Why is This in the bible?

[PaulSacramento]

In case anyone is wonder, this here is probably the best work on the subject of the canon:

[PaulSacramento]

We should be careful to use the fact that the apostles or Christ quoted from any OT books or writings as proof of their authenticity because, if we do that, we also have to leave open the possibility that, according to Jude for example, 1Enoch ( which he quotes) should also be in the bible ( which I tend to agree with to a certain extent).

[PaulSacramento]

We need to understand that the canon was a long time in the making and that it is a collection of books that were seen as authoritative and that it was NOT the process of canonization that made them authoritative.
We also need to remember that over the years, with more discoveries of ancient texts, what we have seen is that though there be SOME discrepancies and even errors, there are man made and do NOT reflect on the original documents and do NOT effect and doctrines.

[secretfire6]

So I don't even have a consensus from anybody about how Jesus not being God would be a bad thing.

Trying to determine the truths of God and Scripture by consensus isn't a very good strategy, my friend. Scripture claims to be "God-breathed"/inspired by God. And while you can question whether or not that is true, what you can't deny is that those who testified and wrote about Jesus in the New Testament believed that He was God Incarnate. And they worshiped Him as God and He acknowledged that worship. You can't deny that Scripture reveals that Jesus Himself claimed to be God. These are the plain teachings in Scripture about Jesus. Searching for a consensus from the chattering masses will only confuse you all the more.

I meant a consensus from people interpreting their Bibles around what they think God is or who Jesus was. Since there is no agreement on that, there is also no agreement on why Jesus being a spirit just like us would be a bad thing. Would it make his sacrifice on the cross meaningless? Would it make salvation impossible? Would it honestly turn people away from God? Things like that. I can't deny that some versions of the bible have verses that imply the writers viewed Jesus as God. Are you using NIV, NES, NWT, NKJV or KJV? These are the versions I've had the most experience with. I also can't deny that other versions of the bible do not contain these verses. I want to know why. They are the older ones written in Hebrew and Greek. I have more respect for those than I do Latin or old English
Where did he claim that? When people asked Jesus who he was and if he claimed he was God or a God, he would say that he was not. All I can remember him confirming was that he was a son of God and was united with the father. Having the qualities of God doesn't mean he is one and the same. All the quotes from him that I'm running through my head right now actually identify him as more like us than like the father. "I will go back to my god and your god, to my father and your father" "I would not be ashamed to call them (other human beings) brothers". The main message of the Gospel of Christ that I get from the different Bibles that I have read is That Jesus is just like us and we can attain what he attained aside from being first born and the messiah. Jesus is the finish line that we are all running for.

[secretfire6]

In the last few years I've done a TON of study into the editing of the western Bible. It is mind blowing and heart wrenching how much of the Bible we have today is fake. What is even worse is the things that were removed. The audacity of the early Roman church is amazing. When caught and confronted about the changes being made, they basically respond with "yeah, we did that. God made us THE church so we can do what we want". It was their own preisthood that was calling them out too. For me, going back to the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek is the only way to know what really happened as far as writing goes.

Isn't KJV the one that is called 'the atheist's favorite bible"?

You did this research where and based on what?
The oldest manuscripts we have of the OT and NT have some very MINOR differences and all these have been known about for centuries.
The oldest complete codexs we have, the Siniaticus and vaticanus are available to all and have been translated for some time.
They pretty much are in line with our modern translations.

Now, if you are commenting on the fact that we have different translations based on the various interpretations, that is correct.
That said, there is NO MAJOR doctrine differences in ANY of the major translations.

By the way, the Catholic bible is the one with the MOST books in it, so one can possibly argue that those that omit certain books are the ones "guilty" of altering the bible.

