Originally posted by King CastleI am generally proud of people when they are undecided as a whole, and I'm glad we don't all accept a single viewpoint. I can't stand dogma of either extreme.
i am seriously disappointed at the poll numbers
Originally posted by ShakyamunisonYes, I did. I'm fairly happy with the results though 😉
Why, did you want "not sure" to be higher? 😄
no, she is serious?
@darkjedi
but how can you be sure? i mean we know for a fact that the bible was purposely mistranslated through the ages.. whose to say the entire premises itself isnt fiction if we were not there to verify?
i mean look at it this way the catholic church put in hell over a 100 times in the bible to scare ppl even though hell was never mention in its original text and if iirc it was only mention a handful of times in a completely different context that modern readers now interpret it to be.
who is to say what else has bn put in and if its anymore true
Originally posted by King Castle
no, she is serious?@darkjedi
but how can you be sure? i mean we know for a fact that the bible was purposely mistranslated through the ages.. whose to say the entire premises itself isnt fiction if we were not there to verify?
i mean look at it this way the catholic church put in hell over a 100 times in the bible to scare ppl even though hell was never mention in its original text and if iirc it was only mention a handful of times in a completely different context that modern readers now interpret it to be.
who is to say what else has bn put in and if its anymore true
Your argument is based on the assumption that the bible was written perfectly in the beginning and was then corrupted. The truth is far different. The bible is a collection of books that was put together in 325. See Council of Nicaea. Before that time there was no bible, only the Torah and a vast number of popular books. So, not only has the bible suffered from bad translations, but was a human construct to help unify the power of the Roman Empire over the early church.
Originally posted by King Castle
no, she is serious?@darkjedi
but how can you be sure? i mean we know for a fact that the bible was purposely mistranslated through the ages.. whose to say the entire premises itself isnt fiction if we were not there to verify?
i mean look at it this way the catholic church put in hell over a 100 times in the bible to scare ppl even though hell was never mention in its original text and if iirc it was only mention a handful of times in a completely different context that modern readers now interpret it to be.
who is to say what else has bn put in and if its anymore true
As far as the bible concerns and that it been written a long time ago makes it true and the Catholic church does not scare anyone.I am catholic and I don't go around telling people that they are going to go to hell for doing so on.
It is that persons choice to believe in it or not and I had and always will know that the bible is fact and not made up.
Originally posted by Shakyamunisoni was giving her belief the benefit of the doubt in my argument. to show even if it was a factual story at the beginning it could not remain as such through time. who is to say what was real or not in the bible however unlikely? not me.
Your argument is based on the assumption that the bible was written perfectly in the beginning and was then corrupted. The truth is far different. The bible is a collection of books that was put together in 325. See Council of Nicaea. Before that time there was no bible, only the Torah and a vast number of popular books. So, not only has the bible suffered from bad translations, but was a human construct to help unify the power of the Roman Empire over the early church.
Originally posted by King Castle
i was giving her belief the benefit of the doubt in my argument. to show even if it was a factual story at the beginning it could not remain as such through time. who is to say what was real or not in the bible however unlikely? not me.
I realized that, but your post was a good launch pad for my thought. 😄
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Your argument is based on the assumption that the bible was written perfectly in the beginning and was then corrupted. The truth is far different. The bible is a collection of books that was put together in 325. See Council of Nicaea. Before that time there was no bible, only the Torah and a vast number of popular books. So, not only has the bible suffered from bad translations, but was a human construct to help unify the power of the Roman Empire over the early church.
I think you're mixing your "facts".
It is correct to say that there was no "bible" in that there was no officially fixed canon. However, nonetheless there did exist Gospel stories and letters written by the apostles (Matthew, John, Paul, Peter etc) and the evangelists (Mark and Luke). These Gospels and letters were officially recognized across the entire Church much earlier than 325, how do we know this? From the writings of the Church Fathers. St. Irenaeus wrote out the full list of books which were to become recognized as Canonical as early as 180 AD. At the same time a Syrian called Tatian wrote his "harmony of the four Gospels". He was preceded by the likes of Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch and Clement of Rome who were quoting the texts of these Gospels from at least 90AD. Indeed, all three synoptic Gospels can be assembled purely from the letters of the aforementioned Church Fathers, it would seem then, the texts which make up the Bible were in existence and in use of the Church much earlier than 180 AD. Which coincidently is much earlier than when Christianity was legalized, which seems to make your hypothesis that the Bible was designed to control the early Church quite untenable. A far more simple and likely explanation is the apostles wrote the Gospels and they were distributed across the Roman world.
