by sosoconfused 53 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Cofty
You summarily dismiss external (historical and archeological) evidences as well as internal consistency and prophetic elements.
What would satisfy you that the Bible was inspired by God?
What would you expect of any book (forget the Bible for a moment) that makes such a claim...and we will see if the Bible meets those expectations?
I suppose my question regarding archaology proving the bible is inspired seems to be a huge leap of faith.
To illustrate this....not very well perhaps....
Most of us believe that Hitler and Winston Churchill were real people and Dr Who is a fictional character. Dr Who has met both in the BBC fictional series.
Just because Churchill and Hitler were real and the Doctor met them doesn't mean that it was a true story...in real life.
Many writers create fiction but use real events, places and people. Why not the bible?
I’m a Christian and all that but I have a problem with the circular reasoning as well. It’s not good enough to say that the bible is the word because the bible says it is. At a minimum there must be some independent and objective evidence to back up such a position as well. If this is not done I could say for example that I was God and offer proof by virtue of writing it down on a piece of paper with the words `I am God` and `this piece of paper in infallible.` Obviously such a fallacious position could be applied to anything anyone wanted it to. Thus faith must be based in evidence for it to have value and any claim in truth. As a general principle truth should not contradict truth.
I often hear fellow Christians say that they `don’t listen to the words of men`, without connecting this point of view to the fact the bible was written by men, and also complied and translated and so on by men. Even the interpretation is by men. So do I as a Christian think the bible is the word of God? No not really, I think it is A word of God as opposed to THE word of God. I think there are other words of God as well in different forms all over the place. However this raises an issue or two, namely how much is true and how much of holy books are true and what happens when two belief systems disagree with one another when based on different holy books, or even the same holy book?
The way I see it, God communicates in many places so I think the bible has some truth in it and possibly more than in some other places due to the nature of the written material being about God and Jesus. I see God as a force for uplift, so where there is ignorance given the context of the big picture, there will be less so as a result of Gods invisible interaction if acted on. I also see God as a sentient being who doesn’t force his hand with people, so will not force people to believe who do not want to. I think he works with people where they are, even if they are not aware of it. So the bible will have political rhetoric, errors, and prejudices and so on in it, but will also have a spirit inside that resists and counteracts those things. So a bad person will get bad out of it, and a good person will get good out of it. I think there are elements of this in other holy books also.
I think the Jews were chosen to have Jesus because they needed a spiritual doctor more than others on the planet at that time. The reason I think Jesus is true is because of the evidence that he existed from Roman and Jewish historical sources and for his supernatural claims the Turin shroud lends evidence. The New Testament of the bible of course doesn’t contradict this despite the fact its record is not perfect but good enough to see a picture in my view.
Vander hofen: take a cue from NASA
to convince doubting aliens on other worlds that we are genuine, these rocket scientists send this special disk into the cosmos with scientific data and some of the more arcane human productions. similarly,
How about for a truly acceptable Message (bible) from "GOD",
a preamble that is so precise scientifically, verifiable, into any future discoveries, *
that then any predictions of the future, instructions about how to lead a good life would be icing on the cake?
* without giving any secrets away, if your God personality is such that you like your crestion to research and discover truth themselfs, like
a cosmic easter egg hunt.
Phizzy, yeah, but even if Jesus is true historicaly, why taint the story with stuff that is unbelievable from a rational standpoint?, never happens now. ?
You summarily dismiss external (historical and archeological) evidences as well as internal consistency and prophetic elements. - Vanderhoven7
Hardly summarily. I spent most of my life studying it and preaching it.
Archaeological evidence that places the bible mentions is not evidence that the bible is of anything other than human origin. As I said Baker Street is real - Sherlock Holmes isn't.
There is no internal consistency in the bible. We can establish that much by the time we get to Genesis 2.
There are no prophecies in the bible that are any more impressive than the ramblings of Nostradamus.
Maybe if god had written the bible he could have included things that could not be know at the time except by god.
For example instructing the Israelites that mildew was leprosy and instructing them to tear down a house if it got infected was pretty dumb.
Seraphim23 - The shroud is a hoax
It is more accurate to say that the evidence the shroud offers does not convince you that it is Jesus. Fair enough, however I don’t think the evidence showing it is a hoax is convincing enough when compared to the evidence that it isn’t a hoax. It convinces me.
van
You summarily dismiss external (historical and archeological) evidences as well as internal consistency and prophetic elements.
mP:
There are no prophecies in the Bible.
