elevator

Just out of curiosity; what parts of the bible do you consider credible?

If you agree that biblical criticism (as defined in the wikipedia link you provided) exposes "large parts of the Bible" as "fake and fraud", then it would seem a natural conclusion to declare the entire bible of "questionable credence"? It is kind of like the boy who cried wolf. If most of what he said were lies; then it is hard to consider the credibility of anything he says.

Sorry for going off topic with this; this thread seems to be heading that way anyway.

thentian

I, too, see Creation Day in the big bang. I just don't see any creator, that's all.

No, no! It is selection that is at work there!

So true!

Good thing, because I was beginning to wonder if the only xians we get here are of the fundie creationist type!

Cheers!

Booky

:worried: The "J source" link HERE is the original book of the Bible and it is the foremost part of the entire Bible.

And the "Q source" link HERE and HERE comes in at a close second place as the heart of the New Testiment.

:banghead: I do not throw out the right stuff just because of a lot of wrong stuff.

The idea is to separate "the wheat from the tares" as the saying goes.

In the middle of Mark 16:8 and verse 9 is a NIV editor's note link HERE and so we know that verse 9-20 is a fake fraud and that adds credibility to the previous verses.

:wave: I do not see it as going off topic at all, and Biblical Criticism is the basis of the topic.

Booky

:huh: That is a problem that I find too.

I hear of other liberal Christians but I never ever meet any.

Beginning to think that I might be the only one on this entire planet - me Booky. :wide:

elevator

Here it seems as though you are talking about the authenticity of the ancient text, not it's content...

...while here it seems as though you are taking about the content.

I think we might be talking about two different views of biblical credibility here (maybe due to my misunderstanding of your initial post?). Correct me if I am wrong; you're saying that certain parts of the bible are more credible because they are found in versions of the text whose authenticity have been verified scientifically. If that is what you mean; yes, I agree. In fact that is much like any ancient text. However, just because an ancient writer wrote something doesn't make it true. The biblical text is still littered with supernatural stories, ambiguity and bad moral teachings – save for a few gems here and there. But nothing that secular philosophy couldn't have done just as well without all the supernatural charades.

To use your example of Jesus' birth from your first post; an ancient text wouldn't make the circumstances around Jesus' birth any more credible. Sure, if the text talked of a regular boy born to a regular couple; it would be easy to imagine the text to be a credible representation of the birth of said boy. But say now that the text goes on to say that the boy was born of a virgin, he was fathered by an all-powerful God who created the universe, he himself will one day die for the sins of humanity, be crucified, and rise from the dead. Not to mention all the other supernatural events surrounding Jesus (such as walking on water, feeding a bunch of people with very little food, curing various diseases, etc). Such elements in the story renders the credibility around the historicity of Jesus very dubious indeed.

My point is; while the authenticity of the ancient text may indeed be confirmed, the content within it cannot. So while, for example, there may be a few moral gems within the bible; the presence of bad moral teachings within the same text; destroys it's credibility as moral literature. And I think the same can be said for other topics within the bible.

bacht

Miraculous birth stories are at least as old as Sargon of Akkad are they not?

Booky are you trying to find a way to salvage the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke?

The way I imagine it, the Gospel writers (after Mark) had a perfect opportunity to dream up anything: the Jewish state was gone, all the early Christians were dead, Judaism had disowned the Christ sect, the scriptures were no longer under the control of Jewish authorities...

the phrase "lost in translation" could have been invented to describe the co-opting of the Jewish tradition by gentile Christians don't you think?

Booky

:frown: Yes they are, and it is a reasonable thing to expect.

Many people are still looking for a "savior" to be born again today.

:huh: I do not say that "salvage" is the word that I would use.

I do want to re-define the text.

:worried: I am impressed that you appear to know about the Synoptic problem, and that is a basis of my point in the first post here.

If Matthew and Luke were faking it and their Gospels were frauds then there would not be a separate text of the birth stories attached to their Gospels.

That would not make sense at all as for a fake, it does make sense otherwise, IMO.

:huh: I like that kind of "critical" calculating too.

According to one ancient Roman Centurian letter it said that Pilate had killed all the Chistians.

I believe that letter was literally accurate so that by 36CE they were all dead.

Of course I have very little to back that up with.

I see it like our first two Presidents were in the Federalist Party but that "Party" ended shortly thereafter and other people wrote their stories.

:bulb:

Booky

Yes, that is correct.
Yes, that is correct too. The text is subject to interpretation, and I see the content as being after interpretation.
Yes again, and perhaps we are agreed up to here.
:devil: I do agree that some parts are not true, and that any text must be scrutinized and interpreted.

I do not agree with your last sentence above.

Those ancient text like the Bible is what lead us this way to the secular philosophy and to much of science.

In example: The Bible claims the universe was created thousands of years ago, and in later years we proved the ancient as correct.

Also morality has been better defined by the wrong doings then by the declarations of the moralities.

