The Bible was NOT man made, it was Godly made

Juraikken wrote: OK, Juraikken, that sentence clearly shows that you don’t know what you are talking about. Please take the time to learn about the Bible (and not just apologetics) - it will greatly help your walk with God. Jar and others on this thread are a great starting point.I’ll jump in to address your one sentence above. FYI - there are many significant differences between our different Bibles. For instance, ones like the NIV and NASB have removed a large amount of text from the New Testament that is found in the KJV (see, for instance, Acts 8:37, John 5:4, etc). This text, if added up, is longer than the whole books of 1st and 2nd Peter combined. Even that huge difference is smaller than the difference between the Catholic Bibles (such as the NAB or DHB), which have a whole 7 more books than the others, plus other differences. You can learn about canon formation and about the KJV at sites like these, which don’t have nearly the bias you’ll find at apologetic sites:Biblical canon - Wikipedia
King James Only movement - WikipediaThis site is extremely useful, not only in learning about when the books were written, but also offering the other gospels and letters mentioned on this thread:
Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church FathersThe Jehovah’s witness’ Bible (the NWT) is very similar to some of the newer translations (such as the NIV), except for a few differences, and the change of calling God “Jehovah” instead of Yahweh, Lord, Elohim, etc. All the differences between the NWT and newer translations are much less than the differences between, say, the KJV and the AMP, or the NIV and the NAB, etc.It’s OK to be uninformed, but when one is uninformed it works much better to admit that and to learn. Acting like you aren’t uninformed and then declaring absurdities like the sentence above doesn’t make you look good.All the best--Equinox

Juraikken wrote: Wha? Could you please supply some reason to think that your statement is more than a dreamed up claim? Some link or reference or something? I know of exactly zero Roman references to Jesus that were written prior to 100 CE. The earliest I know of are Tacitus, Pliny, etc in the 2nd Century. In addition, I know of exactly zero writings in any credible document by anyone who met Jesus during his life (1st Pt is the best claim I've seen, and that's not very good). I've studied the evidence in this area for years, and so I'm interested if you have information I haven't seen.Thanks-Equinox

