Aw shucks, thanks Mr.Obvious, just something I whipped up off the top o’ me ‘ead. Actually I just googled true Bible facts or something and came up with it. But I do have an M. Div. too.
Gee Steve, what a lame-o response. You just make bald assertions and expect people to, well, to what? You don’t bother to site any authority to help with your charges. You get a big fat F in theology class today.
To inform your ignorance, the Bible was written over the course of many centuries. It’s integrity was jealously guarded by the Old Testament scribes and the New Testament apostles and the Church. Any changes in its content would have been recognized instantly. For instance, could someone remove the 2nd Amendment from the Constitution without ANYONE noticing or protesting? Or could some judge find abortion in the Constitution with no one protesting? No. So judges try to say that the Constitution doesn’t really mean what it says, or that some vague appeal to “a penumbra of rights” conjures up the “right” to abort a child.
In the same way, the Old Testament was well known by the Hebrews since it was basically the source of their entire culture. It was their law, their history, their poetry, they sang it and recitged it to their kids and heard it read on Sabbath etc. How could it have been changed without anyone noticing?
And the New Testament was written down and copied and sent around to all the churches with alacrity. Attempts to change its contents could be easily enough exposed by simply comparing texts from one church with texts in another.
The textual differences that are found in the Bible have to do with things like spelling and copyist’s errors, none of which affect any doctrines or historical facts.
The historical incidents that I provided are inarguably facts as corroborated by the sources that I provided. I would say that the veracity of the Bible actually substantiates the sources’ accuracy rather than the other way around, given that the Bible is proved true by all of these independent and disparate sources.
So please provide us with the original texts to which you refer, where these passages all said something different than what they now say in the Bible, or on the wall at Thebes for that matter. Actually, it can’t be done so don’t bother trying. And you don’t have to STFU as you so graciously invited me to do. Feel free to seek further instruction at your convenience.
I shouldn’t, but I’ll stick in the two-cents I learned in college.
Al – the bible has changed over the years, including during the time it was oral history. That’s what oral history does, it changes. It changes because people place differnent emphasis on different aspects during the telling. It changes because people forget. It changes because someone down the line didn’t like how a particular verse went. It changes because the language changes. It also changes because beliefs change. Look at Judaism before and after the exile to Babylon. Prior to exile they believed that good or bad everything came from God. There was no belief in the Devil until after the exile when they adopted the apocolyptic views of the Zoroastrians. That’s just one example.
The written history has changed because we do not have true and faithful copies of the written histories either. The language has changed and the meaning of words changed. The vernacular of 5,000 years ago, or even 1,000 years ago, is not the same as it is now. The languages these scripts were writ in are dead. We can attempt to translate them but the translation is open to interpretation. Once you interpret something the meaning has changed.
And that’s not counting that the most widely read bible – the King James version – was politically changed to suit King James. That is a well known fact taught in most theology 101 courses. I don’t dispute that most of the events in the bible happened, I just want to shed light on the discussion.
Thanks lastbat, again a tiny voice of reason in a vast sea of chaos. Of course Al is a religious zealot almost of the christian Taliban sort so he will not listen to or recognize a word of what you have to say. He prefers to live is life with blinders and ear-muffs on.
There are hundreds of educaitonal and scholarly books that explain how the bible and its stories have changed over the centuries to fit a particular persons agenda, point of view, bias, translation issues, etc.
=Al – the bible has changed over the years, including during the time it was oral history.
As noted earlier lastbat, there is evidence in Genesis —the oldest book- that its various segments were written down before they were compiled into one book. Where it says, “these are the generations of Adam,” Gen. 5:1, it is referring to the previous text – the account of Adam’s life and immediate descendents. This goes on throughout the book.
=That’s what oral history does, it changes. It changes because people place differnent emphasis on different aspects during the telling. It changes because people forget.
It was not oral history. It’s a good ruse on your part though, because you get off scott free when I ask you to produce some proof of its non-graphical basis.
=It changes because someone down the line didn’t like how a particular verse went. It changes because the language changes. It also changes because beliefs change. Look at Judaism before and after the exile to Babylon. Prior to exile they believed that good or bad everything came from God. There was no belief in the Devil until after the exile when they adopted the apocolyptic views of the Zoroastrians. That’s just one example.
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that notion. First, as noted, Genesis is a compilation of written accounts of history as evident by certain textual clues. Second, your premise that Israel developed a providential view of good and evil is at odds even with theological liberals who invented the notion of “ethical monotheism” to square the Jews’ exilic and post-exilic plight with God’s judgment of the nation =and= continuing covenant relation with His people. So you have it exactly backwards there. And the devil appears in Genesis 3. It would have been odd for the Babylonians to have conferred Zoroastrianism on the Jews since they were not Zoroastrians.
