mondar said:
Patronizing the bible as mere intriguing literature misses the whole point. Predending academic interest on the basis of aestetics in some non-historical document that you completely disagree with its philosophy of life is also missing the whole point.
misses what 'point'? who says i can't study the bible even though i disagree with it? i find it hard to believe you would even suggest such a thing. how arrogant and ridicuclous. i guess i should trash all of my fictional books, like the lord of the rings, simply because i don't believe in elven magic, or that sauron is preparing to take over the earth.
As for Christians "imposing" their world view on non-christians, can you demonstrate that Christians are behaving in any such way in the present. Oh you could rant on about the crusades, but Stalin made the crusaders look like boyscouts. Please explain your comment that Christians "impose" their world view?
above, for one immediate example. but anyway, i'm talking about the notion of christians to try to press their views upon reality through missionary work, through government (opposing or vouching for laws based upon one's religion, etc.) and schools (the religious agendas of intelligent design and creation pseudo-science)... some 'need' to teach humanity about your own faith. that is 'imposing' the christian worldview (and yes, the disasters of christian violence over the centuries are included).
Oh, there might be one or two historical truths? And yes, you patronized the bible by saying it is intriguing, but you hate its philosophy of life.
look, i don't have time for your illogical fanaticism. bring some substance or get real. i do not 'hate' the bible.
The similarites cannot be based upon culture. The similarities cannot be based upon culture, I think I already demonstrated that such a proposition is false. In any case, can you demonstrate such a claim? Show me this similar culture.
no, you 'demonstrated' nothing 'false'. i said the books and the theology of the books of the bible originated from the same hebraic/jewish/yahwhistic cultural/religious milieu, even though i do believed it evolved over time. but we're not going to expect a complete transformation. we're going to see vague similarities in the literature from the culture it originated from. you're not making sense. you argue for similarities, then you deny the concept of similarities by appealing to cultural differences that i haven't disputed, and then you revert back and appeal to similarities again and say they cannot be based on cultural/religious ideas without explanation. your argument is inconsistent, and it seems like you're begging the question of divine inspiration: that the bible is divinely inspired by god and contains similarities because god divinely inspired it (an argument you make further below)...even while you simultaneously deny those similarities.
so we need to know what it is exactly that you're comparing (and perhaps you could provide some examples). are you arguing for consistency between the old and new testaments? or are you arguing for consistency between any and every book of the bible no matter its origin in history's timetable? are you saying that the religious writings of this culture/religion wrote
counter to their historical circumstances (even though we know of their culture/religion from their writings)? what is it exactly that you're arguing for?
i'll show you (again) why some of these arguments are irrelevant to divine inspiration.
1) nt literature is based in a large part on ot literature. it quotes from what we call the ot and holds it to be authoritative (though there is apparent influence from apocryphal books, like enoch for one of several examples). when a religious group writes about some of their religious documents, we're not going to expect some massive dissimilarity. to think so is foolish. you seem to be arguing that the hebraic cultural/religious milieu of the ot and the nt were polar opposite and yet still produced similar concepts through their writings that can only be explained by 'inspiration'. that's an unreasonable question-begging fallacy. if some of the religious values/beliefs haven't changed from ot to nt, then obviously the religious culture wasn't so contradistinctive between ot and nt times.
2) you're forgetting/ignoring the fact that the books of the bible weren't the only ones that derived from this judeo-christian milieu. they were not the only ones accepted as authoritative, and they did not all agree. but that itself doesn't really matter, and this is where the idea of a 'canon' comes into play in my next point:
3) you're ignoring the fact that the biblical canon was argued over centuries and finally compiled. so i say again, that accounts for even more similarities and eliminates major differences because only books that are agreeable are going to be selected. that works for any 'canon'. in fact, the first attempt at a christian canon was a heretical one. close to the mid-second century a 'heretic' named marcion was convinced that ot literature was basically disgusting and formed a christian canon from the gospel of luke and ten letters of paul. this was around 140a.d., and it galvanized the early church (in the majority) to form their own canon, and there were several attempts at that. so it's a process of elimination. again, you have no point.
anyway, the kinds of similarities i'm referring to are those such as devotion to the god 'yhwh', and to the law (which was the major player in shaping jewish culture, of course), the belief that god has set apart a group of special faithful followers, belief that a redeemed israel would one day rule the world, etc. these are general similarities that pervade both ot and nt times, and the biblical canon reflects this. their political situations may have been different at times, their technology may have increased, and other mundane advancements may have taken place, but that is also reflected in the literature and does not help your case. i don't understand why you're arguing
for complete differences and yet denying the similarities while simultaneously arguing for unity
without differences. differences are not similarities. arguing for differences does little in the way of proving some notion of superficial consistency in the bible as a product of 'divine inspiration'. i'd like to see how you're making that work while accounting for the things i have touched upon above, because you're contradicting yourself and not making any points. what 'consistency' is it that you're talking about and how can this be shown to be 'divine'?
