Discussion about the bible.

by Anti-Christ 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Anti-Christ

  okay it's has been a while since I started a good old discussion about the bible. I will discuss a few facts about it that a lot of religions (including the WTBTS) don't like talking about.

  First the formation of the OT. This information is from Richard Carrier historian and philosopher.

  The Torah had already been canonized in some form possibly as early as 622 B.C.E. (when the true Torah was "discovered" and ceremoniously declared official by King Josiah, according to the Bible itself), though it was most likely significantly edited after the Babylonian Exile in the time of Ezra c. 500 B.C.E. The surest decision was made in the 2nd century B.C.E. when the Septuagint, an "official" Greek translation, was made of it by a council of seventy Jewish scholars in Alexandria.

  This is only the canonization of the OT, the oldest manuscript that we have today dates back to the 3rd-2nd century B.C.( dead sea scrolls) and almost all of the modern bibles (including the NWT) do not use the dead sea scrolls as a reference.They use the Masoretic texts that dates back to the middle ages (9th century AD) or the Septuagint. (3rd-2nd century B.C.) All of these manuscripts have difference between them and there is no original copies of the OT so the claim that the first books of the OT were composed in 1513 B.C. by Moses is pure speculation with no proof. The claim that the texts we have today are almost identical to the original is more then speculation, it is just not true.

  I will start with this. I await your comments.
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  cameo-d

  You might enjoy having a look at this new translation of the septuagint.

  There are so changes here that make a difference and give a whole new meaning to some scriptures.

  http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/
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  Anti-Christ

  Interesting. It shows how the inspired from god belief has big problems.
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  Anti-Christ

  So nobody else?
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  StAnn

  Well.....I'm Catholic. Took a class on this at University of Dayton. I took ONE class on the OT. There's actually a series of classes that covers two years, so I'm not yet qualified to speak on the OT. But the class I took focused a lot on the oral tradition, the various sources, the multiple editors over hundreds of years, the different genres.

  I think many Christians are shocked to discover that the OT wasn't dictated by God whispering in someone's ear. That's kind of the fundie view of the Bible, from what I can tell, that it was direct revelation to one single author for each book.

  StAnn
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  IP_SEC

  Well since no believers want to weigh in really, I'll tell you what believers have told me. I realize this is hearsay and Im only paraphrasing.

  The bible is a magical book. G'd used his magic to make sure we got just exactly what he wanted us to get. The rest of it all is bullcorn and should not be worried about. It is what it is and what it should be. See no worries.

  PS: StAnn, thank you for your objectiveness on the subject.
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  Leolaia

  Of course Moses did not write the Pentateuch in the sixteenth century BC. If he had, it wouldn't have been written in Hebrew -- it would have been written in an older Canaanite dialect closer to Ugaritic or Amarna Canaanite. The language contains unmistakable signs of a later age. As just one example, the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15 is written in a far more archaic dialect (Early Biblical Hebrew) than the surrounding narrative which was written in Classical Biblical Hebrew. The poem is thought to date to the twelfth century BC, whereas the narrative dates to a time about 500 or 600 years later. That they belong to different eras is plain from the fact that the redactor places the poem on Moses' mouth. He does this because he misinterprets the yiqtol verb tenses as predicting the conquest of Canaan as lying in the future. But the archaic preterite yiqtol verbs in the poem were more like those in Ugaritic and referred to the conquest of Canaan as a past event (in Classical Biblical Hebrew, yiqtol is a jussive/imperfect whereas the preterite forms became prefixed with way-). So Moses did not write the Song of the Sea (which belongs to the period of the judges), and the author who inserted the poem into the text could not have been Moses either.

  The claim that the texts we have today are almost identical to the original is more then speculation, it is just not true.

