The Bible Is Not All That Bad...

reply to post by seedofchucky


This is a partial reply. I am still working on the bottom quarter of your post. This was just so much info, both for me to research and for you to take in when I presented it, that I decided to post in parts. Here is the first, and much larger of the two. Second to come, in time. Thank you for being patient.

Seed of Chucky, Autowrench, Elahrairah, and Bogomil. I will answer your posts in this order, just as they were posted. Do me these two small favors:

1.Please excuse the posting of other Christians work, but know that I have reviewed them and found that I agree with their assessment. It helps me tremendously. I am not a minister, or even a student at this time. I have a wife, people who depend on me, and I am the manager of a small business. It is regrettable, but I just don't have all the time I would like to work on my replies to you. I decided to do my own analysis when you have posted a verse or contradiction of your own, but I think it is reasonable for me use the works of Christian authors that are direct replies to the works of Non Christians that you have posted. Fair is fair, right?

2.Please read my replies thoroughly. I have worked very hard to give you an honest, sensible Christian reply, especially for those of you who posted specific verses. I am researching the specific passage you quoted across many different translation, as well as the context, the original Hebrew and Greek, and the setting. Please give my posts the same respect that I have given yours, and don't dismiss them out of hand as making excuses or “explaining away”. I believe they are solid defenses of what I, and others, believe.

Seed of Chucky:
Your link didn't work, but I assume that you refer to the pamphlet by Shabir Ally. Correct me if I have the wrong of it.

101 Contradictions in the Bible – refutation of the pamphlet by Shabir Ally (it's long, so I won't blame you if you skip down to the meat, but it is all relevant and interesting if you enjoy the topic)

Shabir Ally is Muslim preacher who has authored many other works other than “101 Clear Contradictions in the Bible.” This post is meant solely as a commentary on that specific work. Shabir Ally shows extreme bias in unveiling these contradictions. He frequently misreads passages, cherry picks' quotes out of context, and misunderstands the Hebrew meaning of words. He also skews verses in order to fit his own perspective and agenda. If you will read the responses by Jay Smith, Alex Chowdhry, Toby Jepson, and James Schaeffer, you will see that Shabir Ally is not approaching these verses in a scholarly manor. He is obviously attempting to discredit the truth of the Bible, which is fine and his right in of itself, but attests to his prejudice by not doing so in an honest manner. I cannot believe that he is an honest man, and would be very skeptical of any material written by him.

debate.org.uk...

Also, this is not the only refutation o this pamphlet written by a Christian, or even Jew. There are many others.

50,000 Errors in The Bible?

This article was first published in the Jehovah's Witness religious publication AWAKE!, on September 8, 1957, with the headline “50,000 Errors in the Bible?”. Deedat copied the headline of the article, and added “Christians Admit!” to the heading to suit his own purposes. The author of the source sums it up nicely:

“Is this article really admitting that there are 50,000 errors in the Bible? The answer is no, for the title of the article is, "50,000 Errors in the Bible?", with a question mark. It is not saying that there are 50,000 errors, but is asking the question, are there 50,000 errors? And the answer it gives is no.

... the impression that 50,000 such serious errors occur in the Bible ... is not true. (Awake, September 8, 1957, p. 25)
Therefore, the article is not admitting that the Bible has 50,000 errors at all. The article deals with the most ancient manuscripts of the Bible and the variants between them and the King James translation (KJV/AV). It explains how modern translations, like the Revised Standard Version (RSV), take into account these variants. Deedat has completely twisted the meaning of the article.”

If you read the source further, the author goes on to address a few of the “contradictions” that Deedat himself has chosen to discuss as an example. Needless to say, Deedat has taken different renderings of Hebrew words that can mean different things as errors, rather than differing translations of a Hebrew noun. This is very misleading, and he uses this to present a dishonest case against the veracity of the Bible. He also brings up a portion of 1st John 5:7 that appears in the KJV, but completely disappears in the Revised Standard Version. Here are the verses:
KJV
“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and The Holy Ghost: these three are one.”
RSV
“And the Spirit is the witness because the Spirit is truth.”
The RSV 1st John 5:7 appears as part B of verse 6. It is completely omitted in the RSV. Deedat points to this as an error in the Bible, when it actually reflects the excellent scholarship and honestly of modern Christians and Theologians. Upon researching the earliest manuscripts, Biblical Scholars found that verse 7 didn't appear in the oldest copies of 1st John, and therefore removed it from the Revised Standard Version. This, and other textual variants, often appear in footnotes in study bibles, with commentary on why it was rendered so.
Source: www.answering-islam.org...


The quotes on Christian ignorance:

“As I stated, there is not one error in the bible, not one at all. That has been proven 100% truth by all the museums by all the evidence that are in all the museums around the world.”

