Friend says bible has changed from original

[nmgauss]

Well…let me ask you…what did the Apostles do after the coming of the Holy Spirit at pentecost?

Did they sit down to write a book? How could the first converts trust in the Apostles without anything written down?

When the vast majority of people were illiterate, they had no idea of the need to have something written down. They could not verify the message themselves, so they were persuaded by effective oratory. Look at how Germany was hornswoggled by Hitler just by the power of his charisma and his emotional speeches. He could hypnotize whole stadiums. Who needed a book when the message of the Fuehrer was so persuasive? He could incite thousands of people to do his bidding. His purpose was propaganda and he was very effective at it. I imagine that Jesus had similar powers.

 

[PRmerger]

When the vast majority of people were illiterate, they had no idea of the need to have something written down. They could not verify the message themselves, so they were persuaded by effective oratory. Look at how Germany was hornswoggled by Hitler just by the power of his charisma and his emotional speeches. He could hypnotize whole stadiums. Who needed a book when the message of the Fuehrer was so persuasive? He could incite thousands of people to do his bidding. His purpose was propaganda and he was very effective at it. I imagine that Jesus had similar powers.

I’m astonished that you could be so uninformed about Nazi Germany, if your position is that written texts prevent being “hornswoggled”.

Are you not familiar with Josef Goebbels?

ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007677

 

[pablope]

When the vast majority of people were illiterate, they had no idea of the need to have something written down. They could not verify the message themselves, so they were persuaded by effective oratory.

Except the Apostles themselves were illiterate, save for one or two, were fishermen, unschooled in oratory…so again, instead of giving an evasive answer about Nazi Germany and Hitler…how about explaing how illiterate men could convert many of the Jews, and later Gentiles, to Christianity, without a book?

Look at how Germany was hornswoggled by Hitler just by the power of his charisma and his emotional speeches. He could hypnotize whole stadiums. Who needed a book when the message of the Fuehrer was so persuasive? He could incite thousands of people to do his bidding. His purpose was propaganda and he was very effective at it. QUOTE]

Well…how do you know the Apostles were giving emotional speeches? Were you there present…or are you just conjecturing?

If you have read of the lives of the Apostles, they were actually beaten, stoned, threatened to be killed…so how could they then persuade with oratorical skills and emotional speeches?

I imagine that Jesus had similar powers

./

Well…so you are imagining things then…and you are painting a picture in your mind…

And besides, Jesus trained only 12 men and one betrayed him…He did not command an army either, same as Luther…so what is the comparison…

 

[nmgauss]

I’m astonished that you could be so uninformed about Nazi Germany, if your position is that written texts prevent being “hornswoggled”.

Are you not familiar with Josef Goebbels?

ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007677

I never said that written texts prevent being hornswoggled. But if large enough illiterate crowds are being repeatedly subjected to propaganda by effective speeches and demonstration of miracles and they spread the message among themselves person-to-person month-after-month, year-after-year, pretty soon most of them come to believe the propaganda. It’s called campaigning.

Hitler was the center of attention, not Josef Goebbels. The latter orchestrated the pageants that featured Hitler, and persuaded Hitler to sponsor Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda film “Triumph of the Will” which recorded the 1934 Nuremberg Nazi Party Congress attended by 700,000 people. Have you seen it? It’s quite impressive.

And I am likewise surprised that you could be so uninformed.

 

[SAVINGRACE]

First of all, I was never baptized. My father grew up in a Lutheran family and my mother in a Catholic family. They couldn’t decide on which church for me to be baptized in so I was left unbaptized. Also, our family rarely went to church. So I never had an opportunity to be Catechized (inculcated with tradition) or become involved in Sunday School. In other words, I was neutral.

I still am neutral with an attitude of skepticism. I have great sales resistance and am very reluctant to have the wool pulled over my eyes. Thus blind faith is out of the question. That is why unless you provide proof in writing for your original sources, I am unlikely to believe you.

You are sorely mistaken if you think Catholics practice a ‘blind faith’. People don’t convert because they have been given a great sales pitch. Talk to some converts and find out why they converted and how long the process took. Most people convert after a lot of angst, soul searching, debating and sometimes years of research. It is usually a considered decision.

When you say you are neutral do you mean you are agnostic?

What would you like proof in writing for? The Bible? Faith?

There are several historical events taught in schools and universities for which for which no original written evidence exists. e.g. (from our friend Fabius Maximus)

“The oldest copy of the Illiad is centuries removed from the original story. This is true with a lot of ancient writings. If we relied on having the originals, we’d probably have to dismiss most of ancient history. Historians do not work like that. This is why we rely on the copies, because they attest to the work. There are far more copies of the New Testament available than there are of any other work of antiquity. And since scholars would not reject the Illiad or the works of Tacitus or Caesar’s works on the invasion of Gaul, then they must necessarily embrace the New Testament narrative.”

