Question #1:
This is the first in what I hope will be a number of threads under the title of Contra Bibliolatreia. In this first thread I would like us to discuss the Septuagint and the origins of our current OT.

Legend has it that King Ptolemy II of Egypt, out of concern for the Jews in his kingdom who could no longer speak Hebrew but only greek, commissioned a translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek in 3rd century BC. He summoned 72 translators and locked them up individually in separate cells and he didn't release them until they had finished their translations.

Miraculously each one emerged with exactly the same interpretation as the others. Thus was born the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the old testament. It's use spread so that it became the translation of the hebrew scriptures used by all Jews in the diaspora. Whenever you see the OT being quoted in the New testament it is mainly the Septuagint that they are quoting.

The Septuagint was the main scriptures of the early christians. The septuagint contains certain texts that are not in our present day Old Testament. For example Maccabees, Esdras . . Tobit etc. . . ..

So as time went on, the relationship between christians and other jews became more and more fractious. The Christians were using the Septuagint to argue against the Jews and they were winning the arguments. For example, in Isaiah 7:14 the Septuagint says a Parthenos (virgin in greek) will bear a child. So this supported the Virgin birth of Jesus. But what did the original Hebrew actually say?

The Jews were now so tired of christians using the Septuagint to bully them that they decided to reject the Septuagint completely. Remember that by this time (2nd century AD) most of the Jewish world used the septuagint, the temple had been destroyed and if the original hebrew texts still existed they weren't in circulation. The Jews came up with the Masoretic Text which is, not as one would imagine the original hebrew text but, a translation back into Hebrew of the Septuagint. The thing about the Masoretic text is that it now rendered Isaiah 7:14 in hebrew as saying an 'Almah' (young woman, not necessarily virgin, in hebrew) would bear a son.

That was how christians and Jews started using different scriptures. Masoretic text for Jews, Septuagint for Christians. And so things continued until a few centuries later there was a Pope called Damasus (in the 4th century) who wanted latin speaking people who were not so fluent in greek to have a translation that they could understand. (Hmmmm . . . this is hardly the thinking of people who are trying to keep the common man from reading their bibles). So he commissioned St. Jerome to write the Vulgate (Vulgate just means common, so the Vulgate is the latin Common bible).

The thing about Jerome though is that he had a lot of Jewish friends and he used to discuss with them a lot about the correct rendering of the OT. He was convinced that the Masoretic was superior to the Septuagint. So when he created the Vulgate he didn't use the Septuagint but rather used the hebrew Masoretic to make the OT. This decision of his caused a very big bust up with many other christians because you see the christians believed that the septuagint was a miracle and it was God's very own inspired scriptures. (yes we've all heard that before but this was the first time in christianity so the kjv people have to take the back seat on this one).

In fact one of St. Jerome's biggest opponents was St. Augustine, no less. They exchanged many angry words. When Jerome's Vulgate was read in some churches it caused riots because the congregation thought it was heretical. So Jerome's Vulgate was universal condemned and rejected.

But as they say, 'The race ain't always to the swift, nor the Battle to the strong'. Time and Chance decided to favour Jerome's Vulgate. Slowly and slowly over the centuries the vulgate gathered popularity and by the 9th century it was the main version of the bible in western Europe. However the Septuagint remained the OT of the Greek orthodox churches in eastern europe, but they don't count because most of what we call global christianity today came from western europe via the roman catholic church.

Now fast forward a few more centuries to when the protestants were ready to start their own wahala. Quite unanimously all the bible translations of the protestant churches including the the KJV mostly used the masoretic to translate their OT from. The only churches that stick to the original scriptures of christianity, the Septuagint are the Eastern orthodox churches.

There are some other curiosities regarding the septuagint. In the NT when Jesus quotes the OT he quotes it from the septuagint (greek). Of course it is totally possible that Jesus spoke greek as it was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire, but would he really, as a home bred jew, have quoted the OT in Greek rather than Hebrew. It is also possible that the NT writers simply used the greek translation of the passage that he would have quoted in hebrew. any way sha . . . .

Just some history of the bible that has come down to us. Please add, or dispute, or correct anything if you see fit.

Response #1:
Makes for interesting browsing. This was back when antichristians could still string together a sophisticated but false argument. Today, they can't even talk without finding an insult to throw in. And they never even bother to properly attack arguments or properly construct one. They could take a library out of your book

Question #2:
Could you kindly explain to us how this thread makes a false argument?

Response #2:
This part, “the Jews came up with the Masoretic Text which is, not as one would imagine the original hebrew text but, a translation back into Hebrew of the Septuagint,” seems to be a flat out falsehood and in my thinking it is the single most important falsehood in this argument:

"Masoretic text, (from Hebrew masoreth, “tradition”), traditional Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible, meticulously assembled and codified, and supplied with diacritical marks to enable correct pronunciation. This monumental work was begun around the 6th century AD and completed in the 10th by scholars at Talmudic academies in Babylonia and Palestine, in an effort to reproduce, as far as possible, the original text of the Hebrew Old Testament. Their intention was not to interpret the meaning of the Scriptures but to transmit to future generations the authentic Word of God. To this end they gathered manuscripts and whatever oral traditions were available to them."

Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Masoretic-text

What I perceive to be the real aim of this argument is to call the Bible into question on the basis of cleverly twisted historical events woven to disguise the major falsehood it seeks to perpetrate, namely, that the Bible we have today may not be quite the same as what existed before the Septuagint but is rather the product of different schemes/agenda/beliefs held by different groups.

Regardless whether the legend about the creation of the Septuagint is true or not, the Septuagint was known to have problems in translation. Scholars tended to use existing Hebrew texts to correct it a lot. This was during the 3rd Century AD (see the link) which was a long time after the destruction of the Temple. That means that contrary to your argument, Hebrew manuscripts survived from which a more correct translation of the Hebrew Bible could be made.

Those were the source of the Masoretic Text. And till date, it has proved completely reliable in preserving the truths of the Old Testament.

Some further points of departure in Britannica from your deposition, ______:

1. "The name Septuagint (from the Latin septuaginta, “70”) was derived later from the legend that there were 72 translators, 6 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, who worked independently to translate the whole and ultimately produced identical versions. Another legend holds that the translators were sent to Alexandria by Eleazar, the chief priest at Jerusalem, at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BCE), though its source, the Letter of Aristeas, is unreliable. Despite the tradition that it was perfectly translated, there are large differences in style and usage between the Septuagint’s translation of the Torah and its translations of the later books in the Old Testament. In the 3rd century CE Origen attempted to clear up copyists’ errors that had crept into the text of the Septuagint, which by then varied widely from copy to copy, and a number of other scholars consulted the Hebrew texts in order to make the Septuagint more accurate."
Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Septuagint

So, your version of the legend is weird and your later assertion that the Septuagint was the original Scripture of Christianity perhaps on the strength of this legend is problematic. Also, it is clear that the Septuagint had problems and scholars used Hebrew texts to compensate. Origen, incidentally, is a church father.

2. "In addition to all the books of the Hebrew canon, the Septuagint under Christian auspices separated the minor prophets and some other books and added the extra books known to Protestants and Jews as apocryphal and to Roman Catholics as deuterocanonical."
Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Septuagint

So, it's not like the Septuagint always had those extra books. It was at the hands of men of the Church visible that they were added.

3. "The Christian church received its Bible from Greek-speaking Jews and found the majority of its early converts in the Hellenistic world. The Greek Bible of Alexandria thus became the official Bible of the Christian community, and the overwhelming number of quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures in the New Testament are derived from it. Whatever the origin of the apocryphal books in the canon of Alexandria, these became part of the Christian Scriptures, but there seems to have been no unanimity as to their exact canonical status. The New Testament itself does not cite the Apocryphal books directly, but occasional traces of a knowledge of them are to be found. The Apostolic Fathers (late 1st–early 2nd century) show extensive familiarity with this literature, but a list of the Old Testament books by Melito, bishop of Sardis in Asia Minor (2nd century), does not include the additional writings of the Greek Bible, and Origen (c. 185–c. 254) explicitly describes the Old Testament canon as comprising only 22 books."
Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/The-Christian-canon

So, there was a more complex situation than you represent in your argument.

4. "The story of the Greek translation of the Pentateuch is told in the Letter of Aristeas, which purports to be a contemporary document written by Aristeas, a Greek official at the Egyptian court of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BCE). It recounts how the law of the Jews was translated into Greek by Jewish scholars sent from Jerusalem at the request of the king.

This narrative, repeated in one form or another by Philo and rabbinic sources, is full of inaccuracies that prove that the author was an Alexandrian Jew writing well after the events he described had taken place. The Septuagint Pentateuch, which is all that is discussed, does, however, constitute an independent corpus within the Greek Bible, and it was probably first translated as a unit by a company of scholars in Alexandria about the middle of the 3rd century BCE.

The Septuagint, as the entire Greek Bible came to be called, has a long and complex history and took well over a century to be completed. It is for this reason not a unified or consistent translation. The Septuagint became the instrument whereby the basic teachings of Judaism were mediated to the pagan world, and it became an indispensable factor in the spread of Christianity.

The adoption of the Septuagint as the Bible of the Christians naturally engendered suspicion on the part of Jews. In addition, the emergence of a single authoritative text type after the destruction of the Temple made the great differences between it and the Septuagint increasingly intolerable, and the need was felt for a Greek translation based upon the current Hebrew text in circulation."

Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/Early-versions

A clearer picture of the issue.

5. "Jerome produced three revisions of the Psalms, all extant. The first was based on the Septuagint and is known as the Roman Psalter because it was incorporated into the liturgy at Rome. The second, produced in Palestine from the Hexaplaric Septuagint, tended to bring the Latin closer to the Hebrew. Its popularity in Gaul was such that it came to be known as the Gallican Psalter. This version was later adopted into the Vulgate. The third revision, actually a fresh translation, was made directly from the Hebrew, but it never enjoyed wide circulation. In the course of preparing the latter, Jerome realized the futility of revising the Old Latin solely on the basis of the Greek and apparently left that task unfinished. By the end of 405 he had executed his own Latin translation of the entire Old Testament based on the “Hebrew truth” (Hebraica veritas).

Because of the canonical status of the Greek version within the church, Jerome’s version was received at first with much suspicion, for it seemed to cast doubt on the authenticity of the Septuagint and exhibited divergences from the Old Latin that sounded discordant to those familiar with the traditional renderings. St. Augustine feared a consequent split between the Greek and Latin churches. The innate superiority of Jerome’s version, however, assured its ultimate victory, and by the 8th century it had become the Latin Vulgate (“the common version”) throughout the churches of Western Christendom, where it remained the chief Bible until the Reformation."

Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/Versions-after-the-4th-century

Perhaps there were riots. Perhaps Jerome and Augustine had words. But I wonder if you exaggerated the actual events.

I think I'll stop at this point. Other duties call. If it is necessary, I may continue this examination and comparison in the future.

Cheers.

Question #3:
I do not remember where I got the information that there was some translating back from the Septuagint so I'll concede that point. Also, for sure, there were still some of the ancient hebrew texts around. The earliest Hebrew text that we have today are from the 2nd century bc, found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, I believe.

Right from those earliest days we find that there were already marked distinctions between these different copies of the earliest extant hebrew texts. There is even a Talmudic story that claimed that there were 3 copies of the Hebrew bible in the Temple that were at odds with each other and needed to be resolved. We must consider any claims of Authenticity in light of these facts.

Response #3:
As I said, this is yet another example of how delightfully challenging it is to discuss with some antichristians. Thank you for the concession.

Now, there is one thing that you are ignoring. It is that the Bible claims to be the Very Word, the Very Truth of God. That is a very big claim for any bit of literature to make. And the only way one can know for sure who wrote what is to look for signs of that person's personality and character in what is attributed to them. The fact that different versions of a literature are attributed to anyone does not mean that one or other of them was really written by them. Nor does that confusion mean that none of them were written by them.

That is one important thing to note. There is another. It is that if any witness or communication was given by God to all human beings in order to provide them with all the information they need to fulfill the purpose of their existence, then it would only follow that God would also preserve that witness or communication to make sure that all human beings who ever want it can get access to it.

For this reason, all questions of authenticity will always be settled by an appeal to spiritual discernment since God is Spirit and any witness such as the Bible must necessarily be spiritual in nature. The history makes for an interesting intellectual exercise but in the end, however old manuscripts may be and however preserved the contents of a given manuscript or the other may be, the question will always be a spiritual one:

"does this witness - whatever it is - say what God would reasonably be expected to say?"

Question #4:
I'm terribly sorry but you don't get any points for that Sherlock Holmes. Right from the title it is clear that I'm questioning the worship and elevation of the bible to divine status that we often witness. I've been doing ever since I've joined Nairaland and you're well enough acquainted with me to know this.

I can state categorically that the bibles (note the plural) that we have today are not the same as what existed before the Septuagint and is rather a product of schemes, agendas, and beliefs of different groups. It is a process that continues till today. Right before our eyes we see the Jehovah's witnesses reinventing their own bibles, Martin Luther changing words and trying to scrap books like James... etc

The fact is that there are discrepancies between the earliest copies of the OT. Furthermore Christianity is rooted in one of those versions that, The LXX, and that version is at odds with all the other Hebrew texts including the masoretic. Never mind that the hebrew texts are often at odds with themselves.

And we are not just talking about slight unimportant variations, but variations upon which whole doctrines have been based upon. For example, The Virgin Birth. Virgin Birth is not a trifling issue in Christianity. Yet it is at odds with the Hebrew bible which doesn't mention anything about a Virgin giving Birth.

Response #4:
I only just started learning ancient Greek and Hebrew. I have neither reason nor interest in Latin - which I think is the language the title was written in - so I can't say with much confidence that I know what your title means. I had a guess and you have confirmed it but I couldn't have categorically said that you were clear about anything. So, it may really take a Sherlock Holmes to know what your thread was really about.

Additionally, throughout the time I have known you on Nairaland, I have never been sure what your deal is. I just know that you attack Christianity a lot. That's why I call you an antichristian. I don't know if you're an atheist, a deist or an agnostic. From something you wrote years ago which I read recently, it seems that you reject all labels and simply attack Christianity for the behavior of Christians and for the things about the Bible that you don't find acceptable. But from your words right now, you clearly don't accept the Virgin Birth or at least you question it. So, I assume that you don't accept that Jesus is God Who became Man to die for our sins. That leads me to think that whatever else you may claim to be, you do not claim to follow Jesus Christ even if you have issues with the behaviors of Christians and with the Bible.

So, no, clarity is not something I have ever associated you with.

I disagree with your categorical statement. I already stated the major reason in my statement above. God has preserved His Word by Himself through free will choices made by different men through the ages and in spite of schemes and agenda and preferences of different groups.

One way to appreciate this is to consider the production of Jehovah's Witnesses. I have already done this. Their Bible was created to attack the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Deity of the Lord Jesus but the production ended up a contradiction and an absurdity because it taught both that the Lord Jesus is Deity and that He is not. Consistency with its own self is an important test of the Bible. Any version of the Bible that contradicts itself is questionable already unless it can present an explanation within itself for the apparent contradiction. Even modern mainstream translations of the Bible other than those produced by cults like the JW have problems which are discernible to the diligent student. But those problems would not even be discernible unless the student knows God in a way that enables Him to identify things that aren't consistent.

I can't speak to what Martin Luther did since I am not a historian but it does not "smell right" judging by what I do know of the Reformation. I may try to find more information on that.

Differences in the different versions of the OT is to be expected given that this world is a warzone and the issue is the Truth. What is truth? That's the question every human activity is concerned with. The Bible is God's Answer to the question. So, of course, it will be attacked with forgeries at least.

As for the argument that Christianity is rooted in the Septuagint, that is false. The Lord Jesus and the apostles quoted the Septuagint because the known world of that time was steeped in Greek culture and language. That some people decided to make that much more out of the Septuagint does not mean that Christianity is rooted in the Septuagint. It just means that some people decided to make more of it than they should. Those who have followed Christ have always sought to know the Truth wherever it could be found. That is why you could mention someone like Jerome. And before Jerome there was Origen. That too is why even with so many versions of the Bible today, there are still people who sift through the traditions and errors to find the Truth.

Regarding the Virgin Birth, what I have learned is that the passage in Isaiah used the Hebrew word for young woman, not the one for virgin, but the use of that word does not exclude the possibility of virgin. This makes sense if the prophecy had more than one application (as the context and other Bible passages confirm). Isaiah was speaking first of a young woman who was contemporary to him and may or may not have been a virgin (the context does limit the interpretation to "virgin" ) but he was also speaking of another young woman who would be a virgin and exist much later.

Question #5:
Would one of those problems in it's translation include where it says that a Virgin has bear a Child? It is only Septuagint that says that.

Or perhaps you consider it a problem that Septuagint has Yahweh confess his name as 'Ego Eimi', i.e I Am, upon which so much of christianity's claim to Christ's divinity is based on. What do you think of LXX's translation of Exodus 3:14

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[c] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Would you consider this an error in Translation?

And when Jesus supposedly references it in John 8:58 was Jesus misguided?

Response #5:
See above for the Virgin Birth. I don't really know the history so I don't know how the Septuagint presents the passage in Isaiah.

I also don't know about any problems with the Exodus passage. But the whole Bible does hold that the Man Jesus Christ was God too. So, if Exodus 3:14 had a problem, it wasn't in saying that God is the "IS".

Question #6:
My general view of legends is that they are not factual. That's why we call them legends and not History. However I'm curious as to where 'my' version of the legend is 'weird' or even where it contradicts your version. I don't recall saying anything in my telling of the legend that contradicts your version of the legend above.
About being the original scripture of Christianity, the fact is that the LXX is the version most quoted in the New Testament and it is used also as the basis of some Christian doctrines. For example, the Virgin Birth, and the identification of Jesus with divinity via the use of the phrase 'I Am'/Ego Eimi.
This is the basis of my saying that LXX is a fundamental scripture of Christianity. Nothing to do with the Legend which is a story, that it may or may not surprise you to realise but, I don't believe it happened.

Response #6:
'Locked up until they finished' is rather weird. The whole thing was also presented as some sort of possible reason why the Septuagint must have been so special to "the Church".

Question #7:
You continue to miss one of my main points that I've made over and over again on NL. The entire thing is the product of 'the hands of men of the Church visible' and of other people too, ALL MEN, and All very very very VISIBLE. From Genesis to Revelation. All the different versions only tell us that humans are a diverse bunch.

Response #7:
What's the alternative? The Bible just magically appears on all mantelpieces and shelves with an angel standing right next to it to make sure we all know it came from God?

Question #8:
Thank you for filling out the details, however nothing you say above contradicts anything I said previously.

Response #8:
It contradicts the idea that the Septuagint was as big an authority for the Church as you represented in your argument.

Question #9:
Okay, however nothing you've said above contradicts anything I've said previously. Remember you said that the OP was a 'false argument'. I'm waiting for a refutation.

Response #9:
It certainly clarifies the issue. The Septuagint had problems and was no miracle. Chances are that those who cared then knew that the Septuagint was no miracle and therefore used it carefully. So, while the emerging monolithic Roman tradition at the time may have made an idol out of it contending with Jews too for their own reasons, that was not necessarily the story of the Christian Church.

Question #10:
Perhaps perhaps perhaps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUVT1NZtZPo

The words between Jerome and Augustine are well documented.

Augustine to Jerome. Written about A.D. 394

... I beseech you not to devote your labour to the work of translating into Latin the sacred canonical books, unless you follow the method in which you have translated Job, viz. with theaddition of notes, to let it be seen plainly what differences there are between this version of yours and that of the Septuagint,
http://www.bible-researcher.com/vulgate2.html

Perhaps I over-exaggerated, but perhaps you just want to seem like you're rebutting me when in fact you are not actually presenting anything that rebuts what I've written. I wonder why you would wonder so much that I was exaggerating. Have you heard contrary reports? Or are you just predisposed to resist anything I say whether you know it to be true or not.

Okay, but a few rebuttals would be quite nice. Thanks

Response #10:
I don't think you and I have enough history on this forum to warrant the thought. The reason I pointed it out is that small exaggerations and inflections and minor overstatements and understatements in an argument tend to add up to a very convincing but false argument. In this case, you are attacking the reliability of the Bible as the true Word of God and you did it so cleverly that an unprepared believer could be significantly damaged by your efforts.

Question #11:
on the issue of riots, you are actually correct I believe, Augustine I think records a riot based on Jerome and his translation, the word that caused the riot was pretty inconsequential but it was enough to cause a riots and Jerome and Augustine weren't exactly charitable about the issue... Add that to Jerome's temper.

Anyway I am preparing a response to ihedonobi, his sources were simplistic in their rendering of events.

Response #11:
I'll admit the possibility of such a riot, not because I think that it really happened but because I'm not a historian and cannot have an opinion on specific historical events without some getting into.

Yes, my source was simplistic but not unreliable.

I must beg your indulgence: I will probably be taking a while with my answers because I may get too busy. I am not entirely certain that I will be able to carry on for the long term either. Please bear with me either way.

Question #12:
this is rather simplistic dear....

For over 400 years the Jewish leaders were busy editing the masoretic text abi over 4 centuries, moreso it was edited not only from existing manuscripts but also from Jewish tradition... What does that tell you?

The issue gets interesting if you read the story from the writings of the early Christians, they accuse the Jews of constantly editing their scripture to rid it of allusion to Jesus. Justin's dialogue with typho is a good place to start and it is dated pretty early, so that the early church adopts the Septuagint very early. The only exception to this in the early church was Jerome who loved the Hebrew Bible and lived in Palestine.

So yes if the early Christian writing is anything to go by then _____ is right, the Hebrew edited Bible is religiously motivated to promote Judaism, the Septuagint on the otherhand gives the churches what they wanted... The choice of what version depends on what is been promoted.

Now let me give an example, in the first century the early Christian st Stephen was killed by the Jews, his account is found in act of the apostles, stepping is recorded to have quoted scripture at the time

Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them (Acts 7:43 KJV).