Hi PaulSacremento.
The majority of my studies were done when I lived in Illinois. I was able to do some sit down talks with church pastors and read things that they gave me and think about ideals they talked about. The rest is from lots of reading. Right now I'm reading things from Lee Strobel. The tests I base my conclusions on are: Language, science, history, logic, prayer/meditation and finally answers from the spirit. whatever I'm testing must pass ALL of these in order for me to consider it as reliable. If it fails any one of them I can't hold on to it. A quick example was the existence of unicorns in the old testament. Failed the test of Language because in the Hebrew, the animal in question is clearly described with 2 horns. Failed the science tests because these unicorn horns that kings and popes had stashed in their treasuries turned out to be Narwhal tusks. History test wasn't as applicable here other than showing where the unicorn idea entered into the bible (Septuagint). Then the Logic test was considering whether the original Hebrew was more trustworthy than the Greek translation of it..easy test. So based on these 3 I can confidently say that I don't think unicorns actually existed in old testament times. This is what I use for every subject I research.

I'm not so quick to say that more books is more accurate. I do agree that omitting things makes me suspicious unless it's obvious forgery. i think Enoch should be a legit book to have been in the bible as well as some epistles and Gospels that were omitted. For me the most important question about additions and omissions is "when?". Catholic bible has many things in it, true, but catholic bible is 300+ years after the fact for NT. what came before it had fewer writings, but more importantly the writings it had that were the same were much shorter. Then comes the make or break question.."why?" If the additions or omissions were for political, financial or cultural reasons, that's bad. If it was because it's a verified missing piece, correlates to other verified scripture, can be dated to the right time etc. then that's good.

[Philip]

Although somewhat related, this thread has now morphed (several times) significantly away from the original poster's questions. And the portion of posts discussing the Apocrypha and questions surrounding those books is very important and should have its own thread. I'm requesting to see if Hana can't move that portion into a new thread discussing only that.

Philip

[1over137]

Although somewhat related, this thread has now morphed (several times) significantly away from the original poster's questions. And the portion of posts discussing the Apocrypha and questions surrounding those books is very important and should have its own thread. I'm requesting to see if Hana can't move that portion into a new thread discussing only that.

Philip

I will learn how to do that. Hmm, I wonder whether also mods can do that?

[RickD]

Although somewhat related, this thread has now morphed (several times) significantly away from the original poster's questions. And the portion of posts discussing the Apocrypha and questions surrounding those books is very important and should have its own thread. I'm requesting to see if Hana can't move that portion into a new thread discussing only that.

Philip

I will learn how to do that. Hmm, I wonder whether also mods can do that?

Yes, mods can split a thread. Young Philip is still a padawan moderator. When he gets stronger in the force, learn he will.

[PaulSacramento]

In the last few years I've done a TON of study into the editing of the western Bible. It is mind blowing and heart wrenching how much of the Bible we have today is fake. What is even worse is the things that were removed. The audacity of the early Roman church is amazing. When caught and confronted about the changes being made, they basically respond with "yeah, we did that. God made us THE church so we can do what we want". It was their own preisthood that was calling them out too. For me, going back to the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek is the only way to know what really happened as far as writing goes.

Isn't KJV the one that is called 'the atheist's favorite bible"?

You did this research where and based on what?
The oldest manuscripts we have of the OT and NT have some very MINOR differences and all these have been known about for centuries.
The oldest complete codexs we have, the Siniaticus and vaticanus are available to all and have been translated for some time.
They pretty much are in line with our modern translations.

Now, if you are commenting on the fact that we have different translations based on the various interpretations, that is correct.
That said, there is NO MAJOR doctrine differences in ANY of the major translations.

By the way, the Catholic bible is the one with the MOST books in it, so one can possibly argue that those that omit certain books are the ones "guilty" of altering the bible.

Hi PaulSacremento.
The majority of my studies were done when I lived in Illinois. I was able to do some sit down talks with church pastors and read things that they gave me and think about ideals they talked about. The rest is from lots of reading. Right now I'm reading things from Lee Strobel. The tests I base my conclusions on are: Language, science, history, logic, prayer/meditation and finally answers from the spirit. whatever I'm testing must pass ALL of these in order for me to consider it as reliable. If it fails any one of them I can't hold on to it. A quick example was the existence of unicorns in the old testament. Failed the test of Language because in the Hebrew, the animal in question is clearly described with 2 horns. Failed the science tests because these unicorn horns that kings and popes had stashed in their treasuries turned out to be Narwhal tusks. History test wasn't as applicable here other than showing where the unicorn idea entered into the bible (Septuagint). Then the Logic test was considering whether the original Hebrew was more trustworthy than the Greek translation of it..easy test. So based on these 3 I can confidently say that I don't think unicorns actually existed in old testament times. This is what I use for every subject I research.

