Bible

[~~ angelique ~~]

This is getting way tooo deep for my understanding...

[thesorgo]

I have been wondering lately if I can believe the bible in it's entirety. I believe yet there are several parts of the bible that I don't agree with. This is a bit confusing for me.

Is everything in the bible?

I say think for yourself. Use your own interpretation of it. Dont let anyone tell you that its entirely true if thats not what you really believe but on the otherhand dont let anyone tell you its complete lies either.

[Guest shiloh357]

QUOTE (shiloh357 @ Feb 12 2008, 09:36 PM)

That is what I said, basically. My point was that no one dies for something they KNOW is not true, which eliminates the argument that they just made the whole thing up. No one would go through years and years of torture and face almost certain death IF all they had to do was say, "yeah, we made the whole thing up." Faced with torture and death, holding to the lie would suddenly become quite overrated.

Have you ever heard of an emotional investment? Sometimes people convince themselves that their beliefs are right

Except that you cannot really argue that in the case of the apostles. According to the Scriptures, during the time that Jesus was dead, they were men in hiding scared for their lives. The last thing they had on their mind was starting any kind of movement. They were hiding in fear that they too would be be put to death, either by crucifixion or some other horrible method. However, what we see is something happened to take this fear and transform them from men hiding in dark corners for fear of their very lives, into men who were not afraid to face the certain death they formerly cowared in the shadows to hide from.

QUOTE

Yes, that would be inconsistent IF that were what I were arguing, but as I stated you are still missing the point. I did not say that simply dying for a belief makes it more weighty than other beliefs. My point was that a willingness to die for what one believes adds weight to over and against the argument that the aposltes simply made up the whole story of the resurrection out of some selfish desire to perpetuate a religious movement.

It would if they weren't gaining anything from it, such as power and recognition. At the time, their power might have been more akin to the power that a mob boss holds over his gang, rather than the power the pope holds over the Catholics, but it was still power. Plenty of people have died for that.

What power did they gain? Nearly all of them died as martyrs and pretty gruesome deaths at that. If you the examine extrabiblcal historical accounts, they did not enjoy anything that resembled "mob rule." That assertion simply does not square with known history. There is also nothing in the Bible that would describe such a situation. Perhaps you should try to make realistic arguments as opposing to just pulling things out of the air.

And once I saw a this guy put a woman in a box and cut her in two! I am a genuine eye-witness to magic!

You can mock all you want, but the fact is that the disciples were claimed to be eyewitnesses to everything they claimed to be true. I guess when you can't come up with a substantive, intelligent, well-thought-out and educated response, you have to resort to mockery to deflect attention from your inability to account for the evidence. Only highlights the strengths of my argument and for that, I thank you.

QUOTE

Well, that depends on the types of arguments raised against Him being God and/or being the Messiah. There is no blanket response that can cover all types of possible arguments that could be raised. I would weigh each argument against text of Scripture itself. I will say this much also: The ability to have such a debate would depend on how reasonable the opposition would be. For example, if the person rejecting the Messiahship or Deity of Jesus also rejects the Bible as a valid source of information and is unwilling to consider anything either the Old or New Testament has to say, then there is no reason to continue, as the Bible is my primary source material. It would be like expecting a lawyer to show up to trial and have to argue his case without the benefit of any of the available evidence he needs to support his case.

Well, the Jews, as we all know , are quite happy to support the Old Testament. They just believe that Jesus was not the messiah: one reason for this is that the Messiah was supposed to be of the line of David. If Joseph was the father of Jesus, then he could have been the messiah, and his statements could all be believed, but Jesus claims to be the son of God, which means he's not of the line of David, which means he's not the messiah, which means that he's wrong when he says he's the son of god, which makes him the son of Joseph, which means he could be the messiah... Since you can't have a logical consistency there, they disregard the NT as not being accurate to the OT propehcies.

