Biblical Tall Tales

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Am I the one claiming something? I asked you for evidence is there none?, i guess asking people to back up claims is pointless?

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No I'm just trying to save time by not looking up the obvious. History in Western Civilization, post-Constantine till the domination of Darwinism at the close of the 19th century or so, was written and preserved almost exclusively by Western Christian clerics or professing Christians, that were at the very least an offshoot of Catholicism. Therefore I need not provide evidence that they viewed mainstream Western Christianity as orthodox. That should be understood already, unless your understanding of Western Civilization is extremely poor.

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you know nothing about verifying history then, you use other texts to verify texts, you don't use whats in them as verification, you use whats in the text to define what the text might be dated to and thats not always useful even, as i said it is not history it is a story about god creating man and stories to explain things within this world, you think they are history but its all belief

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Actually I am a history major, so yes I understand these things perfecetly well. In actuality you use both external and internal corraborating evidence. But although you may not realize it, this is a side issue. Each document defines its own genre. That is an objective statement. Innumerable primary source narratives contain false information, sometimes even deliberately. And yet modern day historians still categorize them as historical narratives. That is how it works. The bulk of the Bible is historical narative, its reliability is irrelevant in understanding this.

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I've read the kjv, the niv, and some others but whether you think it is in the genre of history, the point is how do you know its historical? i have a guess.. people told you it, just like everyone else, thats the only way you could believe this

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I know it's historical because of the style it is written in and because of the deliberate recognizeable intent on the part of the authors. At no time do I have to evaluate its reliability to make this kind of assessment. You seem to be stumbling over that one.

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I'm late to the party, I know, but how, exactly, do you tell which of the two is the "inaccurate" one? Seriously, I'd like to know.

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In most cases it's actually fairly clear which of the two is in error. There are a number of things you look at. You can compare the Septuagint to NT quotations, the DSS, Jospehus. Often other OT passages indicate which one is correct. With a good number of them, it's simply a matter of misspelling, sometimes even resulting in a word with a different meaning that does not make sense. Sometimes even simple logic indicates which fits correctly and which looks like an obvious error. Try googling the matter. There's actually an enormous amount of info on this topic online. I think things will become clearer to you then.

I have highlighted this several times at EvC. In general, I find that many people do not understand what history is, they seem to think that history is what happened in the past, and it isn't. History is the written account of what is said to have happened in the past and shouldn't be confused with the past. The past has gone, the written word about the past is a construct of the human mind and is thus subject to the authors' prejudices and intentions.Much of the Bible is history, the fact that almost all of the so called 'historical books' have been shown to be false history is niether here nor there, it is still history.Oppressive regimes have produced history books to give themselves a more acceptable past, and these are history books, even though most of the events never happened. It is the same with the Bible. From Genesis through to Kings, most events never happened, but it is still history.Brian.

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Here is my theory in a nut shell -
-There are different versions of various books of the Bible, they contain differences in the text.

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With few exceptions this is not the case. The versions of various books of the Bible are almost always the same. Evidently you have either been misinformed or over estimated the differences between manuscripts. Instead what we have are many manuscripts, which are often only fragments too, that have the same version but an occasional copyist error here or there.

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-Therefore, someone has been making changes along the way. With different versions containing different text, no one version can be said to be inerrant.

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Sorry bro but there pretty much is just one version. The closest thing I can think of where you might call one of the books a different "version" would be Jeremiah. There are basically two versions of Jeremiah in the various known manuscripts. But the problem is that the difference is a matter of order, not re-writing. The chapters are in different orders in the two versions.

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-Therefore, claims that the information in the Bible is inerrant are false.

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Well as you can see your supporting points here are actually incorrect.

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-Therefore, arguments that the information in the Bible somehow "trumps" geology, etc. are equally false.

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This doesn't have anything to do with our argument here.

Sorry, but I am still not clear on what you mean by "inerrancy."Going be the definition you provided, I take "inerrancy" to mean that what was written in the original copy was true. That is, the original copy contained no erroneous statements.When you were previously asked for evidence of inerrancy, you referred to Message 131 and Message 133. But those messages were mainly arguments that currently available copies of the text should not have deviated too far from the original copy. I don't see that as having anything at all to do with inerrancy.

HI, Regarding the Tanakh, which one of these is the true version?Masoretic text, Smamritan Pentateuch, or the Septuagint.Brian.

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Sorry, but I am still not clear on what you mean by "inerrancy."

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Going be the definition you provided, I take "inerrancy" to mean that what was written in the original copy was true. That is, the original copy contained no erroneous statements.

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When you were previously asked for evidence of inerrancy, you referred to Message 131 and Message 133. But those messages were mainly arguments that currently available copies of the text should not have deviated too far from the original copy. I don't see that as having anything at all to do with inerrancy.