=The written history has changed because we do not have true and faithful copies of the written histories either.
Please direct me to your sources that track significant doctrinal changes in the text, rather than merely copyists errors.
=The language has changed and the meaning of words changed. The vernacular of 5,000 years ago, or even 1,000 years ago, is not the same as it is now. The languages these scripts were writ in are dead. We can attempt to translate them but the translation is open to interpretation. Once you interpret something the meaning has changed.
The Hebrew text is remarkably unchanged, in that various textual finds all compare favorably for instance with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Since it was a written text, as opposed to your insubstantial assertions, it remained a living part of the culture. Even the changeover to the Aramaic alphabet did not change the text since it was merely a phonetic rendering of the text’s verbal sounds. Hebrew has never been a dead language, and the Church has kept knowledge of the New Testament koine Greek alive from the beginning with its millions of copies of the New Testament and its textual scholarship, regardless of changes in the secular Greek language. As for interpretations changing meaning, how do nations conduct diplomacy?
=And that’s not counting that the most widely read bible – the King James version – was politically changed to suit King James.
Perhaps you can give us several examples of these changes.
=That is a well known fact taught in most theology 101 courses. I don’t dispute that most of the events in the bible happened, I just want to shed light on the discussion.
Sorry Al, I can’t oblige. I’m not a believer in any religion so the only exposure I have to the bible is some very (and I mean VERY) casual reading over the years and some college courses taken to fill out my elective requirements. I merely spewed back my college learning. You’ll have to blame my very Christian professor for any defects in my religious education. He’s the one who told me the Zoroastrians gave the Hebrew the apocolyptic view, he’s the one that told me most theology 101 courses give warnings of political changes in the King James bible, he’s the one that told me the bible conflicts itself in so many areas because it was mostly an oral history for thousands of years and the written histories were generally recorded hundreds of years after the event at the soonest. He’s also the one that reinforced to the class that Ancient Hebrew is different from Modern Hebrew is usage, vernacular and script. So while we can, after painstaking study, read Ancient Hebrew we still have to interpret it. The same goes with Ancient Greek and Aramaic.
Despite all the doubts, contradictions and so forth put to us during class, if you caught him outside of class he was a deacon in his church and a strong believer in the bible and his salvation in Christ. He just wanted to make sure his students were able to look at the bible with a critical eye and know that it can not be held up – as itself – as a true and accurate recording of history. You can never take one source as a true and accurate recording. And that just because one section of the bible is upheld by other sources you still must check everything with multiple sources before believing it. Especially when we’re talking about things thousands of years before our time.
Last bit. Pretty much all relgious texts sound the same to me. Perused through a great number of them and y’all who have religion need to get over yourselves. You’re all saying the same thing in the end.
Short response: Your prof didn’t know what he was talking about.
All religions are not the same. Christianity is the only religion that offers salvation by grace through faith, rather than salvation by merits. It is the only true faith, all others being manmade or worse.
The people who need to get over themselves are those who believe that they are good people who deserve a reward from God for their good deeds.
All religions are the same. They profess to be the only true religion. The turn their belivers into (non-thinking) zombies. The promote hatred, xenophobia, violence and war(s). This world would be in a much better state without the corrupt machine known as organized religion.
You are a total ignoramus. Religions are all different. Some worship thousands of gods, some one. Some have one sacred book, others have several.
It sounds like you are describing atheistic communism or Islam rather than any other religion with which I am familiar. Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, three atheists, murdered over 100 million of their own citizens. How rational.
Ah, but Christians slaughtered millions of Muslims during the crusades because they refused to worship Christ. Christians also murdered millions of Jews during the Holocaust because they refused to worship Christ.
Jews, according to your and their holy book, slaughtered the entire land of Caanan because their god gave it to them and told them to kill everything there.
Muslims, actually one of the more tolerant of religions up until recently, have slaughtered many for offending their sensibilities.
The ones that don’t slaughter seem pretty much to be the non-Abrahamic religions. You don’t here of too many holy wars from shamanism, Buddism, Taoism, Confucionism, or even Satanism. When was the last time we saw any Satanists perpetrating holy war? Have we ever? The point is that all religions have some basic tenets: treat others as they deserve to be treated and recognize there is something out there bigger than you. I have no problems with those tenets – it’s the dogma that chases my karma away.
