Rogue, I think Peaches is saying that you are coming up with different interpretation of the same passage due to your different worldviews. The writing is sloppy enough that the intent of the writer is open to multiple possible meanings depending on how you look at it (and how you think, I don't doubt).

Would that be right Peaches?

So how can you get a 'correct' meaning when the passage is ambiguous enough to get multiple, equally logical, interpretations?


Now, does anyone take the bible to be 100% accurate, that it should be read and adhered to literally, that every single utterance is totally true and not open to interpretation?

I'd have to say that I can't come close to believing this, for instance the crist resurrection myth.
The bible makes the following statements in detail concerning the day of the supposed resurrection

Mattew states that the boulder sealing the tomb was moved by one angel before the sight of the guards (plural) and two marys.

John states that there was only one Mary who discovered the tomb open (apparently untended) and she met two angels at the tomb later in the day, along with Jesus.

Luke mentions women (plural) finding an open tomb and finding two angels waiting (no other people).

Mark States three women,  2 Marys and Salome, who found an open tomb and one angel waiting (no people)

1 Corinthians skips any details.

These are rather diverse opinions over such a supposedly monumental event, and cannot possibly all be correct.

Not to mention the passage that states insects have only 4 legs. (I'll tell you which one later if you want)


Yeah, Heath, 'dragon' is a pretty specific term that has been used pretty freely in describing monsters from various places. The concept of dragons as we know it is a European phenomenon, though the term has been attached to different types of monsters in different cultures. (Chinese 'dragons' have little in common with the european concept, being more a natural force than a beast.)

Interpretation is a fine and dandy way to say it, but I can back up one verse by other verses. Can Peaches back up what she's saying? Or is it just a feeling?


Equally logical? Please, back up the verses. Logic says you go with is already said. If ythe bible says more about it, logic says go with the meaning already there. Logic does not say if another verse can be read strange, you ignore all the other verses about same subject.

The bible is 100% accurate. But Not all of it's literal. Example, there are parables. Obviously a parable didn't literally happen. The bible is true.


Taken out of context. Finish the verse.


What I don't understand, is you took this from the entire day of events. Not about a minute period, where everything needs to be clear.
Let me give you an example, I work with 4 people, and that day someone is fired. Memorable and has an impact. Would all of us have the same stories? Sure We'd all have the firing, but would we have the same list of people who came down? Human resources, other people walking by, etc? We'd all get the firing down, (like they all have the resurrection), but as each of us see or value other important things, we'd write down only what we saw. What if I went to the photocopy room when human resources came by, I wouldn't even have mention of them in my report. (But does that mean human resources didn't come by if I didn't put it in my report?) When you put it in context of what would happen to you, could easily happen to them.

Is the Bible imperfect?  Absolutely.  Not only is it a translated work.  (I've been a translator, and I can tell you that every translation is off, more so for languages that do not have anything in common.)  Also, God works through Man.  A surgeon is only as good as his scalpel, and, for example, Moses had a speech impediment, there was another prophet who was a farmer (and thus wrote a lot about farming analogies), etc.  But the point is that God won't allow a prophet to teach false doctrines, regardless of the human foibles of that prophet.

Query:  What books of the Bible are not considered holy "scripture?"  I remember it being said that Psalms and Songs of Solomon are not scripture because they were written by Kings, not prophets. Therefore, they do not represent the mouthpiece of God.  I don't know if there were any other ones.

Precisely. However, if I did have the time and/or have the patience to look up through all of these various bibles in this house, I would find a verse to support my statement. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I don't really have the time as of now. Perhaps later.

Also, each writer in the Bible wrote with a specific worldview and agenda in mind relating to "that" time and "that" people.  This is one reason why prophets are needed today to address "this" time and "this" people.

That should be fun. Don't let that word get out. We'll have five million different ones in today's society... all with different perspectives, and all of them will be 'from God'. -_-

Our church has a prophet ordained by God right now.  So when we say that Jesus leads this church, we are saying that he is literally guiding the church through the prophet just as he did with Moses and Abraham and Adam and Noah and Isaiah and the rest.  After all, why should he change those practices and stop having prophets to lead his children?

I read that the LDS thought polygamy was a good thing.(that has changed I believe)
So the question becaomes if a prophet can't teach false doctrines, why did they do that?
I'm going with the bible saying fornication is a sin, and a marriage is between one woman and one man.

The LDS belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman.  However, there come certain exigent times (such as in times of war) where many women will need to cling unto one man, and it is the choice between having a woman grow up alone and childless or being part of a family.  Because the family is so important, in those times, and only if approved through revelation to the prophet, then it will be ordained of God.

The Old Testament approves of plural marriage (which is different from the colloquial term "polygamy" often used by mistake).  Why do people believe in the Old Testament such arrangements can be acceptable but not now?

There are basically two reasons it was instigated in the 19th Century.  (1) The LDS community was being killed off by mobs and by the Extermination Order of Governor Boggs (thus creating the situation where there were many widows with children and women with no other hope of being married), and (2) the Church of Christ had been fully restored on earth.  As such, to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah that "all things" be restored, the Old Testament practice of plural marriage had to restored for a short time.

This reinforces the importance of having a living prophet to be the current mouthpiece of God and guide people depending on the circumstances without sacrificing the principles and morals that lead people to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Times do change and God does not.  Some situations require for special guidance.  Sometimes, as Jesus said, the Ox is in the Mire.

The problem is that God has only one commandment:  "Do what is right."  We have many to help us "do what is right," but what is right in one circumstance is not always right in every circumstance.

The actual practice of plural marriage was a lot more complicated a matter than most people think.  I can discuss more upon request.

(BTW, if there had been no plural marriage in the 19th century LDS religion, I would not exist today.)
This message was last edited by the player at 04:44, Mon 12 July 2004.

Intrestingly enough, the title that the anchient kings were given was "Messiah," which meant 'Annointed One,' because each king was annointed by the people (if that makes sense) That might help some people understand why Jesus is called the Messiah... according to Christianity

Heath, I understand LDS changed its stance on marriage, but the New Testament wasn't exactly wishy washy on it's meaning of marriage.

I think I've heard that before.  If I remember correctly, the prophet would annoint the King.  My church also has very sacred annointings similar to that in the Old Testament (though obviously not used for Kings nowadays).

Of course, the kings were never entitled to speak as a mouthpiece for God as prophets were.  So Samuel was the prophet, not David or Solomon.  Thus, parts of the Old Testament are not considered the "word of God."  (At least, that's my understanding.)

*shrug* They were considered the closest link after priests and prophest, God's military might, I suppose. That's why people didn't understand when Jesus supposedly came along, they expected him to be a military commander, like the kings of old.


I seriously recommend the book "Sohpie's World" I'm not even half through and I've learned so much stuff I never knew, both about philosophy and religion.

I have a lot I want to say in this thread, but i'm tired, so I'll have to stick to quick points for tonight.  First, as to the accuracy of the bible:  Who took joseph from where his brothers imprisoned him, and who was he sold to?

As to whoever pointed out that the prophets were the vioce of Gods as opposed to any other biblical authors (sorry to whoever said it, but I'm seriously tired); you're absolutely right.  The only passages from the Bible that can "safely" be assumed to be valiudated by God are the declarations of the Prophets.  And once Ezra the Sribe made the first Canonized Torah, it was used as a document of interpretation and not the word and law of God.

This is why it is absolutely essential to have a living prophet instead of relying purely on ancient texts which were used for a specific people and a specific time period and context.

As for the insects with four legs comment, I've never heard that before, but the Bible was written by people, so it has some factual inaccuracies, grammatical inaccuracies and the like, not to mention translation inaccuracies and ambiguities.  That's one area where faith would kick in.  It is not by any means perfect or complete.  If we're talking about a perfect being with infinite wisdom, that wisdom is surely not all contained in one ancient tome of only a couple thousand pages recounting the lives of a certain group of people in one area of the world on this planet.

The insects thing is from Leviticus. And it was taken out of context Heath. GHO didn't finish the verse. I've seen that one a couple times.

I see what you're saying, Rogue, and I looked it up.  This appears to be a translation issue from the original idiom.  It appears that the verses are not saying that they have four appendages but rather that they "move like quadraped."  Since locusts move on their back four feet and use their first like claws, this would be a natural assertion for all but a modern day entomologist, and especially for Moses, who probably knew nothing about insects except that they were pests.

Not taken out of context, the whole passage reinforces the statement.
I have argued this one before, how can you make it appear as if it was written accurately.


Leviticus 11: 20 "All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are however some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground. Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper.
But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest."


all other winged creatures that have four legs this is an obvious reference to insects other than hoppers when taken in context with the above passage.

The best spin you can put on it is that it was written by some git who never looked closely at insects before writing. It also says they have four legs in two different ways "walk on all fours" (explainable as Heath points out) and "have four legs".


Just proof that the bible cannot be taken as being without error.

I'm not actually one who thinks the Bible is without error, but I think you are in error on this point.  To the ancient perspective, the hoppers and locusts were four legged creatures with two "arms" (total=6).  That's how they perceived things and wrote about things.  We have changed the definition and made them into species, but looked at in the perspective in which it was written, what Moses wrote was absolutely true.  It is only those who don't look beyond the words and into the meaning who find fault with it.  By the same token, they might have said that bears have two legs or four legs depending on the cultural perception.

But if you're saying that one shouldn't simply read the Bible and take it at face value, I agree.  It takes study and hard work.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:31, Tue 13 July 2004.

I think you are forgetting "But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest."

These are not hoppers, but other flying insects that have six legs and none specialised (bees, flies, beetles etc).

I agree that whoever wrote this was referring to insects, but they were pretty slopy in their writing or very ignorant of insect structure.
Interesting that they do not refer to non winged insects (though most are, ant drones don't).

We agree on the point that the bible cannot be read literally, word for word.

I agree that it is sloppy writing.  There's even more sloppy writing than that in the Old Testament.  If it was clear, there wouldn't be so many churches out there.  This creates two points:  (1) God uses men to deliver his word, and so it is always imperfect to some extent (as I said, the surgeon is no better than his scalpel); and (2) a living prophet today is required to give guidance and answer questions so that such interpretations aren't left to men.

Oddly, I'd argue that a living prophet would be next to useless these days.  In the time of the Old Testament, the people believed in the word of the prophets, yet Jeremiah, who predicted the moral downfall of Israel, the Babylonian Exile, and the desruction of the First Temple, was beaten almost to death and imprisoned because the people didn't like what he had to say.  And that was in a region where almost everyone subscribed to a single form of a single religion!  The bible seems to be most effective as a text used for interpretation, and not for literal value of its history and laws (which have countless contradictions therein).

If there was any divine guidance then it wouldn't matter who wrote it, it'd have to be accurate.

And prophets are thicker than flies most places, and how do you know any claimed prophet is actually in contact with the right information source?

Well. I've wasted enough time here today, see ya later. Thanks for the talk.

Every person has a right to personal revelation about the rightness or wrongness of a gospel teaching and whether a prophet is real.  If it is approached with a meek heart, with real intent and an exercise of faith and prayer, then you get your own personal answer.  By all means, don't take anyone else's word on it.  In addition, by a person's works, you can know because they will be clothed in righteousness.

If there is divine guidance, it still must be channeled through the conduit.  Thus, a prophet would not utter words he's never heard before.  He would speak in his colloquial tongue.  It would be doctrinally accurate, but not necessarily accurate in a grammatic sense, etc.

Depending on which area of the world you're in, a prophet probably wouldn't be stoned or killed as in the old days.  He would either be listened to or ignored (although our first latter day prophet, Joseph Smith, was murdered by a mob).

So basically a prophet is anyone who claims to be one that is convincing and you believe and doesn't speak in silly voices.
And isn't responded to with violence?

Hmmm...

Wrong.  As I stated on many occasions, each individual has the right to receive personal revelation confirming whether a prophet is real.  I'm just saying that the false prophets you seem to refer to are usually pretty easy to differentiate.

"Every person has a right to personal revelation about the rightness or wrongness of a gospel teaching and whether a prophet is real."
"In addition, by a person's works, you can know because they will be clothed in righteousness."


I was taking this to mean that if someone comes up to you and says they are a prophet, and you believe them, then they are.

"Thus, a prophet would not utter words he's never heard before.  He would speak in his colloquial tongue."

This to mean no silly voices

"He would either be listened to or ignored"

To mean that they would not be met with violence.

So where did I go wrong?

What false prophets I refer to, the funny voiced channellers?

My thoughts were that you were referring to religious fanatics.

Righteousness:  A prophet will not be a sinner, so there is one distinction.

Colloquial Tongue:  I'm just saying that a prophet will speak like everyone else, not some booming voice or through some strange channeling experience.

Listened to or Ignored:  Of course, they are met with violence sometimes.  I think I was responding to someone else's comment about how today's society would kill them.  This was just my personal opinion (hoping that society wouldn't be so violent to a peaceful prophet these days).

They are not a prophet just because you believe them.  They are a prophet because you have taken their words, prayed about them, and received personal confirmation that they are.  This has nothing to do with personal belief.

I should point out that our belief is that God only has one prophet to lead the earth.  He wouldn't go around to a bunch of different people and create inconsistency.  But our church is one of stewardships.  The prophet has stewardship over the entire church (and technically is the spokesman for God on the world).  He has twelve apostles who are witnesses to confirm his words.  Then in each part of the organization, a person has certain stewardships.  The leader of a congregation has the right to receive revelation on behalf of his congregation.  A father for his family.  An individual for himself/herself, etc. etc.  Therefore, to use the term "prophet" is to use a colloquialism for the law of stewardship.

How do you reconcile the two above statements, it has to be personally confirmed (what , god comes down and says 'yep that's him) but you also have to accept confimation by someone else on your behalf?

