> Why God's Book Cannot Contain Error

[SilverLJ]

Originally Posted by salman

(Post no 9) Bible was originally written by anonymous writers and we don't know if they were trustworthy. It has been changed from time to time. How can you even trust such a thing? How could the manuscripts of Bible be 400 BC old when the NT came 400 years later? You don't have the same Bible as the original. What are we going to do with 1000s of manuscripts when they don't match the current Bible that we have.

It is difficult to respond to you because you knowledge of the Bible is so poor almost non existent. If you persist in not bothering to research and check your facts then there is no hope for you and one just hope that it is not simple blind prejudice that stops you from finding out what is truth. I will try to explain once more by copying what I have written elsewhere.

Quoting professor F.F Bruce, if we enquire Into the circumstances under which various Biblical documents were written, we find that they were written at intervals over a space of nearly 1400-1600 years. The writers wrote in various lands, from Italy in the west to Mesopotamia and possibly Persia in the east. The writers themselves were a hetero-geneous number of people, not only separated from each other by hundreds of years and hundreds of miles, but belonging to the most diverse walks of life. In their ranks we have kings, herdsmen, soldiers, legislators, fishermen, statesmen, courtiers, priests and prophets, a tent making Rabbi and a Gentile physician, not to speak of others of whom we know nothing apart from the writings they they have left us. The writings themselves belong to a great variety of literary types. They include history, law (civil, criminal, ethical, ritual, sanitary), religious poetry, didactic treatises, lyric poetry, parable and allegory, biography, personal correspondence, personal memoirs and diaries, in addition to the distinctively Biblical types of prophecy and apocalyptic.

For all that, the Bible is not simply an anthology; there is a unity which binds the whole together. An anthology is compiled by an anthologist, but no anthologist compiled the Bible. Somehow or other it grew in the course of these many centuries until at length it attained full stature as the Bible which we know today. The Unifying principle which makes the Bible a living whole is Christ Himself the Bringer of salvation.

The Bible is traditionally divided into two parts: the Old and New Testaments. Whilst the NT was inspired after Jesus death (it could hardly be before could it) and it's list of books was 'closed' by the council of Carthage in AD 397 though all they did was agree what had been common ground from about AD 130 (again it could hardly have been much earlier). The OT existed long before Jesus was even born and its cannon is more complicated to explain but probably goes back to 250 BC where we have the Septuagent or the OT in Greek so books in Hebrew pre-date that.

You say the 'original' Bible is lost but your ignorance surfaces again because until about 250BC the OT may not have existed as complete and the NT was not completed until AD 130 so how could it have been lost? There were Jewish and Christian settlements all over the known world and they all had copies if not whole OTs or NTs then they certainly had large parts so how could all of these copies (we now have a huge collection of such copies) be lost and somehow according to you emerge again all over the known world but again according to you modified so much that they cannot be trusted - there is simply no reasonable foundation for your suppositions.

You talk about trustworthiness of authors but we trust the books because of what they say and the way the books support each other. What do you do with the Qu'ran as you cannot in any testable sense trace it back to God but only to Mohammed and why is he according to you more trustworthy than St Paul or David or Samuel or Jeremiah?

I can say to you the original Qu'ran is lost because YOU cannot produce it for anyone to see. You argue it was recited but ask any qurra and you will find there are many ways to recite and ask any Muslim scholar and you will find there are dozens of traditions as to how the Qu'ran got written down. Wake up from your ignorance and start doing some real research. I have read the Qu'ran a number of times but I am certain you have not read the Bible even once or even one book of the Bible - try Mark's gospel start there.

[SilverLJ]

Originally Posted by Ruwayda Mustafah

Induction is the process of deciding on the basis of various observations/expeirments that some theory is true. E.g. A chemist may say that on a number of occasions samples of sodium heated on a bunsen burner have glowed bright orange, and on this basis conclude that in General all heated sodioum will glow bright orange. [/I]

[/COLOR]Deduction - The premise guarantees the conclusion. For example if you know either this substance is sodium or it is potassium, and then learn further that it is not sodioum, you can conclude it is potassium.

