Satan and errors in scripture

[Aryeh Jay]

.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I agree with your "premise 4".

Nonsensical statement. Premise 4 is blank.

When reading Job, and also the New Testament, I see that Satan is limited by God's permission. So, if God doesn't want Satan corrupting our Bibles then He won't let him do it.

By that logic, if God doesn't want man corrupting his Bible then he won't let them do it. So can you please give me a sensible explanation as to why there is this semipermeable barrier which man is it allowed to penetrate and yet Satan is not.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I’m sorry that you think I came here to argue with atheists, I did not. There is no last desperation attack. I am a Jew, a creature that is much more despised than atheists. I just go through the forums and occasionally post in interesting topics and try to get to know people. My curiosity got the best of me with this thread. I will leave your thread and not derail it further. Enjoy your time on the forums. (A belated welcome, nothing more)

You didn't come to the apologetics forum to argue with atheists. Lol ok. Like saying you went to a gay bar but you don't drink and aren't gay.

Anyway, if you like to "just go through the forums and occasionally post in interesting topics and try to get to know people" then maybe don't start off with butting in telling us how to talk to one another. Maybe start off by getting to know us or, G-d forbid, contribute to the actual topic at hand. Just some friendly advice.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

.

 

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

So you are saying that the spirit of the letter is most important, and yet you present it ad hoc only because you were otherwise proven to be either wrong or lying. By all accounts you would've been perfectly content if I didn't call you out on that and instead walked away with the wrong literal understanding of the text. And let's not forget that the claim itself is completely fabricated and without basis.

So quick to accuse and judge. I truly wanted to have a mature conversation with you in good faith. However you really have no interest in getting any answers to any of your questions....do you? I think we are finished talking. I will be praying for you. Have fun arguing with yourself. You are really good at that. I assume you have been doing it for a long time now.

 

[ScottA]

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?

The words of the Lord are indeed pure, but..."confused"...by His own doing. Genesis 11:7

The reason for the intentional confusion...is to prolong the times, until all have had equal opportunity to consider God in their own time, whether it was thousands of years ago or today.

 

[ChetSinger]

Nonsensical statement. Premise 4 is blank.

I was referring to your sentence: "So premise 4 must be, "God manually prevents Satan from corrupting the Bible."". But I think you realize that, so I think we understand each other.

By that logic, if God doesn't want man corrupting his Bible then he won't let them do it. So can you please give me a sensible explanation as to why there is this semipermeable barrier which man is it allowed to penetrate and yet Satan is not.

Hmm, an explanation that is "sensible" in whose eyes? In mine, yes, because I've pondered this and have done some reading on it. Sensible in your eyes? I doubt it, because I think you've shown a remarkable unwillingness to consider anyone's viewpoint other than your own.

But I'll give it a shot. First, can we agree that in the Bible, Satan is portrayed as being under the dominion of God, just as we men are?

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I was referring to your sentence: "So premise 4 must be, "God manually prevents Satan from corrupting the Bible."". But I think you realize that, so I think we understand each other.

Oh right, fair enough. My mistake.

Hmm, an explanation that is "sensible" in whose eyes? In mine, yes, because I've pondered this and have done some reading on it. Sensible in your eyes? I doubt it, because I think you've shown a remarkable unwillingness to consider anyone's viewpoint other than your own.

I am a deconvert so I'd wager that I am open minded.

But I'll give it a shot. First, can we agree that in the Bible, Satan is portrayed as being under the dominion of God, just as we men are?

Yes.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

The words of the Lord are indeed pure, but..."confused"...by His own doing. Genesis 11:7

The reason for the intentional confusion...is to prolong the times, until all have had equal opportunity to consider God in their own time, whether it was thousands of years ago or today.

1 Corinthians 14:33 disagrees.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

So quick to accuse and judge. I truly wanted to have a mature conversation with you in good faith. However you really have no interest in getting any answers to any of your questions....do you? I think we are finished talking. I will be praying for you. Have fun arguing with yourself. You are really good at that. I assume you have been doing it for a long time now.

So you pester me to the point that I don't want to talk to you anymore, and yet I suspend that judgment to have this conversation. Then I *correctly* say that you are either wrong or lying about that passage if we do not consider this "spirit of the letter" business (as indicated by my use of the word "otherwise"), and I also *correctly* point out that you are invoking it ad hoc, and then you get upset. Meanwhile you *incorrectly* accused me of dishonesty without even the possibility that I was simply wrong; you said outright that I was lying. Post #46.