He was quoting the book of AmosAmos 5:26 in most translations, you will find that the quotation doesn’t match:

You also carried Sikkuth your king and Chiun, your idols, the star of your gods, which you made for yourselves (NKJV). Aka masoretic text

Compare the above with the Latin Vulgate:

But you carried a tabernacle for your Moloch, and the image of your idols, the star of your god, which you made to yourselves (Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate).

And then with the Septuagint:

Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Raephan, the images of them which ye made for yourselves (Sir Lancelot Brenton translation of the Septuagint).

What did you notice.

The masoretic text is different from what the early Christian st Stephen quoted, the Septuagint is actually much closer, and the Vulgate which Jerome translated from the "Hebrew" is closer to what Stephen quoted.

So how come the Septuagint is aligned, the Vulgate translated from the Hebrew is aligned but the masoretic text is off... Remember the Septuagint was standardized in the 1st century, the Vulgate in the 4th century, the masoretic text in the 10 century... Guess which one is off?

Even the dead sea Hebrew scrolls are sometimes closer to the Septuagint than the masoretic text....

______ relates the story exactly as it is passed on...added to that the Septuagint I believe was approved by the sahendrin and the high priest at the time unlike the masoretic text which was made after the fall of Jerusalem without high priest or sahendrin.

it was! If you would take the time to read up the early Christians, they just like the apostles adopted the Septuagint.

the Septuagint does have its issues... Every translation does but it is the old testament scripture of the early church except the church of Rome that later adopted the Vulgate... But that doesn't detract from the fact that the early Christians had serious problems with the Hebrew text.

Here is Justin

“But I am far from putting reliance in your teachers, who refuse to admit that the interpretation made by the seventy elders who were with Ptolemy [king] of the Egyptians is a correct one; and they attempt to frame another. And I wish you to observe, that they have altogether taken away many Scriptures from the [Septuagint] translations effected by those seventy elders who were with Ptolemy, and by which this very man who was crucified is proved to have been set forth expressly as God, and man, and as being crucified, and as dying” (~150 A.D., Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Chapter LXXI)

He is not for from the truth, several prophesies about Jesus just disappear in the masoretic text, what happened?

https://theorthodoxlife.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/lxx_vs_mt3.jpg

I unlike ______ believe the Bible is reliable and is the word of God, but sincerely I do so because I believe God has preserved his word in his church, because sincerely all we have are copies of copies of copies of copies of copies, that have been edited and corrected and emended, and the masoretic text which the Protestant churches adopted against the advice of Christian antiquity is sadly even more recent than the Septuagint and seems to has Jewish bias and prejudice against Christ. In that point I agree with _____ it is politically motivated, lastly an unprepared believer should go and study, there is no point hiding in a cocoon.

this doesn't touch ____'s argument, of course after years of copying by hand copyist errors will creep in needing correction and Origen a Christian scholar is credited for attempting to clear up such copyist errors, even the Hebrew scripture suffers from the same copyist errors as did the Vulgate and they are corrected by comparing different copies and translations.

here the Britannica is either simplistic or just incorrect, the quram cave discovery showed us that the canon read by certain Jews were much bigger than the Hebrew canon, in fact the Hebrew Canon was not set until after the apostles had died, both the Ethiopians Jews, the Alexandrian Jews and even certain Jews in Palestine even some in the Talmud used an extended canon including the deuterocanonical books. On this the Britannica is incorrect. The church didn't manufacture those books and add to the Septuagint, they were part of it and was already in use by the Jews.

it isn't exactly complex when you realise that whole churches also rejected certain new testament books and to them they weren't canonical but the decider in the early church was usually a council and the councils upheld all the new testament books in our current bible and the deuterocanonical books too. That is how you know what the decision is on any issue.

You can read about it

Augustine to Jerome. Written in A.D. 403

To my venerable lord Jerome, my esteemed and holy brother and fellow presbyter: Augustine sends greetings in the Lord.

Never since I began to write to you, and to long for your writing in return, have I met with a better opportunity for our exchanging communications than now, when my letter is to be carried to you by a most faithful servant and minister of God, who is also a very dear friend of mine, namely, our son Cyprian, deacon. Through him I expect to receive a letter from you with all the certainty which is in a matter of this kind possible. For the son whom I have named will not be found wanting in respect of zeal in asking, or persuasive influence in obtaining a reply from you; nor will he fail in diligently keeping, promptly bearing, and faithfully delivering the same. I only pray that if I be in any way worthy of this, the Lord may give His help and favour to your heart and to my desire, so that no higher will may hinder that which your brotherly goodwill inclines you to do.

As I have sent you two letters already to which I have received no reply, I have resolved to send you at this time copies of both of them, for I suppose that they never reached you. If they did reach you, and your replies have failed, as may be the case, to reach me, send me a second time the same as you sent before, if you have copies of them preserved: if you have not, dictate again what I may read, and do not refuse to send to these former letters the answer for which I have been waiting so long. My first letter to you, which I had prepared while I was a presbyter, was to be delivered to you by a brother of ours, Profuturus, who afterwards became my colleague in the episcopate, and has since then departed from this life; but he could not then bear it to you in person, because at the very time when he intended to begin his journey, he was prevented by his ordination to the weighty office of bishop, and shortly afterwards he died. This letter I have resolved also to send at this time, that you may know how long I have cherished a burning desire for conversation with you, and with what reluctance I submit to the remote separation which prevents my mind from having access to yours through our bodily senses, my brother, most amiable and honoured among the members of the Lord.

In this letter I have further to say, that I have since heard that you have translated Job out of the original Hebrew, although in your own translation of the same prophet from the Greek tongue we had already a version of that book. In that earlier version you marked with asterisks the words found in the Hebrew but wanting in the Greek, and with obelisks the words found in the Greek but wanting in the Hebrew; and this was done with such astonishing exactness, that in some places we have every word distinguished by a separate asterisk, as a sign that these words are in the Hebrew, but not in the Greek. Now, however, in this more recent version from the Hebrew, there is not the same scrupulous fidelity as to the words; and it perplexes any thoughtful reader to understand either what was the reason for marking the asterisks in the former version with so much care that they indicate the absence from the Greek version of even the smallest grammatical particles which have not been rendered from the Hebrew, or what is the reason for so much less care having been taken in this recent version from the Hebrew to secure that these same particles be found in their own places. I would have put down here an extract or two in illustration of this criticism; but at present I have not access to the manuscript of the translation from the Hebrew. Since, however, your quick discernment anticipates and goes beyond not only what I have said, but also what I meant to say, you already understand, I think, enough to be able, by giving the reason for the plan which you have adopted, to explain what perplexes me.

For my part, I would much rather that you would furnish us with a translation of the Greek version of the canonical Scriptures known as the work of the Seventy translators. For if your translation begins to be more generally read in many churches, it will be a grievous thing that, in the reading of Scripture, differences must arise between the Latin Churches and the Greek Churches, especially seeing that the discrepancy is easily condemned in a Latin version by the production of the original in Greek, which is a language very widely known; whereas, if any one has been disturbed by the occurrence of something to which he was not accustomed in the translation taken from the Hebrew, and alleges that the new translation is wrong, it will be found difficult, if not impossible, to get at the Hebrew documents by which the version to which exception is taken may be defended. And when they are obtained, who will submit, to have so many Latin and Greek authorities pronounced to be in the wrong? Besides all this, Jews, if consulted as to the meaning of the Hebrew text, may give a different opinion from yours: in which case it will seem as if your presence were indispensable, as being the only one who could refute their view; and it would be a miracle if one could be found capable of acting as arbiter between you and them.

A certain bishop, one of our brethren, having introduced in the church over which he presides the reading of your version, came upon a word in the book of the prophet Jonah, of which you have given a very different rendering from that which had been of old familiar to the senses and memory of all the worshippers, and had been chanted for so many generations in the church. Thereupon arose such a tumult in the congregation, especially among the Greeks, correcting what had been read, and denouncing the translation as false, that the bishop was compelled to ask the testimony of the Jewish residents (it was in the town of Oea). These, whether from ignorance or from spite, answered that the words in the Hebrew manuscripts were correctly rendered in the Greek version, and in the Latin one taken from it. What further need I say? The man was compelled to correct your version in that passage as if it had been falsely translated, as he desired not to be left without a congregation -- a calamity which he narrowly escaped. From this case we also are led to think that you may be occasionally mistaken. You will also observe how great must have been the difficulty if this had occurred in those writings which cannot be explained by comparing the testimony of languages now in use.

At the same time, we are in no small measure thankful to God for the work in which you have translated the Gospels from the original Greek, because in almost every passage we have found nothing to object to, when we compared it with the Greek Scriptures. By this work, any disputant who supports an old false translation is either convinced or confuted with the utmost ease by the production and collation of manuscripts. And if, as indeed very rarely happens, something be found to which exception may be taken, who would be so unreasonable as not to excuse it readily in a work so useful that it cannot be too highly praised? I wish you would have the kindness to open up to me what you think to be the reason of the frequent discrepancies between the text supported by the Hebrew codices and the Greek Septuagint version. For the latter has no mean authority, seeing that it has obtained so wide circulation, and was the one which the apostles used, as is not only proved by looking to the text itself, but has also been, as I remember, affirmed by yourself. You would therefore confer upon us a much greater boon if you gave an exact Latin translation of the Greek Septuagint version: for the variations found in the different codices of the Latin text are intolerably numerous; and it is so justly open to suspicion as possibly different from what is to be found in the Greek, that one has no confidence in either quoting it or proving anything by its help.

I thought that this letter was to be a short one, but it has somehow been as pleasant to me to go on with it as if I were talking with you. I conclude with entreating you by the Lord kindly to send me a full reply, and thus give me, so far as is in your power, the pleasure of your presence.

Response #12:
I will beg your indulgence because I am going to cut to the heart of the matter. I apologize if that offends you but I really cannot afford the time and energy for the piecemeal responses that you may want and for all the historical research that answering each specific point requires especially since I am not trained in history.

To begin with, the claim the Bible makes and which Christians believe is that it is the Word of God, God's Oracle, God's Truth or God's Testimony.

That statement is what this thread is attacking on the basis of historical arguments that I believe are very flawed. I have already given my reasons for believing so. Now I will give my reasons for believing that the Bible's claim about itself is true. In my arguments, I think that you will also find your own counterarguments answered in one way or another.

The same way that the only person who can tell you that some testimony attributed to them is really from them is that person themselves, it is only God Himself Who decides what the Bible is or what the Canon is. No human or angelic council can do that. It cannot be voted on or be pronounced upon in any way. If any book belongs to the Canon, it will be known from the identifying feature - whatever it may be - that God Himself put upon it to make sure that nobody who really cares to know will be confused about it. That is only to be expected since we evil humans who will deliberately mislead other people into believing falsehoods about ourselves can still be responsible enough to make sure that people we care about don't get misled into believing that something that is not from us is really from us and something that is really isn't. God Who is Perfect and perfectly loving toward His Creatures must therefore be even more responsible in His Own Actions regarding His Testimony. The books that He inspired must therefore contain some innate witness within themselves that makes it clear to everyone who reads them that these books really came from Him.

Therefore, no human or angelic council of any sort is qualified or necessary to decide what the Canon is or "set it" in any way.

For this reason, I cannot accept that the Canon of the Hebrew Scriptures (which, by the way, were in use for more than a thousand years and the last of which was written more than four hundred years before the Lord Jesus Christ came and died for our sins) was "not set until after the apostles had died". The Canon was set as each book was written because of God's unique "signature", if you will, in each one of them.

Now, because human history from the Garden of Eden until Eternity begins is all about Truth, that is, about the question, "what is Truth?", it only follows that Satan and humans will be invested in distorting whatever God's own Answer to that question may be. We possess a free will, the very Image of God, and therefore can choose what we want to believe. But we also have something in us that demands Truth, that is, a Conscience. For that reason, while we may reject God's Truth, we must provide ourselves with some rationale for doing so. That is what leads to the distortions and total or complete inventions of belief systems of our own that have nothing to do with God, forcing our consciences to embrace the Lie in one form or another.

That is how many versions of the Bible whether in historical manuscripts or in contemporary translations exist with not a few of them conflicting with each other on one point or the other.

Regardless of this desire on the part of the majority of human beings to distort God's Truth, God's Truth is still preserved in the world because of others who not only want to know it in its pure form but want to keep it accessible to others who may come to seek it. This is how God counteracts the power of the Lie. So, in every generation, there have been true believers equipped with the abilities and resources required to either reclaim the Truth from increasingly elaborate distortions that the Enemy and his agents have tried to mire it in. Some of them, like Jerome, had tremendous work to do in doing so and, being weak humans like the rest of us, often caved to the pressure to just leave well enough alone but each one went far enough to preserve a shining witness to God's Testimony for others to know that work still needed to be done. Their mistakes - when they made any - must then be separated from their successes. That Jerome, for example, did quote some of the Apocrypha as Scripture - if indeed he did for I admit no such thing having too little expertise in history to have any kind of expert opinion on that - does not therefore mean that they were part of the Bible. It only means that he did quote them as Scripture - if, like I said, your claims that he did are in fact true.

Why did God not prevent anyone from corrupting the Scriptures though? It is a fair question because obviously God can and He loves us and wants us to know the Truth or else the Bible is lying about Him, that is, He would be lying about Himself if the Bible is truly His Testimony. The answer to that question is that we have a free will. All sane human beings (the overwhelming majority of human beings) do. Therefore, each of us has a God-given right to decide what to do with God's Testimony. We can receive it in humility. We can ignore it. Or we can actively try to destroy it like King Jehoiakim of Judah tried to do in Jeremiah 36:21-26. Active physical destruction of the Bible has been attempted multiple times in human history but it is not the only way that people have actively attempted to destroy the Scriptures. They have tried too to add or remove or change material in them so that those who read their production will be misled into believing lies masked as Truth. This is hardly novel since Satan himself has been doing that since the beginning of human history, that is, presenting the lie as the truth to try to deceive those who want to be listening to God.

God allows this to make sure that every human choice about him is clearly demonstrated in the eyes of men and angels. But He is also God and He does have people who love His Truth and He commits Himself to helping them to preserve it, covering their weaknesses with His Strength so that His Testimony is preserved pure in the earth. There has never been a time in human history when such people did not exist. Nor has there ever been a time in human history when their opposite didn't either. So at all times throughout human history, both the pure Testimony of God and the adulteration, distortions and outright invented alternatives have always existed together so that everyone can choose what side they want to be on.

For this reason, the age of any given material says very little about whether or not it is God's Testimony. So, the argument that the Septuagint pre-existed the Masoretic Text counts for exactly nothing...not to mention that in some of the material discovered in the Qumran Caves you mentioned which are older than the Septuagint (if memory serves me right), the Masoretic Text was witnessed to rather emphatically.

Finally, what is God's Signature in the Scriptures? How can anyone know what is Scripture and what isn't if we cannot judge by human authority or popular appeal? It is this: God is Spirit, therefore, every Scripture will contain His Essence, that is, they will necessarily possess His Inspiration and thus be spiritual in themselves. This is something that cannot be ascertained by physical or material investigation of any kind. The same way that our eyes need help to be able to detect certain lights like infrared and ultraviolet, our minds must be helped (with the tool or faculty of free will faith) in order to perceive the spiritual quality of the Scriptures. Every living human is able to tell that Scripture is Scripture (if they have preserved that faculty of free will faith in themselves) but not everyone can understand what is written in it. For unbelievers, if they care, they will find the Gospel in the Bible and be led to Salvation. Other than that, not much else in the Bible will make sense to them since it is spiritually discerned. For the neophyte believer, they may learn some fundamental truths of the Bible. But only if they submit to a fellow believer who possesses a teaching gift and training will they learn more than that. The Scriptures only yield themselves to faith and growing faith. Otherwise, they are opaque to those who try to read them.

This is why it is such a stumbling block. When those who will not submit to God discover His Testimony, they have only two possible reactions: ignore it or try to destroy it. Many have done or tried to do one or the other. But nobody has ever seen God's Truth and failed to know Its Uniqueness.

So, all the history in this debate is an interesting intellectual exercise and had I the time I would have enjoyed butting heads with you over what really did happen and what each event really meant. But I don't have the time and the history is beside the point. The point is that the Bible is really its own defence against all the efforts that have been made to destroy it. So, ______ is wrong and in quite a few points so are you.

Question #13:
you don't need to be trained in history you just need to be sufficiently interested about the issue....
I don't have the time to be offended.

Allow me to begin here to address your points

The 66 books of the Protestant Bible or the 70+ books of the Catholic/Orthodox bibles do not make any claim that each of those books are God's oracles, his word etc. Don't get me wrong, many book have a thus says the Lord character, but many others don't, besides there are many thus says the Lord books that none of the groups above consider scripture. Paul is the guy who tells us all scripture is God breathed but he doesn't give a list of the books he considers scripture... Is it the current Hebrew Bible or a more robust Septuagint, we know he used the Septuagint extensively? Did he intend to write scripture when he was writing the letter to Philemon? Or is Luke's personal correspondence with theophilus?

There is no book in the Bible that says these 66 or 73 books are scripture, God's word and Oracle, nope! That claim isn't in the Bible.

Do you know who made those claims?

The Christian churches, they brought together personal letters, church letters and books of various genres and declared that they are scripture, God's Truth and Oracle.

That is the first point, the Bible makes no such claim.

I believe your premise is itself wrong, the Bible makes no such claim.

here you have created new problems for yourself. Of course the guy who has the right to say which and which are his word is the owner of the word himself.... That can't be debated, the question is how do you know what God says concerning each book been scripture or not?

Its been a long time since men heard God thundering his opinion about stuff from heaven, if I remember rightly it scared the hell out of them, so the question remains how do we know...

You believe that God put an identify feature upon each book, that every good person should recognize... Well many Samaritans will describe themselves as sincere yet they didn't see that feature in the prophets and proverbs and psalms, the Essene say the feature in in the Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, the Pharisees will disagree... On and on....seeing this illusive "feature" seem pretty subjective, the good men in the church say they saw it and the rabbis didn't. Who decides who really get the feature thing?

I on the other hand will argue that God in his kindness didnt want us in such confusion and made his church as the pillar and bulwark of truth, promised her the holy spirit to lead her to all Truth and promised to be with her for all ages...I will argue that he guides each council as is found in acts 15 that it decisions are spirit guided. And I would say that the church is the guarantee to the scripture not each individual Christian searching subjectively for a rather illusive nondescript "feature".

The word of God doesn't thunder from heaven and if it isn't the voice of the church, then every Christian may very well decide on his own canon according to his knowledge of the " feature " just as Luther attempted removing certain new testament books.

who decides what is a distortion and what is true, a Catholic say rightly that Jerome quoted the deuterocanon as scripture and that they truly are, Protestants repeat his reservations for them and say they are a distortion. Catholics will say the decision of the church superseded the reservation of one priest Jerome, Protestants elevate his reservation above the church. Which is the distortion which is the truth?

Do you believe that some books that are scripture should be in the Bible? because you seem to think Jerome quote them as scripture yet they should not be in the Bible.

Who decides what is a shinning witness and what is a mistake? A Catholic/Orthodox will see Jerome's submission to the judgment of the church as a shinning witness, you seem to think it is a mistake. I guess if he agrees with you it is a shinning witness, when he disagrees it is a mistake abi?

Talk of double standard and making ones self the ultimate authority.

reminds me of Luther knowingly adding the word alone in his German Bible and removing books from the Bible

and many times the substraction and addition in the masoretic text are made glaring.

if every human can tell that "scripture is scripture" as you claim then we wouldn't be having a discussion about the church decisions about scripture been overruled by some men 500years ago.

Since you seem to get the feature thing, please tell us which version, translation, canon.... Has the identification feature?

Response #13:
First of all, _____, why do you sound like you're on the war path? You opted to respond to me when I addressed myself to ______. The least you could do is maintain something of a neutral attitude, right? If I have offended you, it was completely unwitting. There is no reason to treat my arguments like a personal affront.

Second, your rebuttal about the Bible's claim about itself is truly disappointing. Here's why:

2 Timothy 3:16
[16]All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

2 Peter 1:20-21
[20]But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation,
[21]for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

2 Peter 3:15-16
[15]and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,
[16]as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

The above are three out of 53 results that showed up when I searched the word "Scripture" in an NASB (New American Standard Bible) app. The first thing that comes straight out is that the word "Scripture" is clearly used as a technical word meaning something very specific. That means that both Paul and Peter and the people they wrote to knew what the word meant. That is to say, they knew what was Scripture and what was not. This was obviously before all the apostles were dead since these two were apostles. Also, throughout the New Testament, as I already mentioned, there is constant reference to "the Scripture" or "the Scriptures" so that clearly there was existing literature that was known by those who made these references and by those to whom the references were made as Scripture. That immediately negates your claim that "the Hebrew Canon was not set until after the apostles died".

Next, Peter clearly recognized Paul's writings as Scripture in the last passage of the three I shared above. Paul was still very much alive at that time and still writing. So, clearly, the text itself was known to be Scripture right when it was written, not hundreds of years later when some council pronounced upon it. Even Paul himself, the writer, treated his writings as Scripture (Col 4:16). So, as I said before, the Canon was set as each book was written because of God's unique signature in them. The writers knew what they were writing. Those who read the writing knew what they read. No council was necessary to prove anything. And there is no reason in the New Testament to believe that God thundered in any way to communicate that the writing in question was from Him.

Again, it was clearly sufficient that, as Paul said, each writing of Scripture was "inspired" by God. That means that each writing possessed the Essence of God which identified the writing as God's Words to the reader. That is what the Bible itself says, not a claim that I am making. So, the Bible is the one you would be taking issue with here if you disagree, not me. In other words, what Paul said is that if any writing is Scripture, you will be able to tell that it is from the presence of God's Inspiration in it, not that the writing itself will claim to be written by God. So, if you are looking for an actual explicit written claim in a book of the Bible that it was written or commissioned by God, it would be at your own behest, not because the Bible says that true Scripture would be identified that way.

