family issue, and personal philosophy

[FortunaMaximus]

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The New Testament is humanity's most reliable ancient document. Its textual integrity is more certain than that of Plato's writings or Homer's Iliad. For a comparison of the New Testament to other ancient writings, click here.

The Old Testament has also been remarkably well preserved. Our modern translations are confirmed by a huge number of ancient manuscripts in both Hebrew and Greek, including the mid-20th century discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls hold the oldest existing fragments of almost all of the Old Testament books, dating from 150 B.C. The similarity of the Dead Sea manuscripts to hand copies made even 1,000 years later is proof of the care the ancient Hebrew scribes took in copying their scriptures.

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That's all well and good, but just because something was translated with consistency does not make it more valid than logical statements.

Should the lessons of Plato and Homer be given less weight simply because they may not have been as successfully translated word for word?

Without the Rosetta stone and linguists working on incomplete information, hieroglyphs would still be pretty gibberish. I do not think when a complete translation of lost languages and possibly undiscovered manuscripts are made you should suddenly find an emergence of new/old religions.

It's good that ancient works are preserved through translation, but to lean too heavily on the knowledge that is centuries or millennia old to give a logical explanation of why things are the way they are?

How did a 21 month old thread get bumped anyway? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Splendour]

quote: It's good that ancient works are preserved through translation, but to lean too heavily on the knowledge that is centuries or millennia old to give a logical explanation of why things are the way they are?


Something being old doesn't negate it. If anything it underpins things. God is eternal so his texts should be old. Just because the truths in the book seem "old fashioned" is deceiving. They are tried and true and there's a lot of insight into the character of man.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
quote: It's good that ancient works are preserved through translation, but to lean too heavily on the knowledge that is centuries or millennia old to give a logical explanation of why things are the way they are?


Something being old doesn't negate it. If anything it underpins things. God is eternal so his texts should be old. Just because the truths in the book seem "old fashioned" is deceiving. They are tried and true and there's a lot of insight into the character of man.

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No more than a cursory reading of Plato, Homer, or Aeschylus would give you similar insights.

Just because something claims to be the word of God and it's ancient does not mean it is a legitimate proof of his existence. If faith helps you sleep at night and gives you meaning during the day, well, that's fine.

Pointing to such things as an attempt to convince atheists that they should take the Bible literally isn't going to get you far and you'll get frustrated with the effort.

Simply because asking rational, logical individuals to suspend credulity and defy logic isn't going to happen. Hopefully that's clear.