident there can't be two religions and they are both right, which asking any of the respective leaders will give you no doubts in that catagory, each one saying the others are following false gods, satan or whatever.
I don't want people to dismiss this idea out of hand, I want a valid debate here, I don't want the RBhills to simply say, I'll pray for you.
I don't want to be labled an Atheist, I don't say there can't be a god.
I don't want to be labled an Agnostic, I don't really give a crap one way or the other if there is or is not a god.
Think about the pre-chrisitian era in the US, the plains indians for instance, attacking another tribe, taking a few women for their own tribe, knowing it keeps the genetic stock deteriorating and in a tribal war when they are victorious, Shouting to all and asundry,
I win here because I am the meanest son of a bitch in the valley.
At least they are being honest about it. They are not ascribing some victory or other to the power of some god or other.
I'm not going to say there's NOTHING of value here, but my initial reaction is this thread should have been titled "The failure of Yozzer to grasp basic ideas".
I can't believe some of the straw men that are put in place waiting to be knocked over. Um, Yozzer? How about starting with the fact that the Old Testament is in fact the Jewish scriptures, not the Christian ones?
And if you don't understand what I mean by that, we can't even get past first base.
Originally posted by YozzerCut, paste, and run.
In its two-thousand year history, the Christian faith has endured persecution. It has survived heresy, and dissention in the ranks. It has persevered in the face of war, famine, and disease. ....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A213247
One response from Yozzer, and that to admit he plagiarized the whole thing. So much for debate.
Originally posted by krisvictor
You can theorize reasonably all you want how cancer cells disappear and not give credance that it was through the faithful prayers of Christians and you will still not change the fact. My doctor witnessed this first hand in California in December 1985 about my father. My father is 78 years old now.
Kris
And how many pray tell prayed for JPII? And is JPII still a'prancin and a'dancin?
The power of prayer? Bah!
Originally posted by Nemesiohttp://answering-islam.org.uk/BibleCom/mt1-1.html
St Luke 3:23-24 reads, in Greek (with the Roman alphabet) with the english
underneath:
Kai autos en Iesous archomenos osei eton triakonta, on uios, os evomizeto,
And himself was Jesus beginning as years thirty, being son, as was thought,
Ioseps tou Eli tou Maththat tou Leui tou Melchi tou Iannai tou Ioseps .....
Joseph of the Eli of the Maththat of ...[text shortened]... aim, that, suddenly, St Luke is talking about Mary without ever
mentioning her name.
Nemesio
The theory that Luke's genealogy is Mary's is one of the many postulates about the differences between the two.
Originally posted by lucifershammerThis theory doesn't hold any water because for two reasons:
http://answering-islam.org.uk/BibleCom/mt1-1.html
The theory that Luke's genealogy is Mary's is one of the many postulates about the differences between the two.
1) It would mean that a word was left out of the 'original,' undermining any claims
to inerrancy (for an infinite number of words could be left out of various places in
the Bible).
2) The Greek, if no words were left out, is 100% clear in relating Joseph to his 'father'
Eli, to his father Matthat, &c. Mary doesn't even enter into this series.
It's a bogus claim to try to rectify an obvious inconsistency between two disparate accounts
of Jesus's lineage.
Nemesio
Originally posted by NemesioI'm assuming you've read the article.
This theory doesn't hold any water because for two reasons:
1) It would mean that a word was left out of the 'original,' undermining any claims
to inerrancy (for an infinite number of words could be left out of various places in
the Bible).
2) The Greek, if no words were left out, is 100% clear in relating Joseph to his 'father'
Eli, to his ...[text shortened]... rectify an obvious inconsistency between two disparate accounts
of Jesus's lineage.
Nemesio
If there are any obvious errors, could you please quote and point them out?
Besides, who's making claims of inerrancy?
Originally posted by lucifershammerI cannot point out errors because they are contrivances.
I'm assuming you've read the article.
If there are any obvious errors, could you please quote and point them out?
Besides, who's making claims of inerrancy?
For example, if I said, the genelogy in St Luke was actually an
alien genelogy and Adam was really a cyborg, you couldn't 'prove'
that what I was saying is false, only that it was improbable.
The notion of 'legal' and 'physical' father concocted in the 3rd century
is equally silly. Julius Africanus's 'suggestion' was one trying to
reconcile two reports that were never conceived of being read together;
that is, St Luke and St Matthew didn't write their texts in collaboration,
or even for the same audiences. It was only when they were put
together that people started to say, 'Hmmm...that's not the same.' By
then, the sources were too widely distributed to be edited.
The second argument rests on this dubious and unsubstantiated
claim.
The third argument is even more outlandish, that the name 'Mary'
was substituted by 'Joseph.' That one would 'mistakenly assume'
that the Lucan line was Joseph is absurd.
I can't point out errors, but it's obvious that, except to people who
desparately need inerrency to be true (that is, having the a priori
presumption of inerrency), such 'justifications' are desparate
rationalizations with no historical merit.
By contrast, the fact that Sts Matthew and Luke composed their texts
separately, had a vested interest in Jesus's lineage being connected to
that of David, and were trained in the expository tradition of the
creative writing process called 'Midrash' (and this is not the same as
the later literary tradition by the same name), that these two writers
simply added their own genelogies based on what they knew and could
guess about the Davidic line and filled in the blanks.
Why does this matter? It doesn't. That Jesus's paternal grandfather
was named 'Heli' or 'Jacob' has absolutely no bearing on the
Christian tradition, no bearing on faith, no bearing on righteousness.
It only has bearing if a person desparately needs every 'fact' in the
Bible to be true. Given the other internal contradictions I've stated
time and time again which have gone unrefuted, such desparation is
built on a sandy foundation of self-deception.
Nemesio