That is an interesting argument but it is not really all that accurate. Being Jewish myself, I can explain a little to you about geneaologies. Jesus was not the literal first-generation son of Joseph, but that is really irrelevant where ancient Jewish geneaologies were concerned. The term "son" in ancient Jewish culture applied to different kinds of relationships. It can refer to kinship without literal "sonship." For example: in 1st Chronicles 2:21-23 and 7:14-15, we find a man name Jair who was a very distant son-in-law of Manasseh, but we find that he was called the "son of Manasseh" (1st Kings 4:13) Here is another example: In 1st Chronicles 3:17-19, Zerubbabel was the nephew of Shealtiel, but he is called the "son of Shealtiel" in Ezra 3:2, Nehemiah 12:1 and Haggai 1:12.

The same would go for Jesus' relationship to Joseph as Joseph's adopted son. There are two geneaologies in the New Testament relative to Jesus. The one in Matthew shows Jesus' royal right as a descendant of David through Solomon to throne of David as King of Israel. The other, Luke shows Jesus as the descendant of Jesus through Nathan and is in reality the geneology of Mary. It is clear from the text that the two geneaolgies from Luke and Matthew are not of the same person.

The problem is that in ancient Jewish geneaologies, the women are never mentioned, as geneaologies were mostly for the purpose of establishing property rights and women were never mentioned in ancient Jewish geneaologies since at that time, they were not allowed to own property. The husband was the one who to whom the inheritance passed. Therefore, any claim to a peice of property had to be demonstrated by lineage otherwise, one was considered a foreigner dispossessed from the land. So, geneaological records and their accuracy were something of a priority in that time period.

So there is no contradiction in claiming that Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Joseph. Jesus demonstrated clearly in teh New Testament that He is both. The two geneaologies of show Jesus as having the royal right to the throne of David (Matthew) and the legal right to the throne as a physical son of David (Luke). As for the Jewish people today, one thing needs to be taken into consideration. They are still waiting for the Messiah, but the Temple records as to who belongs to what tribe is currently lost. If a Jewish man were to come on the scene today and proclaim himself to be the Messiah, how would they set about establishing his identity as a son of David? That alone argues heavily for a first-century Messiah.

I believe the Musilms believe that the apostles were either mistaken/working for their own ends when they claim that Jesus was a god. Remember, the bible doesn't contain Jesus's words. It was written by those who observed him, and thus often has contradictory statements:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Matthew 27:46

Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.

Luke 23:46

It is finished.

John 19:30

It's because of things like this that eyewitness testimony is generally given a very low value in a court of law: people forget things, make themselves appear better than they were, add in details, slant it with their own agendas and so on.

Well first off, the apostles did not claim that Jesus is a "god." They claim that Jesus is God.

Secondly, the Bible DOES contain Jesus words, and He is all over the Bible. None of those statements are contradictory in the least. Evidently, you don't have a good working knowledge of how genuine contradictions work. For starters, Jesus, in Matthew 27:46 is quoting from the book of Psalms. He is not denying His Deity. Next, in Luke 23:46, Jesus is doing something only God could do. Jesus is giving up His spirit. In other words, Jesus exercising personal power over death. No one took Jesus' life, Jesus died at the exact moment at 3:00 pm, in the afternoon ("between the evenings" from Exodus 12) at the exact moment that the Passover Lamb was killed in the Temple. Jesus picked THAT moment to die after only six hours on the cross. Finally in John 19:30, Jesus says "It is finished." The work of redemption was complete, God's justice against sin was fully satisfied. There is nothing "contradictory" about those passages at all.

Finally, how do we know that the writers of the Bible weren't slanting the accounts to make themselves appear better? How do we know that they did not spin these stories to help their agenda??? The reason we know that that none of that is true, is the rather embarrassing details it gives about their conduct. They argued over which one of them would be the greatest in Heaven, they displayed bitterness, jealousy, fear, anger, greed, false humility, a desire for revenge, they were at times cliquish, the leader denied even knowing Jesus when his feet were put to the fire. The scriptures show us a bunch of cowards who when at the time Jesus needed them the most, fled in every direction and went into hiding basically throwing their Lord who the claimed to "love" to the wolves to save their own skin. If they were trying write an account that made themselves look good, they certainly did a poor job of it.

