Sacred Scriptures

[SanFrank]

Given your description of them as 'the enemy' who you don't even want to understand, who gloat about roasting in a lake of fire, what do you suppose they have seen of your Christian 'love and goodness'? All I see is your intense fanatical fear and hatred, your disrespect and arrogance.

I understand islam historically and as it affects us today. What I see is a muslim agenda of intimidation strangling civilized nations and cities. ie In the US, muslims are using discrimination based on religion to force an agenda.

If I did not wish to understand muslims, i would not be here.

Since the fear of 'allah' is the greatest motivator I've seen to muslim adherence to faith, to counter with that same fear should prove advantageous; it seems I may be wrong on this point but I am still exploring.

A good deal more than it means in Christianity apparently. Things like patience, humility, truthfulness, trustworthiness, kindness, mercy and compassion.

Wow. Historically, I don't see that at all. Even today, why haven't those factors played a role in prohibiting suicide bombers, educating muslims in afghanistan against pedophilia, educating muslims in asia against slowly beheading christians, educating palestinians against using children as a cover for Hamas fighters.

In addition, every muslim nation today is regressing and becoming barbarous. Take Egypt. Sure, protesters gather crying for a change in government but that famous square where the protests are held has a second name for all women, it's a rape zone. Any unknowning female reporter that ventures into that zone will leave molested and charred for life. Where is the humility, truthfulness, kindness, mercy and compassion that muslims should supposedly portray in that zone.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

No it's not! Either the Church changed it all up, or it didn't. As it turns out, it didn't. If OT was preserved, that makes it much more likely NT was as well.

Now, you know perfectly well that "either it's ALL a sham, or NONE of it is" is an untenable position.

However, I suspect that your conception of how and why people challenge the Biblical canon is misconstrued. At least, I've never seen anybody claim that the Church meddled with the scriptures during the Middle Ages in the way you seem to imply here.

Here's what actually happened:

a wide range of highly heterogeneous writings were proliferated throughout Christian communities from the late 1st century onwards. Even at the turn of the 2nd century (as evidenced by certain passages in the gospel of John that are specifically aimed at refuting Gnostic positions), there were continuous theological disputes, along with several parallel "Christianities" vying for supremacy.
In the long run, the most successful faction out of all of these was the one who got to choose which writings were to be regarded as canon, and which were to be destroyed as evil heresy. There was no need to further meddle with the texts, because they could cherry-pick the ones that supported their doctrines and beliefs, and leave out all of those that did not. (They even went one step further in declaring possession of heretical scriptures to be a deathworthy crime, and took great care to destroy every piece of non-canonical texts they could find. It's not much of a surprise that most of the Gnostic texts we know today have been found as late as the 20th century, in remote places beyond the church's control. Nor is it a surprise that most heretical sects are only known to us through the polemics written against them by the members of the victorious faction.)

There was no need for further redaction - even though the Vulgate translation still meddled with the canonical texts in order to support the highly sex-negative stance that dominated at the time, turning the apostles' wives into "sisters".

I'm told Luther didn't do that at all, but arranged it into it's own section. I will agree Jasher and Enoch both add insight to NT, but to say NT makes no sense w/o Apocrypha? I wouldn't go that far ...

Actually, you've been ill informed on these matters as well.

The book of Enoch is not part of Luther's apocrypha, because it was never contained in the Catholic Bible.
See, what Luther did was this: he compared the Catholic canon with the content of the Septuagint, and found that the Catholic Old Testament contained books that were not to be found in the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. Accordingly, he concluded that these books should not and could not be regarded as canonical, but were still instructive - hence, he included them in a separate section called "Apocrypha", wedged in between the Old Testament and the New.
They are also called the "inter-testamental books", and he completely omitted 1 and 2 Esdras.

Luther's doubts about the canonicity didn't stop at the Old Testament, though: Luther had reservations about the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James and Jude, and - most importantly - the Revelation to John.
He didn't dare to omit them or list them in a separate section, though, but simply pushed all of them to the end of the New Testament.


And just an aside: the canon debate isn't over, nor will it end anytime soon. Several antilegomena (that is, texts of disputed authenticity) have been brought to light by textual criticism. The Pastoral Epistles, for example, are almost universally regarded as pseudepigraphical by non-fundamentalist scholars, based on their language, content, and several other factors.
(Interestingly, the Syriac orthodox church would agree: they omitted the Pastoral epistles from their canon for centuries, even in ancient times.)

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

while the idea of the Church being so monumentally efficient is flattering to it, a more plausible explanation is the pagans were functionally illiterate.

The Romans and Greeks were illiterate?
The Egyptians too?
I grant you that the Celts refused to put their sacred tales down in writing, and that the Germanic tribes were illiterate savages. But pagan religions existed throughout the ancient world, including VERY literate high cultures.

