The Bible: God's Word or Man's?

by Doug Mason 66 Replies latest watchtower bible

Terry

Have you simply willed yourself into confidence? Are you taking the contagious confidence of apologists and making it your own? Or, do you have some logical steps from A to B to C which lead you toward confidence?
Quite the contrary, actually. As an agnostic who was beset by Christian coworkers, I set-out to disprove the Bible. My hope was to get them off my back and perhaps even set some of them straight. In the attempt, however, I wound-up becoming a Christian. The evidence was undeniably in their favor.
Okay, two points.
1.You set out to disprove the Bible. If you failed to do that it doesn't mean the Bible is true. It means you failed. We don't know how competent you are at your task, do we?
2.When you say the "evidence was undeniably in their favor" you are dealing with evidence per se. You are dealing with arguments in lieu of evidence. Pause and reflect on what a difference that is.
How do you get from NO ORIGINALS to "what we do have is the original text."????
More on this in a moment.
Okay, I'm waiting....
When you write about events AFTER THEY HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED how can you call it prophecy?
Your assumption is that the writings came after. Why is that, I wonder?
No need to wonder. The simplest and most rational explanation (Occam's Razor) argues for assuming the events occured before they were written about. Extraordinary events (writing about events accurately BEFORE they occur) require extraordinary proof. Merely citing scripture is not proof. It is circular reasoning.
materialists assume a priori that there is no such thing as prophecy.
Materialists? You mean people who live in the real world are skeptical about the unreal world of imaginary happenings? Well, yes. We live in a material universe. Dreamers, visionaries, shaman, priests, prophets PONTIFICATE in a world of words unhinged from reality. You can't simply accept all that nonsense and play on their gossamer turf and then wonder why they win, can you?
PSacramento

In terms of Historicity, the NT is just as historicaly valid as any other historical writing that is accpeted by scholars and historians alike, perhaps even more so.
That still does NOT make it the word of God, but simply what was written by man who believed they were writing the message from God ( thr WORD being Jesus and not a collection of writings).
The NT and OT have their place but they place is NOT above the WORD.
Terry

When copyists and translators went out of their way to MAKE CERTAIN the various passages harmonized with each other---how can you call it internal consistency?
That's the beauty of God's plan. He ensured that the Scriptures were proliferated in such a way that no copyist could inject his own ideas undetected. This is particularly true of the NT. The copies were made and circulated throughout the empire. At each place they arrived, more copies were produced. And while errors, both intentional and unintentional, crept into the copies, these were geographically isolated and easy to identify when compared with the larger body of manuscripts.
I should like to point out your error here. Once you realize it you'll get a fresh perspective.
Nobody at any time had access to all the manuscripts or epistles in original form. Nobody. At any time.
If you were one of the churches in Corinth and Paul sent you an epistle directly you have THAT ONE original. Contents of that epistle were passed on by word of mouth (according to memory and inclination). There are a great many years which lapse before those copies of copies start to become plural. (The original wasn't viewed as "inspired" at the time. Only much later did this view become attached!)
By accretion, selection, personal preference, editing, commentary and ideology do emendations occur followed by more and more copies.
Do not make this mistake! What was circulated throughout the empire was not like King Tut's exhibit going from museum to museum crated and packed with armed guards! The vast number of personal copies produced personal injections, additions and subtractions according to personal belief systems! People knowingly "helped" Paul say what they thought he "intended" to say.
Do you not recall that Marcion had his own personal New Testament canon of self-edited scripture? So effective and widespread was his Gnostic laced version of Christianity the (eventual) church created THEIR OWN canon to compete.
Further, anything the Catholic (official) Church disagreed with was destroyed!
You can't peddle the idea that the "original" scriptures, scrolls, manuscripts and such were sealed in platic bags and hand-carried by Wells Fargo from place to place.
It was a mish-mash of hearsay.
Terry