Accepting someone else's opinion seems a pretty poor way to be getting the 'right' message.

The bible doesn't say to pray about seeing if it's true.


Acts 17:11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

Trusting your feelings has never been accurate. It feels good to sin, (or rather it's self rewarding to do as you please, instead of doing something someone else wants to. If you feel something is right, and it disagrees with bible, your feelings are wrong.

Study the Word to find truth, Do not trust feelings.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

For example, if a prophet says that all members of the church must only take 30 steps on Wednesdays (just making up an absurd example), then each individual takes that comment, prays about it, and receives confirmation that it is true.

However, since God will not let a prophet lead his people astray, many people just take his word on it when he speaks.  If it affects me, I prefer the personal confirmation of his words because I, like you, question everything.

Heath, what you say goes against scripture, something Jesus and his followers use.

It's still not clear how you identify a 'real' prophet other than it being someone you agree with.

Which doesn't seem like a good idea somehow.

A real prophet can be verified by being in line with scripture. If it is different, it would show a problem with the prophet, not the bible.

But then you don't need a prophet, they just reinforce what's already 'known'.

Which isn't the purpose of a prophet.

Jesus as a prophet changed things away from what was stated in the old testament, opening the religion to non-Jews and so on, or so some christian sects claim.

And prophet wise, we really don't need to hear anymore to be saved. (if God does say something now, it's not to deny the bible) God may want to say something to a group, an indivual, that they need to hear.
What I am saying the bible contains enough to show us how to find salvation. To build up a relation with Jesus.
I would love to hear something personal, like right now, on how I can be used to show you something. But that's up to God, not me.
But I want to clarify prophecy exists, but to be sure if it's from God, you compare it to scripture. As a follower of Jesus would do, according to scripture.

But the stuff that came from jesus did not fully support what had been scripture up to that point. He came up with a new lot of modifications to the existing code.

So by your own reasoning he couldn't have been a real prophet.

Actually Jesus used scripture. And the apostles, they used scripture as well.

And also deviated from the original religion dramatically, creating Christianity from Judaism.

Yep the law to show sin. And sin is what makes it clear we are not perfect.

And the resurection to show that we can be forgiven of our sins through Jesus.

Just ask the jews and the christians if they are the same religions. They are not. Resurrection verses the law.
We cannot follow the law, but we can all find forgiveness.

But how can you be a prophet following scripture if you change it?

Or does it rate as following scripture if you make sure you keep about half of it each time you have a prophet.?

And there was a lot more than that involved in the changes of the christian scism.

The apostles used scripture. I think we're on different topics. Are you saying that they changed scripture, that it gave it a different meaning?

I'm saying that Old testament stuff is the original religion and if a prophet has to be in accordance with the original scripture (as stated earlier) then jesus would have to keep to the old testament. Any changes would mean he was a false prophet.


Or are you saying that the keeping to scripture only applies after jesus made the changes/additions/modifications.

I said Jesus and the apostles do follow Old Testament.

But they went off on a tangent and made a new religion by adding all sorts of new stuff, not by adhering to what was already present.

Does that mean that anyone can be a prophet if they just add bits on to the existing documentation?

Nope, I don't think anyone could.

Just to clarify, technically speaking, the fact there is scripture actually negates the idea of prophets.  The scriptures were used as a way for everyone to interpret hot they could follow God's commands.  Although the high priests of the temple were looked to for interpretation, the idea of a canonized scripture was to eliminate the problem of false prophets, or of multiple prophets with clashing views.  Of course, the intent might be different from the reality, but I wanted to bring it to everyone's attention.

Scripture would come from the prophet. Meaning that the prophet would get the message, while scripture is simply that message. Anyone can read scripture, and a prophet is someone who has the message given to him by God.

Actually, until the book of Samuel, prophets never wrote down a word of what they preached.  They brought the word of God, and that was enough.  The first canonized scripture was the 5 books of Moses in the 4th century BCE, and people turned to works that were established as the word of god to Moses rather than listening to people who may or may not have been prophets.

When you sayu first cannonized, you mean the church organized the writings, correct? Because they were written long before that. That's what you're saying, right? I just want to clarify they did write them before being cannonized.

This was the source of this part of the debate, that a prophet can only repeat what is written.

But this view then makes any real prophets impossible, cos they either parrot preexisting material or they are fakes by changing things.

This can't be what you mean Rogue, as you then disprove christ.

What I mean by canonized is that Ezra the Scribe, who if I remmber correctly was not only Governor of Israel, but also a priest in the Temple, Took the scrtolls, or tablets, or whatever the 5 books of Moses were written on, copied their information into one place and said "Look, here's all the stuff that God told Moses, including the laws by which we all should live our lives.  Listen to the collected edition.  Everything else won't necessarily count".

The books of Kings 1 and 2, Samuel 1 and 2, Judges, and Chronicles weren't canonized as a part of the Old Testament until around the 1st century BCE by a commitee of Rabbis in Greece
This message was last edited by the player at 05:08, Tue 20 July 2004.

Alright GHo, I'll bite. Go on. finish your idea. How is anything I said somehow showing Jesus didn't follow scripture?

As he added to it, basically. The christian church goes off in a different direction from the original Judaic one.

So therefore he had to have diverged from the original scripture of the time, and by the definition of a prophet you gave above can't be a real prophet.

Basically what I said last time.

I don't call it a reasonable argument, but then I don't subscrbe to these definitions of prophet either.

I meant to finish your point of where Jesus didn't follow scripture.

Everything in the New Testament (and as someone else said earlier, a large part of the old testament was 'added later') is an addition to the 'original' scripture.

More specifically, God having avatars/offspring.
The opening of the religion away from those of gods chosen people (geneologically determined) to anyone who wants to accept it.

I believe a large number of 'prophecies' also have their origins in the new testament.

Well, that really doesn't touch on Jesus not following prophecy.

As for the "addition" to the Old, and the New Testament being added, that was in reference to the original 5 books by Moses. Everything after Moses of course is "added" to the original. But there's no choice, the rest had to be added. Moses died, and there's no way Moses could witness the life of Jesus when he was born of the flesh. There's an actual need to add to the first 5 books.

So whenever you have a discrepancy, let me know. Saying there is a difference, isn't the same as showing one. I can't just guess what you have in mind. The bible is hundreds of thousands of words.

Please consider second Timothy- timothy and his mother were both Jewish and converted to Christianity under Paul's guidance. When Paul is answering Timothy's question as to how to tell what is right and what is made up between the competing ideologies within christianity at that time Pauls answer is to believe the things his mother raised him with, and that everything else is false.
Not, Timothy was raised Jewish and Paul was aware of this. This leads to a couple of interesting conclusions 9at least for me)
1) there was no doctrine at this point, rather varrious doctrines that were changeing as they got copied and retold. Thus anyone who might have noticed a descrepancy between prophecy and story may well have 'corrected' the problem whe they copied the story, and only the 'corrected' versions made it into the final canon.
2) Paul is telling Timothy *not* to believe in Christianity. Considering that Paul was the one who took Christinaity to the gentiles, it is possible that Paul did not fully believe (see my comment in the dead sea scroll thread) and felt some degree of guilt over leading Jews away from thier faith, but felt no such reservation about gentiles.

Based on your information, isn't it plausible that Timothy was raised with christian teaching? I mean the letters come after Jesus had a major effect on the area.

Jesus preached in 30 AD, and as I noted earlier, Timothy and his mother converted *together*.
Also Timothy was raised in Athens and first heard of Jesus through Paul...

Hmm, are you sure that is what it says in 2nd timothy? I just skimmed over it, and couldn't find any thing along those lines you speak of.

I did find this in 2nd timothy 3:10-17

It may have been first, or elsewhere in second Timothy, it's been a while since I discovered that little issue...
However as the bible was not codified when that was written I find it also interesting that he would say *all scripture* is God-breathed, since this would, by implication, include non-Christian scriptures...
Then again maybe Paul was just a little more open minded about these things than the modern adherants to that religion...

Well, I'd have to go on a limb here, but obviously all wrtings are not God breathed, so it can't mean that. When you look at meaning, then you have the answer.

An example. I write a book, it bites big time, and people use the book as fuel for a campfire. Does that mean I was writing that book for fuel? No, just because they use it to fuel their fire, does not mean I meant it that way.

And yet at the time many 'branches' of christianity were incorporating scriptures from other religions. Many of the orriginal Catholic Saints are Roman Gods and Goddesses fressed up in different words. The Koptics were considered a Christian sect at the time and were more incorporating Christian text into Egyptian mythology than the other way arround. So where is the line that you see so clearly? What marked it before there was a canon?

The line I see is the bible. It's fairly clear that Jesus is the only way to God.

But as for the other comments, really now, what other religion has the trinity, 1 God, but three forms of the same God. What other religion has a God who dies for them? What other religion that God is a friend, and has a personal relationship with you? I'm positive that your reasoning is the same as for the fish symbol, one used for other religions, and somehow Christians copied the fish. There is no copywright on these kind of things.

The trinity is found in multiple religions, though ussually a goddess trinity- mother maid and crone. many Egyptian Godesses had three aspects in the same method as you describe which are the goddess represented in different phases of her life.
Personal relationship and friendship is a bit of a modern thing really in my opinion, it certainly wasn't part of the Catholic dogma which required a priest to communicate between man and God via the pope. For those who claim they have a close personal relationship with God please tell me, what is his favorite color? To me that claim is a made up line to make the average worshiper feel inadequate and scared to reveal that they don't share the close personal relationship that all the *other* people in the church claim to feel, and notably the first person to claim that relationship was Joseph Smith, founder of the Morman faith, and I guess others picked up on the claim to establish their own credibility as part of the revivalist movement. It is definitely an American thing, exported by evangelical missionaries. It definitely is not an intrinsic part of all Christianity.

Edited by GM for langauge. Please Silveroak, this forum is open to those who are underage.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:42, Sun 25 July 2004.

Multiple religions? Are you sure. I think they may call themselves trinity, but they are using the word to more accurately mean triad. Or three seperate gods.

As to the relationship, no that's a misconception. The mormons were not the first to recognize Jesus as a personal savior. Some people in the bible recognized this from the start, as they literally walked beside God. Sothat would definitely be an said in error.

It is part of christianity. Jesus cannot be seperated from christianity.

Yes, I am certain, as I *belong* to one such religion, and have delved into the history of pagan religions for over a decade now. The three godesses are both seperate and the same, just as in Christianity. The only difference is that being female the trinity was natural (mother, maid, and crone) where christianity had to adapt the natural male duality (father and son) and 'tack on' a non-relative role (holy ghost).

As to the relationship issue, check your history book sometime- Catholic doctrine for centuries litterally dominated western though and did *not* embrace the concept of a personal relationship. If a personal relationship is an intrinsic part of chrisitianity then real christianity died out millenia ago and the modern recreation is younger than neo-paganism. Kind of hard to tie that together with "If it is of man it will not survive, if it is of God we cannot stop it".

Hmm, I never knew about any other religions that has One God, but three personas. Either way, God is God.

No, I see what you mean by looking at it in that perspective. But it was always meant to be a persoanl relationship. Jesus was physically there beside us in those day, and now He is with us spiritually, which is what he said when he was there physically. He will always be with us in our heart. That is not a mormon verse, that is Christianity from the start.

Or rather a verse from the surviving doctrine codified several centuries after the presumed start.
Even still there is a bit of a leap from 'always there in our hearts' and 'a close personal relationship' A lot of people kept Reagan close to their hearts despite never having met the man. Indeed keeping a deity 'in your heart' is also a hallmark of a great number of religions. (As opposed to the Aztecs, who put their heart in their deity...)

  (From Amplified) 1 Corinthians 1:9 God is faithful (reliable, trustworthy, and therefore ever true to His promise, and He can be depended on); by Him you were called into companionship and participation with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus was already crucified and taken to Heaven when this was written, and yet still they called for companionship with Jesus. As a christian, we know that is what the bible is for, building a relationship with God, through Jesus. Jesus always will live in our hearts not because we want him to, but because He chooses to. God can live anywhere he wants, and yet he chose our hearts.



I did have one other question, I was thinking more on your trinity with one goddess. Isn't pagan meaning multiple gods? It occured to me, that I think there is some confusion on my part, or your part. Trinity of God means there is only one God. Are you sure you're not meaning triad?

It is a trinity in that there is one godess with three aspects or parts. There are other gods and godesses as well, but that particular godess would qualify as a trinity. Especially when you are talking about some of the more rural areas where a temple might be dedicated solelyto the trine goddess.
Of course if you just want to juggle words to make Christianity special, you can split as many hairs as you like...

Just wanted to clarify Christ is wholly unique. No copies here.

Really it was just making sure we were on same page, as it was second to the relationship with Jesus also unique.

Correction- *in your opinion* christ is unique. the fact that he copies a dozen or so messiah figures that predate him by thousands of years is another fact you blithely ignore, from the sacrifice of Set to Dionysus to the consort of Innana, gods sacrificing themeselves for humanity is an idea which is as old as agriculture.

There are other gods who sacrificed themselves for the entire human race? Just so they can live eternity with him? I never knew that either.

Anyway, it's a bit much to suggest that christianity copied these ideas. How many of these religions were used in that area to begin with? So how can they copy if it's not heard of?


Jesus Christ is unique. He's the only one who is living, who did all the things he did. No other can fit the events or actions Jesus did.

Um yes. Set was Egyptian, Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt. He sacrificed his life so that humanity would not be consumed by darkness, and became the God of the afterlife to which all people came upon their death.
The story is told over a dozen ways in a dozen cultures- Wodin who hung upside down from a tree for three days in order to provide humanity with litteracy... the Greek myths as well, these stories would have been well known in the region, and it has even been sugested that Paul drew on them for inspiration when adding a resurection aspect to the life of Jesus. If he didn't it is certainly possible that future authors did as the tale was copied and passed down.

