The new teachings of Jesus

I am not one of those "christians".I do believe you can find the word of God, by reading the bible, if you pray to God and ask Him, what it means.

That is pretty much what I believe too riVeRraT. The only reason I brought up what I did on this thread was to point out that for the people who are not like us there is a sticky situation they may be getting themselves in by claiming that the NIV (for example) is the innerrant word of God. When Bibles begin to be transliterated for what they "meant to say" then the opporunity arises to add text based doctrine where none existed before. Alternativly, the oppotunity is presented to solidify a PARTICULAR interpretation as the correct one. In the simple case of changing the tense in Genesis 2 the position that the Genesis myth is consistent is changed from from an interpretive to a literal reading.In short, everyone wants to be "right" and if changing the Bible will make someone more right they WILL do it.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Saying the bible is inherently right, or saying it is inherently wrong, IMO is wrong either way.To me it is impossible to be a literalist.

that depends on what you mean, if you mean the bible is right as a guide to a spiritual pathway to god i would agree, as history or being used a text book about the world i would have to disagree. the bible doesn't work anymore in that function, unless you happen to be a hebrew from 2 thousand years ago too true, too many authors of the texts, making too many statements about god that conflict when put into one book, works for the time written though Edited by ReverendDG, : typos

the point was, though, that just because something has the name "jesus" in it does not mean the fundamentalists will believe it. i'm not sure HOW they make that decision.

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1) Iraneaus in Against Heresis detailed the existing cannon of the bible at the beginning of the second century and Iraneus was directly taught by an apostle, the cannon of which was supported by the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.2) Nothing has ever been lost from the Bible. We have over 24 manuscripts and pieces of manuscripts and whenever there was a question any info like notes in the margin were included in the text when being copied. It ends up that there are only addit'l variations on words included in sentences. The Bible is 99.5% word perfect and the variations are simply extra word variations that were in the margin that copiests were afraid to leave out and included. And none of the variations were in significant passages. And experts (Nestle/Aland text) believe they know in each and every case how the word variation occured making the Bible word perfect. so no reason to doubt the wording of the Bible.

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"...but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables"

this is a sweeping statement which implies that we have all the original manuscripts of each and every Bible book. In the case of the gospels, for instance, that would include the original manuscripts written circa 1st / early 2nd century. Is that the case ? I believe that Irenaeus was taught by Polycarp who was not an apostle. Besides, as Irenaeus lived in late second century all the apostles would have been long dead and buried.As to how he decided on the canon, read his own words : see, it's nothing to do with what he believed to be genuine or not. It's just the mystical number four - may be he was a numerologist. I bet his lucky lottery numbers were 4 and 44.!

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Isn't that kinda hard to say since there is no such thing as "the Bible"?There are quite a few Canon and there is lots of variation between them. IIRC the Samaritan Canon includes only the first five books of the Old Testament. The Ethiopian Canon includes Enoch and others while the Western Canon excludes them. The Protestant Canon moves book from in the Bible into the Apocrypha and in addition, we don't have a clue what ANY of the original manuscripts said.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The very fact that you are aware of the different cannons is evidence that nothing is lost. We know what the books are. Just because some group includes or excludes books from their cannon doesnt mean the excluded books are lost.And Higher and Lower criticism gives us a degree of accuracy for the manuscrips. There are over 24,000 manuscripts and pieces of the New Testament and over 30,000 for the old. We simply contrast and compare. Like the Babylonian Talmud vs the Alexandrian Talmud. And it comes out to 99.5% word accuracy.And copiests would insert margin notes into the text thinking it too important to lose. The problem is too much text not loss of text. And in every case where there is a variation, it is trivial and does not affect the meaning of the text.And in the New Testament's case, Kurt Aland starting with the 26 edition of the Nestle/Aland Text believes they can explain how each and every variation in the New Testament occured and what the original text is. I Believe he is now on the 32nd Edition of his work.

Non sequitur. There could be lots of stuff that was lost and therefore isn't in any of the canons.
(Note spelling if "canons".)

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What books are in the Bible?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Hey Ringo!Glad you could make it. Your droll wit is greatly appreciated. No one else here seems to have a sense of humor and debates quickly degenerate into the ad hominem which I must confess to occasionally as well. And how is this an argument? Possibility doesnt = reality. If something has been lost or even left out when it shouldnt be, then it should be demonstrated or the reasonabilty of the possibility at least presented. Go head, blast away with your canon!

Now that's just silly. If a book or a chapter is missing, how can it be demonstrated? Look for evidence of torn-out pages?You're claiming that absolutely positively nothing has ever gone missing from the Bible. That's like walking into Wal-Mart and saying, "Nothing has ever been stolen from this store."I'm simply stating the sensible alternative: It is very possible that something has gone missing and you would never know about it.

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And quit strip-quoting me! I said 'demonstrate it or at least present why the possibility is reasonable.' Let's see, we have 66 books written by 40 authors over a period of a little over 1300 years and you cant find any evidence to back your assertion? That's your problem. Your telling me that you can make an assertion and it's silly for me to expect you to be responsible and fulfill your burdens of argumentation? When someone cannot fulfill their burden of proof it just means that their assertion is not to be acceptedEdited by ReformedRob, : No reason given.

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"...but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables"

Whoa whoa whoa. You're asserting that there are "66 books" and you're complaining about my "assertion"?I'm asking you: How do you know that there weren't originally 67 books? Or 167 books? If you're going to assert that "the Bible" is 100% complete, then you're the one who has to provide evidence.Strictly speaking, this topic is about adding to the Bible, so let's do a suppose.Suppose a shepherd boy is playing in some caves - say near the Dead Sea - and he happens to find a fragment of parchment that says, "The Gospel According to Earl...." How would you decide whether or not to add the Book of Earl to the canon?How would you know whether or not it had been lost for two thousand years?Do you think the Roman Catholics would agree with you and add it to their canon? How about the Rumanian Orthodox? How About the Ethiopian Rosicrucian Stevedorians?In short, how do you know that there are 66 books in "the Bible"? How do you know that not a chapter, not a verse, not a word, not a letter has been lost from any of those books?

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