The Bible - Why Trust It

firedragon said:

But Gospel of John was written 7 or 8 decades after Jesus. Also, no one knows the author.

Im sure you know this.

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It was common to attribute authorship to works where the specific authorship was unknown. I do believe the words of Jesus are mostly His and accurate handed down by the apostles and early disciples of Jesus, and some facts of the life of Jesus that were later compiled into the gospels.

shunyadragon said:

It was common to attribute authorship to works where the specific authorship was unknown. I do believe the words of Jesus are mostly His and accurate handed down by the apostles and early disciples of Jesus, and some facts of the life of Jesus that were later compiled into the gospels.

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We all believe in a lot of things brother.

nPeace said:

I think there is good reason to show that the scriptures are authentic.

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What do you mean "authentic"?

nPeace said:

Once the scriptures are shown to be reliable, and authentic, that proves the truthfulness of Jesus Christ - the son of God.
The baptism of Jesus Christ, by John the Baptist, and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, give evidence that the scriptures are of divine origin, because they fulfill prophecies uttered, by prophets of God.

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What prophecies uttered by the prophets are you talking about, can you give an example?

nPeace said:

I see. Obviously you create your own standard of morality.

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I do that, just as everyone else does. Since I don't believe in objective morality. That doesn't mean that I don't have my reasons for not liking the ones I quoted. You are obviously allowed to disagree with them. But ill explain why I find them to be bad.

Luke 6:27
27 "But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.

To me it makes little sense to love ones enemies and clearly it is not what we see demonstrated around the world either. When a terrorist decide to shoot random people, I consider such person my enemy. And there is absolutely no logical reason for why I would show him any love or do good to such person. Parents whose daughter is raped and killed by some maniac, would be insane to show good towards such person and is also why we punish people for doing such things. If we should follow the morality of Jesus, we ought not to punish these type of people, but rather we should be kind to them and show them love.
To me that is absolutely non sense.

Matthew 5:28
28 But I say to you, anyone who stares at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Knowing how God think adultery ought to be punished.
Leviticus 20:10
10 "If anyone commits adultery with another man's wife, including when someone commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress are to die.

Luke 16:18
18 Any man who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery."

1 Corinthians 6:9-10
9 You know that wicked people will not inherit the kingdom of God, don't you? Stop deceiving yourselves! Sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals,
10 thieves, greedy people, drunks, slanderers, and robbers will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So what Jesus is basically saying as I see it, since he supported the law, is that any person that have ever been divorced and marries again ought to be killed. It get even worse, for those that believe in God, and hope to enter the kingdom of God, as those that commit adultery will not. Yet according to Jesus, you don't even have to physically act on it anymore, the mere thoughts in you mind is enough for God to judge you as such. And I doubt there are a lot of people that haven't looked at one of the opposite sex with lust, at some point or another in their life, now if this person they looked at were marriage a lot of adultery have been done.

Can only wonder how many will not get into heaven due to these two people alone
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Matthew 15:3-4
3 But he answered them, "Why do you also disregard the commandment of God because of your tradition?
4 Because God said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and 'Whoever curses father or mother must certainly be put to death.'

This one should be fairly obvious, as this basically allow the parents to kill their children as they pleases, depending on what they consider to be a "curse". And the assumption being that the parents always act in the best interest of their children and therefore can never do anything wrong. Which is clearly not the case when one look around in the world.

So you are correct, that this is my own morality, but to me it seems more sensible, reasonable and logic than what Jesus and God suggest.

nPeace said:

This explanation seem to appeal to him, but I am not in his mind, so I can't say. So maybe there are not his thoughts.
I hope we are not here talking about your husband.

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He quote them to give some background explanation on the varies views through history just as he state.

Its about being honest and represent people the best as possible, it have nothing to do with him being Bart Ehrman, it could just as well have been Hitler, Jesus, your detective or God for that matter.

If I started to claim that the detective said all kinds of things in the video that he is not, that would be dishonest as well. And would make our chat useless, as we are no longer talking about what they actually say, but merely what we "want" them to say. Obviously we might misunderstand some of it, which is fine, but there is a huge difference between "choosing" to misunderstand and just misunderstanding something.

nPeace said:

As far as I know, Biblical archaeology, and Historical research, are not restricted by methodological naturalism.
Are you saying that is the case?

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No, what im saying is, that when this guy you quoted say:

[For a miracle] one thing that needs to be added is a source of energy unknown to us in our biological and physiological sciences. In our Scriptures this source of energy is identified as the power of God.”

He say that in regards of miracles, one need a source of energy and that this is the power of God. Which is all fine, if one just want to make a statement or claim. But it is without any use, unless one can demonstrate Why this energy is needed? That miracles do actually exist? Provide some way of measuring or proving that such energy exist? And finally that this energy is in fact the power of the biblical God?

