I do. I worry quite a lot about every single thing.
the_classicist
JoinedPosts by the_classicist
-
11
"Catostrophic" Thoughts......
by ScoobySnax ini can be quite happy, down the pub, at work, with friends etc and an awful thought creeps into my mind that my mum might be suddenly ill, or one of my niece/nephews might get hurt/be hurt, it's really weird in that i have to stop what i'm doing and make a phonecall just to check.
i don't tell them that when i phone, just sort of phone like its a casual thing.
it is almost like catostrophic thoughts, i hate them and they always prove to be unfounded, trouble is it does sort of start to rule your life.
-
-
-
79
DID YOU KNOW THIS about the BIBLE?
by Terry inthe oldest manuscripts are not considered the most reliable.. there are no "autograph" texts.
none.. there are no "original" manuscripts.. no two manuscripts agree.. the bible as we know it only came together in the form it now holds because certain men decided it should do so.. neither jesus nor his apostles or disciples carried bibles.. the apostle paul didn't carry a bible and none of his letters were in any of the scrolls considered holy scripture at the time he was preaching and forming christian theology as it is now understood to be.. largely, what the bible is today, is the result of certain men with certain agendas who had the authority to make their project happen.
they also had the power to destroy writings which did not agree with their agenda.
-
-
the_classicist
Doctrine is established through specificity of verse. Until you can specify what verse says what you cannot confirm doctrine as other than established opinion backed by authority. The writer(s) purported to be Matthew are a case in point. This gospel wishes to establish Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy. How does he do this? He cites scriptures. The scriptures are used as proof texts. Were these texts intended to point to Jesus? It is ASSERTED to be thus. My point was (and IS) the following:
1.Who wrote what is asserted and never undisputed.
2.The exact wordings are controversial and the precision of the wordings often makes the difference between one side's PROOF and the other's.
3.Christianity is, after all, about Jesus! What he may have said and to whom is all there is to his messege for mankind. What we know and how we know it is the subject of controversy. Pretending it is settled fact is to joust at windmills.
4.Paul shuffles the deck and deals and the Catholic church picks up the hand and trumps Judaism. It is not to be underestimated the destructive force (destroying evidence) of papal pronouncements.
5.Who was "in favor" with Constantine or subsequent emperors went a long way toward whose views were "official" and who was not tolerated to spread influence. No Constantine; no Councils. No Councils; no orthodoxy. No orthodoxy; no Church and no enforcement against naysayers.
It doesn't matter who says what about the Bible, in the long run. The fact is, NOBODY HAS A LOCK on what the Bible means mainly because it cannot be proved by resorting to texts. The divinity of the words is as impossible to establish as the words of the texts and texts of the eras in which they were wrought (and by whom.)
If that isn't daunting to the concept of truth or evidence or even reliable opinion I have to shrug it all off and say, "Why bother discussing it at all?"
There is no "there" there.
T
What an artful dodge. By differences in doctrine, I mean an important verse that says one thing in one manuscript and another thing in another manuscript and that can't be resolved by the majority reading. For example, this is a minor change that doesn't effect meaning or doctrine, "Go into the city and preach the Gospel...", as opposed to "Walk into the city and teach the Gospel..." (<---- hypothetical). Now a change involving a doctrine would be something like, "Christ was born of a virgin," as opposed to "Christ was not born of a virgin." Or, "Go and preach to the Jews," to "Go and preach to all the nations."
-
79
DID YOU KNOW THIS about the BIBLE?
by Terry inthe oldest manuscripts are not considered the most reliable.. there are no "autograph" texts.
none.. there are no "original" manuscripts.. no two manuscripts agree.. the bible as we know it only came together in the form it now holds because certain men decided it should do so.. neither jesus nor his apostles or disciples carried bibles.. the apostle paul didn't carry a bible and none of his letters were in any of the scrolls considered holy scripture at the time he was preaching and forming christian theology as it is now understood to be.. largely, what the bible is today, is the result of certain men with certain agendas who had the authority to make their project happen.
they also had the power to destroy writings which did not agree with their agenda.
-
-
the_classicist
I think the classicist wrote a pretty good refutation.
Thanks for the compliment Forscher, but no one really bothers to look at it as most are trying to do whatever they can to "discredit" the Bible.
Since the catholic church created christianity and put the bible together, ya'll should either become catholics, or fogedaboudit.
Geez, no one ever talks about Orthodoxy! They're Christians too.
