How can we determine which parts of Scripture are true?

[Zelduck]

This is really a question for Christians, but since it doesn't assume the validity of the Bible, I think it belongs here rather than in the Theology, Doctrine, and Dogma section.

There have been multiple canons of Scripture. Books have been accepted and rejected for various reasons throughout Christian history. Books have lied about their authorship. Passages have been added and removed. Books were written in different times and different places by different authors and for different reasons.

So how can I have confidence in any particular verse, chapter, or book, that what I am reading is the inspired work of the Holy Spirit, and not the work of a man, no matter how pious?

What method ought I use to reliably determine what is and is not the Word of God? Has someone already done this for me, and if so, how can I tell if they didn't make a mistake?

[Zzyzx]

.

Obviously nothing I say will prove that even I know what Jesus meant when He promised that the Spirit of Truth would come.

Agreed

As far as the connection to the later compendium of Bible texts in the Liturgy, this may have been direct, but likely as not a gathering of texts that God seemed to have led worshipers to repeat.[/quote]
What indicates that "God seemed to have led?"

I can't even prove that Jesus said those words in John.

Agreed

My particular source criticism of the gospels does include those verses as written down by the eyewitness Nicodemus.

Where can one find Nicodemus' written eyewitness accounts? Note that John (whoever that may have been) saying that Nicodemus claimed something or said something or saw something is NOT an eyewitness account – but is hearsay (at best).

Can I prove it? Only to the extent that I can argue that Nicodemus must have written down the sayings in John during the lifetime of Jesus because his (the eyewitness') view of Jesus seems to change at least twice during the course of Jesus's sayings.

If (since) no actual accounts exist and the earliest known reference dates from decades, generations or even centuries after the claimed events, what evidential value should / can be placed on them?

But that would still be no proof that Jesus said exactly what He is quoted as nor that I know what He meant.

Agreed. Thank you for your forthrightness here.

Is what I am saying worth listening to even if not a mathematical proof? Only you can say.

Your guess is as good as anybody's.


If the bases of one's belief system cannot be shown to be true, why believe (or maintain) that they are true? Personal preference?

[Korah]

You can't demonstrate that Jesus ever existed or that there is any such thing as the Spirit of Truth. You are arguing opinions, not facts. You are making claims about your beliefs, based on faith, not on evidence.

I do rely on opinions of Church Fathers (Early and Late, both), and it is a fact that there has been much agreement on what Scripture to read on Sunday. That is a fact (or contest the readings I have listed--there may be small mistakes or substantive error from failings to take into consideration Eastern Christianity).

Most of us don't care that same extremists deny Jesus ever existed, and there are even atheist scholars who argue (paradoxically, I would think) that the Synoptic gospels are early, particularly Mark. (I admit the English scholars I am thinking of have very low opinions of the Gospel of John--James Crossley and the late Maurice Casey.)

[Cephus]

You can't demonstrate that Jesus ever existed or that there is any such thing as the Spirit of Truth. You are arguing opinions, not facts. You are making claims about your beliefs, based on faith, not on evidence.

I do rely on opinions of Church Fathers (Early and Late, both), and it is a fact that there has been much agreement on what Scripture to read on Sunday. That is a fact (or contest the readings I have listed--there may be small mistakes or substantive error from failings to take into consideration Eastern Christianity).

Most of us don't care that same extremists deny Jesus ever existed, and there are even atheist scholars who argue (paradoxically, I would think) that the Synoptic gospels are early, particularly Mark. (I admit the English scholars I am thinking of have very low opinions of the Gospel of John--James Crossley and the late Maurice Casey.)

Opinions do not necessarily make facts. No matter what the Church Fathers might have thought, that doesn't mean that what they thought was true. That's something you have to demonstrate and have not done so yet, at least not that I have seen.

Again, you're not arguing demonstrable facts, just faith and belief, which are totally unimpressive.

[Cephus]

[Replying to post 31 by Zzyzx]

A better question is, what indicates that God even exists? It all comes right back to that and without evidence that shows that any god, much less the Christian God is real, the debate is over before it begins.

Faith doesn't mean anything to people who have no faith.

[Korah]

Where can one find Nicodemus' written eyewitness accounts? Note that John (whoever that may have been) saying that Nicodemus claimed something or said something or saw something is NOT an eyewitness account – but is hearsay (at best).

