Did they specify which religion they were ordained in?
The Bible is a Human Artifice!!!
Jack by the hedge
Safely Ignored
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What do you mean by "it was written in the language of the Canaanites"?
By "it" do you mean the entire bible (I'm guessing not). Which Canaanite language exactly? Wikipedia tells me Hebrew is a Canaanite language (the only extant one of several). What is the evidence for whichever language whichever text you refer to was originally written in?
If indeed the purported story of God's chosen people was originally written in the language of their enemy (which I infer to be your argument) then that seems puzzling, but in what way is it relevant to the seemingly separate claims over whether the authors were divinely inspired to write?
Thanks.
(For clarity, yes I agree the bible was authored by humans as Gods are just pretend. My question is only about why you think the above claim constitutes proof.)
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
I've always been told that at least the original books of the NT were written in Koine Greek, not any of the Canaanite languages such as Hebrew and Aramaic.
Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
While I have seen and/or heard several highly motivated people over the years boldly state that 'The Bible should be believed by man, because the Bible was written by God!'.
However, the Bible itself never actually says that it was written by any sort of supernatural being. Furthermore, it is a well established fact that all of the New Testament was written by humans.
Additionally, the only case of I know of where God has actually bothered to write something in all of human history is where God provided the stone tablets to Moses. However, some religious scholars say that God dictated these commandments to Moses and that it was Moses who actually carved these tablets during his 40 day hiatus on Mt Saini.
In any case, theses commandments only make up a very small amount of the total text of the Bible.
As a result, to continually insist that the Bible claims that the entire Bible itself was written by some sort of supernatural being is quite incorrect.
However, the Bible itself never actually says that it was written by any sort of supernatural being. Furthermore, it is a well established fact that all of the New Testament was written by humans.
Additionally, the only case of I know of where God has actually bothered to write something in all of human history is where God provided the stone tablets to Moses. However, some religious scholars say that God dictated these commandments to Moses and that it was Moses who actually carved these tablets during his 40 day hiatus on Mt Saini.
In any case, theses commandments only make up a very small amount of the total text of the Bible.
As a result, to continually insist that the Bible claims that the entire Bible itself was written by some sort of supernatural being is quite incorrect.
Some say it's a hidden tribute to the "Bard."
More likely it's coincidental given the high frequencies of the words "shake" and "spear" in the Old Testament.
Speaking of the Bible as, well, a bible, a collection or compilation of books or writings, another thing is that what writings are to be included in the Bible have changed over time, as being subject to human decisions regarding the canon of scripture.
The Bible I have on my bookshelf contains some writings I never heard of in Sunday or Sabbath School, such as Bel And The Dragon, and the Book of Tobit.
Those are in the Roman Catholic canon but not in Protestant Bibles by obvious human decision.
Thermal
August Member
I think those were in a group called the Apocrypha, basically some dicey works that they couldn't decide whether or not they should be included as canon, so they are kind of 'off to the side'.
If you get a chance and are interested, check out the Nag Hammadi scrolls (the Gospel of Phillip, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdaline, etc).. They were a bunch of codexes that survived Constantine's purging of 'heretical' works. They portray Jesus a little differently than the Gospels.
Thermal
August Member
Let's try this one last time:
You start off talking about the Bible. The primary definition of the Bible is the combined OT and NT. You go on to cite OT quotes, and NT quotes to 'prove' your position. The reader can only assume you are using the word in its primary usage.
Then, without saying anything, you switch the meaning in your head to mean only the Torah. Or really, only the part about the Ten Commandments. You do not let the reader know that you have abruptly limited what you are talking about. Later, again without telling anyone, you switch back to referencing the NT again. This makes the reader think you have been referring to the OT/NT the whole time.
Look at the comments challenging your arguments here. They all circle around this same flub on your part. You're playing fast and loose with your use of words. Just stop doing that, and we could have a productive discussion.
