Satan and errors in scripture

[ChetSinger]

In other words you are saying that Jesus said something along the lines of, "For the next three years or less, the Bible will be perfectly copied, as it has been up to this point, and then after this it is open season for scribal errors"?

No.

 

[Tawhano]

Straw man argument.

Okay, I see your point now. What threw me was this:

…but why has God allowed the corruption of the text to get so bad that there is not a single perfect copy on earth?

I thought your view was that the errors were so bad that God should have intervene to prevent them so the message would not be corrupted. Thank you for the clarification that your point is that the text was changed.

…especially if we can agree that they are probably praying for such divine intervention…

I do not agree with this assumption. I’m sure there were some that prayed earnestly but it would be folly to assume that all were dedicated.

…why has God allowed the corruption of the text to get so bad that there is not a single perfect copy on earth?

I don’t presume to know why God does or does not do things. I can only look at the results and see that regardless of the errors the message is intact. That the validity of the text has been scrutinized by scholars, both secular and religious, over all these years and not one shred of proof has been submitted that discredits the Bible message as it now stands. Theories abound but not one shred of proof.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Okay, I see your point now. What threw me was this:
I thought your view was that the errors were so bad that God should have intervene to prevent them so the message would not be corrupted. Thank you for the clarification that your point is that the text was changed.
I do not agree with this assumption. I’m sure there were some that prayed earnestly but it would be folly to assume that all were dedicated.
I don’t presume to know why God does or does not do things. I can only look at the results and see that regardless of the errors the message is intact. That the validity of the text has been scrutinized by scholars, both secular and religious, over all these years and not one shred of proof has been submitted that discredits the Bible message as it now stands. Theories abound but not one shred of proof.

You are completely ignoring the point of this thread.

We apparently agree that men have inadvertently corrupted the Bible, and that God has allowed this; we also apparently agree that Satan has not corrupted the Bible, despite the fact that he is perfectly willing and able to do so. The conclusion is that God has erected some kind of semipermeable spiritual barrier which either allows man but not demon to tinker with the Bible, or else allows certain peripheral details to be altered while protecting "essential doctrine." In the case of the latter, perhaps Satan can and has altered peripheral details but not essential doctrines.

You say that you don't know why God does or doesn't do things. Well, when I was losing my faith I really wanted to know why he was able to prevent these errors and yet chose not to. My thinking at the time was that while numbers were most susceptible to transcriber error, there is nothing about the Jewish alphabet that makes transcriber errors of "essential" words impossible. So while the huge error rate shown in the conflicting accounts of Ezra and Nehemiah cannot be extrapolated to the whole Bible, I found it unreasonable to believe that there are absolutely zero errors in the "essential" parts, and I find it equally unreasonable to suggest that God cherry picks certain verses to protect and others to be thrown to the wolves.

I like to think of it like this. While it's true that, on occasion, doctors will inadvertently kill a patient, the amount of deaths caused by doctors should be dwarfed by the amount of deaths caused by gangsters. Yet I am being told that not only is this not the case, but that gangsters are responsible for zero deaths. I just don't find it to be reasonable... not even a little. Because even if you want to invoke God, we can agree that the Bible speaks for God before you do, and the only things the Bible has said on this matter are found in Psalms 12:6-7 and Matthew 5:18, neither of which are saying that scribal errors are OK or even exist at all.


I can only look at the results and see that regardless of the errors the message is intact. That the validity of the text has been scrutinized by scholars, both secular and religious, over all these years and not one shred of proof has been submitted that discredits the Bible message as it now stands. Theories abound but not one shred of proof.

Well as far as I know, and as has been pointed out on another thread here, the story of Jesus rescuing the adulterous woman and then saying the famous line, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," is a forgery that was inserted 300 years after John Doe wrote that gospel. Also, apparently, the last few verses of Mark describing Jesus' actual resurrection appearances were added later. You can believe that Mark was actually written by Mark and other similarly naive claims, but if you are dragging the scholars into this then we see that Matthew and Luke were non-eyewitness accounts based off of Mark as their primary source and that their versions of the resurrection were therefore based off the forgery, leaving us with no real credible resurrection account at all.

Are those forgeries "essential doctrine"? If so, how do you know any random verse is not a forgery or a derivation from a forgery? If you want to cite scholars and accept some of their claims while rejecting others, you have to have a more sturdy basis than simply rejecting their claims that you don't like and accepting the ones you do like.

 

[Tawhano]

You are completely ignoring the point of this thread.