-
79
DID YOU KNOW THIS about the BIBLE?
by Terry inthe oldest manuscripts are not considered the most reliable.. there are no "autograph" texts.
none.. there are no "original" manuscripts.. no two manuscripts agree.. the bible as we know it only came together in the form it now holds because certain men decided it should do so.. neither jesus nor his apostles or disciples carried bibles.. the apostle paul didn't carry a bible and none of his letters were in any of the scrolls considered holy scripture at the time he was preaching and forming christian theology as it is now understood to be.. largely, what the bible is today, is the result of certain men with certain agendas who had the authority to make their project happen.
they also had the power to destroy writings which did not agree with their agenda.
-
-
the_classicist
What a long rant again, since you keep repeating the same things over and over, namely this:
No two manuscripts agree.
I would like to ask this again, "I would also like to ask, are there any disputed parts/readings in the New Testament manuscripts that involve doctrine? (there's only one I can think of off the top of my head, that is when a scribe changed a part from "the boy's father and mother marvelled," to "Joesph and his mother marvelled."). And thanks to modern manuscriptology, we are able to correct these scribal abbherations."
From what I heard, not taking into account orthographical differences, the differences are very small and a lot of them are "Christ" added to "Jesus." Most of the disputed verses are usually taken out and some of them, such as the Comma Ioanneum, which was prominent in the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate, have been taken out (the Greek never had it in the first place).
Largely, what the Bible IS TODAY, is the result of certain men with certain agendas who had the authority to make their project happen. They also had the power to destroy writings which did not agree with their agenda. Any who disagreed with the conclusions of these powerful men, in the case of the Councils convened by Constantine, were harried, persecuted and abused by the majority.
The only Council I know of that Constantine convened was the Council of Nicene, and considering he was closet Arian (remember how he was all ready to force the Church to un-excommunicate Arius, before Arius' death?) I don't think he forced his views on any of the councils, unless you can prove so without hearsay and conjecture.
Did you know these councils and their orthodoxy constantly shifted from one extreme to another? One day Arius might be on top and soon after Athanasius might be considered afoul of the "truth" of doctrine. ; ; Or, the reverse!
And yet, the men who attended important policy meetings invoked by the Christian Emperor (self-styled) were often devout men scarred from persecution and lamed or blinded by their righteous stand against impure Roman policy. ; THEY COULDN'T AGREE with each other!
At the Council of Nicene, only 5 bishops voted against it because of the word "homousion," which sort of means "consubstantial." They wanted to use a different, but similar word.
How could their differences of opinion be reconciled? ; Only by force; only by decree; only by the certitude of Authority.
It's called the Conciliar movement.
Largely, what non-Catholic believers in Christianity hold to be the inerrent word of Divine Authority is the result of the Catholic bishops and their representations.
The Synod of Laodecia and the ratification by the Synod of Carthage gave us the final form of what is held today in the hands of millions of Christians.
Actually, the Third Council of Carthage included books that the Protestants took out during the Reformation. There was also the Council of Rome and the Decretum Gelasianum (which is of doubtful authenticity, but the canon in it was confirmed by a later Roman bishop). Same canon in both councils. St. Augustine also provides a canon of scripture in De Doctrina Christiana, which was the same as all those councils. Now the Church in the East has a slightly different canon in the Old Testament, for they typically included books such as 3 Maccabees and Psalm 151. The only ecumenical council to officially issue a decree on the canon was the Council of Trent.
The majority of Christians for a thousand years could not even read the Bible! They either did what they were told by Priests and Bishops or they exchanged opinions about what scripture was purported to say. It was a totem; a magic book and a supernatural icon.
Until the Bible was translated into language the average person could read and understand the Dark Ages held mankind in the grip of supernatural awe and fear of invisible forces and mysterious laws unknown.
That's very nice, but suggest you read a book by Regine Pernoud called "Pour en finir avec le Moyen Age," which breaks many stereotypes about the Dark Ages. You also ignore the fact that the Dark Age economy could not afford to teach everyone to read, this wasn't even possible until the Victorian Age and the Industrial Revolution. What an anachronisitic standard you set.
The Protestant Reformation split off the power of the single institution of Catholicism. The Catholic and Byzantine Church had been the only authority to rule the minds of men until that time.
Only the Western World was effected by the Protestant Reformation. The Eastern Church had not such thing. It's interesting to note that King Charles I suggested a union between the Orthodox and the Anglicans, but the Orthodox turned it down because they could recognize that the doctrine of sola scirptura was a recent invention.
It soon became clear it had all been a tissue of fabrications as to the integrity of the texts!
