the origins of the bible

I'm want to study the origins, historicity and compisition of the bible.
Is the bible a historical document as well as a religious book, inerrant, infallible book of literal truths? there needs to be some historical truth to it to accept the doctrines of christianity. I understand some christians take all of the bible as historical, literal truth and some see parts of it as symbolic or not literally true, whats your opinion on this?

the genesis creation account, noah's flood, jonah's story and many other stories are mythological in nature and cannot literally be true, does this bring other parts of the bible into question? there's no explicit statement that the earth is 6 - 10 000 years old but some take the genealogies as literally the accounts of all the generations and calcualte 6,000 - 10, 000 years back to adam and eve. The earth cannot be really this old. Does it matter that the bible appears to imply this?

Also whats the historicity of the new testament, its authorship, composition and origins how it came to be etc? I'm interested to see opinions but want to approach this matter purely on objective basis and on evidence only

You have some excellent questions here, and I don't think I'll be adequetely able to answer them, so I won't attempt to, in order that I don't get things wrong. Especially since I don't have evidence on hand to back up what I say. What I will do is offer you a perspective. Also, to recommend a couple books, you could check out "The case for Jesus," or "The case for a creator," by Lee Strobel, or "Evidence for Christianity," by McDowell.

Anyways, I do believe the creation story is true, I believe that Jonah was swallowed by a big fish and was in its belly for 3 days, Noah's flood actually happened, etc. I do think there is also some poetic symbolism in the Bible, but the events that are described I believe happened as described, accurately. A resource that could get you started on these things is www.answersingenesis.com You may not agree with the things posted on the site, but realize that their explanations are valid and are just as possible as things like evolution, old age dating, etc. Not all Christians even believe in a young earth and all that razz like I do, but it is certainly a possibility and I believe it to be true.

One thing you also may not realize is that if the God of the Bible is real, and He did create everything, He can manipulate the laws of nature, etc, as needed. This is shown when Jesus turns water into wine, obviously He is able to do whatever is necessary, even if they go against the physical laws of nature. So something like Jonah being in the big fish for 3 days, I think any scientist trying to explain a way for that to actually be possible is just rediculous, I would never buy that. But I do believe my God is big enough to create a fish that IS capable of holding Jonah safely for 3 days. Some things like that, you either have faith or you don't. Science cannot prove or disprove a miracle or act of God.

Hope this is helpful, and hope someone can give you more in depth answers on actual evidence.

__________________
Revived: "There's just no counter-punch to love!"



To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Why can't it be literally true? It amazes me when people say such things. Of course it can be true. "Reality", "the world" is so convincing... that the idea of it being created and as we have dreams or create stories is absolutely ruled out. The abnormal, the mundane, the probabilities and laws, the rarity of the good and beautiful... and the normality of the base... all help to make a very convincing picture. But it is simply backdrop to your consciousness.

The world is full of evil, and it only makes sense - deep down inside - if God is God, if there is a God, then why is there evil? And that is the real turning point for most people. They come to confrontation of evil... and they don't believe. They see false hope, false belief... they can't comprehend beyond that evil. So from then on out they rationalize all of the coincidences and unusual happenings in their life away. Maybe they even stop happening.

It is odd. Perhaps many do not recall their dreams, how we fall asleep at night and find ourselves in entirely convincing situations with people and events... we are not aware we are dreaming at the time. And that is just our own little minds chugging along, perhaps. We get caught up in knowledge, only to discover later we didn't really know what we thought we knew earlier... our perceptions of people change: but people often get stuck and stop keeping an open mind.

Maybe it is the irrational or dealing with the unusual which is so scary, or disturbing, or simply a lack of trust.

Maybe they are simply swamped with the probable so often... the improbable and unexplainable simply ceases to exist.

But, yeah, regardless, no reason to rule anything out.

Some of the Bible is wrapped in metaphor, a lot of it is. Does not mean the metaphor itself did not really happen. All of creation is created in metaphors pointing to Jesus Christ.

I believe that the Bible documents the history of man and our relationship with God. Our fall, God's faithfulness, and our salvation through Jesus Christ.

If the context supports their interpretation, then yes, but if it clearly does not, then no. For example, when the Bible records Jesus as "the good shepherd" we know not to take this literally because a: Jesus was not a shepherd, and b: He was using it to draw parallels between a good shepherd and Himself, the character, and love He has for His people such that even if one strayed, He would leave the 99 and go out and bring them back. Common sense should tell people what the author intends to convey and how to interpret his writings. In fact, that is what the literal interpretation to Bible study is: unless the expression or the context implies other wise, we should take the Bible to mean exactly what it says - "If the literal sense makes sense then seek no other sense lest it result in nonsense." This means that poetry, symbolism, prophecy, and other literary technqiues are recognised and interpreted accordingly. To ignore them is called "idiocy."