You say the texts were corrupted? Well no serious Biblical scholar in the world actually thinks that's all that likely- why? Because we have the aforementioned accounts dating from the early Church.
Indeed, as historians we can be quite confident of the authenticity of today's versions of the Bible because we have so many copies of scriptural writings from antiquity. Let's put the Bible into context as a historical writing,
Do you know how many copies there are of Aristotle's works survive from the ancient world? Five. What about the Roman historian Tacitus? Only twenty! So how many copies of the New Testament, or fragments of it, do we have from the ancient world? 5,300 Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and a further 9,300 in other ancient languages.
Do you doubt the authenticity of Aristotle? Or Tacitus?
Let's delve further, the oldest surviving copy of Tacitus dates from 1100 AD...yet the author wrote around 100 AD, Aristotle on the other hand wrote in the fourth century BC but the oldest copy of his writings is from fourteen hundred years after his death. However, with the Biblical texts, we find copies which date mere decades after Christ's death- why even if you do stick to the 325 date you would still have to concede, the New Testament is allot more historically reliable than Aristotle or Tacitus.
What you might be able to argue is that Nicea was an attempt to control the doctrinal development of the Church- that's a good hypothesis which is held by many. If you want to talk about binding the Church to the Roman Empire you might want to instead address St. Augustine's City of God rather than the texts which make up the New Testament.
Originally posted by Grand-Moff-Gav
I think you're mixing your "facts".It is correct to say that there was no "bible" in that there was no officially fixed canon. However, nonetheless there did exist Gospel stories and letters written by the apostles (Matthew, John, Paul, Peter etc) and the evangelists (Mark and Luke). These Gospels and letters were officially recognized across the entire Church much earlier than 325, how do we know this? From the writings of the Church Fathers. St. Irenaeus wrote out the full list of books which were to become recognized as Canonical as early as 180 AD. At the same time a Syrian called Tatian wrote his "harmony of the four Gospels". He was preceded by the likes of Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch and Clement of Rome who were quoting the texts of these Gospels from at least 90AD. Indeed, all three synoptic Gospels can be assembled purely from the letters of the aforementioned Church Fathers, it would seem then, the texts which make up the Bible were in existence and in use of the Church much earlier than 180 AD. Which coincidently is much earlier than when Christianity was legalized, which seems to make your hypothesis that the Bible was designed to control the early Church quite untenable. A far more simple and likely explanation is the apostles wrote the Gospels and they were distributed across the Roman world.
You say the texts were corrupted? Well no serious Biblical scholar in the world actually thinks that's all that likely- why? Because we have the aforementioned accounts dating from the early Church.
Indeed, as historians we can be quite confident of the authenticity of today's versions of the Bible because we have so many copies of scriptural writings from antiquity. Let's put the Bible into context as a historical writing,
Do you know how many copies there are of Aristotle's works survive from the ancient world? Five. What about the Roman historian Tacitus? Only twenty! So how many copies of the New Testament, or fragments of it, do we have from the ancient world? 5,300 Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and a further 9,300 in other ancient languages.
Do you doubt the authenticity of Aristotle? Or Tacitus?
Let's delve further, the oldest surviving copy of Tacitus dates from 1100 AD...yet the author wrote around 100 AD, Aristotle on the other hand wrote in the fourth century BC but the oldest copy of his writings is from fourteen hundred years after his death. However, with the Biblical texts, we find copies which date mere decades after Christ's death- why even if you do stick to the 325 date you would still have to concede, the New Testament is allot more historically reliable than Aristotle or Tacitus.
