Verification of Revelation

[linwood]

Your own words make it more and more obvious that my second question cannot be answered in the affirmative.

Please show that these standards aren’t based in some way on inherent Christian or Judaic bias or the Christian/Judaic scriptures themselves.

It should come as no surprise to any of us the Christianity would seek to preserve its original testimony from competing prophets, etc who say something about Jesus which was not given by the apostles and has not been used in the church.

The blue above is yours and it comes as no surprise to me, in fact I`ve been saying it all along.

You were the one arguing against bias remember?
This is an obvious bias that shows no text that ever denies the resurrection and ascension of Jesus will be given fair review. Your standards are biased and therefore not a part of scientific method.

You are not going to be able to defend that the texts cannot be studied scientifically.

I don’t know why I’d want to defend that position considering it’s not a position I have ever held.

I didn’t say the texts cannot be studied scientifically, in fact I have read dozens of different analysis on NT scripture from a scientific standpoint using scientific methods.
In my own humble ways I’ve reviewed it scientifically myself. The church fathers haven’t however because of the inherent bias you yourself point out in the previous quote.

No fair falsifiable review can be made while seeking to…

“… preserve its original testimony from competing prophets, etc who say something about Jesus which was not given by the apostles and has not been used in the church. “

You may be able to continue to insist that there is a bias, and I cannot think of a way to convince you otherwise, except to show that the questions are pretty simple.

You could start by ceasing to define and point this bias out yourself… “…we therefore have but our faith in Christ and eating and drinking His body and blood satisfies and any other revelation is bound to be from a differing source and contradictory to the message that we have preserved.”

” It should come as no surprise to any of us the Christianity would seek to preserve its original testimony from competing prophets, etc who say something about Jesus which was not given by the apostles and has not been used in the church.”

“Some truths are not verifiable, but are convincing because they fit into a larger theology.”

“The standard of accepting it as revelation is the standard for accepting the writings into the canon: it had to be apostolic and used in the churches.”

“The revelation constructs a systematic Jewish and Christian theology, so much of the verification is "inherently Christian," but it makes sense.”

Remember my initial examples?

1: How has Christian/Judaic review used their standards to reject the "divinity" of the Koran to be "uninspired" yet used those same standards to find the NT and OT to be "divine".
2: Show how those same standards have been used to review the Canonical Gospels comparatively

If the standards for verification of revelation are rooted in Christian theology then those standards do not hold up to the requirements of scientific review..

They aren’t fair standards.


Using your standards from a Muslim perspective the Koran is divinely
inspired.
Hell, so is the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Horus lives!!

For example, a rule in textual criticism states that late writings cannot be accepted.

Then why are the last 12 verses of Mark in our modern Bibles canonized?
They do not appear in the Codec Sinaticus, the earliest known writing of the NT.
Why are the later gospels canonized considering they are obviously taken
in large parts from Mark ?


The Koran appeared much later than the OT or NT text, and does not have a textual tradition which preceeds it, yet it contradicts an earlier text which addresses the same topics.

This is that Christian bias again and not concerned by the literary rule you cite.

It is not affected by the literary rule because it’s origins are within a different culture and subject to individual review.
Direct comparison of the two books (NT/Koran) should be supported on content and verification of that content. Not which came first.

However my critique of Marks last 12 verses still stands because it directly relates to edited copying of the most important content regarding Christianity itself.

The resurrection.

The only real standard I am getting out of all of this is ..

"That which does not disagree with the concept of a divine Jesus"

That is a bias, a clear undeniable bias.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Yes, I have stated previously that I don't think that there is an argument that can remove bias. The role of bias in this case is defined by the simplicity of the question ar hand. It is impossible to escape the fact that the church fathers received the writings from the apostles - it was then their duty to preserve the integrity of these writings as competing reinterpretations arose. This is an objective exercise: did the competing writings come from the apostles or did they not? The fathers and the churches were most interested in obtaining the authoritative witness to the theology and witness of Christ, and they understood that it only comes from the apostles. Furthermore, this question can be scientifically verified by text criticism and other forms of critical scholarship, which is carried on both by people who confess Christ and those who do not. Therefore, I don't think that you have a valid objection to bias playing an important role due to (1) the simplicity of the question and (2) the support of the fathers is supported by later objective criticism. Once the apostolic authority of the documents is proven, the theological bais is removed. We will only accept the theology from the ones close to their subject: Jesus Christ and the apostolic testimony.

With regard to the relationship to the Koran, while its authors are more readily assesable than either the OT or the NT, the subject matter is not. Furthermore, these standards cannot prove that the Egyptian Book of the Dead is inspired because one cannot historically prove that its authors are close to their subject in the way that the apostles were close to Jesus and it does not interact with history. The Koran addresses the same topics as both the OT and NT. However, with respect to the OT, no writer had access to the traditions which compose the OT but they address the same topics. Thus, the Koran reinterprets the OT subject matter with no sustainable connect to any tradition which can remotely be connected to the actual historical event or theological reflection.

That is, Abraham belongs to the Hebrews. He is their father. The NT interpretation of the role of Abraham flows out of the OT and Judaism. The Islamic reinterpretation is a competing independent theological reflection which is not connected to any historical tradition of any OT character, and thus their historical and theological reflection is invalid. The same standard applies to the Islamic reinterpretation of events in the NT. No Islamic prophet or writer had historical access to Jesus or to the formation of NT theology. Christianity had been alive and well for five centuries before any Islamic prophet came on the scene, and therefore no Islamic prophet had access to pre-Gospel material or anything independent of the Gospels for thier historical sources of Jesus. They are separated from the subject matter and yet attempt to address it both historically and thologically (eg, they attempt to redefine historical events and reinterpret its theological significance while any contact with the historical Jesus was impossible). That is, they accept Jesus as a prophet but are completely detached from his words, his deeds, and his own confession concerning himself.

I understand that my qualification of theological reflection versus interaction with history seems like a trump card, and I have seen it used as such in my own study, but there are some standards for determining the difference between the two. For example, theological themes within the work and historical facts usually coincide, such as my point concerning the nature of Jewish geneologies (as being selective) cooresponds with themes in each Gospel, so we have a clearly justifiable usage of a selective geneology for a theological theme (Jesus as God, Jesus as Man) - both are critical to the Christian confession. We can clearly also see the difference here between late and invalid interactions with a historical fantasy (the Book of Mormon and the Koran's reflections on Jesus and OT characters) intermixed with late theological reflections which compete with theological reflections which interact with verifiable history.

One of the problems for us is likely this: the subject of theology is not the product of reason, but a supposed interaction with the Divine. Interpretation is a product of reason. The compilation and authority of the NT can be demonstrated, and its interaction with the historical is convincing for many scholars. Therefore, the NT is an interweaving of the verifiable and the inverifiable. It is important for us to demonstrate that the authors have authority, unlike the Koran and other late reinterpretations, because they are historically and theologically united with their contral subject, Jesus Christ and the monotheism of Judaism.

It is inverifiable because its subject will be incomprehensible until the end of the cosmos: God will forever retain His divine qualities. However, in the NT we see that the divine has enabled the natural to interact with the divine through Jesus Christ. Yet you are unable to stick a test-tube into my soul and verify the interaction, nor are you able to find a magenetic telescope or any other humanly designed instrument and discover God.

However, a consistent theology which responsibly interacts with history is the best that we have. You are most correct that this standard can verify every religion, which is specifically what you have asked for. Very few religions interact with history like Christianity and have a consistent revelation, and are close to their subject. I don't know of any other, but there may be one.