Finally, obviously, the Bible does claim that Scripture is God-inspired. So, unless any writing can prove itself to indeed be God-inspired, it is not Scripture. That is the Bible's actual claim. And it is on the basis of that claim that we can say that this or that book does or does not belong in the Bible. It is only when we doubt this claim made in the Bible that we would then make up our own criteria for deciding what is and what is not Scripture. That is what I believe is very wrong with the Roman Catholic Church: you do not believe the Bible.

Third, I don't believe that it is only good people who can tell that something is Scripture. That is not what I said. I believe that the Bible identifies itself to anyone who cares to know what it is. Not that they would understand what it says: only those who have the Spirit of God can understand what the Bible says. But anyone - good, bad, believing, unbelieving - who comes to the Bible seeking to know what it is will know that it is God's Oracle. Whether they decide to retain that knowledge in themselves by believing it or not is up to them. If they choose to reject it as God's Truth, then the Bible will be closed to them and its claims and pronouncements ridiculous to them. That is why we can have these discussions. The Truth does not force itself on anyone while we still live in mortal flesh in this world. We have free will and can choose whether to accept or reject the Truth as it pleases us. So, even knowing that the Bible is the Word of God when we open it does not mean that we will believe it. We can reject that knowledge and choose instead to lie to ourselves that it isn't for any number of rationalizations that suits us.

So, double standards? Luther's alleged tampering? Essenes? Etc. My answer to all these things is that once you accept the testimony of Scripture concerning itself, it becomes clear that to know what book, text, translation, manuscript etc is Scripture, all we need to do is read it.

PS. I don't think that you should take history so lightly. You make a lot of claims on the basis of documents you believe say the truth about what happened so long ago. A trained historian might surprise you about what is really admissible as historical truth and what isn't. Just saying.

Question #14:
I'm not even offended, I just prefer to be blunt when I write.

I'm not neutral in the discussion because I did take a position, it is not exactly _____'s position but it certainly is totally different from yours. I addressed your post because I think if you accuse someone of been simplistic then you must be ready to address the issue in all its complexity. If you think someone is wrong then do the due diligence to make sure you get it right. I didn't consider your response to _____ particularly charitable, by my own estimation I have granted you the very charity you didn't do him.

first of all Paul writing to Timothy says all scripture is inspired, in fact he places the word scripture in context by claiming that they are texts Timothy has been familiar with from childhood.... He is speaking of the "scripture" of the old testament and even at that this technical term didn't have a defined list of books. For the Samaritan reading that text Paul was referring to the Torah alone! For a Pharisee it was between 20-22 books since they were still argument on which books are pure, to an average Jewish Rabbi in the first century who accepted the Septuagint it could be 28 books, for an Essene it would be over 30 books...the audience was the church and since the church and the apostles used the Septuagint I believe he was referring to the 29 books the church accepts as scripture. Again that passage pretty much is old testament specific.

The next tells us that Peter knew that many letters of Paul was been considered scripture in the church, the letter doesn't tell us if the writing of Peter, John or Hebrew was considered scripture. Heck it doesn't even tell us which of the letters of Paul is been referred to, is it his letters to the churches or does it include his personal correspondence like that to Philemon.

I repeat what I wrote earlier, the Bible does not anywhere state that these 50,70, or 80 books are the scripture, God's word and Oracle... The people who did make that claim is the church.
The Bible tells us that scripture is God breathed but it certainly does not give a list of the books that make the scripture.

The Bible doesn't make the claim either that whatever is scripture is immediately recognisable, if is was Jews won't be debating what books defiled the hand, nor would whole Christian churches reject certain letters of Peter, etc, nor would Martin Luther advocate against the book of James as contradictory to the other scripture. Your theory that the book of Timothy implies that scripture is immediately recognised is just a theory and not found in the passage in question.

None of this puts a dent on what I said earlier.

The issue of each man discerning the "feature" that says a book is inspired still raises it own question, who makes the discernment, Luther tried and ended up not liking both James and the deuterocanon, the church did its own and accepted 73 books, I hear the Ethiopian church now accept 80 books, jerome discerned and had two lists of scripture one he called canon, the other ecclesiastical, heck I believe you are happy with 66 books based on your discernment. Who among the above have got the discernment correct? Or it is OK for every one to discern for himself? Heck who here has the authority to discern? Based on acts 15 I say the church has the final say, she is led by the spirit and is heir to the unfailing promises of Christ... For you I guess it everyone for himself.

I will say the collection called the Bible does NOT make such claim, some books allude to other, some books make claims about themselves, but certainly no book or group of books tell us that the current collection in your hand is exactly scripture. Nope that decision was made by others.

The Catholic church certainly doesn't share your theory that the Bible tells us it table of content and calls it all scripture, we don't do that because it is a lie to say the Bible makes a claim it doesn't make.

We do believe the Bible to be God's word but we wouldn't lie that its table of content is immediately recognisable and that the Bible tells us of same.

anyone can find it you say and whoever can't find it is just one who rejected the truth he found.

I could say the same of anything, Nigeria is the greatest country in the world everyone can see it whoever doesn't agree, saw it but rejected it.

My grand mum is a virgin, everyone can see it, whoever doesn't agree saw it but rejected it... And I can go on and on, the statement is amoebic in nature, sounds like what you say when you can't address an issue, you claim it is self evident and condemn all he disagree as insincere liars etc. Doesn't make for a good argument.

OK tell us which translation(s) is correct since you assume to have the right discernment. Is Luke correct to quote the Septuagint above the Hebrew that a virgin is to conceive not just a young woman?

Since you believe your acceptance of a claim scripture doesn't make of itself gives you the qualification to discern, how about we hear it.

Lastly certain trained historians also tell us that lots of things, some even tell us that the church tampered and added to or revised the new testament we now used, some tell us the scribes did same to the old testament even before Jesus was born, attend a class on high method of biblical criticism and you'll be scared what they say. There are those who say the apostles didn't write the gospel.... How many of those do you agree with.

Response #14:
________, what you did and are doing was and is in poor form. I did not address you. You chose to talk to me. The least you could be is civil until I give you cause to be otherwise.

Your response to my argument with the three passages is a very good example of what I said about Roman Catholics. You don't believe the Bible. And why would you when you claim it is your creation?

Let me say it again: unless these writers in the New Testament bothered to clarify what they meant by the word "Scripture", the logical thing to assume is that those to whom they wrote knew exactly what they meant. If you want to debate about what they may have meant, I am not interested at this point. What my argument here is is this: before the apostles died, it was clear to at least the writers and the recipients and readers of the New Testament what was Scripture and what wasn't. That is a direct negation of your claim that the Hebrew Canon "was not set until after the apostles died". If your claim was true, then there would have been need for each writer to clarify what they meant.

In the same vein, whether Peter meant all of Paul's letters or some of them also does not matter even the slightest bit. The point is that while Paul was still alive and writing, Peter himself recognized his writing as Scripture. There was no council then which pronounced on them and no thundering from Heaven. So how did Peter know that they were Scripture? Will you seriously argue that he did not mean what he said? I wouldn't be too surprised if you did.

Those of us who actually believe the Bible see ONE Book, not several. We do because they all share the same essence. That is, they all bear the same signature. So, we know that what one of them says is what all of them say. Additionally, every book that presents itself as giving authoritative information about spiritual matters may be reasonably assumed to be claiming spokesmanship for God even when it does not explicitly do so. However, I find it hard to remember a single book in the Bible that does not in one form or other present itself as an oracle. Paul in almost all his letters included the statement "grace and peace from [God] to [the readers and recipients]". That was a direct claim that he was writing under commission from God. There are many such signs in each book. But that is hardly the point. Any book may make such a claim. The question is whether the claim is true. Also, the absence of such a claim is no proof that the writing is not Scripture. As I said, the proof that a writing is Scripture is that it is God-inspired. Unless, of course, you think that Paul was lying or mistaken somehow. It wouldn't surprise me too much if you turn around and decide that you think so. For now, though, you agree that the Bible says what it says. If Scripture is God-breathed or God-inspired, then Scripture will be immediately recognizable as such to anyone who demands its identity. Or else how could everyone who wrote and received the New Testament when it was written know what was Scripture without some council telling them? Or else how would Peter know that any of Paul's letters was Scripture?

As for who is getting discernment correct, that's your appeal to popularity. It is not my place to worry about who and who is discerning Scriptures right (which is why I care very little about your claims about Luther). My business is to make sure that I am being careful to discern the Bible. And I am. I have read what you call "the deuterocanon" and without being told, I knew something was weird about them. They were not like the other books. I was a child when I read them. I have had infrequent contact with them through my growing up years. I am an adult now. And I still think they are weird. But none of the 66 books recognized by Protestants feels the same way to me. I couldn't care less what your own opinion on them is.

As I said, I don't care what the Roman Catholic Church thinks is true and what it doesn't.

About the historians, it's like visiting a doctor. You don't lose your brain just because you don't have a medical degree and someone who has one or more is talking to you about your body. But neither do you pretend to be a doctor or to know what a doctor is trained to know. You acknowledge your limits and you still use your common sense to parse what you're told. That is why I can say that claims made about Luther "don't smell right" even if I am not historian. They just don't fit with what I do know about that period of human history, to say nothing of what I do know about the man himself. So, while I do not deny that "high method of biblical criticism" is capable of scaring believers, I don't think there would be that much there that would really trouble me. And I may know a little bit about some of that. Still, one must acknowledge one's limits and not just make things up to feel more comfortable. That only leads to more trouble for oneself in the end.

I don't find much in the rest of your arguments that I need to respond to beyond what I said above.

Question #15:
I can't speak for _____ but for myself I've got to admit I find your pseudo intellectual posturing quite irritating, especially as its blatantly uninformed, and it has required quite a measure of discipline and restraint to not respond in a sharper tone with you. I have been quite aggressive in the past and I've usually ended up feeling remorseful about it. So I try to be as cordial as possible.

You introduced yourself to this thread with the following ....

Makes for interesting browsing. This was back when antichristians could still string together a sophisticated but false argument. Today, they can't even talk without finding an insult to throw in. And they never even bother to properly attack arguments or properly construct one. They could take a library out of your book, _______

You fancy yourself to be some sort of superior intellect and that can easily rub many people the wrong way. Especially if you then go on to write considerable amounts of nonsense on the subject discussed.

Response #15:
Does it occur to you that I may have some opinion of you too? Why do you think you have more right to look down on my "pseudo intellectual posturing" than I do to look down on yours? Or do you possess unique rights to all true intellectual posturing and confer it only on those who please you? Can't we just be two people who disagree with each other? Why does there have to be any intellectual posturing, whether true or false, involved here?

Question #16:
As Uben has already responded to you. The Bible makes no such claim. Unless you have another bible that you are reading that makes that claim. There is nowhere from Genesis to Revelation where the Bible says 'This Tome is the Very Word, the Very Truth of God'. There is nowhere in the bible that you'll find that.
On the contrary you'll find the following claim in the book of Psalms:

19 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork..
2
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
4
Their voice[b] goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

But out of curiousity how do you look for signs of God's personality in the Bible. Where did you first get to know his personality which you can then compare to what's in the bible?

With those words in bold you've undermined the authenticity of the bible. The fact is that there are numerous versions and translations of the bible and there are numerous cults and groups formed on the basis of these different translations (or sometimes the translation are based on the doctrines of the cult). If the witness is from God then God would preserve it? Well the bible hasn't been so accurately preserved so does that mean that it could not be a witness from God?

Excuse me if I scoff at your appeal to spiritual discernment, but it has been my observation that folks run to hide under 'spiritual discernment' when they have no logical or intelligent argument left to defend their position.

That's okay. It's not actually Latin. I made the word up myself. The Biblio part is from Greek for book, and the Latria part is from Latin for worship. So I put them together to refer to what I observe as people worshiping the bible beyond what the bible is or claims to be. People like you actually.

Have you ever considered the fact that it could be you that is the antichristian? It is you who disavows the Church in favour of some new fangled baseless ideologies and doctrines.

I don't know how you've come to the conclusion that I don't accept the Virgin birth. I mentioned that the Virgin birth is supported by the LXX but not the Hebrew text.

With these words you have pretty much dismissed the entire bible with your argument. What time was Jesus crucified? what time did he die? The answer would depend on which part of the bible you were reading.

Oh come on now. Not being an Historian never stopped you in the past.
How can different versions be expected when God supposedly protects his Witness? You are contradicting yourself man.

Can you tell me which of the various versions is the authentic Witness of God in your opinion? Is it the KJV? Or the ESV? or the Douay Rheims? Which one?

Traditions and errors in the only Witness that God is taking special care to preserve.

Pray tell, Why do you insist that Christianity cannot be rooted in the Septuagint?

You should go back to your bible and study it better. The virgin/young woman is not just mentioned in Isaiah but Matthew chapter 1 makes it explicitly clear that it was a Virgin and it had to be a virgin to fulfill what God said:

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[g] (which means “God with us”).

It had to be a Virgin, not just a young woman, and Matt 1 goes into detail of what happened and how it all happened in order to fulfill Isaiah.

Response #16:
The conversation moved on some before your response so I'm thinking you are only dragging me back to respond to things I already put a response to.

I already told _____ how the Bible said so. Of course it did say so in many ways. Whenever Paul or Peter said "Grace to you (and peace) from [God]", they were essentially saying that they were writing for God. In each book of the Bible, this sort of thing occurs in one form or another. It may be by implication when a given book simply makes very authoritative statements about things that only God could really say. Or it may be more obvious as in the example I gave. Still, as I said to _____ too, this is neither here nor there. Any book may claim anything or prefer to make no claim. A claim does not make a writing Scripture. The absence of one does not make it NOT Scripture.

I believe we will come back to the passage in Psalms, but not just right now. As for how I find signs of God's Personality, I don't know that it is much different than how you find signs of anybody's personality in what they write. Maybe you can explain the latter?

About whether or not God preserved His Witness, here are some other things I said:

"Regardless of this desire on the part of the majority of human beings to distort God's Truth, God's Truth is still preserved in the world because of others who not only want to know it in its pure form but want to keep it accessible to others who may come to seek it. This is how God counteracts the power of the Lie. So, in every generation, there have been true believers equipped with the abilities and resources required to either reclaim the Truth from increasingly elaborate distortions that the Enemy and his agents have tried to mire it in."

"Why did God not prevent anyone from corrupting the Scriptures though? It is a fair question because obviously God can and He loves us and wants us to know the Truth or else the Bible is lying about Him, that is, He would be lying about Himself if the Bible is truly His Testimony. The answer to that question is that we have a free will. All sane human beings (the overwhelming majority of human beings) do. Therefore, each of us has a God-given right to decide what to do with God's Testimony. We can receive it in humility. We can ignore it. Or we can actively try to destroy it like King Jehoiakim of Judah tried to do in Jeremiah 36:21-26. Active physical destruction of the Bible has been attempted multiple times in human history but it is not the only way that people have actively attempted to destroy the Scriptures. They have tried too to add or remove or change material in them so that those who read their production will be misled into believing lies masked as Truth. This is hardly novel since Satan himself has been doing that since the beginning of human history, that is, presenting the lie as the truth to try to deceive those who want to be listening to God.

God allows this to make sure that every human choice about him is clearly demonstrated in the eyes of men and angels. But He is also God and He does have people who love His Truth and He commits Himself to helping them to preserve it, covering their weaknesses with His Strength so that His Testimony is preserved pure in the earth. There has never been a time in human history when such people did not exist. Nor has there ever been a time in human history when their opposite didn't either. So at all times throughout human history, both the pure Testimony of God and the adulteration, distortions and outright invented alternatives have always existed together so that everyone can choose what side they want to be on."

Perhaps those folks have a point. The Bible itself does say that only those who have the Spirit of God can discern and understand what it says. So they are not making it up. I can understand that you scoff at such appeals if you scoff at the Bible, as it seems to me that you do.

So, let me get this straight: you made up the very title of this thread, that is, it would take someone who knows Greek and Latin to figure out what your title is about but you still thought "it was clear from the title" whatever your thread was about? And I got no points for figuring out what you were doing? How was this not disingenuity on your part?

Okay. So a Christian is one who is loyal to the Roman Church? Why do you believe that? What authority defines the Christian that way? And what are these "new fangled baseless ideologies and doctrines" I'm supposed to be following?

Well, do you believe in the Virgin Birth, _____?

It is not true that the Hebrew Bible does not support the Virgin Birth. The fact that a different Hebrew word was used than the word for "virgin" does not necessarily translate to "the Hebrew Bible does not support the Virgin Birth. The context does have a say in this. And the context in the Hebrew Bible not only does support the Virgin Birth but it emphatically teaches it.

How did I dismiss the entire Bible with that argument? As for your questions, it is not true that the answers vary. The same thing was just stated in different ways as different writers tend to do about the same things.

I'm not sure that it didn't. It's a long time now since I had such discussions. But even if I did, people grow and change and I respect expertise now in other people. I know that history is not merely reading a bunch of books. There are tools and specialized knowledge that help historians make decisions about historical truth. So, I try to respect that now. Now I know what I know and what I don't know and know when I'm making an educated guess and when I am saying what I am certain of.

As to the question, why do you ask that when I also offered an explanation in the comment you are responding to? Why don't you fault the argument instead of require me to repeat it?

It's not my job to tell you. When you read it, you will know. If you want to know, that is. That is after all what I have been saying about the argument of councils. No one needs anyone to tell them what is Scripture and what isn't.

Christianity is rooted in the Bible, not just this or that version or this or that opinion of it. The Septuagint is not all wrong or all bad. But it certainly is not perfect by any standard.

Of course it was a Virgin. Isaiah just didn't use the exact Hebrew word for virgin there. Still, the context made it clear that he was talking about a virgin. Excuse the imperfection of my earlier statement. I did say though that the context limited the interpretation there to virgin.

Question #17:
I have absolutely no doubt that you have your opinion of me. I also have no doubt that you'd have no qualms about expressing that opinion as you would with any of your other opinions with the same faux-superior condescension. An example can be found in the post you entered this thread with. You assumed a superiority over those you'd argued with on NL in the past.

You said I strung together a false argument. Apart from the fact that I didn't actually make an argument but rather a cursory look at the history of the LXX you called it false without, till now, being able to provide an argument as to why it was false.

And as if your plan is to destroy us all with the power of Irony you then go on to claim that others are incapable of forming arguments or properly attacking arguments. Abeg remind me what it is that Jesus said about the Log in the eye and the speck in the eye.

Response #17:
I am not going to have an entire debate on this with you, _____.

You claim that I am an intellectual fraud who hypocritically claims that other people cannot form or properly attack arguments.

I have heard you. And I don't care that you think so.

If you want your statement to mean anything, go and address my actual arguments and prove them to be nonarguments.

I do think that I will point out how interesting it is that you clam that you didn't make an argument when you said this:

Question #18:
That's okay. It's not actually Latin. I made the word up myself. The Biblio part is from Greek for book, and the Latria part is from Latin for worship. So I put them together to refer to what I observe as people worshiping the bible beyond what the bible is or claims to be. People like you actually.

Response #18:
So, what does "contra bibliolatreia" mean and what was the point of this thread if it was not to present a reason for opposing the worship of the Bible? Isn't that what your title means: "against (or, in opposition to) the worship of the Bible"?

Also, you think it's okay for you and other antichristians to come and throw your weight around claiming that Christians can't use their brains and then lose your mind when someone else starts to show you "faux superior condescension"? Haha. Very funny.

Question #19:
This is pathetic. So now you are just making up lies. Where did I say that christians can't use their brains? Are JMAN05 and _____ not Christians? Where did I say they were not using their brains?

Response #19:
I am responding to this because it would be wrong of me to have made a false accusation of this sort against you and fail to apologize or argue for my innocence of such an accusation.

Let me put it this way: I included you because of something you said on this forum a long time ago. The same way you know my Nairaland history and brought it up when it suited you too, yours is easily accessible too.

Whether you believe that the people you were speaking of were true Christians or not, you did sneer at their lower intellectual ability compared to the atheists.

That was almost ten years ago or maybe less than that.

That attitude has not exactly changed with you. You have never, to my knowledge, ever said the exact words in question but what you have actually said amounts to the same thing including a very recent statement about Christians on the forum since _____ and I left the forum some years back.

I am not interested in a debate about this. It is of little consequence to me and to anyone who cares for Truth what your opinion of me is, especially when you think the way you do about the Bible and fellow Christians. If you had a more pleasant attitude toward these things, then I would be worried about why you see any reason to treat me differently than them.

So, again, there was no lie. I know that you make some kind of difference between some people you refer to as Christians and others you call "christians" but unless that difference is an objective one, it matters little. You do treat and speak of Christians like they are not very intelligent with some exceptions perhaps like the people you mentioned.

Because this is not anything I care that much about - being attacked in one way or another comes with the territory in apologetics, for me - I am not going to offer proof. This is not that big of a deal. You do know of what I speak. They are your posts. If you want to split hairs and insist that they say exactly that Christians don't use their brains, I will concede the point and let you have your merry way. But your post history is long and prodigious. Anyone who is that concerned can take the trouble of finding the proof for themselves. I said what I said for educational purposes, not to embarrass you.

In any case, I won't discuss this any further. Your opinion of me is noted and accepted (it was years ago too). And I choose not to care about it.

Perhaps we can now actually deal with the "sophistries", "nonarguments" and all that other more boring stuff, can we?

Question #20:
I read your response to Ube which did not touch the matter. It didn't even come close.

Response #20:
So you say.

Question #21:
Saying Peace of God, and the Grace of God be on you is not a claim to writing on God's behalf. This is just the way Christians greet each other. To say it is a claim to be coming from God is so utterly spurious. So if I say to you, 'God Bless you' that must mean that I'm now speaking on behalf God. That makes about half the human population orators for God.
I repeat the Bible makes no such claim. I am more certain of that now that the only proof that you have is to take a common greeting out of context and claim that it is a claim to be speaking from God.

