Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

[Mojo]

Where??

Here:

One possible reason for the summarizing and some of the difficulty is that these chapters might have been written at different times on different pieces of parchment. It is unlikely the writer wrote all 60 pages of Genesis in one sitting or on one solid sheet of parchment or whatever he wrote on in that era of no paper. He possibly wrote it all in 20 sittings on many different pieces of parchment. And remember Moses was wondering in the desert for many years. He could have wrote one chapter on one piece of parchment, put it away for safekeeping, and then started writing again on another piece of parchment. This could be a reason for some of the difficulties. You just don't keep parchment in your back pocket for a few days while your traveling and then start on the same parchment.

Writing there was one angel at the tomb and someone writing there was 2 angels is a difficulty but it is not necessarily a mistake because both accounts can be true. Now if the gospel said there was "only" one angel at the tomb all day that would be a mistake, if another gospel said there was 2 angels that day.

That was not the passage your original quotation was about (unless you are now claiming that the gospels were written by Moses). The context of your statement was the clearly contradictory accounts of the creation in Genesis.

You have attempted to explain away these clear contradictions as "difficulties", but the two accounts are clearly contradictory as they describe things happening in different orders. They cannot both be correct (although, of course, they could both be wrong).

You have used as an excuse for this a speculation that it may have been written down on several different pieces of parchment at different times, with the result that the author became confused about, or simply forgot, what had been written earlier. But this is supposed to be the word of an omnipotent God we're talking about here. To quote George Carlin, "results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being."

Given the obvious contradictions, and your excuse that because it was written on different pieces of parchment the author became confused, we have two possibilities:

1. The Bible contains errors > God does not make mistakes > The Bible is not the word of God.

2. The Bible contains errors > The Bible is the word of God > God makes mistakes.

 

[Mojo]

ETA: Whenever you see someone say something derogatory about something I said and they are not responding to a specific post of mine, or the partial quote they use is not related to the main derogatory point they are making that should send up a red flag that there is a good chance I am be misrepresented. It's happened many times and it will happen again.

I've quoted your own words, and linked back to the post. There is no misrepresentation of what you wrote. You, on the other hand, have attempted to misrepresent the context by introducing the accounts of the angels at the tomb from the gospels.

I'm prepared to accept that you didn't understand its implications when you wrote it, of course.

 

[Resume]

Where?? or are you one of the skeptics who thinks difficulty (or difficult to understand) means a mistake.

Writing there was a angel at the tomb and someone writing there was 2 angels is a difficulty but it is not necessarily a mistake because both accounts can be true. Now if the gospel said there was "only" one angel at the tomb all day that would be a mistake, if another gospel said there was 2 angels that day.

And these divergent accounts and difficulties only help show the bible was not dishonestly touched up with false information. But the bottom line is I did not say there are mistakes: skeptics should say what I say and not fudge to make their argument.

ETA: Whenever you see someone say something derogatory about something I said and they are not responding to a specific post of mine, or the partial quote they use is not related to the main derogatory point they are making that should send up a red flag that there is a good chance I am be misrepresented. It's happened many times and it will happen again.

Honestly DOC, do you not imagine that many you are conversing with on this thread are not adept at textual/literary criticism and can discern the difference between "difficulties" and lack of textual continuity?

 

[zooterkin]

You have used as an excuse for this a speculation that it may have been written down on several different pieces of parchment at different times, with the result that the author became confused about, or simply forgot, what had been written earlier.

Well, it does show how unreliable writing things down can be, especially before paper was invented.

 

[Garrette]

I've quoted your own words, and linked back to the post. There is no misrepresentation of what you wrote. You, on the other hand, have attempted to misrepresent the context by introducing the accounts of the angels at the tomb from the gospels.

I'm prepared to accept that you didn't understand its implications when you wrote it, of course.

Except for the part I struck out, this response could be mine.

In case it is unclear to anyone (including you, DOC), here is the sequence of this mini-drama within the larger farce of your posts:

1. Someone cornered you on the genealogical discrepancies in the NT

2. You posted with speculation on human frailty and the logistical realities of writing on parchment as possible explanations for the "difficulties" represented by those discrepancies

3. Someone asked if that meant you were admitting the bible has errors

4. I posted that it meant exactly that, but that you would deny it

5. You denied it. A subsequent denial included the defense that I had not pointed out where you admitted the bible has errors

6. Others chimed in pointing out that you had in fact admitted it

7. I quoted the post showing where you admitted it and continued by saying that you would define "difficulties" as something other than errors

8. You defined "difficulties" as something other than errors

9. It was pointed out that your logic doesn't hold

10. You attempted to demonstrate that your logic doesn't hold by using the number-of-angels-at-the-tomb as your example

11. It has been pointed out that that is not the example we were talking about


You know you've lost this one, DOC, or you would if you could honestly look at it. You're flailing now.