The Bible is unlike other contemporary religious writings in that the heroes and heroines of the Bible are shown at their greatest moments and at their lowest moments. We see their victories, their flaws and their failures. In ancient Egypt for example, only the victories of the Pharoahs were written on their temples for all to see. We learn about their defeats in war from the writings of their enemies.

And if that is not enough, we can see that there was no agenda behind their writings because the first person to see Jesus alive was Mary Magdeline. Had the story been written by men with an agenda, that part would have either been left out of the story, or it would have been altered so that John or Peter or James or one of the other apostles to be the first to see Jesus alive.

QUOTE

Well, if someone were to say, Jesus was just crazy, he suffered from delusions of grandeur, or had some other mental illness, it would be up to the person making that claim to provide the evidence. They would either knowingly or unknowingly place the burden of proof upon themselves to support such a claim.

If some guy in the street came up to you and said he was the son of Zeus, you would think he was crazy, no? We have ample material proof that crazy people exist, but there is no material proof that Zeus or God exist.

Except that Jesus didn't merely walk up to people and claim "Hi, I'm God." Jesus, instead demonstrated His Deity, and secondly, there is nothing in anything Jesus said resembles the words of a man who could be considered a lunatic, which is why you don't find many credible people trying to seriuosly advance the idea that Jesus was crazy. It simply cannot be supported from the text.

QUOTE

LIke that hasn't already been done? There over 25,000 pieces of ancient Greek New Testament references to Jesus both in the form of either copies of New Testament text or references to/quotations from those text in secular Greek manuscripts contemporary with the early chuch dating at the earliest to be around 125 A.D.

Unless you're using a different calendar from me, 125AD is in no way contemporary to Jesus.

Well unless you are employing a different version of plain, simple English that I am using, I didn't say anything about 125 AD being contemporary with Jesus. I said that the Greek mansucripts dating 125 were contemporary with the EARLY CHURCH.

QUOTE

As for discrepencies, most of them are either spelling/grammatical errors, or texts where words are reversed such as "Jesus Christ" vs. "Christ Jesus." Only a few genuine textual difficulties exist, but they are in obsure locations of the New Testament and do not bear on any part of Scripture that deals with any major Christian doctrine. There are so many references to the gospels outside the Bible in the first century alone, we can construct all four gospels entirely from extra-biblical citations, and they are in complete agreement with the ancient texts, themselves.

Really? Because to begin with, there's no evidence of the disruption that would have ensued had Caesar required everyone in the Empire to "go to their ancestral home" in order to be accounted for in the census.

Well, that is because they had a year to make accomplish the task, and in Israel, everything revolved around the cycle of planting and harvest as well as the annual festivals that took place. Rome allowed for these necessities and so it makes sense that people would go at different times as their schedule allowed, and as long as they were accounted for within one calendar from the date of the decree, there was no problem and no disruption would have ocurred. In Israel. there were three main festivals at which the men had to present themselves at the temple each year, so it would make sense that they would simply make the census part of what they had to accomplish on one of their trips. It really is that simple.

QUOTE

There is more evidence for the reliablity of the New Testament than there is for the writings of Plato, Pliny the Younger, Homer, etc. I mean, if you want to go on the grounds of textual evidence, you would have to call into question whether or not we really know if Plato wrote what is attributed to him. We only have seven copies and the earliest known copy of his writings dates to 1,200 after Plato is known to have lived. The earliest known copy of the New Testament dates to within just 50-60 years after the time period when the apostles are said to have been alive and writing said gospels.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Plato does not, in his writings, claim to be an incarnate god. I am perfectly happy to debate when Plato's works were written, and even who wrote them (although it's convenient to label them as Plato, don't you think?). The only really important thing about Plato's writings is that they were written, and we have ample evidence for that, in the form of copies of his writing. After that, I am perfectly free to debate the veracity of them.

That really misses the point. The issue I raised above has nothing to do with extraordinary claims made by Jesus. It pertains to the difference between the extremely large time gaps between the earliest known copies and when the authors are known to have lived. Going ONLY on the basis of textual integrity, the Bible has far more going for it than the writings of most ancient authors. It has both MORE outisde confirmation of its accuracy and it has more actual manuscriopts. Also its earliest known copies are closer to the original authors, and in the world of manuscript evidence, the Bible has most other ancient texts beat by a landslide.

