glenn@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Glenn C. Scott) (08/15/85)
I'm replying to two messages in this note. In article <498@utastro.UUCP> William H. Jefferys writes in response to my message: > I find both theories unconvincing. Neither has any scriptural authority, > and both are obvious attempts to get around the scriptural contradiction. > To accept either one, you have to do violence to what is written. > There is a third theory that is convincing to me: Scripture was written > by men, and like all things written by men, it contains errors. There, > now, that wasn't so bad, was it? No, I don't suppose so. Confusing though... Would you prefer a more covert attempt to get around the "contradiction" ? I don't understand your definition of "scriptural authority". You use it to dismiss the two theories I gave ((1), (2)) but you assert another theory (3) that I can find no "scriptural authority" for either. Can you define scriptural authority and give an example of how the definition prevents the derivation of both theories (1) and (2) but allows the derivation of theory (3) ? In article <526@utastro.UUCP> he also writes: > I see. So if I have a book, and it says clearly in this book that it > was not written by men, then that proves that it was not written by > men. How could I have been so stupid? Be careful, you can make anything seem silly be reducing the number of considerations. You have much more than just a book that asserts it was not written by men. You have a book that is unique in its continuity, consistency, circulation, translation, survival, teaching and its influence on surrounding literature and culture. Most of these things are not done well by men (persons). It was written over a time span of about 1,500 years and by all sorts of authors. These authors rarely collaborated and often they were separated by time and distance -- yet the contents are consistent. There is more manuscript evidence for the Bible than for any other documents of antiquity. The Bible has had more effect on literature, culture and individual lives than any other written document. (Running close behind are the UNIX Programmers Manuals) All of this must mean something. I suspect that it's more than any of us can really fathom. I used to have the same sort of objections as you seem to have. I'm at a loss to describe to you what has changed my perspective. All I can say with certainty is that if anyone is interested, and they take the time to examine the evidence they definitely will be surprised -- I certainly was. If anyone is not interested and they haven't examined any evidence then they really don't have any business ranting or raving about something they don't really care about. Have you read what Pascal, who you quote in your .signature, has to say on the subject ? He was a Christian. Glenn
bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) (08/20/85)
In article <2256@sdcrdcf.UUCP> glenn@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Glenn C. Scott) writes: > > You have much more than just a book that asserts it was not written by men. >You have a book that is unique in its continuity, consistency, circulation, >translation, survival, teaching and its influence on surrounding literature >and culture. Most of these things are not done well by men (persons). > > It was written over a time span of about 1,500 years and by all sorts of >authors. These authors rarely collaborated and often they were separated by >time and distance -- yet the contents are consistent. There is more >manuscript evidence for the Bible than for any other documents of antiquity. >The Bible has had more effect on literature, culture and individual lives >than any other written document. (Running close behind are the UNIX >Programmers Manuals) All of this must mean something. I suspect that it's >more than any of us can really fathom. Imprecise. While parts of the Bible were written over a 1,500 year span (there is some evidence that this was actually a 700-800 year span) these parts were *brought* together along with lots and lots of other parts that were *not* included in the result. In other words they were selected on the basis of consistancy, not consistant before selection. There's no need to trot out Josh MacDowell, either. We *know* that the books of the bible existed, the question is in what form and in what relationship to one another. There are differences between the various manuscripts of the same text, among which are the critical passages in Mark dealing with the resurrection -- omitted in some versions, present in others. Frequency of copy does not attest to validity, only to reliability. We can assume with some reliability that my copy of the Bible says roughly the same as yours. -- Byron C. Howes ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch