Which parts of the Bible are the Word of God?

[Elijah John]

Which parts of the Bible are the "Word of God". How much of it?

Did God bind the Bible in it's entirety from cover to cover, and proclaim, "THIS is my word"? If so, what is your evidence for this? If so, which version, which canon of the Bible is the entire, verbatim Word of God?

The Hebrew Bible?
The Roman Catholic version?
The Orthodox version?
or the Protestant version?

[Divine Insight]

Did God bind the Bible in it's entirety from cover to cover, and proclaim, "THIS is my word"? If so, ...

And if not, then this renders the entire concept meaningless does it not?

Why would a God expect humans to try to figure out which parts of religious texts might have come from God and which parts didn't?

Especially a God who is supposedly demanding that we follow his commandments lest we be faced the death or some type of condemnation.

Are we going to ignore that this God supposedly commanded us to do any particular thing or behave in any particular way?

I actually agree with the Fundamentalists on this point. Either the Bible is the perfect infallible Word of God, or it's not. If it is, then Fundamentalism is the only way to go. If it isn't then there's no point in even considering it to be anything other than man-made tales.

And I can't see pure Fundamentalism as making any sense. Therefore I conclude (ironically using the Fundamentalist's own views) that the Bible cannot be the word of any God. Certainly not in full, and nor can it be the word of God in part. So ultimately the Bible can't have anything to do with any God.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

All or nothing. All well and good. But what constitutes "all" of it?

Which Bible DI? The Jewish? The Catholic? The Eastern Orthodox? Or the Protestant?.

They each have a different number of books between their respective covers.

[brianbbs67]

I take the parts that appear un changed for 1000s of years as the words written down by a man told to do so by God. This would be the bulk of the KJV OT and the Tanakh(Jps from 1900 or prior or Stone's). There has beena lot added to the NT and some questionable translations from the Koine.

Which begs a big question about what was subtracted or what writings never made the canon and were destroyed by Rome or others?

I do believe God's general message and rules(see Torah) are in there inspired of men taking "artist" license with some of it. I compare this to the baby and the bath water. You don't throw out a perfectly good baby with their dirty bath water.

"Test everything, and hold fast to truth"

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

All or nothing. All well and good. But what constitutes "all" of it?

Which Bible DI? The Jewish? The Catholic? The Eastern Orthodox? Or the Protestant?.

They each have a different number of books between their respective covers.

First off, it doesn't matter which cannon we look at. The question then becomes, "Is this particular cannon the complete and infallible Word of God?"

I don't see any Abrahamic cannon that would qualify as representing the complete infallible "Word of God".

I often hear Jews argue that they don't even view their religious texts as the "Word of God". But how silly is that? The first 5 books of the Bible specifically claim to be speaking on behalf of God, not the least of which are the Ten Commandments. But certainly not restricted to just the Ten Commandment. The early books of the Hebrew Bible are filled with proclamations of God commanding men to do all manner of things, not the least of which is to stone sinners to death.

So the very idea that Jews can claim that their Bible isn't even supposed to be the "Word of God" is, IMHO, utterly absurd. I see such a claim as nothing more than an obvious and extreme denial of what the texts actually contain.

So as far as I can see the Abrahamic Bible was dead in the water beginning with the original Torah. As far as I'm concerned tacking on any additional texts after that is already a lost cause. As far as I'm concerned the Hebrew religious folklore was already nonsense by Genesis chapter 3. No point in reading it beyond that unless a person just enjoys reading fiction.

And it only goes downhill from there.

So as far as I can see it doesn't matter which Abrahamic religious texts we're going to consider. They all shoot themselves in the foot in the first 5 books. There's no way that the Christian New Testament or the Islamic Quran could salvage or repair the damage that was already done long before their texts were appended.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 5 by Divine Insight]

That's your perspective, but you also seem to side with the Fundamentalists. So how could you reject all of the canons, yet say the Fundies are right in their approach? That would seem to favor the 66 books of the Protestant canon. Complete.