Juraikken wrote: and that’s completely wrong. The JW bible has much less changed compared to, say, the NIV - a couple words here and there, such as GoJ 1:1. There are volumes of changes between the bibles you are calling “sharing the same story”.Um, you seem to have missed my point, which wasn’t that the KJV is better (the KJV is well known to be the most corrupted of our translations, and is based only on a handful of manuscripts, the oldest from the 11th century ). My point was that you have a lot of learning to do before you can even have a cogent conversation about the Bible.This was not just because there are much larger differences between the Bibles you called “the same”, and almost no differences between the Bibles you called “very different”, but also due to many other statements you made that could only come from someone who lacks even the basics of a field. It’s like if I got onto a discussion with auto mechanics and didn’t know that cars ran on gasoline or got warm when running. I’d look like a fool and would waste everyone’s time, and it would be my fault.You continue to make statements like that. For instance:Juraikken wrote: Jar wasn’t talking about “intellectual tone” (again, what could you mean by that?). He was referring to the very different world described by the GoJ (Gospel of John).Whoever wrote the GoJ, it wasn’t any who was around Jesus and the disciples. In the GoJ, Jesus never casts out a single demon, talks incessantly about himself, never does anything special with the bread and wine at the last supper, is never transfigured (which is supposed to have happened in John’s presence), and never even tells a freakin’ parable! The opposite is seen in the other gospels. If the other gospels have any accurate information about a real Jesus, then it is clear that whoever wrote the GoJ can’t be anyone who was around Jesus. The author of the GoJ also speaks in Greek, and apparently doesn’t know Aramaic (see Greek word pun in John chap 3 - ask me if interested). How could John not know Aramaic??Similarly:Juraikken wrote: Um, no. They are word for word identical for stretches in many places. I teach at the university level, and this is widely know to be solid proof that one copied from the other.But don’t take my word for it. You can compare them yourself at places like this:
Page not found | University of Toronto
(pick a comparison, then scroll down to line up the same story for comparison.)Juraikken wrote: Let’s compare:Which of this pair is from the GoT, and which is from Matthew, Mark, or Luke? Or this pair? The GoT has many such similarities with the synoptics. It also has many apparently Gnostic features that are completely different, as you stated. However, the misogyny is not really worse than that in the pastorals. What do you think of the misogyny in the pastorals?Also, please don’t move the goalposts. You recently stated that you had accounts from Roman guards who had seen Jesus during his life (6 BCE to 30 CE). When asked for evidence, that turned into having Josephus mention Jesus in 93 CE. For your information, Josephus wasn’t even born until years after Jesus died, he wasn’t a Roman, he wasn’t a guard, and he clearly didn’t think Jesus was all that special, since he didn’t convert to Christianity. The easiest person to fool is ourself, when we want to believe something, we imagine evidence to support that belief. That’s what we all need to be on guard for.As with so many topics about the Bible, whenever there is a discussion nearly everyone (including the Christians) is largely ignorant. I think that’s because Christian churches seem to put the emphasis on learning their doctrine instead of learning the history and study of the Bible. In other words, “Bible Study” meetings are actually meetings about how to read the particular church’s doctrine into the Bible, instead of studying the Bible itself. So many Christians spend hundreds of hours in “Bible Study” meetings, and come out clueless about the actual Bible (or worse, with distorted ideas). It’s a good idea in our Christian dominated culture to be actually informed about the Bible. A good resource is this class on tape:The Great CoursesJuraikken, I’ve posted several resources with tons of reading to allow you to inform yourself and stop looking like a 6 year old. The above class on tape is yet another resource - one that you can listen to while driving or whatever. Other classes from the teaching company can also be found by going to The Great Courses, and running their search for any of these titles:
1. History of the Bible: The Making of the New Testament Canon
2. After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers
3. New Testament
4. From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity
5. Historical Jesus
6. Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication
7. Lost Christianities & Historical Jesus (Set)(it’s also good to do some reading from places you find yourself, especially sources with less bias, like wikipedia).Of all that, please take some time to learn, and take advantage of kind people like Jar who are knowledgeable and also willing to lend a hand. Most who are knowledgeable have zero interest in spending their time helping a novice with his homework. I’d at least get a good start on that before making more completely wrong statements in front of people who are much more knowledgeable than you are.Have a great day--Equinox

Juraikken wrote: As I’ve mentioned, there isn’t much difference in the text of their bible - I’ve read it, studied it, and commentary by scholars agrees with me on that (or, just show me major changes - they are very few, Jo 1:1 is the only one that comes to mind, and it is a change of a single word). All the differences in doctrine you mention are done using the same bible - just as Episcopalians have a radically different doctrine from Pentecostals, yet often use the same bible. Christians the world over regularly use the same exact verses to “support” polar opposite doctrines. In the cases you mention, the JW’s (one of whom is my sister), use the same verses other Christians do, and just “interpret” them to mean something else. Um, no. If you had bothered to read the pages I linked to about the KJV onlyists, you’d know that the changes amount to as much text as the books of 1st and 2nd peter, and that they effect many of the main doctrines of Christianity, including what a baptism is, who jesus was, and so on. We can go over them point by point if you’d like.You know, asking for us to forgive your ignorance is understandable, but it would sound a lot more credible if you would at least read the sources we give you to allow you to catch up.Oh, and if you want a whole book of clear examples where early Christians changed the text on purpose to fit what they wanted it to say, you may be interested in “the orthodox corruption of scripture”, by Ehrman.Also, I’m glad that others pointed out the John thing. Come on. Again, it doesn’t sound like you have bothered to use the resources I handed to you on a silver platter. Use the parallel text page and you’ll see word for word copies in many places. If you don’t see them, then ask for me to point some out and I’ll do so. No time now, I’ve got to get home (I’ve got a 2 week old son to help out with). And do you really think the terrified disciples of an executed criminal would be walking up to roman guards and asking them questions? Hey, I’ve got some swampland in florida that I’m looking to sell, it’s a good deal, really . .. I did read what you said. You said you had accounts written by Roman guards who had seen Jesus. You didn’t just say that you had proof Jesus wasn’t a fairy tale. I agree with you that we should stick to what each of us says. You also admitted that you made a mistake, which is fine - thank you. The only reason I responded again to this Josephus line is because you have reverted to backpeddling from the eyewitness roman guard claim, instead of admitting it and moving on as you did previously. It’s not a “my idea vs your idea” thing. All people deserve respect, but not all ideas. Ideas are to be tested, discussed, compared, and such. The ideas I’ve mentioned are less distorted because they are based on evidence, not on parroted church doctrine. The ideas I’ve mentioned are easy to check by simply looking at the actual text of the bible, and on the historical record. As I’ve said before, don’t take my word for it, check on it yourself.Have a fun weekend everyone--Equinox

