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14th August 2013, 05:48 PM

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Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist View Post
If the Tanakh is divinely inspired and correct, then what happens to the covenant that shall remain forever, which is overturned by the very existence of the New Testament? If the New Testament is correct, and Jesus is the divine Son of God (and apparently God Himself), what happens when the Qur'an allows that Jesus (Issa) is a prophet, but certainly not divine? If the Bible is correct on the Fall (Original Sin), what happens to the book of Mormon (2 Nephi 2:25) claim that the Fall was actually a prerequisite for procreation?

The plain, undeniable fact is that none of these things can be demonstrated, and so are all a matter of belief and belief only -- and in that, any belief based on those texts and others is as good (as likely to be correct or incorrect) as any other.
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14th August 2013, 07:08 PM

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Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist View Post
If the Tanakh is divinely inspired and correct, then what happens to the covenant that shall remain forever, which is overturned by the very existence of the New Testament?
The "New Testament" is a misnomer that we use today. In actuality, the misnomer of "New Testament' is simply letters that explained what is written in the Tanakh. Jesus and the Apostles didn't preach from what we people call the New Testament today. They preached from the Tanakh.

The covenant of Abraham that shall remain forever is the very covenant that I am talking about.

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If the New Testament is correct, and Jesus is the divine Son of God (and apparently God Himself), what happens when the Qur'an allows that Jesus (Issa) is a prophet, but certainly not divine? If the Bible is correct on the Fall (Original Sin), what happens to the book of Mormon (2 Nephi 2:25) claim that the Fall was actually a prerequisite for procreation?
Both are contrary to the Tanakh. So one is left with a decision of whether one believes the Tanakh or the Qur'an; the Tanakh or the Book of Mormon.

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The plain, undeniable fact is that none of these things can be demonstrated, and so are all a matter of belief and belief only -- and in that, any belief based on those texts and others is as good (as likely to be correct or incorrect) as any other.
Isn't that what I said? It all depends on what is your paradigm of belief-system just as you have yours and believe that it is all hog-wash and science is the god of your world that continually correct itself.
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14th August 2013, 07:21 PM

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Originally Posted by metis View Post
How is this possible? Either God (or Gods) inspired a certain item or He/They didn't. It sounds like you're saying that if anyone believes in anything it must be true. Maybe it's true to them, but I honestly don't believe the truth, whatever it might be, is relative on my believing it.
No, that isn't what I said and even gave an example which I will repeat. God told Moses that the promised land is there and that they were going to take it. It was divinely said. As you said He "inspired a certain item"

Then man comes into the picture and 10 spies said "No we cannot take the land". They decided that it wasn't divinely said even when it was. 2 spies said "It IS divinely said and we are well able to take the land". The tribes believe the 10 spies even when countless times Moses showed that what he said was given divinely. So they didn't enter in.

The two who held on to what was divinely said enter into the land with Joshua. The rest is history.

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I don't know of any historical research that said King David was false, but I have read hypotheses that felt that he might not have actually existed, such as what was put forth a decade or so ago by Finkelstein and Silberman in "The Bible Unearthed". BTW, their hypothesis appears to have been wrong according to some very recent finds.
(Emphasis mine)
That is what I said.

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Generally speaking, I agree, unless one broadens the scope and compares the Christian scriptures with the Tanakh. Obviously, there are some rather significant differences between the two, and these variations I do believe are quite significant.
I find them quite the same but I know that I would have some lively discussion of disagreement with my position.



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Ken: Obviously, they aren't the original ones because time has destroyed them. But with the abundance of information from what we have, one can establish what is correct.
Vern:
Not necessarily. There are still many questions that simply cannot be answered with any assurance of being correct. Interpretations can be quite variable, as we see with the fact that there are almost 300 Christian denominations and thousands of independents, most claiming to have "the answers". I grew up in one of those churches whereas the pastor very frequently claimed that we were correct and all others were varying degrees of wrong. Fortunately, I don't hear this being said at my synagogue or I would have left it long ago.
I think we changed the subject here a little. We were talking about variances in what was written not differences in interpretation or, at the least, that is what I was talking about.


