Validity of differing eyewitness accounts in religious texts

I have no idea what you mean. They are clearly ripoffs of the Bible stories, retold with all kinds of unbiblical changes.

From where would they be plagiarized? Islam began 600 years after Christianity was established, and in fact displaced the Christians in the Middle East.

But they are not Christian stories Faith, they are Jewish stories.
=========Christians regard the whole Bible as Christian. We are "grafted into" Israel. However, the Koran has done the same with both OT and NT texts.=======And the Muslims did not displace the Christians. Christians, Jews and Muslims have lived in the middle East together all along. Christians and Jews helped Muhammad establish Islam.==========
Yeah, by being slaughtered for the purpose, paying tax for the right to go on living, and being treated like dogs they sure did help Muhammed establish Islam. This is off topic so don't expect *evidence" from me. There's plenty to be had without my help.

Sermon on the Mount. Yes, as you say, "we have the Bible to tell us it happened and that's it." If you don't find it credible, I'm tired of trying to prove it. I find it credible as is. No amount of argument has accomplished anything here and obviously none is going to. I'm just an arrogant ignorant hard cold bigoted intolerant stupid YEC. Yup, the Bible is IT. Take it or leave it.

If you mean Jewish writings, I expect that for heaven's sake. Jesus was Jewish, in the best Jewish traditions. And if you mean the OT, Moses was educated in all the Egyptian lore. Why shouldn't there be some overlap? That doesn't prove plagiarism. But the Koran is obviously a self-serving rewrite.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-25-2005 08:22 PM

Normally, but Jesus' birth was a miracle. With God all things are possible.

First do you recognize that the Koran rewrites are obvious ripoffs or not?Then I'll say similarities between the Bible and other cultural productions do not have any of the marks of a ripoff, merely shared cultural knowledge.

You forgot to dot six i's and cross 9 t's. Therefore your post is a failure.

The Old Testament prophesied Jesus' would experience being forsaken by God for those who believe on Him, and He fulfilled the prophecies. But of course the Koran has no prophecies besides having no witnesses to anything including the claims of its author, so I understand why you have to make up lies to pretend they never happened in the Bible. Same as Higher Critics do who redate Old Testament books because their prophecies were actually fulfilled. You only fool yourself.

I was not making a generalization about all authentic accounts, merely pointing out that in the Bible the historical framework is intrinsic to the revelation of the mind of God, the religion itself, and that the Koran makes no meaningful use of their few historical references at all, all of which are taken from the Bible and rewritten, none of which constitute anything original to Islam. I'm sure there are many other criteria of different kinds of authenticity, but the Koran just sticks them into the text, and they are obvious corruptions of the Bible. Anyone who believes the Bible recognizes their obvious subterfuge.As for whether the Bible is history, it is presented as history, it reads like history, it has the feel of history, and elements of it have been proved archaeologically to satisfy the complaints of Doubting Thomases as Mag Dev has pointed out. It does not need to be "confirmed" by unbelievers to be history. It is taken by believers to be history and has been for 3500 years, and we just go right on in spite of the debunkers knowing it is history. We hope you catch up but if you don't, so be it. Again I wouldn't generalize this to an all-inclusive definition of "authenticity" relevant to every kind of text. It is simply a way of contrasting the function of the historical passages in the Koran with the Bible's historical passages. They appear to serve no meaningful purpose in the Koran except a self-serving claim to supersede Biblical religion by imposing their own doctrine on Biblical history. They make Ishmael the heir rather than Isaac whom God chose, they demote Jesus to a mere prophet etc etc etc. Many cults do something similar, such as Mormonism. The Bible has many imitators and distorters.I didn't generalize about narrative structure. There are many kinds of authenticity. But history -- an account of events that happened in time and space -- requires witness evidence, that's why it is the focus here. History is written as a narrative, and the Bible is written straight through book after book as narrative history: this happened, that happened. An excellent writer may ape historical writing but actually the peculiar details of reality tend to be more peculiar than any fiction and are recognizable as reality for that among other reasons. C.S. Lewis wrote very convincingly about the ability to tell the difference, but I forget in which book. You may have to have an "ear" for it, as in "he who has ears to hear, let him hear" and of course no manner of argument will suffice in that case. Unless a person is willing to suspend his dogmatic scientistic expectations and just read the thing believing it as written. That might be more of a miracle than anything recounted there however. But I digress. I didn't make this claim as a generalization either, merely pointing out the obvious, that if plagiarism occurred it was obviously them taking from the Bible, not the other way around. There are other criteria for plagiarism, not just age. I did not generalize this criteria. The Bible is absolutely unique in its report of God's actions throughout history, its prophecies and fulfillments in actual time and actual places -- and this is why it emphasizes witness authentication. There is nothing, repeat NOTHING, else like it. There is NOTHING to which it can be compared in this regard. Again, I made no such generalizations beyond this specific frame of reference. The Bible has this KIND of authenticity, historical validity, witness validity. The Koran does not.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-25-2005 11:34 PM

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Now let's reset. We're trying to establish by what criteria we should assess the validity of eyewitness accounts in the Bible. In my Message 115, the one that you replied to here, I noted the contrast between ancient events in the Bible for which there is corroborating evidence (the Sennacherib campaign again King Hezekiah) and those for which there is no corroborating evidence (Jesus's Sermon on the Mount).