jar wrote: No one has replied? For shame! I will then reply.
To look at his list critically:Well, it’s hard to dispute the undeniably false tales in some parts, such as the talking animals, flying people, and crowds of zombies.The lack of a single “Bible” falls into several categories, Jar has mentioned but one of them. There are multiple “bibles” based on:
Time - the Bible has been changed over time, so the Bible of, say 178 CE isn’t the Bible of 1611 isn’t the Bible of 1970.
Canon (as he mentioned)
Translation - compare any two translations, and you’ll find changed words, sentences, ideas, and even whole verses.Prophecy - it’s hard to find a specific prophecy that isn’t post-hoc, and easy to find overly vague ones as well as false ones.Uniformity of God - OK, hard to argue with that. That’s been recognized since the 2nd century. Also, this should be extended to include the massive theological changes the appearance of Hell for the New Testament, as well as the means of avoiding God’s wrath between the two.Rearrangement of material - yep, even Martin Luther felt free to do that - in his case, moving James to the end as of secondary status.Contradictory stories - OK. Plus many contradictions in details, such as exactly what God said when, or who was who’s father, or numerical differences, etc. This is especially easy to see comparing Kings against the same stories in Chrs.Well, since Jar is, well . . Correct, I’ll have to respond by adding pillars. Here are some more:Apparent lack of knowledge of other cultures - wouldn’t an omniscient God at least say something about the Chinese or Aztec cultures? Wouldn’t that help people be saved by seeing, in later ages, how far-seeing God is? But no mention of them, even though there are many clear and easy things to mention, such as the great wall, machu picchu, or such.Deep human history - wouldn’t some chronologically accurate description of, say, the first domestication of plants, or the origin of languages, or of dog evolution/domestication, or such be easy for an omniscient God to mention?Heinous morality - wouldn’t a moral God act a little differently from a terrorist, or at least make it clear that such actions are immoral when they are written - including things like Lot’s daughters and other similar stories? This category should also include the absolute barbarity of torturing people for all eternity if they happen to be in the wrong religion, while letting mass murderers or anyone else watch them from a comfortable heaven which the murderers got into simply by being Christian.Lack of knowledge about how the real physical world works - wouldn’t and omniscient, loving god say something about life saving things like vaccination, fertilizer, electricity, pain relievers, steam engines, telephones genetics (instead of striped sticks) and the periodic chart? This is like a scientist who discovers an instant cure for leukemia, then comes home to his dear son who is dying of Leukemia, and just doesn’t say anything, or give it to him, but instead watches him die. Whaaaa? Imagine a ship of uneducated people you loved going to colonize a distant planet, and you could send a book of 500,000 words (the length of the KJV Bible) - think of what you could include! But instead we get stories repeated word for word, pages and pages of geneologies of people who are never mentioned again, and incoherent babblings. It’s like the parachutist who pulled the cord and out popped a blow up doll. What is this, some cruel, sadistic joke? And you (the fundamentalist, not Jar) say a God is behind all that, and that you still want to worship him? It makes me wonder who is more messed up - the literalist or the proposed God.Efficiency. Would it really take anyone with any writing ability a half a million words to spell out fundamentalist doctrine? It’s simple - believe in Jesus or be tortured forever. Sure, you could cover things like the holy spirit, Jesus’ life, the trinity, the apostles lives, and such in another 50,000 words, and OK if you really wanted all the old testament wisdom (proverbs, etc), another 100,000 for them. This is why fundys can say that all the changes between translations and cut out sections and such between the Bibles don’t change doctrine - by Jove you could cut out the whole Gospel of Mark and not lose anything. Is this the model of efficiency that someone could call a perfect creation of a perfect God? You’ve got to be kidding me.I know a lot of moderate Christians who think that blaming God for the Bible has to be the worst blasphemy they’ve ever heard. It’s hard to fit a more damning statement about the Holy spirit into a single sentence than saying that the Holy Spirit is ultimately the author of the Bible. Realizing that the Bible is a purely human creation allows a Christian to believe in a much grander, more wonderful, more loving God as compared to the sadistic, incompetent cosmic terrorist that would be behind one of the Bibles.I think we’ve got a lot more pillars than we need.Have a fun day-Equinox Edited by Equinox, : clarified that when I say "you", I mean literalists, not Jar.Edited by Equinox, : fixed punctuation

