Evolution vs. The Bible

[gluadys]

The Septuagint was accepted. It is the version of scriptures cited in the NT itself. You have no evidence that is was accepted piecemeal. You have no evidence that Paul was not including the Apocrypha when he spoke of "all scripture" being inspired by God. You are trying to rewrite history to fit Protestant theology.

Hi, Achilles

Here is a report of a new study on the place of the Septuagint among early Christians and Hellenized Jews that might interest you.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/petere...s-i-bet-many-of-you-didnt-know-youre-welcome/

 

[Achilles6129]

Why would it have to be at the same time as long as it is on the Day of the Lord?

Because obviously Christ returns once....not at two or three different times.

If you think it is really important that these activities occur at the same moment within the day, we could speculate that Jesus is describing an hour around dawn, when some people are up working while others are still sleeping. Or for that matter, there is really nothing unusual about people sleeping anytime during the day.

It would help to take a look at the statements again:

" 31 On that day, anyone on the housetop who has belongings in the house must not come down to take them away; and likewise anyone in the field must not turn back. 32 Remember Lot’s wife. 33 Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it. 34 I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left." Lu. 17:31-34 (NRSV)

Clearly Christ is not talking of an hour "around dawn" as he specifically uses the words "day" and "night" which could only be possible if the earth were spherically shaped, as I have said before. The activities described clearly show that Christ is talking about a literal day/night. I'm sorry, but there's no way around this.

The Septuagint was accepted. It is the version of scriptures cited in the NT itself. You have no evidence that is was accepted piecemeal. You have no evidence that Paul was not including the Apocrypha when he spoke of "all scripture" being inspired by God. You are trying to rewrite history to fit Protestant theology.

Of course the Septuagint was accepted, it's just that the Apocrypha wasn't accepted and you have no evidence that it was. Why would the Apostles (who were all Jews) accept the Old Testament Apocrypha which the Jews hadn't accepted? The answer is obvious: they wouldn't.

Hebrews was often attributed to Paul, and that may be the basis on which it is included.

It was suspected to not be from Paul from early times: Origen said Paul couldn't have written it and "only God knows" who did. Tertullian says Barnabas wrote it.

Origen on the Canon of Scripture

Origen on the Authorship of Hebrews

(Origen's Quote)

That the character of the diction of the epistle entitled To the Hebrews has not the apostle’s rudeness in speech, who confessed himself rude in speech, that is, in style, but that the epistle is better Greek in the framing of its diction, will be admitted by everyone who is able to discern differences of style. But again, on the other hand, that the thoughts of the epistle are admirable, and not inferior to the acknowledged writings of the apostle, to this also everyone will consent as true who has given attention to reading the apostle…. But as for myself, if I were to state my own opinion, I should say that the thoughts are the apostle’s, but that the style and composition belonged to one who called to mind the apostle’s teachings and, as it were, made short notes of what his master said. If any church, therefore, holds this epistle as Paul’s, let it be commended for this also. For not without reason have the men of old handed it down as Paul’s. But who wrote the epistle, in truth God knows. Yet the account which has reached us [is twofold], some saying that Clement, who was bishop of the Romans, wrote the epistle, others, that it was Luke, he who wrote the Gospel and the Acts.

The Development of the Canon of the New Testament - Tertullian

Neither Mark nor Luke were officially apostles either, but were believed to be spokespersons for Peter and Paul respectively.

Right, so Peter/Paul basically dictated those gospels while Mark/Luke wrote them down. In addition, it may have been the case that Mark was actually a follower of Christ (the young man in Gethsamene). We're not really sure, but he was clearly a very, very early member of Christianity.

But how was it determined which writings had apostolic authority and which did not? That was a judgment call by the bishops and councils who formulated the canon.

Well, actually it's rather easy to determine. You see, every book in the New Testament except for Hebrews, James, and Jude, was written by an Apostle or uses an Apostle as a source. Of course, one could argue that James actually does have Apostolic authority, seeing as how he was leader of the Jerusalem church and clearly sanctioned by the Apostles. One could argue the same for Jude, seeing as how he was the half-brother of Christ. And obviously the author of Hebrews was also sanctioned by the Apostles.

So there we have it: every book in the New Testament has Apostolic authority because the vast majority of their writers:

a) were Apostles
or
b) were sanctioned by Apostles

We can break it down further:

• Books that were written directly by Apostles
  • Matthew, John, Romans-Philemon, 1+2 Peter, 1+2+3 John, Revelation; (that's 21 books in all)
• Books that use an Apostle as a source
  • Mark (probably a follower of Christ though not one of the 12), Luke, Acts; (3 books in all)
• Books that are sanctioned by the Apostles
  • James (half-brother of Christ, leader of the Jerusalem church which the Apostles were members of), Jude (half-brother of Christ), Hebrews (companion of Timothy and thus sanctioned by the Apostle Paul); (that's 3 books for a total of 27)

I believe that is game, set, match.

Irrelevant.

The fact that the gospel of Thomas is a forgery is irrelevant?!

It is still very similar in tone to the synoptic gospels, especially Matthew.

I see no resemblance at all, personally. It's a hodge-podge of collected sayings, hardly the equivalent of a gospel (which has both sayings and narrative).

btw all the gospels were written by anonymous authors. No one knows or has any evidence that they were actually written by the people to whom they were later ascribed. It is quite possible that none of them were written by apostles.

All the earliest copies say they were written by Matt, Mark, Luke, and John...all the early church fathers say the same...how exactly is that anonymous?

The name Mark on the canonical gospel is no more evidence that he wrote it than the name Thomas is on the non-canonical gospel that bears his name.

Actually, it is evidence that he wrote it as it has been confirmed by every single shred of evidence from the early church fathers that we have. The gospel of Thomas wasn't even written until between 100-200 AD when all of the Apostles were already dead:

Does the Gospel of Thomas belong in the New Testament?|Is the Gospel of Thomas Scripture? | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

Both works are actually anonymous and the names were attached later. That was not forgery as such. It was a common practice at the time.

Like I said, all the earliest copies of the gospels have the names attached. So you clearly have no reason to say that they were or ever were anonymous...

Writing a work under another name in order to pass it off as that person's work has always been considered forgery: I suggest you prove otherwise.

I have always liked that verse. I like how Jesus defends Mary, making her equal with the male disciples. Too bad that saying didn't get into one of the official gospels. Might have dampened a lot of misogyny down the ages.

Then you might also like the fact that many consider it a forgery because they think it is so absurd.

 

[Achilles6129]

Hi, Achilles

Here is a report of a new study on the place of the Septuagint among early Christians and Hellenized Jews that might interest you.

Here’s Something about the Bible of the First Christians I Bet Many of You Didn’t Know (you’re welcome)

Yes, I like the fact that the author states:

Here’s Something about the Bible of the First Christians I Bet Many of You Didn’t Know (you’re welcome)

In truth, the origins of the Greek translation are much more complex. Some books were translated in the 3rd century BCE in Alexandria, Egypt, but others were translated much later, perhaps as late as the 2nd century CE, in Palestine.

Actually, the entire Septuagint was translated between 250 - 150 BC, not between 300 BC - 200 AD as the author claims.

Septuagint

The Septuagint has its origin in Alexandria, Egypt and was translated between 300-200 BC.

Back to your article:

Some, like Samuel or Jeremiah, were translated from Hebrew texts that differ significantly from the Hebrew text that came to form the standard version of the Jewish Bible, which is the basis for our English Old Testament.

Interesting that the "Hebrew texts" that the Septuagint "relied upon" no longer exist. Perhaps they were considered to be "unreliable" Hebrew texts and thus were taken out of commission?

The simplest answer is that in the first centuries of Christianity the Old Testament was the Septuagint. The Hebrew Bible that is now studied in most educational contexts, like seminaries and universities, emerged later.

No, it did not emerge later. The Masoretic Text is based upon the original Hebrew version and the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm it:

Apologetics Press - The Dead Sea Scrolls and Biblical Integrity

Qumran, however, has provided remains of an early Masoretic edition predating the Christian era on which the traditional [SIZE=-1]MT[/SIZE] is based. A comparison of the [SIZE=-1]MT[/SIZE] to this earlier text revealed the remarkable accuracy with which scribes copied the sacred texts.

Again, the Septuagint may have been the Bible of the early church, but that in no way makes the Apocrypha inspired nor does it make the Septuagint a better translation than the Hebrew text. The Septuagint was used out of the necessity of taking the gospel to a Greek-speaking world, not because it was a better translation than the Hebrew version.

I challenge you to find for me one passage in the NT where the writer quotes directly from the Septuagint and it directly contradicts the Masoretic Text. This should be interesting.

 

[mark kennedy]

Right, so Peter/Paul basically dictated those gospels while Mark/Luke wrote them down. In addition, it may have been the case that Mark was actually a follower of Christ (the young man in Gethsamene). We're not really sure, but he was clearly a very, very early member of Christianity.

No indication Peter dictated Mark's Gospel or that Paul dictated Luke and Acts. I tend to favor Barnabas since he was a Levite and of course he would be very Pauline in this orientation as well. The general boilerplate thinking is that Mark was a disciple of Peter and wrote the Gospel of Mark. It was never required that you had to be an Apostle, just a close associate.

 

[Achilles6129]

Hello mark,

There are early traditions that Peter had a great deal to do with the gospel of Mark and Paul with Luke. This would make sense as both Luke/Mark were both closely associated with Paul/Peter, etc. I think it's pretty obvious that if Peter/Paul had known that their close associates were writing something as monumental as a gospel, they would have wanted to be involved.

 

[gluadys]

Because obviously Christ returns once....not at two or three different times.