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I also noted that the amount of evidence required depends upon the degree of certainty required. In any area of study there will always be some things we can establish better than others, and there will also be some things we can never establish at all. There can't be equal certainty of everything. There can be no doubt that there is far more evidence for the Sennacherib campaign than for the Sermon on the Mount, and the criteria we establish in this discussion should enable us to place eyewitnessed events into a hierarchy of certainty. I discussed the criteria you offered earlier in my previous post.

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I believe the Sermon on the Mount happened because it occurs in a context I trust, in which other facts have been amply proved to me -- and the archaeological evidence has played its part in this -- in which God is made realer and closer by every bit of it I grasp, in which the character of Jesus is illuminated and deepened by everything he is said to have done as I come to grasp its meaning, and by the overall trustworthiness of the witness reports, all of which has been proven to me because I read it in faith.The sermon is consistent with all the other teachings of the Bible, it illuminates them, and they illuminate it. All the parts of the Bible take authentication and depth of meaning from each other as each is affirmed. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that grows. If you have faith as a mustard seed it may start its growth by allowing you to grasp one tiny part of the Bible as a true revelation from God, even though the rest of it is alien to you and you have to put it aside for the moment or even years.If your faith is honest and genuine, however tiny, it will grow until you understand and embrace more and more of God's revelation. On the contrary, if you have no faith, if you assent to bits and pieces of God's Word on an intellectual basis only, if you read only intellectual critics and scorn the Bible exegetes of the legitimate churches, and reject other parts of it because your intellect is offended by them, with no trust in any of it as a revelation from God, of mysteries hidden from the natural mind, then you will never get it. It's as good as dead to you, this Living Word.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-25-2005 10:58 PM

I want to try to write something about the problem of Biblical faith in response to Percy's last post but I'm not up to it tonight. I've said this to you before but you have to simply BELIEVE it, believe the Bible. I do not know if one can CHOOSE to believe it or not, I simply DID believe, at first just small parts while the rest didn't make much sense, but if you believe even a bit of it, believe those parts that you are attracted to, and you don't attack the rest of it with arguments, the parts you are attracted to will grow and you will understand more and more.But as long as you keep saying such nonsense as that "Deuteronomy is a complete hack job" you are believing the intellectual destroyers instead of believing God. Faith is NOT opposed to intellect, which is what I want to figure out how to say clearly if I can, but THIS kind of "intellect" that you and so many others here are practicing is nothing BUT destructive of the very possibility of the faith Jesus asks of us. It is NOT a feeling, it is a GRASPING and HOLDING of God's Word, the truth of it. You will never get there if all you do is read the critics.Our minds are fallen. We are easily persuaded by pseudo-intellectual pseudo-rational arguments. GIVE THEM UP, at least put them on a shelf out of sight for a while and try something else, because they are NOT getting you any closer to the truth. Find at least ONE thing in the Bible you can believe and HOLD ON TO IT FOR DEAR LIFE and stop all the arguments while you just read it and believe it for a while, and just skip over whatever you can't believe and don't argue with it. Again, ask God for help. Stop listening to critics.I only say this to you because you SEEM to be wanting to get at the truth, but are simply going about it the wrong way, rather than like some others here, who only care about proving all religion false.But if you won't you won't. Anyway I'm going to try to say something more about this problem tomorrow.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-26-2005 02:02 AM

That's true enough for what it's worth.But I have to point out your error nevertheless, as you've clearly overlooked the fact that on the 36th of Plutember the nodes of the fifth moon went into Phlogiston in the house of Uranus. I believe this completely cancels out every point you've ever made. Sorry.

Gladly.

Nobody who has called my Biblical beliefs "intolerance" has any right to lecture me on Christian virtues. A brother in Christ would have that right, though he'd approach the situation with more respect for my personal space, but you are an anti-fundamentalist and you do not have that right. Aside from that, it is an incredibly INTRUSIVE CONTROLLING PRESUMPTUOUS thing to do. So I would appreciate it if you would NEVER EVER say such a PERSONAL thing to me again.That said, generally I appreciate your patient attitude and apparent willingness to understand what I'm saying before you smack me with how I'm wrong wrong wrong about absolutely everything and hang me for a straw man and demand "evidence" for sophomoric irrelevancies, and upbraid me for trivia as so many here do. Oh you always get there, to declaring me wrong wrong wrong, that is, but I do appreciate the extra rope as it were.That said, I hope to get to the actual post tomorrow.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-26-2005 03:30 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-26-2005 03:33 AM