 

[nmgauss]

When you say you are neutral do you mean you are agnostic?

What would you like proof in writing for? The Bible? Faith?

There are several historical events taught in schools and universities for which for which no original written evidence exists. e.g. (from our friend Fabius Maximus)

If I were an agnostic I would admit that whether to believe or not is a big issue in my life. It doesn’t figure. I never think about it. That is why I am neutral.

The Bible is the most important book in western civilization. That is why I persist in learning as much about it as I can. I participate in this forum to learn as much as I can about how big a role the Bible and religion plays in peoples lives. The more I understand people, the better I will be able to interact with them.

Your points about accounts of historical events and people not being available in original documents carries no weight if people don’t use them as pressure points in order to coerce people to live a certain way, believe a certain way, or to launch vendettas because of alleged heresy.

 

[pablope]

I never said that written texts prevent being hornswoggled. But if large enough illiterate crowds are being repeatedly subjected to propaganda by effective speeches and demonstration of miracles and they spread the message among themselves person-to-person month-after-month, year-after-year, pretty soon most of them come to believe the propaganda. It’s called campaigning.

But if the miracles are true…would you call that campaigning?

And how about if the apostles themselves were also illiterate…and simpel undeducated men…so how could give effective speeches if there were not trained orators?

 

[pablope]

If I were an agnostic I would admit that whether to believe or not is a big issue in my life. It doesn’t figure. I never think about it. That is why I am neutral.

The Bible is the most important book in western civilization. That is why I persist in learning as much about it as I can. I participate in this forum to learn as much as I can about how big a role the Bible and religion plays in peoples lives. The more I understand people, the better I will be able to interact with them.

Your points about accounts of historical events and people not being available in original documents carries no weight if people don’t use them as pressure points in order to coerce people to live a certain way, believe a certain way, or to launch vendettas because of alleged heresy.

Do you think catholics are coerced to live a certain way, to believe in a certain way?

 

[PRmerger]

“The oldest copy of the Illiad is centuries removed from the original story. This is true with a lot of ancient writings. If we relied on having the originals, we’d probably have to dismiss most of ancient history. Historians do not work like that. This is why we rely on the copies, because they attest to the work. There are far more copies of the New Testament available than there are of any other work of antiquity. And since scholars would not reject the Illiad or the works of Tacitus or Caesar’s works on the invasion of Gaul, then they must necessarily embrace the New Testament narrative.”

It is quite curious indeed that there’s nary an atheist who will say, “I don’t believe in the invasion of Gaul because there are no contemporaneous writings about it. No one who was actually there put a single note to papyrus about the event.”

And yet, they will say the same thing about NT events.

One has to wonder why their standard is so different for one set of historical events vs another?

 

[PRmerger]

I never said that written texts prevent being hornswoggled. But if large enough illiterate crowds are being repeatedly subjected to propaganda by effective speeches and demonstration of miracles and they spread the message among themselves person-to-person month-after-month, year-after-year, pretty soon most of them come to believe the propaganda. It’s called campaigning.

Hitler was the center of attention, not Josef Goebbels. The latter orchestrated the pageants that featured Hitler, and persuaded Hitler to sponsor Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda film “Triumph of the Will” which recorded the 1934 Nuremberg Nazi Party Congress attended by 700,000 people. Have you seen it? It’s quite impressive.

And I am likewise surprised that you could be so uninformed.

The fact that there were also written texts which professed and proclaimed Nazi principles undermines your point.

If written literature prevents people from being hornswoggled, then Nazism would never have had its rise in Germany.

QED.

 

[KathleenGee]

nmg…

Pray to the Lord for spiritual healing.

That was the greatest healing, reflected in the ministry of Our Lord.

Also, the 12 steps pretty much lay out the growth from reliance on self to Wisdom, which is knowing yourself and your limitations. By the time attendees get to the 12 step, they are like Lazarus who is now alive after being dead, a new life founded on Christ.

 

[nmgauss]

The fact that there were also written texts which professed and proclaimed Nazi principles undermines your point.
If written literature prevents people from being hornswoggled, then Nazism would never have had its rise in Germany.
QED.

Written literature does not have the impact of pageantry. The Catholic Church emphasizes pageantry. That is why you see such spectacles as the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s to see the magic of the Pope appearing in his regal white attire to address the masses. The beautiful cathedrals and cardinals dressed in distinctive uniforms with bright red caps has much more of an affect than if the church were just an ordinary building and the clergy dressed in ordinary street clothes.

