Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Atheist Penelope
tragic_pizza:
--- Quote from: JonSnow on 04 Jan 2009, 04:07 ---
--- Quote from: Surgoshan on 03 Jan 2009, 21:25 ---
--- Quote from: tragic_pizza on 03 Jan 2009, 21:15 ---OK, so what is the argument here? Or did you not know about the translations which have been made, not from the Latin or form the KJV's Textus Recepticus, but from the many manuscripts available?
--- End quote ---
... um... I'm pretty sure the argument is that many manuscripts were/are available.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: tragic_pizza on 03 Jan 2009, 22:22 ---OK. This is bad in exactly what way?
--- End quote ---
Because of the plethora of manuscripts, and all of them different on multiple instances doubt is shed on the events described in the manuscripts. You're saying we find errors by looking at the other manuscripts that are available. A manuscript with a copying error was also copied, taking the errors along and adding more errors every time it was copied. The possbility of there being more faulty manuscripts then correct one is greater. So the errors they removed might actually not be errors.
--- End quote ---
This is why manuscripts are colleted into "families": groups of manuscriptmcopies with similar features. For example, iirc there is a family where the phrase "the mote in your brothers eye" is "the fruit in your brother's eye." That's a rather obvious copying error, and since the overwhelming majority of manuscripts (many dated earlier than these) say "mote," we can with confidence correct when translating.
As a general rule, the more difficult reading of any passage is most likely to be the correct one. The oldest one is most likely to be the correct one.
You know, it's interesting that you cite the Brother's Grimm. I challenge you to find out how many manuscripts exist for the Grimm tales, and the dating of those manuscripts, and compare that number to the number of manuscripts, and the dating of the manuscripts, for Christian Scripture.
Puki:
Aaaargh.
Too. Many. Letters. On. The. Page.
Like it.
Hmm...browsing through this topic, just a few thoughts:
Bible was written 2000 years ago, so of course it shouldn't be taken literally. I mean - long time after that people were burning on stakes (or whatever) for saying that the earth is round.
Jesus (as described in Bible) was pretty cool dude, saying "nonsense" like "We should all be nicer to each other" and "We should generally be, like, good", so, where's the fault in doing what he told, and letting the people who are bored to theorise? Stuff like burning bush (heh, I'm not quite sure if that's the correct term, so - I mean that scene on the mountain with Moses), building-the-world-in-seven-days story and feeding hundreds of people with almost no fish and bread are less important. The point is presenting the message that the book displays , right? (which is - don't be arseholes (quote form someone))
I mean, don't get me wrong, discuss away, but the man themes that people fight about are politics, religion and music. I don't like when fights go bad (and, in few years, will have a postcount which will make peoples take my posts seriously).
JonSnow:
--- Quote from: tragic_pizza on 04 Jan 2009, 16:53 ---
As a general rule, the more difficult reading of any passage is most likely to be the correct one. The oldest one is most likely to be the correct one.
You know, it's interesting that you cite the Brother's Grimm. I challenge you to find out how many manuscripts exist for the Grimm tales, and the dating of those manuscripts, and compare that number to the number of manuscripts, and the dating of the manuscripts, for Christian Scripture.
--- End quote ---
the more difficult reading of a passage. Translate this too the less understandable it is for the common man...
and why would I need to look up the number of manuscripts? The brothers Grimm's fairytales were edited and re-edited due to CENSORSHIP, and this over a small period of time even.
The Church was pretty quick to censor during the times the Biblical Canon was finalized. As stated somewhere before in this topic one of the rules for being accepted in the Canon was, the gospel has to agree with what we are saying (We being the heads of the church at the time), this is a biased rule, cause everything that doesnt agree with your opinion is concidered wrong, even if it was written by a more believable source.
but just to please you, here's a small history of the brothers grimm's fairytales.
--- Quote ---In 1812, the Brothers published a collection of 86 German fairy tales in a volume titled Kinder- und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales"). They published a second volume of 70 fairy tales in 1814 ("1815" on the title page), which together make up the first edition of the collection, containing 156 stories.
They wrote a two volume work titled Deutsche Sagen which included 585 German legends which were published in 1816 and 1818. The legends are told in chronological order of which historical events they were related. Then they arranged the regional legends thematically for each folktale creature like dwarfs, giants, monsters, etc. not in any historical order. These legends were not as popular as the fairytales.
A second edition, of the Kinder- und Hausmärchen, followed in 1819-22, expanded to 170 tales. Five more editions were issued during the Grimms' lifetimes, in which stories were added or subtracted, until the seventh edition of 1857 contained 211 tales. Many of the changes were made in light of unfavorable reviews, particularly those that objected that not all the tales were suitable for children, despite the title. They were also criticized for being insufficiently German; this not only affected the tales they included, but their language as they changed "Fee" (fairy) to an enchantress or wise woman, every prince to a king's son, every princess to a king's daughter. (It has long been recognized that some of these later-added stories were derived from printed rather than oral sources.)
