bible

[Gravity]

Again, it doesn't matter to me. I have a personal relationship that will last for eternity. I'm as confident of that as I am about how lost I used to be. It's funny, throughout history, people have refuted the bible and Christ himself. The book of John, chapter 9 recounts the blind man who is given sight. The pharisees (intellectuals with power) don't understand....read it for yourself.

Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath."
But others asked, "How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?" So they were divided.
Finally they turned again to the blind man, "What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened."
The man replied, "He is a prophet."
The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man's parents. "Is this your son?" they asked. "Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?"
"We know he is our son," the parents answered, "and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."
A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God," they said. "We know this man is a sinner."
He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"


As for me, anyone can take shots at the Word or the Creator, it won't change what happened to me. My experience is similar to what happened to the blind man. It is personal, unmistakeable and everlasting.

Gravity

 

[conjur]

Care to share details of that momentous occasion?

Promise not to rag on ya.

Thought I had some sort of religious experience some years ago on a flight home that had engine troubles. After the pilot's announcement I felt complete and utter peace.

But, a few months later while talking to someone about it, he had me do some breathing exercises that brought about the same feeling.

That was the beginning of my realization that there is no God and religion is only a crutch to help people cope with the unknown.

 

[TheBDB]

Originally posted by: Gravity
Again, it doesn't matter to me. I have a personal relationship that will last for eternity. I'm as confident of that as I am about how lost I used to be. It's funny, throughout history, people have refuted the bible and Christ himself. The book of John, chapter 9 recounts the blind man who is given sight. The pharisees (intellectuals with power) don't understand....read it for yourself.

Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath."
But others asked, "How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?" So they were divided.
Finally they turned again to the blind man, "What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened."
The man replied, "He is a prophet."
The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man's parents. "Is this your son?" they asked. "Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?"
"We know he is our son," the parents answered, "and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."
A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God," they said. "We know this man is a sinner."
He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"


As for me, anyone can take shots at the Word or the Creator, it won't change what happened to me. My experience is similar to what happened to the blind man. It is personal, unmistakeable and everlasting.

Gravity

That is cool that you experienced something that convinced you of your beliefs. I've never gone through something like that, so for me it is all a little hard to swallow.

 

[bleeb]

Jesus has the final word.

:beer::beer:

 

[alm4rr]

Originally posted by: glen
So, if it is inerrant, do you accept the "Apocryphal" books?
How can it be inerrant when they were included for about 1,000 years?
Was it inerrant then, or only after Luther proposed removing them, or both?

wtf are you talkinb about?

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: alm4rr

Originally posted by: glen
So, if it is inerrant, do you accept the "Apocryphal" books?
How can it be inerrant when they were included for about 1,000 years?
Was it inerrant then, or only after Luther proposed removing them, or both?

wtf are you talkinb about?

This was a main topic of a course I took at University of Florida (a non-religious school)

deuterocanonical (apocryphal) books

Baruch
Ecclesiasticus
Esdras
Letter of Jeremiah
Judith
Maccabees
Manasseh
Parts of Daniel and Esther
Psalm 151
Tobit
Wisdom of Solomon

This link also has a similar list

These are all books / texts found after the fact or simply left out of the original Bible.

Some bibles may have parts of the above, some none.....some Christians cite these as Heresy/blasphemy....(there was a student in the class that I think that was his favorite mumbling ("tsk tsk ...blasphemy"))

 

[PunDogg]

its full of errors, what i ment to do was throw some gasoline on the fire hehe

Dogg

 

[ed21x]

'Apocryphal,' 'inerrant'?!?!

 

[Stojakapimp]

Originally posted by: conjur
Wow.....just.....wow.



At least tell me you're not one of those types pushing to get "Creation Science" taught in schools.

wow...just wow...you're a dickhead

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Stojakapimp

Originally posted by: conjur
Wow.....just.....wow.



At least tell me you're not one of those types pushing to get "Creation Science" taught in schools.

wow...just wow...you're a dickhead

Thanks for helping to make my point.

 

[upsciLLion]

Originally posted by: conjur
Care to share details of that momentous occasion?

Promise not to rag on ya.

Thought I had some sort of religious experience some years ago on a flight home that had engine troubles. After the pilot's announcement I felt complete and utter peace.

But, a few months later while talking to someone about it, he had me do some breathing exercises that brought about the same feeling.

That was the beginning of my realization that there is no God and religion is only a crutch to help people cope with the unknown.

