Relevance of the Bible.

Who’s to say anything in it relates to anything factual about the existence of Jesus and God? Birth control is “wrong” because some old ass book says so? WTF? Thou shall not commit adultery? Why? That’s fine and all if you feel that it is morally wrong to do certain things, but it shouldn’t be wrong because the authors of the Bible say so.

Really now, how different is the story of the Bible compared to the story of Repunzel? How do I know that the Bible isn’t just some fictional character story?

Hypothetical: In 2030 AD, the human race is wiped out. In 5000 AD, the human race has once again evolved (I honestly do not know how long it would take for humans to evolve, but whatever). Fast forward - 8000 AD. Now, these new creatures that have evolved find some lyrics to Dr. Dre, Eminem, DMX, and… Uh… …Britney Spears? Are they likely to interpret their findings as “their gods” much like Christianity, the Quaran and Buddhism are today? Their religion would consist of Glocks, slappin’ bitches, and poor taste in Pop albums:eek:, and that’s how everything should be, because the Dre Bible says so. Far fetched, I know, but to a lot of people, so is the Bible.

Proof the Bible is true, there are things in the present that prove that the “storys” are true; The cave, hebrew scriptures, etc… Folks in 8000 AD could also find things too that relate to the above examples, right? Weaponry, Pictures, implants, etc…

Also, I know to not take the Bibley literally. But how am I so supposed to believe that the Bible is really a connection to some God and not some fairytale?

Thou shall let the strife lashing commence…:slight_smile:

Apparently you did not get the response you were hoping for. One thing I have found very helpful over the years is for you to actually read the Bible. Many preachers recommend you start with the Gospel of John. That’s the fourth book in the New Testament. There you will learn about Jesus, the one man who is also God. A man who died so that you can be pardoned from your sins. It’s not a very popular message these days, but when you die, and we all die, it will make an eternal difference to you.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31664

God bless.

:slight_smile:

Your argument assumes that the Bible is just “some old ass book,” which misses the point. Bible proponents believe it to be the divinely revealed Word of God. This is why they believe it carries more authority than just any old book.

Now, one might disagree on whether it is God’s Word or not, but the point remains… Its authority goes far beyong merely “because the authors of the Bible say so.”

The real question is why we should accept something merely because God says it’s so.

Or why we should accept something because Christians say God says it’s so.

Well, yes, but for the sake of argument I’m taking for granted the claim that the Bible is the Word of God.

OK, but also for the sake of argument, the OP asked:

It’s a valid question, and one which has not been sufficiently and\or successfully answered by Christians, IMHO.

There have been endless books and articles written regarding why Christians accept the Bible as God’s Word. Now, there are misguided laymen who accept it out of blind faith (just as many atheists blindly accept claims like “Religion is responsible for more deaths than anything else in history” or “There are no absolutes”). However, conservative Biblical scholars – including former skeptics who sought to disprove the historicity of the Bible – accept it for many reasons, most notably its historicity and fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.

A thorough discussion of these reasons – including arguments for and against – would easily encompass dozens of threads, and invariably leads to long, convoluted discussions. The point, however, is that this goes far beyond accepting these claims merely “because some old ass book says so.”

Oh, and about the existence of Jesus? You don’t have to believe the Bible to acknowledge that Jesus exists. In fact, the overwhelming majority of historians do accept that Jesus was a real, historical person, whether they believe he was the Messiah or not.

Ultimately, the only way to determine the validity of the Bible is to examine the world it purports to describe.

All truth is empirical.

JThunder: I believe you’re referring to the New Testament, as the Bible really can’t be said to fulfill Old Testament prophesy. The claim that the NT fulfills the claims of OT prophets is questionable – Judaic scholars often claim that the prophesies in question have been significantly misinterpreted, and the NT does go to great lengths to compare events to those prophesies.

Several parts of the NT contradict our historical understanding of the time, including:

  1. The census that required people to return to their places of birth.

  2. Herod’s slaughter of masses of young children.

  3. The supposed dimming of the sun and earthquakes that accompanied Christ’s death.

No, I’m referring to the Old Testament. Scholars who accept the validity of the N.T. typically do so because they believe it fulfills the prophecies in the O.T.

As for Judaic scholars believing that the prophecies were misinterpreted… well, what do you expect? There are Jews such as the Essenes (as recorded through the Dead Sea Scrolls) who believe that Jesus WAS the prophecied Messiah. The ones who don’t believe would naturally have to claim that the prophecies were misunderstood.

That’s irrelevant to the point I’m making, though. As I said earlier, I’m not addressing the validity of these prophecies, simply because that’s fodder for a few dozen separate threads. My point for now is that scholars who do accept the Bible’s validity do so because they believe that the New Testament directly fulfills the prophecies in the Old Testament – thereby affirming the validity of both.

Quibble: The claim is that Christ’s life, death, and resurrection fulfilled Old Testament prophesies, not that the NT did.

The argument you’re presenting is fallacious. If we accept the validity of the OT, this doesn’t prove that the NT is correct in any way. We can say only that the NT claims to describe the fulfillment of certain OT prophesies. If we accept the validity of the NT, we must accept certain parts of the OT by default, as the NT claims various events took place specifically so that parts of the OT would be fulfilled.

However, there’s little historical evidence to validate either the Torah or the Bible, and a great deal of evidence that either falsifies or at least calls into question large parts of both traditions.

Correct, but that’s not the claim which I’m making. Read it again. I’m explaining why many scholars accept BOTH testaments.

[sigh] That argument doesn’t make any sense.

Let me get this straight: the NT is valid because it claims to fulfill OT prophesy, and the OT is valid because its prophesies are fulfilled in the NT.

