Bible truths, or not!

[Lost4words]

The Bible.

The church says that the books included in it are divinely inspired. They are there by the grace of God.

I have problems with that. I am like doubting Thomas i guess. I see the many books that were left out of the Bible too and think why? Some, like the Didache are really beneficial.

Was there a wry agenda going on back in Constantines day?

Can we really claim to be the true church?

 

[fhansen]

Thomas got over it . And anything, any act of the Church, can be doubted. But what might the “wry agenda” be anyway?

 

[jordanmhall]

The Pauline epistles date the earliest from the extant texts. Says nothing about miracles. They come later (~100 years after Christ). Historians agree Mark was the first gospel written. Matthew and Luke just copied him and some other source people call Q (by the way we don’t know where Q is or who wrote it).

What bothers me is that documents are copies of copies of copies of copies. Multiple additions/edits were made by unknown people. For instance, Jesus saying to pick up your cross and follow me took place before his crucifixion- people would have no idea what he was talking about. So it was probably added later.

Maybe someone else has clarification on these things. Would be helpful. I doubt too brother. It really sucks… I wish I didn’t doubt.

 

[KevinK]

I wonder why God didn’t preserve original copies of Bible books and why allow such a chaotic method of transmission with known mistakes and edits. Even something as important as the 10 Commandments tablets were not preserved.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I wonder why God didn’t preserve original copies of Bible books and why allow such a chaotic method of transmission with known mistakes and edits. Even something as important as the 10 Commandments tablets were not preserved.

Pretty good test of who has faith and who doesn’t.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

For instance, Jesus saying to pick up your cross and follow me took place before his crucifixion- people would have no idea what he was talking about.

Jesus was not the only person ever in the Roman empire at that time to carry a cross through the street and be crucified. It was an extremely common form of execution. People would have understood what he meant in a general sense even if they didn’t realize he himself would do this.

Also, Jesus said MANY things before his passion, death and resurrection that his listeners did not fully understand until later on.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

LOL you jumped from the Bible to the didache to the entire church in one great leap!

There are books that explain about how the Bibile came to be, and books about Church history. Go look them up.

But they’re both really extensive issues for one eensy little forum thread

Peace!

 

[Reuben_J]

The Bible.

Was there a wry agenda going on back in Constantines day?

Can we really claim to be the true church?

Of course, we can. We are the true Church. And we were much earlier than Constantine. We began with Jesus himself.

 

[jordanmhall]

I guess there is no way of knowing for sure - I’ll certainly concede that point. Does it make you uncomfortable though knowing that the other 2 gospels just copied Mark? And that Matthew and Luke copied some unknown Q the author of which is also unknown? Miracles not showing up in texts until ~100 years after Christ?

The title of this thread is bible truths or not, so I’d like to ask people a follow up. Is it true that God made the illegitimate child of David sick with disease, only to succumb 7 days later? Did God really tell Moses to keep the virgin girls for themselves like Moses said in Numbers 31? God was going to kill the Israelites in the desert, but Moses convinced God not to? Is God open to persuasion? Psalm 137 says to be happy when dashing pagan babies against rocks? Moses said to cut hands off women who interfere in a fight between men? Moses said to beat slaves so long as they recover after “…a few days”?

These are explicit I know. But they are in the Bible. How does a Catholic reconcile their Christian values with them? I know we’re under the new covenant, but Jesus was Jewish, and Christianity is predicated upon old testament prophecy. So one can’t simply dismiss it.

 

[thistle]

The Bible.

The church says that the books included in it are divinely inspired. They are there by the grace of God.

I have problems with that. I am like doubting Thomas i guess. I see the many books that were left out of the Bible too and think why? Some, like the Didache are really beneficial.

Was there a wry agenda going on back in Constantines day?

Can we really claim to be the true church?

Please think carefully because what you have just said probably amounts to heresy.

 

[AppalachianCatholic]

The Bible.

The church says that the books included in it are divinely inspired. They are there by the grace of God.

I have problems with that. I am like doubting Thomas i guess. I see the many books that were left out of the Bible too and think why? Some, like the Didache are really beneficial.

Was there a wry agenda going on back in Constantines day?

Can we really claim to be the true church?

