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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@ Diotrpehes
"As I've said before, a committee of story tellers, writers, and artists in England produced three master copies of the Bible in the 690s. The Bible as a comprehensive book didn't exist before then. They based all of their stories on the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 34:12-28"
You've said, you've said, but we have yet to see any proof of your claim.
Are we just meant to "have faith'?
Old man shouts ...,
"Are we just meant to "have faith'?"
If I understand your position correctly guys like Moses, Ruth, Samuel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Joel, Daniel, Amos, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul and Peter all wrote down their adventures and delusions thousands of years ago. And not only that, but all of those individual stories that were written in different places by different people and different times floated through the air and miraculously assembled themselves into a big book called the Bible in the early 4th Century.
I'm sure that I could win 5 lottery jackpots in a row before that happened.
What's more likely to have happened is that various story tellers made up some short stories that were passed along as "camp fire" stories. As they grew in popularity writers wrote them down and they may have even been duplicated in various amounts over time.
Then, in the First Century Levant area the Jews started giving the Romans trouble and the Romans got mean and destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and carted off the survivors as slaves to build the Colosseum and other stuff. And they did it again around 130 A.D. During this time period the Jesus character got created and the death cult religion of resurrection was born. At various times the Christians were fed to the lions. Then a Roman emperor and his ditzy wife saw an opportunity to use the religion for their own purposes and they took it.
Time passes and Rome goes to the dogs. The Arabs get the religion bug and write the Koran using the Jewish and Christian characters while saying what lousy people they were. The Christians are caught flat-footed because they never wrote their fairy tale down in a fancy book. So they got busy and assembled a committee of story tellers, writers, and artists. They raised a herd of over 2,000 cattle for the vellum to write their fairy tale on. And in the early 690s they had produced three 75 pound illustrated Latin language master copies of their fairy tale. They also made up stories about earlier Bibles existing but they were just lies. Theirs were the first.
Now given the fact that most people don't know what the real Ten Commandments are or when the Apocrypha was deleted from the Bible their opinion about Bible history shouldn't be trusted.
@ Diotrpehes
And the proof [evidence] of your assertion that a committee of people re wrote the bible in Vulgate latin in 690 -692 is?
So far all you have provided is supposition. Plus a story.
If you want to have your supposition taken seriously some contemporary references to this supposed committee, names of those involved or evidence that the Pope was aware of the wholesale changes to the texts was approved by the Church. Something. anything.
The same evidentiary standard I have seen you demand from theists would be a grand start.
Old man shouts ...
"And the proof [evidence] of your assertion that a committee of people re wrote the bible in Vulgate latin in 690 -692 is?"
I've NEVER SAID that the committee REWROTE THE BIBLE. I have said that the committee wrote the first master editions for the Bible. All subsequent Bibles are based on the stories that they wrote.
"names of those involved or evidence that the Pope was aware of the wholesale changes to the texts was approved by the Church."
Do you know the names of the British and American committee members who rewrote the Bible in the 1870s/80s? Their work was in the NYTimes but their names were not included in the articles. And that's the group that deleted 14 books from the Bible.
@ Diotrephes
The above is a comment not evidence. If you have no evidence for your claim then its an unfounded opinion. It should not be presented as fact. You are falling into the same "faith" "I Believe" trap/argument as the most rabid theist such as e.g. JoC.
Evidence or stop presenting your claims as indisputable 'fact'.
As I said I admire your scholarship on the Talmud and ready use of evidence to back many of your claims.
However, how ever much you are attached to your " 692 1st bible" and all others copied from it you must prove your claim.
Old man shouts ...,
"you must prove your claim."
I made a declarative statement. The preponderance of the evidence supports my claim. My proof is the lack of proof to the contrary.
There are no earlier complete authentic original Bibles to prove that the Bible existed before the 690s. As I said before, produce a clearly legible copy and I will kiss your ass (figuratively).
Don't be like Martin Luther and use a 2 hour old Greek language Bible and think that it was written in the 4th Century.
@ Diotrephes
You would tear any theist a new one for using that argument. Facts, people, corroborating evidence please.
" My proof is the lack of proof to the contrary."
Right, pink unicorns live in my left shoe. "My proof is the lack of proof to the contrary."
"The preponderance of the evidence supports my claim" You have presented absolutely no evidence for your claims. None, You have presented opinion, supposition and that is all.
I have supplied evidence and links to pre existing Codex, koine greek codex in the British Library, St Petersburg, the Vatican, and elsewhere, examined by academics who all agree to their origins from the 4th Century CE. They are not "fragments" they are as complete as any 4th Century document can be expected to be. Parts of pages may be missing but that does not defeat the whole document.