Naa, the theology of Moses was the same theology of John. This lack of theological change in the written record within the bible is one of its divine features.
but you were just arguing for major differences between these two eras (even though moses left us no written record, so i assume you're referring to the pentateuch). you're arguing for 'divine unity' of the bible, but it seems you don't know what 'consistency' means since you cannot maintain it yourself in your argumentation. and i think the above is ridiculously false. please show us examples of this 'lack of theological change' that would necessitate concluding some kind of 'divine inspiration'.
don't just make vague generalities and try to pass it off as adequate in proving 'divine inspiration'.
No straw man at all. You claim that the bible originated from the same culture, and this explains its unity. Then you turn around and talk about its evolution. There is no evolution in the bibles theology. It is monotheistic (implicitly trinitarian in the OT, more explicit in the NT). It view God as the sovereign of the universe. There is no evolution of its theology.
yes, i did claim the bible originated from the same culture and i also said this culture evolved over time. while evolution obviously brings about changes/differences, as i said above, we do not expect complete transformation. and two more things here:
1) you're contradicting yourself again. you're the one who first appealed to the poly-/henotheism of mosaic times in contrast to the monotheism of nt times. now you're saying it's the same thing. please make up your mind. and you did in fact erect a straw man because you failed to take into account my explanation for the bible's assumed and superficial unity while i acknowledged that there are differences and conflicts, and you instead raised objections that i never disputed (like politics and 'technology'). what you're doing is arguing for some 'divine unity' and when some of that assumed unity is explained by cultural/religious ideas and the formation of a canon, you then argue for differences that go against the similarities. are you arguing for similarities
and differences/contradictions like i am or are you arguing for complete unity? the former wouldn't prove inspiration. the latter makes no sense because you keep contradicting yourself.
whichever one, you still haven't refuted any of my points (straw men and ignoring what i said don't count) and have yet to show any 'divine unity'. please stay focused on the issue and address it or i will be forced to immediately terminate this discussion and dismiss you as disproved and illogical.
2) there is no 'implicit' trinitarian doctrine in the ot. that idea came about only after the idea of a trinity existed (that is to say, it was read back into the text). so it's the equivalent of a texas sharpshooter fallacy. the ot does not anywhere teach a 'trinity'. 'implicit' here serves as a euphemism for reading extraneous ideas back into the ot.
What do you mean unrepresentative. I will later demonstrate that Pauls autographs were accepted as scripture by the apostolic church.
they eventually were, yes (see further down). they were ignored for a long time and after a while became popular with the book of acts (which began to be circulated around the 90'sa.d.), which records paul's epics. it depends on how early we're talking. i never said paul's letters didn't
eventually become authoritative. even then, there's no point to be made here. several books that are now non-canonical were accepted as authoritative in the early church, and several books that are now canonical were rejected and/or disputed. what's your point? how does this back your absurd assertion that the bible was 'written as the bible'?
something can't be written as 'the bible' before the thing called 'the bible'
actually existed. please make some kind of sense, or again, i will be forced to ignore you by terminating this discussion and finding something more worthwhile to do with my time.
This seems silly. You are trying to make a point by disagreeing with unrelated issues. Did you ever read the end of Chronicles and the beginning of Ezra? The material is nearly identicle. It appear as volume 1 and volume 2. There is a flow of theology, but all this is immaterial to the discussion.
you're right here, i made a mistake due to the confusion of some of my notes. yes, the majority of biblical scholarship agrees that the author of ezra and chronicles is one and the same. and yes, i agree that 'all this is immaterial to the discussion'. that's why i'm curious as to why you mentioned it
in the first place as some kind of 'proof' of your absurd assertion that the bible was 'written as the bible'. that's totally non-sequitur.
Pauls epistles were accepting by the time Peter wrote his epistles.