It would help to take a look at the statements again:

" 31 On that day, anyone on the housetop who has belongings in the house must not come down to take them away; and likewise anyone in the field must not turn back. 32 Remember Lot’s wife. 33 Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it. 34 I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left." Lu. 17:31-34 (NRSV)

Clearly Christ is not talking of an hour "around dawn" as he specifically uses the words "day" and "night" which could only be possible if the earth were spherically shaped, as I have said before. The activities described clearly show that Christ is talking about a literal day/night. I'm sorry, but there's no way around this.

What I see is that Jesus is referring to a day and he refers to activities that take place on that day, including one that takes place "on that night". Not once does he say "at that moment" or even "in that hour". Just that these things will happen "on that day". So why do they need to happen all at the same time?

Of course the Septuagint was accepted, it's just that the Apocrypha wasn't accepted and you have no evidence that it was.

The evidence that the Septuagint was accepted is the evidence that the Apocrypha were accepted. Since the Apocrypha had not been distinguished from the rest of the scriptures yet, they were an integral part of the Septuagint. There is no possibility of accepting the Septuagint while not accepting the Apocrypha.

Why would the Apostles (who were all Jews) accept the Old Testament Apocrypha which the Jews hadn't accepted?

The Apostles left us no information about which books of the Septuagint they did or did not accept. The writers of the NT books clearly used the Septuagint. Obviously not every verse or every book of the LXX is cited, but we cannot assume from silence that any part of it was rejected.

The answer is obvious: they wouldn't.

Why would the Apostles accept the judgment of rabbis who were expelling Christians from the synagogues?

It was suspected to not be from Paul from early times: Origen said Paul couldn't have written it and "only God knows" who did. Tertullian says Barnabas wrote it.

By some, yes, and others held it was Pauline. Modern scholars tend to agree with Origen

Right, so Peter/Paul basically dictated those gospels while Mark/Luke wrote them down.

Unless they were appearing as ghosts they could not have dictated these texts. Paul had been dead some 15 years when the gospel of Luke was written. Mark's gospel was written earlier, but probably not before Peter's death.

In addition, it may have been the case that Mark was actually a follower of Christ (the young man in Gethsamene). We're not really sure, but he was clearly a very, very early member of Christianity.

True, but he is not named as an apostle.

Well, actually it's rather easy to determine. You see, every book in the New Testament except for Hebrews, James, and Jude, was written by an Apostle or uses an Apostle as a source. Of course, one could argue that James actually does have Apostolic authority, seeing as how he was leader of the Jerusalem church and clearly sanctioned by the Apostles. One could argue the same for Jude, seeing as how he was the half-brother of Christ. And obviously the author of Hebrews was also sanctioned by the Apostles.

The problem is that many books, (including all the gospels) in the NT are actually anonymous and they are attributed to Apostolic sources. So it was tradition that assigned apostolic authority to them. With the exception of letters in which Paul or other authors name themselves, we don't actually know who wrote what. And even where there is a name, it is not necessarily the case that the person named is the author.

Modern works often have a dedication in them. In the times we are speaking of, it was a fairly common procedure for an author to "honour" a mentor or teacher by naming him as the author rather than oneself.

The fact that the gospel of Thomas is a forgery is irrelevant?!

To my point yes. That being that it is not possible to tell which works are inspired simply by reading them. One could not tell that the gospel of Thomas is not inspired simply by reading it. One would have to show first that it is a forgery.

I see no resemblance at all, personally. It's a hodge-podge of collected sayings, hardly the equivalent of a gospel (which has both sayings and narrative).

Well, according to the same tradition that assigns the first gospel to Matthew, the first version of Matthew was written in Aramaic, and consisted only of sayings with no narrative.

All the earliest copies say they were written by Matt, Mark, Luke, and John...all the early church fathers say the same...how exactly is that anonymous?

Sorry, but no copy of any gospel text names the author of the text. It may be that in some cases titles were added to the text, but not by the author.

Yes, the church fathers fairly early attributed the canonical gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but there is no indication they knew them to be the authors. It is simply a long-standing tradition. That doesn't mean the tradition is mistaken. Just that it is unsupported by evidence.

Actually, it is evidence that he wrote it as it has been confirmed by every single shred of evidence from the early church fathers that we have. The gospel of Thomas wasn't even written until between 100-200 AD when all of the Apostles were already dead:

If he had put his own name on it himself, it would be evidence, but the names of the gospel-writers were not attached to the gospels until the second century. So it is not.

Like I said, all the earliest copies of the gospels have the names attached. So you clearly have no reason to say that they were or ever were anonymous...

And that is the problem--that they are attached and not an integral part of the text the way Paul's name is in the opening of his letters. We do not know who attached these names or why.

Writing a work under another name in order to pass it off as that person's work has always been considered forgery: I suggest you prove otherwise.

If the intention was to deceive, yes it would be considered a forgery even then. But there were other reasons for publishing something under another's name that were considered legitimate.

Then you might also like the fact that many consider it a forgery because they think it is so absurd.

Silly reason to think it is a forgery. A good forger would try to avoid absurdity.
I wonder why anyone would consider it absurd in the first place though.

Actually, the entire Septuagint was translated between 250 - 150 BC, not between 300 BC - 200 AD as the author claims.

[snip]



Again, the Septuagint may have been the Bible of the early church, but that in no way makes the Apocrypha inspired nor does it make the Septuagint a better translation than the Hebrew text. The Septuagint was used out of the necessity of taking the gospel to a Greek-speaking world, not because it was a better translation than the Hebrew version.

Given the dating of the Septuagint, it was not used out of the necessity of taking the gospel to a Greek-speaking world. It was used out of the necessity of making the Hebrew scriptures accessible to Greek-assimilated Jews. It was used by Greek-speaking Jews as their scripture. When some converted to Chrisitianity, they continued to use it as their scripture and so it also became the scripture of the church.

And the church considered its scripture to be inspired. Most of the church still does. As for me, I am not going to judge who is right or wrong on this issue.

I challenge you to find for me one passage in the NT where the writer quotes directly from the Septuagint and it directly contradicts the Masoretic Text. This should be interesting.

Apparently you didn't read the whole article. The author provides an example from Hebrews 8:8-9. The author is citing a passage from Jeremiah 31:31-32. For 1 1/2 verses the phrasing is almost identical. But where the MT of the Hebrew of Jeremiah concludes "..a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband", the passage in Hebrews concludes "for they did not continue in my covenant so I had no concern for them". This is the wording of the Septuagint.

I don't know if you would consider that "a direct contradiction" but it is certainly quite different.

 

[Achilles6129]

What I see is that Jesus is referring to a day and he refers to activities that take place on that day, including one that takes place "on that night". Not once does he say "at that moment" or even "in that hour". Just that these things will happen "on that day". So why do they need to happen all at the same time?

So you believe that Christ returns at different points of time during a 24-hr period....? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

The evidence that the Septuagint was accepted is the evidence that the Apocrypha were accepted. Since the Apocrypha had not been distinguished from the rest of the scriptures yet, they were an integral part of the Septuagint. There is no possibility of accepting the Septuagint while not accepting the Apocrypha.

No, it is not. We've been through this before. Just because something gets translated doesn't mean it's accepted as Scripture! The Apostles would have accepted all of the OT books that Judaism accepted because the Apostles were originally a part of Judaism. There's simply no reason for them to go off accepting the Apocrypha when the Apocrypha were never accepted by the Jews!

And, incidentally, Philo used the LXX and never quoted from the Apocrypha, which probably means he rejected it:

Reasons why the Apocrypha does not belong in the Bible|Why the Apocrypha should not be part of the Canon | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

5. Many ancient Jews rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture. Philo never quoted the Apocrypha as Scripture. Josephus explicity rejected the Apocrypha and listed the Hebrew canon to be 22 books.

And also (more importantly):

Jesus implicitly rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture by referring to the entire accepted Jewish canon of Scripture, "From the blood of Abel [Gen. 4:8] to the blood of Zechariah [2 Chron. 24:20], who was killed between the altar and the house of God;

Why would the Apostles accept the judgment of rabbis who were expelling Christians from the synagogues?

Because the Apostles were Jews and thus accepted the entire Jewish canon of Scripture as authoritative.

Unless they were appearing as ghosts they could not have dictated these texts. Paul had been dead some 15 years when the gospel of Luke was written. Mark's gospel was written earlier, but probably not before Peter's death.

You are adhering to liberal dating standards.

Canon of the Old and New Testaments Ascertained, or The Bible Complete without the Apocrypha and Unwritten Traditions. - Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Also, Paul was not dead some 15 years when Luke was written. Acts ends at approx. 62 AD and Luke was written before Acts (obviously). So clearly Paul was alive when Luke was written, since he died around 64-67 AD.

True, but he is not named as an apostle.

His source is an Apostle. And he was almost certainly an original follower of Christ.

The problem is that many books, (including all the gospels) in the NT are actually anonymous and they are attributed to Apostolic sources.

You're using a very, very liberal point of view here. But much modern scholarship is now liberal: as the years have progressed it has shifted steadily (albeit nearly imperceptively) left.

So it was tradition that assigned apostolic authority to them. With the exception of letters in which Paul or other authors name themselves, we don't actually know who wrote what. And even where there is a name, it is not necessarily the case that the person named is the author.

