Religion — Page 17

darth_ender said:

2 Peter 1:20

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Again, I appeal to other sources, recent and aged:

"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." -KJV

"knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God[b] spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." NKJV

"[Yet] first [you must] understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is [a matter] of any personal or private or special interpretation (loosening, solving). For no prophecy ever originated because some man willed it [to do so—it never came by human impulse], but men spoke from God who were borne along (moved and impelled) by the Holy Spirit." (Amplified)

"First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." (NRSV)

"Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation. For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost." (Douay-Rheims)

Now there could easily be other versions that are closer to the NIV which you've quoted, but I didn't find any in my quick perusal.  Why do I appeal to these sources?  Well, to me it actually has a different meaning.  One speaks about men's general interpretation of existing scripture, the other referring to the prophets in the process of receiving scripture and not interpreting it in his own manner.  The meaning is surprisingly different, actually.  Do you have access to the original Koine Greek and might you offer your own interpretation of that passage?  I'd be genuinely interested in hearing it.  In any case, I don't think the message is that God provided exact words that must be repeated verbatim when included in scripture.  Paul's letters, for instance, are not a direct revelatory process, but rather the inspired writings of an apostle.

My own quick translation, clearly a bit clunkier than translations you quoted, "Know this first, that any prophecy of scripture is not of one's own interpretation. For prophecy did not ever* come by the will of man, but men being carried by the Holy Spirit speaking from God."

(Using the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum, 4th Ed.)

*the word here is pote, which the KJV translated to "in old time". I opted for simply using "ever", which is pretty much what all the other translations you listed went for. "At any time" was another candidate I considered using, as per my lexicon.

I feel like each and every one of those translations made the exact same idea clear, the first sentence saying that there are not multiple ways to interpret scripture, and the second sentence saying that the scripture these men wrote wasn't from their own wills, but came from God through the Holy Spirit.

 

I did indeed, but I like how you expanded upon it.  But just to be clear, God did inspire the thoughts and words of the prophets, but I don't believe those prophets became literal dummy's for a ventriloquist God.  I believe he used the limited mind's of inspired people, and as a result, inspired scripture was given that was still limited by the people who received it.  Let me give you a quote from an apostle of the LDS church (now dead) regarding Joseph Smith, which I believe holds equally true to the prophets of the Bible:

Elder John A. Widtsoe said:

The language [of the Doctrine and Covenants], with the exception of the words actually spoken by heavenly beings, is the language of the Prophet. The ideas were given to Joseph Smith. He wrote them in the best language at his command. He was inspired at times by the loftiness of the ideals so that his language or words are far above that ordinarily used by a backwoods boy of that day.

I have a much harder time taking the Books of Mormon and the things said about its translation process seriously, with no offense intended (more on this in a second). We've talked about the massive number of scrolls and papyri scattered throughout the east containing the scriptures found in the Bible. The reason so many textual critics feel so certain that what we have is extremely close to the autographs (that is, the actual original piece authored, usually via amanuensis, by the writer of that text) is because the sheer amount of copies we have available, ranging from different time periods.

The "proof of its corruption" that you mentioned and gave a wikipedia link to, is no such thing. It merely explains the process I am about to explain. 

Let's say I scribble down a quick message on a piece of paper, and hand it off to Warbler with the instructions to quickly copy it by hand and give the new copy to someone else, who Warb is to instructs to do the same and to give the new copy to yet someone else. Warb makes a copy and gives it to Bing, who makes a copy and gives it to Mrebo, this goes on for a while, and eventually somewhere along the line you get a copy, Ender. We can imagine some punctuation might get shifted during this process, or perhaps someone's handwritting wasn't all that legible and an h looked a bit like a b, or letters got dropped, or someone along the way changed a few original words into contractions, or used short hand for ease of copying. By the logic of your church's teaching, and apparently, history, your version of my original message is corrupted and unreliable. Which is very likely true.

However, we now set all these copies of this short message on the table before us, except for the original, which Warb accidentally used to spit his gum out in. Each person gives an account of the time during the day when the message was given to them, which gives us an indication of the chronological order of the messages and whose was the earliest. By examining the differences, and taking into account their rough chronology, we can see where variations started. Someone left a punctuation mark out here, the h was miss transcribed as a b here, changing the word he to be. And so on.

Only, with the actual manuscripts for the biblical books, we have an absolutely incredible number of copies! Some complete, some in fragments. We can compare texts, and parts, and fragments of texts, and date the material they are written on, determine when certain changes were made based on dates of the material and the consensus among certain generations of the text. We can tell which families certain pieces belong too, that is, a certain transcription mistake was made here, and continued to be made in the copies of copies. By this process, we can get incredibly close to what the autograph originally said, if not completely accurate.

Another thing that is impressive, is that even with these transcription errors and variations, the variations are extremely minor. We aren't left with huge puzzles of two or more vastly differing texts that we are trying to decide between, but instead a very large number of extremely minor differences. Most of these differences involve missing or differently placed grammatical marks, which may at times slightly alter the meaning or inflection of some sentences, but even then, the differences are very minor, more often than not it confuses what is being written no more than a dropped apostrophe or an i that didn't get dotted.

For example (which is always hard to give cross-lingually), if someone writes "dont", or "do'nt", or "dont' ", or "dont't" it is probably a safe bet they intended "don't". But then again, maybe they meant "donut" and somehow dropped the "u". Professional scribes would be hired to meticulously copy scrolls word for word. If you've ever tried to copy a text verbatim, you've probably found yourself reading a word, copying it, reading the next word, copying it, and so on, rather than actually reading the whole thing out as you go along. You can see how this would make it easy to make simple mistakes, like copying the same word twice in a row, or skipping a word occasionally, or maybe even repeating a line, or skipping a line or two entirely. This is where the mass number of fragments and copies come in. A three inch wide fragment of papyri from an older date could very well save the day, it may only contain a small number of words, pretty useless on its own, but if we match those sentences up to those of a larger text and determine that it is a fragment from what was once a different copy of that same text, then we may be able to use it to determine if the word was suppose to be "don't" or "donut". A lot of meticulous examination and cross-examination by well learned scholars of different faiths, backgrounds, and levels of belief go into this. Some with no belief at all, there is a famous agnostic who writes books that attempt to disprove the existence of a historical Jesus, who is a textual critic.