Response #21:
About the clause in question, there is a difference between:

"(may) Grace be with you" or "the Peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit" and other blessings like that

And

"Grace TO you and Peace FROM God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ" and other such statements.

The first is a prayer and a desire for God to grant Grace and Peace. The second is a definite statement informing the receivers that God was sending His Grace and His Peace in the letter. This is exactly like when you say that "so-and-so sends their love" or "so-and-so greets you". The difference here is that it is put at the beginning of the letter to tell the readers that, yes indeed, this letter is coming from God through our agency. He is not just sending His Grace and Peace in the manner that a loved one asks another who is writing a letter to send their love to a dear one but effectively confirming that the letter is from Him.

As I always say in debates like this these days, I am not trying to persuade you of anything. You are free to believe whatever you want. What I am here to do is to set the records straight for anyone who actually cares about the Truth. For such people, knowing that Paul sent his own greetings and confirmed God's Own sending of His Grace and Peace through his letters is enough to strengthen their faith in the Book of Truth. For you, however, I am persuaded that there is nothing in Heaven or Earth besides God's Own full unveiling of His Glory that will persuade you to believe that the Bible is God's Own Book and a Full Revelation of Jesus Christ, not when you have refused to exercise free will faith in it.

Question #22:
Wow! You're going to duck the Psalms passage.

How do I identify a personality in a writing? If someone showed me a letter that was full of spurious sophistry, I might ask the person who showed me the following question. "Was this written by Ihedinobi, it's sounds like him, I've read lots of other stuff by him on Nairaland and this certainly has all the hallmarks of this reasoning"?
The fact is that outside of the letter I already have experience of Ihedinobi which I can compare to what I see in the letter.

In order for you to be able to identify God's personality in the bible then you must already have some foreknowledge of God's personality outside of the bible. You will then be able to show that what you encountered outside the bible is strikingly similar to what you are seeing in the bible.

Pray tell, where did you know God before that tallies with the God that you read about in the bible?

Response #22:
You would be very pleased to find that that is true, wouldn't you? That was not the right place to deal with that psalm. This is.

Now, that psalm along with Romans 1:19-21 is your answer. In theology, it is called Natural Revelation. That is, the whole world around us, our own consciences and the fact of physical death are all witnesses not only to the existence of God but also to His Personality. This is why I said that everyone - whether believing or not, good man or bad, Hindu or Sikh - will know that the Bible is the very Word of God Himself once they read it. Everyone of us is born knowing from the evidence of creation, death and the human conscience that God does exist and what He is like. So, we all know what is likely to be His Testimony and what isn't.

But each person possesses a God-like ability to choose to completely ignore these witnesses (as you can see from the Romans 1 passage) and make up their own "truth" and do as they please. So, of course, it is entirely possible for a human being to deny that the Bible is indeed God's Word. We can and the vast majority of us unfortunately do because we want to have life on our own terms rather than God's.

Natural Revelation, however, is not the end of the story. It does make it possible for every human being who actually wants to to recognize the Bible for what it is but it does not make the Bible understandable to everyone. We will come to that in another part of your argument.

Question #23:
I believe you haven't really given much thought to the idea of Free Will in your entire life.

There are a variety of bibles and they are different enough from each other to be able to facilitate the development of quite contrary doctrines in the many different types of Christian churches.

I never tire for marveling at how people like you take it upon yourself to speak for God and tell us the inner workings of God's mind.

Response #23:
It's entirely your prerogative what you want to believe. It's not my problem really.

I'm not sure how this is any kind of counter to what I said.

Good. You shouldn't take such a thing for granted. There are not that many people who have really bothered to learn "the inner workings of God's Mind" and there are even fewer who possess the gift of explaining it to others for their own spiritual benefit.

Question #24::
Why are you resorting to lies now? Where did I scoff at the bible? I scoff at your attitude to the bible, that is quite a different matter.
Where did the bible say that only those that have the Spirit of God can understand it? Where does the bible even ever refer to itself from Genesis to Revelation? Certain books or letters refer to other books or letters, and sometimes to themselves but there is absolutely no reference to the bible in the Bible.

Response #24:
This is an example from this particular post that I am responding to. I am sure that you have some way of explaining it that will not amount to scoffing at the Bible. I will be very happy to hear your explanations:

"there are variations in the facts and figures about events contained within the bible. How many pairs of each species of animal went into Noah's Ark? One pair each, or 7 pairs of the clean ones and one pair of the unclean ones?
What Time did Jesus die? It is a very simple question that could kindly just answer for us. How many different ways can different writers say 3pm?"

"Bible" is a word that was used to describe the collection of all the sacred writings of Christianity into one volume. The common name that was used for those writings before "Bible" was "Scripture" or "Scriptures". Do you want to ask your question again?

As to where the Bible said that only those who possess the Holy Spirit can understand it:

1 Corinthians 2:7-16
[7]but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;
[8]the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;
[9]but just as it is written, "Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him."
[10]For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
[11]For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
[12]Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,
[13]which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
[14]But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
[15]But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.
[16]For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Question #25:
the suffix '-latry' is common in the english language and you don't have to be a greek scholar to know that Latria means worship. Ido-latry, Idol worship. Mono-latry, worship of a single being. etc etc etc....

Excuse me for giving you more credit than you merit.

Response #25:
You're right. You certainly did give me more credit than was due here. I have never seen the suffix "-latry" that commonly used. Even now I have tried to remember seeing it outside of the word "idolatry" and I keep failing. But, my guess is that you would not find many other people who would have found it that easy to know what it means. So, perhaps, you have a skewed appreciation of reality here.

Question #26:
I said the Church, you added Roman. However the apostolic traditions can be found outside of Roman Catholicism too. Are you trying to be clever? I believe that a christian would be loyal to the Church because it was founded by Jesus Christ himself who they purport to follow, and he promised to preserve the Church. So when one attacks the Church from outside I can only conclude that they cannot be christian. All this is getting rather off topic don't you think?

Response #26:
I think it might be too. But I am thoroughly puzzled right now what you are really saying with the above. Did you not mean the Roman Church, I wonder? Is it the Roman Church that you are seriously claiming that the Lord Jesus Himself founded, I wonder? Is that the Church too that you are claiming that the Lord Jesus promised to preserve, I wonder? Is that the Church that you claim I am attacking, I wonder? Because if the answer to all this is "yes", the problem is very complicated indeed.

However, according to the Bible, it is faith in Jesus Christ that matters. Possession of such faith makes one a believer. Believers were first called "Chrestians" (in today's parlance, that would mean "goody two-shoes" ) in Antioch and that name was later corrupted to "Christians" (that is, members of the household of Christ). That is why we are so called today. Otherwise, we were variously called "believers", "disciples" and "followers of the Way". None of this had anything to do with the Roman Church or with any visible earthly institution. You are a Christian if you believe in Jesus Christ. You are not if you do not.

And I call everyone who attacks such people especially with arguments and questions to undermine their faith antichristians. You fall right into that category

Question #27:
Off Topic. The Virgin birth is a corner stone of Christianity and Matthew says it occurred in order to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah that a Virgin would conceive and bear a child.

Response #27:
Indeed. I just wondered if you were thinking of making your identity clear for some reason. I see you are still playing the mystery card.

As for what the Virgin Birth is about and what Matthew said, there is no argument there.

Question #28::
The virgin birth occurred in order to fulfill the prophecy that a Virgin will conceive and bear a child. If such a prophecy did not actually exist then not only is the Gospel wrong, but the Virgin birth is pointless.

Response #28:
Not sure why you felt the need to say the above. The Hebrew Bible does hold that Isaiah prophesied throughout Virgin Birth. That was what I said in that argument you responded to with the above.

Question #29:
You dismissed the bible because there are variations in the facts and figures about events contained within the bible. How many pairs of each species of animal went into Noah's Ark? One pair each, or 7 pairs of the clean ones and one pair of the unclean ones?
What Time did Jesus die? It is a very simple question that could kindly just answer for us. How many different ways can different writers say 3pm?

Response #29:
Weird. These are the words with which I dismissed the entire Bible according to you:

"I disagree with your categorical statement. I already stated the major reason in my statement above. God has preserved His Word by Himself through free will choices made by different men through the ages and in spite of schemes and agenda and preferences of different groups.

One way to appreciate this is to consider the production of Jehovah's Witnesses. I have already done this. Their Bible was created to attack the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Deity of the Lord Jesus but the production ended up a contradiction and an absurdity because it taught both that the Lord Jesus is Deity and that He is not. Consistency with its own self is an important test of the Bible. Any version of the Bible that contradicts itself is questionable already unless it can present an explanation within itself for the apparent contradiction. Even modern mainstream translations of the Bible other than those produced by cults like the JW have problems which are discernible to the diligent student. But those problems would not even be discernible unless the student knows God in a way that enables Him to identify things that aren't consistent."

Still, can't see what any of the above has to do with reconciling different accounts by different writers of the same event.

You have a low view of inspiration. So, I am not sure what good it would do you to explain any of the questions you asked at this point.

Question #30:
Well, if you've grown and changed then you've done so very fast, in the last week or so. You forget how you entered into this thread which is about the historical origins of the Septuagint. You entered like a know-it-all to tell us that OP was sophisticated but false.

On what basis did you say it was false if you don't know history, yet respect history and realise that history is more that just reading books (or britannica for that matter.

Response #30:
I gave you benefit of the doubt because I can't claim to remember exactly how I was about history debates on this forum in 2012. I know that I engaged in them and that I did believe what I argued but whether or not I pretended to be an authority is something I don't remember. So I will give you benefit of the doubt in that regard.

Your argument did not need me to be a historian to know it was false. I was not essentially concerned about the history, after all. My concern was with your representation of the Bible. I knew that it was false. You were presenting a case for its unreliability. Whether you were presenting a scientific, historical or cultural case would have made no difference. My answer would have been the same. Any argument that casts aspersions on the reliability and inspiration of the Bible is false.

When such arguments are presented, I can often tell whether the science or history or culture is way over my head or within my reach. Yours was the latter. I didn't need to be a trained historian to deal with it. There are questions that have been raised and arguments that have been presented since I joined the conversation that I know are outside the limits of my ability in history to answer and I have refused to offer an opinion in them without some serious research as a result. Others which have been within my grasp, however, have been judiciously responded to.

Question #31:
all of a sudden it is not your job, but pontificating on baseless sophistry is your job abi? There are many versions out there and you say there is a war but God's true witness is preserved. Abegi, which one of the versions out there is God's true Witness. Nor be exam question.

Christianity cannot be rooted in the Bible. The New testament of the Bible was all written AFTER Christianity was established.
If you can tell me another version of the OT that is quoted to support Christian doctrines like the LXX you can say Christianity is not rooted in LXX.

Response #31:
My argument right up to this point has remained this: the Bible identifies itself to everyone who wants to know what it is. So, why is it so sudden for you that it is not my job to identify the Bible to you? Did I ever claim anything different than the statement I just reiterated?

As I said, when you read what is out there, you will know which is God's Word.

I have no idea what you mean by "The New testament of the Bible was all written AFTER Christianity was established". Please explain. When was Christianity established and how are we able to know that it was at that time?

Your question about the Septuagint has already been answered sufficiently. To reiterate, the vast majority of believers from early days were Gentiles in a Greek-speaking world. A Greek Bible then was handy for communicating with them whenever it was not going to mislead the hearers. That does not therefore mean that the Septuagint was the root of Christianity. The alternatives were not readily accessible to believers at the time since most of them could not speak or read Hebrew and did not even have Jewish traditions.

Question #32:
What context made it clear that the Almah means virgin? Please explain the context.

Response #32:
Isaiah 7:1-16
[1]Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it.
[2]When it was reported to the house of David, saying, "The Arameans have camped in Ephraim," his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind.
[3]Then the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller's field,
[4]and say to him, 'Take care and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah.
[5]Because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has planned evil against you, saying,
[6]"Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,"
[7]thus says the Lord God: "It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass.
[8]For the head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin (now within another 65 years Ephraim will be shattered, so that it is no longer a people),
[9]and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you will not believe, you surely shall not last."'"
[10]Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying,
[11]"Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven."
[12]But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!"
[13]Then he said, "Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well?
[14]Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.
[15]He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good.
[16]For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.

Note the bold text. It wouldn't be much of a sign unless the woman was an unmarried virgin at the time, would it?

Question #33:
my dear I have not been uncivil with you, I have handled your presentations bluntly but I have been charitable, I have not directed any ad hominems and have addressed your points and only your points... I don't know why you think I have been uncharitable with you. If I have, point it out and I'll apologize.

Response #33:
All right. It's probably a misunderstanding on my part.

Question #34:
I have been around long enough to know every Protestant I meet have his or her version of what Catholics think, most times far from the truth and frankly speaking, I have gradually began not to care about it if not that instructing the ignorant was considered an act of mercy. Of course the church created the Bible, borrowed much from the Jews, the other parts were written by members of the church under inspiration, recognized by the church, addressed to the church and compiled by same. I do not just claim its creation, I assert it forcefully from all available evidence that under the influence of the holy spirit the church did create what is called the Bible borrowing the old testament from the Jews.

This doesn't in any way imply any disbelief in the Bible, heck, the Jews created the old testament and no one accuses them of not believing it simply because they created it under God's help.

Response #34:
Indeed. Was it not you who mentioned how some Jews think that some books are too holy to even be touched much less read? That is, they consider them inaccurate somehow. An example is the Book of Daniel. There is no escaping such arrogance once any individual or group of people makes such arrogant claims as you do.

Of course, you didn't create the Bible. You just like to think that you did because of the false sense of spiritual superiority you derive from such a lofty thought. What you did was do your best to corrupt the Bible and neutralize it with your traditions.

Question #35:
oh that is a good claim to make. The church was the recipient of the letter, the church actually knew what was been talked about it was the Greek Septuagint which the church considered scripture, so yes! The recipient seemed to be clear that scripture for them was the Greek canon...

Besides its still doesn't even address my point, the Jews too were always referring to scripture as a technical term even though until the 2nd century they were still arguing what books were scripture. That a person said " scripture " to another doesn't mean they necessarily had a set list of what was considered scripture. But if you wish to go forward with that claim, then I'll submit that scripture for the churches was the Septuagint.

Response #35:
One, your claim that the Church knew that it was the Septuagint that was referred to is completely unimpressive. If I ask you for proof, are you going to go much further than "the Roman Church says so"? When you say "the recipient seemed to be clear that scripture for them was the Greek canon...", what do you mean?

Two, your claim that the Jews were arguing about the Canon until the 2nd Century is equally unimpressive. As I said, it matters nothing what was going on about what was Canon. If the writer and the readers were confused about the Canon, the term Scripture would have meant one thing for one and another for the other and that would require the writer to clarify what he meant. The absence of that clarification meant that both sides knew exactly what Scripture meant and needed no further clarification.

Then you make this very curious statement:

"That a person said " scripture " to another doesn't mean they necessarily had a set list of what was considered scripture."

What on earth do you mean? How can someone use a word for which they have no meaning in order to communicate to somebody else something that they hope that that person will understand? In what other way can the word "Scripture" be used beyond to mean "the sacred writings"? How would anyone Apostle use it without meaning some specific list of writings? Explain to me how this is not disingenuity on your part.

Question #36::
Actually every Christian Church could recognise its own set of books as scripture even without a council, actually every church was gathering it own collection of writings she recognized as scripture, in fact while Paul was still alive churches were reading his letters as scripture but his letters weren't the only ones been read that way. Churches also took the letter of st Clement to the Corinthians as scripture and it was read on Sundays in some churches... So too the sherperd of Hama's. Do you recognise those books? Because they too were read as scripture in churches immediately they were written? If the criteria is that the books were immediately recognised as scripture then may Clement too and the sherperd should be scripture, if that is the criterion maybe books like Hebrew and peter shouldn't make it too because many churches rejected them.

Which brings me back to my point, Clement was instantly accepted by churches and so was Paul on what basis then do we have Paul in our bibles but not Clement, the answer is the church in council, the gospels had almost universal appeal but not Peter, yet they are both in the Bible, how come? The church accepted both.

Response #36:
Yes, I do recognize those names. What I don't actually see to recognize is any reason to believe that "while Paul was still alive churches were reading his letters as scripture but his letters weren't the only ones been read that way". Where did you get this information? Not from the Vatican Archives, did you? I'm guessing, probably.

Question #36:
sorry but you have mixed much nonsense here.

The Bible may tell one story but it isn't one book, it is instead one line of thought and even with the deuterocanon it is still that same line.
And again, the grace thing is a greeting still used in the church today, it is not some declaration that what is been written is God's Oracle.

Lastly those who received the new testament when it was written received a lot of things, some had more books than we have others had less, there was no "feature" totally recognized by every one, if it was so all the churches would have always had the same list but that was never the case.

Response #36:
Go on and list out the nonsense that I mixed up. I do you the same favor, don't I?

What does your second paragraph mean if the Bible is "one line of thought" and if it "tells one story"? What is the essential difference between saying that and saying that it is one book because all the books in there share one essence? As for the deuterocanon, that is your claim and I really don't credit it. If you want it to be part of the Scriptures for you, by all means, carry on. I don't accept them as such since the Spirit in the 66 books is lacking in them. As for the greeting, I accept your argument and reiterate that with or without the presence of such a claim (which I made quite clear wasn't necessary at all), the identifying feature of Scripture is that it is "God-breathed" or "God-inspired". That is, if you cannot detect the Breath of God in it, then it is not Scripture no matter whether it makes a claim to be or does not make a claim to be Scripture.

Again, where do you get the information you post here outside of the Vatican Archives? Not that it matters since Paul himself warned at least one church that he ministered to about letters purported to be from him or "the apostles" (2 Thess 2:2,15). There may have been others so warned. If some of those churches didn't heed his warnings, then, of course, they had a confusion in their collection of writings.

Question #37:
lol, I never appealed to popularity, you claimed the scriptures had a "feature" that made it recognisable to anyone, if it was so then how do you account for how come the entire church recognized the Septuagint with it deuterocanon as scripture, even those who ranked it lower is recognized it as scripture. So the entire church weren't good enough to see the feature wasn't in the deuterocanonical books and it took 1500years for Martin Luther to come and recognise that the feature is absent.

Sorry dear, you either concede that the feature is hardly recognisable or it is nonexistent or if it is existent and easily recognisable then it is the church who got it correct not the guy who came centuries later.

I have my own story, I was also a child when I noticed my mum's Jerusalem Bible has more books than the RSV we used in school, I read wisdom and sirach and I immediately recognized that it was the same with the Bible, I remember thinking those who made the decision were silly. When I grew up I noticed every one appealed to personal discernment when they can't find a clear justification for their action, anyone can make any decision and blame it on discernment, but there is an entity that is promised preservation by God and has authority to make that discernment and has the assurance of the holy spirit, I.e the church.

Response 37:
How do you say that you never appealed to popularity and right in the same sentence say this:

"how come the entire church recognized the Septuagint with it deuterocanon as scripture"?

And then start the very next sentence with this:

"So the entire church weren't good enough to see the feature wasn't in the deuterocanonical books..."?

Do you not understand what an appeal to popularity is?

Perhaps if you try a little harder you could get me to talk about Luther. I am not interested in your history lessons, ____. My argument is that the Scripture says that it is God-inspired. That means that if you can detect the Spirit of God or the Breath of God in a writing, then you have Scripture on your hands. It says nothing about Luther or your Roman Church. This is why I will continue to dismiss them as red herrings. Perhaps you can now admit that you don't believe the Bible or care what it says. Maybe that could get me to talk about Luther?

There. That was my point. We all decide individually. You decide what you want to believe and others do too for reasons each prefers. This is why your church and yourself may scream it till you're blue in the face but I will still not accept the Apocrypha as Scripture. Same way no amount of atheistic noise and bluster would ever make me believe that there is no God.

Question #38:
then I can also say I don't care what you think and then the discussion will break down because it is silly to be in a discussion when you don't care what the other thinks.

Response #38:
But wasn't that obvious from before you joined? My argument from the beginning was that the Bible identifies itself to the inquirer. No one can identify the Bible to anyone else. If you cannot believe the Bible's own testimony about itself, whatever else you choose to believe is going to be false. So, why are you here debating with me? Did I at any time indicate a need to be advised what is and what is not Scripture?

Question #39:
do you need the quote from Martin Luther himself as to his mago mago?

Response #39:
Try a little harder. You might get it this time.

Question #40:
still same issues.

The Bible does not say the Bible is God's word, the Bible did not identify its table of content, the church did.

The church did finalise on what is scripture, if you decide to hide under discernment to forward the protestant list then you may very well concede that the "feature" is not easily recognisable since your list of scripture is different from that which the church used for centuries, or the feature is nonexistent or the church did get it right.

Either way your story only make each man his own Bible creator. Let us give every man the abt 100 books that were in contention and let everyman discern for himself what should be scripture, create chaos.

Response #40:
You would love to believe that, wouldn't you? That would give you Romans the excellent loophole to sell whatever you want God to be saying. Unfortunately, you are not the only ones who can claim that God gave them the right to speak for Him in the world. That is why there are so many "Bibles" and "holy writings". It's a travesty, really. Again, Paul says:

2 Timothy 3:16
[16]All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness

That is, Scripture (unless you have some reason for questioning that 2 Tim 3:16 is Scripture - not that I would care though, but still) says that "all Scripture is inspired or breathed by God". So, yeah, the Bible does say that the Bible is God's Word.

As for your claim about what and what is part of the true Bible, again, "all Scripture is breathed by God". If it wasn't breathed by God, it isn't Scripture. I couldn't care less if the whole world swore that it is. So, continuing to throw your claims about the Roman Church in my face is wasting time and energy.

