DJA wrote:
Christian Seberino wrote:
On Tue, March 27, 2007 3:00 pm, DJA wrote:
Can you point me to one specific
Bible (last time I was in a Christian bookstore, there were dozens -
all
different)?
Those are all different translations of the same ancient documents.
No they're not. Granted, some are very similar, but most contain
enough difference in them to often say quite different things in
various places. I have looked and read. They're in English. I am quite
proficient in it. I know what the words mean. Whether those words mean
what the author intended is irrelevant. To the reader, the words say
what the words say. And I'm telling you different Bibles are different.
Do tell! Part of what was snipped was a challenge to show any
significant difference in teachings between various translations. No
one (including you) has risen to this challenge. Just saying "The
different versions really are different, I saw it for myself." is
soooooo very convincing. You probably have a masters degree in debate.
In fact, there is really no such thing as *The* Bible. It doesn't
exist. It's at this point in history merely a parable of itself. It's
not even the 2000 years old that most people believe it is. Most of it
is far younger. The stories some of it tells are far older.
So many skeptics just love to lobby this FUD. And it pure nonsense.
If
scholarly translations aren't adequate for you feel free to learn Greek
and Arabic and read the ancient manuscripts in the original language.
cs
If I pick up a dozen Bibles, all different English translations, all
having different wording, some Subtlety different, some vastly, then
its quite apparent there was no scholarship involved. Just a bunch of
authors who felt compelled to give a "proper" interpretation of god's
word.
More FUD.
The Bible is one of the most misunderstood pieces of literature ever
published. That fact has led to the plethora of paraphrased,
elucidated, red-lettered, demystified, and otherwise interpreted
versions which have successively over the centuries given rise to a
copy of a collection of original writings which themselves have not
existed for centuries and longer.
Yet more FUD.
We have no original manuscripts and we certainly have no witnesses. So
that leaves one thing with regards to the basis for the Christian
religion: faith. And faith is what one has when facts are not
available. It's a placeholder for knowledge. It's ignorance in denial.
Holy guessing. I have no desire to take away the comfort of someone's
religion, but for myself, I prefer knowledge, and lacking that I
embrace my ignorance as it gives me great comfort that I have much
more to learn. I don't ever want to know everything.
Even more FUD. You attempt to reduce all of what we do have by way of
ancient manuscripts to some invalid category just because they are not
originals. Many so-called scholars (actually skeptics) through the
years have done essentially the same thing saying "the oldest
manuscripts in existence were written hundreds of years *after* the
actual events" and "they are as unreliable as word of mouth storytelling
since they weren't even written down until centuries after the actual
events". (You lump together the manuscripts of the Old Testament with
those of the New Testament, further muddying the water. For the moment,
let's just stick to the New Testament. (I'll get to the Old Testament
in a moment.))
Well, well, well, the discovery of much much older manuscripts have
thrown those arguments (about being purely word of mouth handed down
like legends) out in the cold. So now that the oldest manuscripts have
been confirmed to have been written well within the lifetimes of the
actual eye-witnesses to these events, the best the critics can come up
with is "Waah, waah, waah, they're not the originals so none of them are
valid.". Notice that no one says anymore (in regard to the manuscripts
of the New Testament) that they weren't even written down until
centuries later.
FUD slingers resort to lumping together the manuscripts of the OT with
those of the NT so that they can still claim that we have only a "copy
of a collection of original writings which themselves have not existed
for centuries and longer" and "We have no original manuscripts and we
certainly have no witnesses. So that leaves one thing with regards to
the basis for the Christian religion: faith. And faith is what one has
when facts are not available."
The OT had skeptic making the same claim that they were nothing more
than legends passed down by word of mouth for centuries. The FUD
slingers roared this loud and long until the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls.
And regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls: If the ancient Jewish scribes had
been in charge of that collection, it would have been destroyed long ago
because of unreliability. Whenever a manuscript in their care became
worn enough so as to be illegible in any part of it, it was considered
to be no longer reliable. And when they copied a manuscript, they
believed in their being that they were copying the very words of an
All-Powerful and Just God who would not tolerate mistakes in His words.
They had a system of checking copies (somewhat similar to our modern-day
checksum algorythm), and if a mistake was found in the copy, the entire
copy was deemed unreliable and forthwith destroyed. They performed a
cleansing ceremony after every seventh word that was copied, and when
copying the name of God, they would cleanse themselves after each
letter. They took the job of copying His words quite seriously. When
the public got ahold of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the skeptics were put to
silence regarding their claims that the (then) oldest manuscripts were
the first written copies and that the theretofore merely oral legends
didn't even come close to resembling the original events. The Scrolls
put them to silence because they (having been confirmed to be centuries
older) were found to be virtually identical to the (then) oldest known
manuscripts.
So keep on belching your FUD. Repeat it enough, and maybe the people
will suspend logic and believe you.
To my way of thinking, not even god knows everything. Were that
possible, it would mean that not even god could create something new,
and so would no longer be god.
You are right that God does not know everything. There is at least one
thing that He does not know. If there is any way to save you from Hell
*other* than by the blood of His Son Jesus, He does not know it.
But your god is much more limited than mine. My God has limited Himself
in various ways. He cannot lie. He cannot tolerate sin (which means
that we are doomed). He is not willing that any should perish and
therefore sent His Son to die in our place (which means that we are
*not* doomed anymore). He cannot violate anyone's will (which means
that anyone in Hell is there by his or her own choice). He cannot do
anything that does not serve His purpose. God is a God of purpose, not
a God of frivolity.
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