Now, to go back to my comments on Mormonism, and why I can't take its books seriously (and again, no offense intended). There isn't even one shred of tangible evidence that the golden plates ever even existed. We have a small list of "witnesses" who only witnessed these plates via visions, it seems, from our last discussion on the topic. There isn't even one shred of tangible evidence that the source material for any of the Mormon scriptures ever existed. All evidence points to The Book of Mormon being authored by Joseph Smith (though it could have been someone else), and its original language to have been English. We even have the "Book of Abraham" (that's the one, right?) written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, that has no correlation whatsoever to what Smith claims to have translated from that same piece of papyri. This is the point where you start talking about the necessity of faith, which would be an obvious requirement. At the very least, the Bible is without a doubt legitimate ancient literature, and not just potentially the creation of one man's imagination. Faith isn't needed to know it is from the time periods and regions we know it to be from. Faith is only needed to believe the stories told within it.

Joseph Smith was more articulate than a regular ol' backwoods boy? Ah, then there is no denying it, then. I've always been a bit down on Middle English, just wasn't my cup of tea, thus Chaucer has never been my sort of thing. I've gone far to avoid classes that would require me to become familiar with Middle English. All this to say, I am not trained and have little understanding of Middle English. Still, I am convinced if you gave me a good week to play around with an untranslated edition of Chaucer and an ME dictionary, I could probably string together a few original sentences in ME. With more time and determination, I could throw together plenty more. There is a much, much smaller gap between the language of a country boy and that of the Mormon texts. It certainly wouldn't have been hard for Smith to mimic the writing styles of other works and to write stuff that appeared far above the language used by an ordinary backwoods boy of that time and region.

Or does this predate all Biblical corruptions, a remnant of a time before the Bible couldn't be trusted?

Hmmm...I think someone is conflating my personal beliefs with some misunderstanding of the official teachings of my church.  Yes, this does predate the corruption that my Church and history shows to have taken place.  But the verse and Bible remain true.  So now I shall go into a nice, lengthy explanation.  This was what was largely deleted in my old post.

Ah, so the Mormons have proof the Bible is corrupted? This interests me.

"The Mormons" have the same proof the rest of the world has.  I think I phrased my sentence poorly so let me restate: "Yes, this does predate the corruption that my Church teaches and history shows to have taken place."  My bad.  But just for the benefit of all, let me provide a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_variants_in_the_New_Testament

On top of that, I'm sure you're well aware of the variations in the Latin Vulgate, Greek Septuagint, Samaritan Pentateuch, Jewish Torah/Tanakh based on the Masoretic texts, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Nag Hammadi library, etc.  These all demonstrate ancient variation in the Old Testament.  Ultimately there are potentially millions of differences, some great, some small, in the Bible.  To me this doesn't make the Bible untrue, but does show that humans, no matter how diligent they've tried to be, could not preserve God's word perfectly.  And I think that's okay.

But the variations of the Latin Vulgate, the Greek Septuagint, etc. are translations and of no more consequence than any other language translations, since we have our hands on the original Hebrew texts. The Septuagint was, instrumental in some cases, in assisting us in our understanding of Hebrew, as our understandings of ancient Greek were far superior to our understanding of the much more ancient and long dead language of Hebrew. But that isn't to say we translated from the Septuagint, but rather used it to compare to the Hebrew texts to pad out our Hebrew lexicon and reconstruct a few words from the lost language. The variations between the Hebrew texts and the Septuagint are well documented, and again, are of no consequence to English translations of the Old Testament, which are translated from the original ancient Hebrew (and Aramaic in small parts written during foreign captivity). Some of those other "variations" you mentioned, such as Masoretic texts, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Nag Hammadi library, have helped us greatly in the process of textual criticism, adding more texts to the process I described above. These were new discoveries containing new complete versions or largely complete versions of texts we already had to compare to for accuracy, and to fit into the puzzle of dates, and branches, and generations, and to help us discover what was closer to the original. They certainly didn't confound or confuse anything.

But my point is that Paul was not saying, "The Bible" is God-breathed.  He said "All scripture."

So let's dissect that meaning a little further.  Assuming that Church leaders were inspired as they finalized the biblical canon, one might say, "Well, God made sure what he wanted ended up in the Bible and what he didn't want did not."  Assuming this is true, one might then argue that 2 Timothy 3:16 is indeed referring to those books which have actually been canonized.  But again, the verse says, "All scripture."  So what about the Quran?  What about the Bhagavad Gita?  Are these God-breathed as well?

That's kind of a ridiculous extension to make. It clearly wouldn't be referring to all that is and would ever be considered "scripture" by any religions, it would be entirely reasonable to assume Paul is referring to the Jewish scriptures we know the early church to have used.

Well, I understand that, but my point is that when Paul wrote it, how could anyone really know what writings he was referring to?  Obviously not the non-existent Bible, except perhaps, as you said, the largely canonized (but not completely, nor yet standardized, nor even compiled in a single volume) Old Testament.  But he was clearly referring to New Testament writings as well, including those not yet written.  My point is that Paul was not yet speaking of the Bible, but of any true God-given revelation, and his emphasis was on its benefits.

Well, he wasn't necessarily referring to the as of yet mostly unwritten New Testament at the time. I'd argue that he wasn't referring to the New Testament at all, and could have never known his work would be canonized, or even someday be considered scripture, but rather was strictly referring to the Jewish scriptures of the time (the already canonized and regularly used portions of the Old Testament, and some Apocryphal books). 

However, if we are to believe the words written in 2 Peter 1:20, then we can easily assume God was guiding Paul's hand through the Holy Spirit when he wrote those words, and it was, in fact, intended to apply to the entirety of what we know today as the Bible. 