Well, let's see if we can break it down:

• Books where the author names himself:
  • Romans - Philemon, James, 1+2 Peter, Jude, Revelation (that's 18 books in all)
• Books where the author can be easily identified through internal data:
  • Luke, Acts, John, 1+2+3 John (6 books in all)
    • Luke is easily identified as the author when we compare Luke/Acts/the Pauline Epistles. John is easily identified as the author when we compare all of his writings. Not to mention the fact that we have evidence from the ECFs that Luke/John were the authors.
• Books where the author neither names himself nor can be identified easily through internal data:
  • Matthew, Mark, Hebrews
    • In the case of Matthew, we have enough internal evidence to know the author must have been a very close follower of Christ, or had access to someone who was, or else he could have simply never have known the things he wrote. In addition, we have the fact that all the earliest copies at our disposal say the gospel was written by Matthew and all the ECF evidence says it was written by Matthew. Mark is the same way. And we've already been through Hebrews: we have internal evidence that the author was closely associated with Timothy, and thus sanctioned by him (and therefore the Apostle Paul).

Modern works often have a dedication in them. In the times we are speaking of, it was a fairly common procedure for an author to "honour" a mentor or teacher by naming him as the author rather than oneself.

I'm having a hard time believe that passing off someone else as the author other than yourself was ever considered an honorable thing. Perhaps you could give a few references?

To my point yes. That being that it is not possible to tell which works are inspired simply by reading them. One could not tell that the gospel of Thomas is not inspired simply by reading it. One would have to show first that it is a forgery.

Well, if we compare the gospel of Thomas to the rest of the sayings in the NT we can easily see that it just doesn't line up. The gospel of Thomas has the mark of a bunch of disjointed sayings whereas the statements in the gospels are clear, logical, and easy to follow.

But you are ultimately right that you cannot tell by reading (at least, initially, without further analysis) whether or not a book is inspired, which is why you ultimately need Apostolic authority.

Well, according to the same tradition that assigns the first gospel to Matthew, the first version of Matthew was written in Aramaic, and consisted only of sayings with no narrative.

Perhaps he simply wrote drafts of the gospel before he composed it in Greek.

Silly reason to think it is a forgery. A good forger would try to avoid absurdity.

So I guess he wasn't a good forger

Apparently you didn't read the whole article. The author provides an example from Hebrews 8:8-9. The author is citing a passage from Jeremiah 31:31-32. For 1 1/2 verses the phrasing is almost identical. But where the MT of the Hebrew of Jeremiah concludes "..a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband", the passage in Hebrews concludes "for they did not continue in my covenant so I had no concern for them". This is the wording of the Septuagint.

I don't know if you would consider that "a direct contradiction" but it is certainly quite different.

I wouldn't consider that a direct contradiction.

I do have to say that as far as the NT quotations of the LXX are concerned it certainly does present a theological problem which has been recognized by some scholars and I believe was recognized early on in Christianity. Obviously the LXX and the MT differ, yet the NT often cites the LXX. This raises the problem that the word of God is not exact and that we need to know exactly what it says. As Christ himself says:

"17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter,[c] not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. " Mt. 5:17-18 (NRSV)

Given the fact that Christ obviously holds a very high view of the way Scripture has been preserved, some have rightfully expressed concern over the differences between the LXX and the MT. My position would be that the quotations in the NT from the LXX in no way affect the meaning or contradict the MT. I would say that the Apostles used the LXX out of necessity (since it was written in Greek and the world spoke/wrote in Greek) and also used it responsibly, making sure that their quotations did not contradict nor remove the sense of the MT.

The authenticity of the MT I believe can be shown by the fact that it has very ancient, archaic grammar in certain passages which could only have originated in very ancient times. This shows that the MT is a copy of very, very ancient manuscripts.

 

[mark kennedy]

Hello mark,

There are early traditions that Peter had a great deal to do with the gospel of Mark and Paul with Luke. This would make sense as both Luke/Mark were both closely associated with Paul/Peter, etc. I think it's pretty obvious that if Peter/Paul had known that their close associates were writing something as monumental as a gospel, they would have wanted to be involved.

Of course they would and I'm sure did. It's just that sometimes the actual author didn't pen the text, John is thought to have had a scribe for the Gospel and his epistles. That's the usual explanation for why the Revelation is a little rough around the edges in the Greek. I think Luke and John Mark both produced independent books but just as with doctrine, it had to match that of the Apostles.

 

[gluadys]

So you believe that Christ returns at different points of time during a 24-hr period....? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

That wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to me either. But Jesus did not say that the various activities he named were occurring at the minute or even within the hour of his return. He said they occurred on "that day" or "that night". So they could occur up to 24 hours after his arrival and still be on that day/night.

No, it is not. We've been through this before. Just because something gets translated doesn't mean it's accepted as Scripture!

Granted. What shows that they are accepted as scripture is that they are used as scripture. Since the LXX was used as scripture and often bounded together in a codex (not just as independent scrolls) used as a whole as scripture, that shows it was accepted as scripture, as a whole, whether or not particular works were cited.

The Apostles would have accepted all of the OT books that Judaism accepted because the Apostles were originally a part of Judaism.

Of course, but all those are included in the LXX anyway. So long as the record shows that they accepted and used the LXX, and that the church continued to accept and use the LXX in its entirety, the logical historical conclusion is that the Apostles accepted the LXX as scripture. You don't find any Apostolic or Patristic admonition to reject any part of the LXX.

And, incidentally, Philo used the LXX and never quoted from the Apocrypha, which probably means he rejected it:

Means nothing of the sort. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It means only that we do not know his attitude toward the uncited works of the LXX. You could read through hundreds of modern theological works and find no citation of the letter of Philemon. Would you then assume that the scholars in question rejected it? Or simply that they had no reason to cite it.

Reasons why the Apocrypha does not belong in the Bible|Why the Apocrypha should not be part of the Canon | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

As I said, I have no stake in deciding who is right or wrong about the inspiration of the OT apocrypha. All I am saying is that the early Church and the modern Catholic and Orthodox churches did and do consider them inspired. Only the Protestant churches have expelled them from the canon. (And they did so, following the example of rabbinic Judaism).

And also (more importantly):

You are assuming that the modern arrangement of books in Hebrew bibles (in which Chronicles is usually placed at the end of the Ketuvim) is the only possible arrangement. Yet Protestant bibles generally follow one of the common arrangements of the Septuagint--which places Chronicles in the middle and then other writings and then the prophets (+ Lamentations and Daniel).

And you are making a huge hermeneutical assumption as well. Basically you are trying to mind-read Jesus.

Because the Apostles were Jews and thus accepted the entire Jewish canon of Scripture as authoritative.

Yep, and apparently the Apocrypha as well.

You are adhering to liberal dating standards.

Since these tend to be based on evidence rather than theology, I will take that as a compliment.

Also, Paul was not dead some 15 years when Luke was written. Acts ends at approx. 62 AD and Luke was written before Acts (obviously). So clearly Paul was alive when Luke was written, since he died around 64-67 AD.

Ah, so if an author published a book on the Vietnam war in 2012, it means the Vietnam war ended in 2012, not 1985. Gotcha!

Since when is Luke not allowed to write about events in the 60s during the 80s? By your ridiculous reasoning the gospels would need to be written during Jesus ministry when it appears that the earliest of them (Mark) was not written until 30+years after the Resurrection.

His source is an Apostle. And he was almost certainly an original follower of Christ.

I agree he was almost certainly an original follower of Jesus. It was apparently in his home that Jesus ate the Last Supper and it was a gathering place of the early church. I agree that church tradition says Mark wrote the gospel bearing his name and that his source was the Apostle Peter.

We have evidence that this is the tradition of the early church. What we don't have is evidence on which the tradition itself is based. We don't even know there was any evidence to support it.

Well, let's see if we can break it down:

• Books where the author names himself:
  • Romans - Philemon, James, 1+2 Peter, Jude, Revelation (that's 18 books in all)

• 
  
  And since 2 Peter and Jude are considered 2nd century works, 2 Peter cannot be the work of the Apostle Peter, and the apostolic authenticity of Jude is in serious doubt question. Interestingly, much of Jude is a repetition of parts of 2 Peter, though who is copying whom is unknown.
  
  Some scholars also question that Paul actually wrote all the epistles listing him as author, especially the pastoral epistles.
  
  I won't argue about who is right or wrong here either. Just establishing that some issues are not settled, even today.
  
  
  

  [*]Books where the author can be easily identified through internal data:
  

  • Luke, Acts, John, 1+2+3 John (6 books in all)
    • Luke is easily identified as the author when we compare Luke/Acts/the Pauline Epistles. John is easily identified as the author when we compare all of his writings. Not to mention the fact that we have evidence from the ECFs that Luke/John were the authors.

  
  LOL. Nothing is easily established from internal data. And we don't have evidence from the ECFs. We have traditional ascriptions of authorship. We don't know how valid those ascriptions are because we have no access to the evidence (if any) on which they are based.
  
  As for John, we don't even know how many Johns we are dealing with. Did one John (the Apostle) write everything ascribed to John in the NT. Or is John the Evangelist (gospel-writer) a different person than John the Apostle? And are either of them the same person as John the Elder? If two or three Johns are responsible for the NT writings, who wrote what?
  
  
  

  [*]Books where the author neither names himself nor can be identified easily through internal data:
  

  • Matthew, Mark, Hebrews
    • In the case of Matthew, we have enough internal evidence to know the author must have been a very close follower of Christ, or had access to someone who was, or else he could have simply never have known the things he wrote.

  • • 
      
      He was certainly an early Christian believer and a Jew writing to Christian Jews. Quite likely he knew the leaders of the church in Jerusalem and could have (as the author of Luke did) collected stories of Jesus' words and deeds from eyewitnesses. None of this, of course, says he had to be the tax-collector Jesus called to follow him. He could have been any one of the 3,000 added to the church on the first Pentecost or thousands of other early Jewish followers.
      
      
      
      

      In addition, we have the fact that all the earliest copies at our disposal say the gospel was written by Matthew and all the ECF evidence says it was written by Matthew.

      
      Again you are taking a tradition ascription of authorship to be actual evidence of authorship, though we don't have evidence of the basis of the ascription.
      
