by Terry 19 Replies latest watchtower bible
If the Watchtower was not run by such shameless baldface liars, it would be reasonable to expect them to be in possesion of the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Bible, since they claim to be the organization whose members wrote it and compiled it into the Bible before faithfully maintaining it over the centuries.
But they don't, because they aren't.
Terry, believers in the Bible have this point covered. It's a matter of faith to accept the Bible. You have to read it with the thought already implanted that it is God's book. Then you will know.
Personally, I agree with you. The original should be out in the desert somewhere in the promised land in a zone where weapons disappear if you bring them and one copy per person would just come out of the "ark of the covenant" that stores the original. The copy would be in the person's own language, of course.
Why be God if you can't flaunt it?
It took me a long time to let go of the Bible, but then I watched "Religulous" with Bill Maher. When he got to the part where he was interviewing an actor playing "Jesus" at an amusement park and said that the whole Jesus story had been floating around the Mediterranean area for thousands of years before Jesus was born, the scales fell from my eyes. Plagiarism! In the Bible! Dude, seriously?
Well, I think Beethoven may have stated it differently. Instead of Plagarism he'd say "Theme and Variations."
Went to see the fragments at the Chester Beatty museum in Dublin this summer. Was actually quite amazed at how good condition they looked from what you expect seeing photos of them. If I'm down Manchester way I might see if I can get a look in the John Rylands library.
There you go again Terry being logical and all that.
Its quite amazing when you think of all the powerful religions that have been created solely upon a series writings, which were really
fictionalized and embellished stories told by an ancient civilization trying to create a semblance of relevance toward their particular god
of worship.
One thing that should be realistically and honestly realized is that men made god to empower themselves more that just being insignificant mortals.
I knew a lady who use to drive up and down alleyways in back of houses looking for junk furniture. I never figured out why anybody would dump old furniture in
an alley. Maybe they just don't want to be seen putting their trash where it doesn't belong. Who knows?
Anyway...this lady would find an old beat-up, crappy chair, sofa, end table, lamp...whatever and get it in her car somehow and take it home.
Why?
She'd work on those cast offs and strip them, reglue them, putty and varnish, stuff and sew--totally refurbish them.
It was a lot of hard work but, as she liked to say, "One person's trash is another person's treasure."
She used whatever was already there and added what was necessary. when finished that awful, funky old chunk of crap was an awesome piece of furniture!
It wasn't the thing that was tossed out any longer, it was what she wanted it to be: USEFUL and beautiful!!
Friends would go over to her house for the first time and see these things and exclaim how wonderful they were. I mean they caught your eye they did!
"This must have cost you a fortune," they'd say. "May I ask how much this was--is it an antique?"
She'd grin and say something like, "A few dollars and a lot of sweat." It was the artist in her and a wonderful imagination that did the trick.
I think the bible is much like those junk furniture projects of hers. Somebody digs crap out of a junkyard and gets to work on it and---PRESTO! The Holy bible!!
Isn't it marvellous how Jehovah has preserved His holy word?
" GOD HAD THE POWER TO PRESERVE His Word"
This is something that always bothers me. If God has the power to preserve his word, why he didn't have the power to let us know how his name was pronounced back in the days?
if he let that happened (people erasing his name) what others changes in "his word" did he permited?
God's word is NOT limited to the writings of Man ( the Bibel in its various forms).
That we do have such old manuscripts and samples, even complete ( or close to it) codexs just shows how esteemed they doceuments were.
The codex Siniaticus and Vaticanus are perfect examples.
The fragments we have are good only to date the time frame that copies were already circulating.
The fragment of the GOJm, for example, that is dated in and around 100-150 CE gives as proof that a copy of the GOJ was alreadt ciruclating at the atime, which mens the orginal was older which means the other gospels are older still.
All that does is give as an idea of the timeline, nothing more.
Sure if they had been carved in stone like the egyptian prayers and poems found on the pyramids, they'd last longer but they'd be a bitch to carry around, LOL !
Human folly occurs when the words of mere men are consumed and venerated as words from god(s).