Recall that I explained in full why you were wrong.about that accusation.

In summary, you can call me a liar and it's fine, but if I say you're either lying or wrong then I've crossed the line.

So here's what happens now. I'm not even looking at what you say unless someone else on your behalf says that you have found the post in which I said I was putting you on ignore to begin with. Then I will see if you can explain that I was being too harsh or if in fact I was using bad judgment altogether.

If one of these occurs, you get ONE post to answer this thread in a complete and clear manner either fully defending your position or else admitting defeat like Aryeh Jay. If your post says that you accept the terms and you're drafting your response, then you will have wasted your one response.

 

[ScottA]

1 Corinthians 14:33 disagrees.

Not so. You cannot use scripture against scripture. That is confusion at work.

The would be contradiction that you site, is not a contradiction at all, but rather a clarification: that God is not the author of the ills of the world, but allows all things (even the ills of this world) to work together for good for those who love him.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

.

 

[Commander Xenophon]

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?

Forgive me, but you seem to have a certain preoccupation with this issue, which is rooted in several misconceptions about Satan and the nature of the devil and angels, and the nature of the Church, although your concerns are in part a valid criticism of fundamentalist Christianity, particularly in its anti-ecclesiological forms.

First, let us consider the nature of Satan and the other fallen angels, from the perspective of the Orthodox Church:

• He is bound by God; he can act only according to the will of God, and requires God's permission to act (see Job, and the indeed the Gospels; the demons could not posess the swine without our Lord's permission).
• He is inferior to man in every respect.
• As an angel, a fallen angel, he is spiritual incorporeal and posesses certain abilities in terms of swift movement we lack (hence, the Apostles referred to him as the Prince of The Air), but can only use these abilities if God allows it.
• Christians can dispense Satan simply by making the sign of the cross or saying the Jesus Prayer; when we are baptized into the Church, we are exorcised and sealed with Chrism, and can only fall victim to demonic posession if we apostasize or dabble in the occult.
• Exorcism is a relatively simple matter for Orthodox clergy to deal with; in fact, in the early Church, Exorcists were among the lowest ranking persons in Holy Orders; I believe they were one cut above Doorkeepers.
• Thus, Satan is less spiritually intelligent and less spirituslly powerful than any pious, baptized Orthodox Christian; all he can do is tempt us, but we can brush him off like a fly. Satan becomes powerful only when we succumb to the passioms and thus empower him. The "intelligence" he posesses further is merely a cunning understanding of human weakness; he knows nothing of faith, love, charity, and humility; of the divine nature and of godliness he is ignorant.
• A baptized Christian who embraces piety will be deified, participating in the divine energies of God through faith in Jesus Christ, becoming by grace what He is by nature. Thus, pious Christian men and women, priests, bishops, laity and children, are like God, partakers of the divine nature, and as long as we faithfully participate in the Church, partsking of Her sacramental life and heeding Her counsels, we can resist the snares of Satan; on those occasions when due to our fallen nature we do sin, the Church provides the sacramental medicine of confession and communion to restore us to spiritual health.

This in turn takes us to the Church. The Christian Church, according to Matthew 16:18, is specifically protected from Satan; "The gates of Hell will not prevail [against it]." Thus, while individual portions of the church may succumb to diabolical influence and become heretical and schismatic, the Church as a whole is and always will be protected.

The Orthodox believe the Church to be a visible, Eucharistic communion of local churches which can trace their origins to Pentecost. We believe that, occasionally and tragically, some of these local churches have fallen into schism and heresy; it should be noted however that such local churches can also, aided by our prayers, emerge from heresy and schism and reunite withnus Eucharistically. Thus, Rome fell away from the Orthodox in 1054 but is now in the process of reconcilimg itself with us. Several smaller communities of Western Christians, and many Assyrian Christians, also reunited with us. On the other hand, all of the groups that, in ancient times, separated from us in heresies which were obviously gross departures from the faith, that can in my opinion only be attributed to demonic activity, became extinct, not due to persecution on our part; most were gone before the Edict of Milan and the conversiom of the Roman Empire to Christianity. I refer of course to the various Gnostic sects described by St. Irenaeus of Lyons in Against Heresies.