      

      Mark is the same way.

      
      Right, it too is a traditional ascription of authorship.
      
      

      And we've already been through Hebrews: we have internal evidence that the author was closely associated with Timothy, and thus sanctioned by him (and therefore the Apostle Paul).

      
      tradition linked to tradition linked to tradition. It is a fragile bridge.
      
      Of course, the traditional ascriptions of authorship may be correct. I am not saying they are worthless. Besides we have to call them something. We just have no way of knowing how valid they are.
      
      
      
      
      

      I'm having a hard time believe that passing off someone else as the author other than yourself was ever considered an honorable thing. Perhaps you could give a few references?

      
      Yes, strange customs often strike us that way. There is quite a discussion of it in the following Wikipedia article. See especially the Levels of Pseudepigraphy at the end.
      
      Pseudepigrapha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
      
      
      
      
      
      

      But you are ultimately right that you cannot tell by reading (at least, initially, without further analysis) whether or not a book is inspired, which is why you ultimately need Apostolic authority.

      
      Thank you. That is all I was trying to establish.
      It is certainly clear that a major criterion (possibly the only significant criterion) for inclusion in the NT canon was Apostolic authority--either direct or closely connected. However, since authorship was often ascribed by tradition than actually known, it follows that Apostolic authority comes down to what the church authorities proclaimed to be apostolic.
      
      
      
      
      

      I wouldn't consider that a direct contradiction.

      
      Not surprised.
      
      

      I do have to say that as far as the NT quotations of the LXX are concerned it certainly does present a theological problem which has been recognized by some scholars and I believe was recognized early on in Christianity. Obviously the LXX and the MT differ, yet the NT often cites the LXX. This raises the problem that the word of God is not exact and that we need to know exactly what it says.

      
      Maybe we just assume that we need to know exactly what it says. Maybe God doesn't have the hang-ups with word-by-word exactitude that we do. Maybe God is ok with slightly different versions of canonical literature.
      
      One thing that article noted is that the LXX is a translation. Translation by nature means there are several ways to phrase anything in the original. Just look at how different editors provide differing English translations of the same original texts.
      
      The MT by contrast is not a translation. It is a standardized version of the original Hebrew text. It would not be surprising that as biblical literature was first put in written form, several different versions of the original oral teachings came to be.
      
      
      
      
      

      As Christ himself says:
      
      "17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter,[c] not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. " Mt. 5:17-18 (NRSV)
      
      Given the fact that Christ obviously holds a very high view of the way Scripture has been preserved,

      
      Actually, I think you are missing Jesus' point altogether. I don't think he is expressing anything at all about the fidelity of copying.
      
      
      
      
      
      

      The authenticity of the MT I believe can be shown by the fact that it has very ancient, archaic grammar in certain passages which could only have originated in very ancient times. This shows that the MT is a copy of very, very ancient manuscripts.

      
      The MT was never a "new" version of texts. No question it contains passages that are very old and which were carefully copied in spite of their archaicisms.
      
      The LXX is a translation of Hebrew texts (except for segments originally written in Aramaic or Greek). But if the LXX was using a different pre-MT as its source, it would have a different wording. Not everything in the MT is archaic for its time, and some could be newer than some LXX wordings. MT could have chosen the wording in Jeremiah 31 rather than that of the LXX precisely because of how it was used in the Letter to the Hebrews.

 

[Achilles6129]

That wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to me either.

Thank-you

But Jesus did not say that the various activities he named were occurring at the minute or even within the hour of his return. He said they occurred on "that day" or "that night". So they could occur up to 24 hours after his arrival and still be on that day/night.

You're missing the point of the passage!

Of course, but all those are included in the LXX anyway. So long as the record shows that they accepted and used the LXX, and that the church continued to accept and use the LXX in its entirety, the logical historical conclusion is that the Apostles accepted the LXX as scripture. You don't find any Apostolic or Patristic admonition to reject any part of the LXX.

You're jumping from assumption to assumption. Do you read the links I post? Read #7 on this link:

Reasons why the Apocrypha does not belong in the Bible|Why the Apocrypha should not be part of the Canon | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

And:

Don Stewart :: Why Were the Books of the Old Testament Apocrypha Rejected as Holy Scripture by the Protestants?

There is no evidence that the books of the Apocrypha were in the Septuagint as early as the time of Christ. The earliest manuscripts that contain them date back to the fourth century A.D. This does not demonstrate that the books of the Apocrypha were part of the Septuagint in pre-Christian times.

There is no clear answer as to what they first century Septuagint contained. The fourth or fifth century Greek manuscripts, in which the Apocrypha appears, have no consistency with the number of books or their order.

https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/111-the-apocrypha-inspired-of-god

(3) The most ancient list of Old Testament books is that which was made by Melito of Sardis (ca. A.D. 170); none of the apocryphal books is included (cf. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.26.14).

You are assuming that the modern arrangement of books in Hebrew bibles (in which Chronicles is usually placed at the end of the Ketuvim) is the only possible arrangement. Yet Protestant bibles generally follow one of the common arrangements of the Septuagint--which places Chronicles in the middle and then other writings and then the prophets (+ Lamentations and Daniel).

And you are making a huge hermeneutical assumption as well. Basically you are trying to mind-read Jesus.

You don't understand: Christ is talking about the totality of the righteous blood shed from the foundation of the world that would fall upon that generation. He mentions the first book (Genesis) and the last book (2 Chronicles) in the Hebrew canon. This would encompass the entirety of what the Jews know as the Old Testament. If the Apocrypha are a part of Scripture, why didn't Christ mention them as well?

Yep, and apparently the Apocrypha as well.

It takes a long time to research and study and a very short time to raise an objection. I suggest you do some further research and start citing some reliable sources

Since these tend to be based on evidence rather than theology,

I would say they're based on liberal assumptions

Ah, so if an author published a book on the Vietnam war in 2012, it means the Vietnam war ended in 2012, not 1985. Gotcha!

No, but Acts breaks off with Paul in prison at Rome. If Luke knew more about Paul's history he almost certainly would have written it down (and that's a more than reasonable claim to make). The only possibility is that Luke didn't know any more of Paul's history: he finished his narrative while Paul was still imprisoned at Rome. That places the writing of Acts around 62 AD.

And since 2 Peter and Jude are considered 2nd century works, 2 Peter cannot be the work of the Apostle Peter, and the apostolic authenticity of Jude is in serious doubt question.

You are again using very liberal dating standards. Why don't you believe the books of Scripture were written by who they said they were written by?

https://bible.org/seriespage/second-peter-introduction-argument-and-outline

Interestingly, much of Jude is a repetition of parts of 2 Peter, though who is copying whom is unknown.

Most scholars believe 2 Peter is copying from Jude, though I suppose such a thing would be difficult to prove:

(from the above link)

(1) If 2 Peter antedates Jude, then Jude would be the first document to cite material from this letter. Most scholars assume the opposite, but a decent case can be made for this view.

Some scholars also question that Paul actually wrote all the epistles listing him as author, especially the pastoral epistles.

I'm aware of this. Why do you believe them? Just because they're scholars?

I won't argue about who is right or wrong here either. Just establishing that some issues are not settled, even today.

Well, it's pretty important that we find out who's right or wrong, because this has huge implications for theology. If you're correct then we have someone going around and pretending to be an Apostle. My question, again, would be: why don't you believe the NT was penned by who it says it was penned by?

LOL. Nothing is easily established from internal data. And we don't have evidence from the ECFs. We have traditional ascriptions of authorship. We don't know how valid those ascriptions are because we have no access to the evidence (if any) on which they are based.

It's easy to tell the letters of John were written by the same individual:

"By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus[a] is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world." 1 Jn. 4:2 (NRSV)

"Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist!" 2 Jn. 7 (NRSV)

There are also other obvious parallels between the letters. Particularly, if you look at 2 Jn. and 3 Jn. it is easy to tell they were written by the same author:

"12 Although I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink; instead I hope to come to you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete." 2 Jn. 12 (NRSV)

"13 I have much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink; 14 instead I hope to see you soon, and we will talk together face to face." 3 Jn. 13 (NRSV)

Etc., etc.

Also, it's obvious that 1 John and the gospel of John belong together, as 1 John clearly interprets the figurative statements about "light" and "darkness" found in the gospel of John. So we can link all of the Johannine material together.

He was certainly an early Christian believer and a Jew writing to Christian Jews. Quite likely he knew the leaders of the church in Jerusalem and could have (as the author of Luke did) collected stories of Jesus' words and deeds from eyewitnesses. None of this, of course, says he had to be the tax-collector Jesus called to follow him. He could have been any one of the 3,000 added to the church on the first Pentecost or thousands of other early Jewish followers.

At this point there's really no reason to disbelieve that Matthew (whose name as always been on the gospel) wrote Matthew. At least, you haven't provided any good reason, and neither has anyone else.

tradition linked to tradition linked to tradition. It is a fragile bridge.

No, the author identifies himself as an associate of Timothy:

" 23 I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been set free; and if he comes in time, he will be with me when I see you." Heb. 13:23 (NRSV)

Yes, strange customs often strike us that way. There is quite a discussion of it in the following Wikipedia article. See especially the Levels of Pseudepigraphy at the end.

Pseudepigrapha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I actually don't accept Wikipedia as a source. It can be edited by anyone.

Maybe we just assume that we need to know exactly what it says. Maybe God doesn't have the hang-ups with word-by-word exactitude that we do. Maybe God is ok with slightly different versions of canonical literature.

Well, considering the fact that Christ said not one jot/tittle will pass from the law, and that he also said "heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away" and that the same descriptions are given about the word of God in the Old Testament, I'd say we better hope it's been accurately preserved or Christ/God are making false statements.