The lion story I don't recall.  But I know, God was pretty harsh at times.  I won't argue with you there.  I guess he had strict expectations, but also was merciful.  Remember, this same God who might physically kill a person won't necessarily cast him off spiritually.  It could be more of a lesson.  I don't really know what to say that would be satisfactory at the present, though.

Whoa! I was getting anachronistic there with the lion story. Sorry, it too was Old Testament. I was mixing up stories as well, while God used lions to kill people on more than one occasion, I was specifically thinking of the bears God sent to eat a couple of kids who were making fun of the prophet Elisha's alopecia. The others I mentioned were all NT though.

I disagree.  What I teach is equivalent to this: There appear to be canals on Mars.  This seems to contradict other information about Mars, such as the potential lack of substantial atmosphere and its distance from the sun.  But given our limited understanding, it appears that intelligent life created these canals.

This could be the response of someone during a transition period, between better understanding the nature of Mars but still having "evidence" (albeit incorrect) of canals.  I don't claim to know what is fully or partially true or false in the Bible.  Perhaps God somehow did stop the earth's rotation so the sun appeared to be still, though I find this unlikely.  But I won't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and will hold it to be true in its own context, as I have no greater knowledge on that particular day to provide clarity.

I don't hold the Bible to be as untrue or corrupt as you seem to think.

It is interesting where we differ. If there is a God as powerful as the Bible claims him to be, I see no reason why such a God couldn't stop the Earth's rotation, or why this would even be unlikely. Or why this would even matter.

I don't see these things as evidence against the Bible. Ancient Hebrew creation myths, which make the points and teach the lessons they were intended to, should hardly be judged on the standards of a modern day science books. Nor should ancient biography, such as the Gospels, each coming from a different angle, and containing different themes, be judged on the standards of modern biography (with its focus on accuracy of events and numbers and places). The gospels vary in their retelling of events, numbers, times, and chronologies,  because those things didn't matter in ancient biography. It was about the what, not about the exactly how. Forcing modern standards on an distant culture from 2,000 years in the past. 

That's certainly worth bragging over :)  Please give me context.  I mean, were you a theology major at some point (I gather you were once far more believing)?  That's pretty darn cool.  My bragging was not to put you in your place, but to illuminate my point as well as show that I'm not a complete ignoramus on the topic.

I was once going to be an anthropologist (and suppose I was a bit of an amateur one for a while), and a big part of my focus was on religious studies. I've always been fascinated by religion and culture. When it finally came down to it though, earning my PhD, then spending the rest of my life begging for grants began to sound a lot less like fun as the time drew closer, and I made some reassessments.

I was actually going to school for nursing for a decent while too, so I can relate a little bit to your current situation. Stressful stuff. Eventually, I decided digging for impacted stools, giving enemas, inserting catheters, sticking people with needles, dealing with various tubes, and most of all, ridiculous amounts of paperwork and charting wasn't for me, and I quit, much to the dismay of my clinical instructor. I liked wounds, they were fun, but not when they reeked. I decided if the medical field was for me, I should have shot for ER physician or a PA in an ER. They get to do all the fun stuff.

I think you already once commented on reading some of my old posts in the Politics thread and being surprised I was "an ardent defender of Christianity". I grew up in a household that was very strong in the faith, but I never was so much. There were a couple of phases in my life were I made a conscious decision to embrace my faith, and my first couple of years at OT.com were in the midst of one of those.

looks like the conclave to elect the new Pope will begin on Tuesday, March 12.

With no Bishops voting from the UK.

Are there any Cardinals in the UK?

Our voting Cardinal had to resign due to inconvenient gayness.

I think this is more than him possibly being Gay,  I think this also has to do with inappropriate conduction/contact to some Priests.   Of course I exactly know what was meant by "inappropriate".   And keep in mind, even if the church didn't see homosexuality as a sin,  there is still the matter that Cardinals are supposed to be celibate. 

If he had consensual sex with a woman and backed gay marriage it would be seen as a bit saucy but nothing important by most people and only very naughty to the council.

The hypocrisy of denying homosexuals marriage while drunkenly forcing himself on younger priests is the story. 

he'd still be in trouble even if all he was have consensual sex with woman.   Like I said, they are are supposed to be celibate.

but yes, I agree he does appear to be quite the hypocrite.

He would have vocational problems but a lot of people would sympathise with him.

true.

Does anyone know what times the conclave is going to vote?  Please time it will be in my time zone(Eastern daylight savings time)

Sorry for taking so long to respond.  You know how busy I am.  I will try and do a more direct reply to your most recent post soon, but I thought it would be good to take a step back and look at my philosophy of science and religion.

I have a book called Religions of America.  It basically is a Q&A of several different prominent faiths in the U.S., plus some unbelievers.  It’s rather interesting, if a bit superficial in its examinations.  But one chapter in particular has intrigued me greatly and has made the purchase quite worthwhile; it has forever shaped my own views on science and faith: “The Religion of a Scientist” written by Warren Weaver.  It’s a shame I couldn’t simply copy his entire chapter in here, as it is nicely written and summarizes why he has faith in God, but I will do my best to summarize his ideas and contribute my own.

“[T]here are two [scientific concepts] that I judge to be of central significance in any discussion of the relation between science and religion.  If I am to advance with any persuasiveness my ideas concerning religion, I must deal briefly with these two most important principles of quantum theory.

“The Uncertainty Principle

“In order to predict where an object will be at some future moment (and the power to predict is the very essence of scientific procedure), one must know where the object is now and how it is moving. In 1927, the young German physicist Heisenberg enunciated the principle when one seeks to measure the location and, at the same time, the velocity of an elementary particle (such as an electron), then as one of these measurements is made with greater and greater accuracy, the simultaneous measurements of the other quantity is necessarily less and less accurate.  A joint uncertainty exists in the two measurements, and uncertainty that cannot be avoided.”

Here Mr. Weaver then discusses the reasons for this which, if you are unaware, can be read in this very wordy Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Picking up a few paragraphs later in Mr. Weaver’s chapter: “It is essential to realize that the point here is not that it is difficult simultaneously to measure position and velocity with more and more accuracy, but that it is impossible.

