From: barnejd@wkuvx1.bitnet
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Proofs of the Bible (Long, but filled with information)
Date: 12 Nov 92 16:57:48 GMT
Organization: Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY

In article <1992Nov12.023121.22894@midway.uchicago.edu>, dsoconne@quads.uchicago.edu (Daniel S OConnell) writes:

> Note: sometimes I like to deconstruct posts like the following
> as an intellectual exercise. . .

And sometimes I like to poke holes in pseudo-intellectual exercises...
 
> barnejd@wkuvx1.bitnet writes:
 
>>treating the Bible as we would any
>>other historical document, let's look at it.
 
>>  Comparison to other documents:
>>
>>ANCIENT LITERATURE             # MANUSCRIPTS           PROXIMITY TO
>>                                                       ORIGINAL COPY
>>-----------------------------  ----------------------  -------------
>>Livy's History of Rome                 20                500 yrs
>>Caesar's Gallic Wars                   10                900 yrs
>>Tacitus' Annals                         2                800 yrs
>>History of Thucydides                   8              1300+ yrs
>>History of Heroditus                    1               1000 yrs
>>Writings of Aristotle                   5              1400+ yrs
>>
>>  Now remember - all of these are universally regarded as accurate.  Let's
 
> Note that they are all histories of politics, *NOT* religious movements;

My fault on this one; this was a response to "Do we have a reliable
copy of the Bible?"  So, the answer to that one would have to be, yes,
we do.

> any comptent historian knows that much of the bible's "history" is
> suspect - certainly events from the hebrew testament and events from
> the greek testament have not been considered "historically" accurate
> for some time.

Please, do provide specifics and sources.  We can't very well just
take your word on it.
 
> The men who wrote the bibles (unless there was a "J" and she was
> female), had a specific agenda: to promulgate the revealed word
> of G-d to the Hebrews of approx 2,000 years ago. 
 
> The sources you cite above had no such agenda; therefore the two
> testaments are not in the same class and do not offer a useful
> comparison.

As I said, this is a comparison to determine whether or not they are
the same now as they were when written.
 
>>  You asserted God is inconsistent because he had an old law and a new one. 
> ...
>>the end of time).  The laws of each led into the other.  The Patriarchical
 
> This is opinion on which millions disagree, not scholarly research. Okay,
> so much for the preliminaries, now:

But on which the Bible is clear.  Read the cited passages.
 
>>  Proof for the Bible being the Word of God:
>>1) It claims to be - as I said, every man is allowed to testify on his own
>>    behalf, so the Bible's claim must be counted as evidence, even if that
>>    evidence is taken a little more lightly than some of the exterior evi-
>>    dence.  I trust we can agree that the Bible claims to be the sole rev-
>>    elation of God to man; no Apocrypha, no additions, etc.
 
> True, yet there are other texts which claim to be *the* revealed word 
> of G-d; so this isn't much.

As I said, it must be taken a bit more lightly.
 
>>2) The unity of the Bible - A unity of facts, purpose, and teaching.  Its
>>    theme is that of the salvation from sin.  It begins with the creation,
>>    sin marring it, and God conceiving a great plan to redeem man from his
>>    sins, and goes from there.
 
> It could be and has been argued there is more disunity than unity
> among the texts, even about simple matters. Consider the wide
> variation in the 4 gospels for example.

What wide variation?  Because one mentions events the others do not? 
Say I wrote a biography of someone and you wrote one on the same
person.  Some events I include you might not.  Does that mean that our
accounts would be disharmonious?  I think not.  Please provide
specifics.

>>3) The great moral teachings of the Bible - No other book has ever
>>    condemned immorality so severely or demanded as high a standard of
>>    righteousness.  It is virtually unique among religious documents.
 
> Wrong. Check the Qu'ran, for one.

The Bible still has a higher moral code.  "Turn the other cheek", "Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you", "love your enemy",
etc.
 
>>4) Its Unparallelled Impartiality - "Human books extol the virtues and
 
> The testaments were written by cultists to pass on the revealed
> word of G-d to a formerly obscure jewish sect. A unilateral
> claim to be the sole word of G-d is hardly an advertisement
> for impartiality.

