Facts are helpless when confronted with the Power of Belief.
what is the best way to disprove divinity of the bible???
by oompa 14 Replies latest jw friends
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Mad Sweeney
I also think it is good to debunk the present-day Bible by disconnecting it from the "original" scriptures, if they ever existed as such, and then disconnecting those writings from the alleged original events, if they ever happened. Terry killed the Bible for me in this thread:
Thanks, Terry!
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acolytes
Leavingwt
I have taken the word power out of my vocabularlie.... Power ....poewer vocabularry ...Powerv of belief,
Just words and spellingngs........
Acolytes
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Terry
Proof Texts are what JW's rely on. After that, the interpretation OF those proof texts.
If the Texts themselves are just simply bogus---they have absolutely NO foundation left!
What the Bible has to have is PROVENANCE. Chain of custody proving it is authentic.
The Bible has no such provenance.
When I was a scripture spouting JW I was under the honestly held opinion that there existed in this world ORIGINAL AUTOGRAPH manuscripts which--when properly translated---gave us the infallible word of Jehovah.
I did not know or even suspect no such manuscripts have existed for two thousand years!!
The dishonest brokers of scriptural purity make phoney arguments which they KNOW are strawman arguments.
They cannot face the fact that without knowing Jesus' ACTUAL WORDS we don't have christianity, theology, core teaching or interpretation.
Without original manuscipts by which we CHECK our translation for authenticity we can't have PROPHECY either!!
What are we left with?
Approximations. But--those approximations aren't even based on the ACTUAL words of Jesus or Paul. We have entirely INVENTED dialogue passed off as authentic reports!
What we are quoting when we are PROVING a teaching is somebody's MADE UP WORDS!!
There weren't dishonest people involved in this deterioration either! No. Far from it.
We have rabidly honest and truthful people. Each was a link in a long chain.
Each copyist, translator or redactor "helped" the text he had by "correcting it" when it didn't make sense. They tweeked it with honest intentions so that it would 'READ BETTER!"
They thought they actually KNEW how it should read and made certain that (in there copy or version) it DID!
Tens of thousands of these "corrections", insertions, sidebars had the effect of counterfeiting scripture in its chain of transmission.
Yes, there are thousands of copies of the New Testment in manuscripts and fragments. But, the sheer number means absolutely NOTHING if they are containing counterfeit words!
Which would YOU rather have? One genuine hundred dollar bill or ten thousand counterfeit ones??
Any honest inquirer can read the history of the transmission of bible texts and come to the same conclusion.
EXCEPT FOR ONE THING!!
This is vitally important to understand. Many, many apologist teachers, professors, preachers and clergymen have made it their life's work to MAKE SURE YOU DON'T find this out!! Why? Is it because they are crooks and malefactors?? No!
They too are "correcting" the story and making it come out right by making arguments, excuses and diversionary points which IGNORE the actual fact no authentic original manuscipts exist!!
If you read THOSE apologists everything is just dandy and no problem exists at all.
But, schools of honest scholars for the past hundred years have gradually unearthed the true picture of what the Bible really amounts to.
IT IS NOT a supernatural document giving us Jesus' words or God's words or Paul's words. It is word of mouth stories later written down and collated into a SOURCE DOCUMENT (Q). From that source ALL the Gospels were expanded into a story form with make-believe quotations and conversations.
That is a far cry from an iron clad document from heaven you can parse, interpret and memorize for teaching, reproving and setting things straight.
The Bible is a wikipedia and fan fiction passed off by well-intentioned people as the actual WORD OF GOD.
It isn't!
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ProdigalSon
By reading the mythology of other cultures that's a LOT older than the Bible and seeing with your own eyes that almost NONE of it is original, and that the Jews simply inserted different names into the text and made everything about THEMSELVES. They couldn't even come up with original names, for instance, "Abraham"is "Brahma" but its not a dude, it's the Life Principle descended into matter. It's metaphysical stuff made literal for dummies.
Check out "Deceptions and Myths of the Bible" by Lloyd M. Graham. It exposes it from beginning to end as the blatant plagiarism that it really is. 473 pages of sheer bliss and endless ammunition for anyone who is sick and tired of Bible-thumping judgmental Pharisees.
PS