This would follow the same approach as any other scientific theory.

Even if it is not of natural origins, one still need to provide a method for testing it, so we can reach a conclusion based on facts rather than faith.

No different than me claiming that ghosts are real, because of another dimension with an immense amount of energy, that allow these ghosts to travel between dimensions. If I don't care to first proof that ghosts actually exists or this dimension does, my claim would be utterly useless.

nPeace said:

How would they then be able to deal with evidence of ancient practices involving magic, and gods?

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Exactly as above, first they have to define what they mean by magic. As I have no clue. Are we talking like a fantasy style magic like wizards? or something more like Jedis from Star wars? And im not making fun here.

How do we see this magic being expressed, I really have no clue. Which is why a definition is needed. After this they would have to demonstrate that this is in fact magic and no other more reasonable explanation can be given.

nPeace said:

Well isn't that the reason you didn't shoot at the argument, because you realize it is indeed "bulletproof"?
Why else did you not address that post?

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I didn't address it, in more details, because we do not know for certain why they wrote it the way the did. So pointing out that the criterion is not bulletproof seem to be valid to me. It doesn't mean that you are not correct, simply that your argument is not as solid as you would have liked it to be.

Continue...

nPeace said:

Nimos, do you really think that an eyewitness only reports everything they saw, and it's a crime to write other details acquired surrounding what they saw.

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Of course not, but to me these passages is just one of the clues that suggest that these people were not eyewitnesses, and demonstrate that at least these passages is more likely to have been made up rather than being true.

One would have to believe that either Pilate told John exactly what him and Jesus talked about, or that one of the Roman soldiers did or that Jesus somehow told John on the way to his crucifixion. Which seems highly unlikely to me.

Comparing John to the other gospels, where Jesus hardly spoke, also give us some clue that this is more likely to have been made up. Because why wouldn't the other gospel writers find it important?

To me looking at how John is written, it just seems more likely that he thought it would be more impactful to add all this dialog, maybe because he didn't think that the other Gospels made Jesus as personal as he wanted him to appear, or because he thought that crucifiction were a lot more important. I really don't know. But I don't think that one can deny the difference in how John is written in regards to details of the dialogs to that of the other Gospels.

nPeace said:

So who do you think are the scholars that disagree, and have different opinions... PaulTheApostle97 on youtube, or some random person that have an opinion?

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I would assume a mixture of scholars and random people.

nPeace said:

That's what I see this man doing. He felt there was a chance, though slim that his daughter might not die.

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But what you said was that this man knew that his daughter would die, but went anyway. And was to show that these two stories were exactly the same. Which I still disagree with.

nPeace said:

Of course, just as you decide for yourself what is morally right and wrong, yet don't believe there is right and wrong...

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I didn't say that there is nothing such as right and wrong, merely that we decide what it is. So in that sense, I do not believe that there is any such thing as objectively right and wrong.

nPeace said:

If someone exercises their free will to rob a bank, and while the robbery is in progress...
shoots themselves in the groin;
gets clobbered on the head, and knocked out;
gets surrounded by SWAT, and shot in the butt....
it's still free will, the person had.

What do you imagine free will is?

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If we go with the definition:
the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

In your example, the only free will that this person does, is to decide to rob a bank, so he does. That others interfere with it, is not violating his free will. As the free will was to rob the bank, not to also get away with it.

But that is not the same when we talk about prophecies. So lets look at the definition of a prophecy:

a prediction of what will happen in the future.

So if someone decide to kill Jesus as a child, but we assume that it is prophesied that he will end up being crucified, then such person will not be able to kill him. Because then the prophecy will not come true. Therefore God or something will have to intervene with this persons intention. So imagine Jesus as a child and this person standing next to him with a club ready to club him to death. This person would need to be interrupted somehow, either by a heart attack or something much earlier in his life that would make sure that this person would not end up wanting to club Jesus, which would interfere with his free will.

nPeace said:

The whole point is about determining if the historical document(s) is trustworthy, and certain criterion must be used to determine if the writer had reason to be biased, or to lie, or if they demonstrate honesty, etc.

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Yes and it was about whether the apostles would say or follow Jesus if they did not believe that he were who he claimed, and therefore he could not have lied. I think it was in relation to the point of the bible perfectly explaining reality, but might remember wrong.

Anyway I brought up the example of the terrorists, as I still don't see how one would explain what they are doing, if they did not believe they were right either. If they knew it was all a lie, then how does one explain that they blow themselves up or even get involved in it in the first place?

firedragon said:

But also, having archeological evidences to some characters in the book doesnt mean "CONFIRMED : The Bible - Historically Accurate".