Secular humanism gives the the religions as the examples of human wrongs and so we are enlightened to it in these latter days.

The chicken or the egg came first? and history says the ancient text came first.

In fact I very much believe that if or when we do meet intelligent creatures from outer space then our biggest Scientist will be the first ones to ask the aliens - Was it you that put Adam and Eve here? because that is what we are looking for when we look into space.

And Jesus said that He did not come from this world John 8:23, which when taken literally means some thing very unOrthodox indeed, and how is it that a first century person would say such a thing of coming from another world whether it was fake or not? I say not.
:worried: I came to believe that too, but now in later years I find that to be disingenuous.

For example: I and many others like the TV shows like Star Trek and it is of a secular humanist persuation. Other space shows and SciFi work for this too.

So lets say a person from way up in the future went back in time and that person had super modern medical equipment (like Dr. McCoy) and the person had anti-gravity devices (to walk on water) and had very smart ethical advice (as Mr. Spock) so the person went back to the first century and pretended to be the God-man Savior and called Himself Jesus (Yesu) and the people wrote about that future person in the Gospels.

That could explain the many or most of the miracles and that is a posible scenerio as that could happen in our future.

It makes realistic sense, and people that view Star Trek as a posibility can easily see this.

This is how it was put to me years ago and I agreed that a person from the future could have gone back in time to become Jesus and that would explain it.

But then that means we do believe in miracles. We can walk on waters, we can heal people with a magic touch or wand (Dr. McCoy), and so we are only denying that Jesus did it. We say it could have been done by some Neil Armstrong but not by some Jesus Christ.

And so the argument does not hold up for me because it is disingenuous.
:bulb: I honestly do not know of any "bad" moral teachings of the scriptures.

There certainly are people that have twisted the scriptures of every religion as justification for doing horrible stuff - so people are to blame and not their crutch.
Guns do not kill people - people kill people / so too the Scriptures do not harm people.

That is the way I see it.

:wave:

bacht

I think an anthropologist would say that ideas about morality precede the invention of writing by milllenia. There are also other ancient texts that pre-date the Bible.

The Creationists claim that the cosmos was formed in seven days, somewhere around 4004 B.C. They also accept the geocentric universe portrayed throughout scripture, which was discarded in the 17th C.

Are you seriously claiming that the Bible has all the answers to science and ethics, and that modern people are simply confirming this ancient wisdom?

elevator

[snipped stuff we agree about]

I don’t know what you are trying to say here. What ancient text is correct about the age of the universe? The creation event, as far as I know, that comes close to ages estimated by science is Hindu cosmology, which, curiously enough, predate Christian writings.

The fact that morality is evolving is, in my mind, more evidence of culturally influenced moral philosophy than evidence of divine moral origins.

Of course the ancient text came first. But the bible is not the first ancient text, and just because a text is ancient doesn’t make its content true or valid today.

I don’t think scientists will ask that because most scientists that do serious work in biological fields considers evolution a fact and as such don’t believe in an Adam or Eve in the biblical sense (i.e. the original humans). There is talk of a Mitocondrial Eve and a Y-Chromosomal Adam in the sense that they are two pre-historic hominids from which all current living humans have descended. What a scientist will want to know instead is how life arose in the first place. That said, I think alien life is far more likely than the existence of a divine power (because at least we know life exists); so sure, maybe that’s how life arose. But do we know that? No. Will I consider any text that claims to know that to be credible? No.

You are looking for explanations to explain that for which there is absolutely no evidence. Both explanations (Jesus of divine-birth and Jesus of time-travelling-magicians) are equally unfounded and without evidence. So instead of pretending to know an explanation, is it so hard to say: “I don’t know”?

But to get back on topic; if you or someone else were to argue the historicity of a person who actually existed, would it not hurt your credibility if you all of a sudden started spewing out supernatural properties about this person? It wouldn’t matter at all if the ancient text you were referring to was verified to be a 100 years or 1000 years, the supernatural content of the story would still be detrimental to your case of proving the historicity of the person; unless, of course, you could come up with some kind of evidence to prove the supernatural properties of this person.

How is it disingenuous? Lets use another example. Does it hurt the credibility if the historicity (or genealogy) of Adam when he described in the bible as living close to 1000 years, with many of his descendants living to reach similar ages?

I know of plenty. Religious intolerance and freedom of religion, subjugation of women and honor killings, slavery and genocide, just to mention a few. I realize the biblical canon is not unique in ancient literature when it comes to tolerating atrocities such as these, but it certainly have no place in literature that claims divine moral authority. Again, it is an issue for the credibility of the bible that it allows itself to be interpreted in support of bad moral teachings – especially if one asserts its connection to a divine power.

Obviously inanimate objects can't perform actions within their own capacity. But if there are no guns, people can’t use them to kill eachother. And if someone honestly and sincerely believe in the scriptures, there are plenty of passages within it that can be use to justfy a wide range of harmful and immoral (by our standards) actions.