Is the bible authoritive and truly inspired?

I do need to be careful about that. Thanks.

Yet there is no such thing as a universal Canon. In fact the ONLY books that are common to all the Canon are the first five books of the Old Testament.Are you saying that God was unable to inspire the committee of Canon?Or were there different inspirations for each committee?Or are all the Canon simply the product of man?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Nuggin, I misread Utilitarian as Unitarian. My mistake.I'll have to research Utilitarian for my own education.

Purpledawn,I wrote: I don't think I understood what you were saying when I wrote this.The verses you thought are additions were 34,35 ?

WOW, talk about reading what you want to be there instead of what is there.My ethical system is not based on UNITARIANISM. It's based on UTILITARIANISM.Utilitarianism is "That which benefits the most people and/or harms the least is the best choice."In other words, given an ethical choice in which a person owns a food warehouse and there are 100 starving people - I'm likely to advocate breaking into the warehouse so that the starving people will be fed. This is because the life or death need of 100 starving people outweighs the fiscal need that the individual warehouse owner has.However, I am also an advocate for autonomy. So, if they choice would require killing the warehouse owner in order to feed the 100 people, I would be against it. The death of the warehouse owner is a greater violation of his autonomy than the theft of his wealth. And, though hunger is dangerous, the starving people are not in immediate danger of dying. Obviously you recognize that they are not in fact 100% accurate historical accounts hence your use of quote marks around "historical".Historical accounts, even ones which are significantly better documented than the accounts in the Bible, are still presented in context.Hence: "History is written by the winners."Maybe a historical account of Exodus written by the Egyptians would give different insight into the actions of the character of "God".For example:
"I woke up today to find the city covered in frogs. What the hell is going on?! No one has told me anything."On the topic of destroying whole towns because one person there is a different religion...You try and justify this by pointing out that the Bible tells you that you really need to be sure before you do this.That's NOT a justification! The instructions and act are completely amoral at their very core. Killing EVERYONE, even the faithful, and ANIMALS which can never been held accountable for religious opinions, because ONE person in the town happens to NOT be Jewish?!That's profoundly unjust. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is absolutely evil. It requires that EVERYONE in EVERY TOWN constantly be on the hunt for anyone who has a different opinion.America was founded by people running away from exactly that sort of religious attitude. Thanks. I hadn't be aware of this glaring contradiction in the actions and instructions of your main character.This is another fine example of why we know that the Bible is not the inspired word of God.An all knowing all seeing deity would not switch attitudes so radically between books.He wouldn't say "Okay, if there are some people in a town, I'll save it."
Then later say, "Nah screw it, if the town is 99.99% faithful and one person who disagrees, kill them all!"

Well, if instead of God we were talking about Noah or Isaac or Abraham or John or Solomon, etc - we'd excuse this - because they are mortal men of limited power.The character of God on the other hand has literally limitless power. He can do ANYTHING. He can elect to not kill the children if he wants.Are you claiming it's NOT within God's power to have the last plague of Egypt be the death of all the soldiers in the army instead of the first born sons?He CHOOSES to murder the children rather than do any of the infinite list of other solutions because he WANTS to murder the children.It's really as simple as that.If the character was limited in scope, we could justify these decisions as "He had to make a tough choice".But he DOESN'T!!! He's free to do literally ANYTHING at ANY TIME including preventing the crime for which he is punishing people from ever having happened in the first place.That's the problem with creating a character like this.If you tell us the character is "good" and can "do anything", then ALL ACTIONS of that character must be "good" if not "the absolutely best choice".What you have in the Bible is a character which is either:
A) Not good
B) Not all powerful
C) Neither good nor all powerful.That's a problem, especially when the morality of the society matures and the religion fails to keep up.No one in Biblical times thought twice about the fact that God is 100% wrong on the question of slavery, because they didn't appreciate the fact that slavery was immoral.We, as a society, have matured a great deal, we now recognize that slavery is amoral and are left with the question: "Why does God love slavery so much?"The problem is that Christianity has been trapped in the Bronze Age forever while we have moved forward.Even Islam is further ahead moralistically than Christianity as a result of having arisen later. Thought it to now suffers from stagnation.

Actually Genesis 18 is well worth reading in context, because it does not say what jaywill claims.In Genesis 18 the God character says he is down because he has heard rumors and that he is going to check the stuff out, but if it is "Word" he is gonna kill them all.It is Abraham that is appalled by the morality the God character is showing it calls him out on his position.It's Abe that says, "Yo, God, is that any way for the Judge to behave?"