If you would like to change your narrative to: The Vulgate exists in many forms. The Codex Amiatinus is the oldest surviving complete manuscript from the 7th/8th century CE then we agree.
To take a step further and maintain the complete New testament or complete OT and NT were all copied from that document and translated into an already dead languages and then "aged" to give the appearance of antiquity is transparently false.
You have no evidence for those claims.
And then god said let there be light...in all of those things god forgot to speak into being a pencil. So he left writing the bible up to illiterate stone-age superstitious morons. Oops!
If you want things done right, do it yourself, I always say. BTW my mom told me a million times if she told me once, never exaggerate!
mykcob4,
"If you want things done right, do it yourself, I always say."
It took Yahweh 80 days and 80 nights to write the Ten Commandments on stone tablets twice. Can you imagine how long it would have taken him to write the entire Bible on stone tablets? It wouldn't have been very user-friendly.
Speaking of tablets.....
Attachments
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Tin-man,
"Speaking of tablets....."
How many times did Moses carry those tablets up and down the mountain? If the tablets were 18″ × 18″ × 9″ and made out of the local stone they would have been pretty hefty in weight. If they were made from sapphire they would have been lighter but a lot harder to write on. Sapphire is the third hardest mineral.
Exodus 24:10 (NKJV) = "and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity."
@Dio Re: "How many times did Moses carry those tablets up and down the mountain?"
Honestly not sure. I reckon it depends on how many times he had to edit them. LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZA2mBntrHk
I take 11 tablets every day, its a pain.
Cant imagine writing on them...but then, they don't weigh much and I cant get many words on them.
Perhaps I should ask my pharmacy to meld into one huge tablet a day while I walk up and down a large hill ( it was never a mountain in Moses day) then I can nibble on them to make my journey better and also dull the pain...oh and maybe they will taste good with vegemite!
@Old Man Re: "oh and maybe they will taste good with vegemite!"
Just don't forget the toasted sourdough bread with butter. lol
Tin-man,
"How many times did Moses carry those tablets up and down the mountain?"
Honestly not sure. I reckon it depends on how many times he had to edit them. LOL"
It was three times.
Moses got the first set in Exodus 31:18. He took them down the mountain, got pissed, and broke them in Exodus 32:19.
After a nice murdering spree Mose then chipped out a new set in Exodus 34:4 and lugged them up the mountain. After they were engraved with the Ten Commandments he then packed them down the mountain in Exodus 34:29. They were never seen again.
i like ricky gervais version of the tablets..well its not tablets but pizza boxes
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@Tin-man
The story about the Ten Commandments that were left out, you'll see why.
And lo Moses climbed the mountain and he spoketh with god and god gave unto him a pillow that he won at a county fair and upon it layth the laws of god. Moses sayth unto god "Oh ye of great light, a fucking pillow? Are you kidding me?"
God "Well I won it at the Jeruselum County Fair. Look it's silk."
Moses "It's not real silk."
God "Yes it is. See it's made in China. Where the fuck do you think silk comes from? Some worm?
Moses "Its rayon. It says it on the laundry instruction tag"
So god thought a great while upon the matter...
Moses "Com'on lord. I'm old and I have to pee!"
So god made Moses wait even longer...and thus the word "goddamnit' was invented. So god chiselled 623 laws upon many heavy stone tablets and said unto Moses.
"Here ya go, old man, carry this shit down to that fucking mob of yours and tell 'em its the word of god."
Moses" Too many words of god for christ's sake. I'll just take these two tablets and we'll be fine with that."
god "alrighty then"!
@Myk Re: Moses and the "more-than-ten" commandments
Now THAT'S a story I could believe! LOL
Hey Tin-man...you asshole, I just tried to PM you and your username isn't the same as your fucking screen name. So PM with your username that is if you want me to PM you!
Also, I started a game in the Atheist Hub!
About tablets
The Catholic church in New Zealand used to produce a newsletter called "The Tablet". It's editor back in the swinging 60s was very outspoken on contraception and was frequently in the media warning us about social collapse if women were allowed to take control of their own fertility.
I remember hearing a radio announcer say "Here's the editor of the Tablet to talk about the pill."
I think god may have copied his communication methods from some of my Japanese corporate clients.
Step 1: Senior management comes up with a vague idea for a new product, which they explain to their development staff in the most ambiguous way possible. This leaves plenty of wriggle room for blaming subordinates when things go wrong.
The development staff then put together a product plan using very imprecise language, with lots of words borrowed from English and used in incomprehensible ways. That's why you end up with product names like "Walkman" and "Creap". (Creap is creaming powder. You put it your coffee instead of milk.)