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Aw shucks, thanks Mr.Obvious, just something I whipped up off the top o’ me ‘ead. Actually I just googled true Bible facts or something and came up with it. But I do have an M. Div. too.
Gee Steve, what a lame-o response. You just make bald assertions and expect people to, well, to what? You don’t bother to site any authority to help with your charges. You get a big fat F in theology class today.
To inform your ignorance, the Bible was written over the course of many centuries. It’s integrity was jealously guarded by the Old Testament scribes and the New Testament apostles and the Church. Any changes in its content would have been recognized instantly. For instance, could someone remove the 2nd Amendment from the Constitution without ANYONE noticing or protesting? Or could some judge find abortion in the Constitution with no one protesting? No. So judges try to say that the Constitution doesn’t really mean what it says, or that some vague appeal to “a penumbra of rights” conjures up the “right” to abort a child.
In the same way, the Old Testament was well known by the Hebrews since it was basically the source of their entire culture. It was their law, their history, their poetry, they sang it and recitged it to their kids and heard it read on Sabbath etc. How could it have been changed without anyone noticing?
And the New Testament was written down and copied and sent around to all the churches with alacrity. Attempts to change its contents could be easily enough exposed by simply comparing texts from one church with texts in another.
The textual differences that are found in the Bible have to do with things like spelling and copyist’s errors, none of which affect any doctrines or historical facts.
The historical incidents that I provided are inarguably facts as corroborated by the sources that I provided. I would say that the veracity of the Bible actually substantiates the sources’ accuracy rather than the other way around, given that the Bible is proved true by all of these independent and disparate sources.
So please provide us with the original texts to which you refer, where these passages all said something different than what they now say in the Bible, or on the wall at Thebes for that matter. Actually, it can’t be done so don’t bother trying. And you don’t have to STFU as you so graciously invited me to do. Feel free to seek further instruction at your convenience.
I shouldn’t, but I’ll stick in the two-cents I learned in college.
Al – the bible has changed over the years, including during the time it was oral history. That’s what oral history does, it changes. It changes because people place differnent emphasis on different aspects during the telling. It changes because people forget. It changes because someone down the line didn’t like how a particular verse went. It changes because the language changes. It also changes because beliefs change. Look at Judaism before and after the exile to Babylon. Prior to exile they believed that good or bad everything came from God. There was no belief in the Devil until after the exile when they adopted the apocolyptic views of the Zoroastrians. That’s just one example.
The written history has changed because we do not have true and faithful copies of the written histories either. The language has changed and the meaning of words changed. The vernacular of 5,000 years ago, or even 1,000 years ago, is not the same as it is now. The languages these scripts were writ in are dead. We can attempt to translate them but the translation is open to interpretation. Once you interpret something the meaning has changed.
And that’s not counting that the most widely read bible – the King James version – was politically changed to suit King James. That is a well known fact taught in most theology 101 courses. I don’t dispute that most of the events in the bible happened, I just want to shed light on the discussion.
Thanks lastbat, again a tiny voice of reason in a vast sea of chaos. Of course Al is a religious zealot almost of the christian Taliban sort so he will not listen to or recognize a word of what you have to say. He prefers to live is life with blinders and ear-muffs on.
There are hundreds of educaitonal and scholarly books that explain how the bible and its stories have changed over the centuries to fit a particular persons agenda, point of view, bias, translation issues, etc.
Ignorance is truly bliss for some.
Have a great day lastbat.
=Al – the bible has changed over the years, including during the time it was oral history.
As noted earlier lastbat, there is evidence in Genesis —the oldest book- that its various segments were written down before they were compiled into one book. Where it says, “these are the generations of Adam,” Gen. 5:1, it is referring to the previous text – the account of Adam’s life and immediate descendents. This goes on throughout the book.
=That’s what oral history does, it changes. It changes because people place differnent emphasis on different aspects during the telling. It changes because people forget.
It was not oral history. It’s a good ruse on your part though, because you get off scott free when I ask you to produce some proof of its non-graphical basis.
=It changes because someone down the line didn’t like how a particular verse went. It changes because the language changes. It also changes because beliefs change. Look at Judaism before and after the exile to Babylon. Prior to exile they believed that good or bad everything came from God. There was no belief in the Devil until after the exile when they adopted the apocolyptic views of the Zoroastrians. That’s just one example.
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that notion. First, as noted, Genesis is a compilation of written accounts of history as evident by certain textual clues. Second, your premise that Israel developed a providential view of good and evil is at odds even with theological liberals who invented the notion of “ethical monotheism” to square the Jews’ exilic and post-exilic plight with God’s judgment of the nation =and= continuing covenant relation with His people. So you have it exactly backwards there. And the devil appears in Genesis 3. It would have been odd for the Babylonians to have conferred Zoroastrianism on the Jews since they were not Zoroastrians.