There was no agenda in the early church as it pertains to the selection of books in the New Testament. Actually, there was some very strict criteria which left books like The Didache out of the canon such as:

The books had to be of Apostolic Origen, meaning it had to be accepted that the inspired scriptures were either written by the Apostles themselves or someone conneced to the apostles. Books like the Didache and the Sheperd of Hermas fell short of this critera.

Also writings that made it into the canon had to also be widely accepted and read throughout the church. Some early Christian writings such as the Letter of Clement picked up steam in certain areas of the church but were not widely read in the liturgy as say the Gospels were.

These are just a couple of examples of how the Church came to the New Testament Canon that we have today. I am sure you could read more on the main site by searching for the Canon of Scripture.

 

[AppalachianCatholic]

The Pauline epistles date the earliest from the extant texts. Says nothing about miracles. They come later (~100 years after Christ). Historians agree Mark was the first gospel written. Matthew and Luke just copied him and some other source people call Q (by the way we don’t know where Q is or who wrote it).

This is not exactly a true statement. We have good reason to believe that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were actually written before AD 70. Luke in particular was a companion of Paul. His Gospel, as well as Acts, can be very precisely dated back to around AD 60 while Paul was still writing letters. The gospels certainly contain miracles. I would answer your charge that Paul did not write about miracles in his letters because that was simply not the subject matter of the letters not because said miracles did not happen. On the contrary Pauls companion recorded miracles during this time as stated earlier. As to the Q source, while this is the most popular answer to the synoptic problem at this time, it is in my opinion flawed methodology. As you said we do not have evidence that a Q source exists. In my opinion it is much more likely that Mark wrote first, Luke wrote second using Mark and eye witnesses testimony, and Matthew wrote 3rd based on the previous two and his own testimony and witnesses.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Does it make you uncomfortable though knowing that the other 2 gospels just copied Mark? And that Matthew and Luke copied some unknown Q the author of which is also unknown? Miracles not showing up in texts until ~100 years after Christ?

No, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all, no more than when different authors write books about the same historical event. They usually have slightly different perspectives. It’s also well-known that eyewitness testimony tends to differ even if all the people were standing there looking at the same thing. It would be more suspect if every witness said the exact same thing in the same words.

Oral tradition is very powerful and I’m sure could preserve miracle stories until they were written down.

Also, if one believes the central tenet of our faith, that Jesus was brutally executed and then rose from the dead…a guy killed in public in view of hundreds of witnesses ROSE FROM THE DEAD… and is God by the way…any other miracle seems pretty believable.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Erm, you asked these questions in another thread.
Did you even look at the answers?
Why are you here with these questions and not there?
Not to mention that you joined less than a day ago.

If you have real and serious questions, a lot of people here are willing to help you out.
But if you’re just trolling…?

 

[HolySpirit]

The Bible.

The church says that the books included in it are divinely inspired. They are there by the grace of God.

I have problems with that. I am like doubting Thomas i guess. I see the many books that were left out of the Bible too and think why? Some, like the Didache are really beneficial.

Was there a wry agenda going on back in Constantines day?

Can we really claim to be the true church?

God claimed we are the one true Church when Christ identified Peter as the rock.

 

[bobperk]

How much scholarly reading have you done on this topic? It is good to read both skeptical work by accomplished scholars such at Bart Ehrman, fairly traditional yet open to debate scholars like Raymond Brown (Catholic) as well as more conservative scholars like Craig Blomberg, Craig Evans, Craig Keener, Darrell Bock, Richard Bauckham, Ben Witherington and Daniel Wallace (Protestants) as well as Brant Pitre, Scott Hahn, Curtis Mitch, and Michael Barber (Catholics). From there, it is certainly possible to put together a much more measured view of the writing and compilation of the Gospels and New Testament aside from the common mainstream skeptical view.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Erm, you asked these questions in another thread.

Did you even look at the answers?

Why are you here with these questions and not there?

Not to mention that you joined less than a day ago.

If you have real and serious questions, a lot of people here are willing to help you out.

But if you’re just trolling…?

I really hope this poster has not joined trying to sow doubt among the faithful.

 

[Lost4words]

No, it amounts to being human and being inquisitive.

Heresy against what?

 

[Lost4words]

Thing is, nobody really knows who wrote the books in the NT! Nobody!

 

[Kei]

Imagine if someone screwed with the original copy! Then, surely, we’d say, “Oh this copy is correct” even if it were terribly wrong.

But, rather than a mere book, we have the living Church to testify.