Once the product plan is ready they'll put it out for translation into English so their foreign staff can look at it. The product is top secret, so the translator will be working in the dark with not even a picture to refer to, relying solely on the vague and contradictory language in the Japanese version. The translation will then be "corrected" by someone that last studied English at high school 40 years ago. The product will be manufactured in Vietnam or Bangladesh by people who also have an incomplete understanding of English. Finally, it will be packaged with an instruction manual based on the "corrected" translation.
And that's how you get washing machines that burn your house down and bibles that trigger wars and inquisitions.
If objective morality exists, what's the point of the bible?
I understand what you wrote very well (I have no problems with length) but you need to understand that the biggest problem with the book is it's shortsightedness. To say x is x limits the level of change needed within the lives and mindsets of the followers. It was written by Constantine et. Al at a time where treading on H2O was way cool. See today's jebus could process info faster than any computer ever built and ever to be built.
It was a document to congeal the followers of jebus's different miracles into one concrete story to bring all to one single direction strengthening the Roman controlled lands belief in one guy to get behind. It was a brilliant strategy but only within the limits of his/their experience. He was and remained a follower of mithra which is why so much of it is based on "his" legend making it an easier pill to swallow when he put it front and center.
So to critique the written word in 2018 as you are doing is a critique the peak of societal creativity which is really unfair to arguious work. I attest it is the best and by far the most influential book ever printed. It's stories are what has got us to where we are today 100%. It's power as a unifying force brought about the Renaissance as people tried to spread the good word and learned maths and technologies around the empire as something to make life better instead of something to be crushed under leather sandals.
However, this masterpiece could only work especially after the mass exodus resulting from the Renaissance's increase in knowledge of the world around them.
So the hammer came down and all advanced stopped. The beginning of the end of the hippy jebus myth. Education was only available to study the big book.
Whether you like it or not or feel it should be burnt you have to revel in the ability it had to transform society, everything.
Now the trick is to remind the world the stupidity of belief that the only knowledge important to a good life can be found with in the covers. To remind them that picking or choosing what is write or not, interrupting all is actually 100% illegal. Baby steps!!
@wgusapukc
The problem is that too many people claim that the Bible is in full accord with modern knowledge. And, on that basis, we are supposed to believe in its god and obey Christian doctrines. I don't similarly criticize Homer because no one pretends that his work reflects modern science and other knowledge. When the day arrives when the Bible is simply taken as ancient literature put out by a particular culture, then there will be no need to point out scientific, historical, moral, and logical errors in the Bible. As literature, we can appreciate the role it has played in Western civilization; as a prescription for living, it is obsolete and subject to cherry-picking.
I didn't try to say it is at all good but instead I was simply saying that to criticize something, anything as being stupid without examining it's importance and impact on history and modern society is to not see it in a clear and conscious way. Harry Potter could easily be criticized and compared against writers alive and dead and in that examination one could easily see that JK isn't anywhere close to the best writer ever. A stupid children's fantasy about nothing that has and never well exist. That is negating the impact that her fantastic series has had on society and the positive push towards the archaic practice of reading.
What I was trying to say is that instead of saying the bible is stupid or written by morons in order to try and make yourself feel better compared to those "idiots" who believe it is the best thing ever written is to not look at it for what it is.
I was trying to make the drive towards an examination instead of just trolling the people observed who see things differently that you.
Thanks!
wgusapukc,
What I'm saying is that, as a divine product of an omniscient god, the Bible is indeed stupid and poorly organized. Once we are free to look at the Bible as literature, and are not being beaten over the head with it, then we can see it from a scholar's point of view. It then becomes a fascinating (to some) collection of materials reflecting various ancient viewpoints. The goal, then, is to understand that culture and its authors--not to hold them to 21st century standards.
Again, my criticism hits the pretense that the Bible is divinely inspired and error free. The actual people of those times must be judged in the context of those times as you seem to be saying.
Greensnake,
"What I'm saying is that, as a divine product of an omniscient god, the Bible is indeed stupid and poorly organized."
IMO the Bible is the gold standard for fairy tales. It's the best ever written.
The problem is that it's necessary to understand that all of the biblical stories are based upon one or more of the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 34:12-28. The miracles are based on Exodus 34:10. The idea is that when a person hears or reads one of the stories he is supposed to be able to identify the correct Commandment that it's based on and whether the story is about what happens if the Commandment is followed or ignored. So if a person doesn't know what the real Ten Commandments are and that the stories are based on them then he won't get very much from reading the Bible.
Remember, the stories are just stories. They don't have to be real to illustrate the point.
@wgusapukc
I have been saying the very same thing for 2 years on this forum and the christians just don't get it.
@wgusapukc: critique the peak of societal creativity which is really unfair to arguious work
What's "arguious"?