Now. the Orthodox Church as a whole is infallible. Our ecumenical councils are infallible instruments representing the will of the entire church. Consequently, any Orthodox bishop who acts in accordance with the Sacred Tradition of the Orthodox Church is infallible; when he celebrates the divine liturgy, and indeed when he preaches a homily during the divine liturgy, he id acting in the person of Christ; Christ himself is present, through the bishop. And Orthodox priests furthermore act in the person of the bishop, and thus in the person of Christ, when they in turn preach and serve the liturgy in their parishes.

So as long as everyone submits themselves with humility and obedience to the Church, there is no need to worry about possible demonic corruption of the Bible. Any errors and inconsistencies that actually exist are simply not relevant; Scripture, to quote St. Hilary of Poitiers, is not in the reading but the Interpretation.

Which in turn takes us to the specific issue of textual inconsistencies and indeed manuscript variations. Frankly, @Nihilist Virus; these are quibbles; they do not confuse or confound the Orthodox interpretation of the Bible. The Bible is not a sacrament, it is not an uncreated work of absolute perfection; we do not view it the way the Muslims view the Quran.

Rather, the "Bible," I think is better understood if we call it the "sacred Scriptures;" it is not a unified, coherent whole, but an anthology of diverse spiritual texts by a plethora of different authors composed over many centuries, which, collectively, like a Mosaic, foretell and then describe the Incarnation of Christ, and explain the economy of Salvation and God's wish to be united with us in a union of perfect love in the Parousia. They are allegorical and literal, prescriptive and descriptive. Collectively, they are an icon of the Word of God; the actual Word of God is Jesus Christ, but the Sacred Scriptures iconographically describe Him, from Genesis through Revelation.

The Church, promised infallibility in Matthew 16:18 and elsewhere, has the ultimate responsobility for editing this anthology of Scriptures; the fathers of the early Church wrote the books of the New Testament, assembled them together with the old, and then in the fourth century, several saints vetted the accumulated deposit of spiritual writings to determine what was most valuable, and for the New Testament, this was definitively settled by the Athanasian Canon composed by St. Athanasius the Great in his 39th Paschal encyclical. There are a few different canons of Old Testament literature in use among the apostokic churches, but none of this has really posed a problem during the process of ecumenical reconciliation, because the disputed works are generally regarded as secondary.

Ultimately, these Sacred Scriptures portray an icon of Christ, the incarnate Word of God. Thus, they are the written word of God. And from this written word of God, we can find and extract the central message from God to humanity: the Gospel. The four canonical Gospels and indeed the Bible as a whole tell this Good News, and this Good News is simply that the only begotten Son of God emptied Himself and became incarnate as Jesus Christ, taking our fallen human nature onto Himself; thus, God died for our sins in the flesh, and on the third day rose again as was foretold in the Old Testsment, trampling down death by death. If we believe in Him, we shall not taste death, and in believing in Him, we will perform His commandments, loving God above all else, and loving our neighbours as ourselves; we receive the strength to do these things through the life-giving sacraments ordained by God in His Holy Church; through Baptism, our sins and the corruptions of Satan are washed away, through Chrismation, we are sealed into the Body of Christ by receiving God the Holy Spirit, through the Eucharist, we partake of the true life-giving body and blood of our Lord, for the remission of sins and life everlasting, through Holy Unction, we are strengthened in the face of physical, mental, spiritual and noetic infirmity, through Holy Matrimony, men and women are united as one flesh to reproduce and nurture children and to enjoy a foretaste of the sublime, all-uniting love that awaits us in the world to come, and in Ordination, those called to serve in the Church receive a blessing to perform the duties of their office in proclaiming the Gospel, including for priests and bishops, a blessing to celebrate the mysteries themselves.

That message is what Sacred Scripture exists to convey. It does so in a much more eloquent, detailed, and edifying manner than the brief summary I provided; every book is a uniquely beautiful and instructive treasure, a love letter from God to man, written by the hands of His prophets, apostles and evangelists, amd indeed reflecting their own unique understanding of God and their own unique literary style and personality. The Scriptures were written by men, appointed by God, and as every human is unique and special, so too is every book unique and special.

Thus, any minor inconsistencies that may exist between the books of the Bible are frankly irrelevant. They have not prevented the Christian Church from becoming the world's greatest religion both in size and in philanthropic accomplishments; they did not stop us from ending gladiatorial combat and dramatically reducing e amount of human and animal sacrifice in the world, from pioneering social justice in the Roman Empire, and inventing the hospital, among other philanthropic breakthroughs.