I no longer see the relevance of continuing this... let's not be diverted and concentrate on one thing!

This is not really part of the thread but its clear you do not understand induction or deduction and seem to have them both backwards and mixed up with logic. At a very simple level if your thinking amounts to an argument which can be tested and if shown to be valid we can make predictions with certainty about future events then that might be regarded as deductive whereas if your thinking amounts to an argument which has no more than probability then it is inductive and in effect all you are doing is explaining what has happened but with no certainty that it will happen again.

The only relevance here is that knowing this helps one understand how to deal with evidence.

[Assad]

The Bible is traditionally divided into two parts: the Old and New Testaments. Whilst the <acronym title="New Testament">NT</acronym> was inspired after Jesus death (it could hardly be before could it) and it's list of books was 'closed' by the council of Carthage in AD 397 though all they did was agree what had been common ground from about AD 130 (again it could hardly have been much earlier). The <acronym title="Old Testament">OT</acronym> existed long before Jesus was even born and its cannon is more complicated to explain but probably goes back to 250 BC where we have the Septuagent or the <acronym title="Old Testament">OT</acronym> in Greek so books in Hebrew pre-date that.

The answer to our question is in your explanation.

1. Bible was inspired after Jesus death. Therefore It cannot be confirmed from any means that Jesus authorized bible, unlike Quran which Prophet dictated and fully authorized.

2. Since no script was authorized by Jesus as it was supposedly inspired long after Jesus death, it is open to any additions/modifications/subtractions. There is no way to prove that it is complete and original and that It only contains the teaching of Jesus without involving any deviant beliefs.

3. The only proof of originality of NT you quote/babble is that it was inspired, while it can in no way be proven, where you there with the writers when the books were getting inspired?

4. Which scripts were in circulation and used by early Christians before the inspiration of NT, If Bible is inspired book than it means that it contain knowledge which was not known to people before inspiration. As they must be following other scriptures, Where are those books and what were the Christians ,before the supposed inspiration ,were following?

5. You said that in council of Carthage in AD 397 the list of books was CLOSED by the council. This clearly means that there were differences in the use of scriptures and different lists of scriptures in use by early Christians and hence therefore arose a need to "close" the list of books even after so called inspiration of its authors. If something have to be decided on "common grounds" (as you said in your post) than it means that there were differences and something was decided on common grounds, leaving the rest of it.

6. You yourself said that OT cannon is more complicated to explain, Why is it difficult to explain? The justification for the authenticity of Bible couldn't be that "OT cannon is complicated to explain".

You have not provided any justification and only claimed to each of us that we have knowledge and that we need to do research and read the Gospel, perhaps If you spend more time yourself on reading Gospel or doing research than you will be in a better position to answer questions logically instead of saying , "This is difficult to explain" . FYI thats not a very scholarly answer.

Allah is the Greatest

[SilverLJ]

Originally Posted by Ruwayda Mustafah

(As quoted by SilverLJ) "The human understanding is not composed of dry light, but it is subject to influence from the will and the emotions, a fact that creates fanciful knowledge; man prefers to believe what he wants to be true.(Francis Bacon)

The format of your argument/thesis is unclear to me. In response to the above Quote, we can easily accept that everything but the Godly is subject to all forms of influence. However when it comes to God and his divine revelation we can't use this as argument against the capability of arriving at the truth, since if there is truth it has to be objective/ultimate. Therefore [as you have continued] restricting the truth of the bible to what one is influenced by, by default means that it is not available for everyone. Because if it is available for everyone then our past experiences and the influences [of philosophy, fashion, economy, what be it etc] should not matter.

