1st Test Quiz Questions To Comparative Religious Studies 101

ii7-V7 · Post by **ii7-V7** » Wed May 24, 2006 8:59 am

JSPB22 wrote:Again, this is a work of historical fiction, as were the characters that were members of Opus Dei. Even if the Priory of Scion is a complete hoax, that does not change the fact that the book makes no attack on Christianity, and has Christianity's basic premise, that Jesus was the son of God, as the backbone of the story. I can't see any rational way that could be construed as anti-Christian.

This is work of fiction which he claims to have built around what he considers a theory based in fact...this is simply a way to make allegations without having to be accountable for them.

I can't help the fact that you can't see how this is anti-christian. Calling Jesus a married, normal man is an affront to Christians because it then means that he couldn't also be the messiah. This is the point that you don't understand. Then saying that the four gospels were arbitrarily decided upon by Constantine is not only false, its also alleging that the Gnostic Gospels were viewed with far more authenticity than they ever really were. Again, this casts doubt upon his divinity. Jesus can't be a normal married guy, and the son of God at the same time. The intention to cast doubt upon Jesus' divinity by making these allegations is why the book is indeed anti-chistian. If you can't understand that then you need to delve a little more into Christian theology.

Chad

NikiH · Post by **NikiH** » Wed May 24, 2006 9:10 am

Why can he not be a married son of god? Why can he not be the messiah because he was married? These jumps are beyond me.

The other thing that I have never understood is why the Gnostic Gospels are dismissed as fiction yet the bible is held at such high standards that not one passage from it can be historically inaccurate. Both are books!!!!

redskins12287 · Post by **redskins12287** » Wed May 24, 2006 9:30 am

NikiH wrote:Why can he not be a married son of god? Why can he not be the messiah because he was married? These jumps are beyond me.

The other thing that I have never understood is why the Gnostic Gospels are dismissed as fiction yet the bible is held at such high standards that not one passage from it can be historically inaccurate. Both are books!!!!

Christ did not come to be served, but to serve. He came to heal and teach God's people, and ultimatley die on the cross and raise from the dead three days later to save us from our sins. He did not come to get married and raise a family and have an ordinary life. I'm sure myself or others could go on, but it's early, and I don't have the energy to look up things for something that I can't believe is even being discussed.

"Both are books!!!!" Any schmuck can write a book.

NikiH · Post by **NikiH** » Wed May 24, 2006 9:40 am

There is nothing that makes the bible any different then any other book. And although you may believe differently, any book can be documented. Someone earlier referenced the Book of Mormon. Do you think that holds as much stock as the bible?

Although you say he came here to serve and not to lead an ordinary life, doesn't the things he did make it extraordinary and not his marital status. You are using the book in question and what it contains to prove that it is indeed so. That would not fly with any research paper and that's why I'm saying that it is possible that these are not exact facts.

REDEEMEDSKIN · Post by **REDEEMEDSKIN** » Wed May 24, 2006 10:46 am

NikiH wrote:There is nothing that makes the bible any different then any other book.

You mean, of course, other than it being the inspired Word of God and all, right? Yeah, other than THAT little detail, it's no different at all. :wink:

NikiH · Post by **NikiH** » Wed May 24, 2006 11:05 am

Ever played the game grapevine? It's where I whisper something in someone's ear and they pass it along a line of people. By the time it gets to the end it's completely different then what I told you.

The bible is not God's word. It did not come from his fingers or his mouth. It is the message passed from another person to another person and eventually written down. Don't get me wrong I believe that some of it is true, just exagerated and therefore I will not follow every word of a book that came about in such a manner.

redskins12287 · Post by **redskins12287** » Wed May 24, 2006 11:11 am

NikiH wrote:There is nothing that makes the bible any different then any other book. And although you may believe differently, any book can be documented. Someone earlier referenced the Book of Mormon. Do you think that holds as much stock as the bible?

Although you say he came here to serve and not to lead an ordinary life, doesn't the things he did make it extraordinary and not his marital status. You are using the book in question and what it contains to prove that it is indeed so. That would not fly with any research paper and that's why I'm saying that it is possible that these are not exact facts.

The things he didn't do considering who he was made him extraordinary. He did not let the people crown him and make them their king, he did not give into the temptation of satan while alone in the desert, he did not simply step down from the cross to prove to everyone who he was, etc.

And I believe I was the one who mentioned the book of mormon, or at least talked about it. No, it does not hold as much stock as the bible because of the fact that there is no histocial evidence what so ever supporting it, as already disucssed in this thread somewhere.

Deadskins · Post by **Deadskins** » Wed May 24, 2006 12:21 pm

chaddukes wrote:Calling Jesus a married, normal man is an affront to Christians because it then means that he couldn't also be the messiah. This is the point that you don't understand.