So, the brutal reality is that if the devil did try to corrupt the Bible, he failed spectacularly and in every conceivable way. Which is typical; failure is integral to the demonic nature.

 

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

So here's what happens now. I'm not even looking at what you say unless someone else on your behalf says that you have found the post in which I said I was putting you on ignore to begin with. Then I will see if you can explain that I was being too harsh or if in fact I was using bad judgment altogether.

If one of these occurs, you get ONE post to answer this thread in a complete and clear manner either fully defending your position or else admitting defeat like Aryeh Jay. If your post says that you accept the terms and you're drafting your response, then you will have wasted your one response.

Well....how very gracious of you. I am humbled and honored to have the privilege of conversing with you. Please forgive me and have mercy....[emoji19] . Listen, you do whatever you want to do. I really don't care. I will do whatever I darn well please within the guidelines of the forum rules. I hope this was "complete and clear" enough for you. The only thing you can do is ignore me and I am perfectly fine with that. Good day Mr. Narcissist Virus.

 

[ChetSinger]

Yes.

OK, then I'll begin with my explanation.

By that logic, if God doesn't want man corrupting his Bible then he won't let them do it. So can you please give me a sensible explanation as to why there is this semipermeable barrier which man is it allowed to penetrate and yet Satan is not.

While Satan is under the dominion of God, who says that God doesn't let Satan mess, to some extent, with Bibles? As an example I put forth the New World Translation (NWT) of the Jehovah's Witnesses. It changes various verses in order to support their heretical Arian-like theology and imo is much more damaging to someone's faith than the odd discrepancy in an OT genealogy. Who is behind an effort such as the NWT? Is it men only, or was Satan involved?

My answer is that I don't know, but I think Satan may well have been involved. So while I believe God is in ultimate control, I think he gives Satan some temporary leeway, just has he gives us some temporary leeway. Such leeway as Satan receives in the first chapters in the book of Job, or in the production of the NWT.

(As an aside, would you agree that while the Bible portrays Satan as under the dominion of God, it also portrays God as giving him some leeway here on earth?)

That doesn't mean the gospel has failed, because it's still here. But it means you can find a false gospel in a false Bible such as the NWT.

Regarding the odd discrepancy in an OT genealogy and other such things, I believe that God doesn't require perfection from us. He gives us some leeway and tolerates some errors, as long as the gospel message is maintained until the end of this age.

How tolerant is he of errors? That can be determined, I think, by studying the manuscripts we have. But this post is already long enough.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I was not defeated; whatever gave you that idea?

The fact that you said you believe in nonsense.

I have been polite and civil with you, I posted a reminded about the rules that YOU agreed to in order to post here and you throw false accusation at me.

Yeah, and then you went on to hijack my thread. Lol.

You keep insinuating that I came here to argue with atheists, but according to the forum rules I cannot; only Christian can defend the religion, again, in the rules that YOU agreed to abide by to post here.

So you came here to tell me about the rules. Tell me which exact post I am violating rules in, please. Because as far as I know, if someone says, "Satan said x, y, and z," and then I point out, "Hey, it actually says it was the king of Babylon, so either you're wrong or lying," then I am not calling the person a liar. He, however, did call me a liar.

You must not have read everything when you agreed. And as I try to leave peacefully, you just have to keep on going with your insults.

It's not an insult to say that you admitted defeat. I'm not saying anything personal about you.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Now so. You cannot use scripture against scripture. That is confusion at work.

The would be contradiction that you site, is not a contradiction at all, but rather a clarification: that God is not the author of the ills of the world, but allows all things (even the ills of this world) to work together for good for those who love him.

I have given you a contradiction in another thread and your bizarre answer was that there is no contradiction because there is no timeline. As if you think that's what the theory of relativity means. Your answers to all of my questions are always nonsensical. In this case, you are not mentioning Satan so you are not even attempting to answer the question whatsoever. So please stop derailing my threads.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

OK, then I'll begin with my explanation.


While Satan is under the dominion of God, who says that God doesn't let Satan mess, to some extent, with Bibles? As an example I put forth the New World Translation (NWT) of the Jehovah's Witnesses. It changes various verses in order to support their heretical Arian-like theology and imo is much more damaging to someone's faith than the odd discrepancy in an OT genealogy. Who is behind an effort such as the NWT? Is it men only, or was Satan involved?