“There is not one error in the Bible & anyone who has the brain to research this will find that out”

Just to clarify (for those who read this and may have missed something), these are not my words. SeedofChucky posted some comments from some overzealous brothers of mine on youtube. That being said, other than not providing or explaining their blanket statements, I don't have a big problem with these words. If by error, they mean typo, then they are incorrect. There have been a missing number here or there, and a letter our of place, but certainly nothing that completely changes the meaning/message of a particular passage. I assume that the person who posted about the “evidence in museums” around the world was referring to the mounds of archaeological evidence that point to the Bible being a fairly reliable book in terms of history. Although, one could also argue that museums around the world are filled with evidence AGAINST the Biblical concept of Creationism.

“I guess only Christians have brains?”

No it's not true that only Christians have brains. I think you knew this already though. The way some of us post, it makes us look like we are the only ones who don't have brains.

The Deedat Videos:

After doing some research on Ahmed Deedat, I have found that he was just as agenda driven, biased, and as deceitful in his analysis as Shabir Ally. I would hope that after reading my short piece on “50,000 Errors in the Bible?” you would start to question his reasoning, his skill as a Bible Scholar, and without a doubt, his honesty. Rather than address the videos myself, I refer to a source I used earlier in the refutation of “50,000 Errors in the Bible”, as you have no doubt noticed that it is also a refutation of all Deedat's teaching on the Bible.

www.answering-islam.org...

Deedat most certainly does not destroy the Bible, as you claimed.

“Remember this guy? Was he one of yours' gone bad?”

Couldn't get the large link to work in my browser. If you have another link, or something similar, please repost. I will address it at a later time.

Gentelmen, I must reiterate: This was an arduous task. I have poored my heart and soul into it, and not selfishly either. Of course, it began in defense of the Christian faith, but I also did it for you. I want to answer your questions, sincerely and honestly. Please devote yourself to reading it in it's entiretly. I will be patient, just as you have been with me. I will answer any question any of you have to the best of my ability, if you will but give me time. I am only a part time theologian, if I be I can be considered a theologian at all. For sake of not derailing the thread, any questions not directly related to the OP should probably be posted in my Christian Answer Questions Thread.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

More to come.

Re I want to believe:

You wrote:

["No I don't believe it is OK to murder rape and steal but as I said in my post the OT is an account of the history of the JEWISH people .......]

I wasn't aware, that the historical content or validity of OT was the point. I believed it was the ethical, possible theological, aspects we are talking about. And what the jewish people did and what their holy manual instructed them to do aren't the same.

Quote: ["Yes the bible does demonstrate that men are fallible because almost every single person mentioned in scripture made mistakes and had to learn from them. It is one of the center points of scripture......"]

This is the second time you post this. You must be kidding me, or are you one of the few remaining persons not knowing what a circle-argument is? In this context it means, that the bible is true, because it's true (=doctrinally defined as true).

Only fanatics accept this kind of reasoning.

Re one­_man24

This was a considerable communication-step forward instead of the original 'laughable' * and claims of 'objective bible study' **. And ofcourse it's fair, that you use whatever sources you want, christian or not. Personally I try to avoid more sources than absolutely necessary for purely factual information (statistics, historical etc), as I can think myself and formulate my opinions from my general knowledge.

If you can keep up this decent, non-preaching and doing-homework attitude, I can on my part offer you equally polite responses.

In a recent post on another thread one christian-critical comment was: "Maybe the christians aren't the worst these days (in a context of violence, my addition), but they are the most irritating" And that's one of the reasons for my personal 'bashings', as some christians like to call it.

Like you did your homework on your latest post, I have done mine for 45 years on a number of subjects related to existential questions. It's extremely annoying to have some whippersnapper brush all this off from a base of some parrotted secondhand doctrinal 'truth', including me and all mankind into some generalised religious extremistic terms, like "we're all sinners and should repent" etc. It's an invasive, self-righteous and condescending attitude. No-one is telling christians, that christians ACTUALLY are buddhist or atheists without knowing it.

'Truths' can be debated in civilized, academic terms. Missionaries will be 'bashed'.

I fully respect your need of time, and will hang around until then. Then I will try to summarize our posting, so it relates to the OP.


