This is what you said. "The God of the Old Testament is a capricious, vengeful and nasty old bastard." I rightfully claimed that you were ignorant. You then refuse to back up your statement. Well? Can you back it up?
Yes, standards. Like the death penalty. If you want to rant against God, kindly take it to a thread where it's actually the topic. - - - Updated - - - Maybe you should start a thread on this. Sounds like an interesting subject.
Good solid questions. Lxx (Septuagint) was translated by 70 Jewish scholars under the oversight of the Sanhedrin from ancient Hebrew (no vowels) to ancient Greek (Koine). That happened about 200 BC. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the Judaism became rather unaccountable to a central authority since the Sanhedrin was gradually dissolved. Since the ancient Hebrew was a dead language the Mazorite Jews decided to save the language by adding vowels to it. The Mazoretic Text (MT) of the OT was completed by about 1000 (?) AD. Then, the Mazorites convinced King James to use their text and every modern translation is MT. I personally study the Bible at a deeper level than most of the folks. The New Testament writers including Paul and Jesus himself quoted OT passsages from the LXX and not the MT - very important. And the Judaics in AD were clearly anti-Christian in their views so when there is a deviation between MT and LXX I always prefer LXX. I find the LXX being more reliable than the MT ... books like Psalms, Job and others are very, very different in places from a MT translation. Does this help? Thanks, Ed
On the mark as far as it goes but we must face the fact most biblical exegetists and apologists approach scripture in it's ancient forms from a believer's perspective attempting to make sense of a mish mash of documents which essentially are full of contradictions and often make no sense whatever. Jacques Berlinerblau is particularly good on this area in his "The Secular Bible:Why Non Believers Must Take Religion Seriously" (Publ' Cambridge University Press 2005) Not sure what you mean by 'a deeper level' but it wouldn't take much to study it at a deeper level than 'most folk's who' swallow the entire mess as 'gospel truth'.
Actually I do not find the texts to be that confusing as some might think. The Old Testament as quoted by Christ and others in the NT came from LXX. So I take LXX as the source for the OT. If it's good enough for Christ and Paul, definitely good enough for me. New Testament is even more reliable than OT. Since we have only two family is Greek texts, W&H and TR, it is really not that hard to read and study. When I say that I study at a deeper level than the most, what I mean is I often go into Interlinear, use Strong's and often flip between LXX and MT. The Scriptures are inerrant and inspired in their original manuscripts and languages as they were penned. We do not have the originals and the original languages are not being spoken any more. What we have today are translations and copies. But I am quite satisfied with the reliability of the Bible as we read it today ... I should note however that NIV did a poor job in their translations. Just because it is easier to read does not mean it is a good translation. Thanks, Ed
We do not need to discuss this ... I am just curious what specifically you disagree with and what your position is on what you highlighted from my post.
If the original manuscripts are gone and the original language is gone. How does anyone know if they were inerrant? And even if they were inerrant, it would be useless today. For it is never to be found or known. So an inerrant claim is, useless.
The OT text that the early Christians used was (obviously) centuries older than the Masoretic Text which was written roughly 800 AD The Masoretic text has changed significantly from the older Septuagint (LXX) and a Qumran versions At this link on page 7 you can find a comparison of the exact same passage in the 3 different texts. http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/DT32BibSac.pdf It is very interesting to note what the Masoretic text omits - references to Son's of Gods celebrating in heaven with God. When done reviewing these versions. Look a few modern Bible versions of the same passage and you will see that the original meaning was rendered unrecognizable. Analyse the meaning of the last couple of lines. God "atoning" for God's people has a completely different meaning than God "Cleansing his peoples land"
The best I can suggest is you read Bishop John Shelby Spong's "The Sins of Scripture:Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism"(Publ'Harper Collins), Douglas Lockhart's " The Dark Side of God: A Quest for The Lost Heart of Christianity" (Publ:Element), Jacques Berlinerblau's "The Secular Bible: Why Nonbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously"(Publ' Cambridge University Press) Peter Vardy "The Puzzle of Evil" (Publ' Fount), Elizabehth Cady Stanton (Ed) The Woman's Bible: The Original Feminist Attack on The Bible" (Publ' Polygon Books) and if you're really brave Christopher Hitchens "God is Not Great."(publ' Allen & Unwin). However, given your claim "The Scriptures are inerrant and inspired in their original manuscripts and languages as they were penned." I suspect I'm wasting my time. Just keep meditating upon Thessalonians 2:11 and maybe - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Putting aside for now the question of Paul being fiction or fact his existence and his association with Jesus gives us no guarantee he didn't significantly distort Christ's teachings for his own reasons. The man himself, real or unreal, presents us with a seriously disturbed misogynist with some very dysfunctional attitudes towards human affairs. To assert his writings are in any way 'The Word of God' is to imply God was unhinged to say the least. Then again we are dealing with a deity who tortured his own son to redeem sins he knowingly made possible in the first place so maybe Paul was the mouthpiece of a mad God ?
Jesus, the Jewish teacher, came to his own people believing, like today's some of christian evangelists, that he was called to bring his own people back to Jahweh. Period. The rest is Christianity's, and Paul's interpretation in turning the preacher in a messiah. Jesus would never have claimed Messiahship. He didn't fit the Jewish scriptures.
Well you can always use the argument for... because Jesus aka God just severed it altogether of a Messiah of awesomeness! But the only point i've come to doubt Jesus in terms of belief would be if he was a mythological figure, like people making stuff up,.. which according to Richard Carrier's argument isnt that unplausible. Considering you read in Galatians 1 of how much Paul hates people who goes to another Gospel than that which his group talks about, and the fact that it doesnt act as an eyewitness source in the epistles, like "I heard it from so and so, or i was there MYSELF" consider James in the biographical gospel is there all along should've had plenty to say in the epistles that we never hear about. Its only "It was revealed to me" and that bla bla bla. He also made a hypotesis of "epistle to hebrews" that Jesus is crucified in heaven by some priestly order or something and becomes a high priest. Because the epistles is really silent on anything you hear in the biographical gospels except the stuff like "Crucifixion", "death and resurrection", "saved by faith"... thats it really.
One knows the original by the copies that were made. For example - Apostle Paul sent an original letter to the church of Galatia 2000 years ago. Once the letter is received it is recopied by hand right away to many copies and the original is also being sent to other local churches where it is also recopied. Let's say that today we have 10 copies of the letter to the Galatians and compare them. Let's use English for the sake of analogy. In one of the copies "the" is misspelled as "teh". In the other 9 copies we read "the". So we know where the misspell is. The more copies we have it is easier to understand what the source said. There are earlier copies and later copies (copies of the copies). Earlier copies are usually most reliable. Copying process is so reliable that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were unearthed and compared to today's Bibles the difference was found to be of only of a half a percent - misspell of a name or a missing zero. The copying process was very, very reliable. Thanks, Ed
Why should it? The important moral truths contained in the New Testament, despite later obfuscations and distortions, are still worth clinging to. If you face the fact the God of the bible is a human invention you are then left free to approach the creator, whoever or whatever that may be, directly. That is if there is one. That's where the real potential heart break for the religious induces a terror so extreme they will cling to irrational belief systems no matter what.
I do still believe it is good for society that Christians are grounded in their biblical morals. I'm repulsed by the church using false doctrines(eternal torment, tithe) to support its dogma.
Read the gospels without the obvious Christian leanings. Jesus talks to his own people, tells his disciples to ignore the Gentiles, often reproves Gentiles who come to him, though often accepts their faith. Jesus uses the OT that the Jews know clearly from their early years. Matthew 23 clearly explains his attitude. Look at 37-38.
