The Bible makes complete sense

On the original post, much seems to be based around this concept :

Quote:

God is the highest level of reality. Infinite Love.

This is directly contradicted by the bible, where God sends a great flood to kill all on earth except Noah etc, where God kills everyone in Sodom & Gomorrah except Lot etc, where God sends a pack of bears to rip children to shreds (their sin being calling Elijah 'old baldy'), where God tells his people to make war and kill a nation of other people.

And of course if one believes in 'hell and eternal torture', then one can't very well believe in God being a being of infinite love.

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I suppose it could only make sense if you knew more about God

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Perhaps, but more relevant would be an understanding of infinite love.

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a better understanding of the bible might exonerate god. of course, perspective might make a better understanding of the bible impossible.

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Stash here continues to make **** up about the Roman Empire for which he adduces no evidence. He speaks as if a the Empire were a monolith in which policy was static and carved in stone, unchanging over the centuries. The inferential evidence of what he writes is that the records upon which a scholar can reconstruct life in the Roman Empire are unreliable--but he ignores that the same objection can be raised about the early christian church, the historians of which are notorious liars.

Stash does not offer a shred of evidence for his statements of authority about the Roman Empire, many of which are stupid and naive. There is little point in discussing such a topic with someone who will just make up whatever **** seems (and his remarks are often shallow and ill-considered) to support his ranting insistence on the excellence of his favorite superstition.

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tinygiraffe wrote:

a better understanding of the bible might exonerate god. of course, perspective might make a better understanding of the bible impossible.

Depends on where you are coming from, I guess.

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Setanta wrote:

Stash here continues to make **** up about the Roman Empire for which he adduces no evidence. He speaks as if a the Empire were a monolith in which policy was static and carved in stone, unchanging over the centuries. The inferential evidence of what he writes is that the records upon which a scholar can reconstruct life in the Roman Empire are unreliable--but he ignores that the same objection can be raised about the early christian church, the historians of which are notorious liars.

Stash does not offer a shred of evidence for his statements of authority about the Roman Empire, many of which are stupid and naive. There is little point in discussing such a topic with someone who will just make up whatever **** seems (and his remarks are often shallow and ill-considered) to support his ranting insistence on the excellence of his favorite superstition.

This is passage in question.

Luke 2:1-3 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

Says nothing of a census. The people of Palestine were required to go to their home village as a tax was being collected. This travel requirement may not have applied to the entire empire, but could have been issued locally.

This was written by someone who lived in the Roman Empire and was read by many thousands of Christians who also lived in the Roman Empire. There is no record of any one who lived in the Roman Empire having a problem with the idea that Roman officials would, at least at the local level, sometimes require people to return to their home of record in the process of collect a tax. This document (Luke) is itself evidence that the Romans did collect this tax and they, at least on this occasion, did make this travel requirement since this is a document that comes from the Roman Empire and was read by many people who lived in the Roman Empire. People at that time did dispute the claim that Jesus was the Messiah, and people disputed the claim that Jesus returned from the dead, so I certainly wouldn't suggest that these claims in the gospels are proven true. There is no record of anyone who actually lived in the Roman Empire ever disputing this tax and the manner in which it was collected in the land of Palestine.

The problem is that you really don't know much about the Bible. This is why you talk about a "census" and provide information about when and how the Romans would take a census of Roman citizens, when this is completely irrelevant to the claim that is made in the gospel of Luke.

You would make a better critic of the Bible if you knew something about it.

The gospel of Matthew provides the genealogy from Abraham to Jesus. The book of Luke also shows a link from Jesus to Abraham, but it gives a different list of names with a significant difference in the number of generations. This is a problem.

The writers of the New Testament clearly believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime. They were wrong, and this is problem, especially for those who believe the writers of the Bible were like dot matrix printers for God.

Most of the criticisms of the Bible are lacking in common sense. In one gospel the sign on the cross contained the words "King of the Jews", in another "Jesus the King of the Jews", and another "Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews". There is no contradiction here since one account is simply giving more information than another. This would be like a witness to a crime stating that the suspect wore blue pants while another witness reported that the suspect wore blue pants and a white shirt. A contradiction would be if the two accounts were mutually exclusive.

I also find it lacking in common sense for any scholar today to believe that they could find a mistake concerning Roman procedures stated in a document that came from Roman times and was read by a large number of people who lived in the Roman Empire yet all of whom failed to notice the mistake.

