Jesus was human. He was in pain, he had been humiliated, he knew he was going to die. He could deal with all of that, because of his communion with God. When God turned away from Jesus, Jesus experianced something more terrible to him than the thought of dying, the pain and the humiliation combined. Jesus was overwhelmed with pure human emotions of abandonment, guilt and fear, but most importantly, he knew that God's face was turned away from Him.

You're never gonna be able to make these guys understand, so please stop encoureging them & let this thread die already;^]

I wonder if anyone participating in this thread who is attempting to shed 'light' on the subject matter, have studied or read what religious scholars and biblical historians have determined about the 'makings' of the gospels... to which the original OP referred... based on KNOWN history?

good question and yes for me.

feral:

I wonder, then, how do you feel about some things being discarded and deemed as not valid enough to maintain it's previous place in scripture, although it once was a part?

Creativesoul,

What HAVE religious scholars and biblical historians determined about the 'makings' of the gospels? Any study of canonicity that I have done always left me feeling that much more convinced that the Bible is accurate historically. What known historic facts does the Bible have wrong?

Amy:

Hello, I am glad to meet you...

I contend not that 'historical facts' contained within the Bible are inaccurate...

The questioning surrounds the authenticity of the gospels, does it not?

Hi! Nice to meet you too!

I must have misunderstood your statement when you mentioned KNOWN history. In the past, scholars have questioned the history of the Bible and to my knowledge the Bible has been able to stand up very well to criticism.

Is your question surrounding why certain discovered books were left out of the Bible?

I would think that you would be better served reading the whole bible on this matter before drawing your conclusions - rather than a thread on a singles site. Not a stellar example of sound discernment.

eljay ...
isn't that the absolute truth
you are very right on

Amy,

Thank you for this approach in good faith, and know that is shared...

Yes, the account of the history of actual events has indeed stood up well... I agree completely, that is a non-issue, I believe...

The questions are surrounding not only 'newer' finds such as the scrolls and the Egyptian findings, but moreover the translation and edtiting processes throughout Christianity's growth.

Everyone, I have just skimmed this board slightly but I believe we should ignore rabbitt on here because he's Agnostic.

It’s a bit misleading to even refer to it in terms of an ‘editing’ process. I think that term brings to mind modern ideas of what it means to edit a finished text.

For me, it has much more to do with the evolution of these stories. To believe that they are precisely preserved verbatim documents of the period is the epitome of naïveté.

The idea that they evolved to become what they are is much more realistic.

As written in my original Christian Doctrine.....the following I copied and pasted to here creative...just to save me typing time...giggle

Reliability of the biblical documents.
The Bible is 98½ percent textually pure. This means that through all the copying of the Biblical manuscripts of the entire Bible, only 1½% has any question about it. Nothing in all of the ancient writings of the entire world even approaches the accuracy of transmission found in the biblical documents.

The 1½ percent that is in question does not affect doctrine. The areas of interest are called variants and they consist mainly in variations of wording and spelling.

The OT does not have as many supporting manuscripts as the NT but it is, nevertheless, remarkably reliable.

The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew OT done around 250 B.C., attests to the reliability and consistency of the OT when it is compared to existing Hebrew manuscripts.

The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 also verify the reliability of the OT manuscripts.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were ancient documents that were hidden in a cave in Israel about 2000 years ago. The scrolls contained many OT books, one of them being Isaiah.

Before the Dead Sea scrolls, the earliest existing manuscript of the OT was dated around 900 A.D. called the Masoretic Text. The Scrolls contained OT documents 1000 years earlier. A comparison between the manuscripts revealed an incredible accuracy of transmission through copying, so much so that critics were silenced.

The NT has over 5000 supporting Greek manuscripts existing today with another 20,000 manuscripts in other languages. Some of the manuscript evidence dates to within 100 years of the original writing. There is less than a 1% textual variation in the NT manuscripts.

Estimated time of writing of the NT documents
Paul's Letters, 50-66 A.D.
Matthew, 70-80 A.D.
Mark, 50-65 A.D.
Luke, early 60's
John, 80-100 A.D.
Revelation 96 A.D.

