The bible really is reinterpretation of imaginative thought stemmed and rooted from human ignorance.
Their gods were quite powerful and omniscient weren't they.
A reference of human history.
The Bible: God's Word or Man's?
by Doug Mason 66 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Doug Mason
For my own convenience, I converted the HTML files by Seeker into PDF format.
If you are interested, I have uploaded the PDF files to Filesend. I have provided two versions, one that does not include the links provided by Seeker (to make it easier to read just what Seeker says), while the other PDF does contain most of his links (some no longer work).
“rebuttal by Seeker without links.pdf” is available at
http://www.filesend.net/download.php?f=b81c28e10f12174ecca58cd38310035e
“rebuttal by Seeker including links.pdf” is available at
http://www.filesend.net/download.php?f=2e59f1c21ee6ffb026dac5e10b335541
The size of these files is very small.
You need to wait 25 seconds before the “Download” button appears.
Doug
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Doug Mason
thetrueone,
Whether the Bible is the product of the human mind - as propaganda or as a guide for acceptable community behaviour - is not the issue I am pursuing here.
I am interested in the methods employed by the WTS as it prosecutes its case.
Doug
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Rufus
Have you simply willed yourself into confidence? Are you taking the contagious confidence of apologists and making it your own? Or, do you have some logical steps from A to B to C which lead you toward confidence?
Quite the contrary, actually. As an agnostic who was beset by Christian coworkers, I set-out to disprove the Bible. My hope was to get them off my back and perhaps even set some of them straight. In the attempt, however, I wound-up becoming a Christian. The evidence was undeniably in their favor.
How do you get from NO ORIGINALS to "what we do have is the original text."????
More on this in a moment.
When you write about events AFTER THEY HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED how can you call it prophecy?
Your assumption is that the writings came after. Why is that, I wonder? When you encounter a prophecy in the Bible that was fulfilled in great detail, do you conclude ipso facto that the fulfillment must have preceeded the prophecy? That is often the case with materialists who assume a priori that there is no such thing as prophecy. They have a philosophical precommitment to naturalism, and that prevents them from examining the evidence objectively. Thus, they are both closed-minded and circular in their reasoning.
When copyists and translators went out of their way to MAKE CERTAIN the various passages harmonized with each other---how can you call it internal consistency?
That's the beauty of God's plan. He ensured that the Scriptures were proliferated in such a way that no copyist could inject his own ideas undetected. This is particularly true of the NT. The copies were made and circulated throughout the empire. At each place they arrived, more copies were produced. And while errors, both intentional and unintentional, crept into the copies, these were geographically isolated and easy to identify when compared with the larger body of manuscripts.
ALL DOCTRINE of Christianity depends on interpretation. Interpretation of what? NON-ORIGINAL copied text... We DON'T HAVE THE ACTUAL WORDS of Jesus or his Apostles. We have pieced together reconstructions made from oral stories which were re-copied, re-arranged and edited by humans without reference to ACTUAL autograph manuscripts.
I teach adult Sunday school. When I cover the text of Scripture, there is an exercise I have to demonstrate how we can arrive at the original text with only flawed, hand-written copies. I give each student an "original" manuscript. It's in English, but I give it the characteristics of an uncial text (all upper-case with no spaces between words). Once the copies are made, I take back the originals and rip them up. All we have left are the copies.
Next, I reduce the number of copies by roughly 75%. I will ask, "How many of you have a birthday or anniversary this month?" Those who raise their hands have their copies taken. "Your manuscripts were written on papyrus and stored in a humid climate. They did not survive to the present. Now, how many of you typically drive 5 MPH over the speed limit?" That usually gets me several manuscripts. "Yours were kept in the library of Alexandria and were burned by invading Muslims."
Once there are 5 or 6 manuscripts remaining, I will photo copy them and give a set to each student. Their homework is to reproduce the original text and bring it to class the following week.
In all the years I've taught this section, not once has anyone produced a flawless copy. A few have come close, but all have contained errors (some of which are quite humorous). No two students, however, make the exact same errors. When you compare six copies, four or five will agree perfectly in a given reading. One or two will contain an error, but these are almost always different from one another. At the end of the exercise, every single student has been able to reproduce the original text--even though no autograph was available, and he/she only had imperfect and error-filled copies.
This, of course, is a simplified exercise in textual criticism. It aptly demonstrates the principal without the need for Greek or Hebrew scholarship.
The difference and the distinction make all the difference in the world.
Hopefully by now you realize that the distinction is smoke and mirrors. We do possess the original text with great confidence--far more so than for any writing from antiquity. I would encourage you, if you are interested, to learn more about textual criticism. A good introduction, though it wasn't the main purpose in writing, is The King James Only Controversy by James R. White (Bethany, 1995). And of course, I'm available if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Rufus
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Doug Mason
Rufus,
I am so excited to read that you have access to the text of Scripture that is 99% the original!
[While we do not have any autographs (original writings) of Scripture, we are extremely confident that what we do have is the original text. ... Scholars are certain of roughly 99% of the text. The remaining 1% represents trivial matters.]
You are the person I need to know.
I need to read the 99% accurate texts of Jeremiah and of Deuteronomy. As you and I know, these books were written at the same time, most likely both written by Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch.
Please provide me with the original version of the book of Jeremiah as it came from Baruch's hand. Which is the original of Jeremiah, the Hebrew version or the Greek version?
