So how does this work again? God inspires certain men to encode the inerrant, divine words He dictates to them. But wait, they can be changed? OK, I get that such errant editors will be punished, but what about the fruit of their labors, especially of those whose heart was supposedly in the right place.
How many times has this happened? Wouldn’t once be enough to render the entire Bible useless as a divine communication?
I of course don’t believe that such divine revelation ever happened. But for those that do…
Where are you getting “the Bible can be changed” from?
Is it from the passage from Revelation? The wording there doesn’t quite amount to “the Bible can be changed”…
Granted, there is statement by God where He disowns the sacred writings. He says in response to those who abuse his words “I never said that”. (Not sure where that is, exactly, though. I think Jeremiah?)
At the time of the writings the Bible did not exist.
The Book does not refer to the Bible it refers to the section you are reading in the Bible (e.g. The Book of Revelations).
Chronologically, Revelations was not the last Book of the Bible and the Bible did not exist at the time it was written.
Some faiths hold the view that the Books in the Bible were divinely inspired and thus written by man and not God.
In these faiths the words are not dictated to men but are inspirations.
To draw a crude analogy, it would be like a lover writing a love poem to their loved one (inspired but not written by the other).
Would this be a more acceptable view to you?
With this different persepctive, we can then ask… what constitutes change?
I think it’s pretty simple.
People didn’t want people to change the text after the point that the text included the no-touchy text.
Our constitution in the United States has just the opposite going for it.
We amend it constantly.
But back then, amendments weren’t really the practice.
What happened was outright over-writes (not speaking for Revelations).
The Hebrews came from Egypt before establishing a thriving society we know of Historically, and in Egypt they would have witnessed the Egyptian practice of over-writing that was rampant.
In Egypt when a new leader took over, entire documents and monuments were completely scarred over and refaced, and rewritten with the names completely changed to what the new leader wanted, and changed any rules in the texts they wanted to.
It was very likely an attempt for the Hebrews to preserve their historical accounts as they had written them from their perspective by including threats of serious punishment for tampering with the texts and changing the accounts.
As to Revelations…well…that writing is about as “wanna-be” as it gets in construct.
It’s all over the place in copying formats and styles from previous textual formats and styles.
The threat is most likely thrown in that book for a sound of authenticity, as such a threat exists in none of the other texts of this time period and place…much like most of Revelations.
Ironically, it has the third highest count of textual errors of the New Testament texts.
Meaning, it was the 3rd highest book changed in writing.
Note that when I say textual errors, I do not refer to content, but how the content was written.
Some words left out here, or translated slightly different there, or the order switched up here, etc…
It doesn’t matter. “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish [anything] from it” applies to God’s Word no matter how it came to you–by word of mouth, letter, book or compilation. The only way out is to say that the Bible (or whatever) is not the Word of God.
It really doesn’t matter how they came to be unless you have a proven example of God’s Word. Would God have inspired (or whatever) His Word to be written down if He thought/knew it could/would be edited?
Are you saying that these quotes were not divinely inspired, and the only passages in the Bible not to be so? If so, why were they necessary and wherefore these exceptions? If not, then the implication stands that there are other parts that could have been or were altered.
It is highly unlikely that much of the texts haven’t been altered considering their age and continued use in their culture.
Keep in mind, I have no problems seeing this as anthropological rather than divine.
God could have written this with his own had, wouldn’t matter.
The moment it’s in man’s hands, all bets are off.
But to the point:
I wasn’t there. No idea.
They could have been, wouldn’t change anything about what’s being written.
“Inspired” just means they were moved to write, and “divinely” just means they were inspired by their God; great.
They would still want to make sure someone didn’t screw with it…especially if they believed this.
Um…I don’t hold special access to the Bible any where in it’s timeline of textual writings.
They were written and maintained by people one way or the other.
Why only here?
As in, why Proverbs and why Deuteronomy?
Well, Deuteronomy is the primary book for the Hebrew Law, and contains 5 sermons of Moses detailing their lineage from Egypt to their future promise and authority.
That’s something that is the literal core of their religion.
That, I think, is a no-brainer.
Proverbs is a large collection of instructions of the wisdom attributed to Solomon, the most reverent King of Israel for wisdom.
Again, that makes sense as well.
Other books kind of come a bit lower than these two books if you think about it.
Revelations?
I already covered that one.
I can guarantee other texts have been altered.
I have a count of the alterations in the New Testament in excel.
Then why would God have imparted it in the way He did, knowing it was going to be corrupted? Why not inscribe his word on 10,000 indestructible monoliths around the world in the local language, and prove its divine source by listing some natural events in the future that only God could know about, and say a copy of the Wall Street Journal 2000 years hence? He could probably think of something better–anything but this what appears to be an obvious fabricated sham.
TheStumps and I have given you reasonable explanations to explain your objections and yet you disregard them (reverting back to your original objection).
As per TheStumps
As per my example.
What are the logical objections to the above statements?
You seem to have me confused with someone that is a Christian that you are targeting.
I don’t hold any viewpoint aside from a philosophical social anthropological perspective of the contents of the Bible.
In other words, I’m interested in what the people responsible for these writings did as a culture because the people and their beliefs in what it is to be human are far more interesting to me than the divine interpretations of the contents.
If you want to know these peoples hearts, follow where there are questions; follow their divinity.
If you want to know what these people did, follow where there are answers; follow their history.
What I can say is that they had a God, and that at the very least, these writings were inspired by their understanding of their God; inspired by their God.
And they believed in a value of something regarding what it is to be human that they wrote things that they viewed as so sacred that they attributed it as nothing short of being the equal of their religion itself.
I don’t see anyone today bothering to care about being human to this degree.
I’m not even Christian.
I used to be, so I can discuss a large amount of the subject matter, and I continue research in social anthropological terms regarding the Hebrews because…well…they are SEVERELY under explored in regards to social and military anthropology.
What I can say is that Deut. and Prov. make perfect sense to seal, and revelations makes perfect sense to claim the same as those two books for attempts at authority.
I am also not a Christian and do not believe in a creator.
How does one misunderstand another person’s position?
The answer to this can provide some deep and profound insights to us.
These insights can occur irrespective of our moral, spiritual or philosophical position in life.
In my life (through many mistakes) I have found that;
a) when I understand the “why?” then I can understand (in an empathic manner) another person’s position.
b) when I thought to myself “your view is of no importance to me” I then naturally failed to understand that person’s position.
From a philosophical point of view a and b are equivalent but it comes down to what sort of world I want to live in.
a world surrounded by friends, or
a world surrounded by enemies, or
a world surrounded by people who are not important.
Can I be a friend with a Christian? Can I be a friend with someone who likes Death Metal Music? Can I be a friend with a person who has a completely different outlook than my own? Can I try to understand another person’s “why?” rather than be critical of their “why?”.
Is it such a leap to ask a person “why do you think the way you do?” rather than tell a person “I disagree with the way you think!”.
There is a big difference between a ? and a ! .
So I will ask you this question: Why do you hold your own view so strongly?
(I neither agree or disagree with your view as it is your own view and not mine).
That makes so much sense. I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird when Atticus tells Scout that the only way you can know a person is to walk in their shoes for awhile. That really hit home and stuck with me in a profound way.
I read TKaM in school a very long time ago but can only remember the title and the cover …
I was not much of a reader when I was young (things have changed somewhat).
Sometimes it is easier to create enemies and strangers but a world full of enemies and strangers is not the sort of world that I want to live in.
I would much rather live in a world of friends and it does not matter much if my friends like me or hate me.