Now, unlike some crusading atheists, I do not believe that ALL the gaps in our knowledge are owed to some vast, concerted effort on the part of the church. In many cases, I suspect it was nothing more than Christianized scribes finding that they ought not to waste their time making copies of pagan "filth" (which most likely accounts for our loss of the vast majority of the lore of antiquity, save for those texts that were later recovered via the Arabs and Constantinople).
But in some cases (such as the reign of Theodosius I), active persecution of Non-Christians was pretty much a part of the daily menu. As soon as the Church rose to undisputed power, it saw fit to actively destroy all divergent world views - pretty much like the Taliban and the Giant Buddhas, except that the early Christians didn't have access to explosives.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

You're overlooking many things that couldn't possibly have been known, even if the first writing of any OT material was in the Babylonian exile. Things that point directly to the Gospel as we have it. To me, these are huge reasons to believe Paul's conclusion that it is "God breathed." (Take the names of the first 10 generations, as one example)

I'd dispute that the "foreshadowing" you detect there is actually an intrinsical part of the text, but that it's a retroactive, intertextual reading directly derived from Christianity's need to see their own positions validated through the Jewish Scriptures.

Some notorious examples of this include (but are not limited to) interpreting the discourse between the Elohim after the banishment of Adam and Eve as the Trinity talking to Itself; reading Abraham's aborted sacrifice of Isaac as a "foreshadowing" of the Crucifixion; and - last but not least - seeing Isaiah 7:14 as a prophecy pertaining to Jesus and the virgin birth.
(In fact, when I read the two highly divergent accounts of Jesus's birth in the gospels, I see two authors trying to make perfectly sure that their tale met the requirements they thought to have detected in the Septuagint, including the mistranslation of hā‘almāh as "virgin", having Mary call her child "Immanuel" rather than Jesus, and forging divergent genealogies that are supposed to tie him to the house of David - just to mention a few examples.)

 

[dazed]

That depends on what you mean by 'pagan.' If you are talking about polytheists in general they most certainly were not illiterate in the Roman Empire. But the term 'pagan' is derived from the word paganus which literally means something a country bumpkin. That is because people in the urban areas tended to convert to monotheistic religions before people in the countryside. They, of course, would have been largely illiterate. There is a reason Islam refers to the followers of monotheistic religions as "People of the Book."

I just meant non-believers of the 5 major religions. Jane asked if there is an ancient sacred book that claimed to be from a god. I believe most of the population, everywhere, were illiterate up until recent time.

 

[Rationalt]

And could present no valid arguments that this was the case.

You can point out invalidity of my argument in the rumi thread http://www.christianforums.com/t7579140/ instead of making a aweeping statement.

al-Khidr for instance, is the name Muslims give to a figure in the Qur'an who accompanies Moses in his search for truth.

Nothing to do with Rumi.Muhammad's al-Khidr was twisting of judaism's tale of cave.

And no, the Qur'an does not suggest that Muhammad is the only person who receives illumination. In fact nearly all of the other Prophets are discussed more than Muhammad is.

The Quranic author knows nothing other than the biblical tales floating around in meccan and medina at muhammad's time.No mention even about the prophets of nearby Persia.

Ohh and incase you don't know as per quran muhammad is the last prophet in the line of biblical prophets and that leaves out rumi.

 

[dazed]

In addition, every muslim nation today is regressing and becoming barbarous. Take Egypt. Sure, protesters gather crying for a change in government but that famous square where the protests are held has a second name for all women, it's a rape zone. Any unknowning female reporter that ventures into that zone will leave molested and charred for life. Where is the humility, truthfulness, kindness, mercy and compassion that muslims should supposedly portray in that zone.

Just a few questions

1) Could the Koran and Hadiths be quoted for killing, rape and general evil deeds?
2) So, if Koran is the ultimate source of justice, could these evil deeds be legal?
3) Mohammed, pbuh, waged 82 military campaigns and married a very young wife. He also told his followers to follow his lifestyle. Could a Muslim imitate him by marrying a school girl and attacking the non-believers under Sharia laws.
4) What kind of culture and society would we have if we are to strictly follow the life of a 7th century Arab?

It's been over 10 years but the images of Muslim celebration at the death and destruction of WTC still haven't faded.

 

[dazed]

You haven't. What Frank is depicting, I think can only be experienced IRL, not online. I've certainly never seen any intimidation coming from a Muslim, but I have seen plenty of fear, for no apparent reason. Makes discussion rather difficult.

The real fear is that Muslims don't believe in the Separation of Mosque and State. One of the first things that the Lybians did were to restore 4 wives law and declare Koran as the guiding moral light. I don't think you would want to live in a country where the Bible is the ultimate source of law. Five hundred years ago, a pious Christian ruler could have you jailed or executed for your interpretation of the Bible.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Let's stay on topic, please.