LOL. So, instead of so many Bible creators, let's just have any old one that can blackmail and bully its way into the top spot? No, ____, Scripture identifies itself. Those who fail to discern it are those who don't want to discern it for themselves. This is where exactly the Roman Church belongs: among those who don't want the Bible to be the Very Word of God, just as you have so vociferously and unequivocally insisted that it does not claim to be.

BTW, your church claims the authority to tell everyone what God says and is it itself devoid of this chaos you speak of?

Then again, the books are in contention and yet there are plenty enough people who are not confused about what is Scripture and what isn't. There is always chaos on the battlefield but not so much that at least a few soldiers don't know what side they are on and what they are fighting against.

BTW, bonus point: Tobit 12 is a completely different attitude toward educating us about angels than anything you will find in the 66 books commonly accepted by Protestants.

Question #41:
And when the same person greeting then bestows blessings on God himself perhaps that means that the letter is actually addressed to God and it is a message from Paul to God. After all this is how it goes innit?

2Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.…

2Corinthians 1

I would prefer to say that Grace and Peace from God is already an established fact just as the Blessedness of God. And what Paul is doing is stating the fact as a greeting. It is already established that God's Grace has manifest for Christians and Paul not only declares this in his salutations but he teaches his disciples to do the same.

11For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

15Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
Titus 2

In short, The Grace of God has appeared... Therefore.... Declare it with Authority.

Response #41:
I already accepted this argument from ____. I agree with it. It still does not change my argument. The Bible makes the claim it makes in 2 Timothy 3:16 at least even if you don't find an explicit claim in each book of the Bible. As I also said, the proof that a writing is Scripture is neither that it claims to be nor that it doesn't claim to be. Rather it is that it contains God's essence or His Spirit. I don't see you refuting that.

Question #42:
So it is now scoffing at the bible to point out facts about it's contents. The fact is that within the bible there are 2 different accounts of how many animals were taken up into the Ark. That's just a fact. If you think that pointing that out is scoffing then I feel even more sorry for you than I started out.
What I will scoff at, not happily but with a sad heart, is your desperate mendacious need to reconcile these facts with sophistry.

While books of the bible were still being written, and while some books of the bible had not yet been written there was already reference to the Scriptures. So therefore what is being referred to as the Scriptures existed before the Bible existed. If you want to deceive yourself that Scriptures is equal to Bible please feel free, I cannot help you.

Response #42:
First, you are right: two different accounts. Not two contradictory accounts.

Two, why did you feel the need to point out those differences? In what context did you do so?

Three, I wonder where this need of mine was demonstrated here. Can you show me where I showed that I needed to reconcile these two accounts? What I do remember is a qualified refusal to do so.

Four, your continued reference to my sophistry really just makes me wonder which you really think is the case: that I am not very intelligent or that I am intelligent enough to make arguments that are hard to take apart even though they are false. You keep saying both things. Make up your mind.

Five, you are really weird. Again, "Bible" is the name given to the collection of Christian sacred writings into one volume. That is, it is a name that refers to the self-same thing we call Scripture and Scriptures. The Scriptures were referred to both before they were completed and after. In other words, if you want to quarrel about terms, I'll just stop saying "Bible" and start saying "Scripture" and your whole thread will be even worse off then, if possible.

You are grasping for straws, _____, and you know it.

Question #43:
I'm sorry for you but in the passage where you are quoting the Bible is not mentioned. In fact the bible did not exist then. Neither is Scriptures mentioned. Paul didn't mention any writings in particular but spoke of his words and deeds when he encountered the Corinthians.
The book of Revelations did not exist when Paul wrote that and neither did the Gospel of John or many of the other letters.

Response #43:
Incredible. So, shall we also say that because the Lord Jesus had not been born into the human race from Genesis to Malachi, nothing written in those books applied to Him either?

You are so weird.

Shall we also say that because none of those books referred to Him as Jesus, they don't apply to Him?

You are really really weird.

Question #44:
Your argument is that because of the Greeting "Grace from God to You" Therefore the bible is from God.

If you agree that the Grace of God is already established in the lives of the Christian recipients of the Letter and that all the apostle is doing is affirming that Grace of God in their lives then your whole Argument has fallen on it's ass. That you feel that it doesn't change your argument just demonstrates that you are pig-headed.

Response #44:
There's this post I made as follow-up to my first response to ____:

https://www.nairaland.com/1224167/contra-bibliolatreia-ii-septuagint/1#72581261

Then there's this too:

"I already told _____ how the Bible said so. Of course it did say so in many ways. Whenever Paul or Peter said "Grace to you (and peace) from [God]", they were essentially saying that they were writing for God. In each book of the Bible, this sort of thing occurs in one form or another. It may be by implication when a given book simply makes very authoritative statements about things that only God could really say. Or it may be more obvious as in the example I gave. Still, as I said to _____ too, this is neither here nor there. Any book may claim anything or prefer to make no claim. A claim does not make a writing Scripture. The absence of one does not make it NOT Scripture."

From: https://www.nairaland.com/1224167/contra-bibliolatreia-ii-septuagint/2#72657648

And I'm the libelous cretin? 

Question #45:
You continue to lie that the Bible makes a claim about itself when in fact it is the Letter to Timothy that makes the claim about those writings revered as Scripture. The Bible did not even exist at the time that the letter was written.

Response #45:
So, let's see...

1. This letter to Timothy is not Scripture. Is that what you mean? Because if it isn't, that would be Scripture referring to "all Scripture".

2. As I already argued, we can always say "Scripture" instead of "Bible" if that makes you happy. Unless you want to argue that because the sacred writings were bound together into one volume, they ceased to be Scripture. Would you like to argue that? Or perhaps you would prefer to argue that Paul and Timothy had a unique understanding of the word "Scripture" that need not be universal.

Question #46:
I don't know why you raised all these failed arguments when you then claim that it doesn't matter whether or not there is a claim to divine authorship in the Bible, but your belief is based on something else.

Response #46:
To begin, my argument was that, first, yes, the Bible claims to be the Very Word of God and that is a very big claim to make but still, second, that claim only matters if in fact, the book that makes it shows that it was God Who wrote it in the same exact way that you can tell that I wrote something because you see my personality in it.

Any book can claim to be God's Production, but only the book that mirrors God's Personality lives up to such a claim.

The Bible makes that claim. The Bible mirrors God's Personality. Therefore, the Bible is right to claim to be the Word of God.

This is what my argument is in a nutshell.

Question #47:
It is God's spirit in me that informs me so categorically that you are a fraud. Call it an ad hominem if you like but the Holy Spirit denounces your words in my heart. And furthermore it is done with evidence.

Response #47:
I don't believe I have said anything one way or another about whether it is the Holy Spirit Who informed you of anything. I just observed that this seems to be the whole interest of your argument: ME. That is the classical meaning of ad hominem.

Question #48:
I) 7 pairs of animals does not contradict One pair of animals each. This is Sophistry.

II) I brought it up in the context of your saying this:

Now, how do you want to reconcile the different reports of the number of animals in the Ark? And how would you want to deny the Jehovah Witness from reconciling their own discrepancies in the same way?
I really want to see how you intend to be good for the Goose yet not be good for the gander.

Response #48:
The way the Bible works is this: "believe and then you'll understand". You won't understand it first, then believe. This is because of the very Scripture you tried to twist in 1 Cor 2. That is just fair warning.

I am answering you not for your sake but for the sake of weak believers who for any reason find their way here.

These are the two accounts that you spoke of:

Genesis 6:19-20
[19]And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.
[20]Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.

and

Genesis 7:2-3
[2]You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female;
[3]also of the birds of the sky, by sevens, male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth.

The first passage in Genesis 6 said that Noah was to take the animals in pairs of male and female.

The second told him how many pairs of clean and unclean animals he was to take.

Question #49:
III) I anticipate your attempt to use sophistry to reconcile the different reports. Of course you may just decide to avoid the matter entirely much like you avoided showing how Isaiah was talking about Virgin when in actual fact he was talking about a young woman. A young woman had a baby and before the baby grew up to make moral decisions the enemies of Israel had been scattered. How does that imply that the woman was a Virgin?

Response #49:
Well, it is your choice what to call it and whether or not to even bother about proofing it. Like I said, I didn't answer for you. If this were a private conversation between us two (a gross unlikelihood), chances are that I wouldn't have bothered to explain it at all.

Are you really saying that I avoided showing how Isaiah meant virgin when in your very next argument you repeat the argument I made?

As I said in that argument, why would it be a sign if it was a married woman having a baby? What's the big deal in that?

Question #50:
IV) I never said you made any arguments that were hard to take apart. You're hallucinating. I do think you are unintelligent enough to think that you can convince me that Hebrew Almah is a reference to a Virgin because the Israel's enemies were dispersed before the Child grew up to the age of making moral decisions. You arrange your words in such a way as if you're making a point when in fact you are making no point at all.

I'll quote you again here to show where you tried to use sophistry to pull wool over your own eyes.

Why could it not be a sign that a young woman has a child and before the child is grown up Israel's enemies are dispersed? Why does the woman have to be a virgin for it to be a sign? Are you not disgusted with yourself that you can present such an argument.

Response #50:
You called my arguments sophistries. That means that you consider them clever but false. That was what I called your OP as well. But where I have gone on to show why I believe your OP to be false, you have been more interested in my person and somehow that helps you prove that my arguments are false?

The woman had to be a virgin because then the timing within which she had to get married, then have the baby, then name the baby specifically, then have the child grow up to the point spoken of would make it a pure miracle. If she was already married, then what would be the big deal about her having a baby who grows up to that point?

No, I am not disgusted with myself. The argument looks fine to me.

Question #51:
V) You are lying by conflating the Bible with the Scriptures mentioned in the Bible. It is the very same text that the NT calls Scriptures that you've charged into this thread to try and disavow. That text read throughout Christendom and Judaism was the LXX, aka Septuagint. Why have you come here and tried to discredit it.
Yet you present something else (even though it overlaps with the LXX) and then insist that that is the Scripture by the authority of whatever fanciful notion you are deceiving yourself with.

Response #51:
Where does the NT call whatever it is you are referring to (I think you mean the Apocrypha, but if you don't, please clarify) Scripture?

As I said, the Septuagint was popular for Gentiles and Jews who could not read Hebrew. Teachers like the Lord Jesus and the Apostles used it for convenience whenever it was not in error. Otherwise, they translated straight from the Hebrew.

Finally, what is the difference between the Bible and the Scriptures? I have explained more than once why the two are the same to me. You should return the favor so that it is clear exactly how I am lying.

Question #52:
What do you find incredible/unbelievable? That Paul was not talking about Scriptures in that passage but rather about his words that he spoke/preached to the Corinthians? What is so unbelievable about that? That is what Paul himself says:
1And I, when I came to you, brothers,a did not come proclaiming to you the testimonyb of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of menc but in the power of God.

Response #52:
This is the entire chapter:

1 Corinthians 2:1-16
[1]And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
[2]For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
[3]I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,
[4]and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
[5]so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
[6]Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away;
[7]but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;
[8]the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;
[9]but just as it is written, "Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him."
[10]For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
[11]For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
[12]Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,
[13]which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
[14]But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
[15]But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.
[16]For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Even if we were to accept that Paul was only speaking of what he taught the Corinthians (and the context suggests a far more general view than that), this passage does not say that he didn't teach them the whole Scripture.

Having said that, "the things of the Spirit of God" clearly does not refer only to what Paul was saying in vv.1-4. If it did, it would have made more sense for Paul to go on saying "my message and preaching" than the more general "the things of the Spirit of God".

Question #53:
If as you claim this your argument has no bearing on whether the Bible is written by God or from God then why oh why did you bring it up and present it as an argument to demonstrate that. The reason you brought it up is because you thought that it would impress us and when you realised that I recognised it justly as a nonsense argument you want to retract it but without actually retracting it for ego's sake.

The fact of the matter is that that your argument fails woefully because it is clear in the bible that Grace to you from God is a salutation that is a declaration of something that is already established. Paul didn't bring them a new Grace from God with that letter.

Response #53:
I did say that you were grasping at straws. Any little thing that looks like a victory to you you'll milk for all it is worth.

I never offered the "Grace to You" bit as an argument. It was an illustration for an argument. I did my own further research before _____ attacked it and decided that it was a bad illustration so when he did, I acquiesced. That was well before you even deigned to respond on it today. I was only confirming to you that I had already yielded the point to _____ and now you have it in your head that I lost the whole argument to you?

I don't think I need to explain my argument any further. Believe what you will. That is your free will action.

Question #54:
I have already seen through your technique. Your technique is to try and Conflate the Bible with the Scriptures of the Earliest Christians (the Septuagint). And at the same time to try and dismiss the Septuagint completely as being nothing special while your other Vaguely defined Scripture is the Truly special text.

Response #54:
Considering that you are the king of mystery, I would have considered it a great compliment to be told that I played it like that if I thought that that was a good thing. But I don't make up words in Latin and Greek and try to pass it off as some clear term anybody would understand. That's you. I try to explain my arguments and be clear no matter how smart or dumb the person who reads them. That is me, not you.

My argument was this: the Septuagint had problems in translation. Most translations do. This is why it is never very wise to exalt a translation over the original. You claim that all the originals are lost and the problematic Septuagint which received a divine reputation through your legend is what Christianity is rooted in.

That is not true. The original OT was preserved in the Masoretic Text. The original NT was preserved in manuscripts like the Sinaiticus. Anyone who learns Ancient Greek and Hebrew can access the Word of God in its purest form in them.

Now, I didn't bother to say all that because even those who cannot for some reason learn Ancient Greek and Hebrew can still hear God's Word even if they read the Septuagint for the self-same reason that I have been presenting in my arguments: the Word of God is inspired by God and is thus recognizable to anyone looking for it. So, even in poor translations like the Septuagint, those whose hearts are seeking the Truth will find it and still recognize in such translations what is NOT the God's Word. That is why I could tell what was wrong with the JW Bible and the Apocrypha. However, my experience is mine. I don't offer it as any sort of argument. Each person has a free will and a conscience and the witness of creation, so each person can decide for themselves what is and what is not God's Word.

Is that clear enough for you?

Question #55:
Hahahahaha, you are too clever by half. So you want to complete the Conflation but slip it by me as if it is a concession of some sort. When in actual fact I knew that this is what you were gunning for from the start.

Response #55:
I am just a bit tired. It's been a long day for me...in a good way though, so I am rather willing to make reasonable concessions.

You do like to draw an issue out for no discernible reason. Now we are fighting over terms. I call it the Bible. You have a problem with that. I explain that Bible is only a word that describes the collection of Christian Scriptures but you still ignore that and talk about a conflation. All this because you want to argue about lists.

I don't care what list you favor. The point is just that if it is the Word of God, that is, if it is Scripture and truly belongs in the Bible, no matter whether it is the Gospel of John, the Wisdom of Sirach or the Book of Enoch, the only way we can know for sure is that that writing has the Spirit of God in it. And if it does, then it can only be understood if the reader has the Spirit of God in them.

If you want to argue that some people who lived two thousand years ago called the books of the Maccabees Scripture and treated them as such (if, in fact, they did; and that is debatable) and therefore so should we, I would ask you why. Why should I treat anything as Scripture just because they did? Scripture is God-breathed. Therefore, I will only treat a writing as Scripture if it is God-breathed even if they didn't.

It's exhausting having to repeat the same thing so many times, _____. And I'm supposed to be the unintelligent one here, according to you. Why do I have to repeat my argument so many times only for you to accuse me of trying to slip this and that past you? Weird.

Question #56:
Bibliolatry (from the Greek βιβλίον biblion, "book" and the suffix -λατρία -latria, "worship"[1][2] is the worship of a book or the description of a deity found in a book. In Christianity, bibliolatry is used to describe extreme devotion to the Bible or to biblical inerrancy.[3] Supporters of biblical inerrancy point to passages (such as 2 Timothy 3:16–17) interpreted to say that the Bible, as received, is a complete source of what must be known about God. -Wikipedia

Even though I thought I was making up the word, if you were a true seeker after Truth and applied due diligence you would not have a problem.
However you are obviously not someone who is concerned with the Truth. And so you see that even though I was not aware of it, you were being exposed by the holy Spirit.

Response #56:
LOL. Now I'm supposed to research your own arguments too? You told me that you made up the title of the thread and it became my duty as a seeker of the Truth to go and determine whether you did in fact or not? Because it matters to me why?

Question #57:
You are a liar!! Flesh and blood are not revealing these lies to you , but your Father of Lies.

The Masoretic[1] Text (MT or �) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Tanakh for Rabbinic Judaism. It is not the original text (Urtext) of the Hebrew Bible. It was primarily copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries CE. - Wikipedia

Response #57:
First off, how reliable is Wikipedia as an academic resource, _____?

Regardless, did I claim that the MT was the original text? Is this not rather what I said:

"The original OT was preserved in the Masoretic Text"?

If it was copied and edited from faulty or otherwise imperfect manuscripts in order to regain the original rendering, would the original OT not be preserved in it?

Now, here is Encyclopedia Britannica which while not being recommended as an academic source, mind the word, is very admissible as a resource. Its information is not as comprehensive and detailed as a source would be but it is generally an excellent summary of the research out there:

"Textual criticism
Textual criticism is concerned with the basic task of establishing, as far as possible, the original text of the documents on the basis of the available materials. For the Old Testament, until 1947, these materials consisted principally of: (1) Hebrew manuscripts dated from the 9th century AD onward, the Masoretic text, the traditional Jewish text with its vocalization and punctuation marks as recorded by the editors called Masoretes (Hebrew masora, “tradition”) from the 6th century to the end of the 10th; (2) Hebrew manuscripts of medieval date preserving the Samaritan edition of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible); (3) Greek manuscripts, mainly from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD onward, preserving the text of the pre-Christian Greek version of the Hebrew Bible together with most of the apocryphal books (the Septuagint); and (4) manuscripts of the Syriac (Peshitta) and Latin (Vulgate) versions, both of which were based directly on the Hebrew. Since 1947 the discovery of Hebrew biblical texts at Qumrān (then Jordan) and other places west of the Dead Sea has made it possible to trace the history of the Hebrew Bible back to the 2nd century BC and to recognize, among the manuscripts circulating in the closing generations of the Second Jewish Commonwealth (c. 450 BC–c. AD 135), at least three types of Hebrew text: (1) the ancestor of the Masoretic text, (2) the Hebrew basis of the Septuagint version, and (3) a popular text of the Pentateuch akin to the Samaritan edition. A comparative examination of these three indicates that the ancestor of the Masoretic text is in the main the most reliable; the translators of the Revised Standard Version (1952) and the New English Bible (1970) have continued to use the Masoretic text as their Old Testament basis."

Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/textual-criticism

Question #58:
it is not a matter of terms. It is a matter of facts. The Scriptures of the Jews was the Septuagint at the origin of Christianity. The Bible did not exist at that time.

The Bible as a whole is a different object entirely from the LXX even though the LXX is contained in the early bibles. Using the same terms to conflate these two things is disingenuous.
As disingenuous as saying 2 is equal to 7, as per the Animals in Noah's Ark.

Response #58:
Again, rather obviously from even _____'s reference to the Qumran Caves not to mention your own narration in your OP your first paragraph is false. The Septuagint was made for those who could not read Hebrew. You know too that there were Hebrew texts in existence at the time as there have always been. It was those Jews and Gentile believers who could not access the Hebrew text who had to make do with the Septuagint. You are the one who knows what you mean when you say "bible". Until now, you have only asserted the existence of a difference. You are not big on definitions, are you? Maintaining confusion seems to be a real thing with you.

As for the existence of the Bible, again, you are weird. The Bible is what we call the collection of Christian sacred writings. It has always existed for as long as there have been Christian sacred writings. It was only completed by the Apostles and their associates. But it has always existed as long as there have been inspired writings.

So, this is your rebuttal to the explanation you asked for about Genesis 6 and 7: a straw man. So I said that two is equal to seven? Where did I say so, pray tell?

Question #59:
So recognizing God's word because you have the spirit that others don't have is not your argument. 'You don't offer it as any sort of argument.'

Also, Claiming that Grace to You from God means that the bible was authored by God is not the argument you presented, only an illustration of an argument (lol).

So which one is actually the argument you came here to make. You just entered and declared the OP as false and the went on to write at considerable length on absolutely nothing. Which part of anything you've been writing since is your argument to buttress your point that the OP was false?

Response #59:
At this point, I'm rather convinced that you are thoroughly confused in this discussion. You pick and choose what arguments you will respond to, unilaterally declining response wherever you want without much explanation (in two cases, you decided the arguments were off-topic, otherwise, you offered no explanation). You keep sneaking around in the conversation sneering and hurling insults. But to actually sustain an argument or a rebuttal is just hard for you.

I will explain one last time:

My argument is that Scripture claims to be God-breathed. That means that anyone who reads it will be able to tell, if they want to, that it is God's Own Thought because - as you yourself agreed - one can tell that something was written by someone if one already knows what that person is like. Every human being has access to Natural Revelation, that is the witness of creation around them and their own conscience and can therefore tell whether something is the Word of God or not.

To illustrate the claim that the Bible makes to be Scripture, I provided Paul's benediction. I decided later that it was a bad example and retracted it when _____ countered it. A bad example is only a bad example, not a bad argument. You accomplish nothing by harping ceaselessly on it. After all, you cannot deny that Scripture claims to be God-breathed without deciding that Paul's letter to Timothy is not Scripture.

I will give you yet another to think about:

Hebrews 4:12
[12]For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

If, therefore, it is truly the Word of God, it will be alive and active. So, again, if you can detect life (incidentally, God breathed into Adam and he came to life, so if Scripture is God-breathed, then it must be living) in any writing, then you have the Word of God on your hands, regardless of claims or the absence of them

Those are my arguments. Perhaps at some point, you will actually bother to answer them rather than look for things to sneer at and insults to throw.