One thing that article noted is that the LXX is a translation. Translation by nature means there are several ways to phrase anything in the original. Just look at how different editors provide differing English translations of the same original texts.

That's absolutely true. And we don't have the manuscripts the LXX is based on.

Actually, I think you are missing Jesus' point altogether. I don't think he is expressing anything at all about the fidelity of copying.

I see. So what's he saying, exactly?

The MT was never a "new" version of texts. No question it contains passages that are very old and which were carefully copied in spite of their archaicisms.

Right, and that's proof that the MT is the authentic version.

 

[gluadys]

Thank-you



You're missing the point of the passage!

I don't think so. The point is to warn believers to be ready at any time, day or night, for Christ's return--which is why both day and night activities are named.

It is not to tell us the shape of the earth.

You're jumping from assumption to assumption. Do you read the links I post? Read #7 on this link:

I note that none of the links provided actual references to the alleged rejections. Further, the first points out that despite the alleged rejection of the Apocrypha by Jerome, he was overruled by the church-at-large. This indicates that whatever Jerome's opinion, the church at the time did accept the Apocrypha.

Now, as to whether the Apocrypha should be in the bible, I have no opinion. Maybe they shouldn't be. I don't know. All I know is that they are in non-Protestant bibles,. History tells us that Luther, followed by other Reformers, argued that the Apocrypha should be removed from the Old Testament. (They did not argue they should be removed from the bible. They did argue that no binding doctrine should be based solely on the Apocrypha--this was to eliminate support for the doctrine of purgatory for which the only scriptural support is in Maccabees.) We have no corresponding earlier movement to include the Apocrypha as scripture, and that only makes sense if they were already considered part of scripture.

You don't understand: Christ is talking about the totality of the righteous blood shed from the foundation of the world that would fall upon that generation. He mentions the first book (Genesis) and the last book (2 Chronicles) in the Hebrew canon. This would encompass the entirety of what the Jews know as the Old Testament. If the Apocrypha are a part of Scripture, why didn't Christ mention them as well?

For someone to whom the LXX is scripture, the "entirety" of the OT would include them without further mention.

No, but Acts breaks off with Paul in prison at Rome. If Luke knew more about Paul's history he almost certainly would have written it down (and that's a more than reasonable claim to make). The only possibility is that Luke didn't know any more of Paul's history: he finished his narrative while Paul was still imprisoned at Rome. That places the writing of Acts around 62 AD.

Again, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Mark's gospel was certainly not written before 60CE, yet the earliest known manuscripts end at Mark 16:8 a most unsatisfactory place to end the narrative. Two later endings have been found, and the longer is the one used in most bibles. But they are not written by Mark.

Why does his original end where it does? Was he interrupted? Did he plan to say more? We have no way of telling.

Even if we set Luke earlier than the 80's, it is clearly after Mark, after the destruction of the temple in 70CE. So he would have known of the last years of Paul's life anyway, and still chosen not to include them.

You are again using very liberal dating standards. Why don't you believe the books of Scripture were written by who they said they were written by?

It is not a matter of belief. I believe the books of scripture are inspired writings whoever wrote them. So it is a matter of investigation. I am not qualified to make those investigations myself, so I rely on those who are. I don't assume they are correct or incorrect. Just qualified to have an educated opinion.

And I refuse to confuse belief with knowledge. If there is reason to doubt that a letter was written by the ostensible author, then, whatever we may choose to believe, we do not know who the actual author is. What I know is that reputable people who have studied these texts thoroughly do doubt the authorship.

https://bible.org/seriespage/second-peter-introduction-argument-and-outline

Now this is a good example of an educated opinion. It is an opinion and though he does not cite it in this article, I expect he could cite the allusions he refers to. He himself mentions that 2 Peter may have been following the Fathers rather than them quoting the letter. So he is being fair and undogmatic. Now we non-experts can wait and observe how influential his opinion is and whether scholarly study of 2 Peter is changed by this perspective.

But remember that when or by whom 2 Peter was written is not the important point. The important point is that it came to be recognized as scripture.

I'm aware of this. Why do you believe them? Just because they're scholars?

As I said, it is not a matter of belief.

Well, it's pretty important that we find out who's right or wrong, because this has huge implications for theology. If you're correct then we have someone going around and pretending to be an Apostle. My question, again, would be: why don't you believe the NT was penned by who it says it was penned by?

No, it is not a matter of anyone pretending to be an Apostle. It is a matter of a text being ascribed to an Apostle by later generations of church leaders. And possibly they erred in their ascription.

It's easy to tell the letters of John were written by the same individual:

Yes, but is the John who wrote these letters the same person as the one who wrote the Gospel of John and are either of them (if there are two) the same as the one who wrote Revelation?

That is the scholars' question.

Also, it's obvious that 1 John and the gospel of John belong together, as 1 John clearly interprets the figurative statements about "light" and "darkness" found in the gospel of John. So we can link all of the Johannine material together.

True, but we would expect this if the letter-writer is a student of the gospel-writer as well as if they were the same person.

At this point there's really no reason to disbelieve that Matthew (whose name as always been on the gospel) wrote Matthew. At least, you haven't provided any good reason, and neither has anyone else.

I am not suggesting disbelief. I am just saying that all we have knowledge of are the traditional ascriptions of the canonical gospels to these persons as authors. We don't know that the ascriptions are correct, but neither do we know they are incorrect. So, to all intents and purposes, the gospels are composed by anonymous authors, but for convenience we call them by the traditional ascriptions: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

I actually don't accept Wikipedia as a source. It can be edited by anyone.

Yes, and editing can be contested by anyone as well. Have you ever checked the editing pages and seen some of the controversies about what should appear in public?

Even on the public pages, you will often find a note that saying "citation needed" or that some statements are not supported. There is a clear preference for material that is properly researched and supported.

Are you aware that Wikipedia compares well with Encyclopedia Britannica on the reliability of its information?

I see. So what's he saying, exactly?

He is saying that the least important statement about him in the scriptures stands until it is fulfilled. His reference to the least stroke in writing a letter of the alphabet is an analogy, not a reference to faithful copying.

Right, and that's proof that the MT is the authentic version.

Not for the reason you think. It is not necessarily the original version. Just because it copies from some archaic texts without change doesn't mean it always chose the most archaic wording. In some cases where available manuscripts had two different wordings, it may not have been clear which was older, and a choice had to be made as to which would be used.

The MT is the authentic version because it is the standardized, authorized version. Just as the KJV became the authentic English-language translation of the bible, (vis-à-vis the Geneva or Reims-Douai versions) because it was the one authorized by the King (as head of the Church of England) to be read in churches.

 

[Papias]

Achilles wrote:

The book of Revelation has puzzled Christianity since it was written. If what you're saying is true then why didn't God make the book of Revelation easier to understand?

Because it's a book about the future, not about the past, like Genesis. You know that.

Originally Posted by Papias

So what if the order is all wrong? As we discussed, the order is all wrong in the Old Testament in other places too - so toss the whole Old Testament?

The order is all wrong where else in the Old Testament? Clearly only in places where it indicates itself as such.

As I've pointed out to you a least once before, that's a circular argument. Because the vast majority of events in the Old Testament are known of only through the Old Testament, we have no way of dating them aside from the Old Testament, so of course they indicate the date when they are out of order - or we wouldn't know they were out of order.

That doesn't change the fact that they are out of order. Nor does it change the fact that in the few cases where we can date something using outside methods, then events are again seen to be out of order. This is seen in both the old and the new testaments, such as the mangled dates about the rule of Herod/Quirinius in the Gospels, camels, etc.

Originally Posted by Papias

I hope you don't think that the literal resurrection only "looked like" Jesus was really resurrected. I've asked you about that several times.

It both happened and looked like it happened.

But if the literal meaning only means that it had to have "looked like" it happened, how do you know it really happened?

Originally Posted by Papias

Similarly, I've also asked you about God "knitting" us together in the womb (Ps 139) - that's obviously a "dishonest allegory", right, since there is no thread in the womb? Obviously it's not an "accurate allegory".

No, it's a perfectly accurate allegory: it corresponds to reality. There doesn't have to be a "thread" in the womb - notice that you are adding the word "thread" in there by yourself, it's not something the text says.

There's also no "knitting" in the womb. So by your own approach, it's an inaccurate allegory. By your own approach, we have to think there is literal knitting going on in the womb.

Originally Posted by Papias

No they don't. There are no beasts with that number of horns in reality, and that's not the point of the text anyway. So I guess that's another "dishonest allegory".

Not at all. The horns on the beast depict something that's real, so it's a perfectly honest and accurate allegory.

And the creation in Genesis depicts a real creation, so it's an "accurate" analogy.

Originally Posted by Papias

As pointed out in detail in previous posts, sure it does. Plants are created, birds are created, fish are created, and so on. It corresponds creature by creature to what really exists.

Right, and there's no evolution there.

Sure there is, just like there is real cell division in the "knitting" verse, even though it never says "cell division".

Originally Posted by Papias

I did say that (and it's true). The very next sentence clarified that Christians and others have pointed out that they lied. Since you disputed that second part as well, I gave references, and said repeatedly that I was first showing that people said they lied (which you seem to have failed to grasp over many posts), and would leave the details of the lies until after the first claim (that people said they lied) was settled.

OK, fine, so people said that AiG lied. That's not something that I was unaware of. The question is whether or not they actually lied in reality: clearly, you have not presented a case that they have.

Thank you - it's good that we agree that Christians said that AiG lied.

As to showing that their statements are often simply false (and more often misleading), we can do that too - perhaps after this discussion. Maybe start a separate thread on that then.

Originally Posted by Papias

And can't drink water. You again seem to have refused to address that, as it's one more reason to show that the whole vegetarian thing is an unscriptural human invention you are following.