[Avoice]

[[url=http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 371#972371]Replying to post 1 by Elijah John[/url

Certainly not the Christian testament. No where does it say God said or said God. The writers knew better than to say God said something when he didn't. But it does it's best to imply it. Oh the heavenly voice... If it was God they'd have said it. But that's what people want it to be.

That which ye hear in the ear preach from the rooftops
or
What I tell you in darkness speak ye in light

He that hath ears to hear let them hear...

I heard what the Christian testament says: it's the religion that let's man hear what he wants to hear. Through that God knows your heart. And what have Christians revealed:. God...we don't want nothing to do with you. Lay off of us with the laws. But kill yourself on the cross so we can live forever and continue ignoring you. Will you do it again for us in the next world.? We hope so. We really love pig. That's why we listen to unknown authors of a book not to mention that guy from Tarsus -Paul. If I listen to them I get to do what I want plus eat my bacon. Why we even eat it on our most religious holidays. We have many great foods you've provided but what's a slap in the face to you after being hung up to die. Remember now:. Save us.
HEAR!!! HEAR!!

[Avoice]

[Replying to post 5 by Divine Insight]

You often hear jees say that? Yeah, Messianic Jews maybe. But they aren't Jews. They just want to wear the clothes and call Jesus yeshua.

[JehovahsWitness]

We Jehovah's Witnesses* accept the entire 66 books of the bible canon as the word of God. We beliieve we can have faith in the overall integrity of scripture in that what we have today accurately reflects what was originally penned and that it has not been compromised by historic attempts to corrupt or alter its content. We base this belief on the following:

1) the quality of its content.
2) the effect it has on people that put it's words into practice
3) the documented evidence of its history

* While JWs the entire Bible, they are not fundamentalists as they recognize that parts of the Bible are written in figurative or symbolic language and are not to be understood literally.—Revelation 1:1.




JW



RELATED POSTS

How do we know the bible (canon) is the word of God?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 55#p840255

[JehovahsWitness]

QUESTION What evidence do we have that the bible has been accurately transmitted throughout the ages?


MANUSCRIPTS

• According to one calculation there are over 5000 manuscripts in the original Greek, in addition there are 8000 in various other languages of the 27 books in the Greek canon, totalling over 13,000 dating from the 2nd Century to the 16th. The oldest fragment is P/25 in the John Rylands Library Manchester England) a fragment of Gospel of John dated to approximately 125CE (about 25 years after the original).
  
  

ERRORS AND ALTERATIONS

• ** The existenc of "errors" in handwritten copies does not necessarily mean one cannot ascertain the content of the original or (as is the case with the bible) that we cannot be reasonably confident in the integrityof present day scripture. Copyists certainly did make errors* when writing. What enables us to have confidence in the CGS however is the shear volume of manuscripts (or copies) that were made and survive to this day. (An alteration is not necessarily a bad thing as it is simply evidence of a change which may or may not bring a copy closer to the original).

IDENTIFYING ERRORS

• If only one copy was made of an original, and that copy had an error then all subsequent copies that exist would contain that error and furthermore, there would be no way to identify and it. Fortunately this is not how the bible came down to us. Many hundreds of copies were made during the same period from alternative first souces. According to Professor James L. Kugel “many, many times even within the biblical period itself.â€� This means we have copies today which can be compared to identify (and remove) errors. To illustrate
  

  To illustrate: A boss give a letter to his secretary. She makes 10 copies and hands them over to ten different departments in the Company. Each Department Head makes dozens of copies for each team in his department and the team leader makes copies for all his staff.
  
  If the secretary spilt coffee on one of her 10 copies - rendering a line illegible for one of the department heads, he has only to consult another department head. If he doesn't notice it and the coffee stain is passed on to his department and subsequently to his team does that mean everyone in the company has a copy of the "stain"? The existence of 9 other departments/teams and hundreds of other staff copies ensures that even without seeing the original we can spot the mistake.

  In a similar way the sheer volume of bibljcal manuscripts enables us to have complete confidence that present day bible's reflect what was originally written.

**TEXTURAL CRITICISM

• #1 Texural bluders are usually easily identifiable and correctable (since, firstly they usually render a sentence incomprehensible or grammatically incorrect, and they can be cross referred to other existing copies from a similar (or earlier) period). These kind of errors cannot be presented as evidence that the NT scripture is inaccurate or that it is impossible to know because of them what the original said.
  
