1. CA, USA
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    05 Mar '07 10:54
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    Why is it so important for many Christians to take the whole Bible as authentic and factual?
    Let me take an example. Revelations. There is, as far as I know, no reference to this book in any of the other books of the Bible. So a good reason to think that it is authentic is:
    1. The content can be validated as authentic.
    2. You really think that the peop ...[text shortened]...
    Even if you are sure that all the other books are authentic, why would you think that one is.
    If anyone thought for a single second that this was a sincere questioning of the Bible .. read it again.

    It's just another kid trolling for someone to slag off.

    Please ... don't feed the troll.
  2. Standard memberscottishinnz
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    05 Mar '07 10:541 edit
    Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
    For one, because it's the Word of God.
    That sure is what it says it is.
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    05 Mar '07 11:05
    Originally posted by jammer
    If anyone thought for a single second that this was a sincere questioning of the Bible .. read it again.

    It's just another kid trolling for someone to slag off.

    Please ... don't feed the troll.
    Sounds like you just don't have an answer, didn't understand the question or just find it too uncomfortable to question your own beliefs.
  4. CA, USA
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    05 Mar '07 12:12
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    Sounds like you just don't have an answer, didn't understand the question or just find it too uncomfortable to question your own beliefs.
    Sounds like you're still trolling for attention kid.
    Go ask mama for a popcycle.
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    05 Mar '07 12:48
    Originally posted by scottishinnz
    That sure is what it says it is.
    I thought it was the Q'ran that was the word of God? Surely they can't both be. One says that Jesus was the son of God and the other that he was just another prophet.

    --- Penguin
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    05 Mar '07 19:158 edits
    Originally posted by bbarr
    Do you have any evidence for this claim? Why should we think that the Bible is more historically accurate than, say, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War? After all, Thucydides' work is widely considered one of the first historical accounts that eschews talk of the supernatural, and instead explains events in terms of political forces and huma ...[text shortened]... rife with supernatural wonder and contraventions of natural law as "historically accurate".
    Do you have any evidence for this claim?
    Of course, to be brief, there is no one of any authority that would begin to question this notion. In fact, the New Testament is thought to be the most authentic document of its time.

    I will try to be as short as possible with this, but it will be difficult. There is a procedure to test the reliability of documents. Some of the parts of the procedure:
    1) Take a look at the Time Span between the author's original work and the copies that were made.
    2) Take a look at the number of copies.
    3) Cross check copies for accuracy.

    So lets use this to take a look at your Thucydides compared to the New Testament and the Iliad.

    Time Span between Original & Copy
    Thucydides - 1300 yrs
    Homer - 500 yrs
    New Testament - < 100 years

    Number of Copies
    Thucydides - 8
    Homer - 643
    New Testament - 5600

    Accuracy of Copies
    Thucydides - Yet To be Determined
    Homer - 95%
    New Testament - 99.5%

    This process has determined that the biblical documents are extremely consistent and accurate.

    Quote:
    About the New Testament, "The interval, then, between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established." - The Bible and Archaeology, Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, former director and principal librarian of the British Museum.

    To be skeptical of the 27 documents in the New Testament, and to say they are unreliable is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as these in the New Testament.

    After all, Thucydides' work is widely considered one of the first historical accounts that eschews talk of the supernatural, and instead explains events in terms of political forces and human motivations.
    That is a huge overstatement to say that it shuns the idea of the supernatural. That is like saying a book about birds shuns the idea of the existence of dogs. On the contrary, books about birds talk about birds, and books of War (Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War) talk about War. Because Thucydides does not mention the supernatural in this writing, it says nothing about his belief about the supernatural, one way or the other.

    It really just defies explanation that you would take a book rife with supernatural wonder and contraventions of natural law as "historically accurate".

    Instead what you should be asking is, "Why is our most historically accurate and reliable document filled with supernatural wonder and contraventions of natural law?" Does it mean that there is a the slightest possibility that these things can be true? There is so much overwhelming evidence, that it demands a verdict - it cannot be ignored.