Daniel was written about 160bc. If you look forwardin to the future after that none of the so called prophecies are remotely accurate. There are countless diatribes from so called prophets like Ezekiel etc who claim Babylon and Tyre would be destroyed forever, which is clearly wrong as both can be seen to be busy today.
Hi Everyone,
The Bible is a pretty special collection of ancient writings. The silver scrolls of Ketef Hinnom give evidence that at least some of the words found in the Bible date to 600 BCE. No other collection of ancient writings is as widely translated and read in the modern world. On this score, if any book would qualify as the word of God, it would be the Bible. Alas, the original authors, redactors and curators were all men living at a time of limited knowledge and it shows. Their motivations, often self-centered and limited, show as well. Parts of the Levitical law are positively barbaric, such as commanding that men found engaged in a homosexual act should be stoned to death (Lev 20:13).
The creation account of Adam and Eve is presented as real history, with enough date information to place the event around 4000 BCE (4026 by JW reckoning). Likewise the global flood of Noah is presented as a real event around 2300 BCE (2370 by JW reckoning).
Many lines of evidence speak against such history, but probably the two strongest is mitochondrial DNA and layers of ice at the north and south poles. Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to child unchanged. The father has no way to influence the sequence of mtDNA in a child. So other than the occasional mutation we should all hold near exact copies of mtDNA from Eve and one of the four women who survived the flood. The amount of change in mtDNA indicates the real Eve lived about 100,000 years ago. Yearly layers of snow and ice allow researches at the poles to determine much about the ancient climate. Even more basic is to simply know that the polar ice caps existed far longer than the flood account would allow, considering that ice floats in water. Even if you could come up with some clever way to keep the polar ice caps at the bottom of Noah's ocean or rapidly create them after the flood waters dispersed, it is hard to imagine why none of this would show up in the layers.
Jesus and authors of the NT accepted these OT accounts as real history. At Matthew 5:17, 18 Jesus says basically that -- none of the Law and Prophes would pass away without being fulfilled. At Matthew 24:37-39 Jesus compares 'presence of the Son of man' to the 'days of Noah'. At Christian weddings we often hear the words 'what God has yoked together let no man put apart'. This is from Mark 10:9, however at verse 6 Jesus directly references the creation account in Genesis to make his point.
Finally, I think one of the most relevant things about the NT and our association with Jehovah's Witnesses is the focus on end-of-days. With 2014 just a few months away we're remind of the focus on 1914 as the start of a generation that would not pass away (of course the Bible Students of Russell's day, saw 1914 as the end of a generation). Having left the faith we may now smile at the urgent-yet-not-specific wording used by Witnesses such as 'soon' and 'about to'. Yet, let's no fool ourselves, this is certainly how NT Bible writers felt about their day...
"Otherwise, he would have to suffer often from the founding of the world. But now he has manifested himself once for all time at the conclusion of the systems of things to put sin away through the sacrifice of himself" - Hebrews 9:26
and this famous one too...
"not forsaking the gathering of ourselves together, as some have the custom, but encouraging one another, and all the more so as ? YOU ? behold the day drawing near." - Hebrews 10:25
It is really self-indulgent arrogance on behalf of religious leaders to continously discard the ancient context and reinterpret the "day" to be "current." This has been going on now for nearly 2000 years and will likely continue for the next 2000. In reality, there was no "conclusion of the systems of things" in the way Christians would have thought when Hebrews 9:26 was written. Behold as they might, the "day" was not "drawing near." But one thing is certain, all this focus on a fantasy future can rob us of the precious few years we do have!
Cheers,
-Randy
Does anybody seriously consider some of the nonsense in the laws of moses.
Theres the law or legal advice on how to test if a wife has been unfaithful. Shes too drink some bitter dirty water from the priest and if she gets sick shes unfaithful. I mean seriously is this really the best God could do ?
Why does Jesus perpetuate that sickness is caused by evil spirits, when we all know thats completely wrong.
The most disappointing part of the bible was when I realized all NT books were most likely written down after the distruction of the Temple in 70AD. We have no NT manuscripts that date before 150 AD. This makes me think that a bunch of people wanted to create legitimacy by writing down prophecy after the fact.