It's power as a unifying force brought about the Renaissance
It's power as a stultifying yoke around the neck of humanity kept Western Europe in the Dark Ages for centuries. The Renaissance was triggered by contact with Eastern knowledge and the rediscovery of classical learning via the Moors in Spain. Christianity and the Bible unified people in the same way that the Nazis did--through an appeal to negative emotions like hatred, fear, greed, lust, and sadism.
REMEMBER the Phrase in the Bible " their blood shall be upon them " ..............
we can go through the statistics of how many millions and millions of people have died and suffered at the hands of the Aids Virus and other Diseases. Children born with Diseases and infections.
But regardless, The Bible defines the idea of a BLOOD CRIME - as punishable and it maintains the idea that it is to be avoided..
Also if you get caught, You are to be Put to death. Lev 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Any time SOMEONE Commits a BLOOD CRIME, such as RAPE, adultery, Homosexuality, or Beastality or Incest-- The Bible Pronounces THAT-- their blood shall be upon them. ... In the Old Testament, where Man was Living from 900 years old the Punishment was strict. Man Continued to sin and abuse the Commandments of God and eventually the Lifespan was around 170 years. Abraham lived to 175 Years .\
Now, today / -- We do not Live *( on average ) PAST 75 years . That's 100 Years Less than Abraham. So were Abraham, Jacob and most Biblical Men - Practiced Biblical, Godly Holy Clean marriage.................. Marriage - with VIRGINs and Widowed Women ONLY.......... and shunned Homosexuality and anyone who had had seX with such.
Others around them Continued to commit Adultery, Homosexuality, Incest, unclean Living and their Lifespan Continued to drop, over the next 3000 years, until Today...........BLOOD CRIMES affected other People around You. When a Woman lies about her Virginity, She has Committed a BLOOD CRIME against her Husband. When a Man has sex with a Prostitute or a married woman, He has Committed a BLOOD CRIME. The PUNISHMENT for BLOOD CRIMES was Death. You have committed a CRIME against someone - by endangering their Life with GERMS, DISEASES and Health Problems.
THIS WAS NOT ALLOWED BY GOD.
Today You are Allowed to Run through the Streets and Infect Hundreds of People with Any Disease You want and never be punished. There are millions and Millions of People who are suffering From Many, Many diseases.
There are MEDICAL treatments in today's modern world as well. in BIBLICAL Days, Once You are Infected with a Disease - You are doomed to a Life of Horrible Suffering and Death. no CURES no medical Treatment.
Who can complain about a Group of people who EXCLUDE Dangerous Behaving People from their Society?
Who are spreading diseases, sickness and plagues, and germs among the families? This is what the Law of Moses CLEARLY Defined.......................Cleaning pots, pans, vessels, Washing, BATHING Every Single time after SEX, Washing after touching Dead People or animals. Keeping away from other people if You touch a Dead ROTTING Animal. Making sure to Mary a virgin or a widow. No sex with Animals. No gay sex.
'When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean.
And whoever touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, Whoever sits on anything that is unclean shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and bathe his body in running water ........
'If any man has an emission of semen, then he shall wash all his body in water, and be unclean until evening. And any garment and any leather on which there is semen, it shall be washed with water.................'If a woman has a discharge, and the discharge from her body is blood - everything that she sits on shall be unclean
the LAW was to --- ___ ** separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness. Don't Eat bats, Lions, Cats, Rats, Eel, stingray, and catfish fishes with no fins and scales) Snakes. Don't Eat Raw Blood.
the Point of punishment for BLOOD CRIMES> The law of Moses, Punished People for Committing BLOOD CRIMES against Others. Creating Diseases, Birth Defects, and Plagues. Today People Run Wild, INFECTING Millions. .......God Did not put up With this. the actors were punished and the Disease, infections, and Danger to Innocent Lives and People Following the LAW were safe. Water supplies, Food Supplies and All Cooking and Daily Living was Safe. Today we have millions of innocent people with diseases and these BLOOD CRIMES are destroying humanity.
nearly 37 million people worldwide living with HIV, approximately 1.8 million are innocent children.
there are 23,000 to 46,000 children in the U.S. with Hepatitis C. In comparison, approximately four million American adults have the virus. I just wish that People would consider the results of their actions instead of seeing the Bible as harsh and so cruel. They are causing death, suffering, Pain and killing one another and innocent Children. While You ignore the Bible and put it down.
The Bible shows how to live in a safe, clean healthy and family oriented life - in BIBLICAL Days, Once You are Infected with a Disease - You are doomed to a Life of Horrible Suffering and Death. no CURES no medical Treatment. please think in terms of reality.
There is no doubt that many, many people who call themselves Christians have been horrible people but how is misrepresenting the Bible manuscripts making anything better. you are only continuing on the same ignorance that they have.
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