True, if Paul added that, sure, myth. But if Paul added that, why did the poeple believe him? I mean after all, the Apostles were saying it before then, and after Jesus died on the cross too.

Either way, we both know the bible says what it says. Resurection was witnessed and written down.

Um, no.
First of all, Paul did *not* get along with the other apostles. Every time he was in Israel he wound up fleeing town with a mob on his heels, a problem the other apostles did not have. Also the oter apostles *did* disagree with Paul on a number of things, and it is documented in acts that they did so, especially about his relationship to Rome. Also the books written by those who would have witnessed the resurection make no mention of it. The books written by converts within Paul's 'sect' *do*. Those people happen to ahve the same name as the apostles, but it has been well documented they were not actual witnesses to the crucifixtion. So in short *nobody* who purportedly saw these events actually reported seeing them...

Uhmmm, we using different bibles here. Because John and Matthew are disciples of Jesus. Mark was writing from the knowledge of Peter, the disciple. Which mention the resurrection.
The people did believe Paul. The writings were considered scripture, evidence in belief.

By the definition you gave of a 'real' prophet they have to be following scripture.
Scripture (as it applies to the current judaic based religions) before the advent of christ was the old testament (and apparently not all of what we consider the old testament now). The original instructions from god to moses and the hebrew people. So therefore if christ appeared later and stated claims that were not already within the old testament he was not following scripture and  could not have been a 'true' prophet by your definition.




And a pagan is just someone who doesn't believe in one of the worlds 'main' religions (and their variant sects). A tighter definition usually refers to anyone who is not christian or one of the judaic descended religions.

Prophets don't have to follow scripture (although they will always follow the tenets of righteousness).  The whole purpose of a prophet is to have someone to speak for your time, your age, and your people as a direct conduit to God.

That's how I see the place of a prophet. As an updating of the religion to fit the circumstances, the evolution of the religion with the culture that it is part of.

Or the origin of a new sect or tatally new religion.


I was arguing above with Rogue's viewpoint on a logical basis, not a personal opinion.

I mean, you have to have a prophet to tell you how to handle new innovations, such as the Internet, the gathering of the Twelve Tribes of Israel (and other prophecies), and other issues that may not have been around 2000 years ago.

Same thing isn't it?

Prophets seem to come in more after the fact than actually making any 'prophecies' for the future.

Not sure what "prophets" you're referring to here.  But to have a true prophet of God, he will need to testify that he himself has seen and talked to God literally.  A prophet of God is a "prophet, seer and revelator."  Predictions are not the only ingredient.

We need to separate this from someone like Nostradamis (sp?) who tried to predict the future.

I refer to prophets in the bigger scheme of things, not just christian ones.
Though I am restricting myself to supposedly divinely inspired ones, as you say not just predictors of the future (none of which I have seen as very accurate yet).

I'm not referring to any specific prophets (unless I name them), just keeping it general.

What can be bigger in the scheme of things than a single prophet of God for the entire world?  (Besides, most of the prophets we speak of were the Jewish prophets, not Christian.)

There's more than one religion in the world, and I rate them roughly equally (though some are a lot more logical and self consistent than others).

This allows me to 'look at the big picture' and draw comparisons between them, so I rate a christian prophet like jesus on the same level as Mohammed, a witchdoctor or shaman.
All claim to be in contact with the spirit world in some manner.

I'm not sure how many times I have asked this GHO, but it seems to be a sticking point here, even after I have asked it. What did Jesus not follow from scripture?

I guess the point I'm making is that the Priesthood (the power of God), which is the very power by which the universe was created, is passed on only by those in authority.  Therefore, many religions may have different ideas, but only a religion having received this authority and in current direct contact with God can be a complete and true religion.  That's what takes a religion beyond ideology and lifestyle and into completeness.

What did Jesus not follow from scripture?
Lets see... he forebade the stoning of a woman who according to scriptural aw was condemned to be stoned.
He did not rest upon the sabbath
He entered the temple when he was not ritually clean

Of course these are examples of how he didn't follow *scripture*, not *prophecy*, and as such he would not be, according to the above discussion/argument able to be considered a prophet. He did not (at lest in the Christian tradition) claim to be a prophet, however, he claimed to a *God*.

Silver, do you have scripture to back up these statements? I'd like to see them.

I think silveroak is right, but we need to remember that Jesus came to "fulfill" the law of Moses and bring forth the Law of Mercy.  Therefore, he introduced a higher law and much of the older law became obsolete, so it is irrelevant if he followed exactly the laws of Leviticus or the OT.  He also despised the actions of the Sadducees and Pharisees because they believed in form over substance.  (Hence, the speech about if the ox is in the mire on the Sabbath, do you not save it?)

Actually I know there is scripture to show some of what he says, but he's not finishing the verses. I'd like to see these verses so I can show this.

'The point' rogue, is that 'scripture' is only the religion as passed on by Moses (the rules according to god, as it were).

Jesus came up the rest as an addition.

Since this is not part of the original, it cannot be 'according to scripture'.

Ergo if a prophet can only be 'true' by keeping to scripture (as your original definition), then jesus cannot be a true prophet.

With that definition prophets can't exist, because a prophet has to be producing new information in order to be a prophet.

Considering I asked for some evidence that Jesus did not follow scripture, (a few times now), I take it you're not going to? I am sticking to my point that Jesus did not stray from scripture. R

Really, what else is there to discuss here? You're saying one thing, I deny it, and ask you to show some evidence that Jesus didn't follow scripture, and you just repeat Jesus didn't follow scripture, of which I ask again to show where Jesus didn't follow scripture.

I've been trying my level best to follow the main ideas about the debate over Jesus as a prophet, and I'm not clear on how it became intertwined with a scripture discussion.  I won't address that actual issue yet, but I'd like to just reiterate the purposes of both prophets and scriptures, historically and biblically.

The most important (and in many ways identifying) job of a prophet is to "stand in the breach between God and man.  He delivers the word of God, and is sometimes granted insight by God, but these alone do not make someone a biblical prophet.  A true prophet acted as a representative to God and the people.  If the people incurred God's wrath, a prophet was first to deliever word of God's anger, so the people had a chance to change their ways.  If they didn't change, he was to throw himself onGod's mercy and do everything in his power to beg God for lesser punishment, as the people were, after all, merely human, and prone to errors.  Nearly all significant Old Testament (the entire Old Testament, not just the 5 books of Moses) prophets gained their accliam, and had famous tales told that maounted to this tradition of "standing in the breach".

Scritpure served a different purpose.  Prior to about the 3rd-4th century BCE, while written versions of the 5 books of Moses did exist, they had no secular signifigance.  They were tablets that were important for the history behind them.  If the people wanted to know how to act, or what traditions to follow, they looked to the high priests, or the prophets.  Once the Persians claimed Israel, and the Jews were allowed to return, Ezra the Scribe created the first Torah.  It's purpose was not just to gather all 5 books in one document.  It was meant to be a book of the history and laws associated with the Chosen People.  Questions of religios or moral differences were resolved by finding applicable passages in the Torah.  Instead of waiting for prophets to send word of God's will, the people obeyed the various laws and trraditions in the Torah, as previously established commands from God.  With God's will transcribed into the Torah, there was no need for prophets anymore.

So, with all that said, can someone help me figure out how Jesus' (debated) role as a prophet and following scripture became connected?

Where does it say this?

Primarily in my class notes from a class on ancient Israel and early biblical civilizations, but there is also mention in a book of a similar name which I can find a few applicable quotations from (that fact is historically/culturally based, not scripture-based)

Okay, that's what I thought.  Thanks.

NO problem.  Just give me a heads-up if you'd like some historical evidence.  There is literature from the time of the original tarah canonization that indicated one of the Torah's purposes to be a phasing out of prophets in favor of scripture interpretation.

That's because you're not seeing the point I'm trying to make, though I'm not sure how else to put it. How can you be 'following scripture' if you expand, modify or add to what is existing?
I'm not basing this on individual utterances, but on the basis that anything that is different in any way from the original scripture is not following scripture.
You lock yourself into a catch 22 situation, you can't modify/grow the religion unless you have 'real' prophets to show you the 'right' way, but prophets can't be 'real' ones unless they reinforce the existing system.

Though I was a bit wrong with my last post, any pre prophet scripture would have to be the small part of the bible that predates Noah (presumably god telling him about the flood would make him a prophet, in the general sense) and Moses.

By your definition of prophet, the scripture that any prophet would have to follow would be the base religious writings that predate the additions by any following personality. By adding to this any 'prophet' would modify it, and thus (by your definition) not be a real prophet.


And wouldn't the fact that jesus was supposed to have done the religious equivalent of opening a private business up to the public stock market indicate a serious shift in religious thought?

GHO, You're going to have to show me where Jesus is not following Scripture.

The point you're trying to make is defining what is a prophet.

Here's the facts, Jesus is God, and gave us lots from God. So he would be considered a prophet of God, if he wasn't already God.

So in order for Jesus not to be a prophet, he has to be not saying things for God. An impossible situation since He is God.

This is where you have a problem.

You have a guy who say's he speaks for god (standard prophet stuff) and brings up a whole raft of new stuff to add to the existing rules and literature of the religion.
Same as Moses and any other prophet, except he says he's the son of god too.

But your definition of a prophet (yours, not mine) was that a prophet could not deviate from scripture, they can only repeat church dogma. But all the biblical prophets add to the religion, they have to or they are not a prophet.

You lose logic in your argument.
You haven't accepted jesus as a prophet because he meets the criteria you outlined, you accepted him because he says so and then added what he says to the scripture so that he becomes a valid prophet because what he says is now scripture.

You believe his claims first  and use that belief to validate his position as a true prophet, rather than determining him to be a prophet before believeing him.

And where does this leave a prophet like Moses? He wasn't claiming to be one of gods relatives, only to be hearing voices and seeing incendiary plants.


So your argument leads to the conclusion that if you claim to be god and someone believes you then you must be a true prophet.

Well, as long as Jesus was following scripture in the first place, it works. Remember Jesus was following scripture.

Not if he added to it.

You have to change your definition of prophet to allow jesus, or any of the other biblical prophets, to be one.

If your argument leads to the conclusion that if you claim to be god and someone believes you then you must be a true prophet, then any nutbar who makes such a claim has as valid a claim as christ.

And I'm pretty sure you don't think like that!

show me where he didn't follow scripture.

Original scripture has to be the first set of info passed to humans by god right?
 That's it, thats the starting point, that's all there is.
Then you get prophets to add to it, that's the normal view of a prophet. Someone who adds/modifies the existing religious knowledge.

But this addition is not following scripture, it is changing it by adding to it. Even if expanding or detailing, you change the original meaning and interpretation by making it more rigidly institutionalised.

So anything jesus contributed to the bible isn't following scripture.

I don't know how many ways I can write this.

Does anyone else understand this reasoning?

Your reasoning does make sense GHO, though it's possible that you're not explaining it in the best way.  Just to make sure I understand your point:

In Jesus' time, there were two canonized scriptures.  One was the Septuagint, which was a greek translated Bible containing the Torah, the books of 1st and 2nd Kings and Samuels, the books of Judges and Chronicles, and several other books referred to as the Apocrypha.  There was also the Jewish canonized scripture, which did not contain the apocrypha.  Your point is that these were the availible sacred scriptures,and anything Jesus said that deviated from them had to be different, and thus not following scripture, right?

Makes sense to me - the Old Testament was written before Jesus' birth and he radically changed the religious order of the time.  Doesn't sound like he was following the scripture outlined in the Old Testament - if he did, we would not be having this discussion as Jesus would have just been an obscure jewish man who lived 2000 years ago.  Christian scripture did not yet exist so he was going against the existing Jewish scripture.

I think you have explain how adding to scripture is not following it. Did Jesus somehow break a commandment? I really think you should delve deeper into your question. As Jesus followed scripture.

I don't understand how following or breaking any commandments means necessarily following or not following scripture.  Also, I've actually seen several well-written academic articles that theorize that Jesus did violate a commandment in letting the people believe he was God/the son of God (a form of idolarty).  Whether or not that theory holds weight is a whole different issue, but it's still possible that Jesus broke commandments.

I think you guys have got the general idea of it.
Though you can extend the 'original' scripture to the point before the first prophet.

If someone else tries to explain it their way then that may make more progress than me.

Change = difference rogue. not following but creating something new.

Marok, what I'm saying is Jesus did follow scripture, I gave the commandment as an example for GHO just give a little something to back up his belief Jesus didn't follow scripture.

As for breaking a commandment, he only breaks that if He isn't God. He is.(according to bible)

To be fair, he's God according to your bible, not mine. :)  My motto in religious debates with christian sects is "I'll agree with you on everything the bible says up until sometime around when we need to discuss Jesus' family tree."  I never said he was actually breaking a commandment, just that, for those of us (in my case, Jews) who don't believe Jesus was God, there is an interesting argument that can be made.

Actually I'll agree with the bible all the time. I know the geneology of Jesus, and it's one I'm comfortable with. Was that what you're were going to say about for an interesting argument?

But let's be fair, no one who isn't christian belives Jesus is God, (if you did believe he was God, you'd have to be crazy to not follow him, right?)

Maybe if you want to bring that up, we can take to the Jesus:The Resurection thread?

The geneology thing was just an interesting, kind of humorous anecdote.  That one always seems to get lost in translation. :)  The interesting argument pertains to Jesus breaking commandments/violating scripture through idolatry if he really isn't God.