What you might be able to argue is that Nicea was an attempt to control the doctrinal development of the Church- that's a good hypothesis which is held by many. If you want to talk about binding the Church to the Roman Empire you might want to instead address St. Augustine's City of God rather than the texts which make up the New Testament.
If you were to take all the books available to the early church, you would have an extensive library, not just a book. When the Council of Nicaea constructed the current bible, they through out more then they put in. The arrangement and choices made was done by humans, and the out come was based on popularity and authoritarian convenience. The church today would be quite different if, for say, the Gnostic gospels had been included, or if Revelations had be replaced by the gospel of Tomas, as was debated at the time.
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
If you were to take all the books available to the early church, you would have an extensive library, not just a book. When the Council of Nicaea constructed the current bible, they through out more then they put in. The arrangement and choices made was done by humans, and the out come was based on popularity and authoritarian convenience. The church today would be quite different if, for say, the Gnostic gospels had been included, or if Revelations had be replaced by the gospel of Tomas, as was debated at the time.
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
If you were to take all the books available to the early church, you would have an extensive library, not just a book.
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
[B]When the Council of Nicaea constructed the current bible, they through out more then they put in. The arrangement and choices made was done by humans, and the out come was based on popularity and authoritarian convenience.
How can you conclude the choices was based on "popularity and authoritarian convenience"? One might want to argue that the Council of Nicea actually liberated the sacred texts from doubt. It gave all Christians the knowledge of what was scripture rather than the doubt of the secret Gnostic texts. Remember that Gnostics didn't share their knowledge, the meaning of their texts were not given to other Christians and so they didn't really benefit anyone except the sects themselves. You're claim is identical to saying the Second Vatican Council was authoritarian because it didn't insert L Ron Hubbard's Dianetics into the canon.
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
[B]The church today would be quite different if, for say, the Gnostic gospels had been included, or if Revelations had be replaced by the gospel of Tomas, as was debated at the time.
Oh I quite agree, but it would have been quite different if they had included the texts of Plato or Aristophanes or perhaps even Winne the Pooh, as such it's a rather irrelevant point. I think you over-estimate the Council, it didn't change what Christians were reading, they already knew what the Gospels were, rather it simply confirmed for the sake of clarity and unity, that what they were doing all along was correct.
Originally posted by Grand-Moff-Gav
Correct, however as has been demonstrated, the books considered to be authoritative by the early Church long preceded the council.I don't think they through out anything, they never closed the Canon, the Canon wasn't closed until the Council of Trent... they rejected the authenticity of some books yes, but they didn't make that decision- the rejections had been made by Church Fathers in the centuries preceding the council and if you read the Gnostic texts, it isn't difficult to see why they were rejected, they clearly contain doctrines which were not taught by the mainstream Church.
How can you conclude the choices was based on "popularity and authoritarian convenience"? One might want to argue that the Council of Nicea actually liberated the sacred texts from doubt. It gave all Christians the knowledge of what was scripture rather than the doubt of the secret Gnostic texts. Remember that Gnostics didn't share their knowledge, the meaning of their texts were not given to other Christians and so they didn't really benefit anyone except the sects themselves. You're claim is identical to saying the Second Vatican Council was authoritarian because it didn't insert L Ron Hubbard's Dianetics into the canon.
Oh I quite agree, but it would have been quite different if they had included the texts of Plato or Aristophanes or perhaps even Winne the Pooh, as such it's a rather irrelevant point. I think you over-estimate the Council, it didn't change what Christians were reading, they already knew what the Gospels were, rather it simply confirmed for the sake of clarity and unity, that what they were doing all along was correct.
If Winne the Pooh had been a popular book of the time that had some validity in the early Church, it might have been added. The problem in our discourse is that you are making an assumption that I do not make. That is the idea that there is a divine configuration of the bible that just needed to be logically put together based on early church fathers. To me, it is just a book written and constructed by humans, and at no time in the past or future was it, or is it, divine. I know you will disagree, and I understand why.
I simply point this out because of the problem with the idea that the bible has been corrupted. I simply don't believe that because "corrupted" assumes a pristine non-corrupted state, and I don't think that exists.