Before this discussion turned into a pissing contest, KFC was originally arguing that the bible is true because history says so

Above is very very over simplified, but much less wordy and to the point. KFC let me know if I am wrong. Please note I am not trying to offend anyone, sorry if I did. Just trying to get the intent across.

My argument against that was the history is very unstable, so basing something on history (and not evidence) is a very slippery slope.

I think the bible is based on history, but so are a lot of thingz, doesn't mean they are true (St Clause, dragons, vampires, list goes on and on...)

Like I said, I think history is very unstable, in fact you might even be able to convince me that religion is more stable then history, but that would be a hard argument to make.

was based on two people. a toy maker who really did go down a chimney to deliver a toy on Christmas. and a bishop last name of clause.

Thanks AD. I'm not anything near a HEbrew Scholar either. You're doing quite well. I rely heavily on my lexicons, dictionaries and any contact I can think of if I need to go deep. Greek is much easier for me than Hebrew. Someday I'd love to take a "Hebrew for Dummies" class.



Forgive my ignorance but what's that supposed to mean?



well it depends on what kind of history you're talking about. Heresay? Yes, I'd agree with you. Historical heresy is unstable. But validated history is stable history. The fact that Washington lived during the Revolutionary War was documented history. The fact that he was President is also history. So how can that be unstable? Not all history is unstable. Most history is pretty well documented and therefore pretty stable.

When it comes to the bible, it's the same. It's written down for all to see and mock if they wish. When put side by side with historical evidence outside of the bible it matches up quite nicely. That's what I'm talking about.

you've got history mixed up with opinion. History is History. Opinion is Opinion. There is plenty of secular history that matches up quite nicely with scripture. For instance the 4 Kingdoms. We read and see where the Babylonian Empire was the first great world power followed by the Medes and Persians followed by Greece and then Rome. Well it's all right there in scripture, sometimes even predicted before it even happened as the case of Daniel prophesying in Daniel 2.

JC Ryle in the 1800's knew from reading scripture that somehow Israel would go into their own land. He said this contrary to world opinion that had long written off the Jews. The Jews were wandering the world with no country of their own for almost 2,000 years and Ryle was laughed at when he suggested such a thing as the Jews having their own homeland. There was no movement, no support and not even a thought this would be true. But scripture predicted it would happen and in 1948 history caught up with prophecy and it's now much recorded history. Not opinion.

And while I agree two people witnessing an accident or any event wouldn't be completely in agreement, it's not that way with the 40 authors who penned the Old and New Testaments. That's because there is definitely a supernatural element to it. As a Christian I believe that is because we believe there is only one author with 40 men being used as the instrument of God much the same way you and I use a pen (in many diff colors) as instuments when we write.

That's the only way it can make sense. Otherwise how in the world would we be able to get all these men to agree like they did over a span of many years forget about agreeing about one incident?




Again you're asking for viewpoint. That's not history. That's opinion. History is Clinton committing adultery. Did it happen or not? That's history.

Opinion is, he was/wasn't that bad as a president. There is a definite line drawn between opinion and history.

I can't but I thought that the scientists were believing this to be true from a Scientific POV.



and this proves my point exactly. It doesn't really matter does it?



and are we doing that now with other works of antiquity? Homer? Plato? Aristotle? Virgil? Horace?

It's funny isn't it that these writers/philosophers I cited are NEVER questioned even tho they are older and have less manuscriptual evidence than the scriptures have. We have better textual evidence for scripture than any other work of antiquity yet the bible is more attacked than any other. Go figure.

KFC, you say History is History, and Opinion is Opinion.

History books are writen by writers with opinions.

That writer is sharing his/her opinion of an event, then it gets modified by other writers opinions when they write their History Book.

Just as history changes, so do religions, I would agree that parts of religion are based on historical events. Most of the modern versions of religion are less then 1000 years old. Even the catholic church is less then 1500, which is the bases of all christian religions. In the last 250 years how many religions have been invented in the united states alone? How many times has history been modified?

Again, my point is that Religion & History are both very unstable.

KFC, Science supports that god created animals in one instance????

Actually recently it is the other way around, some religious leaders now saying that god crearted evolution, and that evolution is responsible for life. ince god doesn't exist, that is horse pucky.

Here is one guy who is preaching it, I guess he wrote a popular book about it recently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dowd

Maybe god created the big bang
Maybe god created light, gravity, time, etc...
Maybe god created great big clouds of intersteller dust that formed into solar systems.
Maybe god created life thru evolution.

Maybe god is an imaginary friend of us humans.

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As a side note, here are 2 good suggestion for arguing for religion.
Dont make things up, you will eventually be called on them (and mocked)

Dont always have an answer, its ok to say 'I dont know', otherwise it leads to breaking above rule.

I Thought that was covered when I said light, gravity, time, etc...

HAPPY NEW YEAR, KFC AND ALL,

Although we in my house are still enjoying a wonderful array of Christmas goodies as candy canes, fudge, peanut brittle, zucchini bread and the like, the Christmas season after the celebration of the feast of the Epiphany is now turned into the new year and the last of the decorations are now all repacked and in storage.

Your article KFC is very interesting with the first paragraph and the last topping it off!

