BOTR said-
I assume that the new NWT has omitted this story. It is a powerful lesson in the Bible. Coutnless generations have used it to teach in sermons. I am trying to change my view of the Bible. Because I was born-ib, I tend to place great emphasis on Bible wording and the mere fact that a story is related in the Bible. Yet many, if not most, Bible stores have bad moral values.
As I pointed out my article on Lot, the author of Genesis went out of his way to describe Lot as a seedy questionable character who was saved from Sodom's destruction, not due to his OWN righteousness, but due to the Hebraic concept of "transferrable righteousness": Lot was saved from Sodom's destruction by God based not on Lot's merits, but simply as a favor to his Uncle Abraham. However, the author of 2nd Peter missed all of that subtlety (or worse, ignored it) in order to claim that Lot was "righteous"; that "transferrable righteousness" concept didn't work with Christian theology that everyone is judged based on THEIR works, not on those of their neighbors or relatives.
Hence millenia of Christians have been forced to defend amoral/immoral Lot, simply because the author of 2nd Peter decided to give Lot an upgrade to "righteous person" status. Hence, a "bad boy" of the OT became a "good guy" in the NT, exposing the problem of misreading the original intent of the author.
http://awgue.weebly.com/article-pt-1-revisiting-sodom-was-lot-supposed-to-be-viewed-as-a-righteous-man.html
Same thing happened to Cain, since the Hellenized Jew Paul didn't recognize the account as a reference to the long-discontinued system of justice used in Ancient Isreal (a system which Pamela Barmash has written about in her work, "Homicide in the Biblical World").
Christian writing existed before the canonization and after canoization. Contemporary writers are adding new thoughts to Christ's words and actions.
You're familiar with the vast spectrum of ideas which appeared in the intertestamental and apocryphal literature; it served as the fertile 'proving grounds' for ideas, some of which later appeared in writings that were accepted into the canon, and vastly more that didn't "make the cut". Most believers don't understand the Bible has evolved over time in such an incremental manner, where entire accounts get dropped based on doctrinal whims.
Some suspect the account was dropped from John by some early Christian scribes who felt that the account depicted Jesus as forgiving adultery, and would actually ENCOURAGE adultery, since although Jesus doesn't explicitly FORGIVE her of the sin of adultery, he explicitly refuses to CONDEMN her for it, telling her to "sin no more". It's important to remember that Jesus performed the miracle of healing based on the idea that illness and disabilitiy stems from SIN (whether the individuals or their parents), and hence by forgiving the person of the effects of sin Jesus could heal. So he HAD the authority to forgive her, but didn't explicitly do so.
Jesus did not have Paul's letters. To call the letters now viewed as nonPauline as forgeries is not accurate. Forgery connotes a desire to deceive. I was taught that the first century and later writers had different norms than we do today. The earliest communities would have known whether an apostle or teacher was alive or dead. Naming a book after an apostle conveyed that one was in agreement with the apostle's teachings. It is not the same as someone going into their basement and mass producing Andy Warhol prints in order to deceive the public and take advantage of a hot art market for Warhol. Warhol's case provides the advantage that he mass produced the original works himself and rarely worked on them.
NT scholar Bart Ehrman would vehently disagree with you, and he wrote an entire book on the topic called, "Forged" in which he discusses point-by-point the defense you offer. I'd highly-recommend that you read it, as there's no moral and virtuous way to defend Apostle Peter's post-mortem "identity theft", unless it's done in the name of protecting the honor of God (which is the same excusiology used by religions to cover up other skeketons in the closet, eg JWs pedophile scandal).
It is hard to change one's viewpoint. C.S. Lewis and Thomas Merton are scripture worthy, IMO. I suppose I may be advocating for a Roman Catholic position that would include the church fathers and mothers are references to interpet Christianity without the overarching authority of a church structure.
The problem is many believers would say that the scriptures being the writings of mere men is heresy, since it contradicts 2nd Tim 3:16 (All scriptures are God-breathed). Although the evidence DOES point to the entire process occurring by human hands (eg the choice of which scriptures deserve to be canonized, as you say) where contradictions are introduced.
Perhaps we should look to Jesus' genuine sayings. I recall there is little agreement on what Jesus may or may not have actually said. Did he travel with stenographers? Perhaps ancietn people could recall sayings more readily than we can. I do note that many of the Gnostic sayings echo or repeat the sayings in the canonical books.
That's simply begging the question, for as you point out, HOW do we determine WHICH of sayings attributed to Jesus ARE "genuine"?
The process is flawed, there is little agreement, and every publisher of a Bible translation feels entitled to decide which scriptures are "genuine", driven by their own doctrines. This is the PERFECT example of making the Bible fit a desired doctrinal theology: if the passage can't be "tamed" by choosing a questionable translation, simply drop the entire account. Do that over a few millenia, and you end up with a work that evolves (and JWs claim they don't believe in evolution: that apparently doesn't cover the Bible, itself, LOL)!
The WT never sets forth its reasoning. No protocol is established for gauging the correctness of sayings. I am not suprised that a scripture that poses difficult for shunning is kaput. It stands with Jonn 1 as another bothched job. Perhaps the early church formulated doctrine first, too, and later invented scritpure to endorse it. I don't know.
If you've read Elaine Pagel's work (eg "Gnostic Gospels"), I suspect you DO know about many of the battles which early Church fathers were engaged in to squash out the gnostics, where many of the polemics written to warn of "false teachers" was targeted against the gnostics. The evidence is there, but one has to be willing to evaluate it in an honest manner. Read the articles I've written above the fraud of 2nd Peter, and see if you don't agree that it fits the very criteria of a work that conveniently supports orthodox Christianty of 2nd Century.
WTWizard said-
The whole LIE-ble is a lame attempt to put psychic energy into your enslavement. Notice that Christi-SCAM-ity and communism are so similar
The topic is not the ENTIRE Bible, but the 'pericope de adultera', the story of a women caught in adultery and presented to Jesus in order trap him; the account apparently has been scuttled from the Revised New World Translation.
If you're going to make a MASSIVE claim like that, you really need to start another thread. If you want to convince anyone, be prepared to support your conclusion with more than your conclusion, but consider using actual SUPPORTIVE EVIDENCE. As it stands, you're only offering your evidence-free conclusion (AKA opinion) which worse, relies on the "style over substance" fallacy (the LIE-ble and Christi-SCAM-ity thing is clever if you're a 5 y.o., but to an adult, is simply childish).
Adam