    If you are going to determine your outlook on life based upon some ancient document, shouldn't you base it upon the one that is most reliable? Not the one that is scraping the bottom of the barrel for reliability (Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War)?
  7. Standard memberscottishinnz
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    05 Mar '07 19:37
    Originally posted by litlmike
    [b]Do you have any evidence for this claim?
    Of course, to be brief, there is no one of any authority that would begin to question this notion. In fact, the New Testament is thought to be the most authentic document of its time.

    I will try to be as short as possible with this, but it will be difficult. There is a procedure to test the reliability o ...[text shortened]... of the barrel for reliability (Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War)?[/b]
    This is a man who has obviously never heard of "normalisation".
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    06 Mar '07 17:08
    Originally posted by scottishinnz
    This is a man who has obviously never heard of "normalisation".
    So your rebuttal argument is in the form:

    Argument:
    If you have never heard of normalisation, then your argument is wrong.

    Premise
    I do not believe he has heard of normalisation.

    Conclusion:
    By modus ponens, therefore, litlmike's argument is wrong. Even though he provided evidence, and I have not.

    Is that about right?
  9. Unknown Territories
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    06 Mar '07 17:09
    Originally posted by bbarr
    Do you have any evidence for this claim? Why should we think that the Bible is more historically accurate than, say, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War? After all, Thucydides' work is widely considered one of the first historical accounts that eschews talk of the supernatural, and instead explains events in terms of political forces and huma ...[text shortened]... rife with supernatural wonder and contraventions of natural law as "historically accurate".
    There are tests that any objective mind can put to any work to ascertain veracity. What tests do you employ to call into question the Bible's histrocity (besides a scoffing reference to supernatural wonder and natural law contraventions)?
  10. Unknown Territories
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    06 Mar '07 17:15
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    Does anyone have any answer to my original question? So far only litlmike seems to have tried but he doesn't understand the question.
    The answer is the same for anyone with a penchant for justifying their belief system. Being a Christian does not entail suspension of basic human psychological needs.
  11. Standard memberUmbrageOfSnow
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    06 Mar '07 17:41
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    Does anyone have any answer to my original question? So far only litlmike seems to have tried but he doesn't understand the question.
    I'd say that even if you trust the rest of the bible, you can't use evidence that justifies that to mean you should trust Revelations, other than by assuming the things you listed earlier. I liked your point about publishing a new book containing the Illiad and the Bible. They don't seem to have got the point though.

    Why don't most Christians trust the book of Mormon or various other books that were added to the bible and only accepted by a minority? If the rest of the bible is infalible, why did God allow them to be published alongside them and not punish the Mormons or whomever? And if you can't trust the Book of Mormon, why are any other books of the New Testament more trustworthy? If one book can be added by a crazy person, why should one about dreams, that seems even more far-out than the rest of them, be trusted any better?
  12. Hmmm . . .
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    06 Mar '07 17:481 edit
    Originally posted by FreakyKBH
    There are tests that any objective mind can put to any work to ascertain veracity. What tests do you employ to call into question the Bible's histrocity (besides a scoffing reference to supernatural wonder and natural law contraventions)?
    And why should one assume the historicity of supernatural events that contravene “natural law”? That is, unless by “supernatural” is just meant some aspect of the natural cosmos that transcends the cognitive capacities of our consciousness? (Keeping in kind here that what is today unknown is not necessarily unknowable—but it will have to be knowable in accordance with our cognitive “grammar.” ) And if there is anything that truly does transcend our cognitive capacities, how can we say anything sensible about it at all?

    Why should the Biblical texts be given any more weight as evidence for a supernatural category than any other (such as the entire body of our empirical knowledge about the universe)? Why should any ancient texts be given such evidentiary weight at all? Mythology is mythology, allegory is allegory, religious symbolism is religious symbolism—whether they are interwoven with any historical events or not.

    It is one thing to write a biography of, say, Julius Caesar—it is quite another to say that (i) since he existed, and (ii) claimed some divinity, that (iii) he must’ve been in some way divine; or that any putative biography that makes such a claim is itself evidence for the truth of that claim...


