In my last post, discussion turned to the question of whether or not we need God. One of my regular contributors, William, posted the following comment, and I felt it deserved its own post:
I am just having problems understanding whether humans “need” a god.
Do humans “need” a father? it may be beneficial if it’s a good father, but we can see many who get along fine who have not had a father, so “need” is the wrong term.
And what if that father is never around, left before you were born, and only left a letter to you explaining (not always in the easiest or most direct of terms) how he expects you to behave and promises that he’ll take care of you and promises to severely punish you for disobedience or for leaving him?
is that a good father? is that a father we need? isn’t it laughable that such a father could even begin to threaten the child for “leaving him” (since the father clearly left the child) not to mention how absurd it is to think that such a father actually does anything to really take care of the child?
I’m having a hard time understanding how we’re ingrained to “need” such a father, or why we’d even call such a father good?
Finding Truth 
Hi kcchief1, then it seems I have no charge to answer!! Everybody’s happy! 🙂 But if you think I understate errors, all you have to do is offer the evidence I ask for. And you haven’t done so.
My reading indicates that it was written mainly to provide a chronology for the 4 gospels, which are not written in strict chronological order. The only “error” I’m aware he harmonised is the chronology – this statement based on the fact that “Only 56 verses in the canonical Gospels do not have a counterpart in the Diatessaron, mostly the genealogies and the Pericope Adulterae.” (Wikipedia). If the verses remain, the errors cannot have been removed. So in this discussion, we still only have the genealogies as ‘errors”.
Do you mean you rely on disreputable sources? 🙂 I honestly don’t know what you mean here. Textual study of the NT is in a very good position because we have so many copies to compare. But in more than a million pages of copies, there are about 400,000 textual variants, less than one every two pages. Since the majority of variants are simple and obvious copying errors, the number of possible redactions is very low.
So I suppose you will say I have again “trivialised” your points – but I have simply written what I understand are the facts, and those facts negate your points – at least until and if you offer examples to discuss. I can only discuss what you mention.
Thanks and best wishes.
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Sorry, “chronology” in “harmonised is the chronology” in my second paragraph should have been “genealogy”.
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You always say you don’t know what I mean. I think I have been quite clear. I’ve had this conversation with other Christian Apologists . It always ends the same way. Let’s agree to disagree and be done with it.
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I’m OK with that, but you need to know that my question was genuine. I looked up “Redactors Pens” and “Redactors Pens and Church History” on Google, and I got nothing sensible. So I guessed you might be talking about changes in the text since they were written down, and I gave some facts on that, suggesting that your veiled inference wasn’t based on facts. If I was wrong, you can always show me, and everyone else reading this. But I think I was right (obviously!) and I don’t think you have any “killer” examples to back up what you said. But I guess we will never know. I’m genuinely sorry it has come to this, for I dislike polarisation, but the ball’s in your court. Best wishes.
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unkleE, there are hundreds of sites on the Internet when you Google , “redactors in the bible” . When I referred to the Redactor’s Pen in my post to Nate, I obviously was referring to the Bible. If you Googled, “redactors pen” I doubt that you did find anything credible. Here is a description from one of the first sites I “Googled”
“The redaction of the New Testament was a politically and theologically charged affair that began in the fourth century in a series of synods, most notably the Synod of Hippo in 393 C.E. The churchmen — at this point, they were all men — met to choose the canon some 350 years after the death of Jesus in what had by then become the imperial church of the Roman Empire. They selected the texts to be included, and they resolved discrepancies between different copies of the same text, remembering that these manuscripts were all hand-copied over many generations. The result thereof, an anthology touched and transformed at many stages by the hands of poets, philosophers, partisans, and politics, is now immortalized, widely translated and mass-produced. ”
What we are reading today is a result of what they did. We are not reading original manuscripts of the orignal authors (whoever they might be). We are reading copies of copies of copies which have been redacted. I know you can find Chrstian Apologist websites who will say these redactions were only to harmonize scripture but never changed its original meaning. This is what people will be arguing over until the end of time.
When I mentioned the Church in the same post I wrote to Nate, it was about the fact that historically the Church quite often banned the possession of a Bible by a commoner . Why did they do this ? They wanted to retain their power over them. When they were finally able to read the Bible, that’s when questions started being directed to the Church about is validity. This fairly recent period is referred to the Enlightenment Period. Here is a link to a site which provides this history and notates its sources.