I teach adult Sunday school. When I cover the text of Scripture, there is an exercise I have to demonstrate how we can arrive at the original text with only flawed, hand-written copies. I give each student an "original" manuscript. It's in English, but I give it the characteristics of an uncial text (all upper-case with no spaces between words). Once the copies are made, I take back the originals and rip them up. All we have left are the copies.
Next, I reduce the number of copies by roughly 75%. I will ask, "How many of you have a birthday or anniversary this month?" Those who raise their hands have their copies taken. "Your manuscripts were written on papyrus and stored in a humid climate. They did not survive to the present. Now, how many of you typically drive 5 MPH over the speed limit?" That usually gets me several manuscripts. "Yours were kept in the library of Alexandria and were burned by invading Muslims."
Once there are 5 or 6 manuscripts remaining, I will photo copy them and give a set to each student. Their homework is to reproduce the original text and bring it to class the following week.
In all the years I've taught this section, not once has anyone produced a flawless copy
With all due respect...Give me a Break!!
This is hardly an honest test of anything. Who are we fooling? Ourselves, most likely.
False premises lead to false conclusions.
Christianity was an emotional result of an oral contact between an evangelist and a hearer. The content of the message changed the person's heart and mind to the extent they might later be willing to undergo cruel torture or death to defend their belief in the veracity of that message.
The psychology of the convert and the emotional fervor behind their WANTING A COPY of one of Paul's letters (for example) in no way fits your
unemotional and academic classroom "experiment".
How does this break down?
A devout monk who has invested his life in "getting it right" is totally committed in making certain his copying and translating efforts are "perfect" to the extent he will make whatever changes are necessary to "clarify" or "harmonize" what is written.
In other words: HE PIOUSLY commits FRAUD while wholly pure in motive!!
He may tweek two separate gospels so that they "read harmoniously" without realizing he has altered what was actually there. He may read
something Paul said and think, "I'm sure he meant to say this...." and commit his alteration in pure-hearted violence to Paul's actual wording.
Sometimes entire passages are inserted (cut and paste fashion) where they never appeared! The ending of Mark (for example) is tacked on.
The last half of the Lord's Prayer is another example. The incident where the woman taken in adultry is about to be stoned is another insertion.
Over and over again these things happened because somebody was psychologically zealous in "getting it right" while actually getting it wrong.
Moreover....
The copying of "originals" did not take place within a 24 hour period as YOUR EXPERIMENT does!
The passage of great amounts of time changes the players in our experiment!
You have the same students in your classroom on the first day and the second day and the third of your experiment.
In historical reality we have different persons copying and yet another recopying. Further, the belief system of the first copyist is different from the times in which the second or third copyist is doing their work.
Different issues (doctrinal and political) faced the church in different eras. Translators and copyists HAD A VESTED INTEREST in "clarifying" any so-called false ideas or beliefs by lining up those ducks according to prevailing authority at the time!
Your classroom experiment is a vanity and a nothing, if not a joke. It is intellectually dishonest.
In all the years I've taught this section, not once has anyone produced a flawless copy
Well, of course not, you silly person!! You've got a perfectly controlled enviornment with the same people in a narrow time frame!!
Terry

In terms of Historicity, the NT is just as historicaly valid as any other historical writing that is accpeted by scholars and historians alike, perhaps even more so.
Nonsense!
What other "historical" writing purports to be the infallible WORD OF GOD?
What other "historical" writing decides the fate of mankind itself?
What other "historical" writing makes VALIDITY an issue of life or death or even eternal damnation or heavenly reward?
The playing field is not the same for "other" historical writings to be compared with the New Testament.
If you have a vault full of counterfeit money and you compare it to a pocketful of actual currency will the counterfeit money spend better because there is more of it? I think not!
Christianity RULED THE WORLD for 1500 years for all practical purposes and was vaunted by purveyors of power for their own ends. Is it really any wonder there are so many artefacts strewn about propping up their source of power???
What is amazing is the truly disgusting condition the majority of these so-called "holy writings" are in! Instead of the True Church protecting and preserving the original texts as being the HOLY AND IRREPLACEABLE FOUNDATION of all true faith----they were allowed to vanish into nothingness!
No effort at all was expended on keeping any of Paul's epistles safe for posterity! The oldest surviving documents we have are like so much shredded garbage from a landfill about the size of a postage stamp!!
What does that tell you about how precious they are to God??
notverylikely