Comment By Silver - Firstly, this is not an argument as such it is an observation. Secondly, Bacons's observation is simply that when we think about anything its is not just logic or cold facts that are at work in how we understand and how we feel about the world we live in. We are logical humans of course but also emotional and spiritual and whether we like it or not all these things condition what we believe and why we believe it. So no one Godly or otherwise can escape the fact that they are human. So when we try to find meaning in the Bible or the Qu'ran its not just a simple logical matter is it?

Then such system of belief is based on ...? How then do you suppose that we [or me] believe in your books without Positive affirmation of it's truth? You have said that you can't offer proof but you can offer evidence. [What is the difference?]

Comment by Silver - If we have let's call then natural laws such as gravity we could choose absurdly not to believe it exists but we would not by that means be able to escape its effects - so I suppose you might call that much more than positive affirmation. However, when it comes to belief in God we have no positive affirmation in the same sense, I can totally avoid God if I wish. If I trust the Bible I do so because of its content, and a content (not just revealed to one person) is the affirmation of my belief. I also find affirmation when I see Christianity for example active in people lives. This is not proof but no proof is possible.

You seem to have lowered your hyper-sceptical bar of authenticity and evidence when it comes to the Bible.

Comment by Silver - No that is not correct, I often doubt my beliefs and question God. I see nothing wrong here. As the great Islamic scholar Al Ghazali said "if you have never doubted you have never believed either" and as you probably know he was a man who spent his whole life moving from one fit of doubt to another. For what its worth I think God likes to keep us on the edge of certainty because that keeps us seeking Him and his will for us - anything else to me tends to leads to self-righteousness.

No sir, you are mistaken. I shall throw in a conjecture that it has 72 books. I can offer no proof because I cannot figure out a way to test such a conjecture.

Comment By Silver - I can suggest a simple way - pick up a Bible and count them? I have several Bibles here and I tested all of them and each time I got the same answer 66. If you find a Bible with 72 then your conjecture might be correct.

Which part are you making reference to? Since when is simplicity a criterion of truth.

Comment by Silver - I cannot quite recall what this refers to but one might cite here Occam's Razor in support of simplicity?

My conclusion, since I myself Ruwaya Mustafah demand one, is that i am not persuaded that the bible is the Final and complete word of god.

It is perfectly respectable to come to your own conclusions as long as there is some rationality to them. For example, have you read the Bible? I have come to a conclusion that the Qu'ran could not possibly be the word of God because (you did not give a because) I have read it carefully and every story in there can be traced to an external source excepting the ones which are about Islamic history. (see "The Sources of Islam" by W. St. Clair-Tisdal "

Anyway, I'm surprised by your approach of proving the validity to say the least of the bible. I thought you'd mix a bit of a criterion as to what God's book should ultimately have! Interestingly enough you did the opposite of what I thought you would do. (I'm not benefiting from it much though.)

The trouble if I may say with your approach is that you tend to start off by dismissing every argument and casting aspersions on the brain power of anyone you talk to. You simply delude yourself by believing that you know more than anyone else. The essence of scholarly work is humility and you would do well to understand that. You said in one post you intended to refute some of Popper's work, but Popper was one of the best thinkers ever and although I see nothing wrong with you trying such a refutation I suggest you appreciate the enormity (well I would say impossibility) of the task you have.
set yourself.

I nowhere suggested I could prove the validity of the Bible in any scientific sense; you invented that idea and largely because you do not understand what proof means. My case such as it is based on its teaching and they way I have observed those teachings played out in peoples lives.

[SilverLJ]

[QUOTE=Acid;6795] I dont know how this is linked to the topic " Why Gods books cannot contain error". So If you want to talk about this then please open a new thread so that we can discuss it there and make it easy for us and others to follow.


The importance of Paine's argument is that the Qu'ran is hearsay so its irrelevant to discuss if it contains errors or not because there is no way to verify or confirm what Mohammed is said to have been told.