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Ken: As I said, the Koran may have some truth within it. Some information is blatantly wrong. (For an example, it states that Christians believed that the composition of God is the Father, the Son and Mary) -- a blatant mistake.
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And exactly how do you know they're wrong? I would suggest that you believe they're wrong, but believe and know aren't synonymous.
In reference to Mary… I KNOW they are wrong. We have scriptures written before the Koran that said differently

But overall, certainly you are correct and I thought that is what I said. A few posts back I said if someone began by thinking the Koran (Qur'an) was right then they would think the Tanakh was wrong.

And then I listed why I (I repeat I) think the Tanakh is right.

Last edited by Ken; 14th August 2013 at 07:37 PM.
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Judaism 14th August 2013, 09:00 PM

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Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist View Post
Ben believes that God stopped "inspiring" human writers after the Tanakh, so the New Testament is not something he considers inspired by God. Ken aand most Christians believe that God stopped "inspiring" human writers after the New Testament, so of course the Qur'an is not something they consider inspired by God. Muslims believe God stopped inspiring human writers after Muhammad, so of course the book of Mormon could not have been inspired by God. Members of the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) believe God stopped inspiring human writers after Joseph Smith, so of course Helen Shucman was fibbing when she said she was inspired by God (Jesus).

Tell me, does anyone have evidence -- or a calendar -- showing when God inspired human writers, and when He chose to stop?

Or are you all arguing about angels dancing on pinheads?
Do you know something EH? The thing is not really divine inspiration but spiritual inspiration. In that case, I am going to make every one happy by admitting that every one who writes a book was spiritually inspired to write it, even the leader of an irresponsible cult. One would not spend so much to publish a book if he or she was not spiritually inspired to write it. So, all of them: OT, NT, Koran, the Book of Mormon, all the authors respectively were spiritually inspired which is not far from the truth.
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14th August 2013, 10:08 PM

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Originally Posted by metis View Post
...Finkelstein and Silberman in "The Bible Unearthed". BTW, their hypothesis appears to have been wrong according to some very recent finds.
One rather wishes that you had provided some clue as to which "recent finds" you are talking about, and whether those finds seem to invalidate all, or only some part of, The Bile Unearthed.


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15th August 2013, 01:14 PM

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Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist View Post
One rather wishes that you had provided some clue as to which "recent finds" you are talking about, and whether those finds seem to invalidate all, or only some part of, The Bile Unearthed.
I tend to agree with a great deal of what Finkelstein and Siberman wrote, but there's been some recent finds that may indicate that their hypothesis about King David being a myth may not be correct. Here's one piece and I'll follow this up with another post dealing with another piece of archaeological evidence:

Few modern Biblical archaeology discoveries have caused as much excitement as the Tel Dan inscription—writing on a ninth-century B.C. stone slab (or stela) that furnished the first historical evidence of King David from the Bible.

The Tel Dan inscription, or “House of David” inscription, was discovered in 1993 at the site of Tel Dan in northern Israel in an excavation directed by Israeli archaeologist Avraham Biran.

The broken and fragmentary inscription commemorates the victory of an Aramean king over his two southern neighbors: the “king of Israel” and the “king of the House of David.” In the carefully incised text written in neat Aramaic characters, the Aramean king boasts that he, under the divine guidance of the god Hadad, vanquished several thousand Israelite and Judahite horsemen and charioteers before personally dispatching both of his royal opponents. Unfortunately, the recovered fragments of the “House of David” inscription do not preserve the names of the specific kings involved in this brutal encounter, but most scholars believe the stela recounts a campaign of Hazael of Damascus in which he defeated both Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah...

What made the Tel Dan inscription one of the most exciting Biblical archaeology discoveries for scholars and the broader public was its unprecedented reference to the “House of David.” The stela’s fragmented inscription, first read and translated by the renowned epigrapher Joseph Naveh, proved that King David from the Bible was a genuine historical figure and not simply the fantastic literary creation of later Biblical writers and editors. Perhaps more important, the stela, set up by one of ancient Israel’s fiercest enemies more than a century after David’s death, still recognized David as the founder of the kingdom of Judah.

