Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries

Granted, I overstated it there out of frustration with the post I was responding to, just the usual acceptance of the usual accusations. OK. But my position at my blog has been that I don't know but that Pinto has raised some interesting objections to the usual view of Simonides.

I began with a fair assessment of your stated view. Now, would you like to read the post?

Well I heard back from the good pastor.He has no real degrees.
Degrees from religious schools from Florida are worthless.

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Religious institutions that meet the requirements found in Section 1005.06(1)(f), Florida Statutes and Rule 6E-5.001, Florida Administrative Code are not under the jurisdiction or purview of the Commission for Independent Education and are not required to obtain licensure.

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Section 1005.06(1)(f), F.S. reads:

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A religious college may operate without governmental oversight if the college annually verifies by sworn affidavit to the commission that:
1. The name of the institution includes a religious modifier or the name of a religious patriarch, saint, person, or symbol of the church.
2. The institution offers only educational programs that prepare students for religious vocations as ministers, professionals, or laypersons in the categories of ministry, counseling, theology, education, administration, music, fine arts, media communications, or social work.
3. The titles of degrees issued by the institution cannot be confused with secular degree titles. For this purpose, each degree title must include a religious modifier that immediately precedes, or is included within, any of the following degrees: Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Master of Arts, Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy, and Doctor of Education. The religious modifier must be placed on the title line of the degree, on the transcript, and whenever the title of the degree appears in official school documents or publications.
4. The duration of all degree programs offered by the institution is consistent with the standards of the commission.
5. The institution's consumer practices are consistent with those required by s. 1005.04.
The commission may provide such a religious institution a letter stating that the institution has met the requirements of state law and is not subject to governmental oversight.

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http://www.fldoe.org/cie/religious.asp
Pastor Stringer confirmed his second PhD is from here.
American Bible College
A couple hints that it is not a real school and just a diploma mill. It's url is .org not .edu. It doesn't seem to have a campus there is no address or phone number listed anywhere.

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The A.B.C. is believed to be the oldest fundamental Christian correspondence college in America.

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It even confirms it is not real.

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The awards given upon satisfactory completion of the courses do not in any way represent qualifications for service in any secular field.

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Here his how you register for one of their exalted degrees.

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Registeration Information

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The cost for New Student Registeration is $35.00
The cost to sign up for an individual course is $35.00

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Spelling mistakes are theirs.So you think Pastor Stringer is qualified to speak authoritatively on the subject of King James?He seems to be a someone that is padding his resume with worthless degrees.

Getting frustrated because people disagree with your opinions seems unreasonable. Especially when you obviously had very little idea of the truth at that point, not knowing even the documents that Simonides was accused of forging. Perhaps you ought to ask yourself why you were so poorly informed, and why you would make such strong statements without properly investigating the issues.

Irresponsible of me, yes, I haven't cared much about this discussion, should have stayed out of it.Hey, I never had any interest in getting deeply into any of this, at my blog or anywhere. At least at my blog I don't take any hard position, I'm just waiting to see what happens. Here I get driven crazy by the kneejerk accusations. Of course I should be perfect and not react but I'm not.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Surely whatever it is has already happened. The way to find out what happened, I would suggest, would be to read the extant documents, as found by, among others, yours truly. How can they be "kneejerk"? I'd never heard of Simonides until I started researching him. This, Faith, is a kneejerk reaction: "All the accusations against him are lies. He was no forger ..."Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

With a few lamentable exceptions, so did Charles Manson.