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Re: The Bible makes complete sense
I am impressed by your last post. I am equally amazed by your complete lack of understanding of free will as evidenced in this drivel:

stashlazarus wrote:

. . .With Satan, God created a spirit that was powerful, but without love, and God did this knowing that Satan would become evil. . .

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Re: The Bible makes complete sense

neologist wrote:

I am impressed by your last post. I am equally amazed by your complete lack of understanding of free will as evidenced in this drivel:
stashlazarus wrote:
. . .With Satan, God created a spirit that was powerful, but without love, and God did this knowing that Satan would become evil. . .

I disagree with "free will" as theologians often define it. It is said that a creature must be able to choose between good and evil in order for the creature to have "free will". An angel does not have free will since the angel can only choose good. Likewise, a demon does not have free will since the demon can only choose evil. This could cause one to conclude that an angel cannot be rewarded for goodness, nor can a demon to be punished for evil.

The theological concept of free will has been developed and refined as an explanation for why God created the world. I agree that God must have wanted creatures that are capable of both good and evil, but I disagree as to why He wanted this. I don't believe God went to all this trouble so that we could learn, grow or develop in some way. Whatever we gain from this world, whatever condition we are in because of our life in this world, God could have created us in that condition without having to create the world. This explanation for God's motive is human-centered and not unlike our medieval belief that the sun revolved around the Earth. I would say that God created the world for His own purpose. It is not about us, and what we might learn; it's about God and what God seeks to learn.

I don't believe in "free will" in the sense that God is testing us to see which ones are "worthy" by having chosen God or by having done certain things. This world is not a test to see who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell. God saw the end from the beginning. God wants to experience emotions and gain an understanding of love. This being the case, God will, in the end, clean up the mess, take all the pain of creation upon Himself (which is what He seeks), and we all get to go to Heaven.

Then again, I'm not sure if we all get to go to Heaven. Since God created spirits that lack the ability to love others, it is possible, and it seems to be the case, that some humans were born in that same condition. The Bible does seem to suggest that not everyone will go to Heaven. Is it fair to created Satan, knowing that Satan would become evil and have to be destroyed?

Imagine being in Heaven. You have a beautiful mansion, a fabulous beach, all the food you can eat without getting fat, and 72no, make that 1072 virgins. Imagine being there for a thousand yearsa million yearsa billiona billion times a billion. A creature that is evil will be miserable, and even a creature that is only part evil will eventually be miserable.

It is not only a question of "fairness". Evil must be destroyed for it's own sake. God did Satan a favor when He gave Satan life, and God will do Satan another favor when He brings that life to an end. This is assuming that God will not "fix" Satan on the Day of Judgment, but that's something I tend to doubt. It should also be pointed out that Satan was not evil when God created him, the devil was void of love and became evil.

Instead of "free will", I prefer the term "free agent". We each make our choices and we are each entitled to be punished or rewarded based on our choices. Angels deserve to be rewarded, and demons deserve to be punished (and they will be).

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neologist wrote:

tinygiraffe wrote:
a better understanding of the bible might exonerate god. of course, perspective might make a better understanding of the bible impossible.
Depends on where you are coming from, I guess.

oh i think it always does, that's basically the point i'm trying to make on the other thread.

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Which explains the different denominations.

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So now you're making **** up about the text of the bible, huh Stash?

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) [emphasis added]

New International Version

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. (emphasis added)

New American Standard Bible

And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. (emphasis added)

New King James Version

If you are so naive as to think that there is only one reliable version of the Bobble translated into English, then i would say that you are the one who is ignorant of the Bobble. By the way, how do you feel about the fact that the version of a translation into English which you prefer was commissioned and supervised by the homosexual king of England?

You have no basis upon which to state that no one in the time of the Roman Empire noticed the error in the text, and you show that you are once again naive and ignorant of history. The Bobble as Christians know it today was a text agreed upon by religious scholars in the early 4th century, and not by people who were reliable historians of the Roman Empire. It is not only entirely possible, is most probable that Eusebius and his contemporaries knew nothing about the Deeds of the Divine Augustus, and were not only ignorant, but would not have cared had they known.

You show that you know nothing of history, and that includes the history of how the Bobble as Christians now know it derived.

Or did you believe that the Bobble was written in the English of the King James version which you cited?

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Some people do appear to believe that.

I was told once that it was translated from both Hebrew and Greek (can't remember if Latin was included), and that those languages (or maybe it was just one of those languages) didn't contain punctuation marks, making some sentences vague in meaning.