Question #60:
LOL! You spout so much rubbish here that even your 2 supporters that have been liking everything you've posted so far have given up. Obviously they felt you needed the moral support.

Response #60:
It's been proving rather impossible so far for you to show the rubbish in my posts.

And you're the one talking about likes, not me. Classic appeal to popularity...or lack of it.

Question #61:
I asked you a question: You said I agreed with you on the matter, I asked you where I agreed with you and you responded with copious amounts of trash. All you have to do is show me where you said one thing and I responded in agreement. It's an easy request. I haven't lost any thread of the conversation. You are the one trying to make everything as convoluted as possible in the hope that the thread will be lost.

Response #61:
I'll take this to mean that you're unwilling for reasons of your own to engage productively anymore.

Question #62:
Nope! Stop being a dunce. I told you that I have a penchant for making up words. I thought I was making up a word - Bibliolatry. I make up words by deriving them from greek or latin, as a lot of english words are derived this way anyway.

It turns out that the word I thought I was making up actually already existed and it is used in the same way that intended for it to be used. obviously because I was using the same rules that determines how a lot of english words are formed.

If you had simply googled the word you would have found its meaning to be exactly as I had intended it.

And by the way, it is just a word, not an 'argument'. Bibliolatry is not an 'argument'. You really don't know what an argument is, do you?

argument
/ˈɑːɡjʊm(ə)nt/
2.
a reason or set of reasons given in support of an idea, action or theory.
"there is a strong argument for submitting a formal appeal"

Response #62:
It is false that you said that you had a penchant for making up words. You said, "I made the word up myself". As I said, you've lost track of this discussion.

And why would I be googling a word in this case if I wasn't researching your arguments?

It should have been obvious by now that as far as you are concerned, there is no stopping my being a dunce since I am not going to agree with you on the reliability of the Bible. That is why I am a dunce, isn't it? Because I disagree with you and have the temerity to say so, right?

Question #63:
Au contraire, your posts are replete with rubbish. Pick any paragraph and the chances are 50/50 that it is complete utter rubbish. I, and not only I, have pointed this out to you over and over again.

Nope, wrong again. I simply showed you that you were spouting rubbish. mendacious rubbish. You made a claim that I agreed with you on something. I asked you to show me where I agreed with you and you responded with copious amounts of rubbish instead of just showing where I said anything in agreement with you.
It's your inability to follow such a simple thread of conversation that leads me to concluded that you are an absolute dullard.

I've said this so many times in my history of Nairaland, but perhaps you missed it.

Why would you google a word you didn't know, or understand? You tell me smartypants. Especially as you want to respond to the thread, why would you google it to find out what it is you are responding to?

No, wrong again.

You are a Dunce because you cannot follow an argument and you fail to answer simple questions. You are a dunce, not so much because you make daft arguments but because you are stupid enough to think that you can get those daft arguments past me.

Response #63:
So, after nine days, you come back to throw more insults and make spurious claims.

I believe we are done now. You have no further arguments to make, no ability to hold up the claims in your OP and no ability to actually effectively counter anything I have said. And I am not just saying that: the proof is in the reading.

Basically, your thread fails to show that the Bible that Christians rely on today has any problems such as you labored to show in your OP. The Septuagint was a fair work as far as it went but it was problematic and the work of the Masoretes later on to produce a faithful reproduction of the original Tanakh did not produce anything that can be considered an invention without connection to what existed prior to the Septuagint nor can it be considered a derivative of the Septuagint in any way.

Furthermore, the Bible is a living book able and ready to declare its identity to anyone who asks. It is not some dumb book that councils pronounce upon and events happen to. It defends itself and has remained accessible through the millennia to all those who seek the Truth in spite of the obvious attacks on it by men like you, _____.

That is my conclusion.

Question #64:
As idiotic as ever. Why couldn't you just address accurately what I wrote? Why can't you just follow an argument and answer questions that are asked of you when you make claims?

Anyway, in your mind you are very clever and that's all that matters to you, it seems. In spite of the fact that everyone else on this thread has told you you are off point.

Response #64:
*No response*

Question #65:
just to put this long argument in perspective.

Do you deny that scripture quoted in the New Testament show a marked difference from what is presented in the masoretic text?

Do you deny that the same masoretic text shows a marked difference from the Vulgate which was translated from the hebrew and even the Greek text?

If you don't deny these then how do you account for the differences, subtraction, additions and editing?

Response #65:
There are differences of different sorts between different manuscripts, copies and translations of the Bible. This is only proof that none of them is the original and therefore must not be treated as the original.

There is a perfect exemplar of the Scripture to which every copy and translation should ideally seek to approximate. It is true that that exemplar is not easy to find but because the Bible is the very Word of God, it is spiritual. So when we humbly read different manuscripts and copies and translations, we are going to notice when things are straight and when they don't quite add up. This is how we can often tell which manuscripts are really good and which are really terrible.

The Masoretic is the best manuscript out there, as far as I know. But I don't believe that it is a perfect exemplar, that is, that it perfectly preserves the original writings of the original writers of Scripture. So, it will differ in some respects from other manuscripts out there. In some cases, some of those manuscripts will preserve the original writings better and in some worse. But all told, it is the best of them. This is also true of the Sinaiticus.

Happy New Year to you, _____.

Question #66:
1. I didn't talk about any book considered too holy, it seems you misunderstood what I wrote. I did speak about the jews deciding and arguing about the books that DEFILED the hands.

Response #66:
I was phrasing it the way Jews say it, sorry about the confusion. The Jews use the word "holy" in that sense as well. But the point made in my comment was that they too act with arrogance toward the Bible pretending to decide what is accurate in it and what isn't, that is, what is to be received as authentic and true and what is not to be.

Question #67:
2. Not I single claim I have made thus far is arrogant, on the contrary it seems your position is largely ignorant.
The Bible did not fall from the sky, it was written by the community of God's people, first Israel and later the church, it was this community that had the responsibility of recognising which books were inspired and which weren't. Israel and later the church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit created the bible as we know it. That my dear is a truism.

Response #67:
I wouldn't expect you to agree with me on this and I don't believe there is any actual discussion possible in this matter. I am confident that no human community has ever had any responsibility of any sort to decide (I'm sure that that was the word you should have used) which books are inspired and which are not. I am only to take your word for it that there has ever been any such community. And I don't trust you that much.

Question #68:
here comes the silly submissions I have come to expect from protestants. I personally did not create the Bible but the church most certainly did under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is not about a false sense of spiritual superiority it is just a fact that is easily proved. The old testament written and collected by jews the New Testament written by members of the church recognised as scripture by the church collated and added to the old by the same Church.

Unless of course you imagine that the Bible fell from heaven... At that point I will know you are joking.

Response #68:
The Bible was written by inspired men, all of whom were incidentally Jewish. I have no doubt of that. What I will not accept because I have no real reason to accept it is that the Roman Church had any authority or power to "recognize" the Scripture.

Question #69:
I don't even need to appeal to the church of Rome, I simply ask you to look at the new testament in your hands where the majority of old testament quotes come from the Septuagint and it gets better when you realize that the writer were jews who knew that what they were quoting wasn't exactly the same with the Hebrew and yet went on to use it anyway. Then just for the fun of it you can add the earliest Christian writings from the first and second centuries then it becomes crystal that the early church is pretty stuck in imitating the apostles and using the Septuagint as they did.

So dear, the church did know the scriptures it used both from the new testament and in the writings of the early Christians, it is the Septuagint. And instead of appealing to Rome I could very well appeal to protestant scholars who themselves will tell you that the Septuagint was the scriptures of the early church.

If that isn't convincing dear, then it is not the argument that is faulty, it is you who prefers to maintain your untrue opinion irrespective of the facts

Response #69:
What's with all this "dear"? Do you have a problem typing my name or using a more formal epithet? Please, cease addressing me in that manner.

As for your argument here, Paul often quoted pagan poets and philosophers. Should we enshrine those works as inspired Scripture too and put them in a Canon? I told you that this line of reasoning is unimpressive. It still is.

Question #70:
this only makes my point that you are ignorant of this topic.

Jews have been talking to each other about scriptures for centuries in that period even though one synagogue differed from another on what exactly that list consists of.

My argument about the Jew arguments on what is scripture still stands. If scripture had this identifying feature how come for centuries no one could see it and authoritatively say this is is, the elusive feature, and all will simply agree. Unless of course you revert and say this feature isn't that easily recognizable.

Response #70:
I won't even bother to explain again how this is a ridiculous argument.

Question #71:
this is the second time you have insinuated something about Rome instead of actually making research, what is it about Rome that pains you so?

Since you seem ignorant of it maybe you can read up Eusebius historical work on the early church, he gives a lot of information about books accepted and where they were accepted.

Response #71:
A church claims to have the authority to tell everyone just what is the Word of God and what isn't and you ask me what about it that pains me so? Very funny.

As for your response, I guessed right after all, didn't I? Anyway, I take all my information about church history from the Bible. Every other source is treated very delicately. Therefore, I can't credit your claims here either.

Question #72:
I can write 3 books on the fall of Rome, or my pals and I can do it, it will have one line of thought but it still isn't one book. They are 3 books.

How do you detect this "spirit " of the text, give me the criteria you used to determine the presence or absence of the spirit or you just sit and arbitrarily throw books in and out?

This God breathedness become more interesting when the church says James is God breathed and Martin Luther says it is an epistle of straws... How are they so wrong when this God breathedness is so easily recognizable?

Who decides the person that is rightly seeing this God breathedness or should everyone decide for himself what is God breathed and what isn't according to his recognition of the God breathedness (recipe for chaos)?

Response #72:
I think that you know that your argument here is ridiculous. For all intents and purposes, if there is just one theme running through multiple writings, they are one subject. It is not always practicable to put one work in a single volume so we may have them in several but they are still considered of one unit. The Bible is one unit so its multiple books will all fit with each other to produce a consistent narrative.

As for the inspiration of Scriptures, I have little interest in responding to deliberate obtuseness. I have already explained on this thread that just as you can tell whether a given bit of literature was written by someone is to look at them or things they have done for clues into their nature, you can look at Creation which itself demonstrates the Nature of God. If anyone accepts the witness of Creation as to what God is like, they will be able to discern His Character in His Writings.

Question #73:
so they too couldn't recognize the easily recognizable God breathedness? Tell me again, how recognisable is the God breathedness?

Response #73:
This life is all about free will.

Question #74:
you claim there is a feature that is easily recognizable that determines that a writing is scripture, of a great majority can't recognize the easily recognizable feature, then how easily recognizable is that feature? Truth doesn't have to be popular, but if you claim it is easily recognizable then you better have an explanation for why it clearly isn't.

Response #74:
Free will is the explanation you want.

Question #75:
of course you can't talk about Luther, he puts a dent on your easily recognizable strain of argument.

Response #75:
LOL. The thing your opponent does not want to address is always the thing with which you win. What's new about that? I don't want to discuss history, _____, because it misses the point.

Question #76:
As I earlier said I do believe the scriptures are inspired, but if you tell me that the current books of the Bible make that claim for themselves individually and collectively I'll certainly disagree, if you say that every human being is able to see this feature then I'll have to ask you why you believe that for centuries you think the church didn't really see the feature.

Response #76:
You're welcome to disagree all you want. The Bible says what it says. And if your belief that it is inspired does not derive from its own claim to be, it is that much less surprising that you think any human being has any right to decide what God says and what He doesn't.

Question #77:
so Christianity is a religion where each individual decides for himself what is truth? That is pretty relativistic.... If each man is the determiner of truth creating a chaos of opinion then what is the use of a pillar and bulwark of truth ? What is the use of the church besides fellowship? What does Act 15 teach us?

Response #77:
You are the one saying that each man is the determiner of truth. That only comes from your insistence that it is men who decide what is true and what isn't. You only prefer to have more people making the decision than less. I hold no such sentiments.

I believe rather that the Bible is the Truth independent of any human notions about it. And I hold that each human being is able to tell for themselves whether or not this is so. That is why we each have a free will and why we each have the senses and brains that we have. I have never much liked "faith by committee" too.

Question #78:
if it is the bible that identifies itself then why then do you hold that so many got it wrong or do you mean the Bible identifies itself to the protestant confirming what he had already been taught.

Response #78:
Like I said, free will.

Question #79:
This is not an counter argument. maybe you could try again.

Response #79:
Did that merit a counter argument?

Question #80:
actually that same passage clarifies that it is referring to books Timothy knew from childhood I.e the old testament, at best in context it says the old testament is inspiring and profitable. It wasn't talking about the bible as we have it since there was no bible then much of those books hadn't been written.

Response #80:
LOL

Question #81:
how do you recognize the God breathedness?

Response #81:
Asked and answered.

Question #82:
another ignorant claim, where did you hear the Catholic Church doesn't believe the bible is God's word, the issue here is that you have presented a nondescript discernment by each individual while I believe God gave us the church endowed with his spirit and the promises of divine preservation to save us from the chaos of relativistic individualism that today plagues protestant Christian with their varieties of contradictory teaching.

Response #82:
You're welcome to your belief however wrong it may be.

Question #83:
yes dear, with councils and bishops teaching and explaining scriptures, we always know where we stand whether in orthodoxy or heresy. That chaos is largely absent.

Response #83:
Unity in error is not much better than chaos. Even so, any study in Roman Catholic history will uncover enough reversals in interpretation as to leave one spinning. So, no, even if you are all standing together, you are not necessarily all agreed.

Question #84:
it is itself a scandal that there is confusion as to what is scripture. What you noted above simply tells me that each group simply follows the decisions they were taught

Response #84:
I don't see it the same way you do.

Question #85:
on the contrary Tobit is pretty on point about angels, God's messages sent to serve us and inform us of God's will and interceed. Nothing strange there.

Response #85:
If Tobit is, none of the 66 books that Protestants accept is. Go figure.

Question #86:
so I guess it is simply a stroke of luck that the masoretic text deletes and edited a great deal of the prophesies that talk of Jesus Christ even though the Hebrew Texts Jerome used have them?

The text edited from manuscripts and Jewish tradition from the 4th till the 10th century deleting prophesies about Jesus is the best text according to you while those translated before at most by the 5th century are troublesome abi?

Response #86:
Maybe one day I'll trust you enough to believe every single thing you say without question. But today is not that day.

Question #87:
I never asked you to believe everything I said, but I am happy to challenge you to make research on each point I have made so far. Both on the masoretic text and the development of the bible.

I could provide the material myself but u clearly said you don't want that. So what we have here is simple, you dont agree, you are not willing to look at anything that shows you've gat it wrong.

Response #87:
I think you are still failing to appreciate my position.

I don't believe your historical arguments because they are false. I know enough history to know that they are. But I fully understand that when people have a vested interest in a certain point of view, they will twist everything to serve it. That is why I don't care much for your references and sources.

Just to demonstrate to you that I am not inept with such things: my approach to attacking what I consider as false ideas is to research the point of view of those who hold it and then expose the weaknesses from within. That is why I actually know quite a bit about Roman Catholic history. I used to attack it. You should remember. I do. From 2012/2013. One of my sources then was "A Concise History of the Catholic Church" by Bokenkotter, a Roman Catholic Priest. You and italo, I believe, attacked the authenticity and reliability of that source and tried to invalidate the authority of the author. I am not sure now if _____ was part of that discussion or not. But I think _____ was also there then.

I am not afraid at all of your "material". If something is untrue, it caves in time under pressure. I just don't really care to attack Roman beliefs anymore. You will also notice that I don't attack atheism anymore either. I just defend against it. That is what I have been doing here too. When you joined _____, then I had to defend against Roman beliefs as well.

So, in short, I know the material here about as well as any average person needs to since I am not a historian. But that is really beside the point. The point is just that I know that it is obviously ludicrous that any group of humans can have the authority to decide what comes from God and what doesn't when God Himself created each human being with the ability to discern not only His Existence but His Nature. Just thinking about it is enough to show its ridiculousness. But then the Bible itself makes it clear that it is inspired by God and that the Existence and attributes of God are manifest to all so that anyone who reads the Bible with an honest heart will admit that they are reading the Very Mind of God.

But why would a group hankering after power over all human beings ever admit anything that threatens that power?

Question #88:
I don't know why this point has to be argued from so many different angles. I repeat the point I keep making over and over again that the sheer fact that the Death of Moses is mentioned in the Pentateuch means that Moses couldn't have written it in the form we have it now. If Moses wrote it then it has been redacted by later editors.

Response #88:
Joshua wrote a book of the Bible. He was handpicked to succeed Moses who was a type of the Lord Jesus Himself. Joshua was not just a contemporary of Moses's; he was also his closest associate and assistant, a sort of second-in-command. Why does it not occur to you that this man would have completed Deuteronomy?

Question #89:
I would say that the clamour for the 'original text' is political. It is nothing but an attempt to wrest authority away from the Church. And further, if the 'original text' can be said to be mystical wishy washy whereby we can't actually go and reference it then that leaves even more room for the likes of Ihedinobi to twist and turn.

Response #89:
Why you like namedropping me I can't tell.

Question #90:
I have no interest in any further discussions with anybody that has declared and demonstrated that he is not willing to discuss truthfully with me.

I mentioned your name in context of a conversation I was having with someone else in which your character served as a perfect example of what I was talking about. I was not addressing you. I would appreciate it if you kindly ceased to address me too.

Abeg, in the name of God and whatever demon you are worshiping, just carry your Personality Disorder commot from my side.

I thank you in advance.

Response #90:
You are incredibly dishonest, _____.

Regardless, I answered your post because you mentioned me in it. Typically, I would ignore it. But I was pleased to this time. I am the offended party, not you. I don't make a practice of abusing those whom I discuss with like you do when they take positions that oppose me. That's you. Therefore I discuss with you if I am willing to tolerate such behavior.

Question #91:
Without a doubt you would fall into the category of 'those who don't want it', Uben, so you can safely assume that he has been nothing but untruthful since he took you for such.

Response #91:
The Truth is the Bible. I don't offer that to people who don't want it. Even if I didn't mean that, even if I meant that I don't tell the truth of issues to those who don't want to hear it, it does not mean that I lie instead. It can mean that I simply don't talk to them (as I sometimes do with you).

However, the Truth there quite clearly referred to the Bible. And no one has yet successfully accused me of dishonesty around these parts. You, on the other hand, ooze with it.

Question #92:
Uben has not asked you to believe, Ihedi. He provided you with facts for you to go check out yourself and the fact the you claim to "know enough history to know that they are [false]” without checking while claiming the Bible as your only source, would be comical if you didn't mean it.

Do you have "a vested interest in a certain point of view" so "will twist everything to serve it" ? Or are you incapable of separating the wheat from the chaff and so just don't bother with the evidence?

Response #92:
"Facts" for me to go check out myself? Pray tell, what made them facts? His say-so or yours?

I can imagine the attraction an atheist may have to a discussion about the authority of the Bible but, believe me, you really can't make any judgment calls here beyond the default atheistic stand that there is no "Word of God" since there is no God. All you will countenance here is anything that may help you shore up such an idea. Beyond that, you will not quite follow the argument.

As for my position, I make a point of duty to avoid complicating discussions unnecessarily because that is how readers are led astray. Science and history can be hard to follow and they are never really the point in these questions. The question here is: is the Bible we have today the actual Word of God? Or is it a fabrication that nobody should trust? If it is the Word of God, then it will not need a lesson in history to prove it so. If it isn't, then no amount of historical debate will make it so. The Word of God must of necessity be recognizable in itself. Or else, it will not be accessible to everyone.

Historical arguments come into play specifically to confuse the issue and make that truth seem like a lie. Of course, I can make one. I did years ago with this same crowd and they made a terrible hash of the discussion. If I repeat the experience here, what will happen will be a constant attack on the authorities each person presents ad infinitum ad absurdum.

That is why I went to the heart of the issue. Apart from the OP here, pretty much everybody else at least pays lip service to the authority of the Bible. That is why I insist on arguing on that common ground.

Question #93:
I thought Jesus is THE Truth and the bible contains God's revelation, now it seems to u the bible is JESUS.

i will address ur posts later. this jumped out

Response #93:
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me...
John 5:39 NASB

Question #94:
I had to go search on nl for the topic and it is funny.

We provided the church fathers direct quote on the topic and you presented a 21 century commentary of events that happened in the 1st 5 centuries. How did you imagine that a 21 century commentator will trump the very people he is commenting on?

I havent read bokenhoter, but u quoted him as saying primacy began in the 4th and 5th century, i immediate provided iraeneus from the 2nd century to show that he is incorrect...then u went about saying he is a catholic priest and historian as though that implies he is never wrong or that make him equal to the church fathers he is commenting on.

I also saw _____ there trying to prevent the thread from tumbling into pettiness.

Response #94:
It was _____ you saw trying to prevent the thread from tumbling into pettiness? The same _____ that you are double-teaming with here? I have wondered why you appear to have a kinship with an antichristian more than with others who confess the Lord Jesus even if in a different way than you do. But it was just my self-imposed naivete when I deal with people I want to be gentler with.

_____ hates the Bible and everything to do with Christianity with a resoluteness. Yet, you think of him as some kind of a friend? For what reason other than his use of your church's claims to being the true church to attack other Christians? That, sir, is pathetic.

As for the arguments there, to be clear, I don't completely trust any sources the Vatican approves. The Roman Church has a narrative that was developed solely to solidify its claim of exclusive rights to Christ and God. Because of its unflinching commitment to this claim, it has altered history and the Bible itself to try to hold it up. I am certain of this. I have absolutely no doubt about this. It is a fact that I do not consider assailable at all. In other words, you will not succeed at persuading me otherwise.

I am also sure that I will never succeed at convincing you of the truth of that position. Just like atheism, buying into Roman Catholicism takes a deliberate decision to ignore any arguments or evidence to the contrary. It takes the very rare inquirer to actually accept the possibility that Roman Catholicism is a lie, a very deep and entrenched one too.