P.S. I would like to point out that your protestations about the number-of-angels-at-the-tomb being explainable are laughable. That is simply another of the "difficulties" that are actually contradictions.


P.P.S. You have thousands of posts defending the alleged veracity of your bible, DOC, but your evidence for that veracity amounts to nothing more than saying "I can find ways to twist semantics, ignore facts, speculate endlessly, and bastardize logical processes in order to make myself believe the book says something it doesn't, in fact, say.

 

[Mojo]

And these divergent accounts and difficulties only help show the bible was not dishonestly touched up with false information.

Nope. They just show that, at these specific points, the Bible contradicts itself. That doesn't mean that these parts of the Bible have not been "touched up" (although it suggests that if it was it wasn't done competently), and neither does it mean that other parts of the Bible were not "touched up" to remove other contradictions.

What it assuredly does mean is that there are mistakes in the Bible.

 

[zooterkin]

Writing there was a angel at the tomb and someone writing there was 2 angels is a difficulty but it is not necessarily a mistake because both accounts can be true. Now if the gospel said there was "only" one angel at the tomb all day that would be a mistake, if another gospel said there was 2 angels that day.

How would any of the people (which people exactly varies according to which account you read) who were in a position to tell the story know how long the angels were there? Have you read the accounts? Are you suggesting that each writer of the gospels (assuming for the sake of argument that your belief that the gospels were written by the people they are traditionally attributed to is correct) was given an account of the empty tomb by a different person?

 

[Akhenaten]

Where?? or are you one of the skeptics who thinks difficulty (or difficult to understand) means a mistake.

The fact is, DOC, "difficulty" is a weasel word that you use to describe mistakes and internal inconsistencies in your half-read fairytale.

The "difficult to understand" equivocation you've tried to introduce here is simple dishonesty. Nobody has suggested that the stupid book is difficult to understand; it's just bloody wrong, simple as that.

Writing there was a angel at the tomb and someone writing there was 2 angels is a difficulty but it is not necessarily a mistake because both accounts can be true.

Leaving aside for the sake of the argument that there's no such creature as an angel, (or 'a angel'), if two accounts of the same event mention different numbers of them (and keep in mind that this is a long way from being the only discrepancy) then one of them is clearly mistaken, your bare-faced denial of this obvious truth notwithstanding.

Now if the gospel said there was "only" one angel at the tomb all day that would be a mistake, if another gospel said there was 2 angels that day.

If I had some ham I'd make myself a ham sandwich, if I had some bread.

And these divergent accounts and difficulties only help show the bible was not dishonestly touched up with false information.

No, these divergent accounts internal inconsistencies and difficulties mistakes demonstrate that the book is a hodge-podge of fables and fairy tales that the early Xtians lacked the imagination to make up for themselves and had to cobble together from the stories of their betters, and nothing like the inerrant Word of Dog™ that people like you claim it to be.

Your blatantly dishonest and transparently obvious attempts to replace words like "mistakes" with "difficulties" won't alter what we can (unlike you) all read for ourselves in the slightest, and serve only to again demonstrate the poverty of evidence available to support this codswallop.

But the bottom line is I did not say there are mistakes: skeptics should say what I say and not fudge to make their argument.

Sure thing Wilbur.

ETA: Whenever you see someone say something derogatory about something I said and they are not responding to a specific post of mine, or the partial quote they use is not related to the main derogatory point they are making that should send up a red flag that there is a good chance I am be misrepresented. It's happened many times and it will happen again.

Again with this 'red flag' gibberish? Who the hell do you think is observing these alleged warnings, DOC? Seriously? You adamantly refuse to answer this question, but I'll keep asking anyway: Do you really think there are people reading this thread and quietly nodding agreement with your posts? Where is your army of unseen supporters, DOC? Why don't they speak up?

 

[Fiona]

It has occurred to me that the catholic church was overly cautious in the past when it held that the bible should not be available in the vernacular because people might see contradictions in it and thus lose their faith. With adherents like DOC it seems there was never any danger of that.

 

[Mojo]

ETA: Whenever you see someone say something derogatory about something I said and they are not responding to a specific post of mine, or the partial quote they use is not related to the main derogatory point they are making that should send up a red flag that there is a good chance I am be misrepresented. It's happened many times and it will happen again.