[SilverLJ]

[QUOTE=Acid;6795][COLOR=Red]

Originally Posted by Acid

Oh as usual SilverLJ, Again you made your own assumption and are quite happy about it. I did not say/belief that private revelation is hearsay. It is you who said it and when you were given a response you ended up saying that I have grasped the argument.

By Silver - I think if you look at the post I said YOU confused the words hearsay and heresy.

Quran was memorised directly by his companions and was written by His Official scribes, to be very short. Bible was not a book communicated by Jesus. It was supposedly inspired to guys atleast 50 years after Jesus acension to heaven. In this period between his acension and writting of bible there were thousands of different manuscripts which I said were later voted upon to write a bible. So nothing is directly from Jesus. It's just like anyone could have said anything he believe about Jesus and it was incorporated in the Bible.

By Silver - I have said this many times. No one says the whole Bible was communicated by Jesus. The New Testament as we know it today was probably completed by about 130AD and the Old Testament as we know it today was complete by about 250BC. The TWO together are called the Bible so your notion of 50 years and after the ascension are just misinformation on your part and I hope its due to ignorance not prejudice.

No one VOTED on the Bible - how could they as there were copies of it all over the known world. There were of course early disputes about the cannon but this only covered about 5 books.

I can only using your logic of comparing the teachings of various prophets conclude that bible and christian doctrine are heresy, considering that no Prophet ever bought the trinity doctrines.

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is this: There is but one God; but in this Godhead we have God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. These three, are present in a way which man cannot comprehend. One might argue that the very fact that the Doctrine of the Trinity presents difficulties and is seen to many at first sight to be illogical, tends rather to prove that it is not the product of human imagination.

I do not ask you to abandon Monotheism. Belief in the Unity of God is the very foundation Christianity any one who abandons it and believes in three Gods is a Polytheist and NOT a Christian. Both in the Old Testament and the New the Unity of God was taught ages before Muhammad's time. Moses lays down the Creed for Jews: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord" ("Deut 6:4). In the Injil, Jesus repeats the very same words: "Hear, 0 Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord" (Mark 12:29).

It is true that Christian heretics such as Marcion said there were three gods which he called the God of Justice the God of Mercy and the God of Evil but this was never accepted doctrine and indeed he systematically went through the Gospels stripping out anything he did not like. Perhaps Muhammad had heard of this most blasphemous doctrine and so rejects it in 5:77 "They surely are infidels who say, 'God is a third of three': for there is no God but one God.'

This Surah goes on to say when (79) And when God shall say: 0 Jesus, Son of Mary! hast thou said unto mankind, take me and my mother as two Gods, beside God? He shall say: Glory be unto thee! ... The Qur'an here denounces the idea of a triad of Gods, consisting of God, Jesus and Mary. Christians have never believed in this triad.

I can go on but perhaps that will do as a start by making clear that Christians believe in the Unity of God.

[Assad]

I have said this many times. No one says the whole Bible was communicated by Jesus. The New Testament as we know it today was probably completed by about 130AD and the Old Testament as we know it today was complete by about 250BC. The TWO together are called the Bible so your notion of 50 years and after the ascension are just misinformation on your part and I hope its due to ignorance not prejudice.

I have already answered your misunderstanding that makes you think that I dont know that Bible consists of OT and NT and OT was written much before Jesus birth.

You have however left all questions unanswered. I am waiting for your response to my post # 83.

I wait for your reply before we move again to another topic which has been happening all the way in most of the threads.

Regards

[Assad]

Originally Posted by SilverLJ

It is true that Christian heretics such as Marcion said there were three gods which he called the God of Justice the God of Mercy and the God of Evil but this was never accepted doctrine and indeed he systematically went through the Gospels stripping out anything he did not like. Perhaps Muhammad had heard of this most blasphemous doctrine and so rejects it in 5:77 "They surely are infidels who say, 'God is a third of three': for there is no God but one God.'