FWIW, I tend to think that religious extremism in general is virtually incompatible with a pluralistic, liberal society, as such world views almost always try to assert themselves as the sole arbiters of right and wrong. Tolerance is not on the menu, especially as far as other religions are concerned. (And you'd be hard pressed to find an American creationist who wants Hindu creation myths on the curriculum as an "equally valid option".)

 

[razeontherock]

Now, you know perfectly well that "either it's ALL a sham, or NONE of it is" is an untenable position.

Not what I said. the point is that Scripture bears all the hallmarks of being Faithfully preserved.

Here's what actually happened:

a wide range of highly heterogeneous writings were proliferated throughout Christian communities from the late 1st century onwards. Even at the turn of the 2nd century (as evidenced by certain passages in the gospel of John that are specifically aimed at refuting Gnostic positions), there were continuous theological disputes, along with several parallel "Christianities" vying for supremacy.
In the long run, the most successful faction out of all of these was the one who got to choose which writings were to be regarded as canon, and which were to be destroyed as evil heresy. There was no need to further meddle with the texts, because they could cherry-pick the ones that supported their doctrines and beliefs, and leave out all of those that did not.

Now let's take the pagan and polytheist spin off that, and see what we're left with:

YES, the integrity of Scripture was maintained! Those who met in unauthorized assemblies, away from any guidance by the Apostles, were exposed as such. This preserves the purity of the message.

Yet you managed to say that like it's a bad thing; and eloquently, too!

Actually, you've been ill informed on these matters as well.

No, not really. You go on to give further detail into exactly what I said.

 

[razeontherock]

Some notorious examples of this

Yes, notoriously true. And impossible to fake a millennium in advance in such a way that it would line up at the right time. You're forgetting that the whole story is told in the stars, and therefore not subject to historical revision.

 

[razeontherock]

I don't think you would want to live in a country where the Bible is the ultimate source of law.

I think the US Constitution did a good job of balancing out the valid concerns. Who know, maybe someday it'll even matter again?

 

[smaneck]

The negativity comes mostly of what I see in european news and current events, problems in France, recorded radio broadcasts of muslim apologists, and yes personal interactions with other muslims.

I married a Baha'i of Musm background when I lived in India. He used to become very upset when we would pass large Muslim protest meetings and constantly decried their fanaticism. When I told him that Christian preachers in America who were the same way, he refused to believe me because he worked for Christians in India and thought they were more civilized. When I returned with him back to the United States he had a television for the first time in his life and watched literally everything that was on (driving me nuts in the process.) One Sunday he heard caught one of the shows of the TV evangelists. He looked at me in amazement and exclaimed, "They are worse than the mullas!"

 

[smaneck]

I understand islam historically and as it affects us today. What I see is a muslim agenda of intimidation strangling civilized nations and cities. ie In the US, muslims are using discrimination based on religion to force an agenda.

What? That they want the right to build mosques and practice their own religion as is their constitutional right?

If I did not wish to understand muslims, i would not be here.

It looked like to me you were here to attack them.

Even today, why haven't those factors played a role in prohibiting suicide bombers, educating muslims in afghanistan against pedophilia, educating muslims in asia against slowly beheading christians, educating palestinians against using children as a cover for Hamas fighters.

Apparently you've never bothered to check on all the fatwas condemning terrorism.

Any unknowning female reporter that ventures into that zone will leave molested and charred for life.

One female reporter gets molested and suddenly it is what all Muslims do.

That's what you call prejudice and bigotry.

 

[smaneck]

See, what Luther did was this: he compared the Catholic canon with the content of the Septuagint, and found that the Catholic Old Testament contained books that were not to be found in the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. Accordingly, he concluded that these books should not and could not be regarded as canonical, but were still instructive - hence, he included them in a separate section called "Apocrypha", wedged in between the Old Testament and the New.

What I remember from reading Luther's debate with Erasmus (Bondage of the Will) is that he partially objected to the apocrypha because it didn't coincide with his theology of salvation by grace alone. Erasmus was using it to support his own belief in the possibility of free will.

Luther's doubts about the canonicity didn't stop at the Old Testament, though: Luther had reservations about the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James and Jude, and - most importantly - the Revelation to John.

He once said he would give his doctoral cap to the one who could reconcile Jame's Epistle with Galatians. Razorback insists that the differences between the apostles were all worked out, but somehow they found their way into the New Testament.

And just an aside: the canon debate isn't over, nor will it end anytime soon. Several antilegomena (that is, texts of disputed authenticity) have been brought to light by textual criticism. The Pastoral Epistles, for example, are almost universally regarded as pseudepigraphical by non-fundamentalist scholars, based on their language, content, and several other factors.

