Who dun it?

Argue for and against Christianity

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adherent
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Who dun it?

Post #1

Post by adherent »

Who do you think wrote the Bible?

Gaunt
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Post #11

Post by Gaunt »

I think the argument is that since there are mistakes in the Bible, man-made or not, it cannot therefore be inerrant. Consequently, if mistakes were made in areas where we can check up on, ie if it is not consistent with itself for whatever the reason, how can we be sure there are no mistakes where we cannot check?

adherent
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Post #12

Post by adherent »

its up to one to decide that for himself then

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bernee51
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Post #13

Post by bernee51 »

adherent wrote:its up to one to decide that for himself then
so is the bible (IYHO) the insopired word of god? And, if so, can you question god on his meaning when it comes to deciding what is a contradiction and what is not?

nikolayevich
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Post #14

Post by nikolayevich »

The Bible is the inspired word of God, which has largely come down to us without error. That is to say, because we have copies of copies of copies, made by normal human beings, there are inconsequential - to the story - errors in our facsimilies. One can look at the major Bible VERSIONS like an incredibly complex mosaic (pardon the pun). The face of God is there, and the stories are quite clear, but some of the fullness of the colouring and some of the chips are broken.

Saying that one believes, as I do, that the original penned books of the Bible were without error isn't so unreasonable given the almost incredible intactness of so many unbelievably multithreaded stories.

I have heard it said both ways by critics, either that many books of the Bible (esp. prophetic works) were written after the events that they predicted because of the accuracy of said predictions, or... that the books are full of mistakes and cannot be trusted. Each case presents its problems, each betrays its presuppositions, and each case is not consistent with the other.

On questions of origin, meaning, purpose and destiny, the Bible exquisitely answers these things, despite basic copyist (man's) errors. The majority of errors I have seen put forth, have been easily diffused with better understanding of context. As to the question of literal versus not, it really isn't too difficult to determine the major issues, whether they are figurative, historical, prophetic or otherwise as long as one is ready to dig into the text and see what IT says, not what its critics say.

For anyone who really needs answers, there is plenty of reading to be done on this subject such as the Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. There are plenty of refutations for the various claims of critics. Actually, perhaps better than this is one I just read recently, The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell. He takes the rug out of the argumentation of modern Biblical critics with their own words. It reads like a text book, for those who like that sort of thing.

Oh right, we're talking about authorship.

Moses for the Torah, then a whole bunch of others, through to Revelation which would be John.

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Lotan
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Post #15

Post by Lotan »

nikolayevich wrote:
Moses for the Torah, then a whole bunch of others, through to Revelation which would be John.
Why do you suppose it was Moses that wrote the Torah? The bible doesn't specifically say that he did.
And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto His people. Exodus 32:14

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Post #16

Post by nikolayevich »

Lotan wrote: Why do you suppose it was Moses that wrote the Torah? The bible doesn't specifically say that he did.
Ah, but there are multiple passages suggesting this if you understand the writings of the Jews...

"And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."
Luke 16:31

This is one of a handful of times where the Bible mentions Moses and the prophets, which was a very Hebraic way of referring to the Law (first 5 books known as the Torah) and prophetic writings of the Tanakh (Old Testament). It is likewise referred to as the Law and the Prophets.

I think it is likely what it means is that Moses was responsible for editing the Torah, as there are clues that lead us to believe it was possible for various families to have handed down their genealogies and histories, which we know the Jewish people were very careful about preserving through all their generations leading up to the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem.

Whatever the case, Moses seems likely. Scholars who tried to suggest there was not this sophistication of legal prose at the time of Moses have been disappointed by the discovery of Hammurabi's code, which shows similar sophistication from such early times.

AV1611
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Re: Who dun it?

Post #17

Post by AV1611 »

adherent wrote:Who do you think wrote the Bible?
The first page of each Book of the Bible tells you...however they were Inspired by God and "God breathed" and so God ultimately wrote them through human authors.

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turtleguy
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Post #18

Post by turtleguy »

Xueirdna wrote:
I am still very skeptical. Why put so much faith and trust in a book which we agree is full of false tales??? Its beyond me.
I completely agree. I personally accept the Bible to be inerrant and true, penned by a myriad of authors, but edited by God so to speak.
i agree with xueirdna as far as how it was written

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otseng
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Post #19

Post by otseng »

turtleguy wrote: i agree with xueirdna as far as how it was written
Please refrain from stating one-liners with no substantive value. This will help in providing meaningful debate here on this forum. Thank you for your cooperation.

Rule 9:
No unconstructive one-liners posts are allowed in debates (Do not simply say "Ditto" or "I disagree" in a post. Such posts add little value to debates).

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Post #20

Post by dangerdan »

"And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."
Luke 16:31

This is one of a handful of times where the Bible mentions Moses and the prophets, which was a very Hebraic way of referring to the Law (first 5 books known as the Torah) and prophetic writings of the Tanakh (Old Testament). It is likewise referred to as the Law and the Prophets.
Yes, but this is in Luke.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but nowhere in the Torah does it say much about the author(s). Traditionally Moses is the author, true. But if you up any encyclopedia (well…pick any reputable one, world book, Encarta, etc, etc) and read up about it, they say that most objective biblical scholars think that Genesis was a compilation of about 4 different texts. And almost everyone agrees that it’s highly unlikely that Moses wrote all (if any) of the books in the Torah, as language is often used that did not appear till many many years after Moses’ time.

If you would like I can cut and paste a bunch of text from Encarta, but I’m a touch pressed for time at the moment.

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