But doesn't that idea only make things worse? I mean, if a supposed God is truly omniscient, all-loving, and all powerful, you'd think it would be trivially easy for such a god to make sure his message got to the intended audience uncorrupted, complete, and without harmful additions. And yet, as you yourself seem to admit, that's not the case, and we are left making excuses for God. A first year marketing student could craft a more coherent message than is contained in any one of the many Bibles.It starts to sound a lot like the theodicy dilemma. The condition, content, and situation of the Bible shows that God could be any two of 1. all loving, 2. omniscient, or 3 all powerful, but not all three.Have a fun day-EquinoxEdited by Equinox, : clarification

Kbertsche wrote {my add for clarification}: But now you are running away from the original claim. The original claim was that we can see that the Bible (which Bible?) was godly made, not human made, specifically by being able to look at it and see the evidence. In face, Juraikken wrote at the start of this thread: There is no difference between a Bible that was divinely, perfectly made to look human made, and an actually human made bible. That’s like saying that there is an undetectable, pink unicorn behind you - you can’t even examine, much less prove, it one way or the other, by definition. Similarly:Kbertsche wrote {my add for clarification}: Again, this is running away from the initial claim (as above), and is again simply hiding from the original question. There is no difference between a God that acts divinely, perfectly to appear as if he doesn’t exist, vs. the situation where he really doesn’t exist.Several points come to mind. First, by stating this, Kbertsche is agreeing that the Bible appears, by all observational evidence, to be humanly made.Second, he postulates a God is that is outright deceptive, since God is supposed to know everything about us, it would certainly know that millions of people would be successfully fooled by this, and if he’s omnipotent, and has a plan, then this deception is his plan.Thirdly, the same argument can then be applied to any book. Is the Qur’an then the word of God? - maybe God is working in mysterious ways, and the Qu’ran is God’s word. Or the Rig Veda? Or the local phone book? How about the communist manifesto? Hey, I’ll follow Mein Kampf! I better not throw out my two year old’s drawings - maybe they are God’s sole communication to us, now that sure would be a mysterious way. Even asking for a divine sign - lot’s of people have had divine signs that the Suttas are God’s word, or that the book of Mormon is. Asking for, and examining, evidence is not a straw man, and it’s not a strange “assumption” to guess that someone would show love by not murdering or torturing people.Worst of all, it is making a claim, then unmaking it when challenged. For instance, it’s like saying “the sky is green!”, then when presented with evidence showing that it isn’t green, saying “It may appear blue to us, but that’s only because it’s a mystery what color it is - we can’t really know.” So then why make the claim in the first place?It reminds me of how the discussion of the “correct order in genesis” often goes. Like this:Fundamentalist: “Genesis presents the correct, scientific order of when things appeared on Earth (first the simplest life, then mammals, then humans, etc). It would take odds of 1 in 3242323 to arrive at this correct order by chance -thus the bible is divinely inspired.”Skeptic: “but the order ISN’T correct. Birds are made before anything is on land, land appears after the oceans (when only land existed first) and here are many more examples . ;”Fundamentalist: “The Genesis account doesn’t give chronological order, but topical or some other order. Thus Genesis is literally true.”Skeptic: “but wasn’t your original claim that the events were in the correct order? What kind of order did you mean if not chronological?”Are we going to make the claim that the evidence shows that the Bible is divinely inspired, or not? If so, we can look at the evidence. If the evidence is a divine mystery that we cannot examine, and we are not to pay attention to the man behind the curtain, then there is no point to this thread or indeed to any discussion of any sacred text. At that point, it becomes blind submission to whoever is using religion for whatever ends.Thanks--EquinoxEdited by Equinox, : added Qu'ran

