aa5874

You cannot determine "audience" by "content".

For example, a British writer wrote about the Islamic religion, the contents of the book are known throughout the World.
The writer was expecting that his book would have had a worlwide audience.

Baesd on your logics, then, a person living in South Africa that writes a biography of Martin Luther King Jr of the USA and initially publishes the book in South Africa is writing for an American audience.

To claim that because a book has Jewish themes it was written for a Jewish audience is utter non-sense, when you cannot determine with any certainty the following:

• who the author was

• when it was written

• what was originally in the book

• the original language of the book

• if anything in the book is true

• when and where the book was first circulated

• when did Jews become aware of such a book

You cannot just guess the audience and then believe that whatever you guess must be true.

sschlichter

no one is guessing. People a lot closer to the event and the mindset (some within a generation are deducing authorship)

However, most modern scholars disagree with you ( liberal, atheist, conservative, christian alike).

You are avoiding a rule because exceptions exist. If you have a book with pop-ups and a lot of colors written in English by someone claiming to be a child psychiatrist about the U.S. presidents including the most recent, can you draw any likely conclusions about what type of person wrote it, when, and whom the audience is?

~steve

jab

red herrings & strawman--I've seen this sort of reply before, hinting that the critic's problems with the Bible are being formulated in bad faith. However, you don't deal adequately with my assertion that the changes I did actually suggest would shorten the NT--and that by implication even if there were editorial changes necessary to achieve clear narrative consistency, they would not add thousands of pages to the Bible. (I understand your fear, though, I always thought most of those begat passages in the OT read like unnecessary padding.) Your responses show very little awareness of what an editor does and very little awareness of the necessity, for narrative credibility, that all details contained in a realistic narrative, including a divinely authored/ edited/inspired compostite narrative, must be consistent for that narrative to be credible.

Since the Bible doesn't say Judas was short and then have a passage that suggests he was a very tall man, the issue of his height is irrelevant.
Perhaps you can tell me the favorite colour of Judas?--I have no idea, and it doesn't disturb me that I don't. Have you ever met or read anyone who was disturbed by this omission? Remember, too, that a total omission of something in all extant accounts is not a contradiction among those accounts.

I would have to reinvestigate the kiss and the thievery, to see if they warrranted editing. If any gospel implies that Judas got nowhere near Jesus during the betrayal, that would be a contradiction that would need to be changed by a good editor. And I have better things to do than reread chunks of a narrative where the main characacter, with whom I am supposed to sympathize, thinks it's a nifty idea to have his Son tortured and killed.

aa5874

And, look you have just guessed again.

You claim you are not guessing by just guessing you know the truth about events that may not have occurred 2000 years ago.

And if you are not guessing, please provide your proof NOW, or admit you are supplying mis-leading and erroneous information.

sschlichter

no one has proof so why waste your time asking for it. you ignored my question.

sschlichter

If you see a war movie and one man sacrifices his life to save others, I bet you sympathize.

aa5874

Just to prove that you are guessing. And you have confirmed it.

You are supplying mis-leading and erroneous information.

jab

depends what the others were--e. g. the portrayal of a soldier sacrificing himself for teh vanity of a cruel and torturing despot would not win my sympathy.

From your silence, I take it you conceed the points I make in the first two pragraphs of my last post.

sschlichter

you ignored my question again.

sschlichter

I did not conceed but I would consider it if you made a point. Nothing I was saying was related to the goal of a shorter NT. You are commenting on how you would have editted the bible. I do not beleive in God is a different conversation than you think you would do a better job as God. (which seems to be an underlying premise to most of your comments.). I did not respond because it lacks relevance.