1.You set out to disprove the Bible. If you failed to do that it doesn't mean the Bible is true. It means you failed. We don't know how competent you are at your task, do we?
Actually, we do. He thinks his photocopy exercise proves that the bible is accurate. We aptly see how incompetent he his.
notverylikely

Once the copies are made, I take back the originals and rip them up. All we have left are the copies.
Now, go through that process 20 more times with 20 different people for each copy, let them add in margin notes, correct where they think mistakes might be made and try to "interpret" what they think you might have meant each time.
Now, how many of you typically drive 5 MPH over the speed limit?" That usually gets me several manuscripts. "Yours were kept in the library of Alexandria and were burned by invading Muslims."
The library was first burned by Julius Ceasar, it was never really burned by the Muslims, that was an urban legend of the time. See how innacuracies can creep in?
Once there are 5 or 6 manuscripts remaining, I will photo copy them and give a set to each student. Their homework is to reproduce the original text and bring it to class the following week.
Now repeat 20 times with 20 different people, etc., etc....
In all the years I've taught this section, not once has anyone produced a flawless copy.
To be expected....
No two students, however, make the exact same errors. When you compare six copies, four or five will agree perfectly in a given reading. One or two will contain an error, but these are almost always different from one another.
OK, now repeat 20 times....
At the end of the exercise, every single student has been able to reproduce the original text--even though no autograph was available, and he/she only had imperfect and error-filled copies.
Wait, you just said they didn't produce a flawless original, now you are saying they are able to reproduce an orginal....did you take copies of copies into account, personal interpretation, notes, changes in language over millenia, the fact that some students DO make the same errors that get copied over and over, etc?
This, of course, is a simplified exercise in textual criticism. It aptly demonstrates the principal without the need for Greek or Hebrew scholarship.
OK, so if I were to give you an original Canterbury Tales, you could copy it, then have someone else copy that copy, so on and so on, in 100 years I would have something 99% close to the original? You couldn't even read the "english" Canterbury tales was written in....
This example IS simplified, I agree. Simple, useless and utterly wrong.
notverylikely

In terms of Historicity, the NT is just as historicaly valid as any other historical writing that is accpeted by scholars and historians alike, perhaps even more so.
I always tell the truth, except when I don't.
The NT has very little to do with history. I am not sure of your point.
PSacramento

What other "historical" writing purports to be the infallible WORD OF GOD?
What other "historical" writing decides the fate of mankind itself?
What other "historical" writing makes VALIDITY an issue of life or death or even eternal damnation or heavenly re
Irrelevant.
What does that tell you about how precious they are to God??
Now you have hit on something.
We do know that there were some attempts to "alter" scripture, the Comma Johanneum is an example as where the Gnostic writings that came AFTER the end of the 1st century and were dissmissed.
We know where the variations are and why they are there.
The gospels are NOT taken as gospels as much as many people suggets they are/were.
The NT is the way it is NOT because it was chosen to be that way by a group of men, but because a group of men decided to join the more popular and less deabted ones that were ALREADY in use, into one "book".
leavingwt

That still does NOT make it the word of God, but simply what was written by man who believed they were writing the message from God ( thr WORD being Jesus and not a collection of writings).
The NT and OT have their place but they place is NOT above the WORD.
Are there any books other than OT and NT that give any details on the WORD or what's on his mind? Or, must we rely on personal revelation, as given by God via the Holy Spirit?

The Bible: God's Word or Man's?

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