Are you obligated to believe the entirety of the bible?

[Katzpur]

That can't really be a serious question can it?

Can that be a serious question?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

If God was concerned about that, the bible would've been much more clear, coherent and concise from the very beginning, not to mention much more impressive and awe inspiring. In it's present form it is a rather sloppy and underwhelming work.

Skeptic's Annotated Bible / Quran / Book of Mormon

What a sloppy and underwhelming understanding of Scripture you profess.

 

[Magic Man]

only tha Darz's is a tired and disengenuous argument.

I'll take that as a "No", then.

 

[Magic Man]

What a sloppy and underwhelming understanding of Scripture you profess.

Now that that's over with, let's get back to reality, shall we?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

The question is posed to all Christians. Do you think you are obligated to believe the entirety of the bible? Must you believe it entirely literally or not? Why or why not?

The question seems ambiguous....obligated to what objective?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

I'll take that as a "No", then.

Obviously you will take it anyway you want but to charactaerize copies of scripture as irrelevent due to the fact that they have been copied over a long period of time is not only false but has been disproven time and time again, even here on RF.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The original 66 books of the Bible is the Bible.

The "original" 66? It was the Protestant reformers that decided to take books out.

AFAIK, the first Christian group to state which books they thought should or shouldn't be in the Bible were the Marcionites, and no modern Christian group goes by what they say (thank goodness, IMO - their theology was dangerously anti-Semitic).

Though the Catholic church does include the Apocrypha with the Bible, they do not consider it holy scripture, but as books to be learned from.

The Apocrypha (at least in the Catholic context) are only 3 books, and I didn't include them in the number of books I mentioned before.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Now that that's over with, let's get back to reality, shall we?

Perhaps not yours.

 

[Magic Man]

Obviously you will take it anyway you want but to charactaerize copies of scripture as irrelevent due to the fact that they have been copied over a long period of time is not only false but has been disproven time and time again, even here on RF.

Great. Now where did someone say that?

 

[Magic Man]

Perhaps not yours.

I'm well aware of how much you want to avoid the reality the rest of us inhabit.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Can that be a serious question?

Yes. What obligates someone to believe scripture is the same thing that obligates anyone to believe anything...belief itself. It seems to me similar to asking an air breather what obligates them to breathe air.

 

[CCAPalandiriel]

The "original" 66? It was the Protestant reformers that decided to take books out.

AFAIK, the first Christian group to state which books they thought should or shouldn't be in the Bible were the Marcionites, and no modern Christian group goes by what they say (thank goodness, IMO - their theology was dangerously anti-Semitic).

When I said original, I meant the 66 books that four ecumenical councils decreed as the Word of God.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

I'm well aware of how much you want to avoid the reality the rest of us inhabit.

Probably just yours at the moment, especially since I can't find a basis for yours.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

When I said original, I meant the 66 books that four ecumenical councils decreed as the Word of God.

Which four would those be?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

How can you possibly know the degree of precision with which the Bible was copied and translated without having the original maniscripts? The translations we have may be very similar to the oldest copies of the original manuscripts we have, but when the oldest copies we have date to several hundred years after the originals were written, it's really impossible to say how accurate they are.

It's also impossible to say that they aren't accurate as well. Based on the evidence that we have though, we extrapolate that backwards to say that thae degree of accuracy that is exhibited in copying ancient scripture that what we have now is accurate enough to change no doctrine.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It's also impossible to say that they aren't accurate as well. Based on the evidence that we have though, we extrapolate that backwards to say that thae degree of accuracy that is exhibited in copying ancient scripture that what we have now is accurate enough to change no doctrine.

So, then, the Coptics got it right?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Don't forget "The Lost Books of the Bible".

Are you referring to books mentioned in the Bible?

 

[Katzpur]

It's also impossible to say that they aren't accurate as well. Based on the evidence that we have though, we extrapolate that backwards to say that thae degree of accuracy that is exhibited in copying ancient scripture that what we have now is accurate enough to change no doctrine.

I'd say that there is probably more missing material than there are significant errors in that which has been preserved.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

So, then, the Coptics got it right?

I should have been more specific. I was referring to Hebrew copyists of the OT.

 

[CCAPalandiriel]

Which four would those be?

The Council of Nicea in 325

The Council of Constantinople in 381

The Council of Ephesus in 431

The Council of Chalcedon in 451