God never addresses water in the passage, only food. He gives them plants to eat, which strongly implies they are all herbivores, as does the covenant he makes with the animals/Noah after the Flood.
​

God is addressing sustenance. I could just as well say that God never addresses "meat" in the passages you mention. If he's implying anything about herbivory, he's cleary implying that we aren't to drink water. Maybe God's original creation didn't need to drink because water was instantly created in our throats? maybe add that as another unscriptural human invention, along with the unscriptural human invention of herbivory?

Originally Posted by Papias

Sure it does. That's what livestock has always been used for. Even if you consider other uses - like plowing - those came long after they were used for meat, and they were used for meat too then. Plus, Gen 1:26 is before farming anyway.

You're really overtranslating the word. The word used for "cattle" is #929, behemah, and can basically apply to any wild animal. See:

Hebrew Lexicon :: H929 (KJV)

So you are saying that all those Bibles that mistranslate this as "cattle" or "livestock" should actually say "wild animals" and are thus mistranslated? So we can't trust reading our Bibles in English?

Originally Posted by Papias

Again you are assigning massive creative power to Satan, and diminishing God's power and role.

Not in the slightest. God built the capacity to fall into his creation. After the fall things were totally changed.

We've talked about that before - and the fact that it sounds to me like another unscriptural human invention. I've asked for verses supporting that before as well (and the simple existence of the tree doesn't describe that). Do you have any that say that God built the post-fall world into the pre-fall world, ready to hatch?

Originally Posted by Papias

It's painful to watch a Christian do so. It reminds me of your statement about the daylight not being sunlight, when I asked why don't we see that light now, and have no nights? Oh, because the sun is brighter? But then the light of God is nothing compared to the light of a measly star. Or is it because that light's gone? So then God is gone? etc. You didn't answer that.

You're making a mountain out of a molehill. The initial light that God created is light outside of the sun or stars: perhaps it's light from heaven itself. The light (that defines the days initially) is taken away when the sun is created to give light upon the earth.

OK, so then which is it? Are you saying that the light of God is nothing compared to the light of a measly star? Or is it because that light's gone? So then God is gone? Or is the "light from heaven" - whatever that is - dimmer than the sun? I still don't see your answer.

Originally Posted by Papias

First of all, all popular books will start out unpopular, and grow in popularity, so it's circular to say that those 27 are the most popular - of course they are, eventually.

There's a reason why they're the most popular and it's obvious: look at who they're written by and the time in which they were written.

Except that as both I and gluadys have pointed out, the dates and authors don't help you. We don't know who wrote the Gospels. In fact, the evidence doesn't suggest that few, if any of the 27 books we have today were written by anyone who saw Jesus alive, and that all were written long after Jesus' death - at least decades, and many approaching a century later. It's also clear that we have many clear cases where others added to the text.

Your "the books that ended up being the most popular were included because they were popular" is another circular argument.


Originally Posted by Papias

Third - and also important, since you have done this other times on this thread - Remember that in rational discussion, the burden of support is on the person making the claim. So if you make a claim, you support it - instead of saying "No, there were never any....... I challenge you to prove otherwise."
​

I have supported it, and you've basically agreed with my assertion.

I agreed with your "the books that ended up being the most popular were included because they were popular" because it is a circular argument. I offered two questions that actually have meaning - but it appears you ignored them. They were:

• whether or not some Christians revered other books as sacred scripture - which they certainly did.
• And whether or not some Christians rejected any of the 27 currently most popular NT books as non-sacred - which they certainly did.

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Achilles6129]

I don't think so. The point is to warn believers to be ready at any time, day or night, for Christ's return--which is why both day and night activities are named.

In that case, then, one of the statements Christ made was false.

I note that none of the links provided actual references to the alleged rejections.

I guess Melito's list (c. 170 AD) isn't enough to suit you? I've linked enough information to show you the Apocrypha don't belong in Scripture - you can interact with it if you wish.

For someone to whom the LXX is scripture, the "entirety" of the OT would include them without further mention.

Some of the Apocrypha were written after the last book of the Jewish OT

Mark's gospel was certainly not written before 60CE,

I see. And how do you know this?

yet the earliest known manuscripts end at Mark 16:8 a most unsatisfactory place to end the narrative. Two later endings have been found, and the longer is the one used in most bibles. But they are not written by Mark.

Perhaps they were written by Mark and were lost and then added later. Or perhaps he originally did end the gospel at 16:8 and then decided later to add the ending. We don't really know, but to say they're not written by Mark (definitively) is a statement which no-one can really make.

Even if we set Luke earlier than the 80's, it is clearly after Mark, after the destruction of the temple in 70CE. So he would have known of the last years of Paul's life anyway, and still chosen not to include them.

No proof of this other than unsupported assumption.

It is not a matter of belief. I believe the books of scripture are inspired writings whoever wrote them. So it is a matter of investigation. I am not qualified to make those investigations myself, so I rely on those who are. I don't assume they are correct or incorrect. Just qualified to have an educated opinion.

It really doesn't matter. The reason it doesn't matter is because, as I noted in my above post, theology has been shifting left for awhile now. You now have an enormous amount of scholars who are truly liberal in their Biblical beliefs and only a few scholars who aren't. This creates the impression that the vast majority of evidence is on the side of those who are liberal (because they outnumber everyone else) when in fact it is not.

You don't go by the number of "scholars" who assert something, you go by evidence. You've got alot of scholars on your side, but you don't have the weight of the evidence on your side.

What I know is that reputable people who have studied these texts thoroughly do doubt the authorship.

See above.

No, it is not a matter of anyone pretending to be an Apostle. It is a matter of a text being ascribed to an Apostle by later generations of church leaders. And possibly they erred in their ascription.

So they wrote the "Simon Peter" into the text? Like I said in one of my above posts, 18 books of the NT directly name their authors in the text. Are you now saying that the early church altered the epistle so that their names appeared when they really didn't appear?

Yes, but is the John who wrote these letters the same person as the one who wrote the Gospel of John and are either of them (if there are two) the same as the one who wrote Revelation?

Yes, they belong together as a unit. The book of Revelation is John's "Olivet Discourse" so to speak. You will notice that John is unique amongst the gospels in not having an Olivet Discourse - this is because it's saved for the book of Revelation.

The author of John obviously wrote 1/2/3 John as well. The internal data of the gospel of John identifies John the son of Zebedee as its author.

So, to all intents and purposes, the gospels are composed by anonymous authors, but for convenience we call them by the traditional ascriptions: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Well, I already showed how Luke/John are provably written by who they're said to be written by (through internal data). You can ignore all the evidence for the authorship of Mark/Matthew if you'd like, but it's obvious that their source is Apostolic no matter how you slice it because the things written in both of these gospels could only have ultimately come from an Apostle.

Yes, and editing can be contested by anyone as well. Have you ever checked the editing pages and seen some of the controversies about what should appear in public?

Even on the public pages, you will often find a note that saying "citation needed" or that some statements are not supported. There is a clear preference for material that is properly researched and supported.

Are you aware that Wikipedia compares well with Encyclopedia Britannica on the reliability of its information?

No, I'm not. It can be edited by anyone and so I consider it unreliable. I'd also like to know exactly where you get the idea that Wikipedia compares favorably with Britannica on its reliability, but you don't cite sources (at least, reputable ones) for your claims very often. I think you'll find that most universities will disallow Wikipeda citations in the classroom.

Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog» Blog Archive » Court Holds That Wikipedia Entries Are “Inherently Unreliable”

(Incidentally, someone in the "comments" section mentioned your claim comparing Wikipedia with Britannica).

Up to six in ten articles on Wikipedia contain factual errors | Mail Online

Up to six in ten articles on Wikipedia contain inaccuracies, according to new research.

The number of factual errors shows just how unreliable it can be to use the online resource as a sole means of digging up information.

He is saying that the least important statement about him in the scriptures stands until it is fulfilled. His reference to the least stroke in writing a letter of the alphabet is an analogy, not a reference to faithful copying.

That's not what he says. He doesn't mention anything about himself specifically, he only says that not a stroke/letter will pass from the law til all be fulfilled. You're adding to the words of Christ.

Not for the reason you think. It is not necessarily the original version. Just because it copies from some archaic texts without change doesn't mean it always chose the most archaic wording. In some cases where available manuscripts had two different wordings, it may not have been clear which was older, and a choice had to be made as to which would be used.

It's clearly more ancient than the LXX.

 

[Achilles6129]

That doesn't change the fact that they are out of order. Nor does it change the fact that in the few cases where we can date something using outside methods, then events are again seen to be out of order. This is seen in both the old and the new testaments, such as the mangled dates about the rule of Herod/Quirinius in the Gospels, camels, etc.

So you trust the secular methods instead of Scripture, eh?

But if the literal meaning only means that it had to have "looked like" it happened, how do you know it really happened?

You don't know simply from a description. All that you know is that a person is describing literally what he saw. Of course, someone's eyes could be fooling them or what they saw could have another explanation, but their description would still be literal.

And the creation in Genesis depicts a real creation, so it's an "accurate" analogy.

We've been through this one before.

God is addressing sustenance. I could just as well say that God never addresses "meat" in the passages you mention.

God is not addressing sustenance, he's addressing physical food, which is something that water is not:

" 29 God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so." Gen. 1:29-30 (NRSV)

"Water" is not physical food. It's water.

So you are saying that all those Bibles that mistranslate this as "cattle" or "livestock" should actually say "wild animals" and are thus mistranslated? So we can't trust reading our Bibles in English?

No, I'm saying the simple definition of the word doesn't restrict it at all to livestock.