I say "should," there are some people who - intentionally or otherwise - twist Scripture to fit what they believe. A prime example is Genesis where people claim that the first few chapters are a mythical story, yet there is no difference at all in the writing style from here through to the end of Genesis. Also, there is no difference between the style of the geneaolgies listed early and later in the same book written by the same author. If the latter are real people, then why are the former not? Perhaps the strongest evidence is the detailed description of the Genesis week: the author tells us that God did various things in the "nth" day, ignoring for now that the word "yom" can't mean a periods of millions of years, but goes further than this by saying "there was evening, and there was morning" that makes it undeniable that it was an ordinary day like what we see. This is further evident in Exodus 20:11 where God gives the justification for man's working week - six days God worked and the seventh He rested. It is clear from the New Testament that Jesus took Genesis seriously. Lastly, it would be pretty stupid and misleading (i.e. lying which equals sin) for God to state that this is how He made the universe if He never really did, and even more so for the book to be named "Genesis" which means "origin." If not even I am that stupid it is foolish to suggest that God is.

Those who say that the account of Genesis is mythical or a symbolic story - whether intentionally or out of ignorance - misinterpret the Bible. Further more, they don't understand that without a literal fall into sin terminated by death there is no need for a Saviour, hence the whole Gospel message has no foundation and is worthless. It's simple logic that atheists readily recognise, but such Christians are apparently unable or unwilling to understand. This is probably because of the cognitive dissonance that it would create. There are several ways to solve it: choose one of the alternatives, compromise, or simply ignore it. The latter two are what many Christians seem to do.

Says who? The evidence? It can't speak, can it? The evidence is just rocks, fossils, or whatever. Logically, for us to draw any inferences or conclusions from it we have to interpret it. Now this interpretation isn't objective. Unfortunately, the science that relates to the past isn't like the science that we do in the present that relates to the present where the inferences from the results of the experiments are closely related to those experiments with little room for speculation.

When trying to work out what happened in the past, science is limited because we cannot do experiments directly on past events, and history cannot be repeated. Observations that we make in the present are typically used to make inferences about the past, and the experiments that can be done in the present that relate to the past are limited, which inevitably and logically requires a deal of guesswork. The further in the past we go, the longer the chain of assumptions and inferences, and as such the more room there is for non-scientific factors to influence the conclusions (for example, the scientists religious belief or lack thereof).

The sad thing is that most people can't or don't understand the difference and seem to be under the opinion that the respect earned by success of operations science and the conjectural claims from origins science carry the same authority. Logically, they cannot and do not.

Even Stephen Jay Gould recognised this reality of science that deals with the unobservable past: "Facts do not 'speak for themselves;' they are read in light of theory. Creative thought, in science as much as in the arts, is the motor of changing opinion. Science is a quintessentially human activity, not a mechanised, robot-like accumulation of objective information, leading by laws of logic to inescapable interpretation."

It's ironic really, at university they teach students to think critically - to never accept anything as fact ... to question the validity of everything, to see and examine the underlying assumptions that the author of a study or theory has made, yet at the same time they seem unable to see the assumptions that form the basis of their interpretations of the evidence. You see a fossilised tooth and they are making up a whole story about this supposed ancestor. That one ended up being a pigs tooth. It never ceases to amaze me how you can make up such an elaborate story from a jaw, or a few fragments of fossilised bone. Sadly, many people and even educated students and lecturers seem unwilling to question the interpretations of the evidence given by scientists.

You'll find that as you begin to examine the issue that it isn't as black and white as that, for example, one of the main foundations of modern geology is the uniformitarian principle - that is, that all processes have been going one for eons of years as they are today. It is important, and hopefully obvious, to realise that this is merely an assumption that they have made. We look, for example, at the devastation and geological landforms and features caused by the erruption and flows of Mount St. Helens happened in a matter of hours or a few days ... landforms (like the Little Grand Canyon which is about 30m deep and wide and has many features that are reminisent of the Grand Canyon) that scientists would presume took hundreds or thousands of years to form.

Similarly, scientists also make assumptions when using radiometric dating methods (such as a closed system, the ratio of parent/daughter elements, the rate of decay, etc..). Even when tested on rocks of known ages they give [often contradictory] dates that are, in some cases, 99.99% off; one classic example of such inaccuracy has been where a rock has been radiometrically dated to be millions of years old. The only catch is that the wood, which is encased by the rock, still has radiocarbon in it! Carbon dating is limited some thousands of years - not millions. Even just with these few examples (there are many more) you have to question that if we can't trust dating methods on rocks of known ages and the fact that many methods contradict each other, on what logical basis should we trust them on rocks of unknown ages?