Not intentionally; you make it difficult to know the true intent of the OP. When I answered:

I cannot fathom how an error in a list of people who Nebuchadnezzar carried away to Babylon would corrupt the message of how God wants us to live our lives.

You said it was a strawman and then in answer to my question if the word corrupt was used to mean that it is less valuable or that is it simply a change from the original” you said “Change from the original”. But all along you have been arguing that the errors are making the Bible less valuable and therefore we cannot put our trust in the text.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Not intentionally; you make it difficult to know the true intent of the OP.

Difficult to know the true intent of the OP? I list a five-point syllogism, with one of the points missing, and of the remaining four, three of them start with the word "Satan." The title of this thread starts with the word "Satan." Yet in none of your responses do you mention Satan or even refer to him indirectly. You even snipped around the word "Satan" in your initial quote of the OP and then you act like I'm referring only to scribal errors so that you can be incredulous that I am insisting you have no good reason to trust essential doctrine.

You are so incredibly dishonest that you should be a case study.

When I answered:
You said it was a strawman and then in answer to my question if the word corrupt was used to mean that it is less valuable or that is it simply a change from the original” you said “Change from the original”. But all along you have been arguing that the errors are making the Bible less valuable and therefore we cannot put our trust in the text.

I never mentioned this dichotomy. You have, in the other thread, accused me of making your case for you and then arguing against what I invented on your behalf. Look what you're doing now. Regardless, though, I don't even see a difference between a change in the text and the text being less valuable. If information came from God, then it is the most valuable information that can exist, so changing that information would necessarily make the information less valuable.

 

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

.
And the New York Yankees win an obscene amount of World Series. Does that mean God is a Yankees fan?

If you want to say that the Bible is God's word because it's the most preserved, and yet you admit that it's not perfectly preserved, then your point is absurd to the highest degree.

Strawman

 

[Hawkins]

1. Men accidentally corrupted the Bible despite trying not to (example: compare the list in Ezra 2 with the list in Nehemiah 7)
2. Satan is more intelligent and more powerful than any man
3. Satan is motivated to corrupt the Bible
4. ???
5. Satan cannot even corrupt the Bible to the same degree that man has

If you admit that Satan actually has corrupted the Bible, then boy are you in trouble. So premise 4 must be, "God manually prevents Satan from corrupting the Bible."

But then why doesn't God also manually prevent scribes from corrupting the Bible, especially if we can agree that they are probably praying for such divine intervention (John 14:13)? This would not be a vulgar miracle, nor would it be the overriding of free will. I know that some Bibles will be corrupted by man - I could easily type one up myself and change some things - but why has God allowed the corruption of the text to get so bad that there is not a single perfect copy on earth? And how does this reconcile with Psalms 12:6-7?

As long as faith is required, God won't do things super obvious. Other than the Bible, do you have another human document which you think it is perfectly preserved?

The Bible is one of the best preserved human documents you can find. It remains theologically intact. This is so because religion has been employed as a vessel in conveying the message of salvation.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

As long as faith is required, God won't do things super obvious. Other than the Bible, do you have another human document which you think it is perfectly preserved?

Yeah. How about all of the books written in the last 50 years?

Oh you mean ancient documents. I see there's a fundamental disconnect here. You are comparing the Bible to other ancient documents and saying it's far and away the best preserved; I'm comparing it to perfection and it fails utterly.

Just because the Yankees have won far more World Series than would be proportional does not mean that God is a Yankees fan.

The Bible is one of the best preserved human documents you can find.

Agreed. See above.

It remains theologically intact.

How do you know this? We don't have the originals. We don't know what Satan did to them. All we know is that the earliest known manuscripts are preserved brilliantly. You haven't proven that Satan did not win that battle.

This is so because religion has been employed as a vessel in conveying the message of salvation.

Huh?

 

[Hawkins]

How do you know this? We don't have the originals. We don't know what Satan did to them. All we know is that the earliest known manuscripts are preserved brilliantly. You haven't proven that Satan did not win that battle.

You don't know that we compare today's documents to ancient scrolls available to us?

As for perfection, God's perfection is that He will save all His sheep without missing one with the Bible as one of the perfect means though the imperfect hands of humans though.

Perfection remains your own unrealistic wish if you failed to find an equivalent in reality. And "perfect" is actually a relative term to a "purpose". A perfect mirror won't talk or fly if that's your definition of "perfect". It only gives a clear image of reflection as its purpose shall define.

 

[Hawkins]

Huh?

In the end, the message of salvation can pass through a history of 2000~3000 years as intact as possible is by means of a religion. There's no other means for such a message to be conveyed successfully.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

You don't know that we compare today's documents to ancient scrolls available to us?