I agree with you. If Jesus isn't God, I'm a big time sinner. (ok, I am anyway). But without that sacrifice of Jesus for our sins, (if Jesus isn't God) then my sins cannot be forgiven anyway.

God has one commandment:  Do what is right.  The "commandments" and other counsel given through scripture are merely a way to try to put that in a definitive way that we non-omniscient creatures can comprehend to live a more godly life.  As I discussed previously about the "Thou shalt not kill" example, commandments attempt to put the "principles" of doing what is right into a solid form.  However, Jesus came to show that principles are more important than the specifics (substance over form)--thus the ox in the mire example, etc.  Also, if Jesus fulfilled the law of Moses, then much of that law became obsolete in exchange for a higher law.

2 things Heath:

1) Jeremiah was preaching substance over form nearly 500 years before Jesus was even born, yet the poeople still referred to availible scripture when it mentioned a particular subject (point is: substance and scripture weren't mutually exclusive).

2) I may have missed it earlier, but in what way did Jesus "fulfill" the laws handed down to Moses?

If I may interject, to fulfill the law doesn't mean that He puts an end to the laws. I don't know but it seemed as if that was a conclusion to your question. If not, I'm sorry for reading into it.

Jesus fulfilled the law, by obeying it and teaching the law. (which Jesus always did)

He Fulfilled the prophecies spoken of in the Old Testament, something very important for those whop followed the OT.

And he provided a way of salvation that used the law in full. Everyone who breaks a commandment or a law of God is still a sinner. But Jesus took the price to pay for that sin.

Romans 3:31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law

So to fulfill the law, Jesus upheald it, and made it complete. (And there is nothing else that needs to add to the bible to mean a better salvation, or a different salvation. It is through Jesus and God, we have our way to God, no angel, no other gods, no other spirits, nothing.)

Substance over form:  Yes, substance over form is consistent with the religion from the beginning.  It was the idolization of form over substance that upset Jesus in his day and the perversion of the purpose behind those laws.  Therefore, he had to set the Sadducees and Pharisees straight on that.  My meaning was not that scripture and substance are inconsistent.  They are, in fact, inextricably intertwined.  The point is that when the form of scripture is elevated over the principle for which it was made, then it becomes a problem.

Jesus:  The Jews believe in a Messiah.  If the Messiah comes, he fulfills the law of Moses.  Since Christians believe he was the Messiah, they believe the law was fulfilled.  (This doesn't mean that everything in the OT is irrelevant, if that was the conclusion you took from my post.  It simply means that many of the laws of the OT geared toward the coming of the Messiah become obsolete (example: blood sacrifices) if and when he arrives/arrived.)  I don't think this is inconsistent with traditional Judaism.

I still don't understand the concept of the laws being fulfilled.  Upheld, yes.  Followed, certainly.  But the Jewish messianic prophecy has nothing to do with the laws and is entirely based around a 5 step prophecy concerning the Holy Land and the Davidic dynasty.

I think the problem may lay in what you think the term "Fulfill" means. What do you think it should mean to fulfill the law? As by the above, Jesus really did fulfill the law.

I think we can best say he fulfilled the prophecies about a Messiah.  Therefore, laws that are built around this prophecy become obsolete.

My understanding is that Moses smashed a higher law when he came off of Sinai and went back to plead for a lower law for the people when he saw their wickedness and that they were not ready for the higher law.  He returned with the 10 commandments and established the Law of Moses.  Therefore, Jesus came to help prepare the people for a higher law (and thus fulfilling some of that law).

In essence, the Law of Moses was designed around the coming Messiah.  Once the Messiah came, the law is fulfilled and a new and higher law replaces it.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:43, Fri 30 July 2004.

Maybe that's where the differences come in.  In the Judaic mythos, our messianic prophecy has no connection to the laws and customs described in the 5 books of Moses, and the messianic prophecy was not recorded until a few hundred years after the fall of the Davidic dynasty (in turn a few hundred years after the Exodus).  I wasn't aware that Christian scripture connected the messiah to Midrash Halachah (the laws in the Torah).

Christians use the bible in whole. It's not like we ignore the Old Testament, and say the New Testament is our bible. It's the whole.

Correction Rogue, some Christians use the bible in whole. Some do generally ignore the Old Testament, and say the New Testament is an updating of the bible.

And from their POV they are more christian than you or any other christian variant sect.

And therein, greathairyone, lies the fundamental problem with organized religion. They all claim to be the only true church, and the only right way.
  The LDS are really known for this, and they have thier own book added to the bible, the book of Mormon. They also know thier leader is the only true Prophet left on the earth, and the only religion that has a true prophet because they are the only true religion brought back to earth after God took it when the last of the disciples were killed.
  I was LDS for maybe 10 years, and a lot of what they taught had made some sense. Not all, but some. The point that is amazing to me though, is people who grew up in the church are so ingrained with that particular churchs' ideals, that to think any other would be blasphemy. Thier parent made them sit and listen, like thier parents dfid before them, and thiers before that, all the way back to when the Crusades were forcing dowm peoples throats.

The Bible has be re written and re translated so many times, and systematically changed by each King that re wrote it. King James himself twisted a lot of the original texts around to fit what was his original ideals.

And for the record, I am Pagan.

Styxx, are you aware of the dead sea scrolls, and how they show the old testament is unchanged? Are you also aware of the books used for the New Testament are dated back to before the year 400, (off the top of my head, I can't remember exact year). So if the bible is accurate since far longer than the dates you suggest, do you think you may be in error of your information?

Depends on which bible translation you use. After reading a bible that is hundreds of years old, in its original Greek, no translation comes close.

Could you show a single bible that has changed the meaning of salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus?

But really Styxx, the accuracy stands because we do have older copies to compare to. So some of your post was in error.

For the record: King James didn't translate the 1611 KJV, it was the first english translation done by comitee, that is why it was so famous until then most translations had been done by a single person.

Everything I've studdied said that king james's main involvement in the KJV was just his government paying for it to be done and putting his name on it so he'd get credit for it.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:52, Mon 02 Aug 2004.

Okay, On that I stand corrected. I have read an old Greek Bible, a King James bible, a living bible, and a NIV bible, and I can interpret them all different.
 Maybe its because of my Native american blood, maybe I'm just stubborn. I've Been LDS and was actually happy with that for a while, but eventually My Pagan roots pulled me back. I was United Methodist growing up, and when I took away a parishoners headache, using a "gift" I had has as a ten year old, I got in trouble for "working with the devil". I think that event scared the actual faith out of me. I used the Book of Corinthian argument about gifts, which was what my grandmother taught me, but in the end, I left the church, in search of something more.

So can you tell me which one has it so Jesus isn't neccessary for our salvation?
A lot of people say that all these translations are somehow different. But I have yet to hear why.

They vary on detail, emphasis and cultural context.
Translation from any language to any other, even current living languages, makes use of a lot of assumptions and 'best fit' because they are never direct equivalents. (the old 50 words for snow for Inuit vs none for Hawaiians concept)

Some concepts just don't translate.

The Old testament is also a relatively undetailed collection of myths and comparison between different versions is always going to be far from accurate (Look at the different religions that have diverged from the same base).

Noah's flood for instance, the 'clean' animals, it is not positive whether this meant 7 pairs or seven of each species, 'type' does it refer to genus or species?

The answers vary depending on the answer wanted by those who make the 'correct' translation.

Also the fact that this stuff is so institutionalised means that anyone that does come up with a variant is unlikely to be taken seriously and is usually considered a heretic or crackpot.

And finally, the DS scrolls only provide full copies of three of the books of the old testament and the rest of the biblical passages are in fragmentary conition of one degree or another (not complete by any means).

It's not surprising that written works haven't changed too much in 2000 years anyhow as much older greek manuscripts have been passed down with less editing. Eg the published works of Socrates.

So then you're not disputing the accuracy of the bible? That it remains pretty consistent between copying?

General content aside, translations between languages of the bible are horribly inaccurate.  That's a part of the reason that any bible worth its salt contains a thousand and one ammendations (those lovely footnotes that seem to take up almost as much space as the actual text).  A vast majority of those are language qualifiers, showing the intended meaning or a word or phrase despite the text saying something different.

Like most changes over time it is maore a matter of interpretation as the cultural distance from the original writer increases.

Basic copying of text prevents too much rapid divergence from an original manusscript (any sort) especially if it is a popular one and individuals 'go back to tht source' every now and then (checking older copies for drift.

I'd believe that the general text probably hasn't diverged far (though any divergence/ambiguity argues against divine guidance in reproduction), however the detail and original intent is probably so different in the current versions as to be unrecognisable. The culture referring to the text cannot see it the way the writer did.

As Marok says, most of the key words in biblical passages have had a thesaurus taken to them to find a meaning closer to the agenda of the translator/reader.

However if you want to see how far it can drift, follow the old testament backwards to the origin of the legends contained within.
The flood legend goes back thousands of years before it was adopted by the hebrews, modified and slotted into their cultural mythology.
Like the New testament, the old testament was a collection from various sources that were collated and then reproduced as a formalised mythology.
Consider the old testament the 'finished' and published form after a few thousand years of editing.

But realy, does that change the message? Obviously nit picking without cultural definitions may be different. But what would change about the message of the bible?

CUltural context is entirely the point.
It's a matter of 'what everybody knows' and ideology combined with what is literally said.

The difference between the spirit of the matter and the word of the law. Without an accurate context to be based on the former is entirely lost and the latter can actually be interpreted as the opposite of the original intention.

But my question is what version changes the message of the bible?

For instance the term "marital duties" has a totally different meaning in different cultures covering sex (having), division of labour, authority, education, careers, involvement with children, who you can associate with... and many other variations, changes and restrictions to lifestyle.

THerefore when the bible says "marital duties" what does that actually mean?
The meaning changes totally dependent on the cultural context.

It only gets more variant when you throw slang, jargon and local dialects into the mix.

Look at the differencein meaning attributed in relatively recently generated English terms like idiot, moron, and dumb as opposed to their original use in medical terminology.

Or even the difference in what thongs are depending on whether you live in the U.S. or Australia.

Marriage was originally purchasing a man's daughter...

I seem to recall that the Hebrew described Mary as a maiden, not a virgin, and that got extrapolated later on (or why is Joseph listed as Yeshua's father?)

Alright, let's say marital duties is unclear.  Now can you tell me how that affects the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins so that we do not have to pay the price for our sins.

I understand cultural differences, translations, etc.  But "marital duties"? Wouldn't you consider that nit picking?

Xeriar, it's actually a prophecy from the Old Testament about being born to a virgen birth. The prophecy did not say mary, so I think you may be thinking something else. As a matter of fact, the New Testament words it carefully that Mary is a virgen until after the birth of Jesus. So there should no confusion.

What constitutes sin varies over time and with cultural change too, as does who it applies to, and what 'paying the price' means.


Marital Duties was just an example, picked because it was a term you, Rogue, used earlier somewhere.
But it does show that a clear and specific term changes its meaning with cultural context. And this can be true of pretty well any such term.

The noah term '40 days and 40 nights' could be a quantified period, or it could be a cultural jargon term for 'a long time' as Conn suggests.

Using the term 'all' may mean 'absolutely everything' or 'the ones I see here' and every graduation in between depending on the common frame of reference used by the individual making the statement and their percieved audience at the time.

And I don't understand "Now can you tell me how that affects the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins so that we do not have to pay the price for our sins."
could you expand on this please.

Apparently the dead sea scrolls shed some light on the supposed virgin birth. (see Barbara Thierling's book 'Jesus the man' for more details)
It wasn't an uncommon event, it was a reference to a cultural practice at the time that a woman couldn't be formally 'married' (at least in the priestly class) until she could produce offspring. Therefore they had to have a child befor they could be officially maried to their husband. Since childbirth out of wedlock was an ideological no-no the fact was overlooked and considered a 'virgin birth', with the second born being considered the official firstborn and the actual firstborn being slotted back into the family somehow after the fact.

There are even stranger cultural behaviours out there.

No, a sin is simply going against God. And we're held to those rules. So are those in the past.



I am quite confident in where I stand with marital duties, and responsibilities. You feel my answers mean something else. That's your choice. I still defend what the bible says.






What I was asking, is so what in the bible changes from the message of God? Are you saying a marraige is slightly different, (and I mean slight). Is that it? The bible is about a relationship with God. With your "meaning changes with cultural context", I am wondering what about Jesus sacrifice has changed? I'm looking for this cultural context on the sacrifice of Jesus that would make me consider that it didn't happen.(or something else happened)


I say read the bible for the details.


So your saying every child born then was a virgen birth?

The Hebrews used 1,000 as a symbol for 'a lot'.  A thousand years is 'a long time', a thousand people is 'a lot of people'.

40 signifies a test, trial, or maturity.  Whether it is mutable may be up for debate but if so it is certainly not more mutable than the 1,000.

However the interpretation of what those 'rules' actually means is different, the situation they are applied in is different and requires at least a change in emphasis and relevance.
How do the instructions on how soon you can marry a captured girl after you kill her father apply today?



I don't know what you are getting at here, I meant that it was a random term used here as an example because it had been mentioned elsewhere. The actual duties and division of labour have changed along with society and the ones we use now in a post industrial high tech society are not the same as those of a group of middle eastern nomadic herders.




What I was asking, is so what in the bible changes from the message of God? Are you saying a marraige is slightly different, (and I mean slight). Is that it? The bible is about a relationship with God. With your "meaning changes with cultural context", I am wondering what about Jesus sacrifice has changed? I'm looking for this cultural context on the sacrifice of Jesus that would make me consider that it didn't happen.(or something else happened)



The meaning of which changes when the appropriate cultural context (the one of the time) applies. Read MY book, I've read yours.