“The recognition of the uncertainty principle made it clear that science cannot furnish us with a rigidly deterministic theory of events.  A precise forecast of the future is excluded if we can have only an inaccurate measurement of present circumstances….

“The Principle of Complementarity

“Such considerations led the great physicist Bohr to conclude that the information we can obtain about an object by using one set of experimental conditions of observation should not be expected to be the same as, or necessarily consistent with, the information we obtain when using a different set of observational procedures [emphasis mine]. (If the second set of observational conditions excludes the first set, then the information obtained by using either set must be viewed as complementary to the information obtained by using the other observational procedure.)  However contradictory the two sets of information may appear to be, they must be accepted as equally valid.

“This dualistic viewpoint, now referred to as the principle of complementarity, permitted physics to escape from a most embarrassing dilemma.  Under some experimental conditions, electrons (and also photons, which are the quantum units of light) behaved as though they were particles, like exceedingly small bullets moving at very high speeds.  But under other experimental conditions, electrons and photons behaved as though they were wavelike in character, producing diffraction patterns, just as waves do.”

Here I interrupt Mr. Weaver to point out for the benefit of any reader the real dilemma here.  These are not merely light particles traveling in bursts like waves.  While science clearly demonstrates under certain experimental conditions that light is provided by speedy particles, science also demonstrates that light is actually the disruption of a medium.  Remember, waves are not something independent in and of themselves, but rather the disruption of a medium, like ripples on a surface of water.  The waves are not pieces of water, but energy moving the water in peaks and troughs.  But the only medium is the electromagnetic field through which light travels.  It’s confusing, I know, and I can’t claim to fully comprehend it.  This link might help: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2087/how-can-light-be-both-a-wave-and-a-particle 

Said Mr. Weaver: “To an old-fashioned physicist, all this sounded like nonsense! What is an electron—a particle or a wave?  It cannot be both: yet that, in fact, is precisely the answer!  It can be both.  Bohr’s principle of complementarity indicated that under one set of observational curcumstances, electrons must be considered to be particles, whereas under other observational circumstances, they must be considered to be wavelike.  By accepting the two contradictory descriptions, and byusing each under appropriate circumstances, we have a richer, more satisfying total concept than is furnished by either description alone....

“To summarize: quantum theory, and particularly the uncertainty principle and the principle of complementarity, have made it clear to us that:

“1. The observations of the scientist are never strictly objective but depend upon the observer and upon the circumstances of observation.
2. The measurements of science are necessarily subject to some imprecision.
3. Scientific theories cannot be rigidly deterministic.
4. Science accepts, and in fact views as desirable, the sort of contradiction that is recognized and utilized in the principle of complementarity.

“My Religious Belief....

“…I [have been] sustained—and liberated—by the concept of complementarity.  For if I ask a question from one point of view, I will have one answer.  But if I ask the same question from another, and quite different, point of view, I may very well have a second answer.  The second may be inconsistent with the first, but it can be viewed as complementary.  And the two answers taken together will provide a richer, truer picture than either separately.”

He then talks about the religion and science change, though in different ways: while religion keeps its core largely the same, its more superficial aspects change, while in science it is the superficial aspects that offer more certainty, while the core understanding of the universe changes.  And in the end he closes with how he sees the universe at times with reverence of the order of the universe and its Creator, while at other times, especially when in deep emotional need, He looks for the comfort of his Father.

I hope I have done this man’s writings justice, as I find it brilliant, and hopefully my liberal quoting has not bored any readers, CP3S in specific.  I certainly don’t see everything equally as Warren Weaver, as I am more dogmatic in my religious beliefs that he describes himself.  But the core message is the same.  I understand that at many junctures, science and religion seem to entirely contradict without any hope of integration.  I will not state where the greater truth of one ends and another begins, as I don’t feel that is necessary or conducive to my fuller understanding.  For the present I am content to use different sets of “observational data” (scientific evidence vs. scripture and revelation) to guide my thinking as applicable.  If I’m discussing the history of the universe, I will talk about a 14 billion year-old universe with a 4.6 billion year-old earth with a 200,000 year-old species called homo sapien.  But if I am discussing the Creation, Fall, and Salvation of mankind, I will discuss God creating the earth at his command, and Adam and Eve emerging from the Garden of Eden ~ 7,000 years ago and spawning the rest of the human race.  I do not get hung up on this contradiction.  The constant between all this, the c of my equation that fits into both pictures for me and fits, is that God created this universe, as he is the great Lawgiver that all natural laws obey, that Jesus Christ is his Son, and that he suffered and died for my sins to appease the spiritual laws of the God so that I may again return to live with my Father.

If you’ve got the stamina, I have one more example for you.  In science there are two very prominent and essential theories that shaped physics from the 20th Century till now: the Theory of Relativity and the Quantum Mechanics Theory.  These two theories have given far greater understanding to mankind about how our universe does what it does.  Both have stood up to intense scientific scrutiny.  And yet they contradict each other:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything

(I won’t pretend to understand these concepts beyond a basic level, nor to have completely read any of these three articles)

No one has been able to satisfactorily explain these two theories and how they might coincide, though several flawed ideas have been postulated.  Assuming both theories are correct and true, how is it that they cannot be reconciled?

Perhaps one day they will be.  To me, science and religion may seem irreconcilable, but I believe that one day, a day long after I’ve died, I will understand how it all fits.  For now, I will rely on my two different observational methods: the scientific method and revelation from God.

CP3S said:

darth_ender said:

2 Peter 1:20

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Again, I appeal to other sources, recent and aged:

"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." -KJV

"knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God[b] spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." NKJV

"[Yet] first [you must] understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is [a matter] of any personal or private or special interpretation (loosening, solving). For no prophecy ever originated because some man willed it [to do so—it never came by human impulse], but men spoke from God who were borne along (moved and impelled) by the Holy Spirit." (Amplified)

"First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." (NRSV)

"Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation. For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost." (Douay-Rheims)

Now there could easily be other versions that are closer to the NIV which you've quoted, but I didn't find any in my quick perusal.  Why do I appeal to these sources?  Well, to me it actually has a different meaning.  One speaks about men's general interpretation of existing scripture, the other referring to the prophets in the process of receiving scripture and not interpreting it in his own manner.  The meaning is surprisingly different, actually.  Do you have access to the original Koine Greek and might you offer your own interpretation of that passage?  I'd be genuinely interested in hearing it.  In any case, I don't think the message is that God provided exact words that must be repeated verbatim when included in scripture.  Paul's letters, for instance, are not a direct revelatory process, but rather the inspired writings of an apostle.