OK, let’s see if the analogy works in this case. The photon has some clear particle properties (the photoelectron effect, for instance) and some clear wave properties (diffraction, say). Similarly, nearly all of the bibles have some divine properties (saying nice things like love thy neighbor), and some human things (such as the barbaric morality and historical errors. Just as a photon is neither complete particle nor completely wave, but rather has properties of both, the bibles are neither completely human nor completely divine, but instead have properties of both.Did that work?Maybe we agree on what the evidence shows (as I mentioned in my last post). It appears that we agree that the Bible has some pieces of divine information subsequently handled, translated, and partially changed by humans, in addition to human additions/changes.If this is indeed what we agree on, then how could one say which is the origin of any specific verse? What I’ve seen Christians of all stripes (liberal and conservative) do, is take the parts they agree with, and say those are divine remnants, and take the parts they disagree with, and say those are the result of humans. This seems to be a slightly more honest approach than the inerrantist approach, which is to claim that it is all divine, and all is saying what they say, and then creatively “interpreting” the parts they disagree with (not that the others never do this as well).I think the OP was arguing that because the Bible is completely divine in origin (not a mix as you and I hold), it can be used as a reliable guide. The end result of a mix is the same as that of a human origin - namely, that one must use reason and logic to decide which parts are useful and which are useless.Have a fun weekend, I’ll be out until sometime next week--Equinox

Kb wrote: But photons don’t have all the properties of classical particles, NOR do they have all the properties of waves. For instance, classical particles have mass, photons don’t. Classical Particles are free from interference with each other unless they come into contact - photons aren’t. Classical particles cannot exceed or even reach the speed of light - photons can travel at the speed of light. Waves require a medium for transmission - photons don’t. Classical particles when passing an oblique boundary reduce their angle of transmission if that boundary speeds them up - yet photons passing an oblique boundary reduce their angle of transmission only if they slow down. Etc.The photon analogy may work well, since the Bible appears to have some properties of each - human and divine authorship in different parts of the Bible.Many of the properties of photons are not those of a particle. Many are not those of a wave. If a book is by someone, then that shows in the book. Thus, if a book is by a trickster, or evil god, it would show those properties. Conversely, if a book were by a human idiot, it would show those properties. If a book were by a god with limited knowledge, it would show those properties. If you disagree, then what critieria would you use to determine whether or not the Illiad was or was not written by Satan?Similarly, what criteria should I use to determine if my phone book is written by the Jesus almighty? If there is no way to know if my phone book as opposed to the Bible is written by Jesus, then why should I not start each day with a reading from my phone book, and base my life on it? I’m still not clear on what you mean by OC. Many Christians today don’t hold that view, and even those who do hold that view disagree about which Bible. Is the 66 book bible fully divine? How could that be if the 73 book bible is fully divine? Or is the NIV fully divine? How could that be if the KJV is fully divine, and dozens of verses were removed from it to make the NIV? Or is the MSG bible fully divine? How could that be since it has several hundred pages more text, including additional concepts (or if it is, then how could the KJV be divine)? Or is the Peshitta bible divine, or the Ethiopian, or Coptic one, all with different contents? Or what about the epistle of barnabas - it’s in our oldest bibles, but not the NLT? Which is divine? Are the all divine? If so, then why? Also if so, then is the Jehovah’s witness bible divine? What about the book of mormon? Does “orthodox Christianity” include them? Does it include Martin Luther, who didn’t like the book of James? Even the very claim that the Bible is divine makes no sense unless one first defines what they mean by “Bible” - unless all books are divine, which I guess I wouldn’t argue with, since God is all, right?Thanks-Equinox

Do you deny the revelation of God to Joseph Smith?