You are confusing two different things. The fact that something is shown to be pseudepigraphical does not mean it ceases to be part of the canon. Most scholars recognize that only the first part of the Book of Isaiah was written by the prophet who bears its name, but that doesn't mean we throw out the rest? Why should we? Deutero-Isaiah contains some of the most profound material in the Old Testament.

 

[smaneck]

The Romans and Greeks were illiterate?

The religious texts of the Romans and Greeks were things like the Illiad and the Odyssey. Those were not exactly lost with the rise of Christendom.

The Egyptians too?

I grant you that the Celts refused to put their sacred tales down in writing, and that the Germanic tribes were illiterate savages. But pagan religions existed throughout the ancient world, including VERY literate high cultures.

And for the most part, we still have their sacred writings.

 

[smaneck]

I'd dispute that the "foreshadowing" you detect there is actually an intrinsical part of the text, but that it's a retroactive, intertextual reading directly derived from Christianity's need to see their own positions validated through the Jewish Scriptures.

I think there is a 'foreshadowing' in the Tanak in the sense that certain ideas, largely those born of the Babylonian captivity, are even more fully developed in Christianity. I'm thinking especially of Deutero-Isaiah's conception of a God who went into exile with His people and who suffers with and for us.

 

[smaneck]

I just meant non-believers of the 5 major religions. Jane asked if there is an ancient sacred book that claimed to be from a god. I believe most of the population, everywhere, were illiterate up until recent time.

Yes, but that doesn't mean they weren't tied to textual tradition. Greek religion, for instance, was largely tied to the Illiad and the Odyssey. Those stories don't claim to be from a god, but they were understood as telling us the stories of those gods. It is one of the reasons, I believe that Greek religion became frozen at rather primitive state.

A textual tradition has the advantage of insuring that religion is not simply a product of our own personal preferences. It has the disadvantage of not always being able to change with the circumstances surrounding its revelation change. That's why even though I consider myself among the "People of the Book" I reject the notion of a closed canon or finality of prophethood. The Hand of God is not tied up!

 

[smaneck]

You can point out invalidity of my argument in the rumi thread http://www.christianforums.com/t7579140/ instead of making a aweeping statement.

I'm not reading the entire thread. The portions I did read presented no persuasive evidence for your arguments.

Muhammad's al-Khidr was twisting of judaism's tale of cave.

There is nothing about a cave in Qur'anic story believed to be about al-Khidr.

The Quranic author knows nothing other than the biblical tales floating around in meccan and medina at muhammad's time.No mention even about the prophets of nearby Persia.

Doesn't matter whether He does or not. These stories are being told to make a point in the circumstances in which they were revealed.

Ohh and incase you don't know as per quran muhammad is the last prophet in the line of biblical prophets and that leaves out rumi.

No one ever said Rumi was a Prophet, but the Qur'an never suggested that revelation would cease. On the contrary, it asserts that the Word of God can never be exhausted.

 

[smaneck]

1) Could the Koran and Hadiths be quoted for killing, rape and general evil deeds?

Just as the Bible can by those who wish to rationalize their evil deeds.

2) So, if Koran is the ultimate source of justice, could these evil deeds be legal?

That would not follow. Just because the Bible or the Qur'an can be used to rationalize evil does not make evil deeds legal.

3) Mohammed, pbuh, waged 82 military campaigns and married a very young wife. He also told his followers to follow his lifestyle. Could a Muslim imitate him by marrying a school girl and attacking the non-believers under Sharia laws.

That too does not follow. The fact that Muhammad led military campaigns does not mean that Muslims can attack non-believers. These campaigns were fought to defend Muslims from non-believers, but as the Qur'an says, "God loveth not the aggressor." As far as Muhammad marrying a young wife, that doesn't necessarily follow either. Just because Mary had a baby at 15 doesn't mean you want your daughter to do that.

4) What kind of culture and society would we have if we are to strictly follow the life of a 7th century Arab?

Now that, admittedly is a problem with both the Bible and the Qur'an. Somethings written there are simply not applicable for today (like women keeping silent in church.) That's why I would argue that revelation must continue. As Baha'u'llah put it:

"The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements."

So no, I don't think things like polygamy, marriages at puberty, hudud punishments are a good idea. Nor do I think women should be submissive to their husbands as the Bible says, or that disobedient sons and gays should be stoned to death. At the same time, I'm not prepared to condemn what was seen to be necessary in antiquity.

It's been over 10 years but the images of Muslim celebration at the death and destruction of WTC still haven't faded.

I presume you are talking about the Palestinians who were filmed celebrating? Are you sure some of those Palestinians weren't Christians? I had a friend who was at a meeting with some Palestinian bishops in Jerusalem when Sadam began to lob SCUDS into Israel. These Christian bishops toasted to his health.

Maybe the issue really isn't religion. An attack on the WTC is not an attack on Christianity it is an attack on economic imperialism. At least, that is the way they saw it.