My own quick translation, clearly a bit clunkier than translations you quoted, "Know this first, that any prophecy of scripture is not of one's own interpretation. For prophecy did not ever* come by the will of man, but men being carried by the Holy Spirit speaking from God."

(Using the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum, 4th Ed.)

*the word here is pote, which the KJV translated to "in old time". I opted for simply using "ever", which is pretty much what all the other translations you listed went for. "At any time" was another candidate I considered using, as per my lexicon.

 

I feel like each and every one of those translations made the exact same idea clear, the first sentence saying that there are not multiple ways to interpret scripture, and the second sentence saying that the scripture these men wrote wasn't from their own wills, but came from God through the Holy Spirit.

Well, I do find that the NIV actually seems to drive home a different point, that being that prophets did not privately interpret the revelation as it proceeded from God, while the others seem to emphasize that the readers of scripture are not to privately interpret the revelations of God as they've come through the prophet.  The NIV seems to preclude my theory that prophets' revelations aren't word-for-word dictations while the others seem to allow for it.  Thanks for taking the time to offer your own translation; again, I'm impressed :)

 

 

I did indeed, but I like how you expanded upon it.  But just to be clear, God did inspire the thoughts and words of the prophets, but I don't believe those prophets became literal dummy's for a ventriloquist God.  I believe he used the limited mind's of inspired people, and as a result, inspired scripture was given that was still limited by the people who received it.  Let me give you a quote from an apostle of the LDS church (now dead) regarding Joseph Smith, which I believe holds equally true to the prophets of the Bible:

Elder John A. Widtsoe said:

The language [of the Doctrine and Covenants], with the exception of the words actually spoken by heavenly beings, is the language of the Prophet. The ideas were given to Joseph Smith. He wrote them in the best language at his command. He was inspired at times by the loftiness of the ideals so that his language or words are far above that ordinarily used by a backwoods boy of that day.

I have a much harder time taking the Books of Mormon and the things said about its translation process seriously, with no offense intended (more on this in a second). We've talked about the massive number of scrolls and papyri scattered throughout the east containing the scriptures found in the Bible. The reason so many textual critics feel so certain that what we have is extremely close to the autographs (that is, the actual original piece authored, usually via amanuensis, by the writer of that text) is because the sheer amount of copies we have available, ranging from different time periods.

The "proof of its corruption" that you mentioned and gave a wikipedia link to, is no such thing. It merely explains the process I am about to explain. 

Let's say I scribble down a quick message on a piece of paper, and hand it off to Warbler with the instructions to quickly copy it by hand and give the new copy to someone else, who Warb is to instructs to do the same and to give the new copy to yet someone else. Warb makes a copy and gives it to Bing, who makes a copy and gives it to Mrebo, this goes on for a while, and eventually somewhere along the line you get a copy, Ender. We can imagine some punctuation might get shifted during this process, or perhaps someone's handwritting wasn't all that legible and an h looked a bit like a b, or letters got dropped, or someone along the way changed a few original words into contractions, or used short hand for ease of copying. By the logic of your church's teaching, and apparently, history, your version of my original message is corrupted and unreliable. Which is very likely true.

However, we now set all these copies of this short message on the table before us, except for the original, which Warb accidentally used to spit his gum out in. Each person gives an account of the time during the day when the message was given to them, which gives us an indication of the chronological order of the messages and whose was the earliest. By examining the differences, and taking into account their rough chronology, we can see where variations started. Someone left a punctuation mark out here, the h was miss transcribed as a b here, changing the word he to be. And so on.

Only, with the actual manuscripts for the biblical books, we have an absolutely incredible number of copies! Some complete, some in fragments. We can compare texts, and parts, and fragments of texts, and date the material they are written on, determine when certain changes were made based on dates of the material and the consensus among certain generations of the text. We can tell which families certain pieces belong too, that is, a certain transcription mistake was made here, and continued to be made in the copies of copies. By this process, we can get incredibly close to what the autograph originally said, if not completely accurate.

Another thing that is impressive, is that even with these transcription errors and variations, the variations are extremely minor. We aren't left with huge puzzles of two or more vastly differing texts that we are trying to decide between, but instead a very large number of extremely minor differences. Most of these differences involve missing or differently placed grammatical marks, which may at times slightly alter the meaning or inflection of some sentences, but even then, the differences are very minor, more often than not it confuses what is being written no more than a dropped apostrophe or an i that didn't get dotted.

For example (which is always hard to give cross-lingually), if someone writes "dont", or "do'nt", or "dont' ", or "dont't" it is probably a safe bet they intended "don't". But then again, maybe they meant "donut" and somehow dropped the "u". Professional scribes would be hired to meticulously copy scrolls word for word. If you've ever tried to copy a text verbatim, you've probably found yourself reading a word, copying it, reading the next word, copying it, and so on, rather than actually reading the whole thing out as you go along. You can see how this would make it easy to make simple mistakes, like copying the same word twice in a row, or skipping a word occasionally, or maybe even repeating a line, or skipping a line or two entirely. This is where the mass number of fragments and copies come in. A three inch wide fragment of papyri from an older date could very well save the day, it may only contain a small number of words, pretty useless on its own, but if we match those sentences up to those of a larger text and determine that it is a fragment from what was once a different copy of that same text, then we may be able to use it to determine if the word was suppose to be "don't" or "donut". A lot of meticulous examination and cross-examination by well learned scholars of different faiths, backgrounds, and levels of belief go into this. Some with no belief at all, there is a famous agnostic who writes books that attempt to disprove the existence of a historical Jesus, who is a textual critic.

