Posted by Illuminati on 4/24/2005, 6:12 am Western scholars have spent considerable time researching the history of the Bible manuscripts since this is the basis for Christianity which in turn is the moral basis for Western civilization. As Frederic Kenyon so ably presented in this site: http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/kenyon/storyofbible/2cktc.htm From the fundamentalist perspective the "contradictions" in the Bible invalidate it. From the perspective of those whose interest is to understand the message originally presented they are good news since they show how carefully the early church preserved the eyewitness accounts even when they seemed to conflict. People who study eyewitness accounts will quickly discover that this type of conflict is completely natural since people's memories of an event will differ depending upon where they were when it happened and how they interpreted it at the time. That some people deny a historical event even when it is well documented is not at all unusual especially one as important as the life and teachings of Jesus. This is well demonstrated with recent historical events shown to the entire world in pictures or on television. For instance many Muslims have denied Osama Ben Laddin had anything to do with the terrorist attacks on the twin towers even though he has said he did it and instead they blame it on the Jews. This doesn't prevent Muslims around the world from celebrating the event and elevating Osama to cult status for whatever he has actually done. Neonazis often deny the holacaust actually happened and claim the Jews made it up just to garner sympathy and support for their Zionist plot to dominate the entire world. They don't deny the Jews deserved to be severely delt with but since some survived they find denial to their advantage while for them the ultimate solution is still in the future. The point is that for those on the extreme who wish not to believe no amount of evidence will persuade them and for those who wish to believe no amount of evidence will disuade them. To me it seems that for those who want to know the truth, the best approach is to examine the evidence objectively and to decide upon that basis whether an event is true or not. Finally the presuppostions we take into a study often dictate the outcome before we even examine the evidence. If someone believes in enough miracles they can make almost any point of view tenable. Their thinking resembles a plot from the twilight zone in which anything can happen and there are no natural laws or anything upon which to base reality. For instance, how do we know the world wasn't created 5 minutes ago and we just think we have lived the life we remember? On the other hand those who don't believe in miracles at all will apriori reject the factual content in the Bible even though the possibility of divine intervention in the world is exactly the question the Bible was written to address. The most natural approach to me is to address the Bible as we would any other literature and evaluate it's historical accuracy as we would any other historical work while carefully avoiding any prejudgment regarding the actually validity of it's message. After the historical accuracy of the Bible is established one can then address the teachings and content to see if they make sense. In other words do the events described actually lead one to the conclusion Christians have reached or not. How do the teachings play out in the real world when they are put into practice. These are questions to be addressed in future posts.
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Since there has been much talk about "contradictions" in the Bible and questions about it's validity, I will share my own perspective on this subject. I do not consider myself a fundamentalist and will not try to defend a position I really don't hold or understand well. It is my understanding the Bible authors usually didn't claim to be dictated by God but shared their understanding of a message they believed had come from God. They generally used their own words and expressed the ideas according to the cosmology and "scientific" understanding of their day. I do not read the Bible to discover scientific miracles since that was not the purpose for which it was given.
there has been extensive study of the ancient manuscripts to see how accurately the Bible has been transmitted. From the Islamist's point of view any errors are bad since they believe in verbal inspiration and they present them as proof of the unreliability of the Bible, but from the standpoint of those who wish to understand the message in the Bible and form doctrinal opinions from it the news is very good indeed. The most ancient manuscripts contain the same stories and the same doctrinal teachings as those from a thousand years later.
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