I’m glad you recognize the issue here regarding “classical particle”. I clarified that because to say something combines the properties of two different things, they have to be different things. In the 1700’s people had an idea for “particle” and an idea for “wave”. With our current understanding, QM has shown us that the two are synonymous, whether you are talking about an electron or a thrown football. Thus, the analogy of using it to combine two different things no longer works with your stipulation, unless you want to go the route of saying that all humans are god because everything is God. I’m not so sure they are off topic. Perhaps they are exactly on topic, since to assert that the Bible is Godly made, one must define “Bible”.It’s like if I said “the lake has magic properties, if you jump in it will transform you into a butterfly! - now we can discuss the evidence for that.”To which you said “which lake do you mean?”, and I replied “sorry, that’s off topic!”Which Bible?Have a fun evening-EquinoxP.S. - and I still don't see how to get a different meaning from your "OC" than "those C who agree with me". I mean, yes a lot of Christians hold that view, but many don't, and it's not clear that your view has always (or even ever) been the only Christian or even the majority view out there. Did the Catholic church between 600 and 1000 hold the dual view, or the direct literal word of God view? I suspect the latter.

Welcome to EvC Shaitan!And it gets even worse! These same people want to use that folklore to supplant the scientific education that American children will need if we want any hope of competing in the competitive, global marketplace that’s already upon us.-EquinoxEdited by Equinox, : typo

Jar wrote: Now Jar, you and I have discussed that, and they could well be malicious forgeries, or perhaps not (I've copied some of our discussion below). Intentional forgery happened back then, and it people didn't like getting fooled. Please don't candy-coat the fact that there are pseudepigrapha in the Bibles - it could well be intentioal forgery, and Iaision is right that these are clearly not written by Paul (and the author nonetheless claims to be Paul).People did write in their teacher’s name to express honor. This happened in greek philosophic schools too. However, back then people did often write to deceived and gain authority too, and even back then this practice was considered dishonest and frowned upon. We have solid examples of this from the 2nd century, when the Pastorals were written too. For instance, the author of 3rd Corinthians was caught while writing it, and accused of dishonest-type forgery. Galen found a forged book in his name, and was offended enough by it write a whole book about how to detect and reject books forged in his name.So both occurred. I don’t know which motivation was behind the pastorals and the other Pauline works that aren’t by him (3rd cor, Laod, GoPaul, etc). All of them may be good and pure, or all forgeries, but of course it’s most likely that some are each type, and some are somewhere in between, such as the case where a Christian is unhappy because many of the other Christians in his congregation are moving the congregation in a direction he doesn’t like, so he happens to “find” a letter from “paul” that happens to support his side. From his view his motives were pure - to help everyone find salvation by saving them from heresy. From someone else’s view, he forged that. The situation above could be the origin of the Gospel of Paul, or of Titus, or neither. Or they could have written Paul’s name and the book as a fictional piece, like “call me Ishmael”, as written by Melville - not intended to deceive, but not in praise of Paul either. After circulating for a while, the most recent owner might not know this, and take the letter at it’s word as a letter by Paul.Without a time machine, a magic person-finder, and a mind reader, it’s hard to know which of all of these is what happened. So perhaps calling it a forgery is a bit harsh. It could well be true but again it may not. However, anyone who calls the other Christian pseudepigrapha (such as the Gospel of Philip, Paul’s letter to the laodiceans, etc, etc) forgeries, yet calls the pastorals, or 2nd Pet, etc, “pseudepigrapha” is using a double standard. Either way is fine with me, as long as we are consistent.Have a fun day-Equinox

Hi Jar-
you wrote: We should probably say more than that, since that sounds a little like we don’t have any information, when in fact we do (we’re pretty sure it’s not Paul, who it claims to be by).I most often use the term “pseudepigrapha”, and usually allow “forgery” - since that seems descriptive to me (but not to you). My main point was that whatever term is used should be used for both canonical and non-canonical works. So pseudepigrapha seems to be the term that works best for everyone.Have a fun day--Equinox