I guess the point of this has been to try and show you that just because scientists say so doesn't make it true. There are often assumptions involved and it is our job to identify them and then critically evalute the validity of them. For me personally, I find the assumption of uniformitarianism to be a faulty assumption, as observations in the present (such as the rapid formation of geological features caused by Mt. St. Helens erruption) clearly contradict this idea that the rate of the processes (such as erosion) that we observe in the present have always happened in the past.

That would be the logical question to ask. The conclusion is self-evident (as partly described above). In addition to that, if God never told the truth from the start then when did He start? How do we know that the Bible is telling the truth about Jesus' life and death? About judgement? Without the authority of the Bible being true from the very first verse you simply cannot be sure. Most Christians can't or are unwilling to follow their beliefs through to the ultimate conclusion.

The evidence for the New Testament's record is very strong. I suggest that you read Lee Strobel's book The Case For Christ on that issue as he interview the most respective academics on the various issues raised by the New Testament, such as it's reliability, the truth about Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. At the time of writing the Bible he was much of a sceptic, but his research led him to an interesting, and perhaps unexpected, conclusion for him. The book itself is quite cheap at any Christian bookshop.

As for the authorship of the Gospels, there is no dispute that Matthew, John Mark - a companion of Peter, and Luke are the authors of their respective books. There are no known competitors for authorship of those Gospels. There is a question whether John the apostle or John the Elder wrote the Gospel according to John (as referred to by Papias in 125 A.D.), but the evidence from the account itself strongly suggests that John is based on an eye-witness testimony with John the Elder perhaps finialising the concluding verses and possibly creating a consistent style of the testimony.

Many historians, both liberal and conservative, recognise that Luke in particularly very accurate and one of the best historians. He writes like an educated man, and time and time again archaeological discoveries are showing that he is right in what he writes (for example, an inscription from the time of Tiberius (from 14-37 AD named Lysanias as tetrarch in Abila near Damascus, just as Luke had written in 3:1 - it turns out that there were two government officials named Lysanias, one of them was a ruler of Chalcis about 50 years earlier). The discovery of the pool of Bethesda reinforced the accuracy of exactly what John and Mark had said. With each new discovery, archaeologists are beginning to admit that the Bible is a source of accurate historical record. World class scholar Bruce Metzger states that there is an unprecedented number of New Testament manuscripts that can be dated extremely close to the original writings, and that the New Testament is 99.5% free of textual discrepancies, with no major Christian doctrine in doubt.

Anyway, it's getting late here, but there is another thread on the topic of the composition and authorship of the New Testament on the Exploring Christianity forum, so to avoid the hastle of replication, you can see some of the responses there. Suffice to say that Paul began writing his letters extremely early, even before the Gospels had been written, that collaborated the life, death, resurrection, and character of Jesus, so early that it is not reasonable to claim that they were distorted by legend development. We can be confident that the books we have in the New Testament are reliable in their authorship, authority, and truth.

Can a made up story illustrate a literal truth?

Years ago folks said you cannot sail around the world because you will fall off the edge.

The bible says stuff about the future, so that would mean that parts of it are not history.

The Bible does not say it is inerrant, only that it is trustworthy, reliable and profitable for us.

Lots of folks question the Bible, so does questioning the Bible diminish its truth?

In order to come at the Bible objectively, one must be capable of critical thinking. Saying something could not have happened because it is beyond the person's experience demonstrates a lack of critical thinking.

And who is to judge the sufficiency of the evidence? The person who rejects it?

rainycity,

If you really want to "study the origins, historicity and compisition of the bible," I highly recommend you pick up the book "The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict," by Josh McDowell. It is as detailed a response to questions of Bible origins, historicity, and composition as you could ever hope to find. For your convenience, here's a link:

The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Josh McDowell: 9780785242192: Christianbook.com

Only $15, the cheapest place I've found it.

__________________
"For the word of God is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Hebrews 4:12

try here:

Origin Of The Bible

__________________

Jesus said:
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you are spirit and are life.

this has never happened. A scientist has never made up a 'whole story' based on a fossilised tooth.

This site is written by professional archaeologists:
FAQs - Associates for Biblical Research


Here is a simple layout of when books were written.
History Of The Bible

This site talks more about New Testament verification--
Books of the Bible - History of the Bible - Who wrote the Bible

what's your point?

no, the evidence is not just rocks and fossils and theories are based on evidence not the other way around.

its held up to scientific scrutiniy....

how do you judge the sufficiency of what you take as evidence for a 6,000 year old earth and a world wide flood?

so what?