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"Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thingto kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

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The God character starts negotiating, backing off a bit but Abe stays on his case.We know that Abe didn't succeed totally but at least he tried.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

We know that Abe didn't succeed totally but at least he tried.God in heaven tell me you are pretending to be this ignorant.Is it possible God already knew all these facts and was trying to demonstrate to Abraham that there were no righteous people there?BTW, were there any righteous people, there?Only a simpleton would miss the point that God was leading Abraham in a directionTell me Jar, do you think Jacob, could take God in a wrestling matchDawn Bertot

According to the story, no, the God Character did not know what was going on.

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20 Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."

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Have you ever read the Bible?And yes, if you read the story Lot was there so yes, there were righteous people there.And about Jacob? Have you read the Bible?

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24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."
But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

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27 The man asked him, "What is your name?"
"Jacob," he answered.

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28 Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

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In the story it is a draw, even though Jake is handicapped by the God character putting Jacob's hip out of joint.Edited by jar, : fix the subtitle

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Did God end up being right, even before he ALLEDGEDLY found out, what he supposedly did not already know. Well how about that, he was right after allit was for Abrahams purposes, not Gods. How convient of God to be omnipotent and omniscient, it just happened to work out, eh [qs]In the story it is a draw, even though Jake is handicapped by the God character putting Jacob's hip out of joint.I wonder who that MAN was in the wrestling match?Wonder why it was a draw? Maybe like Abraham, he was trying to show Jacob somethingjar is it necessary for you to play the dumb card in every single postDawn Bertot

To get back to the original question.The bible is inspired just like much of our literature is inspired. The inspiration is from the author’s perception of the world around him/her. Giving authority and literalism to ancient myths and campfire stories is the best way to control a group of people beyond arms reach.A person who is raised in or near a Christian environment may, at least initially, be hesitant to question the authority of the bible. If, however, you handed the bible to someone who had never heard of it before, it would take a fair bit of persuasion to establish it as authoritative.You would expect to see inconsistencies in value judgments when writings from different authors and different times are crammed together and called a book.
Metaphors are used in most writings both ancient and modern. God is used as a metaphor when there is not an actual person expected to exist. That’s probably why god is usually referred to as he.
Even though the bible isn’t supernaturally inspired or authoritative, it still has some interesting and some useful stories, not any more violent than modern wars or video games.

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"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices."
Voltaire

There is nothing allegedly about the story. It is very clear what it said and I even quoted it for you since it seems you had never read it. In the story the God character does not know.

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20 Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."

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But the important point is that Abraham did see that what God proposed was immoral, pointed it out, and the God character in the story agrees and modifies his behavior. In the story the man is God, and the reason that it was a draw was that even after putting Jake's hip out of joint he continued to struggle. Even when the God character asks to call it a draw Jake continues.I quoted the passage for you.

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24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."
But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

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27 The man asked him, "What is your name?"
"Jacob," he answered.

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28 Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

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Note the last line. According to the story the god character says "you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Am I somehow morally deficient because I imagine Charlton Heston and Mel Brooks doing that dialogue?

That would be inspirational.

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"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices."
Voltaire

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3. How do we know the writings we have today are the same as they were written by the original men who wrote it.

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We have no autographs. We only have copies. As you know textural critics can trace how in transmission of copies some typos were added in many cases.

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There are thousands of such typos. The people who really care and cover these matters catalogue these changes.

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But 98% of them are trvialities which effect no major tenet of faith. I can back that up latter.

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I get this information from the book "A General Introduction to the Bible" by Giesler and Nix. It of course draws on many scholarly sources itself.

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I'm not talking about "typos". The added lines I mentioned in Message 316 are not typos.In Message 312, I listed the top ten most familiar verses that weren't originally in the New Testament.This means that all people throughout the ages were not guided by the same words.I agree that the "typos" for the most part don't impact the basic tenets of Christianity, but the additions/omissions might.It is debatable whether the additions were made to support a tenet or a tenet was based on the "original" manuscript. This would make a good topic in itself. I will probably propose a thread when I get time to write a good OP.The Johannine Comma is a good example. The words in bold below are not in the older Greek manuscripts, but were in the later Latin Vulgate. This can impact the Doctrine of the Trinity and potentially the divinity of Jesus.Read these parallels from various version of our Bible today. 1 John 5:7Here are two examples: Which one has the authority and why?Ultimately people give authority to the version of the Bible they choose to use in their religion; but since Christianity is not a theocracy, the Bible does not have authority outside of a religion. Quite frankly, Christians choose what portions have "authority" over their daily lives. The authors of the NT weren't all necessarily presenting the same message.