I addressed this in the OP:

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?

The productions of JWs or Mormons are irrelevant to the discussion because I'm talking about the errors in the Bible which exist in all known copies. If Satan had altered the Bible, he would have done so when it was still fresh and there weren't New Testament scholars because there wasn't even a New Testament yet, not to mention the fact that back then there was no printing press and the vast majority of people were illiterate. Quite easy to make changes in that environment. He wouldn't wait until now when the majority of the world is literate and educated, and there is the free exchange of ideas via the internet.

My answer is that I don't know, but I think Satan may well have been involved. So while I believe God is in ultimate control, I think he gives Satan some temporary leeway, just has he gives us some temporary leeway. Such leeway as Satan receives in the first chapters in the book of Job, or in the production of the NWT.

You are calling a sincere Jesus-based religion demonic. Let's pause for a moment here.

Normal Christianity is founded on grace through faith, no works needed. But what if the idea that no works are needed is a lie inserted by Satan to encourage Christians to skate by doing what they think is the minimum, when in fact works are required? How would you know the actual truth? All you can do is trust a God who is already known to allow corruption in the Bible.

(As an aside, would you agree that while the Bible portrays Satan as under the dominion of God, it also portrays God as giving him some leeway here on earth?)

Yes.

That doesn't mean the gospel has failed, because it's still here. But it means you can find a false gospel in a false Bible such as the NWT.

Again, such a point is irrelevant. I'm asking how you know Satan hasn't corrupted the source material, not the heretical spin-off religions.

Regarding the odd discrepancy in an OT genealogy and other such things, I believe that God doesn't require perfection from us. He gives us some leeway and tolerates some errors, as long as the gospel message is maintained until the end of this age.

He does require perfection from us. I thought that's why Jesus had to die...?

How tolerant is he of errors? That can be determined, I think, by studying the manuscripts we have.

See here's the problem. We know that there is an error in the list of returning Jews from exile (in Ezra and Nehemiah) because we have two lists which disagree with one another. This is most likely a result of scribal error. Satan is likely disinterested in that portion of the Bible, and if he actually did want to change it, he probably would've changed both accounts to be wrong and yet agree with one another so as to disguise what he did. If he were to change something important (such as works vs no works), he'd make sure that he is messing with an issue that appears only once or else if it appears multiple times then he'd likely alter all other instances. Perhaps the works/no works is a bad example because there is some confusion on that... but there are other things he could've altered and we wouldn't know.

But this post is already long enough.

No, you could've kept going. I appreciate what you are bringing to the table.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Forgive me, but you seem to have a certain preoccupation with this issue, which is rooted in several misconceptions about Satan and the nature of the devil and angels, and the nature of the Church, although your concerns are in part a valid criticism of fundamentalist Christianity, particularly in its anti-ecclesiological forms.

First, let us consider the nature of Satan and the other fallen angels, from the perspective of the Orthodox Church:

• He is bound by God; he can act only according to the will of God, and requires God's permission to act (see Job, and the indeed the Gospels; the demons could not posess the swine without our Lord's permission).
• He is inferior to man in every respect.
• As an angel, a fallen angel, he is spiritual incorporeal and posesses certain abilities in terms of swift movement we lack (hence, the Apostles referred to him as the Prince of The Air), but can only use these abilities if God allows it.
• Christians can dispense Satan simply by making the sign of the cross or saying the Jesus Prayer; when we are baptized into the Church, we are exorcised and sealed with Chrism, and can only fall victim to demonic posession if we apostasize or dabble in the occult.
• Exorcism is a relatively simple matter for Orthodox clergy to deal with; in fact, in the early Church, Exorcists were among the lowest ranking persons in Holy Orders; I believe they were one cut above Doorkeepers.
• Thus, Satan is less spiritually intelligent and less spirituslly powerful than any pious, baptized Orthodox Christian; all he can do is tempt us, but we can brush him off like a fly. Satan becomes powerful only when we succumb to the passioms and thus empower him. The "intelligence" he posesses further is merely a cunning understanding of human weakness; he knows nothing of faith, love, charity, and humility; of the divine nature and of godliness he is ignorant.
• A baptized Christian who embraces piety will be deified, participating in the divine energies of God through faith in Jesus Christ, becoming by grace what He is by nature. Thus, pious Christian men and women, priests, bishops, laity and children, are like God, partakers of the divine nature, and as long as we faithfully participate in the Church, partsking of Her sacramental life and heeding Her counsels, we can resist the snares of Satan; on those occasions when due to our fallen nature we do sin, the Church provides the sacramental medicine of confession and communion to restore us to spiritual health.

