schriverja

From the post: Matthew 5:17-20, 19 indicates the Jewish Law/Traditions should be followed as well as Luke 16:17. Hebrew scripture citations that indicate the Jewish Law/Traditions was permanent: Exo 31:16-17, Exo 12:14-17, Mal 3:6-7 and never to be replaced or added to: Deut 4:2, 13:1

Contrast that to Paul's writings that I cited heavily in that post...

schriverja

It's not coincidence that when people were no longer subject to the Inquisition and had full opportunity to ask scholarly questions regarding authorship and dating, that scholars began asking tough questions and concluding tradition was wrong about many things. The only reason the scholarship wasn't done 1000 years ago as opposed to starting roughly 200 years ago is that scholars could be executed simply for translating the Bible from Latin...

Failte

"evidence"...I do not think this word means what you think it means.

How, exactly, did they "evidence" themselves to not be god-breathed? On what criteria did the collectors include or not include them? Since the existing books of the protestant canon contradict each other as well, why is that sort of contradiction ok to be explained away vs dropped entirely?

How do you determine which doctrine is correct between the Catholics and the Protestants? Other than you belong to one group vs the other? I'm sure the catholics are quite certain that their version is correct. Why are they wrong? Why does the committee that built the protestant canon get the nod from you vs any of the other groups?

And no, just feeling that the book isn't as majestic or powerful doesn't really mean a thing.

Their authority is entirely your perception, apparently. There is no evidentiary basis for such a claim that the canon you accept is correct and the alternate canons are not, or that any claim you make about the canon is correct and should be accepted.

simon kole

My basis for participation is examination, in Biblical context, of proposed internal textual inconsistencies, as demonstrated here, where #55 has been acknowledged by its poster to be a false contradiction, and has been removed from the list.

simon kole

Not only Paul, but the letter to the Hebrews reveals the Law is abolished.

In Christianity, OT revelation is understood in the light of latter NT revelation.
The NT explains very clearly the what, the how, and why the OT Levitical law is now obsolete.

In short, the Levitical law was a prefigure (picture) of things to come in the NT (Heb 10:1).
Those prefigurements are now replaced by the reality of the things pictured, so they are no longer necessary, and are obsolete (Heb 8:13).

It would be like the picture of one's husband being replaced by the reality of the husband himself when he returns from his long tour of duty overseas.

simon kole

The scholarship of my sources is likewise modern.

simon kole

I will leave it to you to do the research which will answer your questions.

I was making a personal comment, and not an argument.

schriverja

This is where we begin to diverge. I think the NT stuff that comes along is an indication of evolution of thought within Judaism and the early forms of Christianity, not a new revelation to shed light on the OT. The OT makes sense without further illumination. It explicitly states that it is a permanent arrangement between God and his chosen people, the Israelites. It explicitly states that it is is not to be replaced (to use your word "obsoleted") or added to. The OT explicitly states that anyone who says otherwise is a false teacher (Deut. 13). That's why Judaism still exists today. It (the blood rituals and slavery laws and bizarre rules about all sorts of things) just became harder to swallow for people that were living in a more and more advanced society. Paul was largely responsible for evolving Judaism into a Gentile-friendly movement. And that evolution has continued to this day. Protestantism (into 30,000+ denominations its important to note) evolved from Orthodoxy/Catholicism . Calvinism and Arminianism evolved from prior forms of Christianity, becoming a distinct "species" in the 16th century and later.

I don't that's a sign of new revelation, I think that is evidence that people are responsible for the characteristics and viewpoints of Christianity, not God. A charismatic guy like Paul, or Luther, or Calvin produced their own, very human takes on Christianity and convinced enough people that they're right to get their own sub-following. The divergence of the Christian "species" started pretty much from day 1 with the emergence of groups like the Marcionites, Ebionites, Gnostics, and the like, now mostly extinct...

That's why a relatively static text can be used to justify slavery in one century and decry it in the next. Because society has changed not the book. That's why killing and torturing your neighbors over their religious belief can be justified via the Bible in one century, and dismissed in another century. People reinterpret "God" how they want, God doesn't reveal new things.

Deus Ex

What you seem to be saying is that you feel you have absolute facts on your side, and that every scholar that disagrees with you is engaging in conjecture and speculation. I hate to tell you this, but historians can never have absolute knowledge about events that have passed us in time; particularly events that happened thousands of years ago. Historians must use some conjecture and speculation in an attempt to find the most plausible reconstruction of a poorly attested historical event. The only people who think that have absolute knowledge about what happened in Palestine during the first few centuries CE are pseudo-intellectual fundamentalists who believe that God's ghost whispered the answer into their ear.

simon kole

My basis for participation is examination, in Biblical context, of proposed internal textual inconsistencies, as demonstrated here, where #55 has been acknowledged by its poster to be a false contradiction, and has been removed from the list.

Likewise, my basis for participation is demonstrated here, here, and here.

These are "a rational discussion of facts" regarding the content of the texts.
That may not be a subject in which you are particularly interested, but others are.