[
Getting to basics,
I accept the source-criticism of the atheist Howard M. Teeple in his 1974 The Literary Origin of the Gospel of John. No one has ever refuted him nor does anyone even speak ill of him (except for some non-academic Fundamentalists). His meticulous stylistic analysis revealed that the Discourses in John were not later preachings but came from a source to which he attributed Gnostic characteristics. Viewed thus as a source, I noticed that the point of view of the source writer changed from perplexity to interested curiosity to investigative hostility to acceptance and then commitment. Thus it had to have been written in process during Jesus's life on Earth. Much of this gospel makes Jesus out to be an obnoxious posturer, but that middle portion was written while the writer Nicodemus was tasked to bring a court case against Jesus. Jesus said things only sort of like He is quoted. Only the Great Discourse (John 14 to 16) truly represents what Jesus said and that was enthusiastically detailed by Nicodemus.
Teeple also extracted a more general source that included a distinct Passion Narrative portion. Sorting out just the earlier portions, I see Teeple as having discovered a Passion Diary, most likely written just after the last week of Jesus on Earth, most likely by John Mark who had just at that time met Jesus. This Passion Diary was not noticed by Teeple because his Source also included the preceding narrative now recognized as the Signs Source. If the miracles related here do not necessarily rule out an eyewitness ,then it was written by Andrew, sort of as related by the 170 A. D. Muratorian Canon.
Teeple also recognized an Editor. By repositioning the lecture portions instead to Nicodemus, the remaining textual additions seem like they could have been written by the reputed author, John the Apostle.
All this is my own idea, go ahead and refute it, just not by appealing to authority like everybody else does.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 31 by Zzyzx]

A better question is, what indicates that God even exists? It all comes right back to that and without evidence that shows that any god, much less the Christian God is real, the debate is over before it begins.

Faith doesn't mean anything to people who have no faith.

Now only that, but have the people of faith truly given any serious thought to precisely what it is they are placing their faith in?

I seriously don't think very many people give this the consideration it deserves.

What is Christianity asking us to place our faith in?

Allow me to list some major things a person must place their faith in to believe in this religion:

1. We must have faith that we were created by a jealous wrathful creator.

2. We must have faith that our creator is basically punishing all women with greatly multiplied pain and sorrow in childbirth.

3. We must have faith that our creator has condoned that a men should rule over their wives instead of having intelligent egalitarian relationships. And we must have faith that the reason behind this is precisely because Eve committed the first sin and caused Adam to then also fall from grace.

4. We must have faith that we have all fallen short of the "glory" or this jealous male-chauvinistic and clearly sadistic God. And that because of this we all deserve to burn in a torturous hell-fire for eternity.

5. We must have faith that we have rejected this God, hate him, and that we have chosen evil over good and that we are in dire need of repentance.

6. We must have faith in the words of Jesus as the Son of God when he claims that the path to the kingdom of this God, and eternal life, is straight and the gate is narrow and that only few will make it.

7. We must have faith that we will be among the few that make it.

8. We must have faith that the vast majority of humans will be condemned to hell, including many of our friends, family and other loved ones.

* the idea that we will go to a heaven where we will be rejoined with all our friends and family is actually a faith that many people have that is in direct opposition to this religion.

9. We must have faith that our creator had his very own corrupt priests incite a mob to crucify his only begotten son who was born of a virgin mortal woman so that our horrible sins could be paid for so that we could be saved. Because without this "sacrifice" none of us would e worthy of God.

We are being asked to believe all of this as a matter of PURE FAITH. Blind faith in horrible things that go against all rationality and sanity.