I find it odd how you'll compare two situations that occurred in two completely different settings together and conclude that being able to relax in a totally safe setting negates the possibility of divine intervention in a potentially lethal setting...

But that's just me.

ups

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: upsciLLion

Originally posted by: conjur
Care to share details of that momentous occasion?

Promise not to rag on ya.

Thought I had some sort of religious experience some years ago on a flight home that had engine troubles. After the pilot's announcement I felt complete and utter peace.

But, a few months later while talking to someone about it, he had me do some breathing exercises that brought about the same feeling.

That was the beginning of my realization that there is no God and religion is only a crutch to help people cope with the unknown.

I find it odd how you'll compare two situations that occurred in two completely different settings together and conclude that being able to relax in a totally safe setting negates the possibility of divine intervention in a potentially lethal setting...

But that's just me.

ups

It made me realize my breathing on the plane is what induced the state of calmness...not some divine hand of some supreme being that just happened to notice one plane out of thousands on one planet of one solar system of one galaxy out of the trillions out there.

 

[TheBDB]

Originally posted by: upsciLLion

Originally posted by: conjur
Care to share details of that momentous occasion?

Promise not to rag on ya.

Thought I had some sort of religious experience some years ago on a flight home that had engine troubles. After the pilot's announcement I felt complete and utter peace.

But, a few months later while talking to someone about it, he had me do some breathing exercises that brought about the same feeling.

That was the beginning of my realization that there is no God and religion is only a crutch to help people cope with the unknown.

I find it odd how you'll compare two situations that occurred in two completely different settings together and conclude that being able to relax in a totally safe setting negates the possibility of divine intervention in a potentially lethal setting...

But that's just me.

ups

I don't think it negates the possibility of divine intervention....it just provides a MUCH more likely explanation.

 

[glen]

No one has tried to explain how the Bible is inerrant, but if this thread was about evolution, tons of folks would jump in, all of them holding the belief that the Bible is inerrant.

 

[Cyberian]

Originally posted by: MAME
religion sucks

Well, there's no arguing with that irrefutable logic.
This discussion is obviously over.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Cyberian

Originally posted by: MAME
religion sucks

Well, there's no arguing with that irrefutable logic.
This discussion is obviously over.

Pretty much

 

[upsciLLion]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: upsciLLion

Originally posted by: conjur
Care to share details of that momentous occasion?

Promise not to rag on ya.

Thought I had some sort of religious experience some years ago on a flight home that had engine troubles. After the pilot's announcement I felt complete and utter peace.

But, a few months later while talking to someone about it, he had me do some breathing exercises that brought about the same feeling.

That was the beginning of my realization that there is no God and religion is only a crutch to help people cope with the unknown.

I find it odd how you'll compare two situations that occurred in two completely different settings together and conclude that being able to relax in a totally safe setting negates the possibility of divine intervention in a potentially lethal setting...

But that's just me.

ups

It made me realize my breathing on the plane is what induced the state of calmness...not some divine hand of some supreme being that just happened to notice one plane out of thousands on one planet of one solar system of one galaxy out of the trillions out there.

Did you know to do that kind of breathing when in potentially extremely stressful situations like you were in?

ups

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: upsciLLion

Originally posted by: conjur
It made me realize my breathing on the plane is what induced the state of calmness...not some divine hand of some supreme being that just happened to notice one plane out of thousands on one planet of one solar system of one galaxy out of the trillions out there.

Did you know to do that kind of breathing when in potentially extremely stressful situations like you were in?

ups

No, but I do now.

 

[upsciLLion]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: upsciLLion

Originally posted by: conjur
It made me realize my breathing on the plane is what induced the state of calmness...not some divine hand of some supreme being that just happened to notice one plane out of thousands on one planet of one solar system of one galaxy out of the trillions out there.

Did you know to do that kind of breathing when in potentially extremely stressful situations like you were in?

ups

No, but I do now.

That might be something to consider.

ups

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: upsciLLion

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: upsciLLion

Originally posted by: conjur
It made me realize my breathing on the plane is what induced the state of calmness...not some divine hand of some supreme being that just happened to notice one plane out of thousands on one planet of one solar system of one galaxy out of the trillions out there.

Did you know to do that kind of breathing when in potentially extremely stressful situations like you were in?

ups

No, but I do now.

That might be something to consider.

ups

You're losing me....something to consider in that you think it was God teaching me how to breathe?