The Bible says that Satan is the god of this world, and that he tempted Jesus with many great things. Jesus resisted the temptation, which is to say that he was being tempted. Satan cannot tempt Jesus with the things that Jesus already owns. The Bible also says that Satan walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

The Satan you are describing is incompatible with the Satan described in the Bible. I assume that you would prefer for me to place the Bible's authority over your own. Therefore we may reject your bullet points.

This in turn takes us to the Church. The Christian Church, according to Matthew 16:18, is specifically protected from Satan; "The gates of Hell will not prevail [against it]." Thus, while individual portions of the church may succumb to diabolical influence and become heretical and schismatic, the Church as a whole is and always will be protected.

What does it mean to prevail against the church? There were/are massive molestation scandals that costed the church billions of dollars in legal fees and settlements, not to mention the fact that we all now know the high ranks of the church willfully protected pedophiles. The church has survived this, so it can survive alterations in the Bible, so your point is moot.

The Orthodox believe the Church to be a visible, Eucharistic communion of local churches which can trace their origins to Pentecost. We believe that, occasionally and tragically, some of these local churches have fallen into schism and heresy; it should be noted however that such local churches can also, aided by our prayers, emerge from heresy and schism and reunite withnus Eucharistically. Thus, Rome fell away from the Orthodox in 1054 but is now in the process of reconcilimg itself with us. Several smaller communities of Western Christians, and many Assyrian Christians, also reunited with us. On the other hand, all of the groups that, in ancient times, separated from us in heresies which were obviously gross departures from the faith, that can in my opinion only be attributed to demonic activity, became extinct, not due to persecution on our part; most were gone before the Edict of Milan and the conversiom of the Roman Empire to Christianity. I refer of course to the various Gnostic sects described by St. Irenaeus of Lyons in Against Heresies.

Now. the Orthodox Church as a whole is infallible. Our ecumenical councils are infallible instruments representing the will of the entire church. Consequently, any Orthodox bishop who acts in accordance with the Sacred Tradition of the Orthodox Church is infallible; when he celebrates the divine liturgy, and indeed when he preaches a homily during the divine liturgy, he id acting in the person of Christ; Christ himself is present, through the bishop. And Orthodox priests furthermore act in the person of the bishop, and thus in the person of Christ, when they in turn preach and serve the liturgy in their parishes.

So as long as everyone submits themselves with humility and obedience to the Church, there is no need to worry about possible demonic corruption of the Bible. Any errors and inconsistencies that actually exist are simply not relevant; Scripture, to quote St. Hilary of Poitiers, is not in the reading but the Interpretation.

Submitting yourself with humility and obedience to the church is a heretical notion, and it is a good way to lose your virginity at the wrong place and time. You are supposed to submit yourself to God and/or Jesus. The church has been a hemorrhoid on this planet ever since Constantine had Rome sainted.

Which in turn takes us to the specific issue of textual inconsistencies and indeed manuscript variations. Frankly, @Nihilist Virus; these are quibbles; they do not confuse or confound the Orthodox interpretation of the Bible. The Bible is not a sacrament, it is not an uncreated work of absolute perfection; we do not view it the way the Muslims view the Quran.

I agree that the Bible is imperfect. I used to be an inerrantist, and the falsification of those ideas costed me my faith.

Rather, the "Bible," I think is better understood if we call it the "sacred Scriptures;" it is not a unified, coherent whole, but an anthology of diverse spiritual texts by a plethora of different authors composed over many centuries, which, collectively, like a Mosaic, foretell and then describe the Incarnation of Christ, and explain the economy of Salvation and God's wish to be united with us in a union of perfect love in the Parousia. They are allegorical and literal, prescriptive and descriptive. Collectively, they are an icon of the Word of God; the actual Word of God is Jesus Christ, but the Sacred Scriptures iconographically describe Him, from Genesis through Revelation.

No, it does not foretell and describe the incarnation of Christ. Hence the reason rabbis reject Jesus as the messiah.