--- End quote ---
you see how censorship can change a work of literature that was purely meant as research on folk tales?
how heavily susceptible would the Bible, a book that presents your point of view (if you're the church at the time) completely? Quite a lot more, even a 5year old could make that logical deduction. This censorship is proven by the leaving out of gospels.
Add error of copying (did you copy your picture over and over again already? just copy it and copy the copy... until you do it 10 times, and look at the picture and the final copy) to this censorship and the validity of the bible, beyond anything than a lesson in morals, is lost forever.
jtheory:
--- Quote from: tragic_pizza on 04 Jan 2009, 16:53 ---I challenge you to find out how many manuscripts exist for the Grimm tales, and the dating of those manuscripts, and compare that number to the number of manuscripts, and the dating of the manuscripts, for Christian Scripture.
--- End quote ---
Why is it all so important? Would you believe the authors themselves if they were standing in front of you, 40 years after Jesus' death (or just long enough that any possible physical evidence of miracles was long gone)?
This seems like a very relevant question, though interestingly I don't think I'd thought of it in these terms before this conversation (nifty).
--- Quote from: AngelofShadows on 04 Jan 2009, 10:30 ---is hoping something exists the same as believing? I hope that there is some sort of afterlife, a higher power above all this who does have some notion of a plan that we can't fathom. Otherwise, our existence is nothing but a long string of coincidences and accidents, and when it's done, it's done. Game over, out of quarters, and your mom is too bitchy to give you more to keep going, even though you were at the last fucking level, and you had it beat.
That's kinda depressing to think about. So I hope that when my life here is over, there is something beyond, some next chapter of a journey I didn't know I was apart of until I was was already too far in.
--- End quote ---
I've never found it depressing, though I've now had a long time to get comfortable with the idea -- I actually get energy from the idea that this world is what we make of it, and that there *is* no correct God-given answer to any question. We have to make a lot of decisions without knowing the outcomes, and the awareness that "this what I know... the best I can do is to decide based on this, then hope it works out" is very freeing. I've seen a lot of people thrashing around, desperately looking for a sign from God... if you know it's not coming, you can move forward and be comfortable in the knowledge that you're doing what you can.
Death also is pretty unintimidating, outside of the natural fear of pain. I have some things I'd like to get done before then, but I'm comfortable at least that when it comes, I'll be "done" no matter what, and will have no regrets ('cause... I'll be dead). I think more about the effects my death would have on my wife, family, etc. when I avoid risks (well, that and I would prefer to avoid crippling injuries...).
I can really give myself a shiver, star-gazing -- we're so small and fragile and alone, it's mind-boggling -- but I like the feeling. I actually live out in the countryside where I can see a whole lot of stars on cold winter nights; it's awesome (in the old sense of the word). It's also a perverse comfort to know that the world has no guiding intellect behind it. I am reassured by the knowledge that suffering is not a message or a warning -- it's shit that happens, a very nasty result of complex systems that we can comprehend and work to alter ...and we might be able to avoid a lot of it in the future. When people do bad things to each other, I don't get tangled up in concepts of original sin, Heaven/Hell, or what hints might be found in the Bible to fight evil. Instead I learn about human psychology, impulse control, trauma reactions, studies on effectiveness of different approaches to law enforcement, rehabilitation, imprisonment, social stigma, etc. etc. -- I want to understand the system, know what works, and at what cost. We are the only ones here to manage our behavior. Etc.. I could go on, but I'm overall pretty happy with my worldview.
--- Quote from: Puki on 04 Jan 2009, 17:38 ---The point is presenting the message that the book displays, right? (which is - don't be arseholes (quote form someone))
--- End quote ---
I'd be happy if that were the core of Christianity -- people could have weekly meetings to talk philosophy and organize community service, and skip all of the rituals, priests, theology, so on and so forth. Unfortunately, it does seem like the theology is pretty primary and unavoidable.
@Jon Snow: why is it important to sort out the reliability of the copies of the Bible? I'd say just let the topic drop unless it's actually important. If you're interested in the philosophy, it doesn't matter who said it -- either the ideas stand on their own, or they don't. If anyone believes that a reliable copy is some kind of proof of miracles performed and Godhood, they're barking up the wrong tree anyway, even if the copies are good. This goes back to what I've been trying to ask tragic_pizza about.
tragic_pizza:
--- Quote from: JonSnow on 04 Jan 2009, 18:10 ---the more difficult reading of a passage. Translate this too the less understandable it is for the common man...
and why would I need to look up the number of manuscripts? The brothers Grimm's fairytales were edited and re-edited due to CENSORSHIP, and this over a small period of time even.