The “House of David” inscription had its skeptics, however, especially the so-called Biblical minimalists, who attempted to dismiss the “House of David” reading as implausible and even sensationalistic. In a famous BAR article, Philip Davies argued that the Hebrew term bytdwd referred to a specific place (akin to bytlhm for Bethlehem) rather than the ancestral dynasty of David. Such skepticism aside, however, most Biblical scholars and archaeologists readily accepted that the Tel Dan stela had supplied the first concrete proof of a historical King David from the Bible, making it one of the top Biblical archaeology discoveries reported in BAR.
-- The Tel Dan Inscription: The First Historical Evidence of King David from the Bible – Biblical Archaeology Society


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15th August 2013, 01:17 PM

A somewhat more conjectural find as reported in the Jerusalem Post:

A joint excavation led by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel Antiquities Authorities discovered two of the largest structures ever uncovered from the Kingdom of Judea, the Israel Antiquities Authorities announced on Thursday.

Researchers Prof. Yossi Garfinkel and Saar Ganor identified one of the structures as a palace of King David, while the other as a large storage structure for the kingdom.

The excavation, which lasted seven years, gives evidence to state building and administrative organization during the time of King David.

According to Garfinkel and Ganor, "The ruins are the best example to date of the uncovered fortress city of King David," giving researchers a step up in understanding the origins of the kingdom of Judah.

"This is indisputable proof of the existence of a central authority in Judah during the time of King David," the archaeologists said...
-- Archeologists dig up King David's palace | JPost | Israel News


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15th August 2013, 01:31 PM

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Originally Posted by Ken View Post
No, that isn't what I said and even gave an example which I will repeat. God told Moses that the promised land is there and that they were going to take it. It was divinely said...
I think we were talking past each other as I was referring to texts being divinely inspired and not just people.

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I think we changed the subject here a little. We were talking about variances in what was written not differences in interpretation or, at the least, that is what I was talking about.
Nor was I talking about interpretation. There are a great many "variations" throughout the scriptures, which is "theological talk" stating that certain verses just don't read the same way while covering the same event. By using "variations" instead of "contradictions", theologians avoid making value judgments since one cannot be absolutely certain there's some connecting thread that might make certain "variations" not being "contradictions".

Let me post an example of a "variation" as found in the gospels: when the women visited Jesus' tomb, how many angels did they see, where was/were the angel(s) located, and exactly what did he/they say? If you double-check this, no two gospel accounts agree.

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In reference to Mary… I KNOW they are wrong. We have scriptures written before the Koran that said differently
But one can only think that they may "KNOW" that this is wrong. Just because someone's scripture was written before someone else's doesn't necessarily mean that the first account is correct.

For example, of the major religions we see today, the oldest texts are some of the Vedas used in Hinduism. Since they predate Torah, are they necessarily correct in all that they say?


The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.-- Einstein
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Judaism 15th August 2013, 02:19 PM

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Originally Posted by metis View Post
For example, of the major religions we see today, the oldest texts are some of the Vedas used in Hinduism. Since they predate Torah, are they necessarily correct in all that they say?
तहत इस व्हत् मय हिन्दु फ़्रिएन्द्स् वोउल्द् अग्री इस अच्छुरते

I actually found a Sanskrit translator just so I could post that. I have no idea whether it is faithful rendition of what I wrote in English - which was, "That is what my Hindu friends would agree is accurate."

B'shalom,

Peter


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15th August 2013, 03:02 PM

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Originally Posted by rabbio View Post
तहत इस व्हत् मय हिन्दु फ़्रिएन्द्स् वोउल्द् अग्री इस अच्छुरते

I actually found a Sanskrit translator just so I could post that. I have no idea whether it is faithful rendition of what I wrote in English - which was, "That is what my Hindu friends would agree is accurate."

B'shalom,

Peter
And here I thought you had gotten so old that you'd reverted back to scribbling.


The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.-- Einstein
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