I actually understand this pretty well, though it's nice to read it articulated as well as you have.  I feel I am overstating (mostly inadvertently) the inaccuracy of the scriptures, though as you pointed out, my views do match those of textual critics more closely than most Mormons.  Let me restate my views with the hope that there is some greater accuracy in their interpretation: I see the Bible as far less corrupted by scribes than most Mormons; I also see it at least somewhat (though not drastically) more than you; how closely my views match the general consensus of professional textual critics remains to be seen, as I'm not sure how closely your views align with theirs.  But probably the word "corrupted" is coming off more harshly than I intend, so maybe I'll use a gentler word like "altered."  So let me say this: in the more obscure and ancient texts, there are more substantial differences than mere punctuation and spelling; there are times when the meaning is substantially altered, though in general the differences are minor.  To add further to the confusion, there is no extant "original source."  Most higher critics say that the Torah comes from oral tradition that when finally compiled (by various authors, to add to the confusion), led to our present text.  But we have no copies of these original compilations, and such a time when the Hebrews were not yet so ritualized probably was a vulnerable time for the texts when they would have been far more easily altered.  And yet, sadly, we have nothing that approaches the age of the "original" compositions.  Anyway, I'm probably getting sidetracked (as I'm so prone to do), so let me just give a link showing that there are and can be substantial differences between the differing families of texts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Biblical_significance

Now, to go back to my comments on Mormonism, and why I can't take its books seriously (and again, no offense intended). There isn't even one shred of tangible evidence that the golden plates ever even existed. We have a small list of "witnesses" who only witnessed these plates via visions, it seems, from our last discussion on the topic.

Our discussion, just to add clarity, as it was not all merely in visions.  Boy, I'm glad we can communicate with each other better now than then :)

There isn't even one shred of tangible evidence that the source material for any of the Mormon scriptures ever existed. All evidence points to The Book of Mormon being authored by Joseph Smith (though it could have been someone else), and its original language to have been English.

Ooh, this could be a fun discussion.  If we do proceed down this road, I will definitely move my responses to the Mormon thread.  But for now, I will offer you this outdated article:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Wordprint_studies

I say it's outdated in hopes that you will research further and find your own faults with it, which would then get the discussion going, if you find yourself interested in discussing it further. 

We even have the "Book of Abraham" (that's the one, right?) written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, that has no correlation whatsoever to what Smith claims to have translated from that same piece of papyri. This is the point where you start talking about the necessity of faith, which would be an obvious requirement.

Yes, this would be worth discussion as well.  Perhaps I will address in the Mormon thread.

At the very least, the Bible is without a doubt legitimate ancient literature, and not just potentially the creation of one man's imagination. Faith isn't needed to know it is from the time periods and regions we know it to be from. Faith is only needed to believe the stories told within it.

A legitimate criticism, probably among the most common I've heard.

Joseph Smith was more articulate than a regular ol' backwoods boy? Ah, then there is no denying it, then. I've always been a bit down on Middle English, just wasn't my cup of tea, thus Chaucer has never been my sort of thing. I've gone far to avoid classes that would require me to become familiar with Middle English. All this to say, I am not trained and have little understanding of Middle English. Still, I am convinced if you gave me a good week to play around with an untranslated edition of Chaucer and an ME dictionary, I could probably string together a few original sentences in ME. With more time and determination, I could throw together plenty more. There is a much, much smaller gap between the language of a country boy and that of the Mormon texts. It certainly wouldn't have been hard for Smith to mimic the writing styles of other works and to write stuff that appeared far above the language used by an ordinary backwoods boy of that time and region.

To his credit as well, he spent relatively little time working on the Book of Mormon, approximately two months of actual reading with transcribers.

Or does this predate all Biblical corruptions, a remnant of a time before the Bible couldn't be trusted?

Hmmm...I think someone is conflating my personal beliefs with some misunderstanding of the official teachings of my church.  Yes, this does predate the corruption that my Church and history shows to have taken place.  But the verse and Bible remain true.  So now I shall go into a nice, lengthy explanation.  This was what was largely deleted in my old post.

Ah, so the Mormons have proof the Bible is corrupted? This interests me.

"The Mormons" have the same proof the rest of the world has.  I think I phrased my sentence poorly so let me restate: "Yes, this does predate the corruption that my Church teaches and history shows to have taken place."  My bad.  But just for the benefit of all, let me provide a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_variants_in_the_New_Testament

On top of that, I'm sure you're well aware of the variations in the Latin Vulgate, Greek Septuagint, Samaritan Pentateuch, Jewish Torah/Tanakh based on the Masoretic texts, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Nag Hammadi library, etc.  These all demonstrate ancient variation in the Old Testament.  Ultimately there are potentially millions of differences, some great, some small, in the Bible.  To me this doesn't make the Bible untrue, but does show that humans, no matter how diligent they've tried to be, could not preserve God's word perfectly.  And I think that's okay.

But the variations of the Latin Vulgate, the Greek Septuagint, etc. are translations and of no more consequence than any other language translations, since we have our hands on the original Hebrew texts. The Septuagint was, instrumental in some cases, in assisting us in our understanding of Hebrew, as our understandings of ancient Greek were far superior to our understanding of the much more ancient and long dead language of Hebrew. But that isn't to say we translated from the Septuagint, but rather used it to compare to the Hebrew texts to pad out our Hebrew lexicon and reconstruct a few words from the lost language. The variations between the Hebrew texts and the Septuagint are well documented, and again, are of no consequence to English translations of the Old Testament, which are translated from the original ancient Hebrew (and Aramaic in small parts written during foreign captivity). Some of those other "variations" you mentioned, such as Masoretic texts, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Nag Hammadi library, have helped us greatly in the process of textual criticism, adding more texts to the process I described above. These were new discoveries containing new complete versions or largely complete versions of texts we already had to compare to for accuracy, and to fit into the puzzle of dates, and branches, and generations, and to help us discover what was closer to the original. They certainly didn't confound or confuse anything.