Back to your OP, now that you have come clean with your recreational conflations:
You say that the Torah can be proven to be the work of man, not the words of God, because...it was written in the language of those who composed it? While that might be the strangest argument I've ever heard, let's give a recap of the rebuttals:
1. No one claims the Bible/Torah is anything but the writings of man. In places, they claim to be quoting god, but not as first person witnesses. Not anywhere, not ever. Saying 'the Bible is the Word of God' is more a common figure of speech, meaning it contains what god said, that unknown authors recounted.
2. What other language would you expect the authors to write in, other than their own? Should they have written in some kind of proto-Swahili, so that no one in their communities would understand it?
xjx388
Penultimate Amazing
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There are some fundamentalist denominations of Christianity that aver that The Bible is the inerrant Word of God. However even they do not believe that the Bible was literally written by God Himself. What they are actually averring is that the writers of The Bible were divinely inspired and wrote down exactly what God wanted written down. There are various flavors of inerrancy, of course: chronological vs spiritual, mostly.
Most Christians believe that the Bible is inerrant spiritually and that the historical events are not exactly … historical.
Regardless of all that, I can’t think of one denomination or even small splinter cult that believes the Bible was literally written by God.
The only thing in the Bible that could even be interpreted as having been written directly by the finger of God were the 10 Commandments. But even then, many scholars believe that God dictated the Commandments to Moses and Moses actually chiseled them into tablets. Many scholars also believe the story is just a story that serves a spiritual purpose and that there was no such historical event.
The OP argument is about as good an illustration of “tilting at windmills,” I have ever seen.
Most Christians believe that the Bible is inerrant spiritually and that the historical events are not exactly … historical.
Regardless of all that, I can’t think of one denomination or even small splinter cult that believes the Bible was literally written by God.
The only thing in the Bible that could even be interpreted as having been written directly by the finger of God were the 10 Commandments. But even then, many scholars believe that God dictated the Commandments to Moses and Moses actually chiseled them into tablets. Many scholars also believe the story is just a story that serves a spiritual purpose and that there was no such historical event.
The OP argument is about as good an illustration of “tilting at windmills,” I have ever seen.
One that wants to "save souls from precarious conundrums" and "baptize" people and wants them to "accept Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior"
Read this post... it already answers your question.
Read this post and this one and this one and this one and this one and this one
Let's see what you might say to the above question yourself after you read all the posts I cited above.
Again... we can discuss this question after you have read all the posts I cited above.
Thanks to you!!
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The coming of the New Apocrypha!
And what fun we can have newly discovering previously unknown books of the Bible! "Researchers digging in undiscovered locations announce unique 'third testament' text! Identified as the Book of Akron, it describes tire recapping in the Holy Land! Numerous lacunae reveal that the fabled Temple of Amos en Andy never existed! Order your copy TODAY!"
Or maybe not. This is my day off.
And what fun we can have newly discovering previously unknown books of the Bible! "Researchers digging in undiscovered locations announce unique 'third testament' text! Identified as the Book of Akron, it describes tire recapping in the Holy Land! Numerous lacunae reveal that the fabled Temple of Amos en Andy never existed! Order your copy TODAY!"
Or maybe not. This is my day off.
Thermal
August Member
Naughty, naughty, Leumas. I have already pointed out to you, quite clearly, that I asked if you had been baptized, not that I 'wanted' it. Nor did I say I 'want' to save anything. I said I was concerned. I'm concerned about a ton of things I don't want to save from anything.
You have no fig leaf to hide behind anymore. You are saying things you know to be untrue. There's a word for that.
Thermal
August Member
Jesus Christ, dude. Everyone read your posts. They are being challenged as not only weak, but almost entirely irrelevant. Reposting them is the most ridiculous rebuttal you could present.
Would it be possible for you to actually respond to a challenge to your post without mindlessly repeating the same posts? No one bought your arguments on the first posting.