And once again - 50-60 years after the fact is not contemporary evidence. If that were the case, then we could be considered to be contemporaries of World War 2.

I did not say anything about "contemporary evidence." I said that the earliest known copies of the New Testament date to within 50 to 60 years of when we know that the apostles were to have lived, and that is a very significant factor when one is determining the reliablity of the manuscripts.

continued on next post....

[Guest shiloh357]

Continued from the previous post....

QUOTE

Yes, and if we were dealing with demographics, you might have a point, but we are not. We are dealing the reliability of the apostles' testimony, not to mention the reliability of Jesus' testimony about Himself all which bears on the integrity of the Bible. While there are historical references to Jesus outside of the Bible, they do not offer any aargument for or against the validity of Jesus' claims about Himself. Given this subject matter, eyewitness accounts are vitally important testimony and cannot simply be brushed aside as unusable or unreliabile.

I'd like to see the Roman records that positively identify Jesus as Jehovah's son!

I did not say such records exist. What I said is that there are outisde references to Jesus from secular sources. Namely, they testify to Jesus' existence as a figure in history. If you were to read what I said a little more carefully, you would note that I said that such references do offer any argument for or against the validity of Jesus' claims about Himself.

At the time, street-corner prophets were a dime a dozen.

Don't know where you get your information, but in Israel, prophets did not have a long life exptancy. No one really liked the prophets, and they had a tendency to die very painful gruesome deaths. No one wanted to be a prophet. The "dime a dozen" assertion simply doesn't mesh well with what we know about prophets in ancient Israel.

[artsylady]

The fact that the gospel accounts differ slightly actually gives weight to its authenticity. It shows there was no collusion.

Also, each is written from the writer's perspective, much like newspaper journalists may write according to his or her perspective.

For example, Luke, being a doctor, gives more details on the healings that Jesus performed. Matthew a Jewish person, wrote from a Jewish perspective where the lineages were all important and needed to be included.

Angelique. God appreciates your honesty. Over time you'll learn to trust God more and more. Right now, take baby steps. Keep a journal of your prayers and questions.

I heard a term recently in a novel called 'reverse paranoia' and it's about when you are going through something, you just simply trust that God will see you through. And if you journal it, you will later see how God did see you through. It's one of those things that in the middle of it, you don't see it but later it is very obvious. If you can TRY to trust God in this, He will see you through. I know it's hard being new to the faith, but I would encourage you to try it anyway.

[artsylady]

The fact that the gospel accounts differ slightly actually gives weight to its authenticity. It shows there was no collusion.

Also, each is written from the writer's perspective, much like newspaper journalists may write according to his or her perspective.

For example, Luke, being a doctor, gives more details on the healings that Jesus performed. Matthew a Jewish person, wrote from a Jewish perspective where the lineages were all important and needed to be included.

Angelique. God appreciates your honesty. Over time you'll learn to trust God more and more. Right now, take baby steps. Keep a journal of your prayers and questions.

I heard a term recently in a novel called 'reverse paranoia' and it's about when you are going through something, you just simply trust that God will see you through. And if you journal it, you will later see how God did see you through. It's one of those things that in the middle of it, you don't see it but later it is very obvious. If you can TRY to trust God in this, He will see you through. I know it's hard being new to the faith, but I would encourage you to try it anyway.

[Grungekid]

It was Jacob who wrestled with Jesus. Jacob had been, well, and interesting character. He hadn't been a shining example of a Godly man. But the wrestling match taught him a lesson. He needed God. Yes, at any time our Lord could have won, but He allowed Jacob to fight until he realized that he needed God. It was then -- when Jacob gave into God -- that God was able to use him and gave him a new name - Israel. Jacob means "heal catcher" or "surplanter". Israel means "God prevails".

As for Saul, he really did see Samuel. It's a very interesting story with many lessons in it, but it really was Samuel.

<>< ><>

Nathele

Jacob? Sorry, I was way off. It was sometime last year that I was in Genesis, and things get mixed up in my head.

I can't find the verse I was thinking of - it turns out it was a different story than the witch at En Dor.