First you have made a wrong reference here from the Quran, It shows the verse no. to be 5:77 while it is 5:73.

Coming to the verse: (Yusuf Ali translation)

73 They do blaspheme who say: Allah is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One Allah. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them. (Yusuf Ali Translation)

This does not prove anything. It simply proves that Quran reject Trinity and when the translation which you quote has got nothing to do with misunderstanding, after all in trinity all three guys are ghost. While one sits in heaven, the other suffers with crucifixion and the third hovers around watching all this stuff.

As for Deut 6:4, Yes God is one but If you ask any Christian, he will go against Jesus words that and upon asking his reply would be "our God is triune". Jesus never said that God is triune, here have a look at Deut 6:4:

'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord"

It does not say : Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is Triune Lord".

No Prophet before Jesus taught trinity and the message was simple " There is no God but only one God" - which is the message of Quran.

Clearly trinity is a latter injection in bible after Jesus acension. these hearsy were incorporated into christian scirpture and later voted upon in council of nicea.

Allah is the greatest.

[SilverLJ]

Originally Posted by Acid

Response to Post 83
1. Bible was inspired after Jesus death. Therefore It cannot be confirmed from any means that Jesus authorized bible, unlike Quran which Prophet dictated and fully authorized.

Comment By Silver - Again you CONFUSE the OT and NT. You say you understand this distinction but you clearly do not. The OT was inspired BEFORE Jesus was even born. I therefore assume you are talking about the New Testament.

Firstly, the NT testament is confirmed by the many authors involved all sharing the same inspired message and that message carried on from the inspired Old Testament. Secondly, if I come to the Qu'ran there are many problem. The Qu'ran did not exists as a single volume so could hardy be checked easily if at all, Prophet Mohammed could not read so could not check a text anyway, to check it his memory (because you say it was not his words) would have to be perfect, the script was defective because it had no pointing etc. Even then the ONLY one who claims to have heard the very words of God was Mohammed and therefore his message is hearsay. I conclude that your argument is weak. If I use your argument then the prophets biography cannot be trusted because Mohammed was not there to conform and authorise it.

2. Since no script was authorized by Jesus as it was supposedly inspired long after Jesus death, it is open to any additions, modifications, subtractions. There is no way to prove that it is complete and original and that It only contains the teaching of Jesus without involving any deviant beliefs.

Comment by Silver - I'm not sure what you mean by 'long after' as there are some manuscripts dated AD30 and huge numbers dated AD 70. Of course any document may be altered (there are variant Qu'ran's for example). However, we have many, many ancient copies of all the New Testament books and many many copies of complete Bibles. Christian communities where spread over the known world and all had their own copies and we know these copies agree with one another (because we have many of them in Museums) except for minor variations and a tiny number of additions of little importance. So there is no foundation to your argument that any rational person would accept. In terms of the Qu'ran there is an unbridgeable gap as far as early manuscripts go and you certainly do not have the copies made during the life of the prophet. I have written extensively about this elsewhere in the board so will not repeat it here.

3. The only proof of originality of NT you quote/babble is that it was inspired, while it can in no way be proven, where you there with the writers when the books were getting inspired?

Comment by Silver - I was not there. But neither were you when the Qu'ran was delivered, in fact no one heard the revelation except the prophet so by your own logic there is no proof of divine deliverance for the Qu'ran. I cannot prove that God exists and neither can you. I cannot prove the Bible is the very word of God but I can affirm it is by its coherent content and the way it is worked out in people's lives. You cannot prove the Qu'ran is the very words of God, if you could I would be compelled to believe it, and like gravity I could not avoid it even if I wanted to.

4. Which scripts were in circulation and used by early Christians before the inspiration of NT, If Bible is inspired book than it means that it contain knowledge which was not known to people before inspiration. As they must be following other scriptures, Where are those books and what were the Christians ,before the supposed inspiration ,were following?