 

[upsciLLion]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: upsciLLion

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: upsciLLion

Originally posted by: conjur
It made me realize my breathing on the plane is what induced the state of calmness...not some divine hand of some supreme being that just happened to notice one plane out of thousands on one planet of one solar system of one galaxy out of the trillions out there.

Did you know to do that kind of breathing when in potentially extremely stressful situations like you were in?

ups

No, but I do now.

That might be something to consider.

ups

You're losing me....something to consider in that you think it was God teaching me how to breathe?

Or inducing you to breathe that way.

ups

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: upsciLLion

Originally posted by: conjur
You're losing me....something to consider in that you think it was God teaching me how to breathe?

Or inducing you to breathe that way.

ups

"How about, No, Scott?"

 

[Greyd]

Originally posted by: dtyn
The Old Testament was passed down through oral means, thus there are bound to be human inaccuracies in the Bible. Thus, one must look at the greater picture, and not take the Bible word for word. Also, many books were omitted due to space constraints. This does not even included translation errors. It is safe to say that we will never be able to take the Bible seriously word for word, but it's the overall image that matters.

Ok...there's so much to write about and I'm kinda busy so I'll write in installments. Glen I'll get to your questions at a later time. I'm just posting what I can give short answers to for now - that's why I'll answer dtyn's comment.

Ok I'm gonna be REALLY REALLY succinct - so I might leave out some stuff for times sake. The O.T. was not passed down orally. it was written. There WAS some oral traidtion and I'll address that right now. If you knew the cultural means of oral tradition during that time - you would realize how accurate this type of oral tradition was. Priests (pharisees,etc) of that time were known for having memorized the whole bible of that time (the Old testament). It was not an uncommon occurence for preists to memorize the whole book or huge chunks of it. In addition, the oral memorization was in constant scrutiny and criticism from other priests, authorities who knew and had memorized the same thing. So a person would have to go through all these "safety" checks from NUMEROUS sources to affirm that what they were saying was accurate. There was a constant source of checking and rechecking.

Now if we go on to the New Testament, the evidence is incredibly GREATER . Not only were there the previously mentioned "checks" but much more. Yes there was bound to be errors when people were copying manuscripts. However, when comparing the numerous manuscripts found of the NT - there are NO errors that indicate any serious challenge to doctrine or theology. In english where a word is placed in a sentence can change the meaning of the sentence. For example: Dog eats food, Food eats dog. However, in the biblical Greek there is no such distinction. There can be no such errors. (this is called an inflected language IIRC) The inaccuracies may be simple things for example - such as spelling or the use of "a" instead of "an." None of them are crucial or vital to the doctrines of the NT.

Translation errors are considered nil. The NT has approximately 24,000 ancient manuscripts in existence. This is more than works like Homer's Illiad which has only 650 manuscripts (yet we do not doubt its accuracy). The comparison of what we have today to the manuscripts, have been researched and compared to determine that there are no substantial errors.

The previous info was borrowed from various sources including Strobel's works. That's all the time I have for now.

 

[upsciLLion]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: upsciLLion

Originally posted by: conjur
You're losing me....something to consider in that you think it was God teaching me how to breathe?

Or inducing you to breathe that way.

ups

"How about, No, Scott?"

I guess the discussion's over.

Toodles.

ups

 

[xizor]

to answer the original question, the Aprocryphal are not accepted because like their namesake, their origin is dubious, they are not historically correct and contradict the inspired writings of the Bible.

This link is not a great source, but has some interesting quotes from the apocrypha link

It seems these books were added to the canonical Bible arbitrarily by Augustine circa 400AD and was not the choice of the early Christian church. Jerome another Catholic leader wrote that he disagreed with Augustine about the validity of the books, so while the books were considered part of the Bible for 1000 years, it was the error of a man (or a group of men, the Council of Carthage) and the Roman Catholic Church.

Other books not included in the Bible like the Gospel of Thomas were not written nearly as close as the canonical books and show obvious lack of primary sources in the writing. For example, some refer to Jesus as hating women (differeing extremely from the canonical Bible) and give accounts that are closer to fantasy than historical writings.

Greyd's post was an excellent explanation on the validity of the books of Bible, which have not changed since they were written. Even new discoveries continuelly validate the Bible like the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls which I believe has the entire book of Joshua perfectly preserved.

Case for Faith and Case for Christ by Lee Strobel are excellent reads about the history of Christianity. I love reading about history and if you have any good pro or con sources, please list them.