I have repeatedly said I am a former Christian and still remain a Deist. Although only an amateur, I have spent much time reading the Bible and Books on the History of the Bible and the History of Christianity. I know I can’t win arguements with Christian Apologists because they are not open to reason. All I try to do is get them to think outside their beleif system whether they admit it or not. My question to them is simply this. If Christianity is the only one and true religion why has their history been stained by the blood of those who refused to accept or believe? The Crusades, the various Inquisitions, the Dark Ages, etc. Countless thousands of non-believers were given the choice to accept Christianity or Die. Many of them died. Religion by force is not something my God would endorse.
Thank you for your time. I hope I have cleared some things up. For some reason this site is not letting me post this. I hope it goes through this time.
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It’s been a long day. Please accept my apology for not spellchecking my work.
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I also realized this site wouldn’t let me list the link to the Church History I mentioned above. Just google, “A TIME WHEN THE BIBLE WAS BANNED
AND BURNED” and you will find it.
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unkeE, I was reading an article from a Christian writer, Steve Douglas about redactors in the Bible. I found his closing thoughts interesting, “I’m afraid that this contention that the ancients could live with more tension and uncertainty about historical details than we nowadays prefer will not make enough inroads among modern Christians who have swallowed modernism hook, line, and sinker. They have vilified post-modernism so much that they won’t recognize in it the cure for the disease they are trying through desperate apologetics to overcome: no, we don’t have all the facts, can’t look at everything as objectively as we’d like, undoubtedly get even key points of our theology wrong, and our sources of knowledge are likely screwed up even in important areas — but that’s ok. We live with the tension by making the best we can of what is available to us, and as Christians, we trust God with the rest.” I suppose if one is going to remain a Christian, this would be the attitude to have. I think if the word “Christians” was replaced with “Deist” in the last sentence, it could pertain to me too ! 🙂
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kcchief1, thanks for that clarification. Let me see if I can summarise what you have said, putting things in chronological order, and then comment.
1. “We are not reading original manuscripts of the orignal authors (whoever they might be). We are reading copies of copies of copies which have been redacted.”
Yes, we only have copies of copies, but we have many thousands of copies of copies, so we can test how accurate the copies have been, and the answer is – amazingly accurate. Less than one variant every two pages, and almost all of them obvious and don’t change the meaning. At most about a dozen passages have anything significant, and most of these have been sorted out in modern translations of the Bible. So if any redaction occurred, it must have been very early, before any copies were made, and/or very minor.
2. <i”The redaction of the New Testament was a politically and theologically charged affair that began in the fourth century ….. They selected the texts to be included, and they resolved discrepancies between different copies of the same text”
The earliest complete copy we have of the New testament, the Codex Sinaiticus. was written about 340 CE. But complete, or almost complete, copies of most individual books date earlier – for example, most gospels have almost complete texts dating from 200-250 CE.
The first church council was in 325 CE, long after we have copies of most books. So when did this redaction take place? It had to be very early to satisfy the evidence in my answers to Q1 & Q2, which makes it indistinguishable from the actual writing and editing.
I think the only sensible claim that can be made is that the early church councils selected which books should be included, and clearly there could be significant doubts about a few. But not about the gospels, which most scholars agree (with only a small minority disagreeing) that the four we have are by far the earliest and best attested. The only dissent from that is Thomas, which most scholars believe is second century, but perhaps based on some early material, but a very few scholars disagree. But that isn’t “redaction” as far as I understand it.
3. “historically the Church quite often banned the possession of a Bible by a commoner . “
Maybe. I have no reason to defend anything the church did, especially as we are talking about the period 500-1500 CE according to the site you referred me to – far too late to affect the texts we have.
4. “If Christianity is the only one and true religion why has their history been stained by the blood of those who refused to accept or believe? The Crusades, the various Inquisitions, the Dark Ages, etc. Countless thousands of non-believers were given the choice to accept Christianity or Die. Many of them died. Religion by force is not something my God would endorse.”
People are nasty, sometimes. Every nation, most major movements (communism, fascism, democracy, etc) have dark chapters. Religion by force is certainly not something Jesus would endorse either, but unfortunately it happened when people put greed and power above Jesus.
So what have we got, kcchief1? Some textual variants that amount to about a dozen of any significance, most of which have long since been corrected in the Bibles we read, the selection of the four earliest gospels for inclusion in the canon, and ….. what else?