The variations of the Septuagint and Vulgate are not inconsequential, as they were based on different Hebrew source material than we have before us.  If they were modern translations, it would make little difference.  But they are ancient translations, taken from a less standardized source, and thus offering their own unique perspective.  It's obvious you are knowledgeable on this topic, more than I, but I am at least aware that they are translations of a source different from the Masoretic, making the textual differences valuable for scholars.  The Dead Sea Scrolls link I provided above demonstrates such to be true for at least the LXX, and the Vulgate would still contain some similar value.

But my point is that Paul was not saying, "The Bible" is God-breathed.  He said "All scripture."

So let's dissect that meaning a little further.  Assuming that Church leaders were inspired as they finalized the biblical canon, one might say, "Well, God made sure what he wanted ended up in the Bible and what he didn't want did not."  Assuming this is true, one might then argue that 2 Timothy 3:16 is indeed referring to those books which have actually been canonized.  But again, the verse says, "All scripture."  So what about the Quran?  What about the Bhagavad Gita?  Are these God-breathed as well?

That's kind of a ridiculous extension to make. It clearly wouldn't be referring to all that is and would ever be considered "scripture" by any religions, it would be entirely reasonable to assume Paul is referring to the Jewish scriptures we know the early church to have used.

Well, I understand that, but my point is that when Paul wrote it, how could anyone really know what writings he was referring to?  Obviously not the non-existent Bible, except perhaps, as you said, the largely canonized (but not completely, nor yet standardized, nor even compiled in a single volume) Old Testament.  But he was clearly referring to New Testament writings as well, including those not yet written.  My point is that Paul was not yet speaking of the Bible, but of any true God-given revelation, and his emphasis was on its benefits.

Well, he wasn't necessarily referring to the as of yet mostly unwritten New Testament at the time. I'd argue that he wasn't referring to the New Testament at all, and could have never known his work would be canonized, or even someday be considered scripture, but rather was strictly referring to the Jewish scriptures of the time (the already canonized and regularly used portions of the Old Testament, and some Apocryphal books). 

However, if we are to believe the words written in 2 Peter 1:20, then we can easily assume God was guiding Paul's hand through the Holy Spirit when he wrote those words, and it was, in fact, intended to apply to the entirety of what we know today as the Bible. 

Agreed.

The lion story I don't recall.  But I know, God was pretty harsh at times.  I won't argue with you there.  I guess he had strict expectations, but also was merciful.  Remember, this same God who might physically kill a person won't necessarily cast him off spiritually.  It could be more of a lesson.  I don't really know what to say that would be satisfactory at the present, though.

Whoa! I was getting anachronistic there with the lion story. Sorry, it too was Old Testament. I was mixing up stories as well, while God used lions to kill people on more than one occasion, I was specifically thinking of the bears God sent to eat a couple of kids who were making fun of the prophet Elisha's alopecia. The others I mentioned were all NT though.

Oh, I never make mistakes like that ;)  I thought you might have been referring to the bear story.  But you are correct, the others are in the NT, and they are harsh.  God can be harsh.  But he can also be loving.  I'd probably want to start a whole new string of discussion to address this topic further.

I disagree.  What I teach is equivalent to this: There appear to be canals on Mars.  This seems to contradict other information about Mars, such as the potential lack of substantial atmosphere and its distance from the sun.  But given our limited understanding, it appears that intelligent life created these canals.

This could be the response of someone during a transition period, between better understanding the nature of Mars but still having "evidence" (albeit incorrect) of canals.  I don't claim to know what is fully or partially true or false in the Bible.  Perhaps God somehow did stop the earth's rotation so the sun appeared to be still, though I find this unlikely.  But I won't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and will hold it to be true in its own context, as I have no greater knowledge on that particular day to provide clarity.

I don't hold the Bible to be as untrue or corrupt as you seem to think.

It is interesting where we differ. If there is a God as powerful as the Bible claims him to be, I see no reason why such a God couldn't stop the Earth's rotation, or why this would even be unlikely. Or why this would even matter.

Oh, of course.  But I also believe God is a God of order.  He performs miracles when necessary, but I believe that many miracles are natural laws people did not/do not today understand.  He created the laws of the universe.  I don't see why he would need to violate them .  But then again, I am mixing my "observational data," and I feel no need to do so when I have nothing better to offer.

I don't see these things as evidence against the Bible. Ancient Hebrew creation myths, which make the points and teach the lessons they were intended to, should hardly be judged on the standards of a modern day science books. Nor should ancient biography, such as the Gospels, each coming from a different angle, and containing different themes, be judged on the standards of modern biography (with its focus on accuracy of events and numbers and places). The gospels vary in their retelling of events, numbers, times, and chronologies,  because those things didn't matter in ancient biography. It was about the what, not about the exactly how. Forcing modern standards on an distant culture from 2,000 years in the past. 

Hey, I said something like that!

That's certainly worth bragging over :)  Please give me context.  I mean, were you a theology major at some point (I gather you were once far more believing)?  That's pretty darn cool.  My bragging was not to put you in your place, but to illuminate my point as well as show that I'm not a complete ignoramus on the topic.

I was once going to be an anthropologist (and suppose I was a bit of an amateur one for a while), and a big part of my focus was on religious studies. I've always been fascinated by religion and culture. When it finally came down to it though, earning my PhD, then spending the rest of my life begging for grants began to sound a lot less like fun as the time drew closer, and I made some reassessments.

I was actually going to school for nursing for a decent while too, so I can relate a little bit to your current situation. Stressful stuff. Eventually, I decided digging for impacted stools, giving enemas, inserting catheters, sticking people with needles, dealing with various tubes, and most of all, ridiculous amounts of paperwork and charting wasn't for me, and I quit, much to the dismay of my clinical instructor. I liked wounds, they were fun, but not when they reeked. I decided if the medical field was for me, I should have shot for ER physician or a PA in an ER. They get to do all the fun stuff.

Wuss! ;)  In all seriousness, I can't blame you.  Not fun.  An anthropologist though...that's very cool.  Truthfully, I would have loved to go into that myself, were it not so financially dismal.  That seems to be how it is for all my interests truthfully.  You've probably written in Random Thoughts or something, but I wasn't following the career discussion that closely, but what did you ultimately select?

