Do you have a religion?

[Garland]

Tom yum...in response to your question...none. God is DIVINE...therefore he is incapable of making mistakes...if there were any miscommunication, it was on the human side...and there are no mistakes in the bible, because it is the DIVINE word of God.

...
although, Catholics are a bit like Jews.
Sometimes they pick what parts of their scriptures to pay attention to and what to ignore. I.e. think of some lace-curtain hard-core Irish catholics and Italian catholics as being the "hasidic" catholics...

ie. some catholics teach believe that...and this can even be priests that have differing opinions within the church...the Adam and Eve story is a fable about sexuality. Which, in my mind makes sense...and can even be linked to pagan oral traditions.

So...HA!

[DimMak]

Just did a quick search and came up with this version (Catholic). It states the Bible was inspired by God and guided by the Holy Spirit...although that will differ from other religion accounts of how it was created or written due to the fact that not all religion recognizes the Holy Spirit. Interesting...I knew there were differing accounts of the Bible's writings from various religions...I did not know how the Bible was written or created would be in dispute by the various religions


How Was the Bible Written and Created?

by Jon Jakoblich

The Bible took thousands of years to write and was written by many, many authors. Even certain books were not written by the same author (the Book of Isaiah has three different authors!).

The Bible is the written account of the human experience with God. Many parts of the Bible are oral tradition that was written down. Most people were illiterate and relied much more on their memories to pass on traditions and stories. Oral tradition was the norm long before writing and reading was popular.

Contrary to popular belief the Bible was not written by God whispering into the ears of the human authors to write what he wanted written, but rather the Scriptures are inspired by God. The Holy Spirit guided the authors to be moved in such a way that their writings were of God.

Just as we participate in God's ongoing creation (procreation) we also had a part in creating the Scriptures. God and his people have always worked side by side (Mary to bear Jesus, we create human life, the Scriptures, the prophets brought the message of God to Israel). The message that God wants conveyed is contained in the Scriptures, but the way it is conveyed was left up to the specific authors.

The Bible was given to us by the Holy Spirit as discerned by the early bishops of the Catholic Church. There was no Bible for the first 350 years of Christianity. The first official list of Scriptures was done in 393 at the Council of Hippo, then again in Carthage in 397 and 419. The Church did not infallibly define these books until the Council of Trent, when it was called into question by the Reformers, in 1556.

Partial criteria for determining the canon is as follows:

* special relation to God, i.e., inspiration;
* apostolic origin;
* used in Church services, i.e., used by the community of believers guided by the Holy Spirit.

There were two different forms of the ancient Scriptures in use, the Septuagint and the Masoretic texts. The Septuagint has its influence from the Greek Jews in the Diaspora (outside Israel) whereas the Masoretic text was used by the Jews still in Jerusalem.

The Church has always used the Septuagint as its base for the Old Testament. The Septuagint has a few more books than the later established Masoretic texts. In fact, the Masoretic canon was set by the Jews after the Christians accepted the Septuagint version as their Scripture. This makes sense considering the non-messianic Jews were not too crazy about Jesus so why would they accept the same books as the Christians?

Catholic Bibles do not have extra books, non-Catholic Bibles are missing books.

[DimMak]

However...
This is a pretty interesting topic on its own. There are a few different ways to approach this question, from the point of view of a hard-core Catholic, from a more laid back christian approach (untiarian...i.e. communist, I kid I kid, I luv you guys, or Episcipalion, God I know I spelled that wrong) view...or from the view of an agnostic or atheist.

1) hard-core catholic; the bible was written via divine intervention...God directed the evangelists in what they must write...but a few different catch 22's...mankind is fallable, the divine is not...but the bible is the living word of god....so, therefore IT is divine.

2) less fundamentalist christian faith; the bible is a guide book from God to help us live our lives in a way befitting a child of Christ...however, not everything in it should be taken completely seriously, or at face value.

3) atheist, agnostic, or non-christian faiths: can look upon the bible for fables and stories that can be useful insipiration in their own paths toward spirituality, or just in daily life, even though the bible may not be in any way divine, instead written by human hands from older oral traditions that probably changed everytime that they were heard.