2 Peter 3:
15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you;
16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Now, if you notice the phrase in bold, you will realize that the author of 2 Peter recognizes Pauls epistles as "scripture." Pauls epistles were recognized as scripture before the close of the apostolic age. Of course as you will say below, it took time to copy the autograph so that it spread from church to church. But that does not prove that the scriptures were not recognized when wrote during the apostolic age.
there's only a few problems with this, however. not only does the consenus/majority of biblical scholarship reject petrine authorship of 2peter (as a 2nd-century forgery), but much of the early church did as well down to the 4th century and beyond! cf. eusebius' comment writing in the 4th century:
'Of Peter one epistle, known as his first, is accepted, and this the early fathers quoted freely, as undoubtedly genuine, in their own writings. But the second Petrine epistle we have been taught to regard as uncanonical...These then are the works attributed to Peter, of which I have recognized only one epistle as authentic and accepted by the early fathers' (
ecclesiatical history, book iii.3)
although he does record that 'many' accept it, there have always been doubts about it, and it's inconsistent with what we know to be the historical case with paul's letters. peter allegedly died around the same time as paul in rome according to tradition (mid-60'sa.d.). most of paul's letters were written in the 50's going on into the 60's! there's no way paul's letters could have been widespread enough in order for them to be held as universally authoritative and for 'peter' to write about it. this is a major reason this argument breaks down.
and even then, it does not matter. none of this proves the bible was 'written as the bible'. i can't sense the logic in your argumentation. again: the bible cannot have been written as the bible before it actually became the bible.
I am not a great student of the Church Fathers, but Clement of Rome may not have had every book of the NT in his possession, but the ones he had, he recognized as authoritative and "scripture."
and this is relevant exactly how? accepting something as authoritative means little. several church fathers quote from apocryphal books. books like the shepherd of hermas were included in some church canons/codices (codex sinaiticus, anyone?). you're not making any points. the early church would have to accept
some books as authoritative. if not some, then others. and the books they held as authoritative over time eventually found their way into the canon (whichever 'canon' you accept). how does this prove 'divine inspiration' or 'unity'?
So let me get this. The bible is not the bible until men get the whole thing together and some dude in a pointy hat stands up and says this is the bible?
of course! the bible is a collection of many books held to be inspired and authoritative by a group of christian men who held a majority view and therefore accepted those books that agreed with their beliefs. it can only have been
the bible after it became a finalized form of those many selected books. it can't be a collection of many books before the books were, firstly,
all written, then collected, then decided upon, and then placed together and considered to be a canon called 'the bible' by a particular branch of believing christians.
you make no sense whatsoever.
Also, the council of Hippo was a minor church council, but the list of books declared to be scripture is not followed by anyone today. It is closest to the RCC canon delcared at Trent, but not identicle even to that list of books.
So in your opinion, can you tell me what canon is the true canon you are talking about? Jerome' canon? Augistine's canon? The canon of Trent? The canon of Luther?
that's just the thing! i don't believe in any 'true canon' because i'm not a christian, so 'true' biblical 'canons' are pretty much worthless to me. my point is that they were put together by men and those men are going to choose those books that agree with them. this does little [nothing] in the way of proving divine inspiration. you've only proven that men can come together and decide on a given set of books held to be authoritative by those men.
e.g., if i wanted to form sort of a 'canon' on why gay marriage should be allowed, then i'm
not going to gather books and articles that contradict my position (and this is hypothetical, i'm neutral on such issues). i'm only going to gather those books/articles (new or old) that i believe
agree with me. and once they're collated, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the final product might seemingly flow nicely.
the same could be said for whatever 'similarities' you believe are in the bible that you think prove 'divine inspiration'. you need to ask these questions about 'which canon' to
yourself, not to me.
you are the christian.
you believe in divine inspiration.
you need to prove it.
More then that, we have a problem because I do not respect the authority of any of these men or councils to "declare it to be canonical." The books were divine when the autographs were written. Why would I think otherwise? If Romans was divine when it was declared to be canonical by some dude in the pointy hat, why was it not authoritative before that?
exactly, you have only begged the question of what you believe about the canon. you believe the autographs were divine when they were written. arguing their inspiration to prove their inspiration is circular reasoning and therefore an incogent means of rebuttal..
OK, enough of the name calling and ad-hominims. I cannot say I have not written some suggestive stuff, but lets cool the ad-hominims please.
again, your charges backfire on you (remember 'ignorance' without addressing my points?). anyway, you seem to mistake criticism of your arguments for 'ad hominem', which just displays unfamiliarity with what 'ad hominem' is. ad hominem is calling attention to your character as a red herring to avoid your points, which i haven't done, since i have addressed and refuted your points for two posts in a row now.