I honestly don’t see anything there that (1) most educated christians don’t know, and (2) in any way justifies the statements you have made. Have I missed something? Have I misrepresented anything? Is there more evidence? I have used Wikipedia and scholarship to come to these assessments, and I think it is now time for you to make the running and present hard evidence rather than allusions, because so far there is no case to answer.
Thanks, and best wishes.
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I don’t think his approach is that far from mine.
This is where I part company. I think the correct statement would be “granted all that, christian belief seems to me to be the option best supported by the evidence.”
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unkleE, I think you have explained everything away in just one post as I knew you would.
Thank you ……
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It’s nice to know we are in agreement at last! Evidence is a wonderful thing! 🙂
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KC, thanks for your comments regarding the genealogy. Too bad I can’t spell that word correctly, isn’t it? 😉
Anyway, it has always astounded and delighted me that the Bible includes the women “whose stories were fraught with difficulty” in the lineage of Jesus.
As to whether or not Mary was a sinner, most certainly! To me, this shows that God was actually Jesus’ Father, else He would not have had victory over the human part of His nature. That He was fully God AND fully man is crucial to the entire story!
Again I’m reminded of Baxter Kruger’s book, “Jesus and the Undoing of Adam”. For Jesus to ‘undo’ what Adam did (whether or not you take the Genesis 1-3 account literally, which I do not necessarily do), Jesus would have to be fully man. Most scholars would disagree with me that He would have had a sin nature. But I don’t have an issue with that. To me, if Jesus had a sin nature which is deity overcame, so much the more amazing! 🙂
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Sorry, should have read, “if Jesus had a sin nature which HIS deity overcame…”
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JudahFirst, No worries on spelling. I am probably the worst on this blog. I know how to spell, but I tend to type faster than my brain. LOL I always appreciate your comments because I know you have given them thought first and they seem to come from your heart as well. Thank you for sharing. 🙂
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Going back to the question on what in the NT has errors in it (historical, scientific, internally consistent, etc), I appreciate nate stepping in during my absence. And yes, he gave many of the examples I would have.
I would only add this, that when i was a Christian, i always viewed the OT and NT together. I mean, I knew they were separate, but the NT references back to the OT frequently and and makes a point about how the OT was the schoolmaster that brings you to the NT. So, I was referring to both OT and NT when I asked my original question or made my original point. I think to shrug off the OT is cherry picking, but even so…
To nate’s examples of problems in the NT I would only add Mathew’s mis-attribution of a “prophecy” to Jeremiah when it should have been Ezekiel. This kind of goes to another problem though (and Mathew seemed to be the worst) many of the “prophecies” he cites as evidence, turn out not to even be “prophecies” looking of fulfillment when you turn your pages back to the OT. That at least looks like a problem. who knows, there may be more – absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence… isnt that how it goes?
And I think kc is right. The genealogies in mathew and Luke are severely problematic. I know that you say they arent literal or that they are symbolic, but that’s all you can say about them if you’re trying to defend them – because they don’t do a good job of lending credibility toward the man jesus’ linage. they’re certainly not accurate. and just wanted to add that Luke’s never says anywhere that it is a linage through mary.
With all of the defenses I’ve seen for the problems in the bible, it truly makes me wonder what contradiction couldnt be “reconciled” in such ways. And actually, when I first started having doubts and questions, a big factor in my awakening was the “answers” people would provide to these problems. could anyone give an example of a real contradiction, because I am obviously having problems understanding what a real example is?
and just one more thing, and sorry for back tracking so much here, but UnkleE this goes back to a much earlier point of yours, but you had made and analogy between leaving christ and leaving a wife, or something similar. I just wanted to say that I think the analogy would be much more accurate if it had been a wife that had never spoken to the husband and had never actually visited the husband, and who had never been seen by the husband.
I wonder how much differently such a husband would be from me or nate or howie if it turned out that his wife either wasn’t real or was leaving him… just a thought.
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Josh,
looking back over the past comments and after some reflection this weekend, I do want to apologize to you. If I’ve been harsh or rude to anyone on here, it’s been you. I am sorry, for what consolation that may be.
