oh yes, nw tat u mentioned...yes, i heard from preachers before tat the originals have alredi been lost...the earliest documents we have are those translated from the original scripts...so its like saying we lost the carbon copy but the earliest evidence we have is a fotostated copy of the original...i am certain i heard this....dead sea scrolls is juz 1 set of evidence...theres also this text called the mesoteric text if i am nt wrong...
despondent
Ok we have both agreed that most of us dont authenticate when we visit BUT that is because we know systems are in place for authentication and if need be, we can do the authentication easily.
Is there a system in place to authenticate the bible so we can trust the bible in a similar way? To authenticate
1. The miracles actually took place
2. The scriptures you have are the same as the originals
Ok 2. isnt possible.
How abt 1.?
same as 2...cos miracles are also recorded in the bible which was translated from those ''fotostated'' manuscripts like dead sea scrolls and mesoteric texts...
Originally posted by Tcmc:Ok 2. isnt possible.
How abt 1.?
Hahahahah, I think they don't have any answer for you la.
YOu go ask God to appear and let those miracles appear to you to make you believe.
i mean unless the ppl who lived 2000 yrs ago came back to earth to tell us they actually witnessed the miracles??? even then, there wil be ppl who wil qn if they really came back to eath from 2000yrs ago or are they fakes...then wad are they gonna ask? for their IC??? :)
despondent,
SO in fact belief in the bible is based on faith and not evidence?
if u receive a fotostated copy of a document...deo u believe uts evidence tat the carbon copy existed? if nt, where did the fotostated document come from?
No I don't believe. That is why companies will ask for the photostated and the originals when you apply for jobs/house/car etc.
we do need the originals as evidence. Otherwise it's just faith without evidence?
Would you accept a job applicant if he just produced photostated copies and not his originals?
Similarly i will not accept the bible if there are no originals, YET.
or if i record down our discussion today then somebody copied it manually n passed it around the world...then one day, sgforums shuts down completely or the recording i made today is lost, are u saying tat the ppl 100yrs later are believing the copied document of our discussion by faith and nt by evidence tat it was circulated and copied thru out the world???
despondent
Would you accept a job applicant if he just produced photostated copies and not his originals?
You reply me first and I will reply your question.
if nt, how did the fotostated copies come into existence without an original for them to be copied from?
i have seen companies tat do tat...i will nt name them for security purposes...
Originally posted by despondent:if nt, how did the fotostated copies come into existence without an original for them to be copied from?
Photostated copies can be faked, or forged without an original copy. I'm sure you know that.....
Back to my question - Would you accept a job applicant if he just produced photostated copies and not his originals?
Originally posted by despondent:i have seen companies tat do tat...i will nt name them for security purposes...
despondent
I will accept your answer as a "claim" and not fact since you don't source your claims.
n job applicant vs a book said to be thousand of yrs old...do u tink its as reasonable to expect the original of the bible to be ard after thousands of yrs compared to the originals of a job applicant's qualifications which is only a few decades old?
personally, i would cos i believe without original the fotocopy cun exist...
Originally posted by despondent:n job applicant vs a book said to be thousand of yrs old...do u tink its as reasonable to expect the original of the bible to be ard after thousands of yrs compared to the originals of a job applicant's qualifications which is only a few decades old?
Precisely the BIG SPAN OF TIME that we should be aware that the scriptures could have been changed by word of mouth or by writing.
It's 2000-3000 YEARS in between and anyone could have added or subtracted stuff in it.
Originally posted by despondent:personally, i would cos i believe without original the fotocopy cun exist...
despondent
So you're saying no one can forge/fake a photocopy without the original?
I can write an "original" and then photocopy it. Is that authentic then?
i wun use the word authentic for this cos authentic is only for the original...i would say its accurate cos its copied from original...my take on ''authentic'' is tat it refers only to original...
for the accuracy part, theologians have concluded tat the bible is accurate simply cos copies of the same manuscripts have appearedin diff timezone from diff translators who didnt noe each other and had no access to each other's transalations...lkike the dead sea scrolls and mesoteric texts came from diff parts of the world but they recorded the similar things...so the qn is wad are the chances tat there was a collaboration or plagiarism when back then there were no airplanes and getting from one place to ano6ther can take days or even months??? so are we going to ask if these copiers/translators actually knew each other and had everyone fooled? also, they spoke different languages, copied oin different languages...
its like this...there was an original...translations were made by man and circulated...then somewhere along the way, the originals are lost but the translations are alredi being circulated and this continued until today...its making copies BEFORE originals were lost...if they wrote their own originals then its hard to explain how come the ''originals'' from diff translators from diff countries, speaking diff languages and living in diff times can be similar in content and accounts...surely they must have come from a common source???
u are rite abt the possibility of writing an original and then making copies of it BUT the case here is wad are the chances tat someone else who dunno u, dunno ur language, from a diff country writes an original tat turns out similar to urs??? the only reasonable explanation is tat both of u had access to to the same original copy in a language both of u understood say maybe in english? but u wrote in chinese, he wrote in tamil for eg? to theologians, its less reasonable to believe tat both of u happened to by chance write the same information without any cross-referencing wif each other and without the same originals...
