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.