Yes, I am beginning to realize we are not even on the same page with our terminology. You are attaching meaning to terms like "canon," "scripture," etc that we do not agree upon. Its called talking past each other.
if you say so.
And if I make a good point, will you be honest enough to admit it?
sure.
#1. I could guess you are referring to some of the books quoted in the OT. Paul quoted pagan sources, but was not saying that they were canonical.
#2. Actually, Josephus spoke of the 24 books of the hebrew bible (not sure of location of this quote). I believe Philo of Alexandria did the same thing.
#3. I could make the effort of finding my sources if you really wish, but where do you see that the Hebrew people accepted books as authoritative that are not in the canon? Now possibly you are referring to some of the literature at Qumran? Some of that literature was not accepted by the Hebrew people, but was used only at Qumran.
Please, can you support a few of your claims?
1) you're begging the question of the 'canon'. the terms 'canon' (as it means to the christian church) and 'authoritative' are not interchangeable. now, i think it's obvious that paul, as a jew, didn't consider pagan works authoritative. when he quotes the poet aratus in
ac xvii.28, he refers to him as one
'of your own poets'. when he quotes from epimenides in
ts i.12, he says
'a prophet of their own' (although i don't believe this letter was written by paul). these are obvious indicators that the one being quoted was not considered authoritative, so this point is nugatory. you're also forgetting/ignoring the fact that you're referring to quotations that are
already in the canon of the bible (i assume you believe the 'canon' is the 66-book protestant bible). you cannot use what is now accepted as canonical to make a point about the canon of the bible before it actually became a canon. that just more circular reasoning. and lastly on this point, i could turn your argument right around against you and say that because paul quoted from certain books in what is considered the canonical protestant old testament that he didn't consider them part of this 'canon' of yours which you cannot prove existed when paul wrote, much less that it was 'divinely inspired'.
2) you're referring to
against apion i.8, and he said '22', not '24' (it's the same set of books, but still). regardless, josephus wrote
against apion after the council of jamnia (90.a.d.) when the jewish canon was finalized. and the jewish canon has little to do with the christian church other than the fact that they borrowed from the jewish canon (while the jews rejected christian literature). furthermore, the catholic canon has books not found in the protestant bible, regardless of the council of jamnia. do jews determine canonical literature for christians? if so, why don't you reject the new testament? besides, even if none of this were true, this brings us to my third point:
3) it becomes a matter of taking sides. we can't say exactly how far qumran literature pervaded jewish sensibilities on what was considered 'authoritative', but it doesn't matter. who's side do you take? and what does this have to do with divine inspiration? the books that formed the jewish canon at jamnia didn't just appear from thin air in a nice little codex form with 'inspired by god' written on it in golden indestructible characters. the jewish formation of the canon was a process too. some books are eventually accepted while others are not. if it's not one book, it's another, and you're going to elect those books you believe are authentic and that are palatable with what you believe and label them as 'inspired'. again, you have no point.
The early Church had little difficulty recognizing the Gospel of Thomas as a fraud. It is not even close to the theology and nature of the scriptures. It has an extremely different philosphy of life and an extremely different religious view. Early Christians would have no more difficulty recognizing it as gnostic literature then they would seeing the koran as non-christian.
by 'early church' i assume you mean what became the 'majority'. christianity began as a diverse group over which one persuasion prevailed. but anyway, your example is irrelevant. of course that majority is going to reject what they believe contradicts 'the scriptures'. i'm sure the gnostics (which rivaled what eventually became the majority 'church/christianity' in early times) would disagree. and what 'scriptures' are you referring to? the 'scriptures' in the canon you believe is inspired? that's irrelevant because you're again begging the question of what the inspired 'scriptures' are. gnostics formed canons too, and i'm sure much of the literature you believe is 'canonical' would have been rejected by them and whatever they considered to be 'scripture'. so it becomes a matter of taking sides and begging the question depending on what side you take. one side eventually had to win out the day. and you're also contradicting yourself again. i thought these 'men' didn't matter to you, so whether early theologians part of the majority rejected the gospel of thomas should be irrelevant, no?
again, i deflect your own question back at you: how do you know what the correct 'canon' is? all my points stand. please prove how any of this shows some kind of 'divine inspiration', because you have failed to do so throughout the course of this dialogue.
Actually again, I have to guess what you are talking about. You never actually support much of what you say, you just make these claims and assume they are true.
pshh, please. you have yet to make a single point backing your assumption about 'divine inspiration' while i have refuted your posts point by point. face it. divine inspiration of the bible is an article of faith that cannot be proven. you'll just have to learn to accept that.
~eric
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