Whose Bible is THE Bible ...?

[StuartJ]

The Samaritan THE Bible has 5, and sometimes 6, booklets.

The Hebrew THE Bible has 24 booklets.

The Protestant THE Bible has 66 booklets.

The Roman Catholic THE Bible has 73 booklets.

The Greek Orthodox THE Bible has 79 booklets.

The Ethiopic THE Bible has 81 booklets.

They can't all be THE Bible.

Supposedly, all Scripture comes from "God" - God being the various versions of the mythological Jewish god Yahweh when it comes to the Bibles.

What are the objective criteria for determining "scripture" ...?

Are you accepting your version of THE Bible as the Word of Yahweh, or Jesus, or even the Holy Ghost without actually checking ...?

Religions are full of charlatans who brainwash you into accepting all manner of unsupported miracle and mystery as God's own TRUTH.

It's beneficial to your mind and your money to check.

[Divine Insight]

And further more, even If the truth is that Christ isnt the messiah, and wasnt resurrected. We should interpret it as so...

As even the Disciples confessed:

"14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead."~Paul

Well, if Paul himself is questioning whether or not Christ was raised then he certainly has no business testifying to be a "witness" to it.

In fact, has any Christian today witnessed Christ being raised from the dead? If not, then where do they get off testifying to be a "witness" to this?

This is why I highly question many Christian sects. Consider the Jehovah's Witnesses. What are they claiming to have witnessed?

They clearly didn't witness Christ being raised from the dead. Not only this but they'll gladly accept anyone who wants to become a new member of their faction. So evidently all a person needs to do to become a Jehovah's Witness is be willing to give testimony to things they have never truly witnessed at all.

I don't mean to be singling out the Jehovah's Witnesses here, but many Christians from many different Christian denomination speak about being a "witness" to the truth of God. Yet they haven't witnessed any such thing. So in this sense these religious organizations are basically dealing in fraud or some serious delusion.

[bjs]

[Replying to post 42 by Willum]


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[Tart]

And further more, even If the truth is that Christ isnt the messiah, and wasnt resurrected. We should interpret it as so...

As even the Disciples confessed:

"14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead."~Paul

Well, if Paul himself is questioning whether or not Christ was raised then he certainly has no business testifying to be a "witness" to it.

This is just another example of you misinterpreting scripture to conform to your conclusions about Christianity. When Paul says these things, he isnt questioning the Resurrection, he is responding to people with that question. Earlier he outlines all the evidence, including all the people who witnessed Jesus's resurrection, many by name which included himself... And surely you must know Paul claims to have witnessed Jesus Resurrection... Yet intentionally disregard it.

The things you continue to claim, about scripture, is just straw-manning the entire subject. You seem to create contradictions with misinterpretations, and then refute those contradictions you created... I would suggest actually seeking what Christians believe, and attempting to understand the evidence instead of make nonsense of it.

In fact, has any Christian today witnessed Christ being raised from the dead? If not, then where do they get off testifying to be a "witness" to this?

This is why I highly question many Christian sects. Consider the Jehovah's Witnesses. What are they claiming to have witnessed?

They clearly didn't witness Christ being raised from the dead. Not only this but they'll gladly accept anyone who wants to become a new member of their faction. So evidently all a person needs to do to become a Jehovah's Witness is be willing to give testimony to things they have never truly witnessed at all.

I don't mean to be singling out the Jehovah's Witnesses here, but many Christians from many different Christian denomination speak about being a "witness" to the truth of God. Yet they haven't witnessed any such thing. So in this sense these religious organizations are basically dealing in fraud or some serious delusion.

Sure so the Christian claim is that God sends a spirit into believers, that they have a witness of God in them.

"16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children."~Paul

So ya, if Christianity is true, people can be witnesses of God.

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 53 by Tart]

And surely you must know Paul claims to have witnessed Jesus Resurrection

The Bible is a collection of claims. The problem is with them being unsupported claims. Believing they are true is not evidence for them being true. What Paul claims is irrelevant because he was not there.

[Tart]

[Replying to post 53 by Tart]

And surely you must know Paul claims to have witnessed Jesus Resurrection

The Bible is a collection of claims. The problem is with them being unsupported claims. Believing they are true is not evidence for them being true. What Paul claims is irrelevant because he was not there.

First of all, Paul was there to experience the risen Christ... Also, the claims in Christianity are clearly supported. I understand that this is like slogan for atheism (its all "unsupported claims"), but the fact of the matter is is that Christianity has mountains of supporting evidence from a multitude of sources all pointing to the same thing... Now is all the supporting evidence of Christianity true? Is Jesus the Son of God, objectively, and really risen by God? Personally I think the answers given in the Bible, by the witnesses/prophets, arent only the best explanations given for Christianities existence, but they are the only reasonable explanation of the evidence.

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 55 by Tart]

but the fact of the matter is is that Christianity has mountains of supporting evidence from a multitude of sources all pointing to the same thing...