Comment by Silver - the NT was written in principally in Greek and the earliest copies extant confirm this and so it was a fully developed language in all respects and had been so for several hundred years by the time of Jesus. In Jesus time is was essentially the lingua franca of the day so ideal for transmission and dissemination of any writings. The NT of course contains new teachings and expands on the teaching of the OT. Indeed its very hard to understand the NT without a very good knowledge of the OT because it constantly refers to it. I am not sure what 'other' books you are referring to here as you do not name any. Do you mean things like the targums or writing of Theodotion or Origin? Or are you referring to what some scholars say are common sources although no trace of such sources has ever been found? With regard to the Qu'ran the script used in the Prophet's day was defective and written Arabic was not perfected until the middle of the 9th century. Arabic also did not have the necessary vocabulary and so as you must know the Qu'ran contains many, many words of non-Arabic origin. In terms of its content and if we exclude the Islamic history and some practice elements then every other part of the Qu'ran can be traced to external sources. If you wish to check this see "The Sources of Islam" by W. St. Clair-Tisdal.

5. You said that in the council of Carthage in AD 397 the list of books was CLOSED by the council. This clearly means that there were differences in the use of scriptures and different lists of scriptures in use by early Christians and hence therefore arose a need to "close" the list of books even after so called inspiration of its authors. If something have to be decided on "common grounds" (as you said in your post) than it means that there were differences and something was decided on common grounds, leaving the rest of it.

Comment by Silver - You are almost correct here I said the list was 'closed' but I also said that in effect all they were doing was confirming what was commonly held to be the cannon and had been held for the NT since about AD130. There were probably 5 disputed books for the NT (Jude, 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter and James) and these are all short or very short books. With regard to Qu'ran although of course it is much shorter there were also disputes about its cannon (mus-haf) and it is based on about 22 hadith and many contradict each other. May I refer you to Professor Esack's book called 'The Qu'ran' pages 102-109.

6. You yourself said that OT cannon is more complicated to explain, Why is it difficult to explain? The justification for the authenticity of Bible couldn't be that "OT cannon is complicated to explain".

Comment by Silver - its more difficult to explain because the period of its compilation extended over a much longer time and from a date perspective is very ancient. I don't think I was trying to justify the cannot only to say that it was fixed with certainty at least 250BC and probably long before that. A useful point of reference is the Septuagent or the OT in Greek because this was widely circulated (because of the usefulness of Greek). If you want a detailed review then see Professor Bruce's book "The books and the Parchments' pages 95 to 104.

You have not provided any justification and only claimed to each of us that we have knowledge and that we need to do research and read the Gospel, perhaps If you spend more time yourself on reading Gospel or doing research than you will be in a better position to answer questions logically instead of saying , "This is difficult to explain" . FYI thats not a very scholarly answer.

Comment by Silver - I am sorry you feel this way but here as elsewhere I have given you scholarly references where you can find detailed explanations to all I have said about the Bible and the Qu'ran. I cannot see that in a discussion Board I can do more than outline the facts as they are generally understood.

One does not want to be harsh but in terms of scholarly posts your work falls short of that ideal. I have not examined all your posts but generally in the ones I have they are obvious extracts, mostly websites so there is little learning in evidence - only you know how much reading and learning you have really done so in the end you must judge how valid, in the sense that you have really researched the topic, you have done. I don't mind if you just copy from websites but I do mind if you in so doing pretend to knowledge that you really do not have

Peace be with you.

[SilverLJ]

Originally Posted by Acid

I have already answered your misunderstanding that makes you think that I dont know that Bible consists of OT and NT and OT was written much before Jesus birth.

You have however left all questions unanswered. I am waiting for your response to my post # 83.

I wait for your reply before we move again to another topic which has been happening all the way in most of the threads.

Regards

As far as I can tell I have answered all your questions - you might not like the answer but that is a matter for you.

PS Thank you for pointing out the post number as sadly I had not notice where it was placed before