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Hebrew was the original language of the Old Testament. Greek was the original language of the New Testament. The Bible was translated into Latin in the fourth century. The first English translations were probably based on Latin versions of the Bible (copies of copies which had been transcribed by hand over many centuries).

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Re: The Bible makes complete sense

stashlazarus wrote:

neologist wrote:
I am impressed by your last post. I am equally amazed by your complete lack of understanding of free will as evidenced in this drivel:
stashlazarus wrote:
. . .With Satan, God created a spirit that was powerful, but without love, and God did this knowing that Satan would become evil. . .

I disagree with "free will" as theologians often define it. It is said that a creature must be able to choose between good and evil in order for the creature to have "free will". An angel does not have free will since the angel can only choose good. Likewise, a demon does not have free will since the demon can only choose evil. This could cause one to conclude that an angel cannot be rewarded for goodness, nor can a demon to be punished for evil.
. . .

I have often said, and this is an example, that non believers have no need to create straw men when 'believers' create them in abundance. The god of the universe you describe is not my God. Though he is certainly the god of this world. (John 14:30)

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stashlazarus wrote:

This was written by someone who lived in the Roman Empire and was read by many thousands of Christians who also lived in the Roman Empire.

What I find ludicrous is the idea that "thousands of Christians" were reading Luke's gospel. "Thousands" of Christians didn't read the bible at all until the mid-1400s and numerous copies of the bible were printed. As soon as folks actually started reading the gospels, they started questioning their accuracy and authority, which ultimately led to the Reformation.

If the thesis is based on the premise that 'no one complained' then the thesis is bogus.

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JPB wrote:

stashlazarus wrote:
This was written by someone who lived in the Roman Empire and was read by many thousands of Christians who also lived in the Roman Empire.

What I find ludicrous is the idea that "thousands of Christians" were reading Luke's gospel. "Thousands" of Christians didn't read the bible at all until the mid-1400s and numerous copies of the bible were printed. As soon as folks actually started reading the gospels, they started questioning their accuracy and authority, which ultimately led to the Reformation.

If the thesis is based on the premise that 'no one complained' then the thesis is bogus.

If the gospels had not been widely read, they would not have been repeatedly copied and could not have survived.

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Widely read by whom? Early Christians were mostly illiterate -- they most certainly were not Roman scholars. Early writings were mostly read by church leaders and public readers in social settings, such as worship gatherings. Public readers were paid to read. Who, exactly, do you think would have challenged these gospels?

Also, copies were made by hand and was slow and inaccurate work. Some copyists (paid scribes or literate slaves) were unable to read the language they were copying and made as close a facsimile to the original text as they could.

Scribes were paid (or not) as scribes and readers were paid as readers, but there is no indication that the texts were widely, or even narrowly, read by Roman scholars, or that any of the 'readers' of Luke would have been in a position to question the authority of the news.

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wandeljw wrote:

Hebrew was the original language of the Old Testament. Greek was the original language of the New Testament. The Bible was translated into Latin in the fourth century. The first English translations were probably based on Latin versions of the Bible (copies of copies which had been transcribed by hand over many centuries).

There were many version of the bible in Latin prior to the fourth century. The official Latin version was a compilation, done near the end of the fourth century, and became know as the Latin Vulgate. It was sanctioned by Pope Damascus and was produced by Jerome (a Latin and Greek scholar) who had many versions from both languages to work with.

The King James version was based on the Greek New Testament which was published by Erasmus and Froben in 1515. Erasmus, who was rushing to publish his text prior to the release of the Complutensian Polygot (first printed edition), used various copies of texts from the late medieval period "which he marked up as if he were copy editing a handwritten copy for the printer; the printer took the manuscripts so marked and set his type directly from them" (see Erhman, [/i]Misquoting Jesus[/] p78).

Erhman continues, "It appears that Erasmus relied heavily on just one twelfth-century manuscript for the Gospels and another, also from the twelfth-century for the Acts and the Epistles - although he was able to consult several other manuscripts and make corrections based on their readings. For the book of Revelation he had to borrow a manuscript from his friend the German humanist Johannes Reuchlin; unfortunately, this manuscript was almost impossible to read in places, and it had lost its last page, which contained the final six verses of the book. In his haste to have the job done, in those places Erasmus simply took the Latin Vulgate and translated its text back into Greek, thereby creating some textual readings found today in no surviving Greek manuscripts."

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The bible makes no sense. That's why people are always questioning it. Furthermore, why there are always pitiful attempts to prove it makes sense.

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The Bible makes complete sense

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