by Conchappie 14 Replies latest watchtower bible
Nearly every bit of writing they find is only a rorschach test.
What can you believe is dependent on you ultimately.
What is credible?
As Jgnat says-in a thousand years maybe the DaVinci Code will be on the list of pseudoapochraphas.
But reading is good--and never enough.
I just learned a new word from Fourth Book of Maccabees
gor·mand·ize
[v. gawr-muhn-dahyz; n. gawr-muhn-deez] Show IPA
verb (used without object), verb (used with object), gor·mand·ized, gor·mand·iz·ing.
1.to eat greedily or ravenously.
It is lunch time, I think I shall go gormandize!
Or is it, I think I shall go gormandize my lunch?
Jon Preston asked : " What are the accuracies or validity of these? Are there any that are more valid than the others? That can be traced back to similar dates as both the old and new testies (hehe)"
Most of those listed in the latter part of jgnats list are younger than the N.T. Easy to check 'em out on Wiki.
As to accuracies or validity, no text has those qualities 100%, especially the Canonical New Testies as you call it Jon.
What is interesting is to see where the canonical books directly quote quote from these texts, or rely upon them. This is almost denied by the W.T, but as with most everything, they are wrong. The problem with admitting that the texts are used by writers of the N.T is that the use seems to infer that the texts are "inspired" too, something the WT would hate, as much of what is in there is at odds with their teaching.
They get round this by claiming that the N.T writers were inspired to use the phrases etc that they did, but that does not make the rest of the work they plagiarised "inspired" nor canonical.
Only the books chosen by the Roman Catholic Church in the late fourth Century are acceptable to the W.T
If you have the time, a study of all of these is fun and rewarding.
A most interesting text that has not been mentioned I think, and is possibly a very early one is the Didache. Worth a look.
Well see? Thats a question ive yet to ask them. If the church fathers were so corrupt as they say or the manuscripts were tampered with OR NO inspired people existed after the apostles then why are they relying on those very same corrupt, uninspired groups for choosing accurate books for the NT? To me thats hypocrisy to slam and bash these other chirches yet you utilize the books THEY chose in your org. Hell they took out those parts in John because it was controversiak and yet Revelation and a few others were tied to much more scrutinization and controversy...just sayin
Doug Mason has an excellent Paper he has written on this, his thread with the link is called something like Why do JW's accept the Christendoms Canon ?
In the Paper he precis a lot of scholarly stuff on the formation of the canon and the views of the early Church Fathers etc, it is excellent stuff.