So, I insist on discussing with Romans on the Bible you claim to believe. You will reject every other authority that may even only seem to attack your favoured position. That is why Father Bokenkotter whose work was not proscribed by the Vatican, whose peers in the Roman Church acclaim him and who is a solid Roman Catholic historian (trained by the Church's own university too) is still not a reliable authority for you because he appears to confound something you cannot afford to doubt.

Why should I believe that what you claim Irenaeus wrote was really written by him if you are so obstinate as to reject even a contemporary Roman Catholic historian whose authority is not even in doubt? If it was, is it impossible that you are failing to understand it as it was meant to be understood? Historical contexts are after all considerably different than contemporary ones.

Furthermore, Irenaeus and others did not write in English. So you are relying on the interpretations of others to get at what he is saying. Do you have a good reason for trusting those others?

Finally, were the Church Fathers inspired? Were they infallible? These, of course, are bonus questions, considering that you believe papal decrees to be inspired and the Pope himself as well as the nebulous idea of the Church Romans have as infallible. Obviously, I do not hold these beliefs. I don't trust Irenaeus as much as I trust the Bible. And I don't believe that the Roman Church and the Pope are what they are claimed to be.

To be honest, _____, I really don't see this discussion going anywhere fruitful. I continue to respond to you out of courtesy. I thought you had quit the conversation summarily before and then you returned. But there really is nothing left to be said. Your attacks on the Bible in order to prove that it is whatever the Roman Church says that it is only prove my point. And as long as you insist that the Bible is a creation of the Roman Church, my arguments for its independent authority amount to nothing with you. So, there is no point really. I am not going to believe you, no matter what materials you trot out of the Vatican. And you are not going to believe me no matter what Roman authority I appeal to.

Question #95:
They testify about him, i.e divine revelation, but THE truth is a person not a book.
You should know that

Response #95:
Forgot this comment earlier.

There is no difference between The Truth and the Father's Witness to the Truth.

Question #96:
I really hope that by this you do NOT imply that Jesus is equal to the Bible, as though you are comparing a person to his word.

I hope you are not reducing the Logos of the eternal Father, consubstatial and equal to him, the very manifestation of his glory, power, presence in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily into the little revelation of the unspeakable God, all Holy God we have received in human words.
Because if you are equating the logos to the little of God he has put in human words and we call a Bible then you do God himself a great disservice and you abuse the Bible that you claim to defend.

That is nothing short of biblilatry, you have elevated the Bible beyond it's status as divine revelation and have made it equal to God himself. What next?

Response #96:
And right there you make the antichristian's argument for him.

Call it what you will. The Bible is the written Word of God. Jesus is the Word of God Himself. There is neither reducing nor elevating happening.

Question #97:
But the Bible is not God. Or is it?

Have we finally moved on to a Quarternity?

Response #97:
Why would you need a Quarternity here? What is the substantive difference between the Written Word and the Word Himself?

Question #98:
Then it is a good thing that what I presented so far are not particularly Roman Catholic beliefs nor do much of it constitute some official Roman catholic position.

Response #98:
This is obviously untrue. It is a Roman position that the Septuagint is superior to the Masoretic. It is also a Roman position that the Bible was compiled by the Roman Church. You have said these things yourself even, so your claim here is curious at best.

Question #99:
Maybe you didn't notice but the first issue _____ raised as his historical point was the Septuagint the Greek translation of the old testament. He presented it as the scripture of the early church and I agreed with him that the church used it over and above the Hebrew scripture of the period and I went on to show that the early church from the time of Justin martyr believed the Jew were corrupting the scriptures to remove allusions to Jesus... Something that is pretty obvious in the masoretic text you so enjoy and love. In fact I presented I link that shows that Stephen who was a Jew when he was been killed by the Jews in the book of acts quoted a potion of scripture which today can't even be found in the masoretic text the present jews use.

Response #99:
That historical argument did not interest me nearly as much as his overall claim that the Bible we have today is nothing like what existed prior to the Septuagint. My response was that, of course, the Bible that existed prior was preserved in spite of the Septuagint in Hebrew texts and manuscripts and was finally transmitted very near perfection down to us in the Masoretic. That is, the Masoretic was no retranslation back into Hebrew from the Greek as he claimed.

It was that focus on the lie that the original Scriptures are extinct that led to all of this. Obviously, the Septuagint existed side by side with preserved Hebrew originals. Given also that the Septuagint was notoriously problematic, every Jewish teacher used it only as far as it was correct when they taught. Otherwise, they translated straight from the Hebrew into whatever language they were teaching in.

Greek was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire at the time so the Septuagint was widely known and used but it was also known to be problematic so it was not used alone. Existing Hebrew manuscripts and personal translations were used when the errors were encountered in teaching. These are things I have said before.

Question #100:
What you did not notice is that the Roman church has no horse in that race.... The Roman church does NOT use the Septuagint since the 4th-6th centuries we have been using the Vulgate... So I have no reason to defend the Septuagint... No "vested interest ". For 1500years my church has used the Vulgate not the septuagint. The only person who would have such vested interest is a Greek orthodox Christian, they are the guys who still use the Septuagint as a official translation.

This is why I encourage you to check again everything I wrote and see if any of those points is untrue.

Response #100:
You do have a dog in the fight. You have a vested interest in opposing the Masoretic Text because it is accepted by the Jews with whom you have never been at peace.

Question #101:
Funny enough you mentioned bokenhotter, a priest who presents history as a big bad church just learning to be good and actually promotes liberation theology and the like while shading pope Johnpaul as some bad guy. Maybe that should tell you that the church does not busy itself policing the academic work of priest. You seem to wonder why I will question the authority of a guy who puts a contradictory spin on the works he claims to comment on.

Response #101:
If you have an argument against Bokenkotter's authority as a historian, present it clearly.

Question #102:
I am not presenting Roman Catholic beliefs, these are historical issues that anyone can verify, be they Catholics, Orthodox, Lutheran or if your church had such scholars they too will tell you that the early church adopted the Septuagint, that the church recognised scripture ETc. If what I wrote is untrue present contrary evidence, is the new testament not filled with a large percentage of quotes from the Septuagint, did the early church not adopt it etc. You can't just hide behind your preconceived notions and say I am talking trash and the historical points _____ raised and I supported are untrue. That just doesn't work

Response #102:
There's that double team I spoke of.

I am not interested in debating history with you or _____, _____. I have stated my reasons. If it wasn't for his pretence to authority on the Bible, _____ would have not argued with me beyond the point where I exited any debates about history. My sole interest is that the Bible IS the Word of God and is recognizable as such by anyone who reads it honestly. Historical debates are worth exactly nothing for recognizing the Word of God. They are merely entertaining.

Question #103:
first of all, I do not believe that the church decided what is inspired... That opinion is considered an error should a catholic hold such, I I do believe that the church, that community of believers Jesus Christ established, and gave authority to and promised his ever presence, that same church which settled issues in act 15 against all contradicting opinions I believe that same church still had authority 400years later,
still had the presence of Christ and the Holy Spirit and that promised ever presence still holds good 400 years later to recognize what constitutes scripture and still had the same authority as act 15 to enforce that truth. You on the otherhand seem to imply that Jesus didn't form his church or she didn't receive his spirit to guide her through all history or she doesn't have authority or Christ lied about his ever presence.... Only then will you tell me that each Christian is the arbiter of what constitutes scripture based on a non descript feature he alone sees. Your opinion to me does sound ridiculous which is why I have asked you why Luther a protestant like you is sure James is an epistle of straw and you disagree, yet you agree with him that Tobit is not scripture even as Catholics and orthodox disagrees. Did Christ create his church without the ability to resolve disputes and disagreements?

Response #103:
1. When you say "recognize what constitutes Scripture", is this anything different than deciding what is Scripture and what isn't Scripture? My point is that God wrote the Bible and He left His Signature on it, that is, His Essence so that anyone who wishes to can recognize it for what it is: His Word. You are insisting that somehow it is the Roman Church alone which possesses the ability to tell what and what is Scripture and what and what isn't.

2. You are coopting plenty from the Bible. Nonetheless, there is nothing in Acts 15 to suggest that a council has the power to decide what belongs in the Bible and what doesn't. Not only are there clear signs of human imperfection on the part of the brethren in that story, there is also no indication whatsoever that we must follow that example ever. If we are to simply repeat everything that the Bible records believers doing in the Bible without thought as to which actions were right and which wrong, we would soon find ourselves in hardened disobedience to God. For example, if we treat each other the way that Job's believing friends treated him just because the Bible records that they did, we would soon find ourselves under discipline from God like they too did.

3. Since it seems in doubt, let me state explicitly that I completely believe that the Lord Jesus called out and is today still calling out His Church which is solidly founded and established on Himself and the Sublime Work that He did in sacrificing Himself on the Cross for our sins. I also believe without a doubt that every believer in the Lord Jesus regardless what their cultural heritage or language or even their pet foibles and serious failures is this Church. I believe without a doubt that The Church as a whole is invisible and spiritual, that it is visible only when two or more believers are together. I believe that no denomination including the Roman Church is the true church, rather that each is a mixed multitude not necessarily concerned with Jesus Christ and the Truth that about Him but may in fact (as is actually true in a depressing number) be actively opposed to Him.

3. As to my claim for identifying Scripture, my actual claim is that every inspired Scripture by definition contains the Essence of God which is apparent to every human being who is willing to recognize it. It is no more nondescript than the personality or character of a writer discernible in their work.

4. The Church does not exist to negate free will. Each believer is completely free by God's Own Will to decide things for themselves. Their responsibility is to God, not to any person or institution. That means too that they are free to acknowledge Scripture when and where they encounter it or to deny it. Luther and I are not responsible to agree for the sake of agreement. We are responsible to agree with each other in the Truth alone and to maintain our loyalty to that alone. If either of us chooses to deny the Truth in any particular, the other is not responsible to either join the one or to force them into subservience in that particular. Their disobedience is a matter between them and their Lord. Where necessary and proper, the other may warn or rebuke. Otherwise, we are responsible to mind our own business and be careful to personally walk right with the Lord.

Question #104:
this must be because you consider the church as hankering over power. I have to ask you this question though, did Jesus not give the church power over human beings? You seem to imply having power is some bad thing.

I can hear scripture ringing in my head as Jesus addresses his church, he who hears you hears me, if there is a problem report to the church, what you bind on earth is bound in heaven what you lose is... What ever sin you forgive is forgiven... I give you the keys..., Paul says don't take a brother to court for judgement take him to the church... Act 15 the church exercise power over Christians... In fact the church is sent to all human beings.... Why should she not desire to go to all humans? Why should she not exercise her God giving authority in the world?

I certainly don't get your critique of the churchs power. She does have power, she should exercise it and she is sent to all humans, this fact has not stopped the church from admitting when ministers use power wrongly or abuse their authority or overstep, that may challenge the church power but sincerely the church doesn't care that it power may be challenged, that power is guaranteed by God who conferred it through Jesus Christ.

If there is something you think I have not addressed or where you think I am wrong, bring it forward instead of looking for excuses to discredit the church.

Response #104:
Well, at least, you didn't deny it. That would have been easier to dismiss. This other thing you have done is just the same as what I have had to be doing in this conversation: presenting knots for me to unravel.

Obviously, this is not at all what the Bible teaches.

The Lord Jesus - and later Paul - essentially taught us to stand together as one Family in the world. That was the whole point of everything that they said.

To put it simply, the world is a very hostile place to faith in Jesus Christ. If that is not a reason for Christians to support and help each other, I don't know what is.

But Christians too are sinful people. Our sin natures remain even after we have chosen to believe in Jesus Christ. So, we often stumble and in many cases cause harm to each other for any number of reasons. As one Family surrounded by enemies who will not rest until they have either seduced us away from the Faith or until they have killed us - if God could be persuaded to let them -, it is only for our security that we settle our problems with each other amongst our own selves.

Even so, nobody is compelled to yield to the instructions of the teachers who shepherd the churches. So, when the teachings and judgments of the pastor-teacher are rejected, there is no pressure brought on the dissident to conform. Thus, there is no power exercised over fellow believers in the manner that you have described. Whenever there is dissidence, focus on the Truth on the part of the pastor-teacher has often been demonstrated to be enough to make the dissident break fellowship and leave the church.

Finally, as Paul himself says in 1 Corinthians 5, the church has no business seeking to correct or judge unbelievers who are not interested in the Truth at all. So, the idea of seeking to rule over unbelievers at this time is clearly unscriptural in the extreme.

Question #105:
that he may be antichristian as you call him doesn't imply all he says is wrong. When you equate the written word In the bible to God himself made incarnate, you already showed you are guilty of the biblilatry he talked about. What next worshipping the Bible since it is now God's equal? I don't think you understand the full import of what you are implying.

Response #105:
I have not said that he never says anything right. I have just pointed out how you are always somehow on the same side as him including when he is not just wrong but willfully and dangerously so. I consider it a very telling thing.

Actually I fully understand what I am saying but I hope that you do not understand what you yourself are doing.

Let me describe how ridiculous your incredulity is:

Do you consider there to be any difference between my posts and myself? Do you think of my relationship to them as one where I am greater than or on the same level as them?

Question #106:
Again that isn't about arrogance, God inspired members of the community to pen down his word for his community and through her to the world, as far as the old covenant lasted it was the duty of the Israelites to recognize that which is scripture and hold it above the mundane and it seemed they were attentive to this responsibility, I guess you would prefer each Jew to decide for himself which is inspired instead of the community.

This brings out what I believe is the background of your argument thus far which is the individualism of the modern protestant sects. The insistence by individuals that they possess the truth over and above the community.

Response #106:
No, it doesn't surprise me that you wouldn't agree that it is arrogance that the Jews would claim some kind of right to decide if Daniel whether in whole or in part is accurate just because of the prophecies about the Messiah that make it unmistakable that the true King of Israel was and is Jesus Christ, the Man they crucified and whose followers they zealously persecuted.

Question #107:
I don't take kindly to you deciding for me what word I should use. The church didn't recognize scriptures and recognize is the correct term to use not decide. Those works were already inspired, the church didn't decide that they are, she recognized them for what they are : God's word.

Response #107:
Well, that was the point. When she recognizes writings that were not inspired at all, is that a decision or not? Just like I believe that you would consider it a decision when anybody claims to recognize no inspiration in the Apocrypha.

Question #108:
If the church as a body in council doesn't have any right to produce a canon then why do you assume that each individual Christian should...? Besides the church isn't just some human organisation it is the body of Christ.

Response #108:
Groups of individuals do not possess free will. Free will is a trait that is possessed by and is only operational in individuals. That is why it is an individual matter, not a group affair.

Question #109:
Actually I have not made any case about the authority of the ROMAN church to recognize scriptures, you created that strawman yourself and you now enjoy playing with it, I could have made it but I certainly didn't because historically it is the CATHOLIC CHURCH not just the Roman church that did.

Response #109:
No Church did any such thing. The Scriptures have always spoken for themselves.

Question #110:
The important councils of note are those of hippo, Carthage and Constantinople, non of those councils were held by the Roman church, hippo and Carthage are councils for the church in Africa AKA the church of Alexandria, Constantinople is an ecumenical council that adopted the council of Carthage for the entire church. Of course the Roman church played a role but the recognition isn't just a Roman church thing it is the entire church.

If you hold that it falls on each individual to discern for himself what is scripture as you have consistently said, then it seems weird and inconsistent that you think it is wrong for Roman church to make the same discernment.

Response #110:
Asked and answered.

Question #111:
actually I was trying to avoid using "sir" which is rather patronising but since dear displeases you I will avoid it

Response #111:
Thank you, _____. I deeply appreciate it.

Question #112:
actually it is still impressive, Paul never quotes those authors as scripture the way he consistently quoted the Septuagint as scripture over and above the Hebrew which he certainly knew rendered those passages differently.

Response #112:
Refer to my other response. As for the Hebrew rendering those passages differently, that is quite obviously not true. His reason for quoting the Septuagint is the same reason why trained pastor-teachers today simply quote translations of the Bible that they have when they are correct or when they render the meaning in a way that is perfect for their purposes rather than simply translate every single passage they call up.

Question #113:
clearly you have no response and this is an unfortunate ruse to hide that.

Response #113:
You are free to believe whatever you want. I'm just tired of repeating myself. Besides it is not necessary as demonstrated by your argument about Jews differing in what was Scripture and what wasn't: you answered your own self later.

Question #114:
on the other hand you believe everyone can decide for himself what is or isn't the word of God...how does that sound, the church can't tell what is God's word but any other person can..... Can't you perceive the stink of your bias?

Response #114:
Clearly not. The church you keep talking of is not a person. It is a group of persons. Corporately, it does not possess what persons possess which makes them able to do stuff like this as I have already explained in another response.

Question #115:
eusebius isn't a Roman church historian either... He is simply an Early church historian and you don't need the Vatican to tell you that, you could go check any church that can trace it history to that period, whether its the orthodox churches or the oriental... The reference the the Vatican achives is a joke in bad taste.

Response #116:
It was not a joke at all.

Question #117:
if you wish call it one unit I'll grant you that but I'll certainly not accept your earlier statement that it is one book.

Response #117:
What's the big difference?

Question #118:
yes you said this before, you just haven't Managed to answer how an easily seen feature is not so easily seen. And why the feature you or Luther of some other person claims to see should be held over and above that which the church in antiquity saw?

Response #118:
Answered several times already.

Question #119:
no ihe, you raised the issue of personal, individual discernment based upon some unknown criteria, I on the other hand hold that the church is the right authority to do that discernment and that she did about 1600 years ago .

Response #119:
Completely untrue. YOU were the one who said that each man is a determiner of truth. I never said anything of the sort.

Question #120:
I on the other hand will say the Bible contains God's word, I'll be truthful enough to admit it didn't fall from the sky, that men were inspired to write it, the community of God's people was guided by God to recognize it as God's word, scribes copied it and sometimes made mistakes in rendering it, people edited it to get what was believed to be the true sense according to the editor, some amended some missing part, it even had variant reading in some places etc.

Sometimes many had different ideas as to what books should be there and I believe the church has authority to settle those issues.

Response #120:
Great. So we maintain our fundamental disagreement.

Question #121:
Lol

Response #121:
Something funny about free will?

Question #122:
You think the same church Christ Jesus promised to be with for all times and the gate of hell will not prevail against will be united in error?

Response #122:
Of course not. But that Church is different from the Roman Church - or indeed any of the many other churches out there.

Question #123:
then you don't understand what the 66 books you accept teach, because Tobit is in tandem with them.

Response #123:
Or YOU don't understand what the 66 books teach and that's why you think Tobit is of the same origins as them.

Question #124:
what is pathetic is you ihe rejecting whatever _____ says simply because you have tagged him antichristian, even the pagans and atheist sometimes makes valid points.

Response #124:
To be honest, I wonder if there is any real gain in answering this. No honest person who knows my posts would ever say that I reject what antichristians say simply because they are antichristians. Not one. As a matter of fact, right here, I have explained why I have rejected everything that I have rejected. In no instance was it because an antichristian said it. I hold that the lie is far more effective when fitted out with a veneer of truth, so I always acknowledge what truth I see whenever I see it and separate it from the lie hiding behind it.

It is you who consider his arguments good in any respect because of your personal agenda.

Question #125:
The OP was a rather straight forward history of the Bible you have in your hands, it introduced the Vulgate, masoretic text and the Septuagint,. _____ conceded the point about the masoretic text been a translation of the Septuagint, he conceded that Jerome was well aware of the other versions when he used the the Hebrew text. The last issue that the OP got wrong was that the Vulgate was translated from the masoretic text, the Vulgate wasn't it was translated from the Hebrew truths which predates the masoretic text...

Response #126:
If you note that he conceded his error there, why did you go on to say that it was a straightforward history?

Question #127:
Surprisingly you came out gun blazing with innuendo... Check out you first post on the thread, then you attempted to challenge the fact that the Septuagint was accepted in the early church, that it contains the dueterocanonical books, that Jerome caused a riot Etc. When you were pressed to defend this you decided to pronounce your theory of the visible feature by which everyone may recognise scripture and damned the fact that historically this feature seem rather elusive. The original post I and many others reacted to had not antichristian stuff in it, you came in with that idea as though _____ and yourself had an old beef you were bringing to bear.

Response #127:
This is a potpourri of falsehood mixed with truth.

Yes indeed I came into the thread essentially congratulating an antichristian for making a real argument even if I considered it false. I was expressing respect for the work he put into his thread which put to shame every other experience I had had at the time. Somehow, it seems to me that this is the post you referred to concerning innuendo. What the innuendo was is yet to be seen.

I went on after that to point out what I believed to be the most important falsehood in his post and post quotes from Britannica demonstrating small and great departures from the true situation. This is the challenge you meant, isn't it? The funny thing is that you consider the quotes a challenge. The quotes were ordinarily conclusive in themselves. Any interpretation I offered may have been debatable but in so far as a historical authority had been presented, all that was left was for him or anyone else to provide more reliable authorities. But until now you have been debating the authorities in question insisting on others which take their legitimacy from the same church which makes such crazy claims. He, on the other hand, conceded what he did and debated what he chose and I explained my interest in the discussion.

The history wasn't my interest. The argument that the Bible is unreliable as God's Very Word was. And I did not believe that history had anything to do with that argument. That was why I argued from the Bible itself.

Interestingly, _____ understood what I spoke of about recognizing a personality in a writing. You instead have not ceased from obfuscating it until now. Your most recent effort at confusion is to call it "a theory of visible feature". You decided on your own that it is a theory. You decided on your own that it is visible. These things have nothing to do with my own arguments. My position was consistently that God's Personality or His Essence is recognizable in what He has written. This is not at all strange because it is true of every other person. But if you ever admit it though, it will destroy the claim of your church. So you have done your best to confuse the issue since.