The Church was pretty quick to censor during the times the Biblical Canon was finalized. As stated somewhere before in this topic one of the rules for being accepted in the Canon was, the gospel has to agree with what we are saying (We being the heads of the church at the time), this is a biased rule, cause everything that doesnt agree with your opinion is concidered wrong, even if it was written by a more believable source.
but just to please you, here's a small history of the brothers grimm's fairytales.
--- Quote ---In 1812, the Brothers published a collection of 86 German fairy tales in a volume titled Kinder- und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales"). They published a second volume of 70 fairy tales in 1814 ("1815" on the title page), which together make up the first edition of the collection, containing 156 stories.
They wrote a two volume work titled Deutsche Sagen which included 585 German legends which were published in 1816 and 1818. The legends are told in chronological order of which historical events they were related. Then they arranged the regional legends thematically for each folktale creature like dwarfs, giants, monsters, etc. not in any historical order. These legends were not as popular as the fairytales.
A second edition, of the Kinder- und Hausmärchen, followed in 1819-22, expanded to 170 tales. Five more editions were issued during the Grimms' lifetimes, in which stories were added or subtracted, until the seventh edition of 1857 contained 211 tales. Many of the changes were made in light of unfavorable reviews, particularly those that objected that not all the tales were suitable for children, despite the title. They were also criticized for being insufficiently German; this not only affected the tales they included, but their language as they changed "Fee" (fairy) to an enchantress or wise woman, every prince to a king's son, every princess to a king's daughter. (It has long been recognized that some of these later-added stories were derived from printed rather than oral sources.)
--- End quote ---
you see how censorship can change a work of literature that was purely meant as research on folk tales?
how heavily susceptible would the Bible, a book that presents your point of view (if you're the church at the time) completely? Quite a lot more, even a 5year old could make that logical deduction. This censorship is proven by the leaving out of gospels.
Add error of copying (did you copy your picture over and over again already? just copy it and copy the copy... until you do it 10 times, and look at the picture and the final copy) to this censorship and the validity of the bible, beyond anything than a lesson in morals, is lost forever.
--- End quote ---
We've been over this now several times, but here we go again.
The criteria for canonical inclusion:
Apostolic Origin - attributed to and/or based on the preaching/teaching of the first-generation apostles (or their closest companions).
Universal Acceptance - acknowledged by all major Christian communities in the Mediterranean world (by the end of the fourth century).
Liturgical Use - read publicly along with the OT when early Christians gathered for the Lord's Supper (their weekly worship services).
Consistent Message - containing theological ideas compatible with other accepted Christian writings (incl. the divinity and humanity Jesus).
The "gospels" you keep harping about fail miserably in at least three of the four citeria.
Further,
--- Quote ---The oldest clear endorsement of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John being the only legitimate gospels was written c. 180 AD It was a claim made by Bishop Irenaeus in his polemic Against the Heresies, for example III.XI.8: "It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the “pillar and ground” of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh."
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Eusebius, c. 300, gave a detailed list of New Testament writings in his Ecclesiastical History Book 3, Chapter XXV:
"1... First then must be put the holy quaternion of the Gospels; following them the Acts of the Apostles... the epistles of Paul... the epistle of John... the epistle of Peter... After them is to be placed, if it really seem proper, the Apocalypse of John, concerning which we shall give the different opinions at the proper time. These then belong among the accepted writings."
"3 Among the disputed writings [Antilegomena], which are nevertheless recognized by many, are extant the so-called epistle of James and that of Jude, also the second epistle of Peter, and those that are called the second and third of John, whether they belong to the evangelist or to another person of the same name. Among the rejected [Kirsopp Lake translation: "not genuine"] writings must be reckoned also the Acts of Paul, and the so-called Shepherd, and the Apocalypse of Peter, and in addition to these the extant epistle of Barnabas, and the so-called Teachings of the Apostles; and besides, as I said, the Apocalypse of John, if it seem proper, which some, as I said, reject, but which others class with the accepted books. And among these some have placed also the Gospel according to the Hebrews... And all these may be reckoned among the disputed books."
"6... such books as the Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, of Matthias, or of any others besides them, and the Acts of Andrew and John and the other apostles... they clearly show themselves to be the fictions of heretics. Wherefore they are not to be placed even among the rejected writings, but are all of them to be cast aside as absurd and impious."
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: jtheory on 04 Jan 2009, 18:17 ---
--- Quote from: tragic_pizza on 04 Jan 2009, 16:53 ---I challenge you to find out how many manuscripts exist for the Grimm tales, and the dating of those manuscripts, and compare that number to the number of manuscripts, and the dating of the manuscripts, for Christian Scripture.
--- End quote ---
Why is it all so important? Would you believe the authors themselves if they were standing in front of you, 40 years after Jesus' death (or just long enough that any possible physical evidence of miracles was long gone)?
--- End quote ---
You mean, if they hadn't been talking about, living out, relating and being punished for those things they told me about during those forty years? Probably not. But this is nto the case with the Gospels.
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