The Church, promised infallibility in Matthew 16:18 and elsewhere,

The church is promised immortality in that verse, NOT infallibility. Infallibility is the quality of never being wrong.

has the ultimate responsobility for editing this anthology of Scriptures; the fathers of the early Church wrote the books of the New Testament, assembled them together with the old, and then in the fourth century, several saints vetted the accumulated deposit of spiritual writings to determine what was most valuable, and for the New Testament, this was definitively settled by the Athanasian Canon composed by St. Athanasius the Great in his 39th Paschal encyclical. There are a few different canons of Old Testament literature in use among the apostokic churches, but none of this has really posed a problem during the process of ecumenical reconciliation, because the disputed works are generally regarded as secondary.

The process falls upon the church, which is fallible.

Ultimately, these Sacred Scriptures portray an icon of Christ, the incarnate Word of God. Thus, they are the written word of God. And from this written word of God, we can find and extract the central message from God to humanity: the Gospel. The four canonical Gospels and indeed the Bible as a whole tell this Good News, and this Good News is simply that the only begotten Son of God emptied Himself and became incarnate as Jesus Christ, taking our fallen human nature onto Himself; thus, God died for our sins in the flesh, and on the third day rose again as was foretold in the Old Testsment, trampling down death by death. If we believe in Him, we shall not taste death, and in believing in Him, we will perform His commandments, loving God above all else, and loving our neighbours as ourselves; we receive the strength to do these things through the life-giving sacraments ordained by God in His Holy Church; through Baptism, our sins and the corruptions of Satan are washed away, through Chrismation, we are sealed into the Body of Christ by receiving God the Holy Spirit, through the Eucharist, we partake of the true life-giving body and blood of our Lord, for the remission of sins and life everlasting, through Holy Unction, we are strengthened in the face of physical, mental, spiritual and noetic infirmity, through Holy Matrimony, men and women are united as one flesh to reproduce and nurture children and to enjoy a foretaste of the sublime, all-uniting love that awaits us in the world to come, and in Ordination, those called to serve in the Church receive a blessing to perform the duties of their office in proclaiming the Gospel, including for priests and bishops, a blessing to celebrate the mysteries themselves.

That message is what Sacred Scripture exists to convey. It does so in a much more eloquent, detailed, and edifying manner than the brief summary I provided; every book is a uniquely beautiful and instructive treasure, a love letter from God to man, written by the hands of His prophets, apostles and evangelists, amd indeed reflecting their own unique understanding of God and their own unique literary style and personality. The Scriptures were written by men, appointed by God, and as every human is unique and special, so too is every book unique and special.

Thus, any minor inconsistencies that may exist between the books of the Bible are frankly irrelevant. They have not prevented the Christian Church from becoming the world's greatest religion both in size and in philanthropic accomplishments; they did not stop us from ending gladiatorial combat and dramatically reducing e amount of human and animal sacrifice in the world, from pioneering social justice in the Roman Empire, and inventing the hospital, among other philanthropic breakthroughs.

So, the brutal reality is that if the devil did try to corrupt the Bible, he failed spectacularly and in every conceivable way. Which is typical; failure is integral to the demonic nature.

This is irrelevant and missing the point. I'm not saying that you can examine inconsistencies and see where Satan has touched the scriptures. I'm saying that since he is clever, and yes he certainly is, he would alter the Bible in such a way that would be undetectable by us. The inconsistencies in peripheral details such as returning exiles from Babylon are likely the result of scribal error.

 

[ScottA]

I have given you a contradiction in another thread and your bizarre answer was that there is no contradiction because there is no timeline. As if you think that's what the theory of relativity means. Your answers to all of my questions are always nonsensical. In this case, you are not mentioning Satan so you are not even attempting to answer the question whatsoever. So please stop derailing my threads.

Of course they are...because you have no other form of reference.

I am not derailing but offering the answer to staying on the correct course, to getting on the right track. You asked a question, yes, and Satan is indeed a factor, but only after the fact. But again, you can't even vary from your own mindset to consider the root cause.

I'm glad you brought up the timeline...because that is the problem: In this world, time is the media by which God has [by design] unfolded His timeless reality, to the broken. Time, simply allows each person to experience all things in their own time. But to grasp the answer to your question, you must understand the providence of God: the delay that corruption provides to cause even the scriptures to be confused, serves His purpose to carry the original problem forward to all generations ... But one could not even imagine it so, without first understanding that it is a finished [timeless] work. We exist within the pages of a finished tale, that plays out a single act into many complex details in the lives of all who are effected, beginning and end.