[blink][blink]

That’s a textbook example of circular reasoning if I ever saw one.

I think a person of science has to look at the bible as a story that is made by people. Anyway you rationalize it eventualy its just a story writen by people. God created the yearth in 7 days … common how can that possibly be coceivable there is not a shread of scientific validity to no such thing and many other things.

TVAA, c’mon, you really want to go into the validity of both the NT and the OT/Torah on a thread in a forum? My post would be 600 pages long.

However, that having been said, I’ll shorten it. When taking the Bible historacally as both a language scholar and a historian, you can find much truth in it, in the sense that it is, in some respects, as good a historical document as you’re likely to find.

For example, the book of Daniel claims to be written in 600 BC(And prophesying 400 years ahead.), which is obviously false, but the picture it paints of the second century BC provides some remarkable bit of historical validity. You can apply this sort of logic to any book in the entirity of the bible, including Genesis, which includes some Hebrew geneology and some raw facts about this and that.

The NT however is a portrait of a man, and an incomplete one at that, but with some regularity when the books are compared with each other and with other early Christian writings which were not canonized with the Bible.

There were witnesses to this particular man’s life, and we have records of each of them through those that knew them, although no direct record exists of itself today, those having been swallowed by the existing gospels, which combine a great deal of early Christian writings into a single source. But, that’s another 600 page book.

So, we take the smallest step of faith and look at one man’s life. Say we don’t know the man or the message at all. Unlike the story of Rapunzel, this story held so much significance for those who witnessed it that they felt compelled to travel across the known world to tell others. Without the promise of money, fame, love, or even respect, they risked their lives to retell it.

No one ever risked their life for Rapunzel. This message was powerful enough to die for. Even without the comparisons with history and the in depth look at each of the gospels and the greek and hebrew translations, inlcuding the non-canonized early Christian works, this is enough to elevate the bible above the status of simply an ‘old book’.

As much as I sometimes hate to say it, GOM is right. But it’s not just enough to read it, you have to read it in english(Or your native language), then read the original greek gospels and analyse the Hebrew of the old testament, comparing with one another to determine the level of validity you give each point. Without an in depth study of everything it contains and the world around it, it’s writers and it’s sources, you’ll never know how valid it is. What JThunder seems to be saying is that when you do this, you may find it’s more valid than you thought.

Oh, and yme, the Pope said that birth control was wrong. It’s a small point, but I’m not catholic so it does make a difference. The Pope says lots of things. :wink:

No, it isn’t. Circular reasoning is where you assume A to be true, and then use this premise to conclude that A must be true. That’s not the case here. The scholars aren’t starting with the assumption that the Old Testament is true. Rather, they look at the Old Testament prophecies, examine their fulfilmments in the New Testament (specfically, but not limited to, the life of Jesus), and from this, conclude that there must be something to the Old Testament prophecies after all.

It’s a bit like listening to two separate accounts of a crime. One might disbelieve one witness, or the other. However, if the two witnesses corroborate each other, then there is more reason to believe in their veracity. Many scholars believe that the New Testament contains fulfillment of O.T. prophecies. If the N.T. accounts were absent, then they might dismiss the Old Testament; however, if they become convinced that the New Testament fulfills the O.T. accounts, then they have reason to believe both to be true.

Let’s emphasize that again. This does not require starting with belief in the Old Testament’s validity. Rather, one can arrive at conclusions to both, based on their relationship to each other.

Instead of arguing about the NT vs. the OT vs. the No T, I think it is more interesting to consider whether the validity of the Bible be judged like the validity of any other historical document. We do not take the Iliad or the story of Gilgamesh at face value. We understand their context, and what they can teach us about the cultures producing them, and what hints they give us to encourage discovery (such as the discovery of Troy.)

Do the scholars who claim the NT is valid because of the fulfillment of prophecies work only within the confines of the Bible? Do they believe it is accurate through faith? Is there independent verification of the claims in the NT, or could the stories have been written to show the fulfillment of the prophecies? Whether JThunder’s argument is circular or not, it is definitely an appeal to authority.

And what’s wrong with appealing to authority? Proponents of logic do it all the time. (Moreover, I’m talking about evidence, not authority per se.)

People like yell “You’re appealing to authority!” as though that was inherently fallacious. It is not. Logical people routinely cite textbooks, scholars and experts in a given field, precisely because their word does carry authority.

Now, is there independent verificaition of every single claim and event in the New Testament? Certainly not, and no rational historian would demand such an exacting standard. There has been enough corroboration to convince hardened (skeptics such as Sir William Ramsay of its historicity though, once they actually examined the evidence. Once again, scores of books have been written on this matter, far too much to cover in this thread alone.

As for the question “Could the stories have been written to show the fulfillment of the prophecies?”, what exactly do you mean by that? What kind of a standard of proof are you requiring here, and how does it compare to the usual standards of historical proof?

Cite?

Well, I’m not all that religious (basically a lapsed ELCA Lutheran, if such a thing is possible.) However, I believe the Fundies are wrong, especially when they push for draconian measures based on the Old Testament. If they’d actually bother to read, they’d understand that there are only two commandments and all the rest mean squat other than the fact that they are generally good wisdom. I mean things like most of the Ten Commandments, for example, and not dietary and social laws for an old agricultural/semi-nomadic people.

More importantly, the Bible is a great source of history, wisdom, myth, poetry, and so on. It has the same relevance as the Koran, or the Sutras, or anything else that lasts that humanity has come up with. As other people have said, there’s too much to go into here. I really suggest trying to take a couple classes, find a decent Bible study, read a book, or something else if you really want an answer.