While reading this thread, I'm curious why there is skepticism over the historical origins of the Bible when there are supposedly 'historical events' with far less evidence to support it than the Bible.
Here's a most interesting article for your reading pleasure, but I've extracted the relevant parts for those who do not want to plough through the whole thing:
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/are-the-gospels-myth
Are the Gospels Myth?
January 11, 49 B.C. is one of the most famous dates in the history of ancient Rome, even of the ancient world. On that date Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River, committing himself and his followers to civil war. Few, if any, historians doubt that the event happened. On the other hand, numerous skeptics claim that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are myth and have no basis in historical fact. Yet, as historian Paul Merkley pointed out two decades ago in his article, "The Gospels as Historical Testimony," far less historical evidence exists for the crossing of the Rubicon than does for the events depicted in the Gospels:
There are no firsthand testimonies to Caesar’s having crossed the Rubicon (wherever it was). Caesar himself makes no mention in his memoirs of crossing any river. Four historians belonging to the next two or three generations do mention a Rubicon River, and claim that Caesar crossed it. They are: Velleius Paterculus (c.19 B.C.–c.A.D. 30); Plutarch (c.A.D. 46–120); Suetonius (75–160); and Appian (second century). All of these evidently depended on the one published eyewitness account, that of Asinius Pollio (76 B.C.–c. A.D. 4)—which account has disappeared without a trace. No manuscript copies for any of these secondary sources is to be found earlier than several hundred years after their composition. (The Evangelical Quarterly 58, 319-336)
Merkley observed that those skeptics who either scoff at the historical reliability of the Gospels or reject them outright as "myth" do so without much, if any, regard for the nature of history in general and the contents of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in particular.
The Historical Evidence
First, there is the sheer number of ancient copies of the New Testament. There are close to 5,700 full or partial Greek New Testament manuscripts in existence. Most of these date from between the second to 16th century, with the oldest, known as Papyrus 52 (which contains John 18), dating from around A.D. 100–150. By comparison, the average work by a classical author—such as Tacitus (c. A.D. 56–c. 120), Pliny the Younger (A.D. 61–113), Livy (59 B.C.–A.D. 17), and Thucydides (460–395 B.C.)—has about 20 extant manuscripts, the earliest copy usually several centuries newer than the original. For example, the earliest copy of works by the prominent Roman historian Suetonius (A.D. 75–130) date to A.D. 950—over 800 years after the original manuscripts had been written.
In addition to the thousands of Greek manuscripts, there are an additional 10,000 Latin manuscripts, and thousands of additional manuscripts in Syriac, Aramaic, and Coptic, for a total of about 24,000 full or partial manuscripts of the New Testament. And then there are the estimated one million quotes from the New Testament in the writings of the Church Fathers (A.D. 150–1300). Obviously, the more manuscripts that are available, the better scholars are able to assess accurately what the original manuscripts contained and to correct errors that may exist in various copies.
Secondly, historical details are found in the Gospels and the other books of the New Testament. These include numerous mentions of secular rulers and leaders (Caesar Augustus, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Felix, Archelaus, Agrippa, Gallio), as well as Jewish leaders (Caiaphas, Ananias)—the sort of names unlikely to be used inaccurately or even to show up in a "myth."
Then there are the specifically Jewish details, including references to and descriptions of festivals, religious traditions, farming and fishing equipment, buildings, trades, social structures, and religious hierarchies. As numerous books and articles have shown in recent decades, the beliefs and ideas found in the Gospels accurately reflect a first-century Jewish context. All of this is important in responding to the claim that the Gospels were written by authors who used Greek and Egyptian myths to create a supernatural man-god out of the faint outline of a lowly Jewish carpenter.
Various modern archeological discoveries have validated specific details found in the Gospels:
Numerous other finds continue to demolish the notion that the Gospels are mythologies filled with fictional names and events.
1. Oldest manuscripts found for OLD TESTAMENT --- dead sea scrolls dated 150BCE which are not the originals
2. Oldest manuscripts found for NEW TESTAMENT --- fragments from 150CE. Earliest New Testament FULL scriptures are dated only in 400CE, which is 400 years after jesus' supposed death.
Yes VERY OLD scriptures have been found, but still there are NO ORIGINALS. I can agree that the OT has remained GENERALLY unchanged for 2100 years and the NT has remained unchanged for 1600 years. But still the fact remains that between the time of the originals and the time of these oldest manuscripts, there could have been changes made.
I guess we'll never know FOR SURE if the bibles we have are the same as the original ones unless someday the originals are found. If we can nv be sure, then we must leave space for skepticism.
Next....
But does a book proves the existence of an invisible being at work?
Does it mean if a book remains unchanged for a long time, it is a work of an invisible deity?