Some of the supporting manuscripts of the NT are:
John Rylands MS written around 130 A.D., the oldest existing fragment of the NT

Bodmer Papyrus II (150-200 A.D.)
Chester Beatty Papyri (200 A.D.), contains major portions of
the NT Codex Vaticanus (325-350 A.D.), contains nearly all the Bible.

Codex Sinaiticus (350 A.D.), contains almost all the NT and over half of the OT

No other ancient writing can boast of having copies so close to the original time of writing. With the Bible, the difference is about 50 years. With Plato and Aristotle, for example, the difference is measure in hundreds of years.

Prophecy and mathematical odds of fulfillment.
The odds of Jesus fulfilling 48 of the 61 major prophecies concerning Him are 1 in 10157; that is a one with 157 zeros behind it.

By comparison, the estimated number of electrons in the entire known universe is about 1079; that is a one with 79 zeros behind it.

feral:

These numbers are an amazing reflection of not only the accuracy of the translation(s) but of how well kept it has been since it was 'completed'.

However, my friend, it says nothing at all about what was edited.



Abra... edited is the best term, in my opinion. You exceed me in this instance for empathy...

The first council of Nicea was brought together to address the heresay of Arius. At the time of the first council, 21 of the 27 NT books were already accepted as canon. There were several books that were considered possibly cannon and many that were considered heretical. The synod of Hippone in 393, confirmed the 27 NT books that would be considered canon. In 367, we find a letter written by Athanasius, which listed as canon, the 27 books of the NT. That means that the council didn't decide the books, the decision was reached by the various churches and they were all in agreement. The simple fact is that when one book contradicts other books, it was rejected. When a book was believed to be a fraud, it was rejected. The people sorted this out without councils or governments, but I suspect the Holy Spirit was in charge of the whole thing.

By who’s standards? How could any modern person even have a clue to make such a claim? This would presume that they knew what actually went on.



That may well be true. But there are two major problems with this.

First off, the probability that these things were written into the stories after the fact to make it appear that prophecies had been fulfilled is much more likely.

Obviously the Jewish people are not the slightest bit convinced of any of this. So why should I be impressed by such unsupported claims?

Secondly, again, by who’s standards? People claim connections between versus in Job and the gravitational situations of stars.

Religious fanatics make connections where there clearly are none to be made.

So hearing them claim that Jesus fulfilled 48 out of 61 major prophecies is totally unimpressive. They clearly claim connections where there aren’t any.

Moreover, these same people will completely denounce the fact that Buddha delivered “The Sermon on the Mount” centuries before Christ was even born. Give them something that actually has some hardcore evidence behind it and they act like it’s nothing. Then they point to something extremely vague and start screaming “Look there’s proof!”.

I’m not impressed in the slightest, and neither were the Jews.

You can talk about astronomical probabilities all you want, but that support that your supposed ‘coincidences’ ever actually occurred.

If the things you claim here held any water everyone would believe in the Bible. Clearly they do not hold the merit you claim.

People claim to see Elvis even today too you know.

You can claim anything you want. Showing that it has merit is an entirely different story.

I just have to say this, there were two books that shouldn't have been excluded, maybe my opinion, but "The Acts Of Peter" and "The Book Of Enoch" should have never been tossed;^]

The problem lies therein... it was determined which ones fit, long after they were written, according to what Christianity had already accepted...

Self-fulfilling editing for furthering the growth of Christianity if I have ever heard of such a thing.

Unfortunately, I believe Christianity walked away from the deeper meaning of the teaching, in my opinion, which is quite easily supported with what is left of the integrity of what I feel the initial message was, as well as what was 'tossed' and/or hidden.

There are so many books out there that are accepted as being 'tossed'... and that is so true, they were... because of the fact that they did not directly coincide with what was believed at the time... regardless of it's merit or authenticity... of which the 'original' gospels have none when it comes to knowing the actual authors.

Imagine a Christianity which did not feel the need to teach of looking anywhere other than within one's self... that is where true peace is found... no matter the method... it is always found within.