"Apocrypha" (not to be confused with the realm of the Daedric Prince, Hermaeus Mora) are potions of scripture in the Roman Catholic canon that were excluded from Protestant Bibles.
But the wider usage includes works that never got any seal of orthodox approval. Some are obvious losers. Some I wish had gotten included.
The Gospel of Thomas is an old favorite of mine.
The bible was written 2100 years before Shakespeare was born... in a dialect of the Canaanites which existed 1700 years before there was any beginnings to the English language and in the flawed and incomplete Abjad of the Aramaic which evolved before there was even a Latin alphabet let alone the English adaptation of it.
In the KJV for the Bible and the New Tall tales (NT) together... the words' frequency is:
- shake (78) shaken (44) shaketh (14) shaking (8) = Total (144)
- spear (45) spears (16) spearmen (2) spear's (1) = Total (64)
- A total of 208 altogether....
On the other hand the frequency for kill words is
- Kill (127) killed (68) killeth (23) kills (6) killing (5) = Total (229)
So it might be said that "hidden tribute to" killing by shaking and spearing is more likely than for Shakespeare... no???
Sorry... but I think you will find that the Torah (a.k.a. Pentateuch) i.e. the alleged 5 books of Moses ... the first 5 books of the bible as well as the christian bible... are not negotiable.
Check and see if any of them do not have the books called Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
If they do not then they are not any version of any bible.
Now choose any of them and open it and find these verses
- Exodus 24:12 And YHWH said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.
- Exodus 34:1 And YHWH said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.
- Exodus 34:27-28 And YHWH said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with YHWH forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
Then find one that has the New Tall tales (NT) in it and read these verses
- Matthew 22:31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
- Mark 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
- John 10:34-35 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
Now notice what Jesus says.... and this before there was a christianity altogether and over 100 years before there was a New Tall tales (NT).
What do you think the purported Jesus meant when he allegedly said "have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God... Is it not written... word of God... the scripture cannot be broken."???
Was he perhaps reflecting the belief that is in Exodus 20 to 34???
However.... you still have not explained
Please explain... thanks!!!
ETA: please read the OP...
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Source of the famous verse "I'm rubber. You're glue. It bounces off me and sticks to you!"
Akron 80:17
Written by the prophetess, Radial Tire. God bless her!
What Christians believe is immaterial... the Jews believe it ... they even say the Torah was in heaven even before there were humans.
Thermal
August Member
Oh bull ****. That 20th century citation of yours also says that the Torah was a she, and she could speak and offer god her opinions.
This is getting ridiculous. If a Christian wanted to pose as an atheist to post the worst possible atheist arguments to discredit atheism, this thread would be a gold mine.
It seems to me you are taking what I said was "dubious" as your polemic about the Bible being a human artifice written on stone tablets in the language of the Canaanites.
I was talking about the Shakespeare thing in the King James Version of the Protestant Christian Bible, which is a human artifice, though not the one you seem to be speaking of. I suspect you'd find that so-called homage to the Bard dubious as well, if it weren't associated with your argument.
Yeah. The Bible I have contains Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And a lot of other stuff.
It seems to me you are saying that those five were (according to Exodus which is one of them) written on stone tablets by the finger of God.
(Not that God really wrote them, but that that is the contradictory claim.)
Well, heck yeah! From the Ten Commandments to the Torah, to Hebrew Scriptures, to the various Christian canons, to Catholic and Protestant Bibles, and picture books for children, it's all human artifice.
Contradictions in the Pentateuch by itself and literary scholarship well bare out that it's artifice.
BTW do we actually have anyone here who believes God wrote the Pentateuch on stone tablets?
Speak up, Believer. Was it written on the tablets in past tense that as they were being written, Aaron was making a golden calf idol. Or that in some years time there would be this guy named Baalam whose donkey would chew him out?)(That's in Numbers.)
- it is an internet page... what century do you expect it would be
- it was in response to
what century was he talking about - It is a Midrash.... do you know what that is... do you know what century that is???