Only the first one for each family. Though as I said it may have been a habit restricted to a small portion of the Jewish community (the priestly classes). It may only have been a local behaviour pattern adopted by the people who produced the dead sea scrolls (the Essenes) for all I know.
The 'significance' of a virgin birth is something that was probably ascribed importance well after the fact when this was a less common ritual, or even died off. Maybe it was one of the last incidences of a dying ritual?

Actually, the virgin birth thing was taken out of social context. Among the people of the region for thousands of years, what was translated as a Virgin Birth was any birth that took place within the first year of a couples unification. This had a practical application in so far as the mortality rate among men was high enough for much of the period that if the husband died within the first year it opened up a lot more options for teh widowed woman. Now this was not common among all the tribes, but was custom among some of them,Specifically those of the northern tribes that worshiped El'eb. It fell out of "Common" Usage well before the time of Christ.

Well social contact, and stuff, (someone will have to reference an article for me about some of these social customs because here is the first time I've ever heard most any of them)

What about the literal context?  Looking at the biblical account and saying that there wasn't really a literal virgin birth seemed incredable to me.

(Luke chapter 1) well at least some of it :)

If we actually look at what the book says, doesn't it seem like the writer was portraying a real, literal virgin birth?

Yes, it sure does seem to look like a literal virgen birth.

Actually if you read some of the biblical coralaries, I can't site the roman one at teh moment I no longer own my own copy, but there were no less than seven others other than Christ who were claiming to have been born of a virgin birth. Obviously wether they were or not is to be debated here, but it was a common claim  during the time of Christ.

The History channel did a REALLY good presentation last easter about the life and times of Jesus. The Big difference between Jesus and the other "claimants" is that the roman coralary discusses the miracles and ministry of Jesus and this was from a nonchristian writer.

Paulos, Barbara Thierling "Jesus the Man" a properly published work (though I can't remember the publisher and it is probably out of print).

As to the biblical passage, if it is ideologically unsound to consider someone other than a virgin before they are 'officially married' then of course they are going to object to the idea of 'officially' having a child before it happens.
You refer to it and behave as if the virginity is actual, because it officially is.

Taken in the appropriate cultural context a virginal birth is not actually a literal virginal birth, although it would always be referred to as such.

If its a social taboo, then it is offensive to talk about it even if it is true. And any such 'accusation' must be denied to maintain social appropriateness. A similar situation is the Yanomamo indians of Venezuela, where the men haver their sacred horns that women are ideologically never supposed to see or know anything about. Of course in the 'real world' the women are all familiar with them and most sneak in to examine the things in their taboo hut at some point. Everyone is aware of this but because the ideology of the culture demands that women be unaware, a blind eye is turned to the facts as long as no-one forces the truth to be brought into the open. If this happens then severe punishment must be meted out.
So long as the taboo isn't 'officially' violated, life goes on as usual.

So using the dead sea scrolls to provide more accurate cultural relevance of the bible reduces the divine emphasis.

Ok, maybe people sometimes faked virgin births for social political or whatever reasons.  (Not that I'm too keen on the idea)

But like I was saying before, if one honestly reads the beginning gospels then the writing is quite clear.  Now if we are saying, maybe Jesus wasn't a virgin and maybe the Bible was wrong.  The answer to that, maybe it was right?  Even thomas refused to accept an even wilder claim that Jesus came back from the dead.

But ya know what?  Christianity is about faith, there isn't really any way to prove these claims as Jesus is not around for us to interview in person today.  Even if he was there probally still would be alot of people that would reject him and the things he did.

As for the thing on Jesus in network television, I didn't see it, from what I heard (2nd hand so take it with a grain of salt) is that they got all of the liberal theologians together to do this.  A fundamentalist, scriptural view wasn't presented.

GHO, is Jesus The Man, the book where they talk about Jesus being married to marry?  I heard about that somewhere but just can't remember who wrote it.

Heh, I found this regarding an arguement from Saint Augustine of all people regarding a literal interpretation of Genesis.

"If God spoke through some created stuff to say 'Let there be light', how can light be the first creature, since something had to be created through which he could say 'Let light be'? . . . Or was it from inchoate stuff that God formed physical sound by which he could pronounce 'Let light be'? But if that is the case, then there was already time as a vehicle for sound, with different moments for the syllables to succeed each other. And if time preceded the creation of light, in what time was the voice created that sounded the words 'Let light be'? To which day should we assign that time?"

He concluded -

"God did not intend to teach men about the inner structure of nature"

Just something I found amusing.

The only problem with that, is he is saying God is wrong.

No, what he said was that man does not have the facilities to understand exactly what God did or how he did it much less why...

We have the Word of God. Either it is accurate, or it is not. If it is not accurate, then we have a useless book. If it is accurate, then we have what we need.

Here's the thing about the Bible. It is edited. Historically, in the First Century A.D. all the bishops and Arch-bishops, and popes, etc got together and decided what books to include and what books not to include in the modern day bible, then added the "Do not add of change" part to the end of it. Another thing is that when King James did his bible, the translators had to be political in their translation. Yet another thing is that we have none of the original copies of any of the manuscripts.

Dude, I think we can agree that God is on a higher level than us.  If God showed up says "X" but we have no frame of referance to understand "X" we do our best to explain "x" but it's not exactly what God meant but for all intents and purposes we understand "X" but not exactly as he meant it.

Clear as Mud? If I need to explain further I can use the chalkboard example that was given in my classes.

Historically, there was no "pope" at that time. That title is long away from that time. And when they gathered together in the 3rd century, they made it official as to what books to use. (or sort of did, as it was discussed a few times more yet in later centuries) the people used the bokks, before it was official, as evidenced by many higher ups who made comments such as to the four gospels, certain letters, etc.
More so, that was just the New Testament, as the Old Testament was already being used for many centuries.

They did not add the do not change part, as that is with the book itself. They included the book that contained the do not change part. To say the verse was added suggests editing, and there isn't anyway to back that comment up. As to how it can be verified, we go by what we have copies of. for example there are apparantly 24,000 documented portions of the bible. They would go through and verify what it did originally say. Peoople are quite confident by using 24,000 copies that they know what it said, and they feel the bible is 99.5% accurate, and the rest of the not sure is spelling, but nothing that would affect the way the bible is used.

Regardless of King James bible, we have older documents of the bible then they used for the King James, so we can be confident in what the bible said.

God's word. It's what He wanted us to have. God understands us completely. He knows what we can understand.

It was the First Century from every source I've ever heard, and they did cut Books out. They went through and decided what Old Testement books coincided with Jesus's Teachings, and what New Testement books fortified that. If a book was too bloody, had too much incest or rape, it was left out. If it mentioned other Messiah's, it was cut out. If it said something that Jesus didn't seem to agree with, it was cut out. This deffinatly indicates Editing. Some entire chapters were left out because the book was good, but that particular passage wasn't.
And the bible can't very well be accurate if there is no God. :)

Kiara, I feel I should tell you, I understand you may not like the bible. And that's ok. But to say that there was a bible in the first century like the one we have today is a fair bit wrong. Whatever site you were looking at for these dates is wrong. If you want the names and dates of these councils, give me a bit of time and I can post them. But I can assure you, there was no New Testament "bible" other than what people used because they already believed them to be from God.

As to the books "removed" how is that possible, if it wasn't the bible at that point?

No, there wasn't a bible, very true. But they looked at all of the diffrent text running around and put them together in a book, arranging them in Before Jesus and After Jesus, giving us the modern day Bible.

The books they "arranged" are either from God, or they are not. If they are from God, it's in the bible. If they are not, they are not included in the bible.

Ok, let's assume that the bible is correct and accurate and "The Word of God" for just one fraction of a second here. Explain this to me: If "God" loves "His" children so much, then why does "He" kill them for no purpose and let them suffer so? If "He" truely loved us, wouldn't "He" just let us all go to heaven and be happy and be with "Him"? If "He" indeed loves us so much, why part with us at all? Why not let us stay in heaven and remain with "Him?
Another thing: Why are Dinosaurs never mentioned in the Bible?
Yet another thing: If it is God's word, then why sort through it at all? You admit there was such a conference, though we have differing opinions on the exact time. If The Bible is in fact God's Word, why did it need such a thing? Why did it need to be copied down at all?
One last thing: Why are there 2 diffrent sets of the Ten Commandments?
Fraction of a second over. :)

It was a council at Nicea hosted by Pope Constantinius that determined what would and would not be included. Books that were considered Holy but not "Worthy" to be put in the Bible were called the "Apophrocal" books. And we KNow in teh First Bibles (the 20 Constantius comitioned) Had 60 books in them, however we do not have listed what books were included. We have a partial list and descriptions but not a single copy of those Bibles still exists (unless the Vatican has one hid somewhere in their archives). Now obvious differences in various lists are the Book of Enoch (Which some Denominations add) and the Book of Ruth (which some odd denominations drop). The Mathmatical difference between today's Bible and Constantinus' is often explained by some as the combinations of books into one...Like TIM 1 and TIM 2 into one Book for Constantinius.

I can see you very excited here Kiara. Let's trya nd keep posts down to a subect or two at a time. I find that people get all caught up, that often they miss stuff.

Alright. First.
God provided a way for every single person on Earth a way to get to Heaven. And they don't even have to jump through hoops, or sign a waiver. The sacrifice of Jesus means every single sin, past, present, and future, are 100% forgiven. God provide a way for all of us to go to Heaven, and we do not have to be punished for our sins.


2nd. Do you mean why isn't the word dinosaur in the bible? You realzie dinosaur was a term invented nearly 150 years ago or so. the bible is few thousand years old. If the word dinosaur was in there, people would have said, "What is this word? I am so confused."
As it is, there are two terms in the bible that could describe a dinosaur, Behemoth, and Leviathon.


3rd Well, sorting through it?? All we can read to get to learn more of God isn't a chore. It's getting closer to God. Why do we copy it? It's a bit much for 7 billion people to share one original.

4th New one to me. You'll have to be more specific, as I think there is only one ten commandments.

:) ok, sorry!!

Rogue4jc: "God provided a way for every single person on Earth a way to get to Heaven. And they don't even have to jump through hoops, or sign a waiver. The sacrifice of Jesus means every single sin, past, present, and future, are 100% forgiven. God provide a way for all of us to go to Heaven, and we do not have to be punished for our sins."
But why send us to Earth at all? Surely he must know that we would sin. Also, I was always told that if you mock God, you couldn't get to heaven, and that you had to be baptised. And that only works if Jesus, and not some other messiah before or after him, is in fact the Son of God, if such a person ever existed.
Do you mean why isn't the word dinosaur in the bible? You realzie dinosaur was a term invented nearly 150 years ago or so. the bible is few thousand years old. If the word dinosaur was in there, people would have said, "What is this word? I am so confused."
Nah, I meant that why aren't they ever discribed? God must have created them.
Well, sorting through it?? All we can read to get to learn more of God isn't a chore. It's getting closer to God. Why do we copy it? It's a bit much for 7 billion people to share one original.
I mean, why did they have to take anything out at all?
New one to me. You'll have to be more specific, as I think there is only one ten commandments.
When Moses came down from the mountain, he Spoke the 10 Commandments (things mostly about Sacraficing.) Then, he went up to the mountian and God wrote them on the Stone tablets. Moses broke them, went back, and got them again, giving us out Modern 10 Commandments. The other 10 are rarely even mentioned.

It was decided in the second century by Irenaeus, if I recall correctly.  He deliberately chose to leave out Gnostic writings as to him (and Arianists/Athanasists as well as Mithrans) the idea that women could have any sort of import was a threat to the order of things.

The Bible was not officially gathered until the fourth century after Constantine's 'conversion'.  The other books and gospels were declared heretical and torched in the fifth century (hundreds of them).

New to Rpol I see. If you want to really seperate the things said by others, use(quote rogue4jc) and then finish it with (/quote) to get the effect of quoting. Just rep[lace the round bracket with angle brackets, just like doing colors.
I assume you have no kids. I have 4 kids. Why would I logically want kids? I mean they cost me money, heartbreak when they make bad decisions that really have consequences. They leave the house, and I'll miss them, etc. they get sick, and hurt themselves.     But then their is the good stuff. They give me such joy when they smile, or say, "I love you dad!" they do well on a project in school and they feel good at what they can do. Seeing them climb a tree and seeing how proud they are for doing something so simple for us to do, that we take for granted the sheer joy of doing that for the first time.
I say to you, how can you not have kids, despite the sorrows that happen, and I imagine God goes threough the same, but is proud of us too, even when we make bad decisions.
Behemoth is described.

Job 40:15-18
15 "Look at the behemoth,
which I made along with you
and which feeds on grass like an ox.
16 What strength he has in his loins,
what power in the muscles of his belly!
17 His tail sways like a cedar;
the sinews of his thighs are close-knit.
18 His bones are tubes of bronze,
his limbs like rods of iron.

Because people make things up, and want to do things there way. the bible contains only God's words.
Again, be more specific. What are you talking about another ten commandments?

I thought the behemoth was their term for cow.

Well, it would never occur to me to call a cow a behemoth. But would you call a cow tail to be like a cedar?