It's strange. I've written half a dozen posts over the course of about 2 days on Simonides and I seem to have acquired a larger degree of understanding on the subject than you have despite having been making posts about it for a year, watching a 3 hour propaganda film on the subject, a 90 minute debate and have been in email contact with the creator of the propaganda.So let's see where we stand:1) The overwhelming preponderance of the evidence strongly suggests Simonides was a forger.
2) There is no evidence he was competent enough to have created C.Sinaiticus in the time or the manner he claimed
3) Pinto has made what appears to be the most mendacious propaganda film I've seen for a long time. It makes Expelled look fair and balanced!I think it's time to abandon the Simonides theory until you've done some catching up (shouldn't take you more than a week I would have thought).So that leaves us with Codex Sinaiticus. You think it has resulted in some kind of vandalism on the Bible. But surely you'd agree it didn't work alone? There are other codices and manuscripts and fragments all of which were put together to build different Bible translations.Apparently, wanting to create a Bible that takes its cues from the Alexandrian rather than the Byzantine is a grevious sin aimed at Protestantism. So now we've established there is no reason to suppose it is a forgery - why is it a problem that different people might want to come to understand God by referencing and understanding texts written in a different time and place than was common for most of Europe's history? Isn't that a bit like what the Protestants did with KJV in the first place?If you don't mind faith - I'd like to see what changes you particularly object to as something of a key problem.

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I guess it's silly of me to think it might be possible for a debate to address the important questions and do it with facts well appreciated from both sides...I'd really like to hear the Simonides question fairly and thoroughly addressed.

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I guess you should be careful what you wish for

I would like to add a couple of my observations.1) Simonides story makes no sense if Sinaiticus is assumed to be a pure forgery. It's meant to be a present for the Tsar and NOT a forgery. So, why, for instance, use uncial script ? Why all the corrections ? Why not use a current text ? The story makes far more sense if Sinaiticus were a reproduction of a genuinely old text. Which would make it pretty much as useful as if it were genuine.2) The story also cuts against the idea that Sinaiticus was seen as worthless. The only evidence of neglect comes from the 19th Century treatment (and I'm not entirely convinced by Tischendorf's story that some of the leaves were due to be burned) - its survival and the corrections argue that it was seen as useful and used for some time. But Simonides claims that this text - in a modern copy - was seen as a suitable gift for the Tsar in the same century, by the Orthodox monks of Mt. Athos.

Many of the questions PaulK raises about Simonides are questions I had and expressed at my blog.But I think it's very funny that you all seem to think you've defeated some position of mine when I essentially abandoned the argument on this thread some time ago. I might have come back to it eventually, but it was getting way too convoluted for my level of interest in what anybody at EvC has to say about such things.I did put up a notice at my blog pointing to this discussion in case anyone is interested in pursuing it who stops by there, because who knows, it's even possible that somebody at EvC came up with an insightful perspective on the situation. I won't hold my breath, but it's possible. Perhaps I might even try to slog through it all some time.

But, you should care about this argument. Isn't your position that modern translations of the Bible are corrupt based on the idea that they were translated from bogus/forged documents, including the Sinaiticus? Or does it not even matter that it probably is genuine?HBD

Oh it isn't genuine. We don't need Simonides to prove that.

It was fun to read and write about. You should try it one day. Tares among the Wheat is the most vicious slander that has been posted to this thread. It's just a few chapters in a few books, many of which are sourced in this thread. Tares from the Wheat is way more convoluted than the truth. It involves a huge conspiracy involving the Catholic church coming up with a centuries long plan to destroy Protestantism that joins forces with a curmudgeonly group of scholars who conspire to release the C.Sinaiticus and the theory of evolution at about the same time.Our sources say 'Simonides was a failed 19th Century fraudster'. I know - we have to read your source texts such as The Bible or some ugly blog post from some loon if we're discussing it with you, but there is no compulsion for Faith to read anything we provide as sources.I'm curious though, what is your opinion on the sections in the KJV that only appear in the Latin Vulgate? Or nowhere else in the universe prior to Erasmus?Getting back to James. Why are you defending him with moral relativity?

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Oh it isn't genuine. We don't need Simonides to prove that.

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It's funny how creationists always claim to have good arguments, but choose to use bad ones.If Simonides is essentially irrelevant, why bring him up at all?Not that you can prove that Sinaiticus isn't genuine, and your claim that you can do so is about as reliable as your claim that Simonides was entirely innocent of all charges.

Do you ever feel even the slightest bit of dishonesty on your part?