We've talked about that before - and the fact that it sounds to me like another unscriptural human invention. I've asked for verses supporting that before as well (and the simple existence of the tree doesn't describe that). Do you have any that say that God built the post-fall world into the pre-fall world, ready to hatch?

How about thorns/thistles/sweat/death/returning to the dust of the ground/serpents losing their legs?

Obviously something drastic happened to creation post-fall.

Except that as both I and gluadys have pointed out, the dates and authors don't help you. We don't know who wrote the Gospels. In fact, the evidence doesn't suggest that few, if any of the 27 books we have today were written by anyone who saw Jesus alive, and that all were written long after Jesus' death - at least decades, and many approaching a century later. It's also clear that we have many clear cases where others added to the text.

All of the information refuting what you're saying is contained in my discussion with gluadys and also under the links I've posted in that discussion. It is not my job to research for you, only to present information.

Your "the books that ended up being the most popular were included because they were popular" is another circular argument.

That's not what I said: I said it's obvious why the books that became the NT canon acquired that position. There is no other competition. I suggest you show otherwise.

I offered two questions that actually have meaning - but it appears you ignored them. They were:

• whether or not some Christians revered other books as sacred scripture - which they certainly did.
• And whether or not some Christians rejected any of the 27 currently most popular NT books as non-sacred - which they certainly did.

Of course you will always find some individuals revering something as sacred Scripture or rejecting something as sacred Scripture. This has no bearing on the matter of the NT canon.

 

[gluadys]

In that case, then, one of the statements Christ made was false.

I don't think so.

I guess Melito's list (c. 170 AD) isn't enough to suit you?

Melito's list indicates several books that he considered acceptable. It doesn't indicate that even he, much less the church generally, rejected what is not on the list.

I've linked enough information to show you the Apocrypha don't belong in Scripture - you can interact with it if you wish.

And I have told you several times that is not an argument I will get into. I am not defending the proposition that the Apocrypha belong in Scripture. I am defending the proposition that until the Protestant Reformation they were accepted, (rightly or wrongly) as Scripture and continue to be accepted as such in non-Protestant churches.

Some of the Apocrypha were written after the last book of the Jewish OT

Well, of course. But it was after the Apocrypha were written (and included in a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures) that it was decided what the last book of the Jewish OT would be. Meanwhile the Church had adopted the LXX, including the Apocrypha, as its bible.

I understand you think they were wrong to do so. That's fine. I simply ask that you understand that they did do so. I am not going to defend their practice.

I see. And how do you know this?

Heard it from a Yale professor of the New Testament.

Perhaps they were written by Mark and were lost and then added later. Or perhaps he originally did end the gospel at 16:8 and then decided later to add the ending. We don't really know, but to say they're not written by Mark (definitively) is a statement which no-one can really make.

Right, we don't really know. "perhaps" doesn't count as evidence.

No proof of this other than unsupported assumption.

What I have heard from those who have studied the gospels with a view of dating them, is that if you read the "little apocalypse" which appears in all three gospels, is that the text in Mark makes sense as being written before the destruction of the Temple, while that of Matthew and Luke show evidence of being written afterwards.

You don't go by the number of "scholars" who assert something, you go by evidence. You've got alot of scholars on your side, but you don't have the weight of the evidence on your side.

I haven't seen that weight. I have seen very little evidence presented by those who advocate earlier dates for the gospels or the later epistles. Mostly I see assertions.

So they wrote the "Simon Peter" into the text? Like I said in one of my above posts, 18 books of the NT directly name their authors in the text. Are you now saying that the early church altered the epistle so that their names appeared when they really didn't appear?

In that particular case, probably the author, whoever he/she was, wrote the name. I did post a discussion about why this may have been done without the procedure being considered dishonest.

Yes, they belong together as a unit. The book of Revelation is John's "Olivet Discourse" so to speak. You will notice that John is unique amongst the gospels in not having an Olivet Discourse - this is because it's saved for the book of Revelation.

Even if you are right about the authorship, I would really question this. I don't think many authors know when they are writing one book what they will be putting in a completely different book written at a different time some years later. Not unless they are planning a series like Lord of the Rings. John's gospel and Revelation don't look much like they belong together in that way. I think even if the same author penned both, they are independent works.

The author of John obviously wrote 1/2/3 John as well. The internal data of the gospel of John identifies John the son of Zebedee as its author.

I think it's obvious that the theology of the letters is the same as that of John's gospel and much of the imagery is the same. If it was not the same person writing both, they knew each other well and presented the gospel in much the same terms.

Well, I already showed how Luke/John are provably written by who they're said to be written by (through internal data). You can ignore all the evidence for the authorship of Mark/Matthew if you'd like, but it's obvious that their source is Apostolic no matter how you slice it because the things written in both of these gospels could only have ultimately come from an Apostle.

Probably, maybe, not provably. By including these in the NT canon, the Church did declare the teaching in them to be Apostolic.

No, I'm not. It can be edited by anyone and so I consider it unreliable. I'd also like to know exactly where you get the idea that Wikipedia compares favorably with Britannica on its reliability, but you don't cite sources (at least, reputable ones) for your claims very often.

It was the conclusion of a study done some years back. But it was only one study. Others may get different results.

I think you'll find that most universities will disallow Wikipeda citations in the classroom.

Of course. I wouldn't accept it for academic work either. A scholarly paper needs to cite primary sources and Wikipedia is not a primary source.

Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog» Blog Archive » Court Holds That Wikipedia Entries Are “Inherently Unreliable”

(Incidentally, someone in the "comments" section mentioned your claim comparing Wikipedia with Britannica).

Up to six in ten articles on Wikipedia contain factual errors | Mail Online

Now what are the comparative figures for the Encyclopedia Britannica?

That's not what he says. He doesn't mention anything about himself specifically, he only says that not a stroke/letter will pass from the law til all be fulfilled. You're adding to the words of Christ.

No, I am not. Jesus has just said, "I have come not to abolish but to fulfill" Christ is the fulfillment of the law.

It's clearly more ancient than the LXX.

Obviously Hebrew originals are older than translations of them. But we are not speaking of the books themselves, but of collecting them and using them as scripture. Which collection is older? It would seem the LXX is--at least in so far as the OT section the Jews call the Writings is concerned. It is probable that Aramaic-speaking Jews living in Judea never did use those segments of the Apocryphal writings which were originally composed in Greek. But Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora did use the LXX. And most certainly Greek-speaking Christian Jews did, so introducing it to the rest of the Christian community.

 

[Achilles6129]

Melito's list indicates several books that he considered acceptable. It doesn't indicate that even he, much less the church generally, rejected what is not on the list.

Obviously if it's not on his canonical list he rejected it or simply didn't know of its existence.

Well, of course. But it was after the Apocrypha were written (and included in a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures) that it was decided what the last book of the Jewish OT would be. Meanwhile the Church had adopted the LXX, including the Apocrypha, as its bible.

No, the last book of the Jewish canon (which would have been 2 Chronicles) was written long before the Apocrypha. The fact that Christ goes from Genesis - 2 Chronicles indicates that he did not consider the Apocrypha a part of Scripture.

Heard it from a Yale professor of the New Testament.

Again, scholars don't matter. What matters is evidence.

Right, we don't really know. "perhaps" doesn't count as evidence.

Clearly the ending was deemed authentic which was why it was appended to the gospel.

What I have heard from those who have studied the gospels with a view of dating them, is that if you read the "little apocalypse" which appears in all three gospels, is that the text in Mark makes sense as being written before the destruction of the Temple, while that of Matthew and Luke show evidence of being written afterwards.

I haven't seen that weight. I have seen very little evidence presented by those who advocate earlier dates for the gospels or the later epistles. Mostly I see assertions.

Scholars have a tendency to be hyper-analytical or critical when it comes to Scripture sometimes.

https://bible.org/seriespage/matthew-introduction-argument-and-outline

https://bible.org/seriespage/mark-introduction-argument-and-outline

https://bible.org/seriespage/luke-introduction-outline-and-argument

I suggest you do some research on the above links.

Now what are the comparative figures for the Encyclopedia Britannica?

That would be your job to find out, not mine.

Obviously Hebrew originals are older than translations of them. But we are not speaking of the books themselves, but of collecting them and using them as scripture. Which collection is older? It would seem the LXX is--at least in so far as the OT section the Jews call the Writings is concerned. It is probable that Aramaic-speaking Jews living in Judea never did use those segments of the Apocryphal writings which were originally composed in Greek. But Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora did use the LXX. And most certainly Greek-speaking Christian Jews did, so introducing it to the rest of the Christian community.

So even though the MT has extremely archaic grammar in it (like from the 12th century B.C., etc.) the LXX is based on older manuscripts? Sounds like a very strange conclusion to me.

Edited to add: Incidentally, the fact that the MT has numerous chiasms and other literary devices in it which are based upon the position of one word (or sometimes even syllable) is proof that it is the correct version. I can cite examples if you'd like.

 

[gluadys]

Obviously if it's not on his canonical list he rejected it or simply didn't know of its existence.

No, it doesn't mean he rejected something not on his list, nor that he was ignorant of its existence. It simply means he didn't recommend it. I can know of a work (literary, philosophical, etc.) which I like and even approve of, but which I would not include in a short list of recommended reading.

No, the last book of the Jewish canon (which would have been 2 Chronicles) was written long before the Apocrypha. The fact that Christ goes from Genesis - 2 Chronicles indicates that he did not consider the Apocrypha a part of Scripture.

Doesn't matter when it was written. What matters is when it was decided not to include in the canon anything written later. That second decision was obviously made after the LXX translation of Hebrew "scriptures" into Greek.

Jesus mother tongue was Aramaic, and he read the scriptures in Hebrew. He was raised in Galilee and carried out his mission primarily in Galilee and Judea. In this context, I am not surprised he would use a rabbinic description of the scriptures. Possbily he was not familiar with the LXX.