I know :) I just like the way the diffrent colors look :D
Rogue4jc said:"I assume you have no kids. I have 4 kids. Why would I logically want kids? I mean they cost me money, heartbreak when they make bad decisions that really have consequences. They leave the house, and I'll miss them, etc. they get sick, and hurt themselves.     But then their is the good stuff. They give me such joy when they smile, or say, "I love you dad!" they do well on a project in school and they feel good at what they can do. Seeing them climb a tree and seeing how proud they are for doing something so simple for us to do, that we take for granted the sheer joy of doing that for the first time."
You are in correct in the assumption that I have no children. I don't want to have any of my own. Tis my opinion that the only thing wrong you can do in this world is to Procreate, but that's a diffrent story. :) As for being proud of His children, couldn't he be proud of us in heaven? When we do a particular good thing, or sing particularly well?
(quote rogue4jc) Behemoth is described.
Job 40:15-18
15 "Look at the behemoth,
which I made along with you
and which feeds on grass like an ox.
16 What strength he has in his loins,
what power in the muscles of his belly!
17 His tail sways like a cedar;
the sinews of his thighs are close-knit.
18 His bones are tubes of bronze,
his limbs like rods of iron.
(/quote)
*Pouts. it wouldn't let me do the colors.*
Sounds like a horse to me...
Because people make things up, and want to do things there way. the bible contains only God's words.
How do we know that? And If people did lie in the Bible, why didn't God just strike them down? And how do we know that the people who chose what to include and what not to include didn't just lie? No one can seperate themselves fully from what they believe when doing something like that.
Again, be more specific. What are you talking about another ten commandments?
The Modern 10 commandments are: Exodus 20, 3-17. However, there is another set, in Exodus 34 12-28. The latter set were the ones written in stone.

You were using curved brackets. And not angle brackets.

A horse with a tail like a cedar?

God is proud of us now. Right here on earth. He wants us in Heaven, and as already said, he provided a way for all.


How do we know they are lies? Well if someone says such and such an event happened, and it didn't it's a lie. That would be a reason to show obvious mistakes, and therefore not from God.
Why didn't God strike them down? Free choice. He does allow people to make mistakes. If he didn't allows us to, then we couldn't even tell a lie. We wouldn't be able to do as we please. Think about it, if my kids were to say something bad about me, should I kill them? NOPE! NO WAY! Do I still love my kids, even when they are disobediant? yep! So I imagine God wouldn't strike them dead for disagreeing with Him, just I wouldn't strike my children dead for doing the same to me.

Now as to the bible and how we know it's correct. It is pretty accurate. So by definition, we trust what has a record of accuracy.


What doesn't make sense, is the earlier passage, exodus 20, you are calling modern commandments. And Later in exodus, that would mean you suggest the later written ones are the the "real" commandments.

But when I read the entire Exodus 34, I don't find that they are called the new ten commandments or the other ten commandments.

A horse with a tail like a cedar?
It could be describing the color.
God is proud of us now. Right here on earth. He wants us in Heaven, and as already said, he provided a way for all
And as I already said, why send us to earth in the first place?
How do we know they are lies?  Well if someone says such and such an event happened, and it didn't it's a lie. That would be a reason to show obvious mistakes, and therefore not from God.
How do we know they are not lies? And how would they kow if the event happened or not, especially if it happened so long ago?
Why didn't God strike them down? Free choice. He does allow people to make mistakes. If he didn't allows us to, then we couldn't even tell a lie. We wouldn't be able to do as we please. Think about it, if my kids were to say something bad about me, should I kill them? NOPE! NO WAY! Do I still love my kids, even when they are disobediant? yep! So I imagine God wouldn't strike them dead for disagreeing with Him, just I wouldn't strike my children dead for doing the same to me.
But God has killed his Children for something like that. The Plagues of Egypt, the Great Flood, Lot's City (I believe it was Sodom)
Now as to the bible and how we know it's correct. It is pretty accurate. So by definition, we trust what has a record of accuracy.
But how do we know that its accurate? In Joel's time there were great plagues, but we have no record of that. Couldn't it be false?
But when I read the entire Exodus 34, I don't find that they are called the new ten commandments or the other ten commandments.
In the Bible I'm using for reference, it calls the event "Two New Tablets of Stone", which is what the commandments were written on.

Job 40:17 His tail sways like a cedar;
No it is not color. What color is sways like a cedar?


I answered this already.


History tells us it is correct.

They didn't just disagree with God, they were enslaving God's chosen at that time for the plaques of Egypt. for the flood, people were turning to so much sin, they would have died anyway and gone to hell. God gave the world another chance. Soddom and Gammorah were lost to sin. It gave the rest of the world a chance.



So we should assume it's false because we don't have evidence yet? Keep in mind many times in the past, various articles of the bible were considered false because there was "no evidence", and then they found some. They thought sodom and gamorrah were false, and then they find articles from the cities. It happens many times. You can't assume false. Considering it's accuracy, it would be a bad idea to assume false.

It does not call the ten commandments, the commandments written on written on tablets of stone. I would hazard a guess that anything written on tablets of stone are not the ten commandments either, would you agree?

I answered this already.
:) so did I.
You are in correct in the assumption that I have no children. I don't want to have any of my own. Tis my opinion that the only thing wrong you can do in this world is to Procreate, but that's a diffrent story. :) As for being proud of His children, couldn't he be proud of us in heaven? When we do a particular good thing, or sing particularly well?
History tells us it is correct.
My research shows me the opposite.
They didn't just disagree with God, they were enslaving God's chosen at that time for the plaques of Egypt. for the flood, people were turning to so much sin, they would have died anyway and gone to hell. God gave the world another chance. Soddom and Gammorah were lost to sin. It gave the rest of the world a chance.
Well, would you not say that the world today is "Lost to Sin"? Why doesn't he do the same now?
So we should assume it's false because we don't have evidence yet? Keep in mind many times in the past, various articles of the bible were considered false because there was "no evidence", and then they found some. They thought sodom and gamorrah were false, and then they find articles from the cities. It happens many times. You can't assume false. Considering it's accuracy, it would be a bad idea to assume false.
We should assume its false untill we have evidence of it. Should we assume that we could live on Venus without finding evidence of it first? Of course not.
It does not call the ten commandments, the commandments written on written on tablets of stone. I would hazard a guess that anything written on tablets of stone are not the ten commandments either, would you agree?
But by all accounts the 10 Commandments were written on stone, which were placed in the Temple. Thus, all the cute little cards you see in Bible Stores have them on little Stone Tablets when, in fact, those 10 Commandments were merely vocal commands, not written. All I'm saying is that they're diffrent. Why?

If you know I answered it, why ask the same qquestion? Thinking I would change my answer?

Alright, i'll bite. Show me where the bible is historically wrong?
I would say that the world is being filled with more sin. It is not lost though. As to time when God will come and take care of it, I don't not know, but he will take care of it.
If it is accurate every other time, you shouldn't assume the one with no evidence to show it's false is indeed false. Example, if someone always tells the truth, and they say something unusual, do you not give it a little bit of credibility when they have always told the truth before? Or do you call them a liar right off the bat, even though there is no evidence to show it didn't happen. Yes, you give it a little bit of credibility.

Now where do you get the idea the ten commandments were not recorded on stone tablets? The ten commandments were pretty important were they not?

No, but dinosaurs did not eat grass, either.   And this is also taking place after the Flood as well.

Alright, how can you prove that one?

Grass didn't exist while they were around.  Dating aside, dinosaurs are below the K-T boundary, all grasses are above it.

That's a bit in Creationism-evolution, the appropriate answer here is that they simply could not properly sustain themselves on grass like cows or even buffalo.  Their rather immense dietary requirements require eating large plants, trees, and so on, and their bone structure follows this (at least, where tail swinging like a cedar would apply).

There were no grasslands? It was all jungle? I would imagine that there are smaller dinosaurs as well.

Not all jungle else we'd have even fewer fossils, but no, no grasslands, no prairies or fields, grass is a rather recent evolution.  There also seemed to be a higher oxygen and moisture content (making for more jungle...  but there were no icecaps)

Yes, there are many smaller dinosaurs, but they tended towards the carnivorous/omnivorous, and smaller herbivores were so well armored that the omission there is also telling.

Finally, loins also points to a mammal.  Reptiles don't have genitals quite like mammals...

Edit: - Jungles are bad for fossilization, not good, doh!
This message was last edited by the player at 22:53, Mon 16 Aug 2004.

If creation is true, there were grasslands, and therefore dinosaurs that eat grass.

For Kiara- The council of Hippo in 393Ad is the first one officially from the church on the bible.

Then council of Carthage in 397AD was next. I think you are misreading or using a poor website if you use that the bible was "official" in 100AD.

I think she is confusing Irenaeus' writings with the decision that was finally made based on them.

Did someone post that the Cannon was established in 100 ad?  I looked back and missed it.

The first Cannon was proposed in the 2nd century.  It was less then what we have today and rejected the old testament thinking that it didn't have value to christians.

His teachings were rejected by the church at large though so it was never really considered by any but his followers.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Marcion_of_Sinope

The statement that grasses and dinosaurs never mixed is accurate, dinosaurs lived in a world without grassy ground covers.

If they did both exist at the same time, them at the very least you would find fossils of both together (like you do with more recent fossils).

The biblical description of Behemoth is obviously for a large creature, so skip the small dinosaur idea. Though the size that can be sustained by grasses can be reasonably large. You can support hippo's and Rhino's on grass, but not elephants. Though this would cancel out any of the sauropod dinosaurs as potential sources.
Though the whole idea of recently living dinosaurs is grasping at nonexistant straws.


As I've said before, the bible being 100% accurate is an impossibility as it contradicts itself, (see male/female thread for example) let alone the statements it makes that are contrary to observable fact (4 legged insects, global floods, the tardis Ark, resurrections, souls? most of which are covered earlier).

There wasn't 'A bible' at this point, but there was a collection of 'holy works' that were being evolved into the formalised text for the developing religion.
Individuals and groups would be deciding which items they would include or reject, depending on what their aims and opinions where.

Paulos, 'Jesus the Man' was based around the manner in which the information in the dead sea scrolls could be applied to the statements in the bible. It's been a while since I read it, but I don't remember any references to Jesus marrying anyone (if there were, it wasn't a major point.)

You mean just like the fossils we have of the transition from the short necked giraffe to the long neck giraffe? I mean, if the transitional existed.

How is the presence of a single species, or even 5 or 10, comparable to a global phenomenon?

Having grass exist and not show up in the fossil record would be the same as not having any dinosaurs at all turning up in the fossil record.

Plus if your creationist ideas were accurate, then transitionary species don't show up because they don't exist in the first place. Therefore is grass exists it'll be there along with any other fossils.

Let's look at that again, if creationism is true, then we'd only have to have one fossil to show it existed then. And it was said grass does show up in fossil records.

And I do not think there are transitionary animals. (meaning the animal before it becomes another animal. Macroevolution)

http://www.ultimateungulate.co...kapia_johnstoni.html

I don't know.  Still fun.  Imagine how popular I'd be with the girls if I could lick my ear with my tongue...

Hmmm....

Plants show up as imprints in places - obviously fossilized grass isn't exactly common.

There is a group of creatures that we only have imprints of, from the late precambrian that appear to be neither animal nor plant.  It is unknown if they are a common ancestor or failed kingdom but the only certain thing is there were a great, great many of them.

Yea, I wanna see the inbetween. That was what GHO said. If it exists, there would be a fossil. I know it's ridiculous to have fossils of every single creature, and plant. I figured putting it that way would show the double standard.

And grass does not show up in fossil records with dinosaurs.
Even if you try and discount the timing stratification of fossils, there are no grass fossils found in conjunction with dinosaur fossils.

However we can trace the point at which grass did develop (much later) in conjunction with other life forms.

The Okapi would be a living example of an organism somewhere between a short necked and long necked giraffe.

We've had this transitionary species argument before, Equines, titanotheres, rhinoceroid, Ceratopsians... all examples of linked evolutionary chains.

How closely related are giraffes and camels?

So then one generation, all the necks sprouted 15 feet longer?

Just indicating that there is an example of a species with features between two extremes. A transitionary species body type.

The giraffe necks get to six feet long.  So you are arguing over ~3 feet.  There are somewhat shorter species of giraffe but I can't find height figures, grr.

The Okapi is the short-necked version.  Near as I can tell, it's common ancestor with the giraffe was just as short necked.

One one hand, that's still a long length to go through.

On the other hand, there are still over a trillion fossils in generally rather hostile territory do dig through, both for giraffe and human ancestors.  I've found some links that talk about giraffe transitionals but, unfortunately, no pictures.

So in other words, just because we haven't found fossils of it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist right?

Realize we also have genetic evidence as well.  This data is pretty recent (only easily obtainable in the past decade), but it is forming the basis for the phylogenic tree.

We have fossil evidence that similar species that seem to be similar exist, so we need to fill in the gaps with your transitionary species.

The no dinosaurs with grass concept still stands because of the basic impossibility that grass fossils would not be formed. Too endemic to be missed basically.

Of course. No transitionary fossil means they could exist, but no grass fossil means it doesn't exist. I guess i have nothing to stand on, and no argument left. I concede on there being grass and dinosaurs.

Funny.

Grass quickly became the most dominant surface plant species after it evolved.  It has been around for thirty million years or so, and left lots of evidence of its existance, not only as impressions, but hooves adapted to the presence of grass.

Compare a worldwide phenomenon - easily observable in the peace of your home country - to a localized, sparse population in rather hostile territories, of which fossils are still being uncovered.

I think you guys need to define "dinosaur."

I am referring to the mass of reptilian (and occasionally birdlike) fossils found beneath the K-T boundary.  Brontosaurus, T-Rex, and so on.

I'm not sure reptillian quite fits, they were a different family altogether, acyually they were probably two different types of family.

What kind of definition do you need? Isn't the concept of dinosaurs pretty clear?
Where's the fuzzy area for you heath?


rogue4jc typed:
"Of course. No transitionary fossil means they could exist, but no grass fossil means it doesn't exist. I guess i have nothing to stand on, and no argument left. I concede on there being grass and dinosaurs."