=The written history has changed because we do not have true and faithful copies of the written histories either.
Please direct me to your sources that track significant doctrinal changes in the text, rather than merely copyists errors.
=The language has changed and the meaning of words changed. The vernacular of 5,000 years ago, or even 1,000 years ago, is not the same as it is now. The languages these scripts were writ in are dead. We can attempt to translate them but the translation is open to interpretation. Once you interpret something the meaning has changed.
The Hebrew text is remarkably unchanged, in that various textual finds all compare favorably for instance with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Since it was a written text, as opposed to your insubstantial assertions, it remained a living part of the culture. Even the changeover to the Aramaic alphabet did not change the text since it was merely a phonetic rendering of the text’s verbal sounds. Hebrew has never been a dead language, and the Church has kept knowledge of the New Testament koine Greek alive from the beginning with its millions of copies of the New Testament and its textual scholarship, regardless of changes in the secular Greek language. As for interpretations changing meaning, how do nations conduct diplomacy?
=And that’s not counting that the most widely read bible – the King James version – was politically changed to suit King James.
Perhaps you can give us several examples of these changes.
=That is a well known fact taught in most theology 101 courses. I don’t dispute that most of the events in the bible happened, I just want to shed light on the discussion.
Well you failed.
Sorry Al, I can’t oblige. I’m not a believer in any religion so the only exposure I have to the bible is some very (and I mean VERY) casual reading over the years and some college courses taken to fill out my elective requirements. I merely spewed back my college learning. You’ll have to blame my very Christian professor for any defects in my religious education. He’s the one who told me the Zoroastrians gave the Hebrew the apocolyptic view, he’s the one that told me most theology 101 courses give warnings of political changes in the King James bible, he’s the one that told me the bible conflicts itself in so many areas because it was mostly an oral history for thousands of years and the written histories were generally recorded hundreds of years after the event at the soonest. He’s also the one that reinforced to the class that Ancient Hebrew is different from Modern Hebrew is usage, vernacular and script. So while we can, after painstaking study, read Ancient Hebrew we still have to interpret it. The same goes with Ancient Greek and Aramaic.
Despite all the doubts, contradictions and so forth put to us during class, if you caught him outside of class he was a deacon in his church and a strong believer in the bible and his salvation in Christ. He just wanted to make sure his students were able to look at the bible with a critical eye and know that it can not be held up – as itself – as a true and accurate recording of history. You can never take one source as a true and accurate recording. And that just because one section of the bible is upheld by other sources you still must check everything with multiple sources before believing it. Especially when we’re talking about things thousands of years before our time.
Last bit. Pretty much all relgious texts sound the same to me. Perused through a great number of them and y’all who have religion need to get over yourselves. You’re all saying the same thing in the end.
Short response: Your prof didn’t know what he was talking about.
All religions are not the same. Christianity is the only religion that offers salvation by grace through faith, rather than salvation by merits. It is the only true faith, all others being manmade or worse.
The people who need to get over themselves are those who believe that they are good people who deserve a reward from God for their good deeds.
All religions are the same. They profess to be the only true religion. The turn their belivers into (non-thinking) zombies. The promote hatred, xenophobia, violence and war(s). This world would be in a much better state without the corrupt machine known as organized religion.
You are a total ignoramus. Religions are all different. Some worship thousands of gods, some one. Some have one sacred book, others have several.
It sounds like you are describing atheistic communism or Islam rather than any other religion with which I am familiar. Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, three atheists, murdered over 100 million of their own citizens. How rational.
Ah, but Christians slaughtered millions of Muslims during the crusades because they refused to worship Christ. Christians also murdered millions of Jews during the Holocaust because they refused to worship Christ.
Jews, according to your and their holy book, slaughtered the entire land of Caanan because their god gave it to them and told them to kill everything there.
Muslims, actually one of the more tolerant of religions up until recently, have slaughtered many for offending their sensibilities.
The ones that don’t slaughter seem pretty much to be the non-Abrahamic religions. You don’t here of too many holy wars from shamanism, Buddism, Taoism, Confucionism, or even Satanism. When was the last time we saw any Satanists perpetrating holy war? Have we ever? The point is that all religions have some basic tenets: treat others as they deserve to be treated and recognize there is something out there bigger than you. I have no problems with those tenets – it’s the dogma that chases my karma away.