Regarding the Greek Scriptures, while you have access to material that is 99% as written by an original scribe, the contents are of no value unless you can show that each book is as claimed. As examples, even though you have 99% accurate original texts of 2 Thessalonians and of 2 Peter, how do you know they are from Paul and Peter respectively, as claimed?
Rufus, far more important than simply having a 99% accurate texts is to understand the culture of the community at the time a particular book was written. There is little value in the text if you do not know the culture of the community that produced it, or the culture of the subsequent editors.
Doug
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Rufus
"I am so excited to read that you have access to the text of Scripture that is 99% the original!"
Doug,
First of all, I'm not the only person who has access to the scriptures. Find a reputable translation and you'll be on equal footing. Better yet, learn Hebrew and Greek (and perhaps a little Aramaic) and you'll have even greater access.
"I need to read the 99% accurate texts of Jeremiah and of Deuteronomy. As you and I know, these books were written at the same time, most likely both written by Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch."
Sorry, but that is not that case. I have outgrown the documentary hypothesis and no longer accept its creative yet flawed presuppositions. As for the accuracy of the text, once again I encourage you to find a reputable translation (NASB, ESV, NIV, etc.).
"Please provide me with the original version of the book of Jeremiah... Which is the original of Jeremiah, the Hebrew version or the Greek version?"
The Hebrew text is probably older than that found in the Septuagint. Though it is longer and different in arrangement, the Hebrew author demonstrates a much greater familiarity with the material (culturally and liguistically). As for the original version, there are no autographs of scripture extant, so far as we know. All we have are copies, translations, and quotations.
Among the OT writings, the provenance of Jeremiah is one of the most challenging to establish (which is why it is a favorite among liberal scholars and Bible critics). Even so, no doctrine of the Christian faith is brought into question between the Greek and Hebrew versions of Jeremiah.
"Regarding the Greek Scriptures, while you have access to material that is 99% as written by an original scribe, the contents are of no value unless you can show that each book is as claimed. As examples, even though you have 99% accurate original texts of 2 Thessalonians and of 2 Peter, how do you know they are from Paul and Peter respectively, as claimed?"
You're seriously confusing higher- and lower-criticism, here. Determining what the original text of 2 Peter looked like is a completely different task from determining who wrote it. I suggest that you read-up on the subject. Also, try to expand your base of scholarship to include those who aren't proponents of Graf-Wellhausen, et al. It should be very eye-opening.
Sincerely,
Rufus
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Heaven
Find a reputable translation and you'll be on equal footing.
Rufus, how do you determine this without the originals?
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Doug Mason
rufus,
I have access to several English translations of the Scriptures. That is not what I was seeking.
I wanted to see your 99% accurate copy of the original autographs, and I was most interested to see the original scrolls of Jeremiah and Deuteronomy. You definitely and positively stated that you have 99% accurate renderings of the original texts from Scripture, but now you admit that you don't.
My point regarding the textual accuracy of NT documents is that this accuracy does not show whether the document should be accorded the authority ascribed to it. The text of any document, Scriptural or profane, might be an accurate recording of the original but that accuracy of the content does not justify it is truly the word from God.
Doug
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alfmel
I like what the Bible has to say about that:
If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt... (James 1:5-6)
I like that verse because God should be the source of wisdom. James didn't say "If any of you lacks wisdom, read the Bible" (or the equivalent at the time). Plenty have read the Bible and never believed in God. We should read the Bible and ask God if what we are reading is his word and how it applies to our lives. That, in my opinion, is how we obtain true wisdom.
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Rufus
Rufus, how do you determine this without the originals?
Heaven,
Please read my post from 5/15 above. I explain how it is possible to determine the original using only flawed copies. The technical name for this activity is textual criticism (also known as lower criticism).
You definitely and positively stated that you have 99% accurate renderings of the original texts from Scripture, but now you admit that you don't.
Doug,
Um, no. That is not at all what I stated or implied. Let me rephrase it for you. The Greek and Hebrew texts that underlie our modern translations accurately reflect the original writings. (I'm speaking, for example, of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the Nestle Aland 27th ed.) Given the prepodnerance of manuscript evidence and the principles of text criticism, we can be certain that roughly 99% of the original scriptures are contained in the aforementioned Greek and Hebrew texts.
That doesn't break-down as you suppose. It doesn't mean, for example, that each individual book or epistle is 99% accurate. It could mean, for the sake of argument, that 65 1/3 of the books are perfect, and the remaining 2/3 are rife with error. (I am using this only as an example; I do not believe this is the case in reality.) Jeremiah presents many challenges both to the higher and lower critic. That doesn't mean, however, that the text is wholly uncertain.
My point regarding the textual accuracy of NT documents is that this accuracy does not show whether the document should be accorded the authority ascribed to it. The text of any document, Scriptural or profane, might be an accurate recording of the original but that accuracy of the content does not justify it is truly the word from God.
And my point remains that you are thoroughly confused about higher and lower criticism. The two are separate tasks, involving separate tools and separate skills. Otherwise, there would be no distinction in terminology. There would be no "higher" and "lower" criticism; there would be only "criticism".
Again, please consult some of the literature on the respective disciplines. Be advised, however, that so-called higher criticism is more subjective in nature and has been the playground for those hostile to traditional views of Scripture. It doesn't mean they are necessarily wrong, of course. But when given a few inches of rope, it is the tendency of liberal scholars and secularists to think they are cowboys.
Kind Regards,
Rufus