It's a coin of the same fallacy with two sides.

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For sure. Because the streets and places of New York are real places doesn't mean that Spider Man existed.

firedragon said:

We all believe in a lot of things brother.

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Yeah . . . like the sky is Carolina blue at noon on a clear 4th of July.

Wandering Monk said:

For sure. Because the streets and places of New York are real places doesn't mean that Spider Man existed.

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Invalid analogy bro.

shunyadragon said:

Yeah . . . like the sky is Carolina blue at noon on a clear 4th of July.

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Well, you gave an analogy to your own belief statement you made. So thats your prerogative.

firedragon said:

What do you mean "authentic"?

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To believe as @nPeace believes.

firedragon said:

Invalid analogy bro.

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How so?

firedragon said:

Well, you gave an analogy to your own belief statement you made. So thats your prerogative.

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No, not what I believe, but as the far too obvious what you stated . . .

We all believe in a lot of things brother.

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What I believe is a different topic.

shunyadragon said:

No, not what I believe, but as the far too obvious what you stated . . .



What I believe is a different topic.

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shunyadragon said:

It was common to attribute authorship to works where the specific authorship was unknown. I do believe the words of Jesus are mostly His and accurate handed down by the apostles and early disciples of Jesus, and some facts of the life of Jesus that were later compiled into the gospels.

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1. What you said about it being common to attribute authorship to unknown authorship is true. People didnt have a choice did they? They have a book which is supposed to be scripture so what could do? Attribute it to some authorship rather than keeping it nameless or author-less.
2. But the second statement about what you believe is what you believe.

shunyadragon said:

Your outrageous misrepresentation of science is based on what you brought up, not me., concerning what you call 'Bible haters,' and slandering the science of evolution and abiogenesis, and misrepresenting scientists such as Charles Darwin and Dawkins.

Still failing to respond on my posts concerning the Bible. I do not 'hate the Bible,' we disagree.

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No misrepresentation of science occurred. Because you or anyone else believes something, does not make it science, and no one is obligated to accept any idea, or theory purported to be science.

Anyways, on to more important things...
I'm only using this, as it's part of an accepted methodology scientists like yourself and others, like @Nimos would accept.
If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased.

The Bible is a collection of historical documents, written by some 40 different men, from various backgrounds and walks of life, during a time span of about 1,600 years, containing prophecies and events, claimed to be of divine origin., Yet there is one harmonious coherent message, running chronologically from the beginning - Genesis - to the end - Revelation.

This is not only strong evidence of credibility and thus reliability, but is proof of authenticity... i.e. it is as is claimed - of divine origin, or authorship.

The message... in the Bible (Greatly abbreviated with as few details as possible, in order to save time).
Remember, this is so concise, that all the books, and a huge amount of details were not covered.

The other thing, is that the scriptures show that Jesus and his apostles did not view the Pentateuch as myths. Abraham, Joseph and Moses in Egypt, the exodus, Joshua, and supernatural events were all real to them.
So how can you say you value the Bible, and yet don't believe these things?
I do not see how one who takes this position, is not considering the Bible to be full of lies, written by liars.
Can you help me understand that?

shunyadragon said:

To believe as @nPeace believes.

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Oh i was trying to clarify exactly what he means by saying they are "authentic".

Believing the way he believes is way too vague brother.

Mestemia said:

How so?

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Its alright. Peace.

firedragon said:

1. What you said about it being common to attribute authorship to unknown authorship is true. People didnt have a choice did they? They have a book which is supposed to be scripture so what could do? Attribute it to some authorship rather than keeping it nameless or author-less.
2. But the second statement about what you believe is what you believe.

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That is what I was responding to. Your going back too far in the posts. I was specifically responding to the all to very obvious this:

We all believe in a lot of things brother.

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firedragon said:

Its alright. Peace.

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Since I believe it hit the nail right square on the head, I am curious as to why you think the exact opposite.

firedragon said:

Oh i was trying to clarify exactly what he means by saying they are "authentic".

Believing the way he believes is way too vague brother.

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Actually this describes it well, because @nPeace believes anybody who believes differently is not authentic. The Bible is authentic as he believes it is. He has concluded in the past that others who believe differently are 'Bible haters.'

firedragon said:

But Gospel of John was written 7 or 8 decades after Jesus. Also, no one knows the author.

Im sure you know this.

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Says who? The little tweety bird from the first century?
Based on certain facts, John was written no later than 70 CE. Though traditionally some hold to 85 CE.
Also, again, based on evidence the writer is John.
Why do you say no one knows... other than that just being a claim - people's preferred opinion?

We can discuss this some more, but unfortunately I have to go, right now. So, later.