Paul's Letters: Part of "All Scripture ..." ?

compound complex

Greetings, Friends:

A friend - a former JW - gave me Thomas Paine's THE AGE OF REASON: BEING AN INVESTIGATION OF TRUE AND FABULOUS THEOLOGY. The mind boggles as I begin, haltingly, to fathom what many of you have already learned and shared here on JWD: the authenticity of the Bible is seriously in question. It hasn't hit me till now.

Paine, a deist, declares his GOD not responsible for the alleged exploits scripted as fabulous tales by anonymous writers. He writes at length about severe irregularities in time, place and circumstance, those for which the Society has always had a ready explanation.

This leads to my titled query - somewhat. What were the scriptures to which Paul referred in 2 Timothy 3:16, viz, "All Scripture is inspired of God, ..." ? He could only be referencing OT writings, correct? What establishes the weight and divine authority of the NT, as Paul could not logically be speaking of future writings? How would one who accepts the Bible understand this? Frankly, I never would have thought of this before talking to two disaffected JWs, who are clearly far ahead of me in such matters.

Of course, the respondants need not necessarily accept the authenticity of the Bible to make a knowledgeable reply.

Thank you,

CoCo the Enquirer

CyrusThePersian

First of all, let me say that The Age of Reason is an awesome book. Thomas Paine was a true Renaissance Man. To think that this book still opens eyes after 200 years is a major accomplshment!

As for "Paul" (The Apostle Paul probably didn't actually write this epistle), when he said "All scripture..." he was referring to what we (mostly) call the Old Testament today. The New Testament writings that existed in his time were in no way considered "scripture" that is, inspired, until much later. As to what the writer DID believe to be scripture, consider what he wrote in v.8 of the same third chapter:

"Now in the way that Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so these also go on resisting the truth, men completely corrupted in mind, disapproved as regards the faith."

Now who the hell are Jannes and Jambres?? They are mentioned nowhere in what we today call the Bible. But they ARE mentioned in the apocrypha. So exactly what did the writer of the Pastoral Epistles believe was "scripture"?

Who really knows...

CyrusThePersian

compound complex

Thank you, Cyrus:

Your mention of J and J's resisting the TRUTH was a new thought to me. And your mention of who did NOT write Timothy ...

Yes, 200 years later and Mr. Paine is still making an impact. And the works of CTR, JFR and FWF? I think we know the answer to that one!

Gratefully,

CoCo

PrimateDave

I must admit that I don't know whether "Paul" would have ranked his own writings with other "Holy Writings", the canon of the Jewish Bible being complete before the Common Era. Of course, the WTS would like people to think so!

I haven't read the Age of Reason, but it is available online at the Infidels.org website here.

Perhaps more than any other book I have read, Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedman impressed me with its objectivity and scholarship. It's a very respectful work that doesn't cater to the fundamentalist crowd and gives an excellent and very readable explanation of the Documentary Hypothesis.

Dave

AlphaOmega

I am also reading a book at the moment that has a similar theme - "The Laughing Jesus" (Freke and Gandy).

In it they claim that much of the writing that is attributed to Paul is actually forged (mostly the literalist stuff) and that Paul was actually a Gnostic.

In it they tear apart various chronologic aspects of the Old and New Testaments.

Maybe something else to add to the reading list - I'll look at the books that you mentioned.

In fact, in their later book "The Gospel of The Second Coming", Paul gets to see what the world has made of his writings in the year 2000 or so - he is appauled that we rank them as scripture (from memory).

What-A-Coincidence

Ron Paul's letters? Yep...should be 'scripture' :)

compound complex

PD, AO and WAC:

I appreciate your comments and wanted to thank you. More to ponder!

I will be "netless" till the morrow and wish to thank in advance any who may comment throughout the day.

Till then,

CoCo

jaguarbass

Hello CoCo. When I escaped the Tower in 81, I spent another good 20+ years in denial trying to make square pegs fit into the round holes of the bible.

I ran my head into the wall enough times that finally I decided rather than be insane, I would accept the reality that the bible is the deck of cards the wac tower and many religions in the United States is based on.

So for the past 3 or 4 years I've been looking for meaning and explanations outside of the bible.

I'm not doing much better in that area either. But at least I am not a slave to someones dogma.

And their dogmas no longer eating my karma.

It took me reading the bible cover to cover 5 times starting in 81, making notes and cross referencing and finding a load of contradictions, then I got the internet about 97 and my information age began.

Having read the bible cover to cover, I found the predominant theme from my notes that appeared over and over again and which most alleged bible thumpers vehemently deny, is that man is predestined and has very little free will.

You might find a scripture or 2 talking about free will but the majority of the scriptures deal with predestination and god controlling everything.

Some like to back pedal and explain away. I'm a simple kind of guy who calls a contradiction a contradiction.

If you dont call spades spades, contradictions contradictions you will always be filling off square pegs to fit in round holes and you will never have a truth or a reality other than what you are trying to fashion by filing off round pegs to fit into square holes.

I read and learned back in the 70's man see's what he wants to see. Well I can honestly say, I'm trying my best to observe an unaltered reality.

My dishonesty is I keep trying to cut god a break give him some slack, hoping beyond hope that he is there.

I havent been honest enough to come out full tilt and admit there is no God or call myself an atheist. I'm hedging my bets with the color agnostic.

Mary

I did a thread on this a long time ago......my feeling is that when it says "all scripture is inspired of God", it's just saying that it was written with God in mind----not that God approved of every single word that's written down: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/106562/1.ashx

R.Crusoe

Paul hung around Greece quite a lot. It is intriguing to learn about a story around that region long beforehand. The more you read about it the more similarities there are:

http://altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa052902a.htm

Paul's Letters: Part of "All Scripture ..." ?

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