* There's nothing laughable about 'objectivity' (notice the apostrophes) being set against faith. **Where is your objective reference frame for bible studying? This question is meant to be polite, not confrontational.

reply to post by bogomil


Bogomil

Thank you very much for the kind words. I didn't mean to sound preachy, or to come across as someone who would invoke the childish behavior that some Christians resort to when unable to defend
their faith. I think this is mostly because people are lazy and too easily believe what they are told by others rather than trying to find out for themselves (the Bible actually recommends that you not accept what people tell you about God without checking it out for yourself). I understand that some of us can be irritating. I used to be like this, in a way. I can partly thank people here at ATS for helping me mature in my faith. I also have to thank my father, who has always been a good influence and a great role model. He never preached, never judged, only did his best to show me the right way to be a Christian man. Which brings us to your question: “Where is my objective frame reference for Bible studying?” Well, there isn't exactly a guide that I use, or anything like that. I'll sum it up in this way: I wasn't always a Christian, and I don't believe everything everyone tells me. I won't claim to have studied Buddhism, the Quran, or any other religion extensively, although I've had a good introduction to most of the main stream views. Although not as learned or as intelligent as some (including yourself, more than likely ), I consider myself to be fairly well rounded and level headed. When someone tells me something, I research that subject. I weigh the facts, the evidence, I give my best attempt at sound reasoning, and I try hard to keep my own opinions from convoluting (sp?) the waters, so to speak., . After considering all of these things, I make my decision. I don't care for sensationalism, and I can appreciate a good debate. I also have a good friend who is like a brother to me. He is an atheist, and an extremely intelligent and informed one at that. He definitely keeps me on my toes. I appreciate you giving me time, and I promise that I won't try to convert you. I would truly enjoy discussing these things with you in a “civilized, academic manner”, as you say. I am sorry if I offended you with my attitude. Please forgive this whippersnapper. I have a great deal of respect for my elders, and those who are more learned than myself. I feel as if I could learn a lot from you, and I am not so puffed up as to think I have it all mastered at the very young age of 26. I also didn't mean to offend you with my laughable comment, and as you can see, I was fully prepared to back up why I felt that way. I have no problem with anyone exercising their right to express themselves and their beliefs in any way, shape, or form. It was a poor choice of post, and I will try my utmost to be careful not to make such generalized posts in the future. I am looking forward to addressing your posts in the near future.

SeedofChucky,

Sorry this is taking so long. Work has been nuts. I am very close to being done, and should be able to post the remainder this evening. Sir, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your patience thus far.

Autowrench and Elahrairah

I appreciate your patience as well. This is a lot of work, but I feel as if we owe it to ourselves, and anyone who is viewing this thread, to pursue it to the fullest extent.

Re one_man24

Thanks for your response.

As english is my third language, where the finer nuances sometimes fail me, I hope the following will be recieved, as it is intended ..... in good will:

"You're my kind of christian"

ofcourse not implying, that I'm christian myself; nor a religionist in any commonly used sense of the word. Neither am I atheist or anything connected with 'isms' around 'theo- this or that'

I believe you and I can skip the usual initial semantic 'dance' to feel each other out, so I'll go straight to topic from an academic perspective.

In the topic-context of the bible 'being not all bad', this is ofcourse correct, if it's considered acceptable to pick out selected parts and more or less disregard other parts.

But I find two obstacles making such a separation of the bible (and its resulting different christian denominations), both based on genesis 1 and 2. (I refer to pauline christianity generally here).

1/ The first obstacle is the incompatibility between the cosmogony/cosmology described in genesis 1 and the contemporary scientific wiev on cosmology (science has for good reasons very little, if any, cosmogony). If the christian cornerstone in gen.1 is incorrect on some significant points, then there's reason to question the rest of genesis (and consequently the god of OT: If the bible is inspired or dictated by god, you would expect him to give a correct description of his own handiwork). .

That was criticism of the bible from an outside perspective. Intrinsically we have

2 a/ Genesis 1 and 2 are not identical; if my understanding is correct, they even differ significantly on one point

2 b/ The covenants, where the new covenant is supposed to bridge OT and NT. Personally I'm VERY sceptical about the authenticity of Paulus' claims on being a middleman, or even a middleman-assistant to Melchizedek. Considering the bickering amongst Paulus and the original disciples (as described in acts and epistles, and considered from my source-analytical perspective, not a religious one), I would in any kind of context such as this, have required much more evidence, than just the word of one man (whose 'group' eventually needed political support for their claims).

So at least 1/ cast doubt on OT. Depending on how the new covenant is evaluated, maybe or maybe the relationship OT-NT can be questioned from 2/ also.

Finally I arrive at my moot-point. NT redemption-doctrine DEPENDS on the central message/situation of genesis' original sin concept. If genesis (or OT) is questioned, this brings NT redemption into question also. Ergo, there can't be any cherry-picking (don't take the word as an insult. It's the only english word I know for this specific taking out bible-parts separately).

Re one_man24

It's late here, so my post above is a result of some tiredness. Re-reading it, I can see some horrible syntax faults, which I hope can be corrected later. So if the reasoning seems jumpy, it's my bad.

If you know the Bible then evilbible.com’s manipulations, curious leaving out of important information, convenient quoting of partial texts and moral condemnations without a moral basis are quite obvious.
If you do not know the Bible then you should see just how evilbible.com has been discredited:
www.truefreethinker.com...