I actually do like you and I do not doubt your sincerity or devotion. I do feel like you’re side-stepping certain points and irrationally dismissing others, but I know I have my own issues as well and I am also aware that I could be totally mistaken. You and I, like everyone else here, are doing the best we can with the information we have at hand. I cant begrudge that, and shouldn’t ridicule it.
here’s to your search for truth. may you reach it in good health.
William
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Hi William, here we go again! 🙂
There are many passages in the NT that say that the OT is past – see The Old Testament Law and Christians.
An understanding of 1st century Jewish approaches to interpreting their scriptures would help here – see Interpreting the Old Testament.
But I don’t have to defend them. I am not troubled by the discrepancies. I think most of you here judge the Jewish scriptures by 21st century western standards. I remember coming across these and other issues decades ago, so I researched them myself, read up scholars who could help me, and found that understanding first century Judaism made a lot of difference to my understanding of Jesus – and showed most of these are minor or even pseudo problems.
But let’s not keep going, this could go on forever, and nothing we say is going to make any difference do you think?
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UnkleE I think you’re right in that we may as well cease. I think you’re just dismissing the issues and pretending tending that they’re not significant. at least we agree there are indeed problems. and I guess you think i’m being too literal and missing the overall point.
I also recognize that the OT is no longer in affect, i even believed that as a believer. But the NT still references the OT as a tutor and that it is a forerunner of the NT, presumably as some evidence of god, of jesus, and their nature. so I still think the errors in the OT cant be so easily discarded simply because they’re problematic or the first edition, so to speak. I realize the problems dont bother you as they have me, although i dont understand why, since you and I agree there are errors.
and the defense on the genealogies seems weak to me. I’ve heard them and read them before, but there is such an easy way to avoid even the appearance of a problem. had they simply been written correctly and accurately, i imagine the 1st century jews could have still understood it and then anyone born after that time and outside of that culture could have understood it as well. Easy fix, but god may not have seen the problems that may have arisen so far down the road… i guess I dont know. what I do know is, is that the genealogies dont jive when read straight from the bible, outside sources and personal creativity have to be utilized to make up for the problem – yet no matter how much we try, the bible still has them mismatching and contradictory.
again, i think you may as well be arguing that the koran and the bible are both god’s inspired word. It doesnt have to make sense to us and god can do anything he wants…
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It REALLY gets interesting, William, when you start to see how the N.T. writers completely re-interpreted the O.T. texts they quoted – sometime completely reversing their meaning (Paul did that a LOT). It begins to become clear that interpretation is the key, not literal meaning.
It helped me a lot when I found out that there were so few Jewish scholars during Jesus’ day who could come to any sort of agreement on which books in the O.T. were inspired. Christians assume the O.T. is all inspired, but first century Judaism begs to differ.
Which brings me back to where I am now … everything through the lens of Jesus’ character and work. If it doesn’t jive with that, it’s not inspired. I apply this principle to N.T. and O.T.
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JudahFirst, sure, i get you, except that I have trouble with the presupposition that the NT is inspired, which means that I have a hard time swallowing what the NT authors claimed that jesus did or didnt accept.
Even so, jesus quoted daniel, and that book has some issues and is pretty suspect. jesus quoted many of the prophets that also had issues.
and maybe the translations arent as off as the gospels author’s understanding…
If i took jesus as the starting point, i may agree with you. i just find it hard to do that. I find it so hard to take something so flawed, and something that men are capable of doing and just “knowing” god is behind it. I just dont see people gaining such confidence when it comes to anything but their own religion or faith.
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William, I hear you. 🙂
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thanks for listening, and for being more patient than i am at times.
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William-
“Josh,
looking back over…”
I accept your apology. I’m sure there are things I’m sidestepping, as I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a well-read apologist. I can only speak to so many questions with any reasonable amount of understanding. All of us here are on a search for truth, which is the most of we can expect of each other. There’s a hefty amount of back and forth, particularly on this post, and it is clear to me that, much of the time, there is a lot of “talking past each other”. I appreciate that Christians are often biased in the way they look at things – I know that I am. However, I think there is value in the skeptic admitting they are also biased. There are points to be made about the difficulties in scripture. There are also reasonable points to be made about the veracity of scripture. What some skeptics argue, that there is no reasonable justification for believing Christianity, is, in my opinion, a huge overstatement.
Thanks again, William.
-Josh
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Here’s a question,
If the biblical God asked you something directly, in a clear way, would you want to obey?
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