Incidentally, this issue arose because you introduced the argument that there are contradictions (or as you refer to them "difficulties") in Genesis because Moses wrote it down on various different pieces of parchment at different times and therefore had trouble keeping his story straight. I responded to this specific argument by pointing out its implications, and quoted the entire paragraph in which you introduced this argument. There is no question of "not responding to a specific post of [yours]", of use of a "partial quote", or of the quotation in question not being related to the point that was made. Your red flag was raised in error.

 

[Akhenaten]

Don't mind me, I just want to see what happens.

I'm imagining DOC's Currently Hidden Army Of Supporters™ dashing about madly like the little folks in joobz' avatar going "ohnoes! ohnoes!" in little pixie voices.

 

[ddt]

It has occurred to me that the catholic church was overly cautious in the past when it held that the bible should not be available in the vernacular because people might see contradictions in it and thus lose their faith. With adherents like DOC it seems there was never any danger of that.

On the contrary. DOC's "explanations" of the Bible have made two readers of this thread convert from Christiianity (to Aberhatenism?). The net result of having uneducated lay people access to the "Holy Scripture" is negative.

 

[Sun Countess]

Why didn't an angel tell Moses that instead of using parchment, he should have inscribed his stories on golden plates while they were still fresh, and then left magical glasses for somebody else to transcribe the stories at a later date, so that there wouldn't be any of these difficulties? Or did god not come up with that technology until Jesus came to the New World? It just seems that magical omnipotent beings should be able to find work-arounds, so that their message was accurate and unambiguous.

 

[Akhenaten]

Why didn't an angel tell Moses that instead of using parchment, he should have inscribed his stories on golden plates while they were still fresh, and then left magical glasses for somebody else to transcribe the stories at a later date, so that there wouldn't be any of these difficulties?

What kind of moroni would believe that story?

Or did god not come up with that technology until Jesus came to the New World? It just seems that magical omnipotent beings should be able to find work-arounds, so that their message was accurate and unambiguous.

I would have thought that something like this copy of the Book of the Dead (the Papyrus of Ani, in fact) written on non-existant paper during Dynasty 19 (the one after mine - about 1250 BCE) would have sufficed.

Non-existant paper seems to last quite well, doesn't it?​

 

[Fiona]

*shuts eyes very tight*

I can't see any paper.

 

[Akhenaten]

Glorioski! You've just invented invisible non-existant paper!

 

[amb]

Where?? or are you one of the skeptics who thinks difficulty (or difficult to understand) means a mistake.

Writing there was a angel at the tomb and someone writing there was 2 angels is a difficulty but it is not necessarily a mistake because both accounts can be true. Now if the gospel said there was "only" one angel at the tomb all day that would be a mistake, if another gospel said there was 2 angels that day.

And these divergent accounts and difficulties only help show the bible was not dishonestly touched up with false information. But the bottom line is I did not say there are mistakes: skeptics should say what I say and not fudge to make their argument.

ETA: Whenever you see someone say something derogatory about something I said and they are not responding to a specific post of mine, or the partial quote they use is not related to the main derogatory point they are making that should send up a red flag that there is a good chance I am be misrepresented. It's happened many times and it will happen again.

How old are you DOC ? Whatever, you still believe in angels and goblins ? Have you prepared a sock, as Santa Claus is going to pay you a visit in a few days time.

 

[DOC]

It has occurred to me that the catholic church was overly cautious in the past when it held that the bible should not be available in the vernacular because people might see contradictions in it and thus lose their faith. With adherents like DOC it seems there was never any danger of that.

Actually, as I've said, I haven't seen any alleged contradictions that can't be explained.

ETA And the the Bible is now in the vernacular of the people, and the Catholic Church is growing in membership.

 

[Fiona]

Actually, as I've said, I haven't seen any alleged contradictions that can't be explained.

Well for certain values of "explained", I suppose. But if you are going to make up your own language there is not much prospect of communication. Perhaps you would provide a DOC-English dictionary? Or at the very least a glossary?

 

[DOC]

On the contrary. DOC's "explanations" of the Bible have made two readers of this thread convert from Christiianity (to Aberhatenism?)...

Well I asked the first person who made that claim to give the exact post that allegedly made him deconvert. I don't believe he ever did. so I'm asking both (I don't remember who the second one is) right now what are the top 2 or 3 posts that allegedly made you deconvert. Let's take a look at those posts because you might have misunderstood something I stated if you are really sincere in what you say.