I think you already once commented on reading some of my old posts in the Politics thread and being surprised I was "an ardent defender of Christianity". I grew up in a household that was very strong in the faith, but I never was so much. There were a couple of phases in my life were I made a conscious decision to embrace my faith, and my first couple of years at OT.com were in the midst of one of those.

I see.  Well, I never judge a man for his stance, though I offer mine with boldness.  It always makes me a little sad that someone only sees things with one eye open, that being the eye of tangible evidence, whilst the eye of faith remains firmly closed.  I mean no criticism, but rather a wish of what I believe to be your wellbeing.  In any case, I enjoy our discussions, and I genuinely appreciate how you make me think. :)

If I were to get all Gnostic on you for a moment, I'd say God was trying to give the Catholics a bit of a message.

I have no faith to square.  The monkey story seems more plausible.

Today was a very long and draining day at work, and I am feeling rather brain dead, but not at all tired for 1 am. I'll respond to your other stuff later, for now I'll just comment on the brainless stuff I don't have to think for. ;)

 

darth_ender said:

Wuss! ;)  In all seriousness, I can't blame you. Not fun.

Nursing is a great career, and despite somethings not being fun, I didn't mind them at all. I inserted plenty of Foley's, dug enough impactions, administered many suppositories, and changed dressings on all sorts of wounds, and everything else, none of it really bothered me. And I had a pretty strong stomach to begin with. I just didn't find any of it stimulating. My favorite part was talking to the patients and gleaming things from them. Life stories, experiences, beliefs. I liked their quirks and idiosyncrasies. I feel like I learned a lot about life during that time. But it was always too hectic to spend much time with the patients. And watching people die all the time was making me grow rather cold.

An anthropologist though...that's very cool.  Truthfully, I would have loved to go into that myself, were it not so financially dismal.  That seems to be how it is for all my interests truthfully.  

I know the feeling. The coolest stuff pays the least and all those fields are so very competitive, only the absolute best ever see success. 

You've probably written in Random Thoughts or something, but I wasn't following the career discussion that closely, but what did you ultimately select?

I ultimately decided on becoming a womanizing alcoholic drifter (small amount of hyperbole all around). It's tons of fun! An amateur writer, quite prolific, but as of yet my fiction work is unpublished (though people in high placed have expressed interest, if I'd buckle down and send a finished M.S., but I find it hard to commit). And a rogue anthropologist, infiltrating various subcultures of America and learning all I can about them. And I have a career that pays money too, somewhere in there. 

I think you already once commented on reading some of my old posts in the Politics thread and being surprised I was "an ardent defender of Christianity". I grew up in a household that was very strong in the faith, but I never was so much. There were a couple of phases in my life were I made a conscious decision to embrace my faith, and my first couple of years at OT.com were in the midst of one of those.

I see.  Well, I never judge a man for his stance, though I offer mine with boldness.  It always makes me a little sad that someone only sees things with one eye open, that being the eye of tangible evidence, whilst the eye of faith remains firmly closed.  I mean no criticism, but rather a wish of what I believe to be your wellbeing.  In any case, I enjoy our discussions, and I genuinely appreciate how you make me think. :)

I reassure you, all my eyes are open as wide as my levator palpebrae superiorises will open. Just because my ever searching eye of faith has as of yet found nothing to have faith in, doesn't mean it remains tightly closed.

I, too, appreciate our discussions. It is always interesting to think about things I haven't thought much about in a while.

Mrebo said:

So, for the non-believers, do you truly 100% accept/believe/swear as fact that your ancestors were ape creatures? Why or why not?

Leonardo said:

Mrebo said:

So, for the non-believers, do you truly 100% accept/believe/swear as fact that your ancestors were ape creatures? Why or why not?

As an atheist, I don't believe anything. I understand how the theory works, though, and I accept it for the same reason.

I'm not an atheist exactly, but, what he said. 

In a sense it's the same story as saying the creator took the substance of the earth and formed it into the shape of man.

It just describes the method used.

If you want to see that creator as an invisible man shaped thing or the universe itself in motion that's really more a matter of taste than belief.

Mrebo said:

Thusfar I'm agreeing with the heathens. As per Bingo's explication, I think the method isn't the important part.

Really?

It's something humans are very close to being able to do themselves.

The implications have ramifications.

Would they be playing God, emulating God or would they be God or at least God's remote control?

If God is implicit in the process surely actuating the process has very interesting religious considerations? 

Bingowings said:

Mrebo said:

Thusfar I'm agreeing with the heathens. As per Bingo's explication, I think the method isn't the important part.

Really?

It's something humans are very close to being able to do themselves.

The implications have ramifications.

Would they be playing God, emulating God or would they be God or at least God's remote control?

If God is implicit in the process surely actuating the process has very interesting religious considerations? 

Reminds me of when Kirk Cameron said the banana was proof there is a god. When it was pointed out to him that the banana is a highly modified, and selectively bred mutation that would not exist except for man's influence, he responded with "well, that proves God gave us those tools."

TheBoost said:

Bingowings said:

Mrebo said:

Thusfar I'm agreeing with the heathens. As per Bingo's explication, I think the method isn't the important part.

Really?

It's something humans are very close to being able to do themselves.

The implications have ramifications.

Would they be playing God, emulating God or would they be God or at least God's remote control?

If God is implicit in the process surely actuating the process has very interesting religious considerations? 

Reminds me of when Kirk Cameron said the banana was proof there is a god. When it was pointed out to him that the banana is a highly modified, and selectively bred mutation that would not exist except for man's influence, he responded with "well, that proves God gave us those tools."

I remember as a child we were taught in our school assemblies to be thankful to God for our toys and books.

Naturally some smart alec would point out these objects are manufactured and the teacher would say something to the same effect as Kirk Cameron.

The situation by which we exist has furnished us with the means to manipulate our environment to suit us.

It is not unique in our biosphere.

Insects do this, plants do this, virus and bacteria do this.

It is human arrogance to assume humans are especially special.

That said some of my best friends are homo-sapiens.