 

[PRmerger]

Written literature does not have the impact of pageantry. The Catholic Church emphasizes pageantry. That is why you see such spectacles as the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s to see the magic of the Pope appearing in his regal white attire to address the masses. The beautiful cathedrals and cardinals dressed in distinctive uniforms with bright red caps has much more of an affect than if the church were just an ordinary building and the clergy dressed in ordinary street clothes.

LOL!

I guess some people could say the opposite: pageantry does not have the impact of written literature.

Not sure what the point of either of those statements are in the context of our discussion.

Pageantry is neat. I like it, typically.

However, it has no primacy in Catholic circles, as far as the kerygma.

 

[PRmerger]

Written literature does not have the impact of pageantry. The Catholic Church emphasizes pageantry. That is why you see such spectacles as the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s to see the magic of the Pope appearing in his regal white attire to address the masses. The beautiful cathedrals and cardinals dressed in distinctive uniforms with bright red caps has much more of an affect than if the church were just an ordinary building and the clergy dressed in ordinary street clothes.

Incidentally, I know of many a person who has been converted by the Beautiful and the Sublime. The architecture, art, music, and pageantry of the Catholic Church are, indeed, some of our greatest evanglists.

There are quite a few people who have been so moved by the majesty and almost palpable sense of the Numinous and have converted upon entering places such as this



that I have no problem saying, “More of that, please!”

 

[KathleenGee]

The Church is the Bride of Christ.

Look back to Solomon and see how he dressed his bride.

Why can’t the Holy Spirit inspire people to do the same to the Lord’s Church where He alone is the life force???

Our faith in Christ is expressed in beauty and truth.

 

[KathleenGee]

My main instructor was appointed by Cardinal Levada. He was our instructor to correct any erroneous points of faith we had.

I asked him one time how do we know our faith is the truth faith? He said essentially the paper trail is there for one to authenticate the universal Christian Church as the true Church established by Christ and His apostles. He said you can go further and recognize the Church’s presence through artifacts and archeology, culture, and personal testimonies, as well as building sites.

It is alleged the bones of St. Peter were found in the early 1940’s, under the altar of St. Peter, and now the remains appearing to be that of St. Paul the evangelist. Both had symptoms evident of the manner of their death. There is still scientific studies going on but science cannot prove faith.

Yet there is scientific substance when the Church can draw on ancient documents, historical succession of the seat of Peter, those of our bishops, saints and their observations of times then, as well as said before archaeology and art.

So I don’t know how blind our faith really is.

 

[AggieCatholic86]

How do all the issues brought up in the last few posts have anything to do with whether the Bible has changed from the original?
Catholicism does not focus on the Bible; so why bring up issues that have nothing to do with whether the Bible changed?
Any discussion of issues other than those pertaining to changes in the Bible are a waste of time in this thread.

Good points. And Islam and the Sheikhs would absolutely be correct in that the Bible has changed. It has changed simply by the nature of translation, as we have clearly seen with the Vulgate (terrible translation), as most people don’t read ancient Greek. Not even including the Protestant versions. So in the sense that the Koran should only be read in Arabic to maintain its’ integrity is correct, however the kicker is that most Muslims can’t even read Arabic.

But as a Catholic debating the history of the Bible is sort of a weird debate as Jesus said nothing about writing anything down and we didn’t for almost 300 years. The point of Jesus ministry was the sacraments, especially Communion. The writings of the Apostles were passed around among Christians, but the Eucharist was the center of early Christianity.

 

[nmgauss]

It is quite curious indeed that there’s nary an atheist who will say, “I don’t believe in the invasion of Gaul because there are no contemporaneous writings about it. No one who was actually there put a single note to papyrus about the event.”

And yet, they will say the same thing about NT events.

One has to wonder why their standard is so different for one set of historical events vs another?

There are copious writings by Julius Caesar. I read some of them when I studied Latin in high school.

sacred-texts.com/cla/jcsr/index.htm

 

[PRmerger]

There are copious writings by Julius Caesar. I read some of them when I studied Latin in high school.

sacred-texts.com/cla/jcsr/index.htm

Really?

You read his writings?

My understanding is that the oldest extant copies of his writings are from 900 AD.

Can you tell me how you can trust copies that were written centuries, actually, over a millenia (!) after the original document (written 58 BC), but have some skepticism for something that was written decades after an event?

 

[nmgauss]

Really?

You read his writings?

My understanding is that the oldest extant copies of his writings are from 900 AD.

Can you tell me how you can trust copies that were written centuries, actually, over a millenia (!) after the original document (written 58 BC), but have some skepticism for something that was written decades after an event?

You are being disingenuous. I don’t need to trust the literature on Julius Caesar… It makes no difference to me either way. Trusting in the Gospels and the Tradition of the Catholic Church is a lot more critical. If it is a major foundation to your belief system, then trust is crucial. Since I don’t need to trust Julius Caesar, I don’t think about it.