  #2 Unviable readings usually dismissed by textural critics because they are the work or a single scribe or exist in isolation thus they do not call into question what the original said.
  
  #3 Spelling variations that reflect regional dialects and/or errors have little bearing on the question of the overal content of the original.
  
  #4 Minor textural variants that have no bearing on nuance and meaning.
  
  #5 Viable textural variations only account for about 1% of variations. The vast majroity of these don't effect the fundamental message or theology of the scriptures.

ACADEMIC CONCLUSIONS (CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES)

"It can be determined, on the basis of 40 years of experience and with the results which have come to light in examining . . . manuscripts at 1,200 test places: The text of the New Testament has been excellently transmitted, better than any other writing from ancient times; the possibility that manuscripts might yet be found that would change its text decisively is zero.�—Professor Kurt Aland, Das Neue Testament—zuverlässig überliefert (The New Testament—Reliably Transmitted), Stuttgart, 1986, pp. 27, 28.

“The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning [...] If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.� -- Bible scholar F. F. Bruce

[mrow]Author[mcol]Approx Date Written [mcol]Earliest Copy[mcol]Approximate Time Span between original & copy[mcol]# of Copies[mcol] Accuracy [row]Lucretius[col]53 or 55 BC [col]---[col] 1100 years[col] 2 [col] --- [row]Pliny[col] 61-113 AD [col]850 AD[col]750 years[col]7[col]--- [row]Plato[col]427-347 B.C.[col]A.D. 900[col]1200 years[col]7[col]--- [row]Demosthenes[col]4th Cent. B.C.[col]A.D. 1100[col]800 years[col]8[col]--- [row]Herodotus[col]480-425 B.C.[col]A.D. 900[col]1300 years[col]8[col]--- [row]Suetonius[col]A.D. 75-160 [col]A.D. 950[col]800 years[col]8[col]--- [row]Thucydides[col]460-400 B.C.[col]A.D. 900[col]1300 years[col]8[col]--- [row]Euripides[col]480-406 B.C. [col]A.D. 1100[col]1300 years[col]9[col]--- [row]Aristophanes[col]450-385 B.C.[col]A.D. 900 [col]1200 years[col]10[col]--- [row]Caesar[col]100-44 B.C.[col]A.D. 900 [col]1000 years[col]10[col]--- [row]Livy[col]59 BC-AD 17[col]---[col]-?-[col]20[col]--- [row]Tacitus[col]circa A.D. 100 [col] A.D. 1100[col]1000 years[col]20[col]--- [row]Aristotle[col]384-322 B.C. [col]A.D. 1100 [col]1400 years[col]49[col]--- [row]Sophocles[col]496-406 B.C. [col]A.D. 1000 [col]1400 years[col]193[col]--- [row]Homer (Iliad)[col]900 BC[col]400 BC[col]500 years[col]643[col]95% [row]New Testament[col]1st Century AD (50-100AD)[col]2nd Century AD (130 AD - 200AD)[col]less than 100 years[col]5686[col]99.5%

The more information and documentation we have, the more difficult it is for a legend to spread. Based on the amounts of documents we have been able to discover so far, the writings from Aristotle are more likely to be a legend than the New testament.

[mrow]Author[mcol]Approx Date Written [mcol]Earliest Copy[mcol]Approximate Time Span between original & copy[mcol]# of Copies[mcol] Accuracy [row]Homer (Iliad)[col]900 BC[col]400 BC[col]500 years[col]643[col]95% [row]New Testament[col]1st Century AD (50-100AD)[col]2nd Century AD (130 AD - 200AD)[col]less than 100 years[col]5686[col]99.5%

LEARN MORE

An analysis of Biblical Variation (Pt I)


Textual variants
http://fosterheologicalreflections.blog ... -word.html
http://www.carm.org/evidence/textualevidence.htm

Go to other posts related to...

THE BIBLE , HERMENEUTICS* and ... BEST TRANSLATION

* bible interpretation[/quote]