I suggest you go back and read what I wrote again.  If you were going
to make up a religion, would you portray the heroes as larger than
life?  For example, David's affair with Bathsheba.  David was a great
man, yet the Bible pulls no punches about his weaknesses.  Also, take
Peter's denial of Christ and his frequently-shown weaknesses.  It
impartially shows the characters in it as they were.
  And the OT was not written by Christians, it existed long before
Christianity.

>>5) The Brevity of the Bible - So much, virtually a history of the world, is
>>    packed into so few pages.  It tells the 33-year life of the most
>>    important man ever to walk the earth in four short books.
 
> And eliminates significant parts of his life. A history of the world?
> No. The important bits of history for believers? Perhaps.

My point exactly.  And it does span the history of the world.  Do you
think any textbook of world history covers every event that ever
occurred?  Of course not!  Just the significant ones.  And, according
to the theme of the Bible (God's plan of salvation), the important
events are covered.
 
>>6) The Life of Jesus - That Jesus existed is virtually indisputable.  The
 
> Sez you.

Sez Josephus.  Sez Tacitus.  Sez many Roman imperial officials.  Sez
historical evidence.
 
>>    testimony of those closest to him indicated His sinless perfection.
 
> And they are hardly impartial.

The OT speaks of it.  The Jews could find no legitimate reason to
execute Him, so they had to coerce Pilate into it.  These are but two
examples.
 
>>    Such a perfect person could never have been so perfectly created by any
>>    man.
 
> Which calls into doubt the deeds he is claimed to have performed.

No, which means that he could not have been created by a man or men.
 
>>7) The Fulfillment of Prophecy - Modern self-proclaimed "prophets" usually
>>    get about 10-20% right; the Bible's all come true in exactly the way
>>    predicted.  The odds of Jesus fulfilling (whether accidentally and/or
>>    by design) the prophecies applying to Him are beyond calculation.

> Note that some of these "prophecies" were written after the fact. Note
> also that some prophecies tend to be self-fulfilling.

Which prophecies?  And how are they self-fulfilling?
 
>>8) The Bible's Scientific Foreknowledge - One of the areas I personally
 
> [derogatory and unjustified comment deleted]
 
>>    find fascinating.  Being pre-scientific, it should attribute the
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>>    workings of nature to colorful myths and be woefully inaccurate - if it
      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>    was written by man. In the 19th century, Herbert Spencer first
>>    announced the 5 fundamental facts of science; yet the Bible covered all
>>    5 in the first 2 verses: "In the beginning [time - jdb] God created the
>>    heavens [space] and the earth [matter].  And the spirit of God moved 
>>    [force] upon the face of the waters [motion]."

> This is called looking to the text to find a way to force a theory
> which the text does not appear to support.

Perhaps, but all 5 are there.  You cannot dispute this fact.
 
> Note that the vacuum bottle, sea currents, star charts, etc were
> all known about to some degree by scholars in Roman days.

Yes, the Galilean fishermen who followed Jesus, the tax collector
Matthew, and the others probably read the scholarly journals quite
often.  Solomon and Job must have travelled through time then
travelled back.
  Either that or the truth was revealed to them by God...
 
>>9) The Bible's Undeniable Influence for Good - When taken in its purity
                                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Let's see. . .More people have been killed in the name of religion
> than for any other reason. The bibles and relgions have been used
> to kill, rape, steal, rob, plunder, ad nauseum. I question the
> word "undeniable".

You seem to have missed my first phrase.  "When taken in its purity". 
Catholicism does not take the Bible in its purity; they authorize the
pope to do what he sees best.  Denominations add to and take away from
it.
  If a pacifist were to kill someone to advance the cause of pacifism,
would that discredit pacifism as a whole?  No, it would just mean
either the "pacifist" had no idea of what pacifism means, or that he
had lost sight of the funadamentals of pacifism.
  Likewise, the Inquisition, the wars fought "in the name of God",
etc. hardly discredit the Bible.  They do discredit the people who
carried them out and the religion which supported it's claims to be of
the Bible, though.  The Bible condemns killing, even condemns hating. 
It says to turn the other cheek.  It condemns many things which have
been done "in its name".  So the fault is of those who wrongfully did
these things, for they had either lost sight of the Word or never
knew exactly what it said.

>>  These are the main reasons.  Next letter I'll examine creationism vs.
>>evolutionism - why if the supernaturalistic viewpoint is refused that
 
> Hoo boy.
> Dano

Book 'em.
-Jeff