  Yeah, had this forum continued into next year, I would have started a thread called "Misquoting Jehovah" (on analogy with Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus") on this very subject. It is generally recognized that in the diaspora, text types arose of the OT books in a manner rather similar to the text types of the NT canon (e.g. the Western Text, the Byzantine Text, the Majority Text, etc.). The three major text types for the OT was the Palestinian Text, the Egyptian Text, and the Babylonian Text, corresponding to the three major locales where Jews lived during the Persian era. Roughly speaking, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Samaritan Pentateuch were of the Palestinian Text, the Septuagint was a version of the Egyptian Text, and the Vulgate and the Masoretic were of the Babylonian Text. The problem is that the time depth between these text types is of a far greater magnitude than between the NT text types with very few exemplars in between, such that we have to reckon with very different editions of some books like Psalms, 1-2 Samuel, Daniel, Jeremiah, and Esther. There are cases of verses that were accidentally omitted from the MT by copyist error but retained in the DSS. There are cases of intentional alterations to be text, such as toning down the henotheism of Deuteronomy 32 or exaggerating the height of Goliath in 1 Samuel. And there are countless cases of accidental corruptions and accretions. Because of the huge time depth between versions belonging to the different text types, it is not possible to identify many of the coruptions through simple comparison of surviving texts (as can be done in the case of the NT, where there is only a 100-200 year gap between the date of composition and the oldest manuscripts). The time depth is such that corruptions may easily antedate the archetypes of all three text types and thus can only be identified through literary analysis. And the different versions of the books arise in part because the compositional process itself involved continual revision and redaction by later writers -- to a much greater extent than evident in the NT (with the exception of the Western Text of Acts). In other words, the boundary between composition and scribal alteration is blurred since the latter often involved significant addition of content. In a sense, the composition of books like the Pentateuch, Isaiah, and Daniel was more like the composition of 1 Enoch which involved an extended process of composition and redaction over a period of centuries.
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  StAnn

  I remember, years ago when I had first left the Dubs, a history professor asked if any of us students believed God made Adam from dirt and Eve from his rib. Like a fool I answered, "Of course I do." He couldn't help but laugh out loud. That was the first time I'd ever heard that the first part of Genesis was pre-history.

  I think it's great that the denominations encourage their members to read the Bible but I think they should provide people with the tools to read them intelligently. Without context and a knowledge of the process of how the Bible was written and compiled, it's easy to see how people can get it so terribly wrong.

  Oh, and IP-SEC, to paraphrase my priest: the points of the various stories in the Bible are considered true; the Bible is not a history book and every little detail is not meant to be examined under a microscope; it's the overarching story that is the point. This is where people get bogged down, me thinks.

  StAnn
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  Anti-Christ

  Thanks Leolaia, you always blow my mind with your knowledge of the bible. There is so much information on the bible that is not taught to the average JW and no wonder. With all the facts about the bible I find that debating WT teachings is futile. Their dogma is based on the bible, take that away and the rest crumbles.

  Thanks for your input StAnn, like IP said very objective.

  Well I'm off to bed.
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  cameo-d

  The bible is a magical book. G'd used his magic to make sure we got just exactly what he wanted us to get.

  IP...you are right.

  The bible is magical because religion was born from magic. Anti-C I think you might find something of interest in the Eleusian Mysteries and the Dionysian Mystery School in Greece (which was a precursor to the Eleusian Mysteries, Orphism, and Gnosticism). Also the Syrian Mysteries. And the Mystery School for the Prophets (Mt. Carmel). Those are just a few things you can google and find lots of info.

  The gospels have been added to in layers over the years. You might also find interest in the discoveries of the Nag Hammadi library.

  As far as god using his magic to make sure we got what HE wanted us to get...that also, is absolutely right. There is an evil element at work here. Is it the satanic seed of Cain present today through the Illuminati bloodlines? Are there evil angels orchestrating behind the scenes? (ev(il)-angelicals)

  significantly edited after the Babylonian Exile in the time of Ezra c. 500 B.C.E. The surest decision was made in the 2nd century B.C.E. when the Septuagint, an "official" Greek translation, was made of it by a council of seventy Jewish scholars in Alexandria.

  In Deut. 32:8 we find that 'god' set boundaries of nations according to the number of the sons of god. That number was 70. (www.thedivinecouncil.com/DT32BibSac.pdf ) There were 70 nations at the time of division after the Tower of Babel and there were 70 Elohim to whom the nations were given. This is how the Pagan mystery religions began. Were these "sons of god" alien angels who ruled the nations?

  The Kabbalah was utilized by Western magicians and Hermetic students for hundreds of years.

  The earliest "prayers" were actually oaths of vengence and supplication of the gods to inflict injury on ones enemies. You can find examples of this in David's Psalms.

  Before he was Yhwh, before he was jehovah, god was called EL.

  According to church fathers of early Christianity, El was the first Hebrew name of God http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92l

  (Why do you call the JW posse EL-ders?)

  Amen (aka Amon, Amun) was an Egyptian deity who gradually rose to become one of the most important deities in Ancient Egypt. Amun's name first recoded as "imn" meaning hidden one and "god of the air". Even the NT confirms satan's domain is the "air".

  We are still using these "words" based on translations and root words of language meanings from thousands of years ago.