As for perfection, God's perfection is that He will save all His sheep without missing one with the Bible as one of the perfect means though the imperfect hands of humans though.

Perfection remains your own unrealistic wish if you failed to find an equivalent in reality. And "perfect" is actually a relative term to a "purpose". A perfect mirror won't talk or fly if that's your definition of "perfect". It only gives a clear image of reflection as its purpose shall define.

Why would I expect a perfect mirror to talk or fly? Yes, I only expect a perfect mirror to reflect perfectly. And I expect a perfect copy of the Bible to perfectly preserve every word from the original manuscripts. Guess what. We don't have a single perfect copy of the Bible on earth.

I agree it's an unrealistic wish. It's unrealistic because there's no omnipotent God overseeing the copying process.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

In the end, the message of salvation can pass through a history of 2000~3000 years as intact as possible is by means of a religion. There's no other means for such a message to be conveyed successfully.

Can we get a religion without the parts where they molest thousands of children and instead sell their horded wealth to feed the poor?

 

[Hawkins]

Why would I expect a perfect mirror to talk or fly? Yes, I only expect a perfect mirror to reflect perfectly.

If you don't understand the purpose of a mirror, you may have unrealistic expectation in terms of perfection. Similarly, if you don't understand the purpose of the Bible, you will have the same unrealistic expectation.

That's the point.

 

[Hawkins]

Can we get a religion without the parts where they molest thousands of children and instead sell their horded wealth to feed the poor?

That's what humans are to blame. Our religion correctly pointed out that humans are sinners. Which religion has pointed out the same and provided with a feasible redemption?

 

[Nihilist Virus]

That's what humans are to blame. Our religion correctly pointed out that humans are sinners. Which religion has pointed out the same and provided with a feasible redemption?

Why is slitting a lamb's throat feasible redemption for your transgressions against a deity? Or I'm sorry, I think I have that wrong. You're supposed to rip its guts out and sprinkle them on an altar. An important distinction, I do see the difference now.

Or how about we cut to the core of it. Why do you hold yourself accountable to the system of morality drafted by men who regularly engaged in genocide, rape, and slave trading?

 

[Tawhano]

so changing that information would necessarily make the information less valuable

That was not the answer you gave me before.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

That was not the answer you gave me before.

Who cares? Just keep dancing around refusing to answer the OP.

 

[Tawhano]

Who cares? Just keep dancing around refusing to answer the OP.

I am not the one doing the dancing. In reply to my response in post #16 you called it a strawman. When I asked for clarification you lied and said the definition for ‘corrupt’ you used was a change from the original. Then you continue to argue the Bible had lost its message due to the errors and post this:

Regardless, though, I don't even see a difference between a change in the text and the text being less valuable.

If you consult a dictionary you will see that there is indeed a difference. A typo or list that is different is a change from the original but the message remains intact.

And you question other people’s honesty??

 

[Nihilist Virus]

On both pages of this thread I clicked to unhide hidden posts from members on my ignore and ctrl+F searched "Satan" and "devil." Only AV1611VET even bothered to use either word. No one else used such a word other than in quoting me. But AV1611VET is an inerrantist and thus disputes one of my premises (despite not addressing it) and also his question was formed in an incompetent manner suggesting that he did not even understand the argument. Seeing as how no one else even discussed Satan, my argument has been left unaddressed. In debate, this is taken as an admission of defeat.

Combined with a similar situation occurring in my "Backbreaker" thread, I have shown with no opposition that the Bible is untrustworthy and that the premise of Christianity is incoherent.

 

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

On both pages of this thread I clicked to unhide hidden posts from members on my ignore and ctrl+F searched "Satan" and "devil." Only AV1611VET even bothered to use either word. No one else used such a word other than in quoting me. But AV1611VET is an inerrantist and thus disputes one of my premises (despite not addressing it) and also his question was formed in an incompetent manner suggesting that he did not even understand the argument. Seeing as how no one else even discussed Satan, my argument has been left unaddressed. In debate, this is taken as an admission of defeat.

Combined with a similar situation occurring in my "Backbreaker" thread, I have shown with no opposition that the Bible is untrustworthy and that the premise of Christianity is incoherent.

The premise of the OP assumes that the bible was corrupted by Satan. I dont think anyone has yet to agree with you on that topic. Which would probably explain why nobody brought up Satan. So in order to make your OP valid, you would first have to provide evidence to justify Satanic corruption of the bible. If you cannot provide such evidence, your OP is meaningless.