I understand it perfectly. I just don't agree with it. Jesus being married would not preclude him from also being the Messiah. This is, in fact, the story that Dan Brown is telling. So once again, no, it is not anti-Christian.

crazyhorse1 · Post by **crazyhorse1** » Wed May 24, 2006 12:32 pm

I find Nikih's argument astute and entirely to the point...and would like to add that the Book of Mormon, the Koran, and even books of Wicca or Books of Shadows are legitimate holy books for the faithful even though not for others. Why would Christians expect their holy book to be held sacred and at the same time allow the holy books of others mocked, distorted, etc. Every Hollywood movie out there about witchcraft is a distortion of Wicca. Where's the beef? Where's the Christian outrage when Islam is mocked or Mormanism is dismissed without being understood?
Christianity is a big boy. It will just have to suck it up. After all, it's not as if it hasn't been dishing it out for 2000 years.

UK Skins Fan · Post by **UK Skins Fan** » Wed May 24, 2006 2:46 pm

Well, it had to happen at some point - I've just lost the will to live. I think I'll bow out now, and relax in some less demanding threads. ](*,)

REDEEMEDSKIN · Post by **REDEEMEDSKIN** » Wed May 24, 2006 3:09 pm

UK Skins Fan wrote:I've just lost the will to live.

And they say the Davinci Code is NOT influential???? Poor guy.

crazyhorse1 · Post by **crazyhorse1** » Thu May 25, 2006 1:11 am

UK Skins Fan wrote:Well, it had to happen at some point - I've just lost the will to live. I think I'll bow out now, and relax in some less demanding threads.

You can tell me about it, UK. Was it something I said?

REDEEMEDSKIN · Post by **REDEEMEDSKIN** » Thu May 25, 2006 9:02 am

crazyhorse1 wrote:I find Nikih's argument astute and entirely to the point...

NikiH, if EVER you needed a reason to repent, I think crazyhorse just provided one. :lol:

Chris Luva Luva · Post by **Chris Luva Luva** » Thu May 25, 2006 12:15 pm

NikiH wrote:Ever played the game grapevine? It's where I whisper something in someone's ear and they pass it along a line of people. By the time it gets to the end it's completely different then what I told you.

The bible is not God's word. It did not come from his fingers or his mouth. It is the message passed from another person to another person and eventually written down. Don't get me wrong I believe that some of it is true, just exagerated and therefore I will not follow every word of a book that came about in such a manner.

The Bible begs to differ. In the Bible it states that those who wrote were led by the Holy Spirit to do so. Ill provide you with exact scripture if you would like when I get home. Its all about what people choose to believe I guess. I believe that if God wanted to leave something for us to live by that he would have the power to make sure its correct.

Another small tidbit of info is that the dead sea scrolls also offer an amount of validity to the Bible. They hadn't been touched for thousands of years and when discovered its was found that they contained some books of the Bible that matched up perfectly to our versions.

Im not saying you're wrong or anything, just what I choose to believe.

UK Skins Fan · Post by **UK Skins Fan** » Thu May 25, 2006 2:21 pm

crazyhorse1 wrote:
UK Skins Fan wrote:Well, it had to happen at some point - I've just lost the will to live. I think I'll bow out now, and relax in some less demanding threads.

You can tell me about it, UK. Was it something I said?

You can rest easy Crazyhorse - you're not guilty (this time :wink:

). Just the sheer weight of "stuff" and "counterstuff" in here has brought me to the point of no return. I'm going to see if I can post something trivial about our punting situation somewhere...

Chris Luva Luva · Post by **Chris Luva Luva** » Thu May 25, 2006 4:24 pm

Old Testament

Dead Sea Scrolls (1947) - Until this discovery there wasn't anything to compare the Old Testaments accuracy to older than A.D. 195.

Septuaugint translation (middle of the 3rd century B.C.)

Aramic Targums which included paraphrases and quotes from the OT.

The Latin translation of Jerome (A.D. 400)

New Testament

Papyri fragments dating from A.D. 135-18TH century.
Hundreds of parchment copies.
2,000 lectionaries, etc.

There was more but my fingers hurt. A lof this shows that what we have is pretty accurate from the time it was written.

What the Bible claims in regards to its authenticity

It claims that all Scripture if God-breathed (2 Tim.3:16). This means that God, who is true (Rom.3:4) breathed out truth.