Why also would you ever admit that there was anything antichristian in an argument that you piggyback on to uphold your church's false claims? Even _____ mocked me for pointing out that he was actually saying that the Bible is unreliable because it had disappeared from existence and the Septuagint which was pretty much a human invention was left in its place and from it has come everything we believe today to be the Word of God. He mocked me, as he said, for stating the obvious. But this does not qualify as antichristian for you. Either you are greatly deceived or you are an antichristian yourself.

Question #128:
then this is an issue of bias, you have decided beforehand that any thing that smells catholic is suspect unless it agrees with you.... That is 2 millennia thrown away because it seems catholic... Heck if that isn't bias what is.

Response #128:
LOL. The Roman church isn't all that was happening for 2000 years, thank God. If it was, all hope would have already been lost.

And, yes indeed, I am biased against the Roman church and not merely because I don't like it but because of the deep arrogance in her which seeks to steal away the Lord's sheep and lead them into apostasy and condemnation like herself.

Question #129:
Secondly the Roman church does not make any claim to an exclusive hold of Christ or God that is just false and I am even more alarmed if you base your bias on such falsehood...

Response #129:
Such a terrible lie.

Question #130:
I really wonder if you can provide proof of the church doctoring the bible.

Response #130:
The Vulgate is enough proof in itself, isn't it? Did you not mention the riots involved in that translation and the duress under which Jerome had to work to produce it? And, let me assure you, I WILL NOT argue the point with you. I really don't care what you choose to believe. Your own words in this regard and the quotes I presented from Britannica are enough.

Question #131:
actually accepting Catholicism does not mean ignoring contradictory opinion, no ihe, I examine each of those opinions, I love research them and I don't drop them until I am convinced they are wrong, I NEVER ignore and the church does not encourage ignorance.

Unless of course you want to share these your concerns

Response #131:
Whatever you say, _____.

Question #132:
no ihe, I don't reject every authority that challenge my position, I reject claims I know to be incorrect especially when you they don't hold up to evidence, like someone saying primacy began in the 4th century when I can provide proofs for it from 2nd century. His story might tickle your fancy but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Lastly maybe with him you will notice that the church doesn't shadow the academic work of priest, I also guess you won't find an imprimatur in that work either.

Response #132:
I actually do not fully accept Bokenkotter's authority. I presented him as a Roman authority who may present a more correct official position than you yourself. Regardless, note that you agree with him in the fact that claims to primacy are much later than the apostles. The 2nd century was well after the last apostle died. Yet, claims to primacy are offered on their authority.

This is all academic anyway. It matters very little to me what you believe. My job is done once I present the Bible's teachings. Everything else I do is just to protect others who are troubled by the lies that unscrupulous men spread.

Question #133:
Because the contemporary historian must base his conclusions on ancient writing, if the ancient writing contradicts the contemporary historian commenting on it then we know the historian is incorrect

You can reject irenaeus quoted by the big bad Catholics but I assure you it will say the same thing even from a Greek orthodox, an Alexandrian patriach or a copt. If all the ancient sources linked to Catholicism is corrupt or untrue or doctored then you may as well throw out bokenhotter or any other church history Because none of them lived in that period and they all rely on the early writings to create their own spin. If you are throwing out Irenaeus remember to throw out origin, Jerome, eusebius, Gregory, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Augustine, Bede, Patrick , Cyril,etc and then tell us Christianity began in the 16th century and all who came before that were false... The protestant are the sole truth.

Remind me again who ignores sources that contradicts him.

The ancient writings themselves tell us their context.

Response #133:
As my further comments stated, I have no reason to listen to someone who will not countenance an authority - having none themselves - clearly because he considers it opposed to his pet views.

As for my interest in historical authorities, this is a waste of my time. I do not reject the Roman interpretation of Irenaeus et al, I simply do not care very much for what Irenaeus et al have to say except as it concerns what was happening at the time that they lived and as it concerns what they themselves believed. I do not consider them equal in authority to the Scriptures, so I subordinate all they say to what the Bible says. I do not consider them necessary examples to follow. I will learn from them in so far as they, in turn, followed the Bible. My rejection of their evidence in discussions like this is entirely because even where they are correctly interpreted by your ilk, you only use them to further your private interests even up to the point of contradicting the Bible where they failed as Christians.

My appeal to any authorities like Bokenkotter is just to show you that unless you too are a history expert, there are other peer-reviewed and accepted ways of interpreting what you so dearly cherish. My own personal position on all Roman claims is whatever the Bible has to say about it.

Question #134:
I use translations every day, the book I am reading currently was written in Spanish. If you don't trust a translation written by Catholics, you can find one by Orthodox or oriental or protestants.

Response #134:
I don't understand. You are reading a book in Spanish? Or you are reading an English translation of a book originally written in Spanish? Are you then trained in Classical Greek and Latin? That would be pretty awesome.

Question #135:
the church fathers arent inspired in the sense scripture is, they certainly rank lower but they provide insight to the sense in which the scriptures is rightly understood they show us how Apostolic teaching is passed on. It is from them we know what Apostolic tradition is

Response #135:
I don't understand. Are you saying that they are inspired but only a little? How is such a thing even possible?

Question #136:
I have so far not once attacked the Bible, I have written about it's development in words most scripture scholars will agree with, only an insecure Christian will consider that an attack and it will be an insecurity based on ignorance.

Response #136:
I have wearied of this discussion, _____, so I am not going to have yet another back-and-forth with you. If the discussion up to this point does not demonstrate what I have said, why should anything more that I say?

Question #137:
You are not going to believe no matter the proof, you just tagged it Vatican so you have an excuse the, I have not linked a single Vatican site so far. You just show you're not interested in the truth, you opinion must remain unchallenged, oya keep it.

Response #137:
Every single time I debate antichristians especially atheists, I do my best to avoid quoting the Bible until they actively raise the Bible either by quoting it themselves or attributing something to it. Yet I always argue from the Bible with them. I never present an argument to them unless it is biblical. In the same vein, I don't expect quotes or links or explicit appeals to the Vatican but I fully expect - and have received - Roman arguments from you.

Question #138:
you cant defend the Bible by telling half truths about it's development, it only cause ridicule

Response #138:
Ridicule comes always. So I am not much concerned about being ridiculed. Your own concern with it, however, is very indicative.

As for half-truths, I don't believe I have anything more to add to all I have said in these discussions. Right now, each person must decide what they want to believe, whether wholly true, half-true or wholly false.

Question #139:
then you are ignorant as usual of the Roman position.

In the Roman Church the text is the Vulgate, not the masoretic or the Septuagint. And as you have been made aware the Vulgate is translated directly from the Hebrew not the Septuagint. There is no Roman council that set any such position but there is ample testimony from the early Christians that they didn't trust the revisions we now call masoretic text.

The Bible was not compiled particularly by the Roman Church as I have earlier explained, it was compiled by the Catholic Church, including the Roman Church, the Alexandrian church, the antiochene church, the Syrian church which includes Jerusalem, the... You can go and check the churches that make up the Catholic Church and their representatives at the council of Constantinople, Carthage and hippo.

all translations of the Bible are very alike, I can set my Vulgate translation that predates the masoretic text by centuries side by side with the Septuagint and the masoretic text and they will pretty much say the same thing in most cases. But as someone said, the devil is in the details, what about the minority of times where they totally disagree, how do I account for the fact that in the masoretic text the prophesy about piercing of Jesus feet is absent even though it is present in all other ancient text or the other messianic prophesies that seem mutilated in the masoretic text completely in the 10th and 11th century.... That is where the issue is in the details.

are you denying the fact that what we have are copies of the copies of the copies of the original text which we believe carries both the letter and meaning of the original text. Because if you may have found the original manuscript of scripture and I am unaware tell me. Are the original manuscript not really extinct and only their copies survive?

As for your idea that the Septuagint be dropped whenever it conflicts with the masoretic text, please explain how come the apostles in scriptures quote and use the Septuagint even when it is totally at odds with the Hebrew the masoretic text give us example Stephen in his defense, the entire book of Hebrew, Matthew in the Alma Vs virgin case?

funny enough in the minority case where scholars used to think that the septuagint translated incorrectly there have today been a change in opinion with the Quram caves discovery where many show that in those minority cases the Greek translator were simply using a Hebrew manuscript that was different from the present masoretic text.
It seem they didn't translate incorrectly, instead it was a variant and most times more ancient text translated correctly.

and I remember _____ telling you how Matthew stuck with virgin even though it is not an accurate translation of the word Alma, what do you say about that?

Please note, it is a fact that after centuries of copying, scribal errors crept into the Septuagint as it did all other biblical text and that it was correct by comparing copies and other translations. That ur point stands. Even the Hebrew text was supposedly corrected that is why we have the masoretic text.

I have no issues with the jews ihe, what I have presented is the historical critism of their revisions of the Hebrew text and this critism have been made by Christians for over a Millennium. If you think I am lying, compare masoretic text with that quoted in the New Testament, compare it's prophesies about the Messiah and the prophesies the new testament quoted and see if they tally.

bokenhotter does have his credentials as a historian, he may very well be an authority in his field, that isn't my argument. History is not unfortunately a science, which means each historian is free to spin it whatever way he thinks best. I argument against Bokenhotter is not his credentials but the truthfulness of some of his claims
As I earlier showed his conclusions contradicts the evidence in the issue of primacy. I am also sure his conclusions contradict several historians who themselves are authority in their fields.

Here I agree, historical debates are worth nothing and the bible is Certainly God's inerrant word... And you can make both points without trying to sound as though the copies we have are the originals or that errors didn't creep in during copying or the masoretic text is not Jewish centered.... Those are historical points that are correct and your attempt to disprove them were unconvincing.

The idea that the text is recognizable to anyone still begs the question.

God's word is recognisable you say... Because God wrote it and anyone who knows me well will be able to tell to a great extent my words.... Is that not your argument? Here comes the kink, some do not even know God, others do not acknowledge him, some have a pretty untrue idea of who he is, if they bring these ideas in trying to discern scripture, they will certainly discern wrongly.... That is why historically there have been several canon of scriptures.

Just a little history, you can go aND verify each point. It was each local church that received the writings of the apostles and the gospels, not necessarily every individual Christian, hence the reason why church history shows that there was a time certain writing were not accepted in certain places.... There were Christian churches who didn't recognize certain books. While most churches had identical teaching, most didn't read exactly the same collection of books. Ultimately it was maicon a heretic who is credited to trying to form a canon from everyone, his canon was constituted by books that he believed supported him, the Arians did a similar thing, it is after them that bishops of churches began to list the books read in the church, athanasuis has such a list I believe.

Ultimately from the beginning every church formed it's canon until it dawned on them that it was better that all who shared the same faith should share the same bible, and as scriptures show us when there are issues to decide it is the church in council who has authority with the assistance of the spirit to make that decision.

I believe the ENTIRE CHURCH IN COUNCIL, as it was before denominations crept did decide those books, not just the Roman Church. You on the other hand prefer individualism.

Act 15 shows us the mechanism by which any dispute is settled in the church, whether it is discipline or doctrine act 15 tells us that the church in council has authority for settling it and that this authority is guaranteed by the Holy Spirit hence the words "it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us... ".

You may note certainly the human imperfections in the council but that didn't prevent the the apostles and elders from saying "it seem good to the Holy Spirit and to us... " that should tell you that the human imperfections didn't invalidate the decision of the Council. If that isn't an example for church teaching and administration then what is?
The Bible itself tells us that action was right for it records it so.

if you believe that the church is wholely invisible then I wonder what you make of Act 15 and it's pretense to order Christians everywhere to a particular conduct at the time? If it is invisible then to what invisible entity did Paul advise Christians to take their case to, what invisible entity gathered for worship and had the authority to excommunicate a erring brother, what invisible entity was the book of Roman's, Corinthians, Galatians, etc addressed to. Of the modern current that invaded Protestantism in the last 300 years the most funny is this invisible strain because it very well contradicts to some extent the reformers themselves.

yeah yeah, it just happens that different humans can't see the same recognisable feature, and in the face of such disputes your invisible church certainly has no authority to settle it as the biblical church in acts 15 did. You see the issue now?

this your idea is foreign to scriptures themselves.

Of course all have free will and no institution or person may take that from him.

But the Christian as scripture says in the exercise of his freewill is not only answerable to God but also to God's church which has been granted the authority, to teach, to admonish, to Rebuke and in cases of serious disobedience to excommunicate and anathematize. This is why scriptures says the elders, aka Presbyter has rule of the souls placed in his care, and give the church power to judge Christians and between Christian, and to excommunicate. It is the church that is the pillar and bullwark of truth, a safeguard of that truth which each Christian must bear witness to.

The idea that each Christian is to believe and act accordingly to his will and the subjective "truth" he accepts, and that he is answerable to God alone not also to the body of Christ, is unbiblical, untrue and antibiblical. It is sad this is a current of thought flowing in Protestantism today... Even the original reformers didn't teach such.

this your idea is foreign to scriptures themselves.

Of course all have free will and no institution or person may take that from him.

But the Christian as scripture says in the exercise of his freewill is not only answerable to God but also to God's church which has been granted the authority, to teach, to admonish, to Rebuke and in cases of serious disobedience to excommunicate and anathematize. This is why scriptures says the elders, aka Presbyter has rule of the souls placed in his care, and give the church power to judge Christians and between Christian, and to excommunicate. It is the church that is the pillar and bullwark of truth, a safeguard of that truth which each Christian must bear witness to.

The idea that each Christian is to believe and act accordingly to his will and the subjective "truth" he accepts, and that he is answerable to God alone not also to the body of Christ, is unbiblical, untrue and antibiblical. It is sad this is a current of thought flowing in Protestantism today... Even the original reformers didn't teach such.

the church does not seek to judge unbeliever, that ihe is a strawman you have created, the church may propose, teach and admonish in the world but does not judge over the unbelievers, I don't know where you got that from.

Your idea that nobody is compelled to yield to the decisions of the church and it's leaders and there is no pressure on the dissidents to conform strikes me again as untrue and unbiblical.

Hebrews 13:17
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

The Bible says both to obey and submit, how come in your own ecclessiology you imagine there is no pressure to yield?

1 Timothy 5:17
Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.
1 Thessalonians 5:12
We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you,
Here the scriptures say the elder has rule over the community he deserves double honor and respect.

“Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 18:18);

What is the use of the above authority in the church if no one is expected to yield to it?

here comes the insinuations which I am going to avoid for the sake of sanity in the thread.

I would imagine that you would be greater than your post and that while your post is from you, it isn't you.

Unless you are claiming that your post is a human being.

I am not a pessimist, I don't believe that ridicule comes always, if you present an issue truthfully and sincerely more often than you imagine you gain a little respect. telling half truths about a matter may get your peers to hail you but anyone who identifies those tiny bits of lies you have told will have less respect for both you and what you stand for.

they also debated books like song of songs, they knew that it was the duty of the believing community to discern what is scripture and not assume that it false down from the sky, you of course will do same, you just think it should be done by individuals not the community.

Lastly you are the person who has been defending a 10th century revision of the Hebrew Bible that mutilated messianic prophesies.

Here comes another one, Jesus promised his spirit to his church, he also promised his ever presence and added that the gate of hell will not prevail for that reason I have absolute trust that he keeps his promises and as the spirit guided the council in act 15 to teach what was necessary for the time, I believe he guides the church councils for all times so that they are authoritative and right in teaching.

For that reason I don't believe the church founded on those promises ever recognised an uninspired text in council

where do you get these your theories from, why do you think the will of a group isn't free? What makes it fixed, are those who make up the group not human beings?

that you say so doesn't make it true.

This is where history puts the issue to rest, the church didn't such a thing, she recognized and canonised scripture in Hippo and Carthage.

That much is clear

read up ihe.

PS 40:7 what does the masoretic text say?

Heb 10 quotes the same scriptures what does it read?

What about PS 22:17?

now you are presuming to know his intentions, that's a pretty poor argument.

and here I was thinking you believed scriptures were always immediately recognized and it didn't take any time for the jews to set their canon...

You see you are not even consistent with your points?

lol, this sounds funny, so a group of people cannot discern together? You see what Protestantism has caused for you, because act 15 tells me it is possible.

so you can't see the end point of your thought?

When each man discerns for himself what is scripture according to a subjective recognition of the divine essence in a text... Then each man will have a canon that speaks of his understanding of God not necessarily who God is.

It has happened before, the heretic maicon had such a canon. You can go and read it up.

And if you would read you will see that that same first century church is still church in the 2nd century and 3rd and every century after that. one same church.

then enlighten me.

What does the 66books you accept teach about angels and how does Tobit 12 contradicts that? what do the jews from whose tradition we get the scriptures say about angels?

It's not enough to say "you don't understand because you don't agree with me "

This is another problem with you.

You see how you contradicted yourself.
First you claim you accept his claims if true, now you say that I consider his argument good in ANY respect because I have an agenda. So his argument is bad in all respects and anyone who disagrees with you has an agenda.

You have successfully told us that the antichristian is always wrong and whoever finds him correct in ANY respect to have an agenda....

How interesting!

The meaning of straight forward
straightforward
adjective
uncomplicated and easy to do or understand.

It doesn't mean all points are correct, it means uncomplicated and easy to understand, he was happy to concede when in error which in my book is a plus... It certainly beat someone who claims the church sets no canon even though history says otherwise.

You of course have made this claim consistently.... You also have added that this doesn't always happen because each man has freewill and may recognise who he likes and not recognize others.

The question is, if Mr A recognises ABC, Mr B recognises BCD, MR C recognises CDE all in the same Christian community, who decides what is read on Sunday in church?
If maicon in one church has his canon, Arius in another with his canon, Jerome in another with his and Augustine with his, how does the church tell the books to be read?

That is a concrete case.

Do you always tag people with names when you disagree with their points that you believe are wrong or do you prove them wrong and hopefully they never fall into your name categories.

Names are the boxes we create to put people in.

The Catholic Church, cannot steal the Lords sheep, it is the Lord's sheepfold. So the idea of the sheepfold stealing the shepherds sheep is nonsensical.
The church is commissioned to continue the work of Jesus for all times, she is his Body and bride, his masterpiece built on the prophets, apostles and continues today with their successors. That isn't arrogance to state who you are. The church always points to the bridegroom, her head, her cornerstone and her builder... Not to herself.

I wonder from hence you got these thoughts.

show me the lies

the Vulgate was not doctored in any sense to change scriptures, that is a sad lie that I'll hold you to.

The Vulgate was made when the Roman Church was changing her liturgy from Greek to Latin which was the language of the people as Greek was quickly fading away in the west, Jerome who was the scholar commissioned for the work lived pretty far from Rome in Palestine and frankly had a very cordial relationship with the church of Rome and it's bishop, there was hardly duress in that relationship as pope And Jerome esteemed each other. His relationship with Augustine in Africa was a totally different affair, the riot occurred there not in Rome. Jerome used the best manuscripts he had and translated in the best way he knew how. I don't know how that in anyway puts him under duress or show that the church changed, doctored or corrupted scriptures using the Vulgate.

It seems again you are speaking from a standpoint of ignorance, prejudice and bias.

I am sure that bokenhotter DID NOT claim in his book that he was offering the official catholic position, his book is his own academic work with contradicts the work of others and even the early Christians he is commenting on. Frankly in academics catholic priests have been known to speak accordingly to whatever persuasions they like many times close to heresy, the church doesn't police that and doesn't translate to church position.

The 2nd century is actually pretty early, the last apostle John died about 100, the first time we hear that the is a prime ministers office in the church is
In Matt 16:15, the next time a Christian tells us that the church of Rome now presides over the churches was about 107 in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch who was on his way to martyrdom, that isn't late because the was a guy who lived in the Apostolic age pretty much passing Apostolic tradition, 7 years after John is not late. Ignatius was bishop of a pretty big church in Antioch which had held the apostles, Irenaeus the guy I provided next was bishop in France when he made the statement.

Another tag, unscrupulous men... Can you leave the tags and name calling out?

If you accept them as witnesses of their times then we wouldn't have had the problems we had in the other thread. Because we presented the witness of the witnesses of the time and you decided to go with bokenhotter even when the witnesses show his submissions as incorrect.

In that case you are the person who refused to countenance authority simply because it destroys your pet views.

Talk of the having an agenda

And the bible tells you how it's canon was set right?

I am reading an English translation of a Spanish work... My knowledge of classical Latin and Greek is rudimentary, I can manage ecclesiastical Latin better... In the coming years though I hope to take in course in both languages... I'll like to read scriptures in the original languages.

I am saying, they are Christians witnesses, transmitting the faith as they themselves received it from the apostles and their successors.

As St Paul will say, what you have heard me say teach to trustworthy men who will in turn teach others. That is the ordinary way in which the faith is to be transmitted in the church. From apostles to the next generation and then the next for all times.

You are weary and frankly I am smiling at your bias and prejudice and I just hope one day you will drop those dim lenses and search for the truth even when it doesn't square up with Protestantism.

since you have constantly continued with the term "Roman Church " despite corrections, let me state clearly that it is not acceptable and frankly it is in the same category as terms like papist, romist etc.

My church is not the Roman Church, it is the Catholic Church.

In case you didn't know, the Roman Church refers to the diocese of Rome, the immediate diocese of the Bishop of Rome, Francis. I am NOT a member of that church. Pope Francis is a member, so too Catholics in Rome and cardinals.
The Holy Roman Catholic Church is the part of the Catholic Church that uses any of the Roman rites, it covers western Catholicism.
The Latin Catholic Church refers to the part of the Roman catholic church that uses the Latin rite.

The name of the church is the Catholic church, that is the name of the 23 self governing churches that makes up the church in union with Peter, the Roman Catholic church is just one out of the 23 churches, and the Roman Church is just 1 diocese located in Rome and frankly I am not a member of the Roman Church.

It is both inaccurate and pejorative to use the term with me.

The arguments you have received are largely mine, you won't find a Catholic official document with those historical points, though you will find many scholarly articles and books from many protestants and Catholics with those points... My general arguments on nl certainly sprinkles catholic arguments but most of my points here will stand proudly even with protestant scholars.

Response #139:
*No response.*