    You can take the facticity of, say, Jesus walking on water as a given; you can take the existence of the supernatural as a given; you can take a divine source for the Biblical text as a given... But you can’t then take these givens as evidence.

    To put it starkly: you can take the supernatural as given, and then use it to explain putative events that contravene nature—but you cannot then turn around and point to those events as evidence for the supernatural. Or, you can take those putative events as factual, and then offer the supernatural as an explanation for them. You simply cannot have it both ways.

    __________________________

    All of which is my contentious way of saying, “How ya doin, man?” 🙂
  13. Standard memberno1marauder
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    06 Mar '07 17:50
    Originally posted by UmbrageOfSnow
    I'd say that even if you trust the rest of the bible, you can't use evidence that justifies that to mean you should trust Revelations, other than by assuming the things you listed earlier. I liked your point about publishing a new book containing the Illiad and the Bible. They don't seem to have got the point though.

    Why don't most Christians tr ...[text shortened]... ne about dreams, that seems even more far-out than the rest of them, be trusted any better?
    Revelation was put in as a "punchy" ending; there were a couple of Revelations floating around, but this one seems to have been the oldest. It is obviously incompatible with the rest of the New Testament in tone (and contrary to Jesus' words).
  14. Unknown Territories
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    06 Mar '07 18:08
    Originally posted by vistesd
    And why should one assume the historicity of supernatural events that contravene “natural law”? That is, unless by “supernatural” is just meant some aspect of the natural cosmos that transcends the cognitive capacities of our consciousness? (Keeping in kind here that what is today unknown is not necessarily unknowable—but it will have to be knowable in acc ...[text shortened]... _______________________

    All of which is my contentious way of saying, “How ya doin, man?” 🙂
    The Reader's Digest version is: I completely concur. While there are indeed objective tests which can be employed to obtain a reasonable level of persuasion, we cannot point to the invisible castle in the air for proof of its own existence.

    I believe the Bible has more than met the burden of proof necessary for a reasonable mind to accept its claims.

    I trust your respite was well-spent. May it not increase!
  15. Hmmm . . .
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    06 Mar '07 18:44
    Originally posted by FreakyKBH
    The Reader's Digest version is: I completely concur. While there are indeed objective tests which can be employed to obtain a reasonable level of persuasion, we cannot point to the invisible castle in the air for proof of its own existence.

    I believe the Bible has more than met the burden of proof necessary for a reasonable mind to accept its claims.

    I trust your respite was well-spent. May it not increase!
    I trust your respite was well-spent. May it not increase!

    Thank you. Hope all is well with you and yours.

    I believe the Bible has more than met the burden of proof necessary for a reasonable mind to accept its claims.

    The Reader’s Digest version: I think we simply disagree about the nature of those claims, and perhaps what can properly be claimed. Form criticism, historical criticism and the like, try to get at questions of authorship within the texts, and what the authors meant by what they wrote—what claims they were making.

    But I, as you know (without discounting textual criticism), take a radical hermeneutical approach, in that (1) all such claims and how I understand them, and (2) whether or not any of it can be relevantly applied to my life, are subject to interpretation. The text does not simply disclose itself. As I am fond of saying, one must bring one’s own torah to the Torah (or one’s own tao to the Tao Te Ching). My consciousness, my understanding of my existence in the world—that is as much context as anything in the texts themselves. There is no such thing as a hermeneutically-free reading of the texts or their claims.

    Essentially, we do not discover meaning in the texts (even if historical critics are able to clearly identify the intended meaning of the authors, about which I would say there is sufficient disagreement to indicate otherwise)—we compose meaning out of our engagement with the texts. I think that hermeneutics is inescapable, and that textual interpretation is always somewhat open. That is why the most astute readers continue to argue about interpretation, as well as what hermeneutical rules ought to be applied in this case or that. That is why I am a midrashist.

    Basically, although we sometimes apply similar hermeneutical techniques, you and I differ on what the hermeneutical project is all about. Once again, we come at it from different hermeneutical paradigms...
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