Did man corrupt the truth in the writing process? I believe the answer is No. The Bible says that the men who wrote were "moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:21). That would make the Spirit the coauthor with each human writer of the Bible. There are also parts of the NT that are assigned to the Holy Spirit as being the author and the only way to account for that is through dual authorship. (Ps.110)

These are just some interesting tidbits out of my study Bible.

ii7-V7 · Post by **ii7-V7** » Thu May 25, 2006 4:54 pm

Hey, in the midst of me 60+ hour wind up to the weekend I haven't had much time to respond to this thread, not have I had time to think about it.

In reality I guess there is nothing that specifically precludes Jesus from being married, despite the evidence to the contrary.

Still, that doesn't make DC pro-Christian.

Chad

Irn-Bru · Post by **Irn-Bru** » Thu May 25, 2006 5:31 pm

In my opinion, if the Da Vinci Code is going to be pro-Christian, it's got to do more than maintain that Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God. In a 'historical fiction' work about Christ these are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for being "pro-Christian."

I don't have any evidence to judge whether or not it's anti-Christian. I've been meaning to read the book but have other literature to read before I get to it.

Niki, as for the New Testament being historically reliable, let me simply say that they are among the most reliable works that have ever persevered over time. What we have in front of us is an almost exact copy to the original works.

"Perhaps we can appreciate how wealthy the New Testament is in manuscript attestation if we compare the textual matreial for other ancient historical works. For Caesar's Gallic War (compose between 58 and 50 BC) there are several extant manuscripts (MSS), but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some 900 years later than Caesar's day.

Of the 142 books of the Roman History of Livy (59 BC - AD 17) only thirty-five survive; these are known to us from not mroe than twenty MSS of any consequence, only one of which, and that contains fragments of Books iii-vi, is as old as the fourth century.

Of the fourten books of the Histories of Tacitus (AD 100) only four and a half survive; of the sixteen books of his Annals, ten survive in full and two in part. The test of these extant portions of his two great historical works depends entirely on two MSS, one of the ninth century and one of the eleventh. . ." (F.F. Bruce, "The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?"). And Bruce goes on for a while here. For most ancient documents, there is little to go on that attests to their purity to what the original author penned.

As CLL mentioned, there are thousands upon thousands of MSS that verify the purity of New Testament documents. We have some MSS that date to the 2nd and 1st centuies. To say that the NT has undergone changes via 'the grapevine' ignores a good deal of scholarship.

crazyhorse1 · Post by **crazyhorse1** » Thu May 25, 2006 7:31 pm

Several comments:

1. If histories like those by Livy and Tacitus contained divine mysteries and miracles, revelations, etc., they would not be classified as histories, but rather as books of myths or relgious books.

2. The Bible is a books of myth, religion, revelation, some history, poetry, fantasy, allegory, literature, etc. centered on metaphysical matters that are ultimately supported by faith not by science. You cannot support metaphysical realities by citing footnotes nor books no more than you can, at the present time, prove them in the lab.

3. Many ancient books of history are flawed, but the Bible is far removed from just being flawed as history-- it's a sacred, religious book and in no way written objectively by dispassionate sources. I mean no offense to the Bible. It's just simply not a book of history.

4. The concept emerging of what a "Christian" is is becoming distorted on this thread. Many Christians, world wide, do not accept Christ as a redeemer yet accept his moral teachings. They are also called Christians. There are also many Christian Jews in the Middle East. There are millions of followers of Islam who accept the teachings of Christ. There are also Christian witches, who do accept Christ as a redeemer, and those who do not.

Those who think that there is some sort of consensus about what a Christian really is and what actually happened two thousand years ago just hasn't gotten out much.

redskins12287 · Post by **redskins12287** » Thu May 25, 2006 8:06 pm

crazyhorse1 wrote:Several comments:

1. If histories like those by Livy and Tacitus contained divine mysteries and miracles, revelations, etc., they would not be classified as histories, but rather as books of myths or relgious books.

2. The Bible is a books of myth, religion, revelation, some history, poetry, fantasy, allegory, literature, etc. centered on metaphysical matters that are ultimately supported by faith not by science. You cannot support metaphysical realities by citing footnotes nor books no more than you can, at the present time, prove them in the lab.

3. Many ancient books of history are flawed, but the Bible is far removed from just being flawed as history-- it's a sacred, religious book and in no way written objectively by dispassionate sources. I mean no offense to the Bible. It's just simply not a book of history.

4. The concept emerging of what a "Christian" is is becoming distorted on this thread. Many Christians, world wide, do not accept Christ as a redeemer yet accept his moral teachings. They are also called Christians. There are also many Christian Jews in the Middle East. There are millions of followers of Islam who accept the teachings of Christ. There are also Christian witches, who do accept Christ as a redeemer, and those who do not.

Those who think that there is some sort of consensus about what a Christian really is and what actually happened two thousand years ago just hasn't gotten out much.