None of these things have a shred of supporting evidence. So if we are going to believe in this religion we must do so entirely as a matter of pure faith.

~~~~~

My question is quite simple:

Why would anyone wish to place their faith in all the horrible things listed above?


Wouldn't our faith actually be far better spent to have faith that Christianity is a very immoral and false collection of immoral superstitious fables?

It seems to me that if I were going to become a person of "Faith" the best place I could invest faith would be to have faith the Christianity is totally false.

Why anyone actually wants Christianity to be true as a matter of faith is beyond me.

If faith is the question, the no is the answer. It would be absolute masochism to place our faith in the ideal that Christianity is true. Christianity degrades all of humanity, and paints a seriously immoral picture of a creator to boot.

And of course Islam does basically the same thing.

[Korah]

[Replying to post 35 by Korah]
My post #35 about the four written eyewitnesses-to-Jesus sources in the Gospel of John is of course much too condensed, but I give a more general explanation along with links to details of my seven-written-sources Thesis in Post #60 in the thread "Why are all the scholars changing their minds"
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... c&start=50
This gives you the option of discussing it here or there or going outside DC&R where I have much more extensive posts.
The more extended arguments I have had with critics has been on other websites now shuttered, but they weren't very productive anyway.

[Korah]

[Replying to post 37 by Korah]
The Church as a whole has never approved a canon of the Bible, not even just the New Testament.
True, there is wide acceptance for 27 books for the NT, but this never occurred at a generally recognized ecumenical council until the Council of Trent in the 16th Century. By then even the Protestants had broken off, long after three or more split-offs of Eastern bodies. The widely hailed councils of Orange and of Carthage were in the late 4th century, but were never recognized by anyone as a General Council. Both the Assyrian Church of the East (Nestorians) and Monophysites had split off before that time. The Nestorians accept the gospels, Acts, and Paul, and little else, but the OT contains unheard-of texts and strangely enough, Josephus!
http://onbehalfofall.org/a-nestorian-ca ... scripture/
The Old Testament is even more dicey, with not even one traditional body agreeing with the standard Protestant 39 OT books.

Thus my Post 37 gives as good a representation as any of what the Church really holds as authoritative biblical texts. Yet atheists and Christians alike just ignore the practical realities here.
Edited to add:
That is, atheists are not entitled to just attack the standard Bible as if destroying Christianity and Christians do not need to defend every bit of the Bible, particularly not the OT. Nor can Christians properly cite random texts to prove their version of Christianity, as those verses may not have been ratified by Church use.

[Divine Insight]

Edited to add:
That is, atheists are not entitled to just attack the standard Bible as if destroying Christianity and Christians do not need to defend every bit of the Bible, particularly not the OT. Nor can Christians properly cite random texts to prove their version of Christianity, as those verses may not have been ratified by Church use.

What Christians need to "defend" depends entirely on who they are attempting to prove something to.

The bottom line is pretty simple Korah.

You are free to believe whatever you so desire for yourself. And in that instance you don't need to "defend" your beliefs to anyone.

However, if you are attempting to sell the idea that Jesus was the demigod son of the God of the Old Testament, then you most certainly do need to "defend" that claim to whomever you might be attempting to sell it to.

You have just stated in your quote above that you do not need to defend every jot and tittle of the Old Testament.

Well, I've got news for you. If you are attempting to sell me on the idea that Jesus was the demigod son of the God of the Old Testament then you most certainly do need to justify every jot and tittle of Old Testament.

Why? Because Jesus himself is said to have proclaimed that not one jot or one tittle shall pass from law. And the only jots and tittles he could have been referring to in Christianity were indeed the jots and tittles of the Old Testament, specifically the jots and tittles of the Torah or first 5 books of the Old Testament.

So if you are trying to sell your religion to me, then you do indeed need to "defend" the OT in its entirety including every jot and tittle. Either that or confess that you have no clue which quotes attributed to Jesus in the NT are worth believing.

Either way you lose pretty quickly. You either have to defend every jot and tittle of the Old Testament or confess that you have no clue who Jesus was or what he might have said.

So there you go.

Don't tell me what you need to "defend" or not "defend".

If you are trying to sell the religion to me, then you need to defend whatever concerns I bring up.

You don't get to choose.

On the other hand if you are merely trying to "defend" your own personal reasons for clinging to this religion then I'm not even interested in hearing your reasons. I couldn't care less how you justify your beliefs to yourself.

Especially if I disagree with your reasoning. Why should I care if I'm not even in agreement with your rationale?

[Korah]

[Replying to post 38 by Korah]
ERRATA:
My Post #38 says it is piggy-backing on to my Post #37. Actually I intended to be referring back to my Post #26 (and also to my same post as #26 in "Theology, Doctrine, and Dogma") in which I listed the Church's selection of (NT) Bible readings for the Sunday Liturgy. Instead of being burdened defending the whole Bible, Christians should feel free to base their essential beliefs on the much more limited compendium of texts that are the Christian standard.

Correspondingly atheists and other opponents of Christianity cannot destroy Christian faith and practice by attacking the Bible as a whole, when actually Christianity has always been basing itself on a very limited set of readings that I list in my Post(s) #26.

It matters not to me that anyone here would refrain from debating this issue on my beliefs, just understand that anyone saying that is refusing to face the most substantive issue of Christian apologetics. All but Fundamentalists have some limitations on what they believe about the Bible. Fine, allow it if you will that those Christians have their particular beliefs, but just don't claim that you have addressed and defeated Christianity.

(As for my Post #37 it referred back to my Post #35 that capsulated (regarding the four eyewitnesses that wrote John) my Thesis that the four gospels contain sources that are seven written eyewitness records about Jesus. Don't anyone feel that you have defeated Christianity without dealing with this Thesis. I haven't yet encountered here anyone but Student interested in reading about that, but even he showed no willingness to consider the evidence.)