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Well at some point in time, I'm simply going to stop repeating myself and refer you or anyone else to go back and read the previous posts of mine in this thread. But basically my argument works like this. The orignal written document was God-inspired and the word of God. Since then scribes have copied the documents meticulously. So yes there are errors but no they are not massive and the documents essentially contain the same information that they originally did.There is nothing Holy about the ink or the pages that a modern Bible contains. It is the information that is inspired. That information is innerant. Anotherwards it is the word of God in its entirety, and has only a few errors or distortions. Thus we can view the Bible as basically reliable. Arguments that it has been massively distorted have no basis in real evidence. And I challenge anyone to prove to the contrary. Now you may say than it is not inerrant. But that is simply a matter of definition. Evangelicals freely call what I'm describing "inerrant," as the quote I gave you points out. Check out the rest of the article and you should be able to see what I'm talking about more clearly. I am simply using their vocabulary.

You're right about all that, IDLF, and it's been said here before many times too, though you do seem to have an edge in the knowledge department so more power to you.

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Regarding the Tanakh, which one of these is the true version?

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Masoretic text, Smamritan Pentateuch, or the Septuagint.

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Brian.

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The Mazoretic and the Septuagint are not different versions. They are written in different languages. Some may quibble over the meaning of this or that word, or the fact that some passages in the Septuagint are not as literally translated as other parts.(Literal in the translational sense of the word, not the conventional sense of the word). But they are essentially the same version(perhaps we mean something different by the use of this word? I mean it is essentially the same document and does not have any significant differences in content). The Samaritan Penteteuch is not authoritative and for logical reasons.I'm afraid that liberal Biblical scholars have done much to blow out of proportion the trivial differences between Ancient Biblical manuscripts and that lay persons hearing their comments often think they are making bigger statements than they actually are.This message has been edited by idontlikeforms, 01-02-2006 03:15 PM

That's a wonderful assertion, really it is. How about some proof?Any 'first editions', archeological evidence, anything other than your assertion?Specifficaly, how do you go about proving a manuscript inerant when:a) no origional manuscripts remain.b) tons of contradictory manuscripts exist.c) all manuscripts currently in existance are 1000th hand copies done by various people, from various places, with various agendas.The bit that's lacking in your argument is proof.This message has been edited by Yaro, 01-02-2006 03:16 PM

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You're right about all that, IDLF, and it's been said here before many times too, though you do seem to have an edge in the knowledge department so more power to you.

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I do not hold a PHD in Biblical theology. Infact I don't read the Bible in Greek or Hebrew either and have recieved only scant education in these languages. I do have some Bible college schooling and have studied these types of topics a pretty good amount on my own. In truth it's simply that this is a popular apologetic topic and one can easily find a good number of excellent essays on the subject online.

Then you need to provide evidence to support this. Or, alternatively, you should stop saying that you are providing evidence of inerrancy.

If god could inspire the writers of the bible, why can't he inspire all of us and there would be no need for the bible.What good is an original that we do not have?{spelling edit}This message has been edited by ts, 01-02-2006 03:30 PM

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That's a wonderful assertion, really it is. How about some proof?

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I got none. I freely admit that. What I do have is a logical and consistent argument, that makes sense, and that you cannot refute. I never had in mind more than that. Can you PROVE evolution, 100%, byond a shadow of a doubt? Of course not. It would be silly for me to require that from you.

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Any 'first editions', archeological evidence, anything other than your assertion?

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Nope, only circumstantial evidence and logic.

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Specifficaly, how do you go about proving a manuscript inerant when:

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a) no origional manuscripts remain.

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b) tons of contradictory manuscripts exist.

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Listen, I am not at some disadvantage because I do not have these things. Do you have proof that the Bible is not inerrant? Do you have proof that the manuscripts we now have are significantly altered from the originals? Of course not. So it is ridiculous to require this level of evidence for my argument to have any relevance. Instead we argue with what evidence is available to us and with logic. That is and was the whole point all along. Otherwise our debate is mere wind with no value whatsoever.My objective is to demonstrate that the standard Evangelical Orthodox view of Biblical inerrancy is logical, consistent, and compatible with the known evidence. So that skeptics and evolutionists like yourself can not walk away from a debate with me on the matter and say that my view is pure rubbish and totally impossible. Instead if you are intellectually honest with yourself, you will have to admit that our argument makes sense and you can't refute it, even if you still don't believe it.

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c) all manuscripts currently in existance are 1000th hand copies done by various people, from various places, with various agendas.

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I don't concede this point at all. You need some evidence or logic to back this up and you also need address my points that indicate the extreme improbability of such an assertion. I think you need to address my points on this issue and not dodge them. If you read the forum rules, like I have, you will see that you need to use evidence and logic in an argument and need to address the points of the other side. I don't mean to sound condescending Yaro, but you are not doing this.

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The bit that's lacking in your argument is proof.

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True, and it is lacking in yours as well. So what's your point?

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Then you need to provide evidence to support this.

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The Bible makes these types of claims and there is a historical tradition of Jews and Christians preserving it and believing that it is inspired. Is that absolute 100% proof? No. I never claimed it was. Why would I need to?

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Or, alternatively, you should stop saying that you are providing evidence of inerrancy.

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Evidently you are not disecting my wording and logic well enough to understand my argument correctly. At no place did I ever make the claim that I have evidence of inerrancy. I have circumstantial evidence, at best, and a consistent logical argument based on it. I never claimed more than that. You, apparently. read that I did into my argument.