I note it was written last April, the discussion was picked up in November and renewed on January 1, 2008. The Holy Bible and history is a great topic to begin a New Year.

I'll be back with a comment or two on translations, Columbus, 66 Books, and Bryan Harstad's assertion that


Should be fun!

If several of us witness a traffic light turning from green to red and write down what we saw, our account would be historically accurate. But if we each added our own understanding of the meaning, purpose, and message of the light turning red, as in say, that the light turning red was a sign of God's anger toward us, or that God didn't like green, this would not necessarily be accurate, regardless of the veracity of each witness.

KFC argues that because there was a light and it turned red, the rest must be true, as well.

Be well.

One very important thing you completly missed. I light turning from green to red isn't History, it is just an event.

Peoples interperttion of how and event effects us is a better description of what History is, and more importantly, it is what gets written down in history books.

The exact datews of when a president was in office, isn't history, it is trivia. What that president did during office, what the political/social/economic conditions were are the important parts of history, and we all know that, that is open to interpertation.

For instance, if I ask the history of "President Clinton", what would I get?
If I went to Rwanda, and asked that question, what would I get?
If i asked a Republican, what would I get?
If i asked a Democrate, what would I get?

KFC POSTS in #8

Alas, even today we still have a discrepancy between our Holy Bibles. Catholic Bibles have 73 Books and the Protestant ones have only 66.

Above, I mentioned two different collections...the Septuagint collection that was completed in 100BC and the Palestinian one decided in 100AD. The Septuagint Old Testament collection consisting of an exact translation of the 46 Books of inspired Hebrew texts(later translated into Latin by St. Jerome in the early 400s and then translated into English in the Douay Rheims) is the one the Catholic Church, who from the time of Christ, has always used.

What is amazing is the story behind the Old Testament translation into the Greek called the Septuagint made in the 3rd century before the coming of Christ. Septuagint means seventy. The Septuagint was made by 70 Jerusalem Jews under 2 leaders who didn't participate in the work of the translation. They were translators learned in the Hebrew language, who were sent to ALexandria by the Jewish High priest Eleaser of Jerusalem to translate into Greek the Divine Books then extant.

The Septuagint was made by the 70 each working independently of each other and without consulting each other. There work was so identical, so exactly alike that it was said by rabbis to be as though some invisible prompter has whispered into the ears of each.

One can reasonably believe the Septuagint was providential. It enabled the knowledge of the Old Law, its Divine prophecies, and their culmination in the coming of the Messias to be spread among the Gentiles who did not know the Hebrew language. The general expectation of the coming of "the great king who was to arise among the Jews", such as caused the Magi to return to Bethlehem, was due to this Greek version of the OLd Testament.

Greek was the world language when the Septuagint translation was made. Heberew as a language was on the decline among Jews long before those days. That is no doubt why all but one of the NT were written in Greek. During the days of the second temple, Aramaic was the language spoken by Jews of Palestine. As a matter of fact, Hebrew was so hardly known that a translator stood beside the reader in the synagogue to translate the Hebrew into Aramaic.

The Septuagint translation was initially used by everyone. It's authenticity or integrity was not questioned by the Jews until after the Messias came into His own, after He was rejected by most of them, and the early Christian Church had taken the place of the synagogue.

It is the Catholic Chruch who has the authority that warrants Catholics believeing with absolute certainity that the Septuagint texts contains all of the Divinely inspired books of the OT and therefore the inadequacy and unauthenticity of the Protestant canon.

We know this first of all becasue in those days the integrity of the sacred books was so faithfully safeguarded from corruption by a body of Jewish scribes that the appearance of the Septuagint would not have been greeted with enthusiam everywhere if it were not an exact translation of the 46 books of inspired Hebrew texts.

The canon of the 39 OT books in Protestant Bibles is of unsound historic standing for it is definitively of Jewish non-Palestinian origin, having been agreed upon as the canon of the Jews during their dispersion after "the glory had departed" from Jewry, a "glory" which was theirs when they had an Aaronic priesthood, a Temple, a Sanhedrin, sacrifices, and a reasonable hope of the coming of the Messias, as He had not yet come.

Secondly, while the Catholic Church depends upon the use of the Septuagint by Christ and His Apostles, as well as Tradition, to sustain her declaration that the 46 Books are writings inspired by God, she has her infallible power exercised during the Councils at Rome in 382, Hippo in 393, and Carthage in 397 to eliminate all doubts on the part of Catholics as to their Divine authenticity.

LW posts #40:


There was little dissent until the 16th century when Martin Luther and other Protestants rejected the Alexandrian Septuagint in favor of the Palestinian Jewish list. In 1546, the Council of Trent defined the Alexandrian as the official list of 43 OT books for Catholics and reaffirmed the traditional 27 Books of the NT. As a result Catholics and Protestants today share the same NT, while the Catholic OT contains 7 more books: Tobit, Judith, First and Second Machabees, Wisdom, SIrach, sometimes called Ecclesiasticus and Barach plus additional Esther and Daniel. The Protestant churches do not nor do they assume to have such infallible power. So, the Protestant question of the authenticity and cononicity of the books in the Bible is dependent upon mere human judgment, which is faulty and thus questionable.