But is either not presented in response to simple requests, or when it is presented and refuted simply brushed aside with an accompanying call to faith. The Bible is a book of claims. Nothing pertaining to the supernatural content has ever been verified so it is disingenuous to claim mountains of supporting evidence without actually presenting any of it.

[Willum]

I think I can allow everyone on the forum to agree:

Whose Bible is THE Bible ...?

Everyone who can say:

MINE!

Everyone interprets every facet of every book they believe in, in a way compatible with their personality.

[Divine Insight]

I would suggest actually seeking what Christians believe, and attempting to understand the evidence instead of make nonsense of it.

I mean no disrespect Tart, but I couldn't care less what Christians "believe".

Christians renounce each other's beliefs, and Biblical interpretations. In fact, the very term "Christian" is basically a meaningless term. Everyone who claims to be a "Christian" has totally different ideas of what they would like for Jesus and the Bible to be about.

In fact, back when I was a Christian my greatest theological adversaries were not atheists or not-believers. The greatest adversaries I encountered were other "Christians" who hated my "loving and forgiving Jesus". They insisted that Christ was a hateful monster. Of course they didn't phrase it that way. To the contrary they claimed that their "Christ" was all about love too. They just had a really sick and hateful idea of what "love" means.

Finally, in spite of your false and derogatory accusations toward me I'm quite capable of reading the Bible myself. I can see where Paul wasn't even on the same page as the Jesus portrayed in Mark, Matthew, and Luke.

If you think that Paul and Jesus were holding up the same principles, then all I can say is that you must not have thought very highly of Jesus. Paul's Jesus is a hateful jealous God, not unlike Yahweh.

And to be perfectly honest with you I personally think that many people seem to be attracted to the hatred that Paul preached. They typically recite the words of Paul while ignoring the teachings of Jesus entirely.

As far as I'm concerned, anytime you quote Paul you are rejecting the teachings of Jesus as told by Mark, Matthew, and Luke.

John was a whole different story. The book of John was written much later and was most likely the fabricated intentional religious propaganda written by a committee of religious authoritarians.

Instead of constantly defending these absurd stories you should consider alternative explanations for these texts.

Here's a short video that reveals many of the problems with the book of John.

[youtube][/youtube]

[Tart]

[Replying to post 55 by Tart]

but the fact of the matter is is that Christianity has mountains of supporting evidence from a multitude of sources all pointing to the same thing...

But is either not presented in response to simple requests, or when it is presented and refuted simply brushed aside with an accompanying call to faith. The Bible is a book of claims. Nothing pertaining to the supernatural content has ever been verified so it is disingenuous to claim mountains of supporting evidence without actually presenting any of it.

The Bible is a book of evidence to the claim "God exists".. "A personal God exists and can be known"... Thats the claim... The evidence is the Bible...

"Nothing pertaining to the supernatural content has ever been verified..."

Certainly supernatural conent HAS been verified... Just never by a nonbeliever, hense "nonbeliever"..

Actually, if the Bible is true, and id be willing to debate that topic with you, instead of you going around claiming there is no evidence, and nothing can be verified, and so on... Jesus is the Christ, the Risen Son of God..

But if the Bible is true, then God can put a piece of Himself in you, called the Holy Spirit, as to witness to your inner soul the evidence of God and supernatural claims... Which indeed, would be verifying supernatural content.. (among other things that would verify so).

[Divine Insight]

But if the Bible is true, then God can put a piece of Himself in you, called the Holy Spirit, as to witness to your inner soul the evidence of God and supernatural claims... Which indeed, would be verifying supernatural content.. (among other things that would verify so).

Well there you go. No sane credible theist would ever claim to have verifying supernatural content that validates this religion. Sure, a lot of common people have made these claims, but their sanity and credibility then comes into question. Especially when they start spewing contradictions concerning precisely how it is that they know this to be true.

Credible theologians typically are quick to openly confess that it is indeed a "faith-based" religion. Take William Lane Craig for example. He built up an entire apologetic organization that argues that having faith is "reasonable".

Well think about that. If what you claim in your above quote were true, then no believer would need to have "faith" in anything because they would have been given verifying supernatural content that has validated that this supernatural God exists.

Clearly William Lane Craig doesn't have this, for if he did he wouldn't be making arguments that it's reasonable to believe on pure faith.

So this then becomes a major division between the so-called "Christians".

1. Those who believe in faith.

And

2. Those who believe because they claim to have been given supernatural evidence by God or a Holy Spirit.

Moreover, those in the second category should be able to make sense of the theology and explain the theology to other people in ways that actually makes sense. But they can't do that.

Also, there are many people in group #2 who make vastly different claims about what this God expects from people and how the Bible should be interpreted.

In short, there's no consistency between those who claim to be in group #2.

At least William Lane Craig doesn't claim to be in that Group. Or if he does then his entire organization based on "Reasonable Faith" makes no sense. Why would anyone need to have reasonable faith if God or a Holy Spirit is passing out verified supernatural evidence?

The problem is that this religious paradigm always ends up shooting itself in its own foot. And this is because the theology cannot be made rational or reasonable.