As much as I disagree with what you said here, your fourth point I just don't understand. How can you be a Christian and not believe him to be your savior? Thats what makes you a Chirstian. To not beleif but accept his moral teachings does not make you a christian. Christian whitches? What are you talking about?

Chris Luva Luva · Post by **Chris Luva Luva** » Thu May 25, 2006 8:12 pm

redskins12287 wrote:As much as I disagree with what you said here, your fourth point I just don't understand. How can you be a Christian and not believe him to be your savior? Thats what makes you a Chirstian. To not beleif but accept his moral teachings does not make you a christian. Christian whitches? What are you talking about?

1 Cor. 2:14 :wink:

cvillehog · Post by **cvillehog** » Thu May 25, 2006 11:07 pm

The point isn't necessarily whether the bible has maintained some percentage of accuracy relative to the original texts, but whether those original texts are factual. I contend that they weren't meant to be factual, but to be (in the best sense of the word) propoganda.

ii7-V7 · Post by **ii7-V7** » Thu May 25, 2006 11:17 pm

cvillehog wrote:The point isn't necessarily whether the bible has maintained some percentage of accuracy relative to the original texts, but whether those original texts are factual. I contend that they weren't meant to be factual, but to be (in the best sense of the word) propoganda.

But what you fail to see is that for those things that are verifiable the bible has been proven to be incredibly accurate. When I claim the bible to be historically accurate I mean for those things that can be verified. While I do believe in the miracles I would never expect anyone to expect them to hold any historical standard.

Re: Crazyhorse's number 4 point....that is precisely what being a christian is not. I can't just think that Jesus was cool dude but not accept his as my savior and call myself a christian.

Chad

cvillehog · Post by **cvillehog** » Thu May 25, 2006 11:30 pm

chaddukes wrote:
cvillehog wrote:The point isn't necessarily whether the bible has maintained some percentage of accuracy relative to the original texts, but whether those original texts are factual. I contend that they weren't meant to be factual, but to be (in the best sense of the word) propoganda.

But what you fail to see is that for those things that are verifiable the bible has been proven to be incredibly accurate. When I claim the bible to be historically accurate I mean for those things that can be verified. While I do believe in the miracles I would never expect anyone to expect them to hold any historical standard.

I don't know what leads you to believe I fail to see your point.

crazyhorse1 · Post by **crazyhorse1** » Fri May 26, 2006 12:35 am

redskins12287 wrote:
crazyhorse1 wrote:Several comments:

1. If histories like those by Livy and Tacitus contained divine mysteries and miracles, revelations, etc., they would not be classified as histories, but rather as books of myths or relgious books.

2. The Bible is a books of myth, religion, revelation, some history, poetry, fantasy, allegory, literature, etc. centered on metaphysical matters that are ultimately supported by faith not by science. You cannot support metaphysical realities by citing footnotes nor books no more than you can, at the present time, prove them in the lab.

3. Many ancient books of history are flawed, but the Bible is far removed from just being flawed as history-- it's a sacred, religious book and in no way written objectively by dispassionate sources. I mean no offense to the Bible. It's just simply not a book of history.

4. The concept emerging of what a "Christian" is is becoming distorted on this thread. Many Christians, world wide, do not accept Christ as a redeemer yet accept his moral teachings. They are also called Christians. There are also many Christian Jews in the Middle East. There are millions of followers of Islam who accept the teachings of Christ. There are also Christian witches, who do accept Christ as a redeemer, and those who do not.

Those who think that there is some sort of consensus about what a Christian really is and what actually happened two thousand years ago just hasn't gotten out much.

As much as I disagree with what you said here, your fourth point I just don't understand. How can you be a Christian and not believe him to be your savior? Thats what makes you a Chirstian. To not beleif but accept his moral teachings does not make you a christian. Christian whitches? What are you talking about?

Wiccan's are not required to worship a particular metaphysical entity as such. They worship the supreme power in whatever persona they choose. Witches born into the Christian faith often lend their spirits to the figure of Christ so as to bring about the coming of God's will. Most wiccans go to other churches as well. Historically speaking, England was both Pagan and Christian (as shown by Beowulf)
from the first century to the time of King James. In 1066, knights were sworn on both Pagan and Christian altars. Even after the split of the two faiths, Wiccans worshipped Christ as they wished, and still do. Most wiccans today also go to other churches.
Also, it is highly probable that the most common theological position in the United States today involves skepticism sbout atonement and the trinity but acceptance of Christian morality. You could put about ninety percent of the people I know in that category. Also, there are plenty of Christian churches who seerve as particular places for such persons. If they choose to call themselves Christian, they are Christian. Ther're under no obligation to meet anyone else's definition.