Now if you would like to talk new testament scripture...lets talk about the differences between the gnostic gospels (Mathew, Mark, and Luke) versus John...this would greatly help me illustrate the point for people's point of view in #3...although it is one of many contradictions/contraindications present within the bible.

Nice breakdown...so it appears the Catholic religion is the only one claiming the Bible to be infallible

[Garland]

If your going to bring up Trent...might as well bring up crazy ass Thomas Aquaintus. Summa Theologica...less crazy than some of his other works...
but that closed minded, medeival shit is what led eventually to the Crusades and later the Inquisition, and helped provide the "reason" for who knows how many counts of genocide and imperiallism.

Until shit got changed around with the Vatican II.

Vatican II...back with a vengence...hells yeah.

[Garland]

Nice breakdown...so it appears the Catholic religion is the only one claiming the Bible to be infallible

nope...unfortunately there are many fundamentalist assholes out there.
Some don't even take to their own ammended and adulterated forms of the bible...i.e. some baptists, some protestants, especially Calvinists, and...the bane of my existence, mormons...(which are more of a much too powerful cult than anything else.)

[Tom Yum]

Nice breakdown...so it appears the Catholic religion is the only one claiming the Bible to be infallible

You mean Catholic denomination. I would say Babtists also believe that the Bible is infallible.

Other denominations believe that the Bible is literal when possible and symbolic otherwise. For example, God is depicted as having a sword coming from his mouth which IMO is symbolism. However, this is merely a matter of interpretation and not a claim against validity.

Anyone read the "Case for Faith"?

[osopardo]

Zach...Try Amyl Nitrate,...

LOL - Had this custodian where I used to work almost cause hisself permanent damage when he huffed some ammonia inhalants he found in the emrgency first aid kit, thinking they was amys. BWAhahahah!!!!

[osopardo]

...the Adam and Eve story is a fable about sexuality...linked to oral traditions. So...HA!

huh?



say whut?

[Tom Yum]

huh?



say whut?

He's inferring this from Eve being tempted to eat the apple, eating perhaps being tied to some kind of "oral tradition"....I dunno.

[osopardo]

sounds like he's makin some kinda sexual innyiendo 'bout Adam and Eve having oral sex. Thass blasphemy! Blasphemy, I tell yuh!

[Garland]

Actually...think more about the role of the snake...

[Hikage]

There are a few errors contained in this document, but it is otherwise reliable and anything I do not remark on here you can consider accurate.

The Bible was given to us by the Holy Spirit as discerned by the early bishops of the Catholic Church. There was no Bible for the first 350 years of Christianity. The first official list of Scriptures was done in 393 at the Council of Hippo, then again in Carthage in 397 and 419. The Church did not infallibly define these books until the Council of Trent, when it was called into question by the Reformers, in 1556.

In fact the Catholic Church did not exist at this time. It did not split from the Orthodox church until I believe 1100, someone check me on that date. So to say that the Catholics wrote the Bible is inaccurate. They are an offshoot of those who wrote the Bible.

Catholic Bibles do not have extra books, non-Catholic Bibles are missing books.

Again, not true. After they split from the Orthodox line, which by the way is unbroken straight to Peter, they added some books in to uphold their thoughts. It is referred to as the Apocrypha.

-Hikage

[HtTKar]

yeah, it wasnt the apple in the tree...it was the "pear" on the ground.


There are also a lot of different versions of the bible. So anyone that thinks it is infallable has not read all the versions, or all the stories.

For example; King James version of the bible is the most common. This was written by shakespear to make it more readable. Let me say that England in 1610 (the year the revisions were taking place) might not have held the highest standards when it came to treating others fairly. At this time England was definitely controlling the world with physical force and I can say that they were not role models by todays standards. Selling slaves, raping wives of the scottish and Irish, ethnic cleansing, etc. How could one beleive everything that was written by someone looking at the world through that perspective? Also there are a lot of stories that were not permitted to enter the King James bible, just because King James and his committe said so.

You should read the New Oxford edition for study, but also read other books, as many of them share stuff in common, but none of them are going to contain the full truth. After all, who knows what the full truth is anyway. Its a collaboration of it all. Its not individual storys that are the truth in any book of religion, its the whole story.

[EmptyneSs]

http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm

[Hikage]

Are you agreeing or disagreeing with what I was saying?

-Hikage