I'm not so quick to say that more books is more accurate. I do agree that omitting things makes me suspicious unless it's obvious forgery. i think Enoch should be a legit book to have been in the bible as well as some epistles and Gospels that were omitted. For me the most important question about additions and omissions is "when?". Catholic bible has many things in it, true, but catholic bible is 300+ years after the fact for NT. what came before it had fewer writings, but more importantly the writings it had that were the same were much shorter. Then comes the make or break question.."why?" If the additions or omissions were for political, financial or cultural reasons, that's bad. If it was because it's a verified missing piece, correlates to other verified scripture, can be dated to the right time etc. then that's good.

That is all fine and dandy BUT before you can decided what is reliable you must first take into account the literary genre of what you are reading and then go to textual criticism and then to historical criticism.
If you don't follow these simple steps you well be working under a self-imposed premise of what the text is and what it is suppose to say that may be far different than what the original authors wanted the text to say.

In shout you would be stating that the text is unreliable because it doesn't say what YOU think it should say under the conditions that YOU decided it should say those things in.


The Catholic bible may be close to 300 years after the death of Christ ( the written letters of Paul being from about 40-50 AD and the oldest codexs being between 300-350 AD) BUT all other bibles are younger AND the manuscripts we have that are older than the codexs do NOT have any significant differences from them, so...

[secretfire6]

hey Paul,

What do you mean by literary genre? As in whether it's apocalyptic, historical narrative, parable or an epistle? I've taken into account the context, intent and culture of the writings I've put through my series of tests. That's the first part of the language test I do, because you're right, if I didn't do that I would have no good way of knowing whether a translation that looks bad is a mistake or whether the translator was attempting to clarify a concept using the tools of the newer language. Some translation issues are much more black and white, like a Hebrew description of a 2 horned animal being translated into a one horned animal in Greek or the English saying that Aaron's staff turned into a snake (nachesh) when Hebrew said it turned into a Tanin (crocodile). I would say those two verses failed the language test, but I don't stop there. I put it to other tests like History, science and logic. These others can either confirm or reverse a failed language test. I try to be as careful as I can not to make any assumptions, not to put any emotions or desires into these tests. I'm after accuracy, so there really isn't anything I WANT it to say before I start digging into it. It really helps that I wasn't indoctrinated into any one way of thinking in my life.

I do disagree that the early manuscripts don't differ from the early codexs. I'm just focusing on NT here when I say that the research I've been doing and the writings of the scholars I've read all agree that from 150 A.D. to the first council of Nicaea in 325, Christianity was a mess of chaos and scriptural editing. Even the Apostles wrote warnings to the brothers about people trying to rewrite the word and becoming false prophets. It seems that by the mid 3rd century nearly every congregation had their own little twist, own scriptures, teachings and practices. That was one of the purposes of the Nicaean council, to put an end to all the debating and evolving. As you know, for a couple years after the council ended, the most bloody religious civil war among the Christians broke out. Most of the Bishops who made up the council disagreed with Constantine's decision and 2 even refused to sign the agreement. They all wanted their own ideals to dominate and were willing to kill to get there. I thought it was Constantine who sent the Roman armies out to quell this war and enforce his decree, but it was the Emperor who took over right after his death that did the deed. The oldest manuscripts I've been able to read about or even read myself are written in Aramaic. They are: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts and Revelation. They are noticeably shorter than what we read now and Revelation especially is very different.
The logical part of me is saying it's unlikely that the scriptures gained new truths and more details as the centuries went on, making the Bible canon grow. It is more likely that perversions and forgeries were added, while disagreeable things were removed.

[Rob]

It seems that by the mid 3rd century nearly every congregation had their own little twist, own scriptures, teachings and practices. That was one of the purposes of the Nicaean council, to put an end to all the debating and evolving.

The purpose of the 325 council was to address the Arian heresy specifically. No biblical canon was decided upon.