What that said was you can't have it both ways. If the lack of more transitionary species 'proves' to creationists that they never existed, then the same lack of grass fossils with dinosaurs logically proves that they were not contemporaries.

I would say that the fact we have found many examples of transitionary and rare varieties of fossils of dinosaurs, yet have found no evidence of the pracically globally present grass at the same period (though plenty to indicate its development at a much later stage) supports the claims of grass and dinosaurs not existing together.
Plenty of non grass vegetation from the same ecological niche can be found with dinosaurs though.
As well as botanical fossils showing evolutionary trends in the same manner as animals.

I never said that. I'm not using that once to show evolution wrong. I used the giraffe example to show just because a lack of grass fossils does not mean it didn't exist. Which is what you did do.

And you're saying it again. Lack of fossils means it doesn't exist. You are using it that way.

But apprantly I can't. So what else can I say?

Would you admit that certain patterns could be interpreted to show that a species of phenomena started at a given point?

Actually I am a creationist. Like that fish that "disappeared" for 65 million years, there are examples of something not appearing in the fossil record.

Dissappeared?

It's not the same fish, just of the same family.

The no grass with dinosaurs hypothesis is based on the fossil records that show the development of grass at a later date, not merely on it's absence at an earlier one.

I was referring to a standard argument against 'transitionary' lifeforms that runs along the lines of "no fossils = never existed" which has been trotted out in earlier discussions.
By that logic, grass couldn't have existed at the time. I never said it was a good argument, but that you can't use both arguments to support your case.

And as I pointed out earlier, there is a big difference in the non appearance of widespread organisms and localised organisms in the fossil record.
Eg. the the remnant population of the Coelacanth (related to a once very common and widespread family of fishes) lives in a very limited range and thus  did not leave fossils over a wide area to be discovered. Whereas shark species that have been widespread for nearly as long have left a much more complete record of their presence.

Getting back on topic, I have four initial questions for biblical innerrantists.

1: What message, exactly, was inscribed atop Jesus' cross?

2: What were Jesus' last words?

3: Who visited Jesus' tomb at dawn?

4: Matthew 16:28, Mark 9:1, Luke 9:27.  Here, Jesus is addressing his disciples, and only they.  Supposedly, they are all indeed dead.  Why has the second coming not come?

I don't get what you're saying.

Could you be more specific?

Maybe handle one point at a time, and then we can go to the next one.

I'd really like to do what I can to help make anything more clear, so please, let's ask one at a time.

Alright, I'll go with #4 first.

Mat 16:28  Truly I say to you, There are some standing here who will not taste of death, never, until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.

Mar 9:1  And He said to them, Truly I say to you, There are some of those standing here who in no way shall taste of death until they see the kingdom of God coming in power.

Luk 9:27  But truly I say to you, There are some of those standing here who in no way shall taste of death until they see the kingdom of God.

----

These are all addressed to the disciples, and them alone (if I am to take the admonition of secrecy beforehand seriously, anyway).

What of it?  By this, the Kingdom of Heaven should have come around the end of the first century.

Apparantly, one suggestion is it is a reference to the Jeruseleum temple being destroyed.

I'll have to do some more reading to understand it, or find an easier reference.
It's way too above my head to understand that on skimming it over the first time.

http://www.tektonics.org/olivet01.html

check it out, and see if you can grasp it, and I'll keep looking.

*grumbles about people who throw out random terms to act intellectually superior*

Alright, you can look up dispensational in Google or wherever and see - I find the idea kind of silly (I guess it could be mentioned in the 'Do God's laws change' thread) but then again so does the author.

Preterist regards the belief that the second coming has already occurred, at least in part.

The actual discussion of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem should have it's own 'Christian History' thread - I'm not going to contest what some people believe - that this event did indeed found Christianity.

----

This, on its own weight, is a little spurious.  Jesus prefered to be clear when not angered, so far as I can tell.  He gave other signs - to quote your article



This in and of itself implies an error in Matthew, but anyway, to elaborate -

No one else claimed to be -Christ- during this period.  There were, however, other saviours (including one born in Bethlehem), and other 'false messiahs'.  Crossing Rome and the Middle East, you have even more godmen - I believe there are 14 known including Jesus Christ and Mithras.

Now, the problem here is that Jesus is among the last, if not the last, of the godmen.  Thus, none lived to make such a declaration.  This of course does not rule out false messiahs - but none claimed to be Christ.  Simon Bar Kochba proved the Romans could be defeated when taken by surprise, that's about it.

With discussion of 'I AM' we are bordering on some other heresies and biblical edits which I would rather address later, as they present a more coherent arguement unified.

I also disagree with much of the rest of it, but that's not entirely addressing my point anyway.

 - Matthew specifically refers to the Son of Man coming in power.  While this might well be another convenient redaction, that's not the issue.

 - If Christiandom could be called the Kingdom of God, then its coming into power would have to be pegged at Constantine's Conversion.  Previous to that, its word was merely spreading, and Christianity was merely a potential tool, not a realized one.

You know, as to this idea of godmen, I have to disagree. How many were crucified, and raised from the dead?
If it's only Jesus, then it's only Jesus who is Christ.

Most were raised from the dead - some make the claim that Jesus's ressurection derives from theirs, but ressurection is a rather common myth regarding many gods/men types - including the avatars of Vishnu in Hinduism, for example.

Virgin births are likewise common, and in Jesus' case was more clearly 'tacked on' to his myth, as a number of the more ancient manuscripts have critically altered wording - but I will get to that later.

The Eucharist is an additional one.  Perhaps the most important.

Crucifiction... Dionysus, Orpheus Bakkus, Attis, Mithras - all have such stories.

Dionysus was the first, of course.

Respectfully Xeriar, that's bogus.

Respectfully, what do you think I think of the entire Christian religion?

There is, if you study it, a rather clear picture of just how Judaism and Christianity evolved.  Tangled and complex, but its there.  How am I supposed to believe in such miraculous stories when I have ready secular explanations for all of them?

Xeriar, I am saying there is no other that was born in Betheham, able to heal, able to sacrifice his life on the cross, and then raise from the dead.

There is only one Jesus the Christ.

That is a given.
Only one savior.

What does being born in Bethlehem give Jesus over being born in various places ranging from Nepal and India to Egypt, Italy and Greece, and nearly every even remotely important culture in between?

Fulfillment of prophecy.

The popular concept of Biblical inerrancy and sufficiency (in which it is asserted that the Bible as is contains no flaws and is a complete and perfect canon) is hard to square with the centuries-old uncertainty and controversy over what should be in the Biblical canon in the first place. If Martin Luther openly attacked the canonical status of some books in the Protestant Bible, it seems odd that his followers would later claim that the Bible is infallible, complete, and perfect. The Bible makes no such claim for itself.

Technically, the concept of Biblical inerrancy should mean that the words originally written by prophets and apostles under inspiration of God are correct.

I'm not sure how many would agree or disagree on this point.

2nd timothy 3:16 says that "all scripture is given by insperation of God..."

There were only two books of the canon that Martin luthor didn't like, james and Ester.  But I don't think that's a big cause for us to question the cannon.  What makes us better judges of which writings were actually from prophets and apostles centuries away from their orgin then church fathers who were seperated much less?

There were other things as well, such as the Sermon on the Mount, which he called a "masterpiece of the devil."

Also,
"It is clear that Calvin cannot be credited with the scriptural literalism affirmed by present-day fundamentalists. Nor, indeed, can any other major figure in the history of Christian thought prior to 1800. Contrary to fundamentalists claims, the doctrine of biblical inerrancy as they have formulated it is not a return to primitive Christianity or to Christian orthodoxy. Rather, it was an innovation fashioned scarcely more than a hundred years ago as a weapon to be used against the modernist movement." [Lloyd J. Averill, Religious Right, Religious Wrong: A Critique of the Fundamentalist Phenomenon, Pilgrim Books, New York, 1989, pp. 73-74, as cited by Peterson and Ricks, p. 127.]"

Early Christians also used the Septuagint with its Apocryphal writings. The definitive canon of the Old Testament would not be selected by the Jews until after Paul referred to the whole "Bible", but the early Christians generally used the Greek Septuagint which contained many Apocryphal (or "deuterocanonical") books not in the Protestant Bibles of today.

Example of discrepancy: We find that the Masoretic Text offers 720 years as the length of time from Abraham's birth to the Exodus, while the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch give 505 years. There are may similar examples, all pointing to the obvious fact that different ancient Bibles don't all give the same text.

Do you realize that the King James Version of today has hundreds of changes compared to the 1611 printing? And do you realize that the selection of manuscripts used in its translation contain many thousands of variations relative to other possible selections of manuscripts?


The Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. No original manuscripts exist, and there are distinct differences - though often minor - between the various manuscripts that have survived.

A book on the doctrinal tampering of the New Testament is The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0195102797) by Dr. Bart Ehrman, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. According to Dr. Ehrman, "My thesis can be stated simply: scribes occasionally altered the words of their sacred texts to make the more patently orthodox and to prevent their misuse by Christians who espoused aberrant views" (p. xi). There is abundant evidence for this unfortunate fact. A book showing many variants in Old Testament passages from the Dead Sea Scrolls is The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible,San Francisco: Harper, 1999 (ISBN: 0060600632). See also Emmanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd edition, Fortress Press, 2001 (ISBN: 0800634292), which shows hundreds of examples of textual variants between the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Old Testament sources.

The Septuagint is not inspired as it is not an original writing but a translation of the hebrew to greek.  Like I was saying before, who cares what people in the reformation thought, they were not infaluable.

So what is an original writing?  The King James Version is just a translation too.

We care what they thought because much of what is put forward today as the complete and unadulterated "Christian" comes directly from their influence.  Are you agreeing that the Bible has flaws?

I'll agree that there are flaws with the translations.

Ok, to be technically correct, the only truely inspired words were the orignal writings written in their perspective language (greek hebrew aramaic) we don't have those today so we can't prove that the Bible we have today is completely accurate.

That being said, of coarse the KJV has been changed, no one could understand a 1611 version because the english back then is so different then what we speak today.  There needs to be a distinction between something that is transcribed and translated.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:57, Thu 26 Aug 2004.

2nd Timothy is also believed to be a forgery...

All scripture is believed to be a forgery by some liberal Dr. So and So, I don't think we should be overly concerned.

Isn't that just a statement of principle?  Naturally, to be "scripture," a writing would have to be inspired by God.

I'm not sure what you mean by "statement of principle" heath.

I think Heath meant, it is from God, so it's redundant to say that scripture is from God.

In otherwords, even if it didn't say that verse, when we have it from God, that this is his Word, it is already a given.


2 Timothy 3:16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

Basically, the section quoted above does not specify what "scriptures" are.  I don't think it mentions the Bible or any other particular work per se.  So it is just defining what a "scripture" is in general.

From the always useful dictionary:

   1. a. A sacred writing or book.
      b. A passage from such a writing or book.
   2. The sacred writings of the Bible. Often used in the plural.
   3. A statement regarded as authoritative.

I would also interject that there were numerous other 'Books', some written by the apostles (like Thomas) that never made it into the 'approved' Bible, for one reason or another (generally because they disagreed with church beliefs at the time), which puts a natural question of the intention of the 'chosen' books.

In general, those books that were excluded promoted the ideal of the personal relationship with god, rather than the necessity of a centralized church to act as a religious body.

Who is to say, for example, that the Book of Thomas is not 'scripture', according to the first definition?

Well if Thomas is wrong, then it is not useful for correcting rebuking,,,etc.

But who is to say that he is wrong? That's my point. The 'bible' does not contain all of the writings about Jesus, or even all of the writings from the Apostles.

Men chose which books to use and which to discard, so to say that only the writings in the bible are scripture and to try and use both definitions I think is questionable.

So, which books do you think should be included that were left out and why?

There has been a great deal of writing about the books that were excluded from the Bible. The main problem with finding detailed information about these works is that after the books of the bible were finalized,it was ordered that all of the other books were to be destroyed. If a pristine copy of these works exist, only the Catholic church would  be in possession of them.

However, in 1945 a collection of these works were found in Egypt. These include the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Truth.

From the translations, it is clear that the works do not conform to the church-centric view of Catholism, and that is most likely the primary reason they were excluded.

As to whether or not they should be included, I have no opinion, as I'm not christian.

But the findings of these works calls into question the infallability of the bible as it is known today.

They really don't call into question the other books.

The books not part of the bible, are not part of the bible for a reason.

Some of the more obvious reasons include books that contain clear mistkes, like geography, history or events.

You don't know that. The reasons have never been made public (that I am aware of). You are assuming why they were not included.

Here's the first site I was able to track down that discusses it:

http://web.1earth.net/~youth/BibleBits.html#14.

I'm not sure where this list came from, but it seems pretty comprehensive.

20.  How did they choose, which books, to include in the New Testament?

* Books known to be written by an Apostle or a person tied to an Apostle.
* Accepted by the Church
* Written as from God, when you read it.
* Did not contradict other Bible books.
* Gave you information about God, not just an encouraging comment.
* Had no historical or other mistakes in the text.

#2 is my primary point.

Very interesting site.  I don't agree with all nonfactual conclusions though.

Example,
* The Old Testament implies that God would be silent till just before the coming of the Messiah (Jesus Christ)
"See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes." Malachi 4:5

LDS belief (and possibly other Christians as well) is that this refers to the Second Coming of the Messiah.

__

But the site's mention of Origen supports the conclusion I gave a month or two ago about the origin of the Trinitarian belief (i.e. that the Trinity is one being) coming from him a couple hundred years after Jesus' death.

modern, I am aware of these other gospels, and I have checked out several of the issues. Yes they are not included because of some factual errors. And some outright have doctrine that goes against basic concepts given by God.