Yes, there were many scribal abbherations, but due to the pioneers of biblical study, we are able to reconstruct a most reliable critical text.
The Documentary Hypothesis soon followed and earnest research by archaeologists and semanticists began to unravel the tangled skein that was once the terra firma of belief.
Today we have thousands of Bible Scholars tripping over each other on both sides of many issues of what constitutes the ACTUAL word of God.
Ah, yes, modern Biblical research, which is, in many aspects, significantly flawed. For example, take Q. There is no proof that Q ever, ever existed, but they act as if it were a sure thing because some scholar hypothesized it. I also read a paper, which dealt with how the verse "Do not give what is holy to dogs," was used within the context of the Eucharist in the Didache. Now the application of that verse to the Eucharist is different from the context it was used in the Bible. The scholar then went on to conclude that Matthew was simply inventing something more elaborate from Q. Now this never takes into account that the author of the Didache was purposely taking Matthew out of context, and applying symbolism to fit his own situation (i.e, holy=eucharist, dogs=unbaptised), which is the simplest answer and as we know, the simplest answer is usually the best one. Indeed we see the Church fathers putting their own interpretations to many verses of the Gospel where the context does not fit it, but since these are produced later, no one concludes that Matthew took Q out of context because of it.
The Jesus Seminar on the one hand and the hardcore inerrency specialists on the other in a tug of war over the same issues: Who really was Jesus? What is the true messege of Christianity? What is the mind of God as revealed in various holy texts. How can we know what we believe is true.
The Jesus seminar is mainly revisionist history and it's based on the a priori assumption that miraculous things cannot happen.
-
19
Who Are You Rooting For This Season And Why?
by Englishman inyay!.
first matches in the premiership start to day!.
i'm rooting for portsmouth of course.
-
-
the_classicist
Not much of an English football fan, but I'm for Glasgow Celtic all the way.I'll arbitrarily choose Arsenal, though. Plus, they had a pretty cool stadium.
-
24
The perception of "net" persona's
by Retrograderenegades insince it seems people have trouble with percieving the transparency of others, i thought the idea of a "thread" for this was dy-no-mite!
(not only that but i also have a knack for mischief).
anyway...cyg have you won the oscar yet
-
-
the_classicist
Thanks for giving us this uber-vague description, Retro. Maybe I'll be able to sleep better tonight knowing this important information.
I'm still confused about this whole thing and it probably isn't good to bring personal disputes onto a public forum. -
14
Periodic Conspiracy ?
by ArtfulDodger init would appear that even the world of chemistry has been tainted by the hands of the jw's .
did you know that element 104 is rutherfordium .
and that number 105 is dubnium ?
-
-
the_classicist
Well, I enjoyed it. And especially how it's put into the "Scandals" section. Ingenius.
-
14
Some really fun optical illusions for you!
by Country Girl inenjoy!.
http://www.liquidgeneration.com/sabotage/optical_sabotage.asp.
country girl
-
-
the_classicist
Resurrection is, apparently, more than possible.
-
56
Europe - Do Their Leaders Have the Guts?
by roybatty inregarding iran's nuke program, the evil george bush stood on the sideline and let the europeans do it their way via diplomacy through the u.n. well, iran has basically told them to screw off and has now re-started it's nuke program and seems to have no intention to stop their development of nukes.
this u.n. delegation has now given iran the "eleventh hour warning" which they will laugh at.
soon it will be brought before the u.n. security counsel and a recommendation to impose sanctions against iran will be made and voted upon.
-
-
the_classicist
Well as long as we are bashing Europe....alot of the messes in the middle east, Israel, Pakistan, India, and others are the incompentcy of the English Empire. We are still mopping up the mess.
India's doing pretty good for itself: they're the next world power along with China, while the United States slowly stretches it army over the world thereby causing the collapse of it's hegemony.
-
12
Some Sort of 10th Century BC Structure Found in Jerusalem
by the_classicist inhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/middleeast/05jerusalem.html?ex=1280894400&en=3c435bc7bd0cd531&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
a fellow, a biblical researcher, was on the radio (adler online, for those who tune into it) a few weeks ago saying that king david never existed and at that time, jerusalem only had mud huts.
apparently, he was wrong.
-
-
the_classicist
A fellow, a biblical researcher, was on the radio (Adler Online, for those who tune into it) a few weeks ago saying that King David never existed and at that time, Jerusalem only had mud huts. Apparently, he was wrong. The archaeologist who made the find thinks it's King David's palace, but at least it shows major architectural works in Jerusalem at that period.