The LXX was used by Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora and later by the Church. For them, it was "the scriptures".

Again, scholars don't matter. What matters is evidence.

For non-experts, scholars matter, because they are the ones who have studied the evidence in ways a non-expert has neither the time nor qualifications to do for themselves.

Clearly the ending was deemed authentic which was why it was appended to the gospel.

Given that we have the gospel in several forms (without ending, with a short ending, with the long ending) do we even know which form was deemed authentic? Obviously, at some point, the long ending became standard and I have no problem with that. But that is not evidence of authenticity. Your own link to a commentary on Mark (below) says:

Although not intending to belittle this issue, there is excellent evidence both that the last twelve verses are not original (16:9-20) and that Mark intended to end his gospel at 16:8. Rather than get into the reasons why, our approach to the outline and argument will simply assume this.​

Emphasis added.

Scholars have a tendency to be hyper-analytical or critical when it comes to Scripture sometimes.

I should hope so; that shows a scholarly vocation.

https://bible.org/seriespage/matthew-introduction-argument-and-outline

https://bible.org/seriespage/mark-introduction-argument-and-outline

https://bible.org/seriespage/luke-introduction-outline-and-argument

I suggest you do some research on the above links.

Maybe you should. These are good articles. But he is not saying anything I have not said, namely:

• We have no incontrovertible evidence of who actually wrote any of the gospels. The names are ascriptions added later--mostly in the second century, with Papias among the earliest to transmit them.
• Although the gospels are ascribed to the evangelists without firm evidence of authorship, that doesn't mean the ascriptions are wrong.
• There is no evidence to contradict the traditional ascriptions.

I would disagree with him when he concludes "we have no reason to doubt" the authorship of any of the gospels. Without sufficient evidence to establish authorship, we do have reason to doubt. But equally, we have no compelling reason to reject the traditional ascriptions either.

That would be your job to find out, not mine.

If I were deeply enough interested, I would. But the point is that your figures on the reliability of Wikipedia mean nothing without the corresponding figures for another encyclopedia. We don't know if the figures cited are poor, excellent or average unless someone does the comparative study. Since neither of us is prepared to carry out the study, I guess this conversation stops here.

So even though the MT has extremely archaic grammar in it (like from the 12th century B.C., etc.) the LXX is based on older manuscripts? Sounds like a very strange conclusion to me.

In the first place the MT doesn't have archaic grammar throughout, only in places it is copying from manuscripts containing archaic grammar.

In the second place, you have not shown that any of these sections are markedly different from what the LXX used.

It is only where the LXX text is markedly different from the MT that any question of who is using which manuscript and the relative date of the manuscript in question becomes an issue. Do any of these occur in a section where the MT uses archaic grammar? Or do they only occur in areas where the age of the grammar is not significantly different between the LXX source and the MT?

Edited to add: Incidentally, the fact that the MT has numerous chiasms and other literary devices in it which are based upon the position of one word (or sometimes even syllable) is proof that it is the correct version. I can cite examples if you'd like.

Same response as above. How many of these chiasms & other devices are already reproduced (as best as one can in translation) in the LXX? Perhaps one simply does not find any significantly different wording between the LXX and the MT in such passages. Or perhaps both the MT and LXX wording of the citation from Jeremiah in the letter to the Hebrews scan to the same metre in Hebrew.

The problem here is that you are overgeneralizing. Because the MT sometimes uses archaic grammar from some of its sources, you are assuming that the whole of the MT text is older than the whole of the LXX text. That is not a valid assumption. Since the bible is composed of numerous texts from many different times, each one has to be treated on a case by case basis. And for this one really needs a scholarly study of each controversial text.

 

[Achilles6129]

We're just going to have to end it here, and agree to disagree. I think you will find if you do some further research that the claims you are making are unreasonable or simply false. It is not my job to do that research for you as I have provided enough references at this point.

 

[gluadys]

We're just going to have to end it here, and agree to disagree. I think you will find if you do some further research that the claims you are making are unreasonable or simply false. It is not my job to do that research for you as I have provided enough references at this point.

Basically, I think you have been arguing something I have not been arguing anyway. Your concern seems to be whether the Apocrypha should be in the canon.

But I have not been debating that point at all.


All I have been saying is that, whatever decisions were made by rabbinical Judaism around the time the Church came into existence, the LXX was the accepted bible of the Greek-speaking Church as it was, at the time, for Greek-speaking Jews and it included the Apocrypha. Hence the Church has, from its beginning, accepted the Apocrypha as scripture, even if it was wrong to do so. And most of the Church still does so today, even if it is wrong to do so.

I am not debating at all what should be--just pointing to the historical facts of what was and is.

 

[Papias]

Achilles wrote:

Originally Posted by Papias

That doesn't change the fact that they are out of order. Nor does it change the fact that in the few cases where we can date something using outside methods, then events are again seen to be out of order. This is seen in both the old and the new testaments, such as the mangled dates about the rule of Herod/Quirinius in the Gospels, camels, etc.

So you trust the secular methods instead of Scripture, eh?

Secular methods like basic history? The times of the Roman governors in these cases are well established by multiple records. Historians are in agreement on them, too. So you are saying that you favor your personal interpretation over historians? Do you always favor your personal interpretation of scripture over the experts in their fields? If that's the case, then why don't you think God uses literall knitting as Scripture itself says in Psalms?


You still haven't explained why the Psalmist isn't using an "inaccurate" allegory. I mentioned: There's also no "knitting" in the womb. So by your own approach, it's an inaccurate allegory. By your own approach, we have to think there is literal knitting going on in the womb.

Originally Posted by Papias

But if the literal meaning only means that it had to have "looked like" it happened, how do you know it really happened?

You don't know simply from a description. All that you know is that a person is describing literally what he saw. Of course, someone's eyes could be fooling them or what they saw could have another explanation, but their description would still be literal.
​

So there we have it. You are clear that whenever anything in your or my Bible says "Jesus rose from the dead" it could mean "it looked like Jesus rose from the dead.". So much for any claim that a Bible says anything is real.

Originally Posted by Papias

God is addressing sustenance. I could just as well say that God never addresses "meat" in the passages you mention.

God is not addressing sustenance, he's addressing physical food, which is something that water is not

Um, newsflash. "physical food" is an important kind of sustenance.

"Water" is not physical food. It's water.

Water is a form of sustenance. I never said water was "physical food" (and what would "non-physical food" be, anyway?). In the same way, the passage doesn't address cheese, or any number of many other types of sustenance.

Originally Posted by Papias

So you are saying that all those Bibles that mistranslate this as "cattle" or "livestock" should actually say "wild animals" and are thus mistranslated? So we can't trust reading our Bibles in English?

No, I'm saying the simple definition of the word doesn't restrict it at all to livestock.

The word in many Bibles is "livestock". Others say "cattle". Obviously, if we can't take the word at it's meaning, then we can't trust reading our Bibles in English.

Originally Posted by Papias

We've talked about that before - and the fact that it sounds to me like another unscriptural human invention. I've asked for verses supporting that before as well (and the simple existence of the tree doesn't describe that). Do you have any that say that God built the post-fall world into the pre-fall world, ready to hatch?

How about thorns/thistles/sweat/death/returning to the dust of the ground/serpents losing their legs?

Obviously something drastic happened to creation post-fall.

I didn't ask if something drastic happened. I asked if you had any verses that supported your human interpretation that God built the post-fall world into the pre-fall world, ready to hatch?

Originally Posted by Papias

Except that as both I and gluadys have pointed out, the dates and authors don't help you. We don't know who wrote the Gospels. In fact, the evidence doesn't suggest that few, if any of the 27 books we have today were written by anyone who saw Jesus alive, and that all were written long after Jesus' death - at least decades, and many approaching a century later. It's also clear that we have many clear cases where others added to the text.

All of the information refuting what you're saying is contained in my discussion with gluadys and also under the links I've posted in that discussion. It is not my job to research for you, only to present information.

The links you posted to were unfounded assertions that ignore the actual evidence. As gluadys (and this thread) has shown, the evidence itself refutes your position, such as the clear evidence that Mark 16:9+ was added much later by someone else.


If you think that just because a link says it trusts scripture, then it is right, then please tell me what you think of this link:

Geocentricity

Originally Posted by Papias

Your "the books that ended up being the most popular were included because they were popular" is another circular argument.

That's not what I said: I said it's obvious why the books that became the NT canon acquired that position. There is no other competition. I suggest you show otherwise.

You said before it was because they were popular - which is cirularly true after the canon is established, and obviously false looking at the actual history.

There was lots of competition. There was the Gospel of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the apocalypse of Peter, Hermas, Wisdom (listed with new testament books but now part of the Old Testament for most Christians), the Diatesseron, the Didache, the Gosple of the Hebrews, and many others - in addition to the fact that many of the books we currently have (Hebrews, James, Revelation, etc.) were unpopular and often had a weaker claim that those above. They appear to have just lucked out.

That's all very different from, say, the Gospels of Mt and Luke, which (though anonymously authored) appear to have had very strong support from early on.

Originally Posted by Papias

I offered two questions that actually have meaning - but it appears you ignored them. They were:

• whether or not some Christians revered other books as sacred scripture - which they certainly did.
• And whether or not some Christians rejected any of the 27 currently most popular NT books as non-sacred - which they certainly did.

Of course you will always find some individuals revering something as sacred Scripture or rejecting something as sacred Scripture. This has no bearing on the matter of the NT canon.

It has direct bearing on the matter of the NT canon. The NT canon is what people refer to as sacred scripture. So it sounds like you agree with my two statements. In which case, it sounds like we might agree on this subject.

Papias