Given by God through what? The other gospels? Who is to say which one is correct?

And are you saying that none of the other books contain any factual errors? I think other threads on this very board would debate that fact.

Many threads could debate the factual errors, but they have all been explained. With reasonable explanation, no magic involved.

But still the conclusion was that there were flaws based on versions, so someone has to pick and choose which is the most "accurate" version.

I think what this ultimately boils down to is that it is best for each person to research closely and think about each passage and the possible problems or true principles involved.  Isn't it best to have knowledge of all the versions and then decide for yourself which you believe most accurately reflects the words of God?

By your interpretation, of course. I will let others more versed in that debate those topics.

But to the other point you have yet to comment on is the 'goes against doctrines given by god'?

Where were those doctrines listed? In the other gospels? Who is to say which is accurate? 4 were included, 2 were not. And those 4 are not 100% consistent (for example, from my research, only Matthew and Luke specifically mention the virgin birth).

It would be matched against Old Testament first since it's the base.
Next, you match historical accuracy. And then factual errors. And then it can be matched to doctrine from God, which is kept consistent.



But this is kind of moot. As if you were to look at the "missing books" we can discuss the issues of those. That makes more sense, then just assuming the  "missing books" are accurate.

I'm not saying they are accurate. I am saying that you don't have any historical basis for saying they are incorrect. There are -no- writings discussing why these books were excluded, and most of them were destroyed.

My point is that men made decisions over what to include specifically on the basis of if it promoted the current ideas of the church (#2 up there). Not on whether or not it was from God or from a disciple.

So there is an inherent question as to the 'completeness', and therefore accuracy of the bible.

I do have historical basis, history says the church and the people were able to determine what was inspired.

And honestly, God is God. He is more than able to direct his Word.

Thwoing up your hand sand saying 'god's will' really isn't the basis for debate, is it?

And if you have that proof, please show it to me, because I have never seen documented proof over why each of these books were excluded, besides the vague generalities you have cited.

So what you're saying is that because he directed his word differently to different people, then his word is different depending on which version you believe in?

I do not have the exact break down of those books on hand.

That doesn't change why they were excluded.

My belief in God does not chnage the reasons why they were excluded.

I eagerly await your proof.

The decision for which books got into the bible was, I recall, decided on a 398-393 vote.

[Reposting due to simultaneous post.]

So what you're saying is that because he directed his word differently to different people, then his word is different depending on which version you believe in?  (I agree with you about his ability.  I'm just not sure I see the effect of that in reality.)

I am not saying different people get a different message.

There are people who have the wrong message entirely.

I am saying there is a fully accurate word of God. And it exists. Access is available.

Continuing my previous line, here is a phrase rogue's article did not, oddly, address at all (or else I missed it)

Mar 13:25  and the stars of the heaven will be falling, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
Mar 13:26  And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with much power and glory. Dan. 7:13
Mar 13:27  And then He will send His angels and will gather His elect from the four winds, from the end of earth to the end of heaven.
Mar 13:28  And from the fig tree learn the parable: When its branch becomes tender and puts out leaves, you know the summer is near.
Mar 13:29  So you also, when you see these things happening, know that it is near, at the doors.
Mar 13:30  Truly I say to you, Not at all will this generation pass away until all these things occur.
Mar 13:31  The heaven and the earth will pass away, but My Words will not pass away, never!

I'm not sure I agree.  Fully accurate as the word of God pertains to us--yes.  Fully accurate as it applies to the eternities and everything within them--I don't think so.

  Aight, here's the deal. The books that are included as Scripture are what is known as the "Cannon." They all meet a strict criteria, which includes prayer, but that is not the exclusive element. All the books refer to, or are refered to by another book. I'm not exactly sure of ALL the criteria, but if you'd read The New Evidence by Josh McDowell, YOU WILL. I own the book, but don't have it handy. Sorry guys. I'll hafta wait until Weds. night maybe to do it.
The books NOT included (which includes the Apothecary, to those who are Catholic or maybe just wanted to know), are NOT included b/c they didn't meet this criteria. Somebody (I think a Pope, or a Bishop, or something) along the line thought it would be a good idea to include them anyway (even though they were NOT divinely inspired), even if they didn't meet the Cannon's criteria.
  By the way, Josh McDowell started writing the book b/c he was a non-believer and wanted to disprove the Bible. Well, suffice to say HE COULDN'T.

Correction:  "Canon."

And what is canon to one religion is different than what is canon to another.  Example, why are Psalms and the Songs of Solomon included in the "canon" when they are clearly not divinely inspired?

I think they are divenly inspired. In psalms are some prophecies about Jesus. Song of Solomon, I'd have to look more into as to the why. Perhaps that was established to the Jews already. (considering it's old testament.)

Okay, but most people don't because they were written by Kings (David and Solomon) and not prophets.  One of the posts from a Jewish person before said that they don't recognize those two books as divinely inspired either.  They are instead praises and poems.

Here's a site a little about the Songs of Solomon.  http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/song.html

The fact is, though, that some people believe the entire Bible as compiled is the word of God and some don't.  The Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible are different, etc.  That was really my main point there.  I guess by disagreeing on the facts of my analogy you actually prove my point (but I don't think that's something that anyone disagrees with anyway).
This message was last edited by the player at 11:43, Wed 01 Sept 2004.

Okay, no offense, but if you say 'cannon' and 'apothecary', I really don't think you're very well read on the subject.

For your own education, it's 'canon' and 'apocrypha'.

I'm not sure what you're referring to exactly, but I think the prophecies you talk about are just rehashed versions of the prophecies that already existed for them (i.e. nothing new).  These are hymns and praises to God, so they're good in that way, but praises to God are different from communications "from" Him.  We sing hymns all the time that have in them elements of prophecies (the Second Coming, etc.), but that doesn't make the hymns themselves prophetic.

Alright people. Some people don't have a first language of english, and some people have poor spelling, but let's not make it an issue.

Jesus Quotes Psalms if I recall, don't think song of solomon, that book is not for children!

LOL. That was exactly my thought.  I'm sure Jesus quoted many sources.  I'm sure he sang hymns and did all sorts of things that praised God, but that doesn't mean that every one of them was the word of God to men.

I guess what I'm saying is just that there is a difference between praises from a man to God on one hand and the word of God to people on the other hand.  The Psalms were praises of God and are great, but that doesn't mean God was speaking through a prophet and giving us his will when they were written.

Well, or at least state that an apothecary is an herbal healer, and that the Apocrypha are 'hidden books'

lol. sorry bout that. It was late and i couldn't remember. Also, a mispelling really isn't a big deal. Now look what I've done. I started a debate about whether spelling counts. Hmph.

anyway, there were reasons that the psalms were put in there. For one, God promised David that his Kingdom would reign forever. Which it will, through Jesus Christ. MOST of the Psalms are his (not all), but all listed are divinely inspired.

And I wouldn't say that Song of Solomon is bad, exactly, but I'm not sure of all the reasons it's in the cannon (For you, Heath ;). If it wasn't divinely inspired, however, that would mean that the Bible is NOT infallible, b/c it says that ALL SCRIPTURE is God-Breathed. Not some. And if you can't believe some of it, don't believe ANY of it. One piece of mold ruins the whole loaf of bread, if you will.

Hopefully, I didn't say it wasn't "inspired."  I was meaning to state that it is not from a prophet of God and is not therefore the "word of God" to all people.  I won't get into the prophet and era issue again.  Sufficeth to say that praises to God are great and can be inspired.  Anyone can get inspiration.  It's just different from the word of God through a prophet.

As I stated in the other thread, the Bible is far from infallible--not because of God, but because of Man.

Just as an interesting point. I heard earlier today that there are approximately different 450 English translations/versions of the Bible currently in print. There was a rather interesting debate as to whether or not these differnet versions were diluting the power of the Church (intentionally capitalized) to read from the Bible, as well as the impact these different versions have had on things like Sunday School and Bible study groups.

For those that attend such things, have you seen any issues with differing versoins of the bible in your groups studies, whether it is in church, bible study or sunday school?

Our church (and many other churches) have just one approved version that is used (the KJV), but still with the caveat that we believe the Bible "so long as it translated correctly."  I don't think there is a perfect version out there, but that has been disputed in this thread by others.

Sure, there are versions of the bible that are not following what is written in the bible.

Some are changed to meet a certain need. Example changing to suit the purposes of some religious groups. Literally changing words to add something not there before.

But take a regular bible and compare it a translation, there won't be harm in that.

Really, Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, or Spirit of God, is there a real issue?

I don't know the justifications behind it, and I don't know if there's an issue. That's why I asked.

I didn't ask if it was okay. I asked if anyone has personal experience with this impacting their churches, study groups, etc.

I run into all the time. Depends on which bible I bring. I have many that I use. The only thing that may come up is trying to read long to someone else's speaking quotews as I try and read along, and since they are different versions, may have the order different.

Are there situations where the translations conflict? Or where interpretations are different? With different texts, how do you resolve such discussions?

No conflicts

moderndm, there was a massive amount of discussion about this issue in this thread.  Maybe there's something you want to go back and pick up on in particular to reinvigorate it.

I was just asking for personal anecdotes about any conflicts between versions in church, bible study, etc., nothing more.

There can be division among churches, but among the bible?

Some people think KJV is the only legit version , (and I mean only, nothing else is even allowed to be read) But really, even then, those people don't start hucking bibles or anything.

So, it seems some, but not every church, selects a single bible as -the- version to use, is that accurate?

That sounds accurate, although I think some versions are more universally accepted as being generally more consistent with the original language (hence the wide use of the KJV).  I think NIV is also supposed to be fairly good.  It's probably important to look at the originals as much as practicable, as well as the history, etc.  More information is usually better than less.

The only churches that insist on a certain version, are the version they themselves have penned.

I am not aware of any church that insists a certain version(talking of regular bible)

I think part of the reason (besides accuracy) would be consistency.  If the same church uses a lot of different bibles, it can cause confusion...and since God has said his house is a "house of order," it seems only natural that a church would deem one as the "official" version it adopts.

But Rogue is right; I don't know of a church that insists on a certain version and tells its people not to read any other.

The Watchtower Society (Jehovah's Witnesses) demands of its followers that they use a certain version of the bible - The New World Translation (or something like that).  They even go so far as to discourage the lay-people from reading the bible without the society penned and approved study material.

I read somewhere once that there was only a single person with a working knowledge of Hebrew on the team they had translating their bible into english.  I can't say for sure if that is true or not but I found it humorous.

There are some people working on other religious books, who couldn't even translate a lick of hebrew.

Why are there so many different versions of the bible, anyway?

because the languages the Bible was written in were so complex. There are four words for love in the Aramaic (maybe Hebrew, i forget), and they all mean a different kind of love. Also, people may try to 'twist' the Word of God into something that better fits their doctrine. Then you just have the translators who think that the Bible needs to be updated. The New Living Translation, for instance, is what my friends call the Ghetto Bible. They use alot of newer terms in it so that the younger generation can relate more easily to it. Do they twist some things? No, not at all.

And pardon me when I say the Bible is infallible. It's infallible in the language it was written in, not necessarily in the language of English. My old school's starting to teach Hebrew...I wanna learn simply for that reason.

"Ghetto Bible"

*bursts out laughing*

I'm now pictureing a homeboy Jesus. Thanks for that, I haven't laughed that hard in quite some time ;)



Thanks for clearing that up, BTW.

lol

anytime.

This is on the issue of whether there can be more scripture other than just the Bible.

The Bible says that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

So can there be new or additional scripture, and can existing scripture be updated and corrected?

Paul's statement to Timothy only speaks of the usefulness of scripture in general and does not limit the amount of scripture that God can or will give through authorized prophets. When scripture is given it can be used for many things. The scriptures Paul refers to are the ones Timothy had known since he was "a child" (2 Timothy 3:15), which can only mean the Old Testament, since the New Testament had not yet been compiled. Similarly, the scriptures that the Bereans searched to compare with the teachings of Paul and Barnabas could only have been the Old Testament (Acts 17:11). If one interprets Paul's statement to Timothy to mean that no additional scripture is necessary or of value, then one would also have to reject the entire New Testament, including Paul's epistle to Timothy.

I know of no restriction against any new scripture being inspired by God.

There is the question, however, of how to determine what exactly is "scripture".

One definite negative sign would be if new "scripture" contradicts, or significantly changes what we already have as scripture.

Quix

I would tend to agree with Quix, except that new scripture perhaps DOES contradict old scripture for several reasons.  Firstly, translation or interpretation issues regularly cause problems even understanding scripture in the first place.  It is possible that will continue to be a problem.  Secondly, like the LDS doctrine of reserve, sometimes old lessons and ideas have to eb revised or replaced.  Jesus did this.  I don't think it impossible that God will do so again through other means.

When most Christians try to fight against whether the Book of Mormon or other writings can be "scripture," they cite to Revelations 22:18:

"For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:"

I argued somewhere here that this applies only to the Revelations of John, not to the Bible, so I put up the quote above, having just read it today, as another example of how, of course there can be more scriptures.

Good question.  Of course, those who believe in the Holy Ghost as the revealer of truth would follow the course directed in James to discover for themselves if something is or is not.

We could go on indefinitely about what "scripture" is...and whether it is cultural or from God or whatever.  The LDS church believes that you can even have personal scripture.  The Patriarchal Blessings we receive act as one of these.


Although "what we know" as scripture may be flawed.  For example, some is based on cultural practices; there are translation and interpretation errors; and many people claiming something is or is not scripture.  You really have to go to the source personally.

Example:  Jesus "significantly changed" what the Jews